L.E. Howel's Blog: News

Forgotten Gifts

Montgomery Ward, F.W. Woolworth, S.S. Kresge, Kauffman’s, G.C. Murphy and Co., Bintz Bros. Inc., Hill’s Department Store, Sears and Roebuck, Gimbels…

(To my British friends I suppose names like Debenhams, British Home Stores, the Co-Op, Woolworth’s and C & A would all be more familiar, but the result has been the same in recent years as your town centers have all declined to mere havens for Poundland and charity shops)

I could go on. The list is almost endless, and your reaction to it would betray your age. To the young the names of these long closed-down shops of yesteryear are hollow, meaningless, barely remembered, if ever known at all. As remote and forgotten as the ancient wonders of the world: The Colossus of Rhodes, the Great Pyramid at Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, and the great American department store.

But to those who knew them, they were so much more. They were the Christmas expeditions in the family station wagon, all bustle and fun, store to store. And the breathless ride home with the mysterious packages all tied up neatly with string.

They were the festive lights hung with care, and the special window displays with Christmas scenes. Toys in the aisles and cotton-ball snow, so inviting that your parents had to hold you back from jumping in.

They were Santa and his elves, and a grotto real enough to convince you that you had truly visited the North Pole.

These weren’t places where you were simply expected to spend your money and leave. They were an experience. The staff served you. The customer was always right, and these were your neighbors. It was a place where you might see a friend or visit the in-store café for treat or a meal.

These were our main street department stores. They are gone now, and if we knew what we had lost, we might miss them more.

Now, you probably might say that I view the past with a layer of nostalgia thicker than the icing on a Pop Tart, and you’d probably be right, but as we view our world today, we must know that something has been lost.

The owners of these stores were not saints, and their front door was not the gate to heaven, but there was something lost.

Oh, they made money. Indeed, that was the point. But they loved much more than that. They loved the civility of service, the uniqueness of their stores, and the satisfaction of their customers.

The downtown department stores died in the face of the sterile convenience of the shopping mall. But now it seems that, ironically, it is the malls’ turn to die. There is always something more convenient. The circle of life.

Now our towns are left with the starkly functional mega chains. Stores that look the same wherever you go. Branded cookie cutter templates, created for your shopping convenience. But where is the uniqueness? Where is the flavor? And with bigger and bigger companies facing less and less competition, where is the choice?

And then there’s internet shopping. The internet has crept in to every aspect of our lives, and the real world around us has suffered. The binary language of computer coding is expressed all in 1’s and 0’s, but in the final equation the internet sometimes seems to bring more zeroes than ones.

Are Montgomery Ward and all of those other closed down department stores trying to warn us of something deeper, something more fundamental that has gone wrong, a danger that won’t merely close our stores, but will impoverish us all in far deeper ways?

We shop only online, while our local stores close. We text, and text, and text, but do we ever talk. Fantasy Facebook lives dance before our eyes like sugar plum fairies, while our own reality around us goes neglected.

Our civility, our sense of community, and our mutual respect got lost somewhere on the comments section of our favorite news website.

The internet has helped us in so many ways, but it’s all about balance. If you want Polish blood sausage, Indian curry, or British bubble and squeak, you can get it.

At almost any time we can talk with those we love, however distant they may be. There are so many ways to communicate. We have never been more connected, nor have we ever been less connected as we cast fleeting glances at one another over the tops of our phones, and our laptops, and our tablets.

Maybe it’s time to put the devices down and take a look at the people and the world around us. The internet is a great thing, but perhaps more often we should spend our time and our money in the world around us.

William Shakespeare once said,

If you prick us, do we not bleed?
If you tickle us, do we not laugh?
And if it is Christmas, do we not shop?

…or something like that

This is a human instinct, the kind instinct of giving demonstrated by the wise men on that first Christmas so many years ago. The desire to give gifts to those we love. This is the reflection of the divine that we celebrate at this time of year. The love to give his only begotten son.

As you check your Christmas list this year remember, your best gift is the most valued of all, your time and your love.

Merry Christmas!

A first cover reveal for Fallout: Planetfall Book III. Stay tuned for future updates.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9ME-...

I am currently releasing an Audiobook version of Planetfall one chapter at a time on YouTube.

Please check it out through the link and like and subscribe if you would like to keep up to date with the new chapters as they are released.

You should never go back.

Experience had taught them that, but like a planet with its own gravity, the past wouldn't let them go.

Seeking a future in the broken dreams of the past, Major Birch and his crew discover that dreams can't be fixed when they become nightmares.

