Kickstarter

In the winter of 2008, I moved back home to Kansas City after having been gone for 18 years. I moved home for love... but it wasn't to be. However, during that relationship, I woke up one night with an idea, so I wrote it down and went back to bed. A few minutes later, the idea blossomed, so I got up, wrote it down, and went back to bed. When it happened a third time, I got out my laptop and started organizing my thoughts for a book.

The story is about a man's journey to find true love. On the eve of his thirteenth birthday, his true love comes to him in a dream and says that it's his mission in life to find her. That doing so will give the world an example that true love does exist; a bright light in a world so otherwise filled with divorce and with people who stay together for all the wrong reasons. But, she says, he will fail miserably along the way. And, with each failure she will come back to him and discuss what he learned from it all. With hope, what he learns in the physical world and the metaphysical world will put him in a position to eventually meet his true love.

I've learned so much about myself while working on this project; it's been very difficult to get through. In my editor's last review, he said, "You've lived a great, happy life and it shows when you write about the light. But, when you write about the dark you take the easy way out--you just swear--like so many writers often do because they've never lived in the dark. Go live in the dark, but don't get lost there; too many artists go there and never make it back."

I've been living in the dark for most of the past two years, and it is a difficult place to return from. I've gained weight, declined in health, had my heart completely crushed, consumed too much alcohol (and Cheez-Its), developed an addiction to apathy, and have misplaced my smile. However, my editor was right on more than one count, for I have learned enough about the dark to upgrade those sections of my book.

And that is where I need your help.

I need one last pass to improve this version--it's 150,000 words and there are another 90,000 words already written into the sequel--and I'd like to focus more on the book than on all the writing freelance jobs that I've been taking. With your help, I will push through this draft by the end of the year. The amount of my project ($4822) is basically 50% of my mortgage for three months.

Thank you for considering my project.

Here's an excerpt that introduces the two main characters for those who would like to learn more.