Hey Josh,
I’ll give you a shout tomorrow. But in the meantime get rid of the Mr. Bray shit and call me Bob
Thanks again for stopping in tonight!
On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 9:11 PM, <Joshua Gayou> wrote:
Hah! Bob, it is.
On Apr 6, 2017, at 12:35 AM, <Joshua Gayou> wrote:
I just finished reading up the rest of the AMA thread after getting home from work. It went really well, man. I’m glad you went for it.
I also noticed how receptive you were to people contacting you for narration work, which I hadn’t expected (I thought you’d have an agent jockeying all that).
I’m gonna say this right frigging now: if there were any way in hell that you believed in my book enough that you thought it was worth narrating, I’d sign a contract making 100% of the royalties for the audio payable to you. No. Shit.
*Shit! I wish I’d remembered this! Dammit!!!!! But here’ the thing. Josh is a literary ninja. Without my even being aware, Josh somehow bypassed my massive ego and tickled my curiosity bits. See if you can spot what happened….
On Thu, Apr 6, 2017 at 2:57 PM, <R,C, Bray> wrote:
I didn’t plan on being so open either because I take on too much that way and screw myself over in the end. That said I bought Commune last night and read “Jake” before finally passing out. (Here it comes) Oh I’ll definitely be doing it. (Shit! He got me!) No question about it. I won’t take all the royalties though. (Unless I change my mind between now and whenever I can get around to it. Lol! (That mother fucking ninja bitch!) This will be a royalty share deal via ACX; best to protect both of us with all the legal crap involved but we’ll talk about that later – I’m booked far out in advance.
When I get back home later tonight I’ll have a better idea for you. (Please, Mister Josh! Please don’t leave me. I love you! I’ll give YOU al the royalties! Fucking Gayou)
I don’t mean to cut and run, especially having not even answered your first email yet, but I’m getting my daughter from dance in a few then home to eat and all that other home stuff. We’re heading to Texas for a week starting Saturday. So if I don’t get back to that particular email before I leave, I’ll have tons of time on the plane to write a reply and hit send once we land. Sound ok?
What’s easier for me to do in the meantime is jazz you up about how much I dig the shit out of your story this far. (Fucking.) Can’t wait to get to more tonight. (Ninja) You’re one hell of a writer, Josh!! (Deal done)
On Thu, Apr 6, 2017 at 3:37 PM, <Joshua Gayou> wrote:
Holy fucking shit.
Umm, take your time man. I’m not going anywhere.
Holy christ.
(Nothing missing here – he responded twice, three hours apart. Hmmmm. Maybe I’m regaining the upper hand by ignoring him. Perhaps I too am a ninja!)
On Apr 6, 2017, at 6:43 PM, <Joshua Gayou> wrote:
Holy sweet christ. I think I may have had a minor heart attack.
You do realize if this goes down and you actually end up narrating my book you have, in effect, answered my original e-mail, right?
Good god. Look, lemme know if you have any questions about the story. I’ll just say this right now to keep you looped in (if you’re the narrator, you need the back room stuff): Jake is an unreliable narrator. I can give further details if you want but I don’t want to fuck up the bread crumb trail.
I’m going to go breath into a paper sack or something…
On Fri, Apr 7, 2017 at 7:37 AM, <R,C, Bray> wrote:
Oh yeah. I guess I did, didn’t I! LOL!
Yeah, man. Absolutely. I’d love to do the series. (Nope. I’m his bitch.) Seriously, what an original approach to setting up what happened for the reader. As I said, I only read the first section, but it definitely drew me in.
But that’s all I’m going to say for now. As I said, I’ve only read that first part and you’ve got 300+ pages to fuck it all up so….
I’ve attached some of the standard letter type stuff I send out when producing a book via ACX so you know what it is I need and what’s involved in working with me as narrator AND producer.
***blah blah blah – technical stuff and more ass kissing to help out a new writer***
——— We’ll stop here. It gets pretty X-rated ———
As you can clearly see, Josh used to be in awe of me. Now he thinks he’s hot shit on a silver platter, but I’ll always see him as cold diarrhea on a paper plate.
In all seriousness, that conversation led to something we both didn’t anticipate. A massive success in the realm of Independent Publishing thanks to the power of readers/listeners who demand a great story. (That’s you. The person reading this. In case you didn’t pick up on that. Man. I have to explain everything!)
I always say that without an author, I’m just a guy in a booth talking to myself doing silly voices. But with Josh, I became a better narrator and developed a love of how elegant, cathartic, inventive, and hilarious language can truly be when in the hands of a master.
Thank you, Readers. Thank you, Listeners.
Thank you, Josh.
BOOK ONE
1
THE FLARE
“It’s amazing how everything breaks when you don’t have an army of people staring at it.”
This is where Jacob Martin (who we all know as Jake) decides to start his story: at the fall of everything. I would love to have him start further back than this. We would all love to hear it, truly. We have all lived with him now for various periods of time, spanning from several months to at least two years. The realities of day to day life have made him familiar to us, but the fact remains: we know essentially nothing about this man’s origin. I suspect some of the others in our community may have a pool running—the person who comes closest to guessing the details of Jake’s former life takes the pot! This is all contingent, of course, on me wheedling the details from him. Hope springs eternal.
Those of us who have asked him directly about his life well-understand the fruitless nature of this pursuit. No one ever asks a second time or, at least, not often. He’s not mean about it (I don’t think I can even remember him ever raising his voice). He simply favors you with a flat, emotionless stare. I’ve gotten it once, and I can tell you: you don’t want a second helping after the first taste. It is not a look that telegraphs danger; rather, it is a betrayal of Jake’s inner workings. There is clearly something happening inside him during these times. He is also clearly expending a great force of will to hide this. It is unnerving to see a face you associate with familiar warmth assume an aspect of reptilian disregard. Having been a part of the commune for over a year, living close with the people in it, struggling for survival alongside them, and looking along with them to Jake for leadership, the thought that Jake might be more Stranger than Friend is terrible.