Fallback

Coming 2016

The cover for Fallback: Planetfall Book II is almost complete. Artist Malcolm McClinton (who also designed Planetfall’s cover) has done a great job again! Watch this space for an early cover reveal and perhaps a few hints about what comes next for Major Thomas Birch and his crew.

Fallback- Coming 2016

Planetfall has reached 1,000 sales! I don’t suppose that would seem like much to many people, but it’s a nice milestone to hit for the first time.

Planetfall is currently going through a cover redesign and I am in the early stages of negotiating for cover art for Planetfall Book II. I’m still working toward a release date in early 2016 for the second book.

Thanks again everyone for your support!



Not quite finished yet (needs a lot of work on the font) but a work-in-progress version of Planetfall's new cover.

What is your name?

Hi, my name is L.E. Howel.


Where are you from?

When I was growing up the question, “Where are you from?” was one I always dreaded. Depending on my mood I would answer either with a terse, “It’s complicated,” or, on better days, I would give them a choice. “Do you want the long version or the short version?” Most people opted for the short version.

I suppose this is the “medium sized” version.

I have a rather trans-Atlantic background. My father was from a small sharecropping farm in Arkansas and wanted to see the world, so he joined the Air Force. In the early 1960’s he was based in England and met and married my mother there.

With an American father and a British mother we rarely settled in one place for very long. Even after my father had left the military, my family moved often. It seems that my parents had a great capacity for nostalgia for whichever country they weren’t living in at the time. When they were in Britain they missed America, and when they were in America they missed Britain. As a result we changed sides of the ocean a few times.

I was born in Britain but have spent half my life in both countries. I currently have resided in the United States for quite a few years, but I still value the experience of my trans-Atlantic upbringing.


What genre are you in?

Mostly science fiction, though I don’t have much interest in robots, gizmos or other clichés of the genre. My stories may contain some of these things, but I’m much more interested in the human element. That is my focus. I’m interested in the way we as people adapt to changes in our society and it’s interesting to speculate where we might go from where we are today. The settings of my stories may be very different from the world we live in, and the situations may be exciting and dangerous, but you should be able to recognize the people there as real humans, just like us.


Please list your books and years of publication.

Planetfall is my first published work and went into print this year. I have worked on it off-and-on for many years. I started it when I was just nineteen years old. It has changed as I have changed. I believe the story has benefitted from the experiences I’ve had since that time. Hopefully my next book will take far less time to complete!


Why are you an author?

That’s a good question. I suppose primarily it’s because I want to say something. If I’m going to write 125,000 words I feel like I should be saying something. It doesn’t have to be big, or political, or anything like that, but I do want to say something real, something that we can relate to. I want to make people think.

I know the advice to authors these days is to write with your target audience in mind, to write what you think people will want to read. I suppose that makes business sense, but I’m afraid I couldn’t bring myself to write another YA vampire/romance/dystopian society story. There are many who do that well. I could not be one of them. I have to write what feels right to me. I am an author who has to write from my own vision, not from what I think other people want. My stories are filled with excitement, adventure, and real characters. I hope they will speak to readers far more effectively that if I simply tried to knock off another clone of a genre that seems popular at the time.


What inspires you?

My family inspires me every day. You live your life for your kids and family. You can’t look into the faces of your growing children without feeling inspired to do your best for them.


Where and at what times of the day do you work best?

Like many beginning authors the “day job” rather limits my choices on the times when I can work on my writing. Fortunately I love my day job, but of course it places restrictions on my time. As such I often work well into the night in my deep, dark basement. That isn’t my ideal, but it works.

I suppose if I had my choice I would always be writing in the afternoon in an uncluttered office/library in an isolated farmhouse somewhere in Montana. I would have a wide picture window, and it would always be a cold, cloudless, sunny day outside with the brilliant sunlight streaming through at just the right angle to pleasantly illuminate the room, but not enough to put a glare on my computer screen. Of course that’s the dream. For now I have to settle for the deep, dark basement in the dead of night.


Who is your target audience?

Uh-oh, we’re back to that target audience question again! I suppose in a way I am my own target audience, as I write what I would like to read but can rarely find. I guess that sounds a little crazy. Selling books to myself hardly sounds like a successful financial venture, but I believe there are enough like-minded people out there to give me a place in the reader’s market.

I love originality. I’ve been disappointed for many years with the amount of repetition there is in literature, movies, and TV. Even as a kid I used to wonder why all the detective shows seemed basically the same and why so many science fiction programs required cute robots and an oh-so-smart kid to tell the adults what to do. If a formula seemed to work people copied it. These days, for example, there is a proliferation of romantic vampires. I am not interested in copying what has worked for others. That is not my idea of finding a target audience.

