And Lest We Forget.
In celebration of the publishing of Eaters Too, my new novel and the second in the Eaters series, my novel Serving Murphy is on sale for $2.99!
Serving Murphy is something of a departure from my usual writing style. It is not tongue in cheek, it is twice the length of my previous novels and it has profanity and sex. Writing it was quite a journey.
Fame and fortune are never a given for an author, so I write novels that I would like to read. And I do like to read them. I work very hard, first writing the best story I can, with the most readable and enjoyable prose possible, and then I reread, rewrite and polish until I have fixed every flaw I can find. My writing process sometimes takes years for one book. When I feel it is finished, I set it aside for a few weeks.
After giving myself time to forget the words I've written, I read the book with sort-of fresh eyes. Usually I make a few adjustments, add or subtract a few scenes, and then I publish.
Serving Murphy was a book I wanted to read. I bounced the idea off of my brother Randy Scott--as I always do--and he said something like "why don't you write it?" I began to scribble a few notes and create a few characters and write bits of dialog and exposition. Finally one day, I sat down and went to work.
Serving Murphy is set in a dystopian future, seventy or so years in the future.
Imagining a world that far from now required thinking about how much the world has changed in the past seventy years. Think about it: seventy years ago was the height of World War II; the first atomic bomb wouldn't be dropped for another year; television was years away; there were no digital electronic computers. Cars with hardtops cost more than convertibles. Transisters weren't even in common use. Big Band music was all the rage. Twenty years later, record players were changing over from monaural to stereo, families were watching live programming on black and white TVs--well, you get the picture--there have been amazing changes in seventy years, geographically, socially and technologically.
Certain things are virtually guaranteed to happen in the next seventy years: there will be war, there will be social changes--both good and bad, there will be economic shifts, there will be environmental changes and adaptations, and there will be technological, medical and scientific advances.
Next, I imagined the world as it had become.
The story is set, primarily, in Colorado. Denver has been destroyed in some long-ago disaster and New Denver has been built fifty miles to the east and is already in decline. Money is in the form of cards of various values. The international monetary cards are traceable and trackable. Due to the libertarian shift of the U.S. Government, American monetary cards are untraceable and untrackable. The government is not allowed to use facial recognition or retinal scans without a warrant, but advertisers use them constantly to keep track of everything you buy, look at or eat.
Innovation has been stifled by the repeal of the patent and copyright laws and produced a lack of incentive to research and develop a product, when you'll just be giving you improvements to your competition for free. Television, computers and various appliances have seen little change for decades.
Convenience stores still supply candy, gum, tobacco products, quasi-legal drugs, stimulant beverages and porn. Oh, and alcohol. Lots of alcohol.
The story I planned to write, could have been much shorter, but I found myself being dragged along behind a main character who was being dragged along by the developing story. I had a great journey and I still have fond memories of some of the places the story visits.
So, I hope you'll follow the link below to read a sample of Serving Murphy. It's a book I wrote for me.
Stephen P.
http://www.amazon.com/Serving-Murphy-Stephen-P-Scott-ebook/dp/B009QP6GYE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1414983656&sr=1-1&keywords=serving+murphy
Serving Murphy is something of a departure from my usual writing style. It is not tongue in cheek, it is twice the length of my previous novels and it has profanity and sex. Writing it was quite a journey.
Fame and fortune are never a given for an author, so I write novels that I would like to read. And I do like to read them. I work very hard, first writing the best story I can, with the most readable and enjoyable prose possible, and then I reread, rewrite and polish until I have fixed every flaw I can find. My writing process sometimes takes years for one book. When I feel it is finished, I set it aside for a few weeks.
After giving myself time to forget the words I've written, I read the book with sort-of fresh eyes. Usually I make a few adjustments, add or subtract a few scenes, and then I publish.
Serving Murphy was a book I wanted to read. I bounced the idea off of my brother Randy Scott--as I always do--and he said something like "why don't you write it?" I began to scribble a few notes and create a few characters and write bits of dialog and exposition. Finally one day, I sat down and went to work.
Serving Murphy is set in a dystopian future, seventy or so years in the future.
Imagining a world that far from now required thinking about how much the world has changed in the past seventy years. Think about it: seventy years ago was the height of World War II; the first atomic bomb wouldn't be dropped for another year; television was years away; there were no digital electronic computers. Cars with hardtops cost more than convertibles. Transisters weren't even in common use. Big Band music was all the rage. Twenty years later, record players were changing over from monaural to stereo, families were watching live programming on black and white TVs--well, you get the picture--there have been amazing changes in seventy years, geographically, socially and technologically.
Certain things are virtually guaranteed to happen in the next seventy years: there will be war, there will be social changes--both good and bad, there will be economic shifts, there will be environmental changes and adaptations, and there will be technological, medical and scientific advances.
Next, I imagined the world as it had become.
The story is set, primarily, in Colorado. Denver has been destroyed in some long-ago disaster and New Denver has been built fifty miles to the east and is already in decline. Money is in the form of cards of various values. The international monetary cards are traceable and trackable. Due to the libertarian shift of the U.S. Government, American monetary cards are untraceable and untrackable. The government is not allowed to use facial recognition or retinal scans without a warrant, but advertisers use them constantly to keep track of everything you buy, look at or eat.
Innovation has been stifled by the repeal of the patent and copyright laws and produced a lack of incentive to research and develop a product, when you'll just be giving you improvements to your competition for free. Television, computers and various appliances have seen little change for decades.
Convenience stores still supply candy, gum, tobacco products, quasi-legal drugs, stimulant beverages and porn. Oh, and alcohol. Lots of alcohol.
The story I planned to write, could have been much shorter, but I found myself being dragged along behind a main character who was being dragged along by the developing story. I had a great journey and I still have fond memories of some of the places the story visits.
So, I hope you'll follow the link below to read a sample of Serving Murphy. It's a book I wrote for me.
Stephen P.
http://www.amazon.com/Serving-Murphy-Stephen-P-Scott-ebook/dp/B009QP6GYE/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1414983656&sr=1-1&keywords=serving+murphy
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