Welcome to Stephen King!

Ramblings…..

I’d sincerely like to thank Jennifer for letting me ramble about writing, the future, time travel, love, and oh-oh …. Genetic Modification of major food sources (that’s a mouthful). The 18^thof July saw the release of my sixth book: Thirty-Three Days. I will try not to be boring, so if I see your eyes glaze over, it’s over – I promise.

All my life I wanted to write, and tell stories. For most of it I made excuses not to do so. That makes me a late bloomer. There are two fabulous things about being an author, for me. Number 1: the inborn need to tell a story, and if I can entertain a reader for a while; take them out of their day to day lives and take them to a place inside my imagination, well that’s just about heaven. Number 2: When someone does read one of my books, and takes the time to post a review, send me an email, or stop me at a party to talk about the characters I’ve created for their enjoyment…… Well, I tell you, there ain’t enough money in the world to buy that feeling. Is that egotistical? Probably.

TTD, as I affectionately call it, came to me in a dream. Now that was highly unusual for two reasons, firstly, I don’t dream, and if I do I rarely remember them. When I do they are nonsense. But I woke up in a state of euphoria having dreamt of Jenny, a lonely 68 year old lecturer in environmental studies who is approached by a man who says he is from the future. He is the sixth in a line of people who played leapfrog in time. They took an incredible leap of faith in the word of a stranger and took a drug to send their consciousness back in turn. Why? To meet her and convince her to do the same, because she can save the future of mankind from an all consuming Blight which is ravaging all plant life two hundred years in the future.

If she agrees, she must become a ‘Leaper’, take the drug he concocted, and wake up thirty three years younger. Once there she has just thirty-three days to convince a young micro-biologist not to release his genetically modified strain of wheat, which harbors the deadly blight in its gene structure.

But that is just the start of her problems…….In the past, she falls in love for the first time in sixty-eight years with his father, and she must convince them both of her sincerity before her consciousness goes back to the future, leaving her young self with no memory of the preceding time period. If she fails, the men in the future will send an assassin and she is torn between saving the planet, or the man she loves.

So, once I had that dream, I had to write it and I’ve never had such fun. Time paradoxes have always fascinated me; yes I’m a long standing Doctor Who fan. And, I also gave Jenny the chance to influence a team of soccer players, who haven’t won a championship in many years. But, with her help, maybe, just maybe, they can pull of a miracle win.

The most amazing thing to me about this book, and I am not ashamed to admit it, is there are three places in the story, that even after sixty or seventy read throughs; I choke up with emotion when I read them. Now bearing in mind I wrote the thing, and know what’s happening next, that blows me away, and my wife too when she looks up to see me sobbing over my laptop. She just raises her eyes and goes back to the TV show she is watching.

In all of my books, no matter how deadly, or thrilling the storyline, there is always a love story at its core. I believe love is an intrinsic part of our lives, and further, that love, and family are why we are here in the first place. Anything else you come by is a bonus. The song title sums it up best: Love is all around us (The Troggs). We either want it, have it, or just lost it and want it back. We love our children, good food, a piece of art….need I go on? I would venture to suggest, the word LOVE is the most used one we have….next to maybe: THE.

Now its time to talk seriously, please don’t nod off now. It’s the dreaded subject: Genetic Modification of food sources. This is the critical core of TTD plotline. There is a saying Jenny uses to Iaine on their first date: The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. How many times have we seen people trying to do good, but inadvertently doing bad and causing a tsunami of destruction.  Does Thalidomide ring any bells? Diet drinks using synthetic ingredients which we are now told causes health problems, trust me the list in endless. Whenever Man dabbles in Nature it seems to go poorly. When I was researching for this book, I found lots, and LOTS of similar cases. Here in Western Australia a while back, one farmer was suing his neighbor farmer because he lost his organic certification. That was because the genetically modified strain of Canola had spread from one farm to the other and contaminated, not just his crops, but the very ground it grew in. 

Jenny also says to Iaine: You can start a bushfire with a match, and the fire rages on when you blow the match out. Some things we do to our planet are irreversible. I read we are losing 200 billion tons of ice a year from the polar regions, due to global warming. Did you know, according to the same article, that if, or should I say when, they completely melt; the sea level will rise 60 meters. Where will we be living then?

So Jenny has a chance so save every living person in the future by going back in time to stop an event that will become catastrophic, before it happens. Can she succeed? And can she somehow find a way to keep the love that took her sixty eight years to find? Oh, and can she help that soccer team win the championship?

Time for me to go, one or two of you are nodding off, I can see. Thanks Jennifer, and thank you for reading my ramblings.

The other, less famous, (Australian) Stephen King 

Blurb:

Jenny is a lonely university lecturer who's consciousness has traveled back in time to her younger body to try to save the future of the world. A young microbiologist is going to release a genetically modified wheat that will mutate and ultimately destroy all plant life, leaving nothing but barren windswept dust bowls. In the past, Jenny finds a love that has been missing from her life; the kind that comes just once in a lifetime. But Jenny can only stay in that time period for thirty-three days. Meanwhile, in the future, fearful Jenny will fail, plans are made to send another back in time--an assassin. How can she choose between saving the man she loves or saving the future?

Links:

Facebook is @stephenbkingauthor

Twitter is @StephenBKing1

Website is www.stephen-b-king.com

Buy link for TTD: http://a.co/3lxTDJj