RoguesAngels: Rogue's Angels Present: Shadows, Shells, and Spain by John Meyer

Monday, November 20, 2017

Rogue's Angels Present: Shadows, Shells, and Spain by John Meyer

Please welcome John Meyer author of Shadows, Shells, and Spain

John Meyer will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

Shadows, Shells, and Spain

by John Meyer

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

GENRE: travel fiction

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

INTERVIEW

1. What or who inspired you to start writing?
I was robbed in Rome! Leaving my cramped hostel for a better hotel down the street, a thief somehow - magically - unzipped the pocket of my backpack where I had briefly stored my moneybelt. He/she must have seen me put it in there after I paid my bill at the hostel. When I reached my hotel, two minutes later, the backpack zipper was wide open and the money belt was missing. My money, my credit card, my debit card, my plane ticket, and my passport were all gone!
Obviously, my trip was ruined. And after reporting the incident to the police, acquiring a temporary passport at my embassy, and receiving a cash advance from my bank, I returned home.
Then, as the days and weeks rolled by, I received something of an epiphany. I realized that my "stranger in a strange land" robbery story would make a great start of a book. I was looking for something more substantial to write beyond my regular TV job and I wanted it to combine my love for writing and travel.
I had read plenty of travel books, of course, but they didn't quite satisfy me. They were always non-fiction stories about a man or a woman climbing a mountain, or building a country home in Tuscany, or simply wandering through a foreign land. What they often lacked was drama and interesting characters and higher stakes. The narrator either accomplished their task - or they didn't. That's it.
So I wanted to combine my favorite elements of a travel book and add a more personal adventure - even a fictional one. That’s when I came up with my concept for something I called a fictional travel memoir. The fun part was that I would travel to these foreign countries and then use the characters I met, the experiences I had, and the challenges I faced to create a fictional story far greater than my own journey. And the first book was born: Bullets, Butterflies, and Italy. And yes, the main character gets robbed in Rome within the first 11 pages!
2. What expertise did you bring to your writing?
Back in my twenties, after acquiring my Communications degree, I was looking for a great adventure before I settled down to some sort of suburban Canadian life - and moved to Los Angeles. During my three-year stay, I discovered John Truby's The Anatomy of Story: 22 Steps to Becoming a Master Storyteller. It was, by far, the most comprehensive course I would ever need to learn how to write Hollywood screenplays. I took every study module and learned how to write every genre. I still have my handwritten notes!
Now Truby’s basic movie principles can be applied to any long-form medium. You still need an inciting incident, a flawed hero, allies to help the hero, a main opponent, a moral decline of the hero, and a big battle at the end of the story that would later refine the hero into becoming a better person. Obviously, a lot more goes into a novel, but you get the idea… John Truby taught me how to write and I still use those principles today. (And I never did settle down to some sort of suburban Canadian life.)
Also, in my TV writing for an entertainment show like Entertainment Tonight Canada, I learned how to write quickly and effectively and how to minimize my words to get across my point. It also helped me to write conversationally and how to dress up sentences with word play and alliteration so it sounds good to the ear. Clearly, the alliteration has influenced me on how I title my books!
3. What elements are necessary components for this genre?
The first thing I need is the travel experience. I can't write my books without first participating in the same things that my main character does. In the first book, I spent two weeks in Siena, Italy to witness their Palio festival. In my second book, I had to run with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain a couple of times in order to understand its thrill and ultimate danger. And in my third book, I had to walk across Spain in order to write about the physically exhausting but mind-altering Spanish Camino.
Sometimes I have a fully-formed story before I start; sometimes I don't. The story beats change in large or small ways whenever I actually participate. If something amazing or terrible happens to me, the first thing I ask myself is, "Will this help the story I want to tell?"
The journey also informs me of my minor characters who I meet along the way and, of course, that same adventure also provides me with the rich history and amusing anecdotes I want to convey to my readers. After that, I just apply the regular story beats I learned from John Truby and perform a sort of literary dance: by telling the main story and mixing in the elements of history and local culture I need to present a compelling read.
4. How did you come up with your idea for your novel?
Shadows, Shells, and Spain was first conceived while I was visiting the town of Estella, Spain during the research stage of my second book, Bulls, Bands, and London. Exploring the town, I saw many hikers marching through Estella with their gigantic backpacks and their walking sticks. What was going on? Who were these people?
I dropped in a local albergue where many of these walkers were staying and discovered a diverse group of people from all over the world who were determined to walk 800 kilometers across the country, along an ancient Roman trading route, to visit Santiago de Compostela. Each walker had their own personal reason for their demanding journey. Some had just quit their jobs. Some had just quit their marriages. Some just needed to unplug from their stressful lives back home. Whatever their reason they were all united in their belief that walking across the country would help them heal from their hurts or stimulate their minds to live their lives better when they returned.
So in the June of 2014, I joined this pilgrim party and walked the Spanish Camino from Pamplona to Santiago. The adventure had everything I needed to write my next book. I had the rich history of the Camino. I uncovered interesting anecdotes in every town. And I met wonderful characters from around the world. All I needed to do was add my story: Lost and listless on the island of Mallorca, Jamie Draper searches for his estranged wife, Pam, who has left him without any explanation or warning. Exploring her last known location, Jamie stumbles upon an urgent letter from his missing wife promising full disclosure as to her sudden departure and her current whereabouts. There’s just one catch: her mysterious adventure is disclosed in a series of letters she’s left hidden along the ancient Camino trail across northern Spain...

