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Joe Gazzam's UNCAGED is...well, uncaged today.

Yep, that's today. In case you don't believe us, here's the presser:

Screenwriter Joe Gazzam releases debut young adult thriller "Uncaged"

Los Angeles, CA - October 22, 2013 - After establishing himself as an accomplished screenwriter, Joe Gazzam sees the release of his first novel, “Uncaged,” this week. Joe Gazzam has been a professional screenwriter for over ten years. He has worked on such features as “21 Jump Street,” “Disney’s Hawaiian Adventure,” and “Step Up: Revolution.” His debut novel “Uncaged” tells the story of Jason, a trouble teenager who finds himself on the wrong side of the law just as the Scared Straight program opens its doors to a newly modernized prison facility in Florida. When the prison is taken over by inmates with the Scared Straight kids inside, one prisoner takes it on himself to get Jason out before it’s too late. A thriller for adults and young adults alike, the novel takes the story of a prison break and turns it on its head. “Fast and Furious” screenwriter Chris Morgan notes the ties between “Uncaged” and Gazzam’s more prominent work on the big screen. “Cinematic in its sweep, terrifying in its possibility, and remarkable in its realism,” Morgan observes, “‘Uncaged’ is a book for readers ready to be scared straight till the last page. Joe Gazzam has crafted a novel that reads like a good movie, carrying you along from the first moment of danger, to the last terrifying precipice. It’s fast, shocking, and gritty. You’ll love it.” Ahmet Zappa, co-creator of “The Odd Life of Timothy Green,” notes the novel’s place in the current stream of young adult literature: “No vampires, werewolves, fairies or unicorns. Real. Thrilling. Scary. Crack this book open and hang on for your life.” It’s this realism that gives the book an appeal for young adult readers eager for something beyond the prominent paranormal teen fare. The book has garnered praise from other novelists, including Jessica Therrien, author of the highly successful “Children of the Gods” young adult series. Therrien also notes its cinematic quality, calling it “a blockbuster, edge-of-your-seat read.” Actor Topher Grace, best known for “That ‘70s Show” and “Spiderman 3,” commented on the novel, calling it “wildly suspenseful with great characters. Pure fun to read.” At the intersection of the big screen and the printed page, Joe Gazzam has proven to have storytelling mastered for any audience and across media. “Uncaged” is published by ZOVA Books, a boutique publishing company specializing in unique fiction for a wide variety of readers. ZOVA Books is headquartered in Long Beach, California. Contact: Molly Lewis [email protected] PO Box 21833 Long Beach, CA 90801 805-426-ZOVA

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Listen, you say science is everything to you and it is to me, too. So it's not really important how Gencor got this data. Data is data. It's what we do with it now that matters. And we're gonna save lives, a lot of lives.

Flashblind, by Dr Paul Bernstein

#Flashblind #Paul Bernstein

"A dull golden light spread slowly through the map unnoticed at first but growing brighter."

#East to Adonia #Jenny Bellington #cartography

Days bled into nights and nights became mornings without a thought for the occupants of Las Vegas. It was never too late to drop a bet, buy a drink, or bury a body in a shallow grave.

One for the Road, Edgar J. Rossi

#One for the Road #Edgar J Rossi

Death is a funny business. In all the years I'd been doing this, I thought one day I'd become accustomed to the lost lives, but there were still times when reality snuck up and surprised you like a bite on the balls. This had been that sort of day.

Black & White, by Wes Albers

#Black & White #Wes Albers

"It it said there is a way," spoke Komatsuna, in a whisper. "A way that lies across the Great Ink. It is beyond the Jungle Prime Evil, through the Grottos of Ill Repute. For there, far beyond the reach of luck, lies the fortress of the black cats. There, in a barren land bereft of leaf or root, it is said there is a way."

#Escape from Hat #Adam Kline #Brian Taylor

wwnorton-deactivated20200424

One thing I knew about the novelist’s task: when in doubt, write; when empty, write; when afraid, write. Nothing is more impenetrable than the blank page. The blank page is the void, the absence of sense and feeling, the white light of literary death.

Philip Sington, The Valley of Unknowing

(via wwnorton)

1. Stop measuring your work by word or page count. Write until you've said something and said it well. 2. Study grammar in your spare time. Put down the Sunday morning crossword and start diagramming sentences. 3. Only steal ideas from the Greeks. 4. Write with a fine pen on beautiful paper. Your words will be better. Guaranteed. 5. Don't sacrifice good storytelling for accuracy. Unless you're writing non-fiction, of course. 6. There are few books (The Idiot, the Bible) that can get away with a protagonist who has no flaws. Your book probably isn't one of them. 7. There is no substitute for reading a good book. If you write but do not read, you're doing something wrong. 8. Be nice to people. 9. If everyone followed the rule "write what you know," our libraries would be very small indeed. 10. Every writer starts with people-watching. 11. Be careful pulling stories from your past. You may begin to confuse your memories with your manuscript. 12. Know your calling. Just because Flannery O'Conner changed your life doesn't mean you're meant to follow in her footsteps. (Though it might.) 13. There's nothing wrong with writing a rip-off*. There's something very wrong with publishing it. 14. There's no shame in following a paradigm. In other words, please do. 15. Never publicly criticize another author. Unless you review books for a living, in which case, you might want to write your novels under a pen name. 16. There's nothing like the realization, after you've spent your college years writing dozens of short stories, that you have no idea how a novel works. 17. All writing should happen with hot tea or coffee and warm butter croissants at the ready. 18. Keep pen and paper on your person at all times. This is a life requirement. 19. Don't set your story in Beaumont just because you happen to live there. Setting should be as necessary as character. If your setting doesn't influence your story, something's off. 20. If you just want to write about yourself, forget the novel and keep a journal. Though...keep a journal anyway. 21. When in doubt, involve a phoenix, an old woman in the woods, or Pandora's box. 22. Learn to portray conflict through setting alone. 23. Tom Waits, Johnny Cash, and Leonard Cohen do more to inspire than all the Bird by Birds and MFA programs combined. *Yes, fan fiction, I'm talking to you.

