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I Pray Hardest When I'm Being Shot At

by Kyle Garret

Giveaway ends December 04, 2011.
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The Title

While I cover this in "Pray," I don't think it's really much of a spoiler: the title of my book is a quote from my grandfather.  He said it after my grandmother finished saying grace.


The title is insane on many levels.  For one, I never believed it would actually end up as the title of the book.  I told my grandfather, as soon as he said, that I was going to make it the title, but I figured any publishing company who actually wanted to put the book out would make me change it.  I guess I figured it wasn't literary enough.

Hellgate, to their credit, never even mentioned it.  But, you have to figure any publisher willing to take a chance on such a book probably wouldn't be put off by a title, no matter how crazy.

I've gotten a lot of comments about the title, all of them positive.  I've sold copies of the book based on the title alone.  It might actually be my best marketing device.

It's also emblematic of the book itself.  My grandfather was a man of faith, so having "pray" in the title had meaning.  This wasn't a quote from a non-believer who only prayed when he needed help.  This was from someone who valued prayer.  And in his lifetime he was shot at -- a lot.

I had someone tell me they liked the title because, initially, it made them laugh, but then when they really thought it about it, it wasn't so funny anymore.  It is a funny phrase -- my entire family laughed after my grandfather said it.  But then you realize that it's a statement coming from a man who was in a position where he had to pray because he was being shot at -- and he was in that position more than once.  There's almost a surreal element to it.

It's such a genuine reflection of who Papa was that I couldn't be happier it's emblazoned across the cover of the book.  I think he would have gotten a kick out of that.

The Making of, Part 5: Almost Famous

The main complaint I got from both agents and publishers about “Pray” was that my grandfather wasn’t famous, so the book wouldn’t sell.  They said there was no market for it.

                

Since I’m at the point now where I’m actively trying to sell the book, I’ll admit that they had a point.  I think, also, there was some subtext to the rejections: a book about an unknown person by an unknown author won’t sell.  Because, really, if I was Toni Morrison writing about my grandfather, that book would probably do pretty well.

                

This is an interesting statement on the non-fiction market and, to a certain extent, the health of contemporary fiction.  Non-fiction makes up the majority of the books sold in the U.S. these days, while the Young Adult category makes up the majority of the fiction sold.  To take it a step further, the majority of non-fiction is either about or by someone famous (or infamous, as the case may be).  Our bookshelves are currently dominated by fame and fantasy.

                 

It makes sense, if you look at pop culture these days.  Reality TV dominates.  Genre shows are praised to the heavens.  Why read a fictional story about the real world when it’s entirely possible to read something similar that actually happened?  Why read about the real world when you can read about magic and vampires and aliens?  It seems like we want our stories either as true as possible or as false as possible.

                 

This presents a challenge for those of us who work in other areas.

                

The advent of self-publishing has made this even more difficult.  I’ve had book store owners assume that my book was self-published, and thus brush me off, until I name drop my publisher and our distributor.  Since “Pray” isn’t marketable by publishing standards, they assume I must have used a vanity press.  They assume that I just put together some quaint little book that only my family will ever read.

                 

Because these days everyone thinks their life is important enough to be the subject of a book.

                 

And why wouldn’t we?  Again, look at television.  Look at the people who get on reality TV.  Are they all that different than us?  Are they better?  More interesting?  And, if not, then why aren’t we on TV?  Our stories need to be told.  We’re just as important.

                 

Which is true, of course.  The people on reality television are often, in my eyes, the least interesting people I’ve ever seen.  They’re usually chosen because they can make a spectacle of themselves, not because they’re interesting.  It’s the same as talk radio hosts.  Most of them are just wind bags who rant and rave and who would actually be totally harmless if people just ignored them.

                

I suppose there’s the solution: I need a talk radio show or a reality television show.  If only I’d thought of that while I was writing the book, I could have hired a documentary film crew to follow me around.  Sadly, instead of focusing on becoming a spectacle, I focused on writing.

                 

I like to think that the latter will allow for a longer shelf life.

The Waiting Game

"I am a patient boy, I wait I wait I wait I wait..."

-Fugazi, Waiting Room

I am sure that this comes as a surprise to no one, but I'm not famous.   I'm not even well known.  My life long misanthropic tendencies have probably made it so that fewer people actually know me than, say, the average person in America. In other words, the number of people who are going to hear my name and become interested in whatever it is I'm doing is going to be pretty low.

