I’m excited to note “Tornado Pinball” is already available in paperback, on Kindle and on Nook, with more formats pending. I’d marked Feb. 28 as my launch day, and a cool Storm Seekers prize pack giveaway ends at midnight Thursday night. So enter now!  It’s free to enter, no obligation, and so on and so forth. Enter on my FUNNEL VISION Facebook page, and happy chasing!

The giveaways continue with five free copies up for grab on Goodreads – and you have until March 22 to enter the Goodreads “Tornado Pinball” giveaway. Come on over and say hi.

Welcome to the NEXT BIG THING Blog Hop.

What is a blog hop? Basically, it’s a way for readers to discover authors new to them. On this stop on the blog hop, you’ll find a bit of information on me and my books, as well as links to other authors whose work you can explore. They’ll be blogging next week.

Thanks to writer Christine Edwards for asking me to participate in this blog hop. She wrote last week about her zombie novel-in-progress. You can find her blog and learn more about her work at http://christinedwards.blogspot.com. Follow her on Twitter @cedwards001.

In this blog hop, authors answer ten questions about a current book or work-in-progress (giving you a sneak peek). We’ve also included some behind-the-scenes information about how and why we write what we write. Feel free to share your questions or comments.

Here is my Next Big Thing!

1: What is the working title of your book?

My new novel, to be published later this month, is called “Tornado Pinball.” It’s the sequel to “Funnel Vision,” the storm-chasing adventure I published last year, part of the Storm Seekers series.

2: Where did the idea come from for the book?

I’ve been chasing storms since 1997. It’s my passion. I’ve met a lot of fascinating people during my travels in Tornado Alley who are just as obsessed with the sky. I liked the idea of exploring why they chase, their relationships, and how they find happiness in the pursuit of tornadoes. And, of course, I wanted to tell a good story.

“Funnel Vision” mixes personal drama with exciting storm chases, as does “Tornado Pinball,” but the new book also gives me an opportunity to satirize the media culture that now surrounds storm chasing.

3: What genre does your book come under?

“Tornado Pinball” is definitely an adventure, although it has elements of drama, humor and romance, along with literary ambitions. It’s a novel for grown-ups — i.e., there are four-letter words and intimate scenes.

4: Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?

This is such a tough question. One reason: If a movie were to be made, given how long things take, all these folks may have aged out of the roles.

I introduce a new female character in “Tornado Pinball”: Saffire, a smart, sexy Hollywood personality with a geeky streak. Jack, with his penchant for women (and blondes), can’t help but pursue her. I can see Hayden Panettiere play the part, though she’s a bit young; but let’s face it, she’s great at everything – she’d also be a good Shannon (Judy’s flirty sister in “Funnel Vision”). An actress who has Saffire’s look is Tamsin Egerton, though I haven’t seen her work. (Just make her a darker shade of blond.)

Jack co-stars in the first book and stars in the second. Since his green eyes are such an important part of his look, the actor who plays him has to have stunning ones. Ian Somerhalder, anyone? Unless that model who’s on the front of the books is available and speaks English. Ha, ha. Anyway, attitude is everything with the character of Jack. Good luck, casting directors.

5: What is the one-sentence synopsis of your book?

Though I can sum it up in a sentence, it’s more fun to offer you the back-cover copy:

Just when TV shows about storm chasing can’t get any more extreme, along comes a production company with the ultimate exploit: the Bubble, a manned tornado probe. As the reluctant consultant, expert storm chaser Jack Andreas must get the show’s nervous star, failed tour operator Brad Treat, into a twister. But Jack is losing his customary cool as a comedy of errors unfolds. Distracting him is co-star Saffire, a Hollywood actress who is more than she seems, and producer Wynda, who will do anything to make her documentary succeed. The daring star of another show pursues them, desperate for a shot with his own flying machine. As the disasters mount, will Jack be able to launch their device into a tornado?

6: Is your book self-published, published by an independent publisher, or represented by an agency?