Molly Lewis, originally posted at A Single Layer

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elennasharny

books

harpercollins

The Original Contract for Melville's Moby-Dick

penguinrandomhouse

eileanfinn

One writes of scars healed, a loose parallel to the pathology of the skin, but there is no such thing in the life of an individual. There are open wounds, shrunk sometimes to the size of a pin-prick but wounds still. The marks of suffering are more comparable to the loss of a finger, or of the sight of an eye. We may not miss them, either, for one minute in a year, but if we should there is nothing to be done about it.

F. Scott Fitzgerald, Tender is the Night (via eileanfinn)

writerswritecompany

The Hero’s Journey

The Hero’s Journey is a pattern discovered within mythological stories by the American Scholar Joseph Campbell. Campbell maintained that all mythological stories (and all good stories) share a common structure or flow. This revolves around the inner and outer journey of the protagonist, whom he calls the hero.

The steps don’t always flow in perfect order. Sometimes two or more steps are combined in short order. But here is the basic structure, using Star Wars as an example (Lucas borrowed heavily from Campbell for A New Hope):

The Ordinary World We get to know the day to day life of the hero. Luke is a farm boy living with his Aunt and Uncle.

The Call To Adventure Something happens to upset the normal life of the hero, which often includes an invitation or pressure to leave their normal life behind. Luke buys a droid that plays a holographic distress call from Princess Leia and a plea for rescue.

Refusal Of The Call The hero resists, or tries to resist the inevitable. Luke clings to his commitment to his uncle and the farm.

Meeting With The Mentor A wise person helps put things into perspective, encouraging the hero to accept the call to adventure. Enter Ben Kenobi.

Crossing The Threshold The hero accepts the call to adventure, which propels them past the point of no return. The Lars Homestead is burned the ground and Luke leaves with Ben Kenobi.

Tests, Allies & Enemies The hero’s resolve is tested and they meet friends and foes along the way. Luke and Ben are hunted by Stormtroopers and meet Han and Chewie.

The Approach The hero is trained or prepared for the mission they have accepted. Luke is trained in the ways of the force by Ben Kenobi and receives his first light sabre.

The Ordeal (The Cave) The hero is tested and often comes to their lowest point in the story. Luke and his friends are taken captive in the Death Star and nearly die in the trash compactor.

The Reward The hero begins to rise with a victory in the bag. Luke and friends escape the Death Star with Princess Leia and just as critical, information about how to destroy the Death Star.

The Road Back The hero is forced to finish what they started by renewed opposition from the enemy. Darth Vader and the Death Star zero in on the Rebel Base, forcing the Rebels to launch an all-out assault on the Death Star.

The Resurrection The hero is tested again and nearly dies, but in such a way that they rise stronger than ever. Luke hears Ben Kenobi’s voice, uses the force, and delivers the death blow to the Death Star.

Return With The Elixir The hero returns home but life will never be the same. Luke is a hero but his training has just begun.

From Writers Write

Ten Tips for Writers

ZOVA is headed to the Southern California Writers Conference in Los Angeles this weekend, which means we've got writing on the brain. September is a good month to research writing tips and tricks, as we're a hop, skip, and a jump away from NaNoWriMo, that most inspirational of international writing movements which dawns each November. Here are a few tips for writers we've synthesized over the years:

1. You have to learn the rules before you can break them. Picasso taught us this.

2. Know your audience and write specifically for them. Yourself, family and friends, your future children, or complete strangers - whoever it is, know them and write for them alone.

3. Contrary to popular workshop advice, the passive voice is sometimes okay. Like, for example, when it's the only grammatically correct option.

4. And while we're at it, know your grammar.

5. Swear in your novels if you must, but never on your social networking sites.

6. Learn the difference between loose and lose, led and lead. It will save someone a lot of grief.

7. Whatever works for you, be consistent about it. The one habit all successful writers share is making writing a habit.

8. When submitting a manuscript, keep your font simple (i.e. Times New Roman). But when you're writing, use whatever inspires you.

9. Never promise to put a friend or family member in your novel.

10. Self-awareness (not to be confused with self-consciousness) is the greatest asset any writer can have.

thefindersandkeepers-blog

Prologue

Photo by M. Wheaton

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Escape from Hat

by Adam Kline

Giveaway ends October 09, 2012.

See the giveaway details at Goodreads.

Enter to win

fieldnotesbiologyculture-deacti

There is a certain grain of stupidity that the writer of fiction can hardly do without, and this is the quality of having to stare, of not getting the point at once.

There is only one trait that writers have in common and that’s it. They watch for the…

Cecil Bean had both good luck and bad.

FIRST LINES - Escape from Hat, by Adam Kline and Brian Taylor

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