Ambition…

Sam Stein was the drummer for the band, Shattered Glass. Although the band was successful, Sam had only one a

mbition, to be a lawyer. He wanted to specialize in representing artists in the music industry and as soon as he passed the bar, Shattered Glass would become his first clients.

Although Milo was the band leader, Sam managed the group from the very beginning.  When Sam left to study for the bar, the guys were left with hiring a new drummer.  Even after Sam passed the bar, and he opened his offices, he let Milo continue doing for the band the things that Sam, in his capacity as manager and representative should have handled.  Because of Sam’s inattention, the group, who were once as close as brothers, began to drift apart primarily due to the deliberate machinations of the new drummer, Bart Hedge, Sam’s replacement.

Shattered Glass tells the story of the men who formed and played in the band.  Throughout the book, each member of the band bears some semblance of responsibility for the breakup of both the band and the love affair of the band’s leader and lyricist, Milo Stamis and his lover, the band’s composer and lead singer, Liam O’Shea. Milo and Liam are the focus of the book, yet every member of the group played their hand to the detriment of their brotherhood.  Sam became so wrapped up in himself and his new vocation  that he failed to notice Bart’s poison and his own brother, Rick’s descent into alcohol and drug addiction.

Even when Liam desperately needed help the first time, Sam convinced himself that it wasn’t his place to interfere between the lovers.  It wasn’t until Sam finally faced Rick’s addiction that he woke up and discovered what was going on right underneath his nose.

All of us get lost in our own concerns to the detriment of those we love.  Sometimes we wake up soon enough, sometimes it’s too late.  Sam’s ambitions cost him a price he couldn’t afford. All the money and power in the world can’t bring back that which you’ve thrown away.

Shattered Glass is available from Captiva Press at www.captivapress.com and from Amazon.com in Kindle format at www.amazon.com.  To find out more about Shattered Glass and my other books, visit my website at www.ackatt.com or my blog at www.ackattsjournal.blogspot.com.  Additional information on my world view can be seen at www.ackattspolitics.blogspot.com.  I can also be found at ackatt.livejournal.com, twitter, MySpace, Google Buzz and Facebook.

Look for the re-release of my first novel, The Sarran Plague, sometime this fall from Captiva Press.

I always like to hear from readers.  I can be reached at ackatt@ackatt.com for your comments.

A Villain Who Isn’t…

In Shattered Glass, Rick Stein helps to almost destroy the lives of two of his best friends.  Yet Rick isn’t really a villain.  He is the victim of drug addiction.  The real villain of the story, Bart Hedge gets Rick addicted to drugs and plays puppet master to Rick’s Pinocchio.

One of the subplots of Shattered Glass is redemption.  Each one of the four principle characters, Rick, his brother Sam and the two lovers Milo and Liam, make horrific mistakes.  The difference between the other three and Rick is that he knows he is doing damage but doesn’t have the inner strength or fortitude to overcome his addiction and confess his complicity in the plot to separate Milo and Liam.

From the first time Rick picked up a base guitar being in a rock band and making it to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland became Rick’s only life ambition.  He bought completely into the “Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll” myth of a musician’s lifestyle. Fame gave Rick an ego boost to his perpetually low self-esteem.

Initially, Rick welcomed the younger Liam into the group because he felt that the boy would occupy the bottom rung of the group’s pecking order that he felt he inhabited.  For a while, until Milo and Liam established themselves as lovers on Liam’s eighteenth birthday, Rick treated Liam like a kid brother.  When Liam became essential to the group’s success as a principal vocalist and composer, Rick felt under appreciated.

After Sam left the group to take the bar exam and become their manager, the band hired Bart Hedge to replace him.  Bart, with his own agenda, played on Rick’s insecurities like a Stradivarius violin, addicting Rick to hard drugs, gradually increasing his habit until Rick couldn’t function without his supply.  With Bart as the supplier, it was easy for him to get Rick to do bigger and bigger “favors” for Bart to get his fix.

Several times in the story Rick tries to refuse Bart’s bidding.  In the end, Rick ends up trying to please Bart to save his former bandmates and himself from blackmail.  By not trusting in his bond with his brother and friends, in attempting to handle Bart by himself even after his realization that Bart was evil, Rick commits the ultimate betrayal of Liam, Milo and Sam.

Yet Rick remains Bart’s tool until he finally overcomes his fear and shame and confesses his misdeeds to the others.

