My first novel, Broken Bones, is now available in e-book for Amazon Kindle and Barnes & Noble Nook. In the coming days it will be available for iPads and in paperback.
The road to this point has been long and filled with pitfalls. This novel was slated for publication in 2011, but the contracted publisher kept pushing back the launch date. After so many delays, I discovered that my agent had been convicted of fraud and various financial shenanigans and sentenced to jail. The publisher went bankrupt. My novel was dead.
Here I am now, in 2014, trying to ressurect it.
Broken Bones is an important accomplishment for me. It’s the product of an extreme set of circumstances, a perfect storm of pain that brought me to the edge of death. I mean it when I say: writing this novel kept me alive. I’m 5’10 and weigh about 170 pounds. But in November of 2008, when I woke up in an emergency room, I tipped the scales at 98 pounds. My organs were failing, I couldn’t move much at all and my mind was shot. I was in such bad shape that the E.R. doctors said they couldn’t care for me. I had to be committed to a psychiatric ward for people with eating disorders, where I was stuck for a month.
The road to this point has been long and filled with pitfalls. This novel was slated for publication in 2011, but the contracted publisher kept pushing back the launch date. After so many delays, I discovered that my agent had been convicted of fraud and various financial shenanigans and sentenced to jail. The publisher went bankrupt. My novel was dead.
Here I am now, in 2014, trying to ressurect it.
Broken Bones is an important accomplishment for me. It’s the product of an extreme set of circumstances, a perfect storm of pain that brought me to the edge of death. I mean it when I say: writing this novel kept me alive. I’m 5’10 and weigh about 170 pounds. But in November of 2008, when I woke up in an emergency room, I tipped the scales at 98 pounds. My organs were failing, I couldn’t move much at all and my mind was shot. I was in such bad shape that the E.R. doctors said they couldn’t care for me. I had to be committed to a psychiatric ward for people with eating disorders, where I was stuck for a month.
How did I end up in such a pathetic state? As my first marriage broke apart, untreated depression and anxiety spilled over into weeks of anorexic insomnia. I ate only when my subconscious compelled me to and slept only when I collapsed from exhaustion. As I wandered into starvation, I lost all control of my body and mind. Extensive rehabilitation was my only shot at survival.I’ve always been a writer, so writing about my experience in the hospital was inevitable. What started out as journal entries from the psychiatric ward has culminated into my first novel. It’s a story of body, mind, self-destruction, medication, renewal, food — all that good stuff.
That was almost six years ago, and I finally get to share the book with all of you. It’s an honor have you as readers, and I welcome you to share their thoughts. A review on Amazon or Nook, a shout-out on Twitter or Facebook, I’d be grateful for anything you do to help spread the word.
I’ll have more information in the coming days and weeks about print copies of the book and reading events. I’ll post more information here, on my website, and Twitter and Facebook. I apologize now for the social media blitz, but I’ve been waiting years for this moment and I’m pretty damn excited. If you’re interested, an awesome writer and friend of mine, Shelby Settles Harper, just posted this interview, in which we discuss Broken Bones.
Cheers!
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