Tag: David Gittlin

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A Fang-Tastic Author Interview


Blood Is The Nectar of Life

 

This interview and a spicy  excerpt from an early chapter appear at Fang-Tastic Books; a well-known book review site.

Can you tell readers a little bit about yourself and what inspired you to write in this particular genre?

I believe it started with my struggle with the forces of darkness and light within myself. A year after writing Scarlet Ambrosia, I see the story through a different pair of eyes.  At the core of the novel is a young man’s struggle with the forces of good and evil within himself and the world around him.  The vampire archetype, I now realize, is a metaphor for my heart’s dream to realize its divine nature.  The supernatural powers and ramped-up energy level Devon acquires as a vampire make him half-human and half-god, something like the mythological Greek gods.  He can choose to use his new powers for good or evil purposes. 

I believe everyone has the potential to become a divinely human being.  I’ve been a ‘spiritual seeker’ for most of my adult life.  Awakening isn’t easy, but I’ve found it’s worth the effort.  What happens for Devon is happening for me in a much subtler way without the super-human powers, but happily, minus the need to drink human blood.

What is it about the paranormal, in particular vampires, that fascinates you so much?

I’m fascinated by the supernatural powers of my vampire characters.  They are very powerful beings with the capacity to dramatically impact the world around them positively or negatively.

Please tell us about your most recent release.

My latest release is Scarlet Ambrosia.  I’m working on a sequel because I love the characters.  Scarlet Ambrosia is the second novel I’ve published.  The first one is a humorous Science Fantasy thriller titled “Three Days to Darkness.”

Do you have a special formula for creating characters’ names? Do you try to match a name with a certain meaning to attributes of the character or do you search for names popular in certain time periods or regions?

In most cases, I try to make a character’s name show something about the character’s personality and traits.  I try not to make it too obvious.  At other times, a character’s name just comes to me and I trust that the name is the right one.  It’s interesting that the name often corresponds to a character’s traits by coincidence.

Was one of your characters more challenging to write than another?

The antagonist of the story, Egon Schiller, was the hardest for me to write.  This is often the case in the stories I write.  There is always a tendency to make the villain two-dimensional rather than a three-dimensional person with some good traits and intentions.  I feel that the most believable villains are people who have, for one reason or another, given in to their dark side.  A good example of this is Darth Vader.

Is there a character that you enjoyed writing more than any of the others?

Of all the characters in the story, I most enjoyed writing the female love interest, Mathilde de Roche.  Her strength, heroism, and magnetism came naturally as I created her and as I wrote her throughout the story.  That came as a surprise.  I am, after all, a guy.  Like most men, I find women unfathomable in the real world.

Do you have a formula for developing characters? Like do you create a character sketch or list of attributes before you start writing or do you just let the character develop as you write?

I participated in several online screen writing and novel-writing courses offered through the writers program at UCLA.  Professional writers taught these courses.  The teachers stressed that the most successful stories have memorable characters in them.  I learned to create my characters before writing the story using a detailed character template.  I’ve found that knowing what makes my characters “tick” helps make them more interesting and believable.

What is the most interesting thing you have physically done for book related research purposes?

I spent a week in Sedona, Arizona exploring the town’s art galleries, architecture and the energy vortexes.

When did you consider yourself a writer?

When I stumbled into my career in marketing communications, I found writing was the most enjoyable part of the job.

Where can readers find you on the web?

The best places to find me are at my main website www.davidgittlin.com and my blog www.davidgittlin.wordpress.com

Would you like to leave readers with a little teaser or excerpt from the book?

Here’s a spicy excerpt from Chapter Two:

This woman was beyond beautiful.  She was exquisite—no signs of breast implants or a nose job and no tattoos or piercings marred the natural beauty of her face and body.  Her creamy skin felt like the finest silk to Devon’s probing hands.  He unclasped her bra.  His loins tingled at the sight of her full breasts.  He caressed her erect nipples.  She moaned. 

The foreplay had started slowly with exploratory kisses and caresses.  Now he could barely wait to enter her.  Devon removed the last fragments of clothing from their bodies.  The smell of her perfume, the feel of her body, and the sensation of her soft hands on his buttocks almost made him explode prematurely.

Being inside this woman was like nothing he had experienced before.  Devon lost all sense of physical boundaries.  The sensual pleasure of joining with Mathilde seemed to fill every cell in his body.  He was only vaguely aware of moving inside her.  Their rising passion consumed him.  She kept repeating something in French.  His back arched.  He climaxed.  The pleasure was too intense for his senses to bear.  He lost consciousness.

