{"id":82,"date":"2014-05-28T04:11:09","date_gmt":"2014-05-28T04:11:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/anthonyjmelchiorri.com\/?p=82"},"modified":"2014-08-07T00:29:53","modified_gmt":"2014-08-07T00:29:53","slug":"one-very-very-wet-book-by-jason-gurley-thirteen-years-in-the-making","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/anthonyjmelchiorri.com\/?p=82","title":{"rendered":"One “Very, Very Wet Book” by Jason Gurley: Thirteen Years in the Making"},"content":{"rendered":"

Recently, I had the opportunity to ask\u00a0Jason Gurley<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u00a0a few questions about his\u00a0upcoming release Eleanor<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/span>.\u00a0Jason is the\u00a0author of the\u00a0bestselling novel\u00a0Greatfall<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/span> and designer of covers for other bestsellers like Hugh Howey, Russell Blake, Michael Bunker, Ernie Lindsey, and Matthew Mather, among others. Personally, I’m stoked for the release of Jason’s latest novel. If you haven’t had a chance to read any of his works, I highly recommend one of his short stories,\u00a0The Dark Age<\/span><\/a><\/span>.<\/em>\u00a0In that short story alone (entirely worth the meager $0.99), you’ll get an excellent\u00a0sense of what Jason can do to you with his words and you’ll see why I’m looking forward to getting my hands on a copy of Eleanor<\/em><\/span><\/a><\/span>. Jason’s storytelling has the power to immerse you into fantastic, vast worlds, and make it deeply personal. His characters are vivid, realistic, and you cannot help but empathize with them, whether they are post-apocalyptic marauders or the lone caretaker of an orbiting space station.<\/p>\n

Eleanor<\/em>\u00a0is a work that’s been marinating in Jason’s mind for thirteen years and is finally just about done with its time in the oven. Before Jason finished\u00a0Eleano<\/em>r,\u00a0<\/em>he wrote\u00a0a collection of novels and short stories, telling captivating stories and honing his craft. It’s all led to this point. You can tell that this is one of those novels that has every inkling of being one to\u00a0permeate through your thoughts long after you’ve read it. Just check out Jason’s interview\u00a0to see why:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Eleanor\"<\/a><\/p>\n

You were inspired with the idea to write\u00a0Eleanor<\/i>\u00a0thirteen years ago on a drive from Oregon to Nevada. How have the changes in your life over those years impacted the story and characters in\u00a0Eleanor<\/i>? How have you evolved as a storyteller and writer in that time?<\/b><\/p>\n

Well, the inspiration for the book came out of a whole lot of big questions I was wrestling with at the time. I was twenty-three, and I was starting to question my belief system. The book, as it turned out, was a great way to investigate those questions by confronting them head-on. The original storyline for Eleanor was much, much different than it is now. Way back then, it was the story of a girl who may have met God while in a coma \u2014 and about what it\u2019s like waking up to the real world after that experience. The book was, in short, my way to try to figure out if I believed in any kind of god anymore.<\/p>\n

But I struggle less with that question now. I was a kid then, I\u2019m a slightly more growed-up kid now, and I don\u2019t really need to put that kind of pressure on the book. It\u2019s not fair to the book, really, but it was an honest mistake. As soon as I admitted to myself that I wasn\u2019t really struggling with the God question anymore, I was able to deconstruct the book and go hunting for its real story \u2014 which turned out to be something so much more interesting, and, I think, infinitely more compelling.<\/p>\n

The book is about\u2026 consequences. It\u2019s about how the decisions that a person makes when they\u2019re young can ripple through time, and set your descendants on an impossibly difficult path. That\u2019s what Eleanor\u2019s struggling with \u2014 how to pull a little heaven out of hell. How to undo things she isn\u2019t responsible for, to restore a little peace and happiness to the people she cares for.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Much of your work is post-apocalyptic. How does\u00a0Eleanor<\/i>\u00a0contrast with these other stories and novels? How does it feel as a writer to depart from these type of works?<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

Who said I departed from them?\u00a0Eleanor<\/i>\u00a0is a much bigger story than I think anybody thinks. (Well, except for the few people who have read the book already, obviously.) In a way, you might say that this book is the apocalypse novel to end all apocalypse novels.<\/p>\n

Except that sounds a little\u2026 overconfident.<\/p>\n

I write stories about people facing big endings, and I\u2019ve always been fascinated by the emotional toll that the end of the world might have on a person.\u00a0Eleanor<\/i>\u00a0continues that trend, but in a much bigger and very different way than anything else I\u2019ve written.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What do you think would have been different if you had written and called the novel finished thirteen years ago?<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

I think I\u2019d be disappointed in myself now, actually. I\u2019m happy to leave all of my early work in a drawer. I\u2019m grateful that none of my first novels ever saw the light of day. It\u2019s hard to live down a bad story, and for me, at least, it was hard to write a good story until I\u2019d grown up a bit. I think\u00a0Eleanor<\/i>\u00a0would have been a much more derivative, more predictable novel if I\u2019d finished it a decade ago.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What about if you waited another thirteen years and published this in 2027?<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