To find out more about Rick, Sam, Liam and Milo, read my novel, Shattered Glass, available from Captiva Press at www.captivapress.com and from Amazon on Kindle.  Read more about my novels, in AC  Katt’s journal at www.ackattsjournal.blogspot.com and on my website at www.ackatt.com. Read about my opinions on current events and politics in www.ackattspolitics.blogspot.com. Look for my first novel, The Sarran Plague which will be re-released by Captiva Press this fall.

Shattered Glass

“Where do you get your story ideas?” Is the first question most people ask a writer. My answer is, “It’s a process,” which probably annoys the hell out of whom ever asked the question. I give this answer because to explain how the idea for a story jelled would, at most times, fascinate another writer, but bore the reader to tears. However, since you have asked so many times, if not me, someone else, I will attempt to give you insight into how I get an idea for a story.

My husband and I were in Asbury Park, New Jersey. Asbury is a New Jersey Shore town that grew seedy in the seventies. Once, it was one of the hot spots at the Jersey Shore. They still have a beautiful beach and the Clean Water Act along with the help of multiple environmental groups have worked hard to make the water as inviting as it was back when. The town was financially troubled and never recovered from riots in the seventies or series of disastrous, promise long—cash short developers.

Late in the nineties, a new group of residents began to move into thetown. They weren’t concerned about schools, they had disposable incomes and the means to set up small businesses and the clientele to support them—they were gay. By the summer of 2007, they established themselves as permanent residents of Asbury Park, welcomed by the town as a tax paying minority group who improved property and enlarged the tax base.

Along Cookman Avenue the once fashionable shopping district, boarded up storefronts reopened and turned into galleries, smart restaurants, and trendy boutiques. This brought back business from the straight citizens of the surrounding towns and slowly but surely, Asbury Park was turning chic. We used to go visit the boardwalk just to walk by the ocean on a regular basis.

After our walk along the boards, we usually strolled down Cookman Avenue to see what was new or to find somewhere for lunch. That day we found a cute little eatery that was doing a bustling brunch business. We stopped and ate. Throughout the restaurant were paintings on the walls from the local galleries. The one just behind my husband’s head caught my attention; indeed, I could say it caught my imagination. It was a poignant study of a young man’s face. The artist put it that indefinable something extra into the portrait. The young man’s eyes held the weight of the world. He was frightened, yet quietly resigned to something. I knew I had to have that painting. My husband sat through lunch watching me stare at a point somewhere above his left ear. When he asked me a question for the third time, he finally said in exasperation, “Where are you?”

“Look on the wall in back of you,” I answered. All of a sudden, he was as caught up in the painting as I was. We discretely checked the name of the gallery on the tag and to our delight; it was only two doors away. We were there as soon as we paid our check. The owner of the gallery told us that their resident artist had done the painting on a board during his student days. He had painted it from a photograph. The compelling young man in the photo was Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd. I did not care who he was. I wanted the portrait. Leaving my husband to settle the details, I went to study my latest acquisition and after about fifteen minutes, I knew there was a story in that picture and it was not Syd’s story. However, I still did not know whose story it was. He was a rocker, from sometime in the late eighties to the early nineties, but I had no plot, just a face. I brought the painting home and wrapped it carefully. We were in the middle of packing up and moving from New Jersey to New Mexico primarily for my health. I have a joint disease that thrives in the humidity of the Jersey Shore, but dies in the high desert.

When we unpacked, I put my painting of Syd Barrett right across from the chair in my office where I usually sat while I wrote. I finished The Sarran Plague and was in the process of editing it for publication. The radio was on and Jon Bon Jovi’s Make a Memory came on the radio. I absently listened to the song while doing my edits but my subconscious mind heard something that my ear did not. The next time I heard the song, I was in the car and my husband was driving. I could to listen carefully to the lyrics. Syd’s painting now had a story. With a little bit of imagination and an application of my particular writing niche the song became Shattered Glass, a work in progress.

Here is my blurb for the story— Milo of mega band, Shattered Glass, must write one last song with former lover and lead singer, Liam O’Shea after six years apart. Can they overcome a stalker and the lies that separated them?

I’m sure that this was not quite the story Jon Bon Jovi had in mind when he wrote the song. However, my painting of a young man who turned out to be Syd Barrett, the founder of the band, Pink Floyd, coupled with a song from Bon Jovi and my move from the Jersey Shore to New Mexico gave me a book, Shattered Glass. Shattered Glass will be available from Captiva Press at www.captivapress.com at the end of June.