I published “Funnel Vision” through my own company, and I’m also publishing “Tornado Pinball.” It took me a long time to decide to publish the book myself, given the stigma long associated with self-published books and my past experience as a book critic. I’d tried the traditional route, and big changes in publishing convinced me to take a chance on self-publishing. I blogged about my choice here.

7: How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

I wrote it in less than a year, but more than half of it was written in November, when I participated informally in National Novel Writing Month. I’d already started the book and wanted to use that month to finish it. I highly recommend NaNoWriMo as a way to improve one’s writing habits.

8: What other books would you compare this story to within your genre?

I have carefully avoided reading other novels about storm chasers, given that I’m writing about them. When I’m done with my Storm Seekers series (I foresee writing three books, for now), I look forward to reading Jenna Blum’s “The Stormchasers.” In terms of sensibility, I think readers whose tastes fall somewhere between Nicholas Evans (character-driven books influenced by nature) and Carl Hiaasen (satirical novels in which place has a strong role), with a dash of Michael Crichton (scientific thriller), might like my work.

9: Who or what inspired you to write this book?

I wrote a couple of (unpublished) novels before I decided to write about storm chasers. The diverse, interesting, wonderful, crazy people of the storm chasing community, of which I count myself a part, were my chief inspiration. I’m especially interested in the tribal culture of the storm-chasing community.

Other people inspire me, too. I’m always intrigued by the factors that drive different personalities. Sometimes it’s just something someone says, or sometimes it’s a pattern of behavior. None of my characters are based on specific people, but they have traits inspired by life and my own imagination.

10: What else about your book might pique the reader’s interest?

One thing I strive to do as I write fiction about storm chasers is to make it as authentic as possible. Readers can get a real sense of what storm chasing is like. As much as I enjoy the movie “Twister,” it’s somewhat lacking in reality. While some of the adventures in my novels are more extreme than what I’ve experienced — you’ll know it when you read it — the driving, the bad hotels, the forecasting and the friendships all are grounded in reality. Meanwhile, some of the extreme situations in the books aren’t far from what I HAVE experienced, including intense hail barrages during chases like this one.

And joining me on the blog hop next week …

Below you will find the authors who will be joining me virtually, via blog, next Wednesday, Feb. 13. Please be sure to bookmark their sites.

1. Corey Schubert and Eric La Fuente, whose “Die, Maniacs, Die!” horror script is in production and who are working on a new novel.

2. Mark Robinson, a talented storm chaser and writer and star of Canada’s “Storm Hunters,” who is working on a new book. Follow him on Twitter @StormhunterTWN.

You can find me on Twitter @ChrisKridler. Happy reading and writing!

 
I’ve posted a video of mostly time-lapses of some of my favorite storms of 2012. It’s a little moody. 

The video shows tornadoes and timelapses of supercells in Tornado Alley, as well as beautiful Florida shelf clouds.

See the storm chasing reports index for more from 2012 and other years.

Hi, folks – just wanted to share the cover of “Tornado Pinball.”  It’s the sequel to my storm-chasing adventure “Funnel Vision,” and it’s coming in early 2013. I’ll share more details soon …

I’ve heard it said that one of the issues novice writers face is figuring out to what genre their writing belongs. This very question makes a lot of assumptions: that a writer will stick with one genre; that her book will fit neatly into one genre; and that genres have any meaning at all for regular people who just want to read a good book.

Genres have always been important to marketing books, so many writers write to a genre. They want their books to fit well into a BISAC category (which classifies your book and helps determine things like bookshelf location and Amazon categories), so booksellers know where to put it and readers know where to find it.

Then there are those of us who write the book we want to write and have more than a little trouble figuring out where it belongs. It’s an adventure story with literary ambition, drama, humor and a touch of romance, for instance (is it literary? upmarket? general fiction? or simply adventure?). That’s how I’d describe my first novel, “Funnel Vision,” but a description like that doesn’t much help a writer choose one genre. Problematically, no matter what genre you choose or how you market a novel, readers are going to have their own idea of what the book is.

