I am struggling with how to introduce my next major release. Should I talk about my writing process and how this project came about? Should I talk about motivation, give you a peak into my strange brain. And all of that is pretty interesting (at least to me), but not really that important. It’s the story that is important.
This project is a pretty significant departure from Shuffled Off: A Ghost’s Memoir so part of me thinks I owe you all an explanation. There are no ghosts in sight. There’s no deep examination of the human grieving process. What’s there is action, adventure, and humor. Superheroes and superpowers. Love and Romance.
I guess I should talk a bit about motivation. I can sum it up pretty succinctly: I Love My Wife.
Yup, I am writing about superheroes and world ending disasters because I love my wife. Bear with me. I’ll explain.
I have found a trend in my writing that my stories often look at love (The Turing Test Will Be Televised, for example). Not in the normal romance mode (boy meets girl / boy loses girl / boy gets girl back / boy and girl live happily ever after), but in a way that is a bit more real, a way that looks deeper.
You see I am a romantic. One that has been in a wonderful committed relationship since 1990. So, I have a need to tell stories that talk about love; that go deep into love.
Now, you might ask, how do superheroes get mixed into this? And frankly, I’m not sure. The ideas come, and I listen. It’s my job; it’s the deal I’ve made with my subconscious: you tell the stories, I’ll write them down.
So the idea that came crashing down on me about a year ago was to tell a big epic story about superheroes combined with a big epic love story.
Neutrinoman and Lightningirl: A Love Story (Episode 1, Meteor Attack!) is the first release in this series. This is a novella (about 24,000 words or 100 pages long), and is the beginning of this very long story arc. It’s somewhat of an old-fashioned serial; each “episode” will tell a complete story while moving the larger story along.
It’s also first-person (which I think is pretty unusual for this kind of thing) told from Neutrinoman’s point of view. It’s full of adventure, humor, and romance. I am, at once, trying to be playful with the superhero genre, while at the same time filling it with believe characters and (given superpowers) realistic situations. It was a total blast to write.
So this is not a “boy meets girl” (or “boy meets boy” or “girl meets girl”) story. It is an attempt to capture the feel of a long term relationship (the very beginning for this release). It will follow love as it changes and grows. It is about ordinary people (that can do some unusual things) trying to have an ordinary life in the middle of extraordinary circumstances.
Here’s what some early readers had to say:
“Perfect balance between sci-fi, humor, and romance. I can’t wait til this dynamic duo meet Toxicwasteman and friends! ”
“Loved it, loved it, loved it. I’m a major sucker, though, for a good love story. You had me emotionally involved from the get-go.”
“Beautiful love story draped in outrageous humor. Romantic comedy at its best.”
“…had me howling/falling out of my chair.”
“A great story… Fun! Leaves you wanting more.”
“I really enjoyed the book… A superhero love story with humor.”
Interested? You can read the the blurb and the prologue and first three chapters over on the new website: neutrinoman.com.
The ebook is available at Amazon.com and BarnesAndNoble.com. No print edition yet, but once I have three episodes done, I plan to gather them up in a print edition.
I hope you have as much fun reading it as I did writing it.
Robert
P.S. For those ghost lovers out there, not to worry. More is coming, much more.
