Category Archives: Authors You Should Be Reading
Authors You Should Be Reading: Scott Roche
There are so many words to describe Scott Roche. Most of them are unpublishable, so I’ll just get straight to talking about him.
The Short:
Scott Roche is an author, editor, podcaster, producer, man about town, MMA Champion, beer drinker, womanizer, and an all around good Christian. He’s done so many things over the year that it’ll be difficult to list everything so I’ll just point you to his website and you can do a lot of reading on your own. The Long part of this post will deal with my interactions with this man and you’ll get to know a little more about him. He lives at http://scottroche.com (don’t try looking at any of his other domains like spiritualtramp.com or archangelnovel.com because they’re more than likely expired. Honest.)
The Long:
Scott Roche, a close, personal friend of mine, was born on a pirate ship, fed to sharks, saved by a wooden boy, and transplanted multiple times. This accounts for his scatter-brained ideas and his lack of ability to keep his URLs up-to-date. He likes to hop from project to project and will, at times and much to everyone’s surprise, actually complete one.
I became aware of his existence when he decided to podcast his novel, Archangel. I would link to his website for this book, but like I said, he has the super-power to let him domains expire. Don’t get me started.
I’ve stalked followed him for years and would communicate with him from time to time. More often than not, he would forget who I was and it felt like starting our friendship all over again. We would laugh. We would cry. He would forget me and we’d do it all over. It felt a lot like 50 First Dates except I’m not about to kiss him. No beard on beard action going to happen to stop asking.
I still don’t, even though I’ve known Scott for 37 years, know exactly what it is he writes about. He dabbles in horror, sci-fi, Young Adult, Fantasy. He’s posted his fiction on smashwords, kindle, BN, Kobo, and he’s even started to give things away for free on Wattpad (We both followed Dan Dan the Art Man’s lead, and I’ll get to Dan Dan in another post, trust me, I will! Oh yes I will!) Scott likes to spread himself out as much as possible and get things all over the place. Sort of like the genres he writes in. The boy is all over the map. Trust me, he writes something you like. Pick a genre, he’s probably done it.
The first book I read of his (and failed to review because I suck at reviewing books and such) was Ginne Dare: Crimson Sands. This is a YA Sci-Fi book. Buy it. You’ll love it. Trust me on that one. Scott actually finished writing it! If you don’t love it, call me. I’ll explain to you why you do love it. It’s a fun book, well narrated, and quite enjoyable.
Somehow Scott, Mike Plested (you remember this slacker from last week, right?) and I started the Action Pack Podcast. Scott was going strong until we hit the halfway mark or our stories and suddenly he had to drop out. He quit. He gave up! He surrendered! Something about too many commitments. Sheesh. I think his drinking sank him to an all time low, but I’ll let you be the judge. I mean, seriously, have you seen his website? No sober man would create a site like THAT.
Anyway, with his duties on Flying Island Press, his own fiction schedule, his podcasting schedule, his anthology editing schedule (He edited the awesome anthology Dead Ends A book where the proceeds of the sales go to Charity!. It’s awesome because it contains me! WOO WOO!), he said too much is too much. Sadly, he left the show and went off to do all those other things he had already committed to. We can only hope that one day he returns to complete Hidden Planet because dag nab it! He left us in a lurch! People want to know how that ends SCOTT! Dead Ends is right. You should have put Hidden Planet in there. GAH!
But I digress. Where were we?
Ah, Yes, Scott Roche.
Check out his kindle page for a moment, if you will. Look at all these stories. Pages and Pages of stories. Check out his wattpad page. Go ahead, I’ll wait. See all those stories. All free on Wattpad. Good Golly Miss Molly. He’s been busy! So many words for you to read, so little time. Check out his about page on his scottroche.com page. See all that stuff he’s been up to? I assure you that if you take the first letter of every title he’s produce, and rearrange them (you know, like an anagram or cryptogram, or whatever) it’ll spell out J.R. MURDOCK IS A PUTZ! It’s a secret plot to try and destroy me! Secretly. Like in some strange cryptic way.
So, Scott Roche. Lazy Author that can’t complete what he starts or evil, super genius? You decide. Either way, he’s still a close, personal friend of mine and I’ll defend his drunken ramblings to the death! Well, at least under great pain. Maybe a little bit of pain. Put the knife down. Back away slowly. Please.
Check him out. He’s well worth your time and your dollars (unless you’re too cheap to spend $2 on one of his books, you can always read him for free on wattpad you know). Once you’ve read his drek, come back here, pick up one of my books and you’ll see what a true genius writes like. Honest. In an ocean of authors, he’s just another drip. Read him. Love him. Stalk him!
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
Authors You Should Be Reading: Michell Plested
Michell Plested is a shady character capable of unscrupulous behavior. He’s been known to darken the door step of many an unsuspecting host. On his best behavior he may be found digging in your back yard convinced he’ll locate a secret tunnel to China. At his worst…. wait a minute. I’ve got the wrong Michell Plested. Pardon me. Let me make sure I’ve got my facts right.
Oh, there’s another Michell Plested. Pfft. Silly me. Let me start over.
The Short:
Michell Plested is an author a number of books including the podcast novel GalaxyBillies, The YA super hero novel, Mik Murdoch(no relation), the Action Pack adventure Boyscouts of the Apocalypse,(also over at Wattpad) and is currently looking for a home for his colaborative work, Jack Kane and the Statue of Liberty. The last story he penned with that mighty, mighty author, J.R. Murdock (why does that name sound so familiar?) He’s also edited an excellent anthology with an abundance of great authors (such as that J.R. Murdock fellow again) entitled A Method to the Madness: A guide to the super evil (That’s quite a mouthful for a book, isn’t it? You’ve seen the cover on the main page, right? You ran out and bought a copy, right? You didn’t? Why? Go now! BUY BUY BUY this book!) He also has a bi-weekly podcast, Get Published, where he interviews
The Long:
Michell Plested, a close, personal friend of mine, was discovered on the shores of California in 79 A.D. covered in seaweed and struggling for life. Oh, wait, wrong Mike again. He was actually born in the Great White North (where he currently resides) and is married to a beautiful woman and has two wonderful children he loans out on weekend (wait, no he doesn’t).
