I am incredibly excited to announce the release of my first novel, The Crashing of Heaven and Hell. It’s a quick and adventurous read into this colorful and imaginative world where there are aliens, monsters, and mystical creatures and everyone is cool with it. To compare it, it’s like a cross between American Gods and The Hitchers Guide to the Galaxy. You can buy the book in Paperback via Amazon, Hardback via Lulu, and as an exclusive eBook for Kindle. If you don’t own a physical Kindle, there are Kindle reading apps for the iPhone and Android. If you do own a kindle and an Amazon Prime membership, the ebook is available to borrow for free. Go buy your copy and like the book on Facebook. I’ll post announcements if the book goes on sale or when I’ll be doing book signings.

Now that all of that information has been said, I’m going to share a bit of the book’s development history. The story started out as a short story, which I first started writing back on October 19, 2006 (according to when I created the Word document). The story was inspired by the song, “Something of an End” by My Brightest Diamond. I discovered this band and song when I was listening to NRP back in college. I was really hooked on it. The lyrics about heaven and hell crashing down created this powerful picture to me and so I wrote a rather literal story, while the song was more symbolical, about Heaven and Hell crashing down on the planet. I created this Spotify playlist of the songs that helped inspire the novel.

Over time, the short story grew into a novel, going through several major rewrites along the way. Each revision had its own story, motivation, and sparks of ideas. The first few versions, the narrator was all over the place and disorganized. Based on feedback, the story straightened out and on the final versions, became deep with fleshed out characters and motivations.

I am so proud of the book. To finally release it, it feels natural. I was disappointed in myself it took me this long after high school to release a novel. I didn’t go to my ten-year high school reunion because I wasn’t as accomplished as I thought I would be after high school. Reality is hard, but I grew so much in that time and if I would’ve released anything earlier, it would not have been great. It’s best to give projects time to mature instead of releasing them when they’re raw.

The book is dedicated to My Brightest Diamond. Thank you.

I hope you enjoy the book and tell all of your friends about it. I will be doing my best now to spread the word while working on my next big project. I love creating things. Please help spread the word about the time Heaven and Hell came crashing down.