Returning to the Past.

The other night I was walking to the local fireworks display and I heard a man's voice behind me, stating something to the effect of "There goes our local celebrity author.".

I didn't know what to do. I had not written anything in months,had not posted anything on my author page in months as Facebook kept reminding me. And while I was curious as to who it was, I was unsure if I should turn around. Were they being cynical? Sarcastic? Or simply an attempt at good-natured community relations?

I felt apprehensive, and conflicted. I felt ashamed about my abandonment of my literary dream. Days previous, my daughter had asked what I would do if money was not an object after I explained the finer details of how my credit card debt works against me buying a new truck to replace our current one that is, but for lack of better words, gradually expiring. I successfully evaded the question.

Yet, I do still want to be known as a celebrity author. I do want people to come up to me and say 'Hey, I enjoyed your book.' leaving me red-faced and proud while trying to scope out the nearest exit strategy as they say 'would you mind signing my copy?'

"Hey, celebrity author..."

But I'm a long way from that. I've stalled out on self-marketing, put my chips into getting an education so I can have a piece of paper that officially agrees that I am good at something I have been doing for years, therefore giving me more earning power. That is how this world works.

And then I got a little push from, of all things, a book on letters. Specifically, the letters of Kurt Vonnegut, a man I admire and who transcended literary genres. I found out it took nearly a decade from the publication of his first novel to his second, as life and bills got in the way.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) he was also able to start his career in the last great days of short story publishing - his first story earned him $750 (The Barnstable Effect) in 1950. It was roughly 15,000 words. It was bought by a magazine named Collier's.

$750 for 15,000 words! In today's dollars that would be equal to nearly $8000 US dollars!

Such was the value of written stories in those days.

With that financial success, and a few others under his belt, he felt confident enough to quit his desk job at G.E, and concentrate on the writing of his first full novel, Player Piano. His next novel, Sirens of Titan, wasn't published until 1959.

Because Television came along.

In the following years, as magazines went out of business, the value of a Kurt Vonnegut story, as well as all others, dropped to $100-$200, depending on length, as the publishing world imploded, shrinking as the Golden Age of Television decimated the value of the written word as visual content became the opium of the masses.

It took seven years for him to return to where he thought he was going to be after Player Piano, making excuses, mental confusion and exhaustion trying to provide for his growing household in any way he could. His dream took a back seat to his reality.

And here I am, bemoaning somebody at least knew I am an author and expressed it out loud, either cynically or respectfully.

I should have turned around and said 'Thank you for reminding me.'

I should have immediately returned to believing that one day I will become more than a local neighbourhood celebrity author.

I didn't that night but I am here now, for the first time in months, writing about myself and my works so thank you, stranger, for the push.

So here is a link to my last book, Karmageddon. It is a collection of short stories based around a nuclear Armageddon created by the events in Enter a Fistful of Marijuana. It was entered into the Stephen Leacock Awards for Canadian humour but didn't make the cut. I'd be lying if I said that didn't hurt a little. It is funny and sad and makes a commentary on our priorities when disaster strikes.

It is available on Lulu.com, a Canadian version of Amazon so if you want to shop national, here is where you can start.

They even provided me this fancy link to my book:

Enter a Fistful of Marijuana, the basis of Karmageddon and based very loosely on Kentucky Fried Movie's A Fistful of Yen, can be found here.

Stoner, Unincorporated, my attempt at an existential love story of sorts, can be found here.

These books, along with my novellas are all available electronically here.

One day I may eat my humble pie and convert all my works to Kindle, to join the masses such as myself on Amazon. I will continue to submit and be rejected, one by one, by big and little publishing houses that continue to raise the bar in terms of acceptance.

And I understand. For their investments are gambles and the more name recognition, the lesser the gamble. Anyone can google me and they can also review me by what my readers say. It might help, it might not. If you have read anything of mine, please add your thoughts to Goodreads, Amazon, Smashwords etc.

I chose Smashwords, Createspace and Lulu because I wanted to promote choice and patriotism: Lulu being Canadian, Smashwords and Createspace not being Amazon. Createspace has since been bought by Amazon and converted my works to Kindle as well. That is the way the world works.

