Kickstarter

So here's the thing, kids:

I've always been a writer. It's the thing I can't stop doing. All across my checkered and occasionally glorious career path, there's always been "the scribbling." So, when I fled Corporate America and decided to make a go of it as a writer full-time, I knew I'd need three things: 

1) The will to succeed, no matter what

2) A darned good story idea for my first novel

and

3) A little help from those interested in supporting the arts in this benighted age.

I've got numbers one and two locked up - I'll live in a hollowed-out tree and write on scraps of bark if I have to, and La Barceloneta is an idea that's been gestating in the womb-like subbasement of my brain for about a decade now; it is well-developed, outlined and ready to be turned into a novel. 

The first of five planned novels in a set (not a series) I call "Songs of Circe," La Barceloneta is a story about ancient wars, the power of family, and a sardonic geek girl who's alarmed to discover the task of saving not only one world, but two has fallen on her shrugging shoulders. Along the way, she finds a family and birthright she never knew existed, and slowly realizes that growing up doesn't mean giving up.

Also, there are killer wombats to deal with. No, really.

Those who fund this project will be funding both the production and printing costs of the physical book, but also supporting the creative process that will lead to its completion. Writing is a full-time (and often far more than full-time) job, but unlike, say, repairing automobiles or brain surgery, it doesn't offer much in the way of steady pay. All the work, all the blood, sweat, tears and tea are invested in the idea that the finished work will be able to produce income commensurate with said investment. Keeping the wolf from the door, then, is not always possible (let alone easy) for those called to the scribbler's profession while we are scribbling.

Supporting this project means you are supporting not only a snarky scribbler, but something that will, let us hope, entertain and edify the reading public. We're living in an amazing age, one where the individual can, with a little bit of help from friends all over the world, create amazing things without the entanglement of corporations, or being crushed to bits in the labyrinthine monolith of industrial production that values the bottom line over artistic endeavor.

I believe that La Barceloneta is one of those amazing things. I hope you will, too.