5. If you could be one of the characters from this book, who would it be and why?
Oh, the main character is always me. In this book, it's Jamie Draper. I always write in the first person and I want to share my thoughts and conclusions of what I saw and experienced with my readers.
It's also important for me that the story takes place in real time. If my trip takes 22 days, Jamie's trip takes 22 days. Because one theme that always pervades my books is that the adventures are entirely truthful and possible. The story is fictional but the traveling part is authentic. If you stood where I stood at that certain time and place, you would probably see what I saw. Those descriptive sections are always true. And I want you to experience them too. Maybe your conclusions would be completely different from mine but that's the wonderful mystery of traveling. However, the only way I can competently express my feelings for the exotic locations that are featured in my books are through my main character.
Again, this only holds true for the traveling sections and not the main story. The character itself is not me!
6. Do you outline your books or just start writing?
Oh, I outline everything! I know my beginning and my ending and everything in between. Now while the story evolves and I discover things along the way (especially how characters act and react to each other), the basic narrative remains intact....especially the ending.
I think about my ending much more than my beginning. The ending is often the first thing I write. Even if it’s only a paragraph or a few lines of dialogue, it sits there the entire time while I write everything else. Then when I reach that ending, I only have to tweak it. If I don’t have my ending, I don’t start writing!
7. Can you give us a sneak peek into this book?
Sure! I don't want to give too much of the plot away so I'll share an early part of the book where Jamie talks about his job as a high school teacher and his failings as a fledgling novelist.

“. . . Teaching teenagers wasn’t fulfilling me; I needed to find a more creative outlet—and I thought I had found it when I started writing novels.

I tried several genres. My young adult novels only reminded me of my apathetic students, and my science fiction books always morphed into Star Wars. My dystopian novels were too depressing. My horror novels gave me nightmares. My political thrillers gave me headaches. I settled on detective novels starring rugged private eyes and leggy dames.

I wasn’t very good at it.

In fact, I never came close to completing any of them. I wasn’t clever enough to conceal the credible clues. My attempts at misdirection were too misleading. I was heavy-handed when I needed to be charming, and I was lightweight when I needed to be conclusive. And anyone who read any of my early chapters always deduced the killer right away.

I even gave my early chapters to my brightest students as an extra-credit homework assignment.

“So, what did you think?”

“Sir, I didn’t finish it . . .”

“Never mind that. What did you think?”

“What is this, a murder mystery? Am I supposed to guess who the killer is? What does this have to do with my history project?”

“Never mind that. What did you think?”

“I don’t know . . . Was it the chambermaid with the stutter?”

“Damn it!”

I then gave my early chapters to my dimmest students.

“So, what did you think?”

“Sir, why are you giving me this? You said that if I kept my mouth shut in class, you’d get me that D+.”

“Never mind that. What did you think?”

“I don’t know . . . Was it the chambermaid with the stutter?”

“Damn it!”

My literary stabs at writing another The Big Sleep had induced only big yawns. At my lowest literary point—clearly after spending too many rainy afternoons playing the board game Clue as a child—I once wrote that Colonel Dijon did it in the conservatory with the Menorah. And I didn’t even know what a conservatory was!

All of this—the drudgery of my school days coupled with the failures of my nighttime literary efforts—made me difficult to live with, I guess. All I know is . . . it made my wife, Pamela, miserable.”

