What is your book about? When I wrote my first novel Virgin Gloves I had a lot of trouble answering this simple question. When an author sits down to write a story they can sometimes forget that it will appeal to a particular audience, even if that audience has not yet been identified. Just because Virgin Gloves took place in the world of professional prizefighting didn't mean that fighters or fight fans would be the audience. In fact, most of the people who read the book turned out to be sports fans who enjoy inspirational stories.
During the year that I promoted that book I received a good deal of press. It was reviewed in Boxing Magazines, there were interviews in local newspapers and I appeared on radio shows. However, I always got stumped by that same question: What is the book about? I tried explaining it many different ways focusing on the plot, the characters or the action. Each time I failed to capture the essence of what was being asked.
In writing Twisted Trails 2 I decided to ask myself this question in advance to see if I could answer it. After all, the first Twisted Trails book was pretty straight forward. I wrote it because I wanted to share my love of mountain biking with the world. Having achieved that, what would the second book be about? It took some mulling over but half way through editing I found my answer.
Twisted Trails 2 is about the Future
I won't get into the details right now but what I can say is that I wanted to use storytelling to present a vision for the future of cycling. It has not been an easy task but it was worthy of an honest effort. My hope is that I can present a positive yet plausible image of what the future holds for all cyclists. With a vision to guide us, we can collectively make strides towards it. Hopefully the ideas in Twisted Trails 2 will be adopted by other creative people (Bike builders, tech gurus, engineers) who might transform parts of this dream into reality.
Granted it is just a collection of short stories sewed together with a driving narrative but it's the inspiration that matters. Visionaries strive to create solutions to the problems we have and avoid the ones we might be heading towards. I want to be a part of that process. That is what this book is about.
Stay tuned to this blog for more updates.
Twisted Trails 2 is coming Oct 1st