He woke up next to her on the bed.  She stroked his hair with one hand, propping up her head on one elbow.

Feeling embarrassed, Devon shook his head, unable to comprehend the reason for his lapse of consciousness. 

“I’m sorry if I scared you.  It’s the first time I’ve ever passed out during sex.”

“You didn’t scare me, ma chère.  It only confirms what I was afraid of.”

“Which is?”

“If we go on having sex, it will kill you.”

He laughed nervously.  Had the sex been good enough to cause a blackout?

“I can think of worse ways to die,” he said, covering up for his discomfort.

She kept looking at him studiously.

“You kept whispering something to me in French.  It sounded like: ‘Vous êtez celui que j’ai choisi.’  I think that means: ‘You are the one I chose’”

A whisper of red colored her cheeks. 

“Your French is better than you admit.”

“I don’t understand.   We’ve just met, Mathilde.”

“Don’t worry.  It’s just a game I play with myself.  You remind me of someone I once knew: a handsome, high-minded young man with a sensitive heart.”

“I’m flattered, but it sounds a little more like a fixation than an innocent game to me.”

“Please don’t play the amateur psychologist.”

She pushed him off the bed with a movement almost too fast to see.  One second he lay facing her.  The next thing he knew, he lay on his back on the floor.  Her sudden display of uncanny strength and speed frightened him.  Clambering to a sitting position, he began to collect his clothes from the bed.

“I’m sorry,” she said.  “I wasn’t thinking.  I didn’t mean to alarm you.  Are you injured?”

“I’m still in one piece.”

“I actually do study martial arts, in answer to your earlier question.   Sometimes I forget my own strength.  Let me help you with your things.  Are you sure I haven’t hurt you?”

He had the impression she was lying. 

“I’m fine.  I just think it might be better to leave now.  Who knows what could happen if you toss and turn in your sleep?”

“I apologize for leading you on,” Mathilde said.  “I only intended to meet you in the bar and talk with you.  I thought of it as a minor indulgence, to take my mind off things for a while.  I let my curiosity about you cloud my judgment.  Then, meeting you face to face, you had much more of an effect on me than I anticipated.  I lost control of myself.”

“Is that something that happens often?”

“No,” she answered curtly.  “I’m not that shallow.”

Devon’s thoughts and emotions spun like pinwheels.  Part of him wanted to bolt out the door and finish dressing in the hallway.  Another part, the accountant, needed explanations; wanted to analyze and quantify Mathilde de Roche.  In the end, his own curiosity coupled with her charisma kept him rooted by the bedside.

“I’ve studied martial arts myself.  I’ve never seen anyone move as quickly as you just did.”

She continued to regard him with a serious expression for a full minute before responding. 

“You should leave now, Devon.  I won’t be offended.”

 

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Book Marketing eBook Marketing Essays fiction humor motivation Online Marketing Self-Publishing

To Publish or Not


Blood Is the Nectar of LifeTo publish or not to publish…That is the question.

Okay, I wrote the book. Then I re-wrote it five times. Now what? You’re probably thinking–You publish it, dummy. Well, it’s not that simple. It’s almost as big a commitment to self-publish a book as it is to write it. The hardest part is promotion. (See “Book Marketing 101“). To paraphrase, it’s a huge undertaking of time, energy and money. And the results almost never equal expectations, to put it mildly.

So I’m thinking, does the world really need another Vampire novel? Yes, it has a few unique elements, but will the world be a better place with my book in it.

I brought this burning question with me to a weekend retreat in Atlanta. On Sunday, late in the afternoon, an answer arrived. Actually, it was more of a solution than an answer. Write an author’s note and insert it on the last page of the book, a voice told me.

At the core of the novel is a young man’s struggle with darkness and light. The vampire archetype, it turns out, is a metaphor for the (my) heart’s dream to realize its Divine Nature. This is what gives the story “socially redeeming value,” I realized in perfect twenty-twenty hindsight.

So now, I feel more confident and motivated to publish the book. I expressed my thoughts differently in the author’s note to communicate them in more broadly digestible terms. Here’s what I wrote:

Since writing the first draft of “Scarlet Ambrosia,” I’ve gone through many changes.  Fortunately, most of them are for the better.  To put it succinctly, I’ve found a new process of self-discovery.  This new process has allowed me to see Devon Furst’s journey in the story from a new perspective.