8. When did you first decide to submit your work? Please tell us what or who encouraged you to take this big step?
Well, like most authors, I first tried the traditional route to publishing and submitted my first manuscript to several agents in town. The response was great but ultimately inconclusive. The refrain was always the same, "So it's a fictional story set in a traditional non-fiction genre?" "Exactly!" "Yeah, well, that's going to be difficult to sell." "Why? Isn't it unique and innovative?" "Yeah, probably too innovative for us..."
So instead of trying to convince the establishment, I decided to learn how to self-publish my books. I did my research in the fall and by the winter I had calculated that I needed about ten months to go through all the development and business steps in bringing my first book to market.
The benefits (full control, no middle men, no long wait times between writing and publishing, 100% of the profits) currently outweigh the drawbacks (no marketing help, the need & wherewithal to hire an editor, a designer, and a printer)!
However, I still talk to traditional agents and publishers from time to time. And I might even make the switch to a more traditional format some day. But today, it's my baby!
9. What would you want your readers to know about you that might not be in your bio?
After my 22 day walk across Spain, I wasn't ready to give up the nomadic life! Before my trip, I had moved out of my downtown condo, sold much of my furniture, and had placed all my remaining possessions into a large storage unit. I delayed any future decision-making and assumed I would look for a new place to live upon my return.
But that didn't happen...
After living for a month with everything I needed on my back, the last thing I wanted to do was buy new furniture again and set up shop. So I continued my nomadic life inside Toronto... for 2.5 more years! I just signed up for Airbnb rentals: a month here, a week there, a long weekend over here. Over the course of two years, I stayed in over 30 houses, apartments, condos, and basement suites (and even saved money)! And during all that time, I wrote the first and second drafts of my new book. I guess the nomadic life was inspiring to me and I didn't want to give it up. I only succumbed to living in an apartment again because I needed a "permanent" residence for my publishing address. But I made sure I lived close to a big city park...
10. Anything else you might want to add?
Whether you read my new book or not, I really encourage everyone to walk the Camino at some point in their lives. It really does inspire you and gives you plenty of time to contemplate your life while you meet many other friendly, likeminded souls marching across Spain - just like you! Sure, you can contemplate your life while sitting on your couch as well but... only by leaving all your distractions behind can you really experience some form of positive growth. Plus you're going to lose a lot of weight! And that ain't bad...

###

John Meyer

"Shadows, Shells, and Spain"

http://www.johnmeyerbooks.com/

To get your own paperback copy from the author: https://store.johnmeyerbooks.com/home/

(also available at Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, Kobo, Nook, Apple, and other ebook providers)

To learn more about the Camino: http://www.johnmeyerbooks.com/spain-camino/

John Meyer writes fictional travel memoirs—unique adventure stories that combine fun facts of history with present-day drama and humor—always revolving around a fictitious love story and always based on his own thrilling journeys. His previous publication, Bullets, Butterflies, and Italy, was selected as a November Best Book by Chatelaine magazine. Meyer is also the studio writer for Entertainment Tonight Canada and has been ever since the popular daily show launched back in 2005.

BLURB:

John Meyer's "Shadows, Shells, and Spain" is a thrilling new adventure where a husband desperately searches for his missing wife along the ancient Camino trail across northern Spain. It’s also a bold, new take on a modern-day pilgrimage that feeds the mind and soul of every character while testing the limits of their bodies... and their comfort zones.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

EXCERPT:

It became a miserable daily existence, made worse by a George Bernard Shaw quote that singly gnawed at me: “Those who can, do. Those who can’t, teach.”

George was right. I had to do . . . something. Anything! Teaching teenagers wasn’t fulfilling me; I needed to find a more creative outlet—and I thought I had found it when I started writing novels.

I tried several genres. My young adult novels only reminded me of my apathetic students, and my science fiction books always morphed into Star Wars. My dystopian novels were too depressing. My horror novels gave me nightmares. My political thrillers gave me headaches. I settled on detective novels starring rugged private eyes and leggy dames.

I wasn’t very good at it.

I even gave my early chapters to my brightest students as an extra-credit homework assignment.

“So, what did you think?”

“Sir, I didn’t finish it . . .”

“Never mind that. What did you think?”

“What is this, a murder mystery? Am I supposed to guess who the killer is? What does this have to do with my history project?”

“Never mind that. What did you think?”

“I don’t know . . . Was it the chambermaid with the stutter?”

“Damn it!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~