Oh, man. Don\u2019t even talk that way!\u00a0Eleanor<\/i>\u00a0would probably be the equivalent of a serial killer\u2019s bedroom wall at that point \u2014 crazy mutterings scratched into the paint, stalkery photos tacked up everywhere, big Xes drawn over people\u2019s eyes, red yarn tying a bunch of push-pins together\u2026 Yeah. Let\u2019s not go there.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

What makes now the right time for you to push this story out into the world?<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

Well, it\u2019s done. It\u2019s done, and it\u2019s\u00a0right<\/i>, and it\u2019s time to let it test those wings. And frankly, there are a lot of other stories I want to write. With\u00a0Eleanor<\/i>\u00a0finished and almost out, I can start thinking about those.<\/p>\n

I can also relax a tiny bit, and rest my poor, aching brain.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

According to your blog posts, it seems this year has been exceedingly productive in completing\u00a0Eleanor.<\/i>\u00a0Are there any particular reasons why?<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

The sheer joy of seeing my work being read. In early 2013, I published a novel that I wrote during a short break from\u00a0Eleanor<\/i>. Sixty-four people bought it, which was magical. It felt really amazing to know that strangers chose to read my book, and some of them seemed to like it. So I extended my break from\u00a0Eleanor<\/i>, and I wrote three more novels and a whole lot of short stories. Most importantly, this reminded me that I know how to\u00a0finish<\/i>\u00a0things. I was able to come back to\u00a0Eleanor<\/i>\u00a0with renewed purpose, and as it turns out, a lot of people who read my other stories are almost as excited about\u00a0Eleanor<\/i>\u00a0as I am.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

In the excerpt that you’ve released (and from the cover art), it appears that swimming, water, and the ocean play a significant role in the story. Are there any particular life experiences that draw you to the symbolic power of water and the ocean?\u00a0<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

When I was a kid \u2014 probably five or so \u2014 my grandparents came to Alaska to visit my family. We all went camping next to the Russian River. I had a fishing rod \u2014 one of those kid-sized ones, with Snoopy printed on the reel. My grandfather showed me how to cast, and when he let me try it on my own for the first time, I threw the rod into the river, and leaped in after it\u2026 and off I went, bobbing down this river while my mother chased me on the bank.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s my only significant water experience. It doesn\u2019t really have that much to do with the story, though, I guess.<\/p>\n

But: this is a novel about time. The first page of the book is a quote from a character in the book. It says\u00a0Time is a river, and it flows in a circle<\/i>. This book is thoroughly saturated with water and its meaning, from the very first page to the very last. It\u2019s a very, very wet book.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Is there anything else you’d like to pass on to myself or other readers before\u00a0Eleanor<\/i>\u00a0is released on\u00a0June 27<\/span><\/span>?<\/b><\/p>\n

\n

Eleanor<\/i>\u00a0does come out on\u00a0June 27<\/span><\/span>, after thirteen years of hard work. And I would love it if everyone who reads this would preorder a copy of the book, and support indies like me whenever possible \u2014\u00a0but\u00a0<\/i>I also want to point out that anybody who signs up for my newsletter in the very near future is going to get a free advance copy of the (Editor’s note: You can join Jason’s newsletter,\u00a0The Movement<\/em>,\u00a0here<\/span><\/a><\/span>. Also, you can pre-order a copy of Eleanor <\/i>here<\/span><\/a><\/span>.)<\/strong> The most important thing to me is that this story has a fighting chance to be read by as many people as possible, so I\u2019ll be giving it away to a lot of readers\u2026 and hoping that they love it enough to share it with others.<\/p>\n

Also, I hope it\u2019s good, and that people really enjoy it!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently, I had the opportunity to ask\u00a0Jason Gurley\u00a0a few questions about his\u00a0upcoming release Eleanor.\u00a0Jason is the\u00a0author of the\u00a0bestselling novel\u00a0Greatfall and designer of covers for other bestsellers like Hugh Howey, Russell Blake, Michael Bunker, Ernie Lindsey, and Matthew Mather, among others. Personally, I’m stoked for the release of Jason’s latest novel. If you haven’t had a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":83,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_vp_format_video_url":"","_vp_image_focal_point":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5,12,7],"class_list":["post-82","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-author-interview","tag-author-interview-2","tag-jason-gurley","tag-science-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthonyjmelchiorri.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthonyjmelchiorri.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthonyjmelchiorri.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyjmelchiorri.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyjmelchiorri.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=82"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyjmelchiorri.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyjmelchiorri.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/83"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/anthonyjmelchiorri.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=82"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyjmelchiorri.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=82"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/anthonyjmelchiorri.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=82"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}