My grandfather isn't famous, either -- not yet, at least.  This was my biggest problem when shopping "Pray" around.  Publishers and agents didn't want to invest in a book by an unknown writer about an unknown person, because that combination equals no sales.

All of this means that I have to build a reputation from the ground up, and the only way to do that is by word of mouth.  I need word of mouth and positive reviews in hopes that the audience for "Pray" grows.  And so far I feel like I'm moving in that direction.  But it's going to take time...a lot of time.

It's going to take time for those who have my book to read it, and for those who care enough after having read it to review it.  It's going to take time for people two, three, four degrees of separation away from me to discover the book, and then even more time for the aforementioned reading and reviewing.  Getting the book to professional reviewers doesn't help much, either, as they have piles and piles of books to read.

Perhaps more frustrating is the fact that this throws a wrench in going out and promoting the book, other than doing it online.  Book stores agree to have you make an appearance if they think you can bring people into the store, and right now the only people willing to go into a store for me are those who already know me, and I've tapped that well dry.

Even if doing appearances was an option, I'd still find myself in the position of trying to sell complete strangers on a book they know nothing about.  Granted, I can be pretty personable from time to time, but it's going to take more than that.

I need that one good review to come in, that one person to discover "Pray" who can spread that message far and wide.

In the meantime, I have to wait, and hope that slow and steady pays off.

(X-posted to kylegarret.com)

Home is where the heart is (and where they buy your books)

A few weeks ago, I returned to my home town of Kent, Ohio.  I moved away from Kent, initially, when I left for college almost 17 years ago (wow), but left for "good" when I moved to Atlanta in 2000.  I go back once or twice a year.

My entire family lives in Kent, more or less, and I still have very good friends there.  So when the release date was set for "Pray," it was clear that I needed to have a book release party in my home town.

Since this was going to be fairly early in my life as a self-promoter, I decided to step outside my comfort zone, and set up not just a book signing at the book store in Kent (Last Exit Books), but also a reading at the library.  That was putting myself out there an awful lot, but I figured if I couldn't do it in a town where I knew a lot of people, then I probably couldn't do it at all.

The start of the book release party.

So on Saturday, June 11th, I arrived at Last Exit with a few boxes of books in tow.  The local paper had run a feature on me that morning, so word had gotten around.  Coincidentally, there happened to be an event going on downtown, which is where the store is located, so we probably got better foot traffic than normal.

The signing only last two hours, but there was a strange kind of ebb and flow to it.  I would say that the first half an hour and the last half an hour were not unlike a ghost town, while the hour in the middle was just a constant stream of people -- most of whom I hadn't seen in probably over a decade.

Nicole and I got so caught up in things that we actually forgot to take any pictures, something of a theme for our trip.  She managed to take a few here and there, but we never got a good shot when things were really busy -- so you'll have to take my word for the adoring throngs!

That night was the release party, again in downtown, but this time in a bar, because that's how I roll.  This was for close friends and family, mostly, and went on long into the night, and into the early hours of the next morning.  While I'd been pretty focused on the signing earlier in the day, this was the first time I was able to really spend time with those closest to me to talk about the fact that I had a freaking book published!  Honestly, just typing that is still surreal.

Thankfully, I had Sunday to recover before the reading at the library on Monday.  The reading...well, the reading didn't end up being much of a reading, to be honest.  Only a few people showed up, so instead of standing at the front of a room and reading to them, we formed a circle of chairs and I took questions.  It was actually an interesting experience, which hopefully prepares me to do it again some day.  I really hadn't expected many people to show up -- after the previous events, I didn't think there was anyone left who hadn't already been to see me!  Regardless of the turn out, it was a good experience.

Anyway, it was a good trip and a nice way to start this new part of the "Pray" journey.  We'll see how it goes from here...

Book Release Party in the Bay

That's me in action. Note the liquid courage on the table next to me.

For those of you who don't know, the majority of my in-laws make their homes in Northern California.  So when I started planning book release parties in places where I actually knew people, the Bay area seemed like a good place to start.

The event itself was a great success.  Aside from selling a fair number of books, I also got some wonderful feedback from a lot of different people, absolutely none of whom are in the book.

It was a little strange, signing my name so much, and I'll admit that, after two straight weekends of such events, I've started using a go-to comment for a lot of books.  It's surprisingly hard to be witty or insightful when signing a book.

These book release parties have been a nice way to ease into this new chapter in the publishing adventure.  So far, I've mostly interacted with people I already know or people who are only a degree or two away from me.  I have common ground with most of them, so it's easier for me to engage.

