Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

Monday, June 26, 2017

Typo Squad by Stephen Lomer


Blurb:

Typos are lethal to 98% of the population. Be thankful Typo Squad is on patrol …

Richard Shonnary was a Typo Squad legend. He had a gift for seeking out and destroying errorist cells, and was almost singlehandedly responsible for bringing about the end of errorism. But one night, a single errant bullet fired by his brother prematurely ended his career.

Convinced to come out of self-imposed retirement after five years, Richard unknowingly gives rise to his greatest enemy — Anton Nym. Will he and his new partner be able to stop this latest threat before deadly typos are unleashed upon an unwitting world?

Links:


Bio:
Stephen Lomer has been writing books, novellas, short stories, and scripts for nearly a decade, and one or two of them are actually pretty good. A grammar nerd, Star Trek fan, and other things that chicks dig, Stephen is the creator, owner, and a regular contributor to the website Television Woodshed. He’s a hardcore fan of the Houston Texans, despite living in the Hub of the Universe his whole life, and believes Mark Twain was correct about pretty much everything.

Stephen lives on Boston’s North Shore with his wife, Teresa. Typo Squad is his first novel, a follow-up to the short story collection Stargazer Lilies or Nothing at All. 

Interview
Welcome to my blog Stephen.  Please tell my readers more about your new book and yourself.

Q: Tell us about your latest work—title, genre, etc. — and why you wrote it?

A: My new novel is titled Typo Squad. It’s set in an alternate reality in which typos are lethal to 98% of the population. Those who are not affected by typos join Typo Squad to keep the public safe from the forces of errorism. It’s an action/adventure novel with a healthy dose of humor. And lots of terrible puns.

Q: What draws you to your genre(s)? Why is this type of story compelling to you?

A: This book is very near and dear to my heart; I spent my formative years as a copy editor, and I felt like people in the editorial field could use some heroes. So I created some.

Q: What is your writing process like? Do you map the whole thing out or do you just let it unfold?

A: I have a basic notion of the beginning and end of the novel, but I like to be surprised by the twists and turns that take me from one to the other. Sometimes the beginning and the end have to be completely reworked because of the direction the story takes. Those are my favorites!

Q: What kind of research was involved?

A: Not a whole lot. I knew the subject matter pretty well, so it was just a matter of breathing life into the characters and putting them through their paces.

Q: How much of YOU makes it into your characters?

A: I think I’m always the main character, to some degree. Or a stylized version of me, anyway. Certainly the desire to keep people safe from typos comes straight from me.

Q: How do you balance the need to have time to write with the needs of family, society, etc.?

A: Eh, I’m not a huge fan of society in general, so that helps me find more writing time.

Q: Have there been any authors in particular, that inspired your writing?

A: I truly love JK Rowling, not only for her vivid imagination and her easy, straightforward writing style, but for her obvious love of language and clever use of it.

Q: What other projects are you currently working on or about to start?

A: I have a couple of short stories I wrote for anthologies that should be seeing the light of day sometime this year. In the meanwhile, I’m already a few chapters into Typo Squad II.

Q: What would be the top five, (or 3 or 1 or however many) things you would tell aspiring authors?

A: The number one thing I would tell an aspiring author is not to wait! We only have so much time on this planet, and so many stories to tell, that the sooner you get started, the better. And tied into that, I would remind writers that it’s never too late to start. I published my first novel in my 40s. So can you!

Again, thanks Stephen for taking the time to share your knowledge with us.  We appreciate you and your work.
Good luck with your current and future publications


Guest Post
How I Came to Write Typo Squad

The first question I always hear when I tell people about my novel, Typo Squad, is “Wow, that’s so original! Where did you come up with that idea?”

And I’m happy to answer that question, but first, let me tell you what Typo Squad is about. Otherwise I’m just over here sounding like Charlie Brown’s father. Here’s the blurb:

Typos are lethal to 98% of the population. Be thankful Typo Squad is on patrol …

Richard Shonnary was a Typo Squad legend. He had a gift for seeking out and destroying errorist cells, and was almost singlehandedly responsible for bringing about the end of errorism. But one night, a single errant bullet fired by his brother prematurely ended his career.

Convinced to come out of self-imposed retirement after five years, Richard unknowingly gives rise to his greatest enemy — Anton Nym. Will he and his new partner be able to stop this latest threat before deadly typos are unleashed upon an unwitting world?

So, yeah, I’d say that’s pretty original. But where did it come from? For that, we’ll have to set the Wayback Machine to 1992. (Yes, kids, there used to be years that started with the number 1.)

That was the year that the much-maligned (and deservedly so) hair metal band Faster Pussycat released their swansong album, Whipped!

On that album was a very clever song titled "Big Dictionary." The chorus went thusly:

She just loves me for my big dic … tionary
She loves my vocabulary
Complete from A to Z

She just loves me for my big dic … tionary
Mary Mary’s quite contrary
Thesaurus girl you’ve ever seen

I know. Poetry, right? The pause that they put in between "dic" and "tionary" always made me think that it would make a great character name – Dick Shonnary. And how people might call him Richard.

That bubbled in my subconscious for a very long time, until about five years ago, when I decided to build a story around Richard Shonnary. But it actually wasn't even going to be a novel. Typo Squad was going to be a movie.

I made attempt after attempt to get the screenplay written, but I could never get it off the launch pad. I'd get five or six pages in and the whole thing would just fall apart. It was maddening.

And then a couple of years ago, I found myself sitting at Wolfgang Puck's restaurant in the MGM Grand in Las Vegas with my great friend Chris Whigham and our wives, and he asked me what I was working on, writing-wise. I told him of my frustration with writing the script, and he said four words to me that changed everything: "Write the book first."

So I did. I sat down and I wrote Typo Squad, from beginning to end. It took me a really long time, and you know what? It was shit. That first attempt at Typo Squad was absolute swill. I reluctantly torched the entire thing and started over from scratch.

The second iteration of the book was better than the first, but it still wasn't where it needed to be. So yes, I put attempt number two aside and started it again. This time, though, I was able to take big chunks of what worked from the second version and use them in the third. And the third time was the charm. That's the version that the world can now peruse to its heart’s content.

So I don't find it at all strange to be thanking Chris Whigham for his sage advice that day. (I actually modeled my favorite character in Typo Squad after him in gratitude.) I do find it strange to be thanking Faster Pussycat, but I suppose I must. So thanks, guys. Rock on.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Thank you for your valued comments