Something Human This Way Comes

Human connections at the Puerto Rico Comic Con

This past weekend I was fortunate enough to have the opportunity to share my book with the world in physical form for the first time. People passed by my booth, they saw my banner and were kind enough to ask: “so what’s your book about?” I told them the premise, they saw the girth of the book and on more than one occasion they had to ask twice if I’d written this book.

Eight years it’s been since I began working on Only Human, and I was finally able to connect with people and they were able to connect with my story, or actually stories (plural). I also shared my Daydreams on the Sherbet Shore and the Blanc Comics. All in all, different people found something to like in my four offerings and I heard some very positive things to say about each one.

Of special note was the opportunity to share this experience with my wife who was there in the booth with me. She has been vital in all my efforts, is the one responsible for my Facebook page and made it abundantly clear why I’m so lucky in this life. It’s also awesome to be married to such a wonderful muse.  

Going a bit behind the scenes, the reality is that each offering has its own story and a reason why they are special.

The Daydreams I actually spent a night compiling the short stories and preparing the small booklets with my wife, my parents in law and her grandmother. So basically stories I’d crafted with much love were cared for with a hands-on touch from my family. This means that people who have read them got a true family offering. 

Blanc Comics are my tribute to my late grandmother and I heard some really positive feedback from the concept, and I can’t ask for anything worthier of my grandmother than to be able to touch the lives of others and show that we can all see through the power of words. I’ll be putting up a post on Blanc Comics tomorrow morning.

As for Only Human… well it’s been an 8 year relationship, it’s my first book and people are reading it right now… what can I say, that’s a hell of a good feeling.

Throughout the Puerto Rico Comic Con, I was also able to connect with talented artists like Juan Fernández (who was my booth neighbor and a great talent) and on my other side was the Cosplayer Nation team who are still working hard to finish their documentary on Cosplay and its beginnings. I was also blessed to be able to take photos with some brilliant cosplayers who allowed me to snap pictures with Porco Rosso, Gandalf the Grey, Princess Toad, Gimli, a Tardis, K-9 from Dr. Who, Louise from Bob’s Burger and my personal favorite from the show, the Maitlands from Beetlejuice, not to mention some other great costumes that also made my experience there even better.

Back at my booth, I was able to connect with people of all ages who wanted to read my work. Although everyone was special in their own right, the enthusiasm of my first two sales is a definite highlight. Guillermo was the first person to buy my book and I’d like to thank him for his enthusiasm with this blog and my work. It was extremely gratifying to meet him and I hope to see him in other activities to thank him for the confidence he gave me to share my work with others. Michael was the second person to buy my book and thanks to his interest, at least three people came by referred by him (thanks for the vote of confidence). Like them, Keren, Mariexis, Stella, Yliana, Rafa, Christian, Harry, Ricardo, Ezekiel, Joey, Héctor, Stella, Eli, Natalie, Rolando and countless other people were kind enough to buy my book and stories and some have even connected with me on Facebook and Twitter. Some were even kind enough to visit me on both days and tell me they liked my book. In short, the words thank you may only be two words… still, they carry the message perfectly.

Throughout the Comic Con, I was also able to share thoughts with fellow Comic Con lovers and I even entered into some fascinating discussions about the book, about life, about writing, about my process and about what else I’m working on. I was also surprised by the amount of people who have a story they are working on and how many young writers I met. There’s actually one young man I wasn’t able to finish my conversation with and although people might say, hey it’s just one person, he wanted to share a story with me he’d written and I hope to have the opportunity to read his work soon because I truly believe in the power of a word, so imagine the power of a story.

As for the overall experience, it is gratifying to meet fellow readers and to see young people and people of all ages who want to tell a story. I am honored to have been able to meet all of you and I promise you this, this is just the beginning.

So to all of you who passed by, thank you for giving me the gift of a few minutes of your time and to those whom I was able to connect with, here’s to being more than Only Human.

Cheers,

J.D.

So just how human are you?

As humans, we hurt, we love, we plan and plot, we react, we prepare, we live and we die. There is no shortage of experiences in a human life because we are creatures of experience. So what if you got asked how much of your humanity are you willing to sacrifice to save humankind?

That is what Nathaniel Runnels is asked in Only Human, the first installment of the Human Cycle. Anyone curious enough to pick up this book will find out many things, about life, about the world, about vampires, about angels and demons, about what we’ve been sold as truth and about what it means to be human.

The Human Cycle is a three book exploration of humanity.

Consider this your formal invitation to find out how human you are.

Available digitally at Amazon and Barnes and Noble.

Available in the flesh May 25 and 26 at the 2014 Puerto Rico Comic Con.

Calling all Humans, Puerto Rico Comic Con 2014 is on

During the last year, I’ve been fortunate enough to come into contact with some truly wonderful people as an effect of publishing Only Human, which will be celebrating its one year anniversary of being published during the month of May. In addition to this wonderful milestone, I’ll be presenting the book publicly for the first time in the ever growing Puerto Rico Comic Con.

To say I’m excited is an understatement. To say I’m grateful is an understatement. To say that I’m anxious to meet people interested in reading about the human condition is, you guessed it, an understatement. As part of the celebration, I’ll also be debuting materials exclusive to the Puerto Rico Comic Con, inspired by this event and the wonderful people who organize it. So stay tuned, much more news coming

I’m truly honored to be able to take part of the PRCC, which also showcases local and international talent in a family environment. I’ve gone to past editions and have seen cosplayers, writers, artists, and all sorts of likeminded folk have a blast in an event that continues to demonstrate that the Island has more than just pristine natural resources, enviable weather and great food. Last year had over 23K attendees. This year they’re expecting more people and even more so for the next year if the trend continues; so eventually, we might need a bigger Island.

