Details on the novel.

Hopefully, this blog will address any curiosities one may have about my novel, which is slated to be self-published by June 2011.

Synopsis
After prompted to see a situation for what it is, a callused killer realizes a key aspect of his life wasn't what it seemed. With long repressed emotions and memories now surfacing as the effect, the killer questions if anything he has experienced was how he inferred it at the time. Searching the alcoves of his mind, he finds a desultory puzzle of recollections, which could either lead him to enlightenment or perdition, as he struggles to put the pieces together.

Title
This novel is called "Concealed Weapons." The title serves as a dual-meaning. Due to the literal context of the protagonist being a hired gun, naturally the title refers to his hiding of various weapons to avoid detection from the law. Metaphorically, the memories he is forced to re-face and come to terms with would serve as the concealed weapons against himself. The original title was "On The World's Stage", but after the rough draft the story was given an entirely new ending, and the title no longer matched (all for the better). The name went from that to simply "Concealed," and then quickly to "Concealed Weapons."

Allegory & Influence
I started outlining this book in a more morose period of my life, a few years back, when nothing seemed right; it felt like I'd made every wrong move and was being punished finally. So, the book started off like a pity party, and it shaped up to be very self-indulged - which, everyone who considers what they do an art tends to be self-indulged anyway ;-). While adding more content to the plot and filling in the characters a bit more, it became apparent to me that most (if not all) people hit a point where they question what they've done and how they ended up where they have; sometimes that moment comes as sort of a pre-midlife crisis. That notion gave me the inclination and insight to write the novel as more like a universal statement that no matter what you do it can feel hackneyed after a while, and few people are actually happy with their situation, and everyone has many things they wish they could have handled differently.

Future Projects
After Concealed Weapons in the on the virtual shelf and generating almost no revenue, the next novel I'm working on is called "A Dearly-Won Harmony." It's a dystopian piece about corrupt government. Corrupt government is probably the foundation for any dystopian story, but I feel I have a new spin to it.

Thanks!!!

-Gari