The real challenge will be when I start doing this type of thing in front of complete strangers, many of whom will probably have no idea who I am, and of the few who do, some of them will no doubt think I'm a horrible writer.

Baby steps.

I'll post some bits and pieces from my trip to Kent, Ohio in the next blog entry.  That's where my side of the family lives, not to mention where I grew up.  That was actually even more of an event, as I had my first signing, another release party, and my first reading (which didn't go as you would think).  It was all "Pray," all the time!

The plan now is to head out and conquer Southern California at some point during the summer.  Living in Los Angeles means there's no shortage of book stores around here; I'm also only a few hours away from San Diego...and, now that I think about it, I have a brother-in-law-in-law (my brother's wife's brother) who just moved thee, so there's my in!

If you attended the Danville release party (and I would be willing to bet that a fair few of you reading this did), thank you.  I couldn't have done this without you.  The fact that so many of you were willing to travel so far just to celebrate the release of this book was incredible.

Writing is a solitary act, at least the writing I do is.  I spend hours and hours in a room alone and it's easy to forget that there are others behind you.  It's easy to forget that, in the end, you're not writing in a vacuum.  Regardless of who reads the work, there are going to be people who support you.  I think it's essential for anyone to succeed.  I'm not saying everyone needs a large group of people cheering them on, but even a single person offering some kind of support means a lot.

I know how lucky I am.

And hopefully  this will give me strength when the audience isn't quite as friendly!

This was my "thank you" speech. I'm not sure I really did the moment justice.

"Pray" is out today!

             After the attack on Pearl Harbor, eighteen year old Robert Stuart had a decision to make: keep working at the steel mill in Warren, Ohio, or volunteer to serve his country.  Stuart’s father had served in the first World War, and service was in his blood, so he enlisted in the Marines.

            Ann Davis had a decision of her own to make.  The girls in her high school were going to send letters to alumni who were going off to war.  She looked at the list of soldiers and saw a familiar name: Robert Stuart.

            The letters Ann sent would mark the beginning of a relationship that would span sixty years, two marriages, two children, and three wars.

            Over half a century after those first letters were sent, the Stuarts’ grandson, Kyle, began chronicling their life together.  He would discover pieces of a family history that only he dug deep enough to learn.  But in the back of his mind, one concern lingered: the story of a person’s life can only have one ending, and his grandfather’s health was deteriorating.

            “I Pray Hardest When I’m Being Shot At” is a true story of love and war.  It’s the story of three generations and two romances, one of sixty years, the other of just a few months.  “Pray” deals with one generation trying to connect with another and how it affected both of them.

"I Pray Hardest When I'm Being Shot At" is available everywhere today!

The Making Of, Part 4: Standing Out

There are over 307 million people in the United State of America.

Of those 307 million, I would hazard to guess that at least 150 million of them are either full time professional writers, part time professional writers, full time amateur writers, part time amateur writers, or dabblers.

There's a quote, out there somewhere in the world, from Stephen King, revealing the number of rejection letters he received before he became a published author.  My memory is hazy on it, but I believe the number was up around 100.  King's motivation in revealing this information was to point out that all writers, no matter how successful, will get rejected a lot.

Yes, these are all my rejection letters, minus the e-mails.

This is why being a writer can be really brutal.  It is a constant assault on your self-esteem.  It's like being in middle school all over again and the literary agents, literary magazines, and publishing houses have all cleared the puberty hurdle while I languish at the starting line.

There's certain level of sadism involved in trying to get published.  If you're not famous or related to someone famous or doing a job that is incredibly unique and/or fascinating, you're going to have some troubles.  Sure, there are some objective qualities to look for in writing, but in the end the majority of any decision made by someone with the power to publish your work is going to be subjective.  And while all your friends and family might tell you how great you are, none of them are going to get you into the New York Times Book Review.

I have no idea how many rejection letters I've gotten.  I write a decent amount in multiple genres and formats, and I've been rejected for all of them.  Short stories? Check. Novel? Check.  I even have rejection letters from Marvel with a picture of Spider-man on them.

I found Hellgate Press by contacting them myself, without an agent.  More and more writers are doing that these days, although it would be a lie to say that having an agent isn't an advantage.

Hellgate is a medium sized publishing house in Oregon.  They specialize in military history, veteran memoirs, travel adventure, and historical fiction.  They were not the only publishing house that I queried on my own, but they were one of only a few.  I covered the country in query letters to agents, but when it came to contacting a publisher directly, I decided to narrow the field as much as I could.