As is, there’s only one more thing I have to say:

It’s a good time to be a human.

Cheers

Monday Reviews: These Days by Jack Cheng

Time is the most valuable asset you have to invest in your life. Although intangible, it has its own weight, its own personality and cannot be recovered once spent. You can't earn more time than what you have in this life, for however long you live. Those are some pretty deep thoughts to come from reading a book, the thing is that reading These Days, I read myself in one of the characters while being able to compare the value of life experiences.

The details in life, the unexpected, the thrill of success, the pain of failure and disappointment, the elation of joy, the desire to switch an answer after you handed in the test, the exhaustion we sometimes go through, the satisfaction of knowing you did your best and the end result, be it good or bad just for the sake of closure. All of these things floated up while I read.

If I had to compare this book to anything, I'd compare it to a good cup of tea. You see, tea has nuance, it has structure, it is delicate, it has minutiae, it begs to be drunk slowly. This is not a book to blitz through; it's one to enjoy a sip at a time. For me, tea keeps me grounded, it's something I use as a reboot or a stabilizer... it's something that forces me to slow down or get burned. These days is a book that after finishing it is like a wonderful cup of tea. It's a book about time and technology, about how we use the time we have and how technology can either bring us closer or break us apart.

A wonderful read that urges the question, what is the next book going to be about?

The long haul: why I chose to self publish

Thanks to years of work and Amazon, I am a published author.

In today’s world, publishing has become something most anyone can do, regardless of talent, merit, or originality. So a few months back, after another query letter that didn’t get a response, I had an important decision to make, would I insist on writing to publishing houses until I got someone to hear me out or would I self-publish?

The question may seem simple, but it’s not. It’s basically asking if you want to be taken seriously from the get go or do you want to work hard for people to take you seriously. I say this because self-publishing is often looked down upon as a step below large house publishing and I get why that is, there’s no filter and you didn’t have to pass any type of test or prove yourself.

When I made the decision to self publish, there were actually a lot of factors going into it. I won’t say not getting a reply from a publishing house wasn’t a reason, then again, the reality of the matter is that it’s quite likely my query and the book description fell off the edge of the email inbox because publishing houses receive hundreds if not thousands of manuscripts from people wanting to be the next J.K. Rowling. So I had the choice of insisting or going my own way.

That’s when I realized; I’ve spent too much time on the vision of what I want to write to have someone edit it (for good or bad). I’m not saying a book editor won’t help you get your book to a better level (they most definitely can), I’m just saying that to me, that would mean that the process becomes a collaborative effort and for once, I want to be selfish with what I release with my name on it. Did I spend years researching, writing, transcribing (I wrote Only Human by hand), formatting, editing and nurturing my novel to allow the possibility of one person chiming in. For other projects? Maybe? For another book? Quite possibly. But for Only Human and its two sequels in the Human Cycle? No way.

What you get when you read Only Human is my vision of a world I thought up in my head (and there’s many more). It’s a story that runs a gamut of emotions and writing styles, it can be sweet at one moment and macabre the next. It talks about humanity and how much we’re willing to sacrifice in order to help others, even if you’re expendable... even if you don’t matter. It sets up things that will be resolved in a second and third book. It has angels, demons, vampires, wraiths and therians (NOT werewolves). It has sex, it has death, it has dreams and challenges most of what you know, stating that’s it’s all BS. That there is more truth in books by Tolkien than history books. It’s something I could offer people who enjoyed Nightwatch or Constantine/Hellblazer. It’s a book I would read and that’s why I was comfortable enough to release it.

Some of my heroes are great do-it-yourself kind of people, Pearl Jam, Jack Johnson, Bill Hicks and Fugazi come to mind (JK Rowling’s perseverance does as well). Each has a moral barometer that is borderline brutal because each in their own way have walked their path without thinking of the consequences of their choices. They just stayed true to their vision and in my own little way, I self-published because of them.

The reality is that I want to write, and I want to write a lot so having to stop my brain long enough to deal with the uphill battle that is getting the attention of a publishing house is not in the cards right now. Creating is in the cards and enjoying the freedom I’ve NEVER been afforded in a typical job.

In addition, if you read my twitter page, you’ll see that when I talk about my book it’s me inviting people to read it. You will see a lot of content for the blog and a lot of tweets interacting with people around the world. My intention and my mission are to connect to other people. I firmly believe that and although I want my books to be successful and I’m working for this to be my career, my messages will always be an offer to connect with a work that is deeply personal, that grew with me, that wrote itself and corrected me when I thought I could control it, that made me smile and made me cry, that gave me grief as I edited out pages worth of words that weren’t necessary and that is 100% mine.

There are scars hidden between the lines, there are messages of hope embedded into the font and there are thousands of hours invested in a work you can acquire with a click. It’ll last a long while and it has vampire pirates, demons, a mid dimension and its trajectory will take you to places like Spain, Egypt, Eritrea, Sri Lanka and Myanmar.

Consider this another of many invitations... it is not a plea and it is not spam. It is an invitation because I believe in my work and I believe you will enjoy it.

I started by saying that I am a published author. Regardless of the level of success I achieve, that will always remain true and you can be part of my life story. You have been most cordially invited.

Cheers,

JD