Science fiction means a lot of things to a lot of people, from speculative tales to hard-science space epics. “Women’s fiction” is a loaded term, given that some folks (like me) don’t want to see women placed in some sort of literary ghetto, but then again, maybe it’s a good marketing tag. At least you know it’s not going to be about machine guns or explosions; it’s going to be about relationships. And romance is an amalgam of so many different genres these days, I’m amazed the category is still so well-defined. But one thing I’ve learned from interviewing various romance authors is that books placed in that genre are still expected to have one essential ingredient: the HEA, or Happily Ever After, in which Person A and Person B end up together (or whatever polyamorous or creature combination it may involve).

This concept is really important to people who expect the HEA when they pick up a novel labeled Romance. I recently read a review of my novel that was filled with frustration, partly because “Funnel Vision” didn’t follow the conventional romance path. Well, that’s because it’s not a romance. I’ve resisted marketing it as such; I call it an adventure. It has strong romantic elements — it has relationships — but they are part of a larger story, and the ending, which I hope is a satisfying one, may be unexpected.

Complicating matters: Some of the kind people who have reviewed the novel on Amazon have called it a romance. And some of those folks are not regular romance readers, and don’t know about the HEA rule, and see the relationships and sensual scenes and figure, well, that’s a pretty good descriptor. As a writer, all I can do is sit back and wonder (a) whether I don’t know what genre my book is in; or (b) if the romance genre should be a lot wider than currently defined.

I’ve always been a big fan of what used to be called Romances — romantic adventures with strong chivalric elements, such as Dumas’ “The Three Musketeers” — which had tales of love but were more driven by adventures and characters than whatever the ending “had” to be.  Don’t many of the best stories have great love stories without being labeled romances? And don’t many of those stories conclude with tragedy or bittersweet partings? The kind of ending filled with longing that makes the heart ache at least as much as any neat-as-a-bow HEA? Would “Casablanca” have been what it was if Rick and Ilsa had run off together? Would “Gone with the Wind” resonate so much if Rhett had actually given a damn and not walked off into the fog?

And would you call these stories romances? Maybe. I’d call them great stories, period, with great characters and great writing (movie or book). Romance — that is, love or lust or longing — is such an important part of life, and such an important shaper of character, that it’s vital to any story that involves people interacting with one another. So I suppose I’ll keep writing what I call adventures, with romantic inclinations and actions I draw from the characters, whose lives are not all that tidy.

I have no beef with HEA romances. They’re great fun and wonderful escapism, and after years of pretty much ignoring the genre, I started reading a smattering of romances a couple of years ago, inspired by all the smart, talented local authors I’ve met. They’ve written terrific stories. I think we even share some of the same sensibilities. But I’m a sappy romantic and a cynic wrapped up in one, with an inclination toward satire, and my books reflect my slightly twisted view of reality. You’ll see that approach even more emphatically in the pending sequel to “Funnel Vision,” “Tornado Pinball.”

Writing to a genre may help you find a traditional publisher or cash in on popular categories as a self-publisher, but one beautiful thing that comes along with self-publishing is the freedom to write the book you want to write, write it well, and damn the rules. As a writer of fiction that defies categorization, all you can do is pick the best genre for your book and hope readers are willing to forget definitions and preconceptions and go along for the ride. And if you’re not sure, there’s always Fiction / General, even if that’s a tall mountain to climb on the Amazon charts.

