the Tommy|Zor era

I find it an ironic tale, mostly. Years ago I was popular and had a huge following. I could’ve released a book and actually done quite well for myself. Nowadays, I just have a small, cult following, and just now do I have a book ready(ish) for all of you. In the grand scheme of things, it works out. I couldn’t've written anything like this years ago, nor did I have the work ethic or motivation do it as it should be.

So here I am, sitting here with my dick in my hand keyboard on my desk, pouring out my creativity and giving all of you a preview. A sign of things to come, because it’s been a long time coming. Some of you have been waiting for over 5 years now. (And please, no Regret Zero jokes, that project is gone forever.) But first, a little background…

Riteing Bookz, Yo

I’ve been writing since I got my first Smith Corona at a garage sale. I then upgraded to a 386SX with WordPerfect 5.1 that my sister bought for school. That blue screen, that gray text, that flashing cursor. Suffice it to say, it gave me serious wood. I’ve changed my equipment a million times since then, but the feeling has never changed.

Between 1995 and 2000, I wrote 18 books, mostly short novellas, but 2 long-enough-to-be-a-published-novel ones (They’re all shitty and terrible and you’ll never get to see a single word of them). In 2000, I wrote my last book. I went years without writing a single creative word. In 2004, I began writing my old website, and that really got me going. I kept me sharp, creative, focused, but never… satisfied.

Enter 2009. With significant changes in my life (then pending), I decided to take my dream more seriously. I wrote a book. A whole book. In 21 days. It was almost the book I always wanted to write, but I was still happy with it. A day after writing it, I woke up At 6am. I wrote a sequel – in 11 days. This one was glorious, one of the high points of my creative process. It was so infinitely superior to its predecessor that it changed the way I think about my writing altogether. With this second book in tow, I went back to modify the first book to make it better. I’m still working on that, and it’s been over 8 months at doing that.

So, yeah, two complete novels, both of which I’m happy with at this point. My life took another drastic change, and all of a sudden I found myself with a different thought process altogether. I began writing the third book in the series, but slowly. I got a quarter of it done, and stopped. Something was wrong, something felt out out whack, and the last thing I wanted was to force myself to write something and do a shitty job. Life kept changing, my mind kept going mental, and then one day, it all clicked. In merely 10 extra days, I finished the third book. It was a beast. 100,00 words, the finale to the trilogy, and a perfect ending. With no hesitation I would say it’s my best work, and exactly the type of thing I want to show the entire world. So here I am, three novels complete in one year, all up to my exacting standards. They’ve all been edited, modified, peer-reviewed, re-edited, cut, lenghethed – whatever it took to make the final product the best it could be. And they probably are. So…

Today

With those books finished, I began to focus on polishing and presentation, submission to publication, informational website, etc. During this time, I realized I wasn’t done yet. If these books were for me, in the sense that they were honest and true, then my fans – past, present and future - the fans of “Tommy v2″ – deserved something just for them. Would my fans really accept a trilogy – that although wonderful – is aimed for, and marketed to 22-32 year old women? “What the fuck is this shit?!” is what some of them would say. “This isn’t fucking Tommy v2, motherfucker!!!” …and they’d be right. They’d be 100% wrong in dismissing them because they are fucking awesome, but some of them would still crave something that they’d be immediately comfortable with: A comedy. Style over substance. Edgy. Abstract. Pretentious bullshit.

Well, ask and you shall receive!

In the same sense that Tommy v2 is my alter ego on the Internet, Thomas Jast is my alter ego as an author. A separate website for my books is coming by Jan 31, 2010, but it’s mostly informational and won’t have a forum or updates or anything like that.

So yeah, about that book for you…

Empathetic

First and foremost, Empathetic is a comedy (it’s also a play on words, as you can see). Then, in order of ingredient amounts, it would also be drama, friendship tale, morality tale, coming-of-age tale, and last but not least – more fucking comedy. It’s funny. It’s an easy ready. It’s stylish, it’s easy-fucking-breezy. People ask me, “Tom, what do you read?” and I always answer “Nothing. Books are fucking boring. No one’s writing what I want to read. They’re all too busy trying to be ‘relevant’ or ‘avant-garde’.”

No one’s having fun anymore. Everyone’s over-reaching. Why can’t I find the book equivalent of hanging out with my friends on a lazy afternoon with beers in hand? The jokes, the drama, the stories, the different personality elements clashing. Why can’t I find that without it being written by some stiff asshole? I can’t find it, so I guess I have to write the fucking thing myself… and I did.

Empathetic is a story of four friends in their late twenties seeking sanity and stability. After they’ve all lost their women in various ways, they join forces to help each other succeed at life. Dating, careers, mental capabity, and other things all come into play as they try to grow up. That’s basically it, but there’s a shitload of hijinx and melodrama that ensues.

This book is Volume III of my Forest City Inexactitudes series, wedged right between Alix Unattached and Arbitrarily Alexandra (more on those another time). There’s mild character crossover between the books which works well if you read the series in order. Empathetic is completely stand-alone, though, but there’s some fine detail in the series that enhance the experience.

So, without further ado, here’s 6-and-a-quarter chapters as a generous preview to all of you. As always, everything is a work in progress, so anything you read may be very different than the final product. Your feedback is welcome and appreciated, since peer review is very much part of the process. Enjoy, assholes. Leave some comments or email me if you find typos or something (it hasn’t been fully proofed yet).

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Merry Christmas, everyone!