Along with his battle against Egon Schiller, Devon’s other major conflict is the struggle between the forces of darkness and light within himself.  This conflict corresponded to my own struggle with these forces when I wrote the novel.  I’m not speaking of alcohol, drugs, or any other type of addiction here.  I’m speaking of my struggle to find peace, contentment, happiness, and a deeply felt purpose to my life.

As I write this, I’m happy to say my new “process” has taken me a long way towards experiencing what I’ve been longing to find for most of my adult life.  By the way, it has nothing to do with becoming a vampire.

 

 

 

 

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musings reflections

Light In The Tunnel Of Youth


I heard his footsteps enter the kitchen. I sat at the breakfast table, afraid to glimpse the advancing Bengal tiger, my father.

I didn’t have the stomach to gaze into his piercing green eyes. My mind saw those eyes jumping from the bushy, long hair straggling down the back of my neck, to the rumpled, black T-shirt I had pulled on shortly after stumbling out of bed. Those X-Ray lamps of his would finally come to rest on the doodles and paint droppings on the blue jeans I had worn for most of the past year in art school.

The footsteps halted. I imagined the Bengal tiger crouching on all fours, sizing up its prey. Minutes passed. The silence became unbearable. There was nowhere to run. The tiger had me cornered. I turned in my seat, almost like a revolving door. I held my breath as well as the awkward position.

My father leaned on the kitchen counter dressed in a navy, pinstripe suit accented by a red silk tie and powder blue business shirt. His eyes focused not on me, but on his perfectly manicured nails, like a high-priced trial attorney adopting a nonchalant pose before tearing into a hostile witness. He looked up at me suddenly.

His eyes always darted back and forth when he was angry. My father’s gaze was rock steady on this day. I did not perceive him to be calm, however. His slack posture spoke to me of something else, something entirely new, and horribly unexpected. My legs grew numb, perhaps from the ridiculous position I sat frozen in.

“Please say something,” I managed to blurt out.
His face held no expression now, as if a gremlin somewhere inside his body had flipped off an electrical switch.

“When you finish art school,” he said, “my responsibility for you will be finished. You’ll be on your own. If you end up ‘nowheresville’, it will be your unhappiness, not mine.”

My father continued to regard me with that terrible, neutral expression. His keen eyes bore into mine. I was certain he could hear my heart beating double-time inside my chest.

“I have to go to work now,” he said, and marched with a purposeful stride out of the room.

I turned and stared vacantly out the kitchen window into the back yard. I saw myself as a teenager, smashing plastic golf balls across the lawn for hours with the rusty seven-iron my father had given me from an old set. I blinked. The memory vanished.

It took a full five minutes to convince my legs to lift me up from the table.

In the next few days, I realized my father had done me a favor by bluntly pointing out what the consequences of my actions were apt to be, at least as far as my relationship with him was concerned.

His words shed a cold, clear light on my attempted escape from the pain of growing from a boy into a man. This recollection may have made my father seem cruel, but he was never an unkind man. Perhaps he could have “gilded the lily” more in his advice to me while growing up, but not on this occasion. He did not speak to me with malice or hurtful intent. He spoke honestly and with deep concern, and his words altered my future indelibly for the better.

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Essays international issues

The Destruction of Our Rivers: Business as Usual


The earth is one big ecosystem. Think of it as a human body. Every cell, every organ, every system of organs is interdependent. Think of the water in the earth’s rivers as blood in the body’s circulatory system. What happens to the body when infection invades the blood stream? What happens when the body cannot produce enough cells to maintain a sufficient, systemic blood level? The answer, of course, is illness.

Industrialization, urbanization, and global warming have adversely affected the rivers of the world. Pollution and insufficient water levels pose a serious health threat to all life in the surrounding regions. The problem is common to big cities as well as rural areas. The best way to illustrate this point is to cite specific examples.

From approximately 1947 to 1977, the General Electric Company poured an estimated 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson River from manufacturing plants at Hudson Falls and Fort Edward.

The health of area residents is at risk due to the accumulation of PCBs in the human body caused by eating the river’s contaminated fish. Since 1976, high levels of PCBs in fish have led New York State to close various recreational and commercial fisheries and to issue advisories restricting the consumption of fish caught in the Hudson River. PCBs contain carcinogenic substances known to stimulate the growth of cancer cells in humans. Additional adverse health effects include low birth weight, thyroid disease, nervous and immune system disorders. PCBs in the river sediment also affect fish and wildlife.