Mike had been writing for some time and wanted to become a published author so he could be on easy street and line his pockets with hundreds. So he started a podcast, Get Published, to get his name out there. He’s not missed a show in 17 years (wait that’s not right, how about he started in January 2009 and you do the math?). He’s interviewed professional in publishing including editors, agents, publishers, authors, and everyone in between. He’s been nominated nearly every year (could be every year, I don’t know) for the Par Sec awards and has always lost (don’t want to see him break that perfect record or anything).
During his podcasting of Get Published, he had delusions of grandeur and decided it would be a good idea to podcast a novel AS HE WROTE IT! What Madness that was, let me tell you. Insanity at its highest form! But podcast GalaxyBillies he did and it was a lot of fun to listen to.
Someone (well call this someone Dan Dan the Art Man) suggested on Twitter that Mike and I should write a book together. Sheesh. Talk about insanity. Well, the two of us thought it was nuts and went for it anyways. We came up with Jack Kane and the statue of Liberty and it’s currently been through a few rounds of editing and is currently in the hands of another publisher. We’ve already plotted a second novel in the series as we had so much fun losing our minds doing a collaborative work once, why not suffer through the pain twice, right?
The Mike decided he’d work with another person (cheater!) and joined forces with Jeff Hite (I’m sure I’ll talk about him at some point so I’m not going to link to him from here. This is all about Mike after all. Why do you think I didn’t like to Dan Dan the Art Man? pfft. Just read and quit questioning what I’m linking to). Mike and Jeff came up with the idea of putting together an anthology. The opened it up to submissions and put together A Method to the Madness: A guide to the super evil. Why come up with a short name when you can come up with a long name, right? I mean, it is catchy and just rolls off the tongue, right? <sigh>. They got about 1500 submissions (or 10, like I know. I wasn’t part of the assembly process, I just sent in a story like any other writer). The anthology was a rousing success! They managed to get just enough submissions to fill a book!
BUT!
During this time, Mike had Mik Murdoch: Boy Superhero picked up by a publisher (5 Rivers) and was now doubly busy. He managed to put Jack Kane on the back burner as he was far too busy to deal with our book (I’m not pouting. DON’T LOOK AT ME! at least my name was in the title, sort of, wait… what’s kind of weird, isn’t it? Why did I just now notice that. Hmmm… Mike, you’re weird, #justsaying). So he got his book out and 5 Rivers (they used to be 4 rivers, but 4 rivers doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as 5 rivers) and they decided to also take on his anthology (I wonder why they didn’t make the title to A Method to the Madness: A guide to the super evil a longer title, I mean, at least another two or three subtitles or something).
So during a short period of time Mike went from an unpublished slacker to an author with a writing credit and an editing credit under his belt. And what about Jack Kane? Huh? What about it? DON’T LOOK AT ME!
His success has catapulted him to the ranks of authors like…uh… what authors have actually sold a negative numbers of books? Anyway, he’s got a couple books out there. Good job. I’m proud of you, no really. Don’t worry about us little people.
Once he was done with all this great success, he decided that he’d throw me a bone and he and I (Along with Scott Roche, more on this slacker later) started the Action Pack Podcast. (Later as in another post). There was Boyscouts of the Apocalypse,(also over at Wattpad), Golden West by J.R. Murdock (Hey! I know him!) and … uh.. Scott’s story… The house of the Planet from out there? Planet Express? My Planet looks like a banana? Oh, let me look it up, hold on…here it is! Invasion From The Hidden Planet. (No, really, I’ll talk about Scott on another post, quit bugging me about it. Seriously.)
So Mike and I spent a year writing and podcasting our stories (Scott, not quite a year, but that’s a story for another post, really, it deserves its own post. You’ll enjoy that story. Seriously. I’m not putting it here.)
Mike, still a close, personal friend of mine despite his attempts to leave me behind, went to some cons and got some interest in Jack Kane. It went to one publisher that eventually passed and is now on the desk of another. We have high hopes for this one and one day hope it’ll see print. In the mean time, he’s busy working on a new story for the Action Pack Podcast, a sequel to Mik Murdoch, probably another anthology with someone else (cheater! I’m not bitter, really. DON’T LOOK AT ME!) and I’m sure he’ll forget about Jack again and write another book and make a million dollars while I dwell in self-publishing squalor. But hey, that’s how it goes, right?
So there you have it. Michell Plested’s quest to fame and greatness. He’s got some good stuff worth your reading. I hope you take some time to read his work even if he is a two-timing author who can’t focus on one project at a time and see it through to fruition before jumping ship to the next big shiny project leaving his co-author behind while he has fun playing in another sandbox.
I’ve linked all over the place to his work. Buy his books, read him on Wattpad, avoid his anthology (unless you really need a book with an extra long title), and listen to his podcasts. If you like anything I’ve written, you’ll hate his even more and that’ll make me feel better! So stop reading my stuff and go read his stuff. By comparison I’m fricken Hemingway. But hey, not everyone likes filet mignon when they can have a hamburger.
mmmmm Hamburgers. I think I know what I need to go do now. You should be out buying books!
Until Next Time!
WOO WOO!
J.R. Murdock 