Oh, and by the way, I located the photo from which the artist painted my painting. He is a very talented young man. The photo said nothing. The painting said everything.

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Heartbreak…

The name of the band, Shattered Glass musically is a metaphor for a singer’s ability to hit a pure note at high frequency.  This note, if sustained, will “shatter glass.”

In my novel, Shattered Glass, Liam’s heart is broken by the breakup of the band and by his lover’s desertion.  After the breakup, Liam was essentially abandoned because the band was his only family. Brought to the point where even his music can not sustain him, Liam breaks down and falls into a fire pit of despair.

With the help of a so-called friend, Liam suffers the degradation of drugs, date-rape and finally attempts to drown himself in a sea of alcohol and a series of meaningless sexual encounters to avoid facing the truth of his abandonment.  Eventually, he finds help and begins to face up to the fact that Milo is lost to him, although he never stops loving him.

How do you cope with loss?  I can’t help but think of the families on the Gulf Coast who lost their homes, jobs and loved ones during Katrina.  Or those now in Pakistan who watch the little they have literally float away.  Loss is an emotionally devastating theme for a novel. It can kill you or make you stronger.  In Shattered Glass loss of love almost killed Liam.  Losing a loved one whether to death or disaster is more damaging to the heart and mind than the loss of a material possession.

The steps that Liam takes to overcome his loss and become a whole person is what makes Shattered Glass a novel that explores depth of character.

For Milo, the loss of Liam and the band eventually makes him realize his own character flaws.  He sees that his inability to trust his lover stemmed from his inability to trust himself.

All the members of the band, Shattered Glass, must find their own paths back to their best selves and to each other.  Sometimes that is the most difficult road to travel and for some, the ending isn’t happy.

Shattered Glass is available from Captiva Press at www.captivapress.com and for your Kindle at www.amazon.com.  You can read more about Shattered Glass and my other novels at www.ackatt.com.  Check out my blogs at www.ackattsjournal.blogspot.com and www.ackattsnips.blogspot.com. I have a new blog all about politics at www.ackattspolitics.blogspot.com. I love to hear from my readers and comments are always welcome.

I also maintain a blog at Live Journal and Facebook.  Coming soon from Captiva Press is a revised edition of my first novel, Epic nominated, The Sarran Plague. Additional information on The Sarrans can be found at www.thesarrans.com and www.thesarrans.blogspot.com. I look forward to hearing from you.

Lily O’Shea met Professor Frank O’Shea as a student in his Contemporary American History Class at Princeton.  Frank had fifteen years on Lily, being in his mid thirties to Lily’s twenty-one.

Lily conceived Liam when she was twenty-five and they had Frank for six years before he died in a hit and run car accident that was deemed to be suspicious by the Princeton Police.  Frank adored Lily and and son, Liam.  His dabbled in black and white photography and took many pictures of his lovely wife.

Lily was one-quarter Vietnamese and passed to Liam the slight slant to her eyes along with her ebony hair.  Liam pale skin came from his Irish father along with his blue-violet eyes.

After Frank’s death, Lily packed up her and Frank’s huge Victorian house in Princeton and moved into a blue collar neighborhood in Hazlet, New Jersey.  She made certain that none of her former friends with the exception of their lawyer and friend Walt Cheever knew where they went.

Lily and Liam met Milo and Sam the first day they moved to Hazlet.  Lily, as well as Liam, became fast friends with Milo and Sam.  Lily’s acceptance of who and what Liam was mystified Milo who own father would have beaten him to death had he found out Milo was gay.  In return for Lily’s unconditional acceptance of both Liam and Milo, Milo adored Lily and would do anything for her,  even to accepting Liam’s guardianship as Lily lay dying of cancer.

Liam, because of Lily, was as open to life as Milo was closed off.  His  trust of Rick and the others in the band brought him heartache.

You can read more about Lily and Liam in my novel Shattered Glass, a rock and roll love story, from Captiva Press atwww.captivapress.com or you can download the book at Amazon.com to read on your Kindle.

Additionawl information on AC Katt books is available on my websitewww.ackatt.com, my blogs www.ackattsnips.blogspot.com,www.ackattsjournal.blogspot.com and my new blog on current events and politics atwww.ackattspolitics.blogspot.com.  As always, I welcome comments and suggestions from my readers.  Follow me on Twitter, Buzz, fan me on facebook or friend me on Live Journal.