Spero

Please visit www.birthpangs.com/cart to buy Spero

(and Fidelis) from the author or from Amazon.com

Fidelis, my first book, is Latin for faithfulness.  The second book, Spero, is Latin for hope.  Spero is an exploration of what hope is and why we need it.  It is an exploration of what things are good to put our hope in and what things are bad to put our hope in.  In the fictionalized America of the future portrayed in the Birth Pangs series, all of the things that people have traditionally put their hope in have been brought low.  There are no government agencies, no schools, and not even churches.  In the face of daily perils, people have to figure out how where they are going to place their hope.

It is interesting to me that the political candidate running on ‘hope’ is also running on ‘change.’  I think this illustrates the root of the problem.  The best place to put your ‘hope’ is where it won’t shift beneath your feet.  Also, we need to be clear about what things we hope to overcome.  Nearly all of our systems and institutions are geared to address certain day to day realities that are important but not, I’m afraid, ultimate.  There is one problem that surpasses them all: death.

Spero is about people- even good people- putting their hope in lesser means to tackle lesser problems and being confronted with the consequences of that approach.  Spero is about being confronted with our chief problem and challenged to consider what possible solutions there might be to that problem… and whether any of these are within our control, or obtainable by our own effort.

I am very pleased to announce that book 2 in the Birth Pangs series, Spero, will be released in hard cover on October 20th, 2008.  The soft cover will be released around Thanksgiving, 2008.

I am very pleased to make available an extended excerpt of Spero.  You may download it below.  Feel free to pass it along and share it!

Here is the extended excerpt of Spero:

Unfortunately, progress on writing book 2 hasn’t been what I would have liked.  I focused November-December on selling book 1 rather than writing book 2, but I thought January would have seen me writing more.  Circumstances are what they are.  However, finally fed up with circumstances and just brimming with writing desire, this weekend I sat down and blocked out the world and wrote twenty, that’s right, 20 pages, in about a 4-5 hour timespan.  That is 20 pages single spaced.  That is 16,000 words.

You might wonder how that is possible.  Well, while it is true that I hoped to write in January, it isn’t wasted time.  I did plenty of reading for research purposes and contemplated the story frequently, so writing it was merely recording what had been imagined earlier.

Anyway, it is clear that generally speaking, writing during the day is just going to be impossible.  Hence, today I was up at 5 a.m. and I knocked out another 4 pages or so before the kids got up.  (On account of the kids, this blog post has taken more than thirty minutes to compose).  How often I’ll be able to do that is open to debate, on account of the fact that the kids have been getting up three, four, and even five times a night.  Needless to say, I’m often pretty tired and getting up early in that state does not put me in a writing mood.

However, if I can block out the time, at say 5-10 pages in a sitting (which is what I was able to do with Fidelis), I can have the text completed by the end of February and there is still hope for a summer release.  We’ll see.

In other news, I am expecting to be featured in a national print mag in March.  This will be a great opportunity for me.  As far as I know, this is a done deal, but I have had enough ‘done deals’ fall through that for now I want to wait before naming names.

I’m not sure where the podcast stands. I have audio enough to complete chapter 1 and distribute it but I don’t know where the rest of the book is.  When I know more, I’ll let you all know. I know I have some subscribers.

And about the role playing game… the same circumstances that keep me from writing keep me from engaging in the game.  I did clear out a million and a half abandoned dwellings.  I still have lots of ideas for the game, though.

Getting book 2 out is the latest top priority, however.

That’s all for now.

Book 1 is almost ready to be re-released in hard cover and I’m very excited about it.  The design of the cover is sharp, and there will be some very nice surprises associated with it.  As soon as I can make it public, I will.  The cover is the chief reason why I have not yet released the introduction of book 2, as well.  Book 2 is not half way finished, but in my head it is 3/4 of the way finished, so I feel confident in releasing the intro to book 1.  Also forthcoming will be a Christmas promotion associated with the release of book 1 in hard cover, reviving of the birth pangs RPG, and an audio book, and maybe even an e-book!  So, lots to look at coming up!  As soon as I can I will make all this known.  Think October 15this.

There is quite of stuff going on right now in the world of A.R. Horvath.  To begin with, we recently had a baby girl.  That’s great, but she’s got Spina Bifida.  So, it has been a drain on time and resources traveling to hospitals and what not.  Along with that, we’ve been turning our 1 bedroom house into a 4 bedroom house.  (We have four kids)  Only in the last week have I got back into the house and only yesterday did I get the new office online.  I still have a great many projects around the house before I can settle in to start up book 2. (Birth Pangs will be 7 books total, if you didn’t know).

That all said, much of book 2 is done- inside my head.  That’s the way it went down with book 1 as well.  It went through my brain for weeks and weeks and then I finally got the opportunity to sit down and write and it all just spills out. This is in fact why I do have the first 20 pages or so of book 2 already done.  It was in my head and driving me NUTS so I had to sit down and write it.  It’s killing me not to write the rest but I simply must get these projects done.

I do have a big Birth Pangs related event coming up.  I will be at Cornerstone Music festival (here:  http://cornerstonefestival.com/ ) promoting my book as well as some of the Christian ministry activities that I am involved in.  It’s not the sort of thing that someone just ‘happens’ to be in town for, so despite the fact that there will be close to 40,000 folks running around, it’s not the kind of thing that a myspacer is likely to wander into.  That said, if you ARE a c-stoner, feel free to look me up among the hundreds of booths!

C-stone will be from June 25th to July 1st ish.  It is in July that I plan on sitting down to write book 2 and hope to be done by November… if I succeed, be looking for a Spring release!  Kudos to anyone that can guess the name of book 2… you should be able to figure it out from hints and details in the book.

Anyone that has already read book 1 is welcome to read the first pages of book 2.  Just let me know- authorATbirthpangs.com.