I have nothing but great things to say about Hellgate Press and I couldn't be happier that my book is going to be in their catalog next to some worthwhile titles.  I'm hoping that our relationship will extend into multiple printings.

But eventually it will end, or at least slow to a drip.  I'm already readying my next salvo into the literary world, but the two books I'll be shopping around don't fall into any of the genres that Hellgate publishes.  So I need to start over, start fresh, and prepare for a new round of rejections.

And this is how it goes.  A short story gets put into a collection and you smile and you add it to your bio, because that's all that really matters.  Each new victory is just another way to pad your stats for the next fight.  I will lose far, far more than I win.

Then again, I suppose that makes those few victories all the sweeter.

Essentials of Writing

Write What You Care About and Understand

"All good books will eventually find a publisher if the writer tries hard enough, and a central secret to writing a good book is to write on that which people like you will enjoy. Write what you care about and understand."

-RICHARD NORTH PATTERSON

Courtesy of Jon Winokur's "Advice to Writers" web site (which I recommend).

The Making Of, Part 3: This Is Not Your Diary

I can write about anything.

I'm not saying I can write well about anything, but I can write about anything, and usually at great length.  If it's something I like, then I can write a lot.  And if it's something I know?  I can write forever and ever.

When I decided that I would write "Pray" in the first person, and frame it with the story of the writing of the story, I dove into it with somewhat reckless abandon.  That is to say, I wrote about every little thing in my life and every little thing in the lives of my family.

The problem, of course, is that not all of that was relevant.

I could go into a ridiculous, pretentious discussion here about writing and how even writers who delve into the extremes of fiction are ultimately writing from a place of non-fiction, and how, as has been claimed, writers lie to tell the truth.  Like I said, I can write about anything and I could go on and on about that.

Suffice to say that there's something inherently confessional about writing, not matter what it is you're writing about.  And once you start down that road, it's hard to stop.  Even worse, suddenly every little thing in your life becomes fodder for the book, and soon you're adding symbolism to things that really aren't symbolic of anything.

Symbolism can be a horrible thing because it's so easy to abuse.  It's also really easy to use as justification for pretty much anything.  So over the course of a few hundred pages, I started filling the book with all sorts of crazy anecdotes about my life.

I spent pages writing about my first car.  Sure, my grandfather gave me that car (which he'd inherited from his mother), but did it have anything to do, really, with his military service or his relationship with my grandmother?  Not even remotely.  And yet I rambled on and on about it.

I received a note in red ink from Nicole that simply said "All this about a car??"

Needless to say, the section on my 1972 Ford Pinto (brown, no less) was substantially cut down.

It can be hard for even the best of us to know where that line is, the line between what is pertinent and what is fluff, between what should be shared and what should be kept secret, between fiction and non-fiction.  But blurring those lines is where I hang my hat, it's just sometimes hard to know when to stop.

Strangely enough, it applies to this blog, too.

Oh, and the book is entirely non-fiction, in case anyone had any doubts after that nicely pace, yet oddly phrased sentence up there.  Everything in it is pertinent, too.  I may have crossed the line on what should be shared, though...

The Arrival Part Two: Wired For Sound

For as frightening as the prospect of people reading and, in turn, reviewing, "Pray" is, it is thankfully currently being overshadowed by a somewhat regular stream of adrenaline and enthusiasm.  In other words, I'm amped.

It's a pretty fantastic feeling, really, although I'll admit that it's made logging hours at my day job even more tedious than normal.  And perhaps this is the only time when I'll feel this way, assuming that I will end up either basking in the glow of wonderful reviews and incredible sales or or reading horrible reviews while wiping my tears with pages torn from the stacks and stacks of unsold books.  Still, I have a thing for eve's, the night before the main event, and right now I'm riding an extended eve before the book campaign moves into full swing.

Which, coincidentally enough, kind of sort of starts tomorrow.  While the books has yet to be officially released to book stores, it will be available for them to order soon.  Getting bookstores to order a book by a first time author about an unknown person is probably about as hard as you would think, which means they'll take some convincing -- and there are a lot of bookstores out there.  It would be great if there were some way for me to talk to a lot of different bookstores in one spot, in one afternoon...

And, lo, I live in Los Angeles, and this weekend is the Los Angeles Time Festival of Books!

My publisher sent me an information sheet for the stores to use (ordering info and the like), as well as bookmarks good for any occasion (but mostly for promoting the book).  So tomorrow I will brave the bright California sun as I make my way from booth to booth, trying to convert bookstore managers to the "Pray" cause.