Every sale either makes a difference or prolongs the inevitable.

Thank you for reading, in all manners of the word.

Jay Royston

My meta-Interview w/ Daenon Kaye

Whatever happened to... Jay Royston

by Daenon Kaye

I sat down with Jay Royston to interview him about his upcoming book, Karmageddon. It has been many years since we worked together, publishing a Canadian film magazine in Vancouver. He has aged well, still has all of his hair and while wrinkles are now appearing around his eyes, there is still a sparkle for the unusual I recall from laughs past.

Been a long time.

Sure has. Over a decade at least.

Yeah. Last we talked, you were recovering from kidney cancer.

Yep. A lot more has happened since. Got two dogs. Got a house. Got married, got divorced. Had a kid. Got two more kids. Got married again. Returned to writing.

Let's talk about your book, Karmageddon.

Of course.
...
Let's pretend I know nothing about it. What's it about, at it's core?

Karmageddon is a collection of interlinked stories surrounding four nuclear attacks brought on by the world-wide legalization of marijuana. But at it's core it is a philosophical look at what happens when the tenets of our self-identity are taken away; our faith, our jobs and our bank accounts.

You call this a sequel of sorts to your previous novel, Enter A Fistful of Marijuana. Will your readers need to know that story before reading this one? 

Not at all. While it would help my bank account, Enter a Fistful isn't necessary reading to enjoy Karmageddon. Enter A Fistful introduced some of the characters you will also see in Karmageddon and established the birth of Karmajuana, a genetically-modified strain of cannabis which is the accepted drug of choice in Karmageddon.

Your books have a certain theme. For example your first book was Stoner, Unincorporated. 

Yes, but that was the name of the town my characters were in. I grew up in Prince George and outside of the city there is a small community named Stoner. I often wondered about what type of people would live in a town named Stoner and so, after spending some time in Nelson, I incorporated some of the people and stories I heard there into the novel.

Let's get back to Karmageddon; you hypothesize that the end of the world comes about because marijuana is legalized. It seems like quite a stretch to go from smoking pot to nuclear apocalypse. 

But is it? Give me an unusual yet believable story any day. The premise of Karmageddon may be absurd, but I hope it is believable.
Some of my favourite books are this way. Take Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, Douglas Adams and his Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Jasper Fforde and his Thursday Next series. They have unbelievable premises but yet are able to strike a core between humour and truth with some readers. I hope to do that with Karmageddon.

Why did you choose to make it a series of short stories instead of the usual linear route?

There were many reasons. In the original Ghostbusters, when the Staypuft Marshmallow Man came to destroy the world, there was a typical crowd reaction shot. I recall thinking 'wow, those people will have such an amazing story when they get home.' Imagine trying to explain to anyone you saw a 100 foot marshmallow man? I wanted to do that, write of people who aren't necessarily part of the larger story.

I also wanted to make a book which is easy to jump in at any point. You don't really need to start on page 1 with Karmageddon. You could jump chapter to chapter and still get the main points of the story. It's a book where you can go at your own speed, where you don't need to remember what happened previously to finish the book.


Do you prefer e-book or traditional publishing?

Traditional all the way. I've tried e-books but it's just not the same. Books are more tangible, have that amazing tactile and sensual sensation when you are holding one. You don't get that from an e-reader. Plus I think a bookshelf is an amazing thing to have in your life. I have books scattered around the house, so I'm not dependent on just one e-reader. We spend enough time on our screens and the last thing I want to do is stare at another one doing something I enjoy.

Thoughts on self-publishing?

Like everything else, there's a good and bad side to self-publishing. It's become very accessible. A writer controls their own destiny, their own marketing. On the bad side, the marketing takes away from the writing. It provides instant gratification for a lot of beginning writers who may not respect the process and dilutes the waters of better-written books out there.

Good books can't be written in a week or a month. Stoner, Unincorporated took over a decade for me to feel it was good enough to publish. Enter A Fistful was over five years, Karmageddon, three. So the good news is I'm getting better but I couldn't have done it without the option of self-publishing.

 What's next? 

 I'm following up on some of the characters introduced in the world after Karmageddon, to see how they have changed. I also have three other novels in various stages of completion that are more serious in nature. Yet for the most part, I'm going to take it one day at a time.

