Beyond Redemption by Michael R. Fletcher

As part of my Guest blog series for authors and fellow bloggers I am proud to present our first guest blog spot. Michael R. Fletcher author of Beyond Redemption has been kind enough to write a guest blog post about his wanderings as a author. I hope everyone enjoys his “Ramble” as much as I did. Now we all need to make sure Harper Voyager buys the next two books of the world of Manifest Delusions. So lets all go out and buy his book! I would like to thank Michael R. Fletcher for this opportunity to host his guest blog.

Make sure you check out Beyond Redemption by Michael R. Fletcher and Harper Voyager Books. OUT NOW!

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A Wandering Ramble By Michael R. Fletcher

Back in ’97 I was finishing a college diploma in Audio-Engineering when I joined the goth-metal band, Sex Without Souls. For the next 15+ years I played guitar in SWS and lost my mind and my hearing mixing live bands in an assortment of shitty rock clubs. Sex Without Souls released several albums (one on cassette!) and shot one video. We set things on fire, drank too much, and took nothing seriously. After one show an A&R Rep from a major label handed our agent a card, and we lost it. We did a train-wreck show (the singer and I opened and finished a 26er of Wild Turkey while on stage) and the singer slept in the alley behind the club in nothing but his tights. I kind of remember leaving him there and thinking that was okay. We played illegal fetish clubs, burned the paint off the ceiling and were banished from legitimate venues, and played an outdoor metal festival in Tweed, Ontario. There were three people there including our soundguy.

Yep, we were destined for greatness.

The world moved on and eventually so did we. Seeing as I somehow hadn’t become a rock star, I decided upon a more realistic goal: I would become a writer. How hard could it be?

Six years later, in June of 2014, Harper Voyager bought my novel, Beyond Redemption. It was a dream come true. I saw it as my ‘foot in the door’ to the world of publishing. I’d wanted to write books for as long as I could remember and this seemed like my chance to maybe make a go of it. Once the final revisions were okayed by the publisher I threw myself at writing my next books. Not knowing any better I decided I’d write two books in one year. At first everything looked good. I wrote The All Consuming in six months, and The Mirror’s Truth in three. With three months left for editing I thought I was gold.

But I’d been a little short-sighted.

What about my test readers? They all have jobs and families and let’s face it, it’s not like I pay them for their time. They read my books as fast as they could and got back to me with great feedback. But it took much longer than the zero time I’d allotted on my schedule for that process. Also, their feedback required me to do more work than I’d expected. Being a twit, I’d assumed the feedback would all be, This is great, don’t touch it.

I also learned some valuable lessons. Writing two books back to back is great fun; editing two books back to back is not. I burned myself out, lost focus, and spiralled into depression. Not the kind of depression requiring medical help, but rather the kind requiring you to pull your head out of your own ass and realize nothing has changed, you still have work to do, and you’d best get to it. Luckily I’ve had to pull my head outa my ass so many times I’m getting good at it.

I still don’t know what the fate will be of the two books I wrote; Harper Voyager hasn’t yet seen the manuscripts as I’m still editing. What’s more, I’m not even sure what I’ll do with the lessons learned.

I can’t edit a book immediately after writing it. I need time and distance, perspective. I need to fall out of love with the book before I can murder it with the kind of soulless wanton destruction required to produce a manuscript that’s not too puke-inducing.

So when I finish writing a book, what do I do? Well, I start writing another book! Before long I’m looking at two books in need of editing. Maybe I can do something like this…

Write book A.

Write book B.

Edit book A.

Write book C.

Edit book B.

Write book D.

And so on.

Of course all of this assumes someone actually wants to buy any of these. I’m probably getting ahead of myself.

What was I talking about anyway?

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About the book:

Beyond Redemption by Michael R. Fletcher

Paperback: 512 pages

512 pages Publisher: Harper Voyager (June 16, 2015)

Harper Voyager (June 16, 2015) Language: English

English ISBN-10: 0062387030

0062387030 ISBN-13: 978-0062387035

A darkly imaginative writer in the tradition of Joe Abercrombie, Peter V. Brett, and Neil Gaiman conjures a gritty mind-bending fantasy, set in a world where delusion becomes reality . . . and the fulfillment of humanity’s desires may well prove to be its undoing.

When belief defines reality, those with the strongest convictions—the crazy, the obsessive, the delusional—have the power to shape the world.

And someone is just mad enough to believe he can create a god . . .

Violent and dark, the world is filled with the Geistrekranken—men and women whose delusions manifest. Sustained by their own belief—and the beliefs of those around them—they can manipulate their surroundings. For the High Priest Konig, that means creating order out of the chaos in his city-state, leading his believers to focus on one thing: helping a young man, Morgen, ascend to become a god. A god they can control.

Trouble is, there are many who would see a god in their thrall, including the High Priest’s own doppelgangers, a Slaver no one can resist, and three slaves led by possibly the only sane man left.

As these forces converge on the boy, there’s one more obstacle: time is running out. Because as the delusions become more powerful, the also become harder to control. The fate of the Geistrekranken is to inevitably find oneself in the Afterdeath. The question, then, is:

Who will rule there?

About the author:

Michael R. Fletcher is a science fiction and fantasy author. His novel, Beyond Redemption, a work of dark fantasy and rampant delusion, is being published by HARPER Voyager and is slated for release June 16th, 2015. His début novel, 88, a cyberpunk tale about harvesting children for their brains, was released by Five Rivers Publishing in 2013. 88 is available from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and elsewhere. The next two Manifest Delusions novels, THE ALL CONSUMING, and WHEN FAR-GONE DEAD RETURN are currently in various stages of editing while Michael tries to be the best husband and dad he can be. Michael is represented by Cameron McClure of the Donald Maass Literary Agency.