My target audience would be people of a like mind, people who want something a bit different, something original. My writing is also very much focused on people. I seek to tell stories that are exciting and thought provoking, but most of all I make them about people. We are all people and, deep down, we are interested in other people’s lives and the stories behind them. Because of this I believe my work will have appeal beyond the science-fiction genre.

How do you want your readers to feel as they read your book?

The most important thing is that they feel something. I want readers to indentify with the emotions of the characters and to feel the same excitement, fear, and danger that they do. But I also want them to feel sympathy with them. All of them. Every person has a story, and while we may view one character as good and another as bad, I want the reader to understand that there is a reason for everything. I like the idea of allowing the hero to have flaws and the antagonist to have good points. People are complicated, and the storybook idea of good and evil is often too simple.


What is one piece of advice you would give to aspiring authors?

I have two pieces of advice, but they seem of equal importance to me. Firstly, write what is true. That doesn’t mean you can’t write fiction. It simply means that you write what is true to you. For some that may mean writing the sort of romance fiction that will have a shirtless guy on the cover and end up selling over a hundred thousand copies. If you can really ‘feel’ a story like that then write it- and good for you! I could never write that sort of thing myself, not because I wouldn’t want to, but because it’s just not me.

The temptation as a beginning author is to attempt to write a story that we imagine would be popular and sell well. When I started writing at the age of nineteen I did exactly that. I was miserable. Eventually I learned to write with my own voice, not with the voice I imagined others wanted to hear. Don’t try and fit into a mold- be the mold. Make your own statement and let others copy you!

My second piece of advice is to have a thick skin. Beginning authors get no credit. You are an unknown, and because of that people will read your book in a different way (if they will read it at all!) An established author’s name brings preconceptions. The fact that they are successful means that readers give them the benefit of the doubt. They assume they know how to write. The aspiring writer gets no such credit. As such you can expect a lot of nitpicking and rejection early on. Persist, don’t give up.


Share one thing about yourself that you want your readers to know?

That’s a little tricky. I suppose the one thing I can think of is that I have the paradoxical pleasure of being a dyslexic writer. When I was six my special education evaluators told my parents that they should guide me into a profession that involved the use of my hands, since my academic capabilities were judged to be extremely limited. Thankfully my parents didn’t tell me that until many years later. As useless as I am with tools, I’m glad that my mind did eventually start to function, or my chances at making a living would have been very slim!

The conclusion of all this, of course, is to never give up. Growing up I had some encouragers lifting me up, and many other detractors pushing me down. I am thankful for those who believed in me and helped me along the way. I want to encourage all of those with learning difficulties to keep trying. I also want to remind every one of us to be an encourager who lifts others up.


Are you working on a sequel to Planetfall?

Yes, Planetfall is part of a trilogy and I am working on the second part. I have a number of other book ideas apart from the trilogy buzzing around in my head too, but I feel the need to push Planetfall on to its conclusion before moving on to other projects.


Do you plan on writing for other genres or are you going to stay with Science-Fiction?

In some ways I already feel a little out of the Science-Fiction mold. My stories aren’t so much about the future as they are about people who happen to live in the future. I must admit that most of my story ideas right now do deal with the future in some form or another, so from that perspective I guess it looks like Science-Fiction will continue to be the category that would best describe my work.

I do find the future a fascinating topic. It is also very liberating for the writer. We can speculate and write about the world as it might one day be. We can discuss topics that are relevant for today, but in an alien setting. I personally feel we can learn a lot more about ourselves when we look at others. We see our own faults more clearly in them. I guess that’s why I will be sticking with the future as a setting for now.


Congratulations on publishing your first book! How do you balance writing and marketing?

Ah, there’s a question! I don’t suppose many new authors go into writing because they love marketing. No, the first love for every author must be writing. Marketing is the necessary evil. It is necessary! Writing the best book in the world is of no value if no one ever reads it!

I must admit that, where marketing is concerned, I am rather in the process of fumbling around in the dark at present. I am testing out different methods to find out what works best. There is no doubt that the internet age has created the possibility for unknown writers to make a splash without a major publisher, but it’s still not easy. As you would suspect, it takes a lot of work and a little luck to make an impact.

I recently finished writing Planetfall. At the moment my marketing strategy takes about 90 percent of my creative time. That’s a balance that will change when I get more deeply into the second book in the series. At that time I imagine something more like a 60-40 split with writing getting the majority of my time. Marketing always remains important though as we all look to make that big break into the publishing world.


Summing up

Thank you for giving me this time to speak with you. I appreciate the work you do in supporting your fellow authors.

I encourage anyone who wants a different type of Science-Fiction story to check out Planetfall.


L.E. Howel