First Book Signing Post Recovery

Did my first book signing - I want to write about it but my 5 yr old is behind me, trying to find the word astronaut in a word search, among other things relating to the moon.

I can't do it. The kid needs more attention than a first draft of a manuscript.

Sneak Peak; Karmageddon Chicken-style

Karmajuana In The Chicken Coop

ABB +93 (93 days After The Big Bangs)

“Let me ask you this. What’s your passion? Because I don’t feel you are passionate about this job.”

Curt Camfield cursed under his breath. The chicken gizzards, guts or whatever you called the inside of a chicken was piling up in the pail beside him. Three months ago, before the bombs hit, he had been a simple financial officer, living a comfortable life in a mid-level bank in a mid-level town in mid-level mediocrity. 

Chester Cloverfield, the semi-geriatric man currently standing across from him on the slaughtering table was waiting for his answer. In one hand he held the carcass of another headless, featherless chicken, the other a butcher knife. He held it more for effect than for efficiency as all he did was bring the headless chickens to Curt from the killing room.

Chester reminded Curt of his former district manager, who asked him the same question four months earlier, one month before the shit really hit the fan, six days before the financial markets collapsed and all the money in all the vaults was efficiently taken away by armed, mindless men in armored semi-sentient cars.

His former manager ordered Curt to calmly reassure those who cared too much about their money that their deposit was insured by the federal government, even if it wasn’t there. That was the last he ever heard from the district manager.

As Curt dutifully repeated those words to clients he never met, he had felt a gnawing unease in that part of the brain he assumed was his intuition. Soon someone in the growing mob would stop being vocal and start being physical. Especially when one of them voiced the suspicion Curt shared; there was no more federalized Bank of Canada, much less a working government able to guarantee their deposits. His promise was worth no more than the paper it wasn’t written on.

At that life-evaluating moment, as he looked over many of his employer’s most valued and valuable clients, he reconsidered that same question. What was his passion? Was he truly that passionate about this job he was willing to risk his life over someone else’s money? Wasn’t that his superior’s job, the guy who disappeared three days earlier, with a simple ‘Gone fishing’ email, leaving Curt the one with the most seniority in the branch? Was he passionate enough about this job he was willing to defend the honor and empty words and coffers of his employer?

Hell, no.

So he led the justified nervous mob into the back and pointed to the vault’s open door. They surged in, victims of cinematic shortcuts, envisioning shelves stacked with dollar bills. He relied that they would be so anxious to get their life savings they'd forget they needed Curt for more than directions to the vault. As the last pushed their way in and the first realized they had no combinations to the vault’s many empty safes, Curt was out the door faster than the stock market crash. He ran to his car, thankful that in the banking industry one only made clients, not friends. None of his clients knew where he lived. Still he raced home, told his wife and kids to get their shit in the RV and headed north as quickly as possible.

They drove two days before the back roads and gas ran out. The caravan they inadvertently joined on the highway led them here to Bluenose City, one of the many small city-enclaves survivors had established. It was here, Curt and his family found themselves new-age pioneers, living a simple, non-currency based life. Now it was all about survival and showing your worth to the whole, not to the stock market.

But still it was the same crap. 

Chester Cloverfield was an original resident of Bluenose City, third generation. His grandparents settled here back when it was too far away from anything to be even marked for prosperity on a map. It was simply a small hamlet carved into the mountain which bore its name. The City moniker came after the bombs as the refugees arrived and felt safe enough to stop moving on. 

Chester thought he liked the isolation and solidarity of raising chickens. It took until the refugee influx to realize he enjoyed being a head rooster even more. As the community grew, he tapped into a buried urge to be a respected leader of the masses and it certainly helped his political aspirations that he owned the biggest chicken coop in the area.

He once confided to his flock weeks ago that he always dreamed of a moment such as this since he inherited the chicken farm. There was a decades-long stigma to the family farm due to the infamous, yet rarely discussed, Great Easter Chicken Massacre of ’08. But Chester felt he could break the Cloverfield Egg Farm curse with hard work, dedication to the people and by not dabbling in God’s creations, whispered to be the reason behind the massacre.