Shadows, Shells, and Spain by John Meyer (VBT, guest post, excerpt, and GIVEAWAY) GFT

It is my pleasure to share a guest post by author John Meyer, who shares his answer to the question...

 

ELF:  What do you think is the strongest attraction about the genre you like to write in?


JM:  I initially wanted to combine my love of writing with my love of traveling. Naturally, I first explored writing non-fiction travel books. However, they never quite satisfied me. They were always (simple) stories about a man or a woman climbing a mountain, or walking through a jungle, or building a country home in a place like Tuscany. While those are all valid pursuits, I found that they often lacked much human drama or interesting characters. (Not always true but I think you get my point…) The narrator either accomplished their task – or they didn’t. That’s it.

So I wanted to utilize my favorite elements of a travel book and add more or a personal adventure—even a fictional one. That’s when I came up with my concept for something I called a fictional travel memoir. The fun part was that I would travel to these foreign countries and then use the characters I met, the experiences I had, and the challenges I faced to create a fictional story far greater than my own journey.

So the immediate attraction for my newly chosen genre was that I get to extensively travel. I simply can't write my books without first participating in the same events that my main character does. In the first book, I spent two weeks in Siena, Italy to witness their Palio festival. In my second book, I had to run with the bulls in Pamplona, Spain a couple of times in order to understand its thrill and ultimate danger. And in my third book, I had to walk across Spain in order to write about the physically exhausting but mind-altering Spanish Camino.

It's also important for me that the story takes place in real time. If my trip takes 22 days, the main character's trip takes 22 days. Because the one theme that always pervades my books is that the adventures are entirely truthful and possible. The story is fictional but the traveling part is authentic. Those descriptive passages are always true…to me. And I want you to experience them too. Maybe your conclusions would be completely different from mine but that's the wonderful mystery of traveling. However, the only way I can competently express my feelings for the exotic locations that are featured in my books are through my main character.
The journey also informs me of my minor characters who I meet along the way and, of course, that same adventure also provides me with the rich history and amusing anecdotes I want to convey to my readers.
So in the month of June 2014, I walked the Spanish Camino from Pamplona to Santiago de Compostela. The adventure had everything I needed to write my new book, Shadows, Shells, and Spain. I had the rich history of the Camino; I uncovered interesting anecdotes in every town; and I met wonderful characters from around the world. All I needed to do was add my story…

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John Meyer writes fictional travel memoirs—unique adventure stories that combine fun facts of history with present-day drama and humor—always revolving around a fictitious love story and always based on his own thrilling journeys. His previous publication, Bullets, Butterflies, and Italy, was selected as a November Best Book by Chatelaine magazine. Meyer is also the studio writer for Entertainment Tonight Canada and has been ever since the popular daily show launched back in 2005.

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Shadows, Shells, and Spain

by John Meyer

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GENRE:   Travel fiction

BLURB:

John Meyer's "Shadows, Shells, and Spain" is a thrilling new adventure where a husband desperately searches for his missing wife along the ancient Camino trail across northern Spain. It’s also a bold, new take on a modern-day pilgrimage that feeds the mind and soul of every character while testing the limits of their bodies... and their comfort zones.

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EXCERPT

  

 “Honestly, Jamie. She says one thing one minute, then completely changes her mind the next. Am I supposed to be psychic or something?”

“Is this that dog food client again?”

“No. Mother.” Then, after a beat, “I mean, I’m going to lose my mind any day now, I swear. She never likes any of my ideas, and I’m the one who’s always getting screwed.”

“Your mother?”

“No, dog food.”

Because of my literary failures and her daily creative battles, our conversations in the bedroom were rarely about our relationship and usually about our preoccupations.

“Jamie, would you ever buy a lipstick for men?”

“Never . . . Listen, Pam, do you think it would hurt a lot if I killed you with a shovel?”

“Yeah, probably . . . So, tell me, what’s the first thing that comes to mind when I say the words ‘fish taco’?”

“Fish with Spanish accents . . . Do you know where someone can buy arsenic? Do you think they have a store for that?”

“Walmart probably has a whole aisle for that. Honestly, Jamie, these clients really expect me to pull rabbits out of my ass every time I see them.”

“If you could pull rabbits out of your ass, we could hit the road and make some serious, serious money.”

“You’d pay serious, serious money to see me pull rabbits out of my ass?”

“Do you take credit cards?”

Buy links:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

To get your own paperback or ebook copies from the author visit his website

(also available at Amazon.ca, Amazon.com, Kobo, Nook, Apple, and other ebook providers).

To learn more about the Camino, click here.

 

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

John Meyer writes fictional travel memoirs—unique adventure stories that combine fun facts of history with present-day drama and humor—always revolving around a fictitious love story and always based on his own thrilling journeys. His previous publication, Bullets, Butterflies, and Italy, was selected as a November Best Book by Chatelaine magazine. Meyer is also the studio writer for Entertainment Tonight Canada and has been ever since the popular daily show launched back in 2005.

Website

Twitter

Facebook

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