I’m excited to be doing a book signing with three other Space Coast authors on Dec. 7 at Eau Gallie Arts District’s First Friday from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. This time, in addition to the gallery walk and vendors, there’s a Christmas tree lighting complete with a visit from Santa and entertainment. We’ll be in a tent on Highland Avenue. Who’s “we”? There’s Terry Cronin, who will be signing his entertaining “Skinvestigator” mysteries, about a crime-solving dermatologist; Karlene Conroy, co-author of “The Don Quixote Girls,” about four sandwich generation girlfriends and the issues they face together; and Carol Ann Didier, author of the “Apache Warrior” romance trilogy. And I’ll be signing my storm-chasing adventure “Funnel Vision.” I’m very close to finishing the sequel, “Tornado Pinball,” and I’ll be writing a lot more about that and my National Novel Writing Month experience, which is almost over … just a couple more chapters …

The Eau Gallie Arts District is the Eau Gallie neighborhood of Melbourne, Florida, centered at Highland Avenue and Eau Gallie Boulevard. There’s a lot of great energy there right now, with new galleries and big changes at the Foosaner Art Museum (formerly the Brevard Art Museum). This will be a fun night.

Signed books make nice Christmas presents. So there’s your commercial announcement du jour. Have a great day.

Just a quick note for Cyber Monday. The Kindle edition of “Funnel Vision” is on sale now and for Cyber Monday only for 99 cents. Read all about this storm-chasing adventure here. I’ve been fortunate to have more than two-dozen reviews with an average of 4.8 stars. Thanks to all my readers and friends for your support!

First, if I were really serious about National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo, I wouldn’t be wasting time writing a blog post. But I am serious about using NaNoWriMo as a tool to push me into a high-speed dash to finish my Funnel Vision sequel by the end of the month.

I haven’t signed up on the site, which exhorts participants to finish 50,000 words by month’s end. That means 18,000-plus by the end of today, or 1667 words per day. My goal is slightly more modest, since my novel was already started – an average of a thousand words a day, though I’m trying for more. I think I’ll need a better average to finish on time, since I think the novel’s going to be a bit longer than the last one, but I’m on target right now.

Why pull a stunt like NaNoWriMo, you might ask? Well, there are a lot of people who call themselves writers who have lots of ideas but just don’t write them down. And there are those of us who have jobs and a multitude of other distractions who write, but have trouble writing enough. I fall in and out of that category. What I want out of this month is not just a good draft of Tornado Pinball, but better habits. And so far, I’m finding high productivity pretty addictive.

I’m off to Orlando Public Library at 3:30 p.m. today to give a presentation about storm chasing and Funnel Vision. But sometime today, those thousand words or so are coming out of my brain, no matter what.

Are you writing?

It’s surreal to watch the unfolding story of Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy’s devastation in the northeast while we’re sunny and cool here in Florida. Granted, we were sideswiped by Sandy, with tropical-storm-force winds and our share of rain, but I’m counting us really lucky (while flashing back to the 2004 hurricanes). I wish the storm’s victims a speedy recovery.

I’m taking advantage of the weather with an outdoor book signing of “Funnel Vision” Friday. I’ll join Karlene Conroy and Mia Crews, authors of “The Don Quixote Girls,” among the other artists and vendors at First Friday in Eau Gallie – specifically EGAD, or the Eau Gallie Arts District. Look for us near the intersection of Eau Gallie Boulevard and Highland Avenue. The event, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., should be a blast, and you can always get started on your holiday shopping.

I recently took a week to visit family and shoot portrait sessions in Pennsylvania. A wonderful bonus was a road trip through west-central Pennsylvania in quest of covered bridges, many of which I saw in Somerset County.

It’s funny, the romantic notions we have of covered bridges, but this was no Bridges of Somerset County romance novel. Many of the bridges are no longer in regular use; they sit parallel to the main road’s bridges, or are even blocked off in historical parks. But with a little imagination, you can frame them nicely and transport yourself in time.

So much of photography is illusion – or call it artistic choice, if you like. I chose to go for a saturated look that brought out the middling fall colors. I love catching the flashy foliage as the trees throw their annual party before going to sleep for the winter, as much as I love coming home to the perpetual green of Florida.

I also took a few shots of a sunflower field in Lancaster County – home of so many Amish buggies, rolling farms, and fruit stands overflowing with pumpkins. Sunflowers always make me think of Kansas, now that storm chasing is in my blood. Seeing them in full bloom in Kansas is something I haven’t yet experienced, since I live in Florida; that’s a trip I look forward to.

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