Runoff in urban and rural areas can easily affect a river’s health, putting local wildlife and human life at risk. Nitrates from fertilizers and pesticides collect in rainwater draining from surrounding land into rivers. These chemicals stimulate the growth of algae, throwing delicate, ecologic relationships out of whack. The result is a clogged, dysfunctional river system.

Runoff from acid rain and rain falling through polluted air is another source of contamination. A recent report states that pollution from urban runoff has become the Potomac River region’s fastest-growing water quality problem, threatening the quality of drinking water for 86 percent of local residents.

Several Abandoned mines located in England and Wales have caused significant pollution in nearby rivers. Dangerous metals such as iron, aluminum, tin, lead, mercury and cadmium from old mine workings contaminate drinking water extracted from regional rivers fed by polluted tributaries.

Phosphorous from detergents in sewage flushed into rivers is another dangerous pollutant. The chemical stays in the system for a long time, threatening plant life by taking up oxygen and poisoning the drinking water of animals and humans alike. The impact of a slow buildup of river pollution in a wide area can be devastating. In the 1950’s, the otter population in England was nearly wiped out by the accumulation of toxic wastes in major rivers throughout the country.

Rising weather temperatures caused by global warming have had a dramatic effect on fresh water levels in rivers around the world. Persistent drought conditions in Australia’s major farming region, the Murray-Darling river basin, threaten the nation’s food supply. The Murray-Darling crosses most of southeastern Australia and is one of the region’s most important river systems. It provides water for growing 40 percent of the nation’s vegetables, fruits, and grains.

Corey Watts, of the Australian Conservation Foundation in Melbourne, told reporters that drought conditions were becoming the norm in the area instead of occurring once every 20 to 25 years.

“We’ve had a string of official reports over the last fortnight painting a pretty grim picture for the climate and the future of our economy and our environment,” Watts said. “So now we’re looking at a future in the next few decades where drought will occur once every two years.”

The 2,000 year-old Yamuna is a river that “fell from heaven,” according to Hindu mythology. The residents of New Delhi worship the river and depend on it for life. Residents tossing coins and sweets into the river, or scattering the ashes of dead relatives from bridges jutting across the waters are a common sight. Unfortunately, the actions of the citizenry and the New Delhi governmental water board do not coincide with this feeling of reverence.

As the Yamuna enters the capital city, its waters are still relatively clean after a 246-mile descent from atop the Himalayas. New Delhi’s public water authority, the Jal Board, extracts 229 million gallons from the river daily for drinking water. As the river leaves the city, residents pour an average 950 gallons of sewage into the Yamuna every day.

As it winds through India’s capital city, the Yamuna transforms into a filthy band of black ink with clumps of raw sewage floating on the surface. Methane gas bubbles to the surface. The river is hardly safe for fish, let alone bathing or drinking water.

A recent government audit condemned the Jal Board for spending 200 million dollars on the construction of sewage treatment plants with minimal results. One of the city’s Pollution Control Board Directors said the situation “has not improved at all because the quantity of sewage is always increasing.” The regular occurrence of power failures adds to the problem.

The above examples are only a tiny representation of the problem. The health of the world’s rivers and their effects on plant, animal, and human life is a complex problem difficult to summarize in one short article. Governmental water management boards worldwide are struggling to deal with the problem now to avoid catastrophic water shortages in the next twenty years. Bold, new initiatives are under consideration along with traditional methods. One point is clear, however. Change in the way we treat the environment, collectively and individually, is essential.

The new movie, “The Day the Earth Stood Still,” explores this theme. The story posits the theory that painful and necessary change can occur when it becomes obvious that doing things the same old way will lead to certain destruction. Certainly, we have reached this point with respect to the environment. Two questions remain. Will we change? Can we change in time to prevent a complete breakdown of the earth’s life sustaining ecosystem?

Sources: Gertner, Jon, “The Future Is Drying Up,” Time Magazine, October 21, 2007; Government of Australia — Waters and Rivers Commission, “Water Facts,” July 1997; Sengupta, Somini, “In Teeming India, Water Crisis Means Dry Pipes and Foul Sludge,” The New York Times, September 26, 2006.