It's kind of an impressive step for me to take, to be honest.  I'm generally a misanthrope with periodic bursts of overly enthusiastic social tendencies.  I also generally dread anything that I plan in advance.  Needless to say, I'll probably be pretty nervous tomorrow.  But I think the fact that it's a book fair will put me at ease.  These are people who are in the business of books, but who also love books.  And while they might be flooded with hundreds of new books every month, they still want to find the best books for their store.

So, please, wish me luck.  And if you know anyone who's going to the LA Times Festival of Books on Saturday, tell them to get in touch with me, or look for me: I'll be the sweaty guy trying to give things away.

The Arrival Part One: Six, Twenty-two Pound Boxes

The book on the floor in my living room. It's real!

I got my copies of "Pray" yesterday.  They arrived just as the title of this blog says, in six boxes that are currently stacked up in our living room, much to the interest of the cats.

Nicole is actually out of town at the moment, but through the wonders of technology (also known as Skype) we were able to video chat while I opened the first box and pulled out a copy of my very first book.*

It was kind of a weird moment.  I would imagine it's probably a miniature version of having a child.  This was a joyous occasion, after all.  It had been years since I started "Pray" and even more years since I first put pencil to paper and fancied myself a writer.  For all the one off short stories in online journals and self-published books, this was it: my first real breakthrough.  My first tangible moment.

And yet.

Actually have these books in my possession makes all of this very real; it also marks the beginning of the next phase, which is getting people to buy the book.  I have to get out there and I have to promote it, and that's kind of terrifying.

I think anyone who knows me is probably thinking "are you kidding me? You should be great at promoting the book!"  Because, when I finally coerce myself to be out going, I can run with the best of them.  But I'm not promoting my Microsoft Office skills to my boss at a job that I know is beneath me.  I'm not talking about my relationship with Nicole, one of the few things in this world that I am confident in.  I'm not even talking about my usual nerdy things, like comic books or music or television.  No, I have to go out there and promote a book that I wrote, something I put years of my life into, something that means an awful lot to me.

I have to convince people that not only is this a book worth reading, but that I'm a writer worth trusting.

Even scarier is the idea that if I convince people to buy "Pray," they'll then write reviews about it.  By default, this is going to be the most widely read piece of work that I've ever created, so by default it will end up getting the most feedback.  And as I'm sure most writers would tell you, our egos fluctuate between gargantuan and minuscule -- and that's on a normal day.  Throw some reviews in there and who knows what you'll get.

Strangely enough, the one area in which I feel no pressure concerns the fact that this book is about my grandparents.  Yes, I do feel a bit nervous about the idea that some of the men my grandfather served with might read this and take issue with some of the finer details.  But I know that my family will enjoy the book and I know that my grandmother will cherish it, and, in that respect, it's enough for me.  I think my grandfather would be happy.

I started writing "Pray" with two goals in mind: to do my grandfather's life justice and to take a big step into the literary world.  I'm confident in the first; here's hoping I can do just as well with the second.

The Making Of, Part 2: Skills

I have a Master's degree in Creative Writing.

That's set-up, not bravado.  As they say, my degree and $17 will get me a cup of coffee (I actually don't know how much a cup of coffee is these days, but I figure that's about right).  I think it would be safe to assume, though, that I, at the very least, have some knowledge on how to write, just as I think it would be safe to assume that someone with a degree in Spanish probably has some knowledge on how to speak Spanish, at least more so than those of us who didn't pursue that degree.

Technically, my degree is in Creative Writing Fiction, and that should be your first clue as to where this is going.  All of the work I did for my Master's not only involved writing fiction, it consisted entirely of short stories.  That's what I did for those two years and kind of what I did before those two years and almost exclusively what I did after those two years.

I spent most of my time writing fictional short stories and then decided to write a non-fiction book.

That would explain a good part of why it took me so long to write this thing.

The Making Of, Part 1: Time Keeps On Ticking

A reasonable facsimile of the making of "Pray"

I started "Pray" in January of 2006.  The version that Hellgate Press read and agreed to publish was ultimately completed at the end of 2009, just shy of 4 years after it was started.  And "Pray" wasn't even the first book I wrote.

No, that distinction goes to a novel I started in late 2002.  The current, "final" version of that wasn't completed until, oh, the summer of 2009.

A year ago, I started writing a YA (young adult) book.  I recently handed the first draft to my in-house editor (more on that later).

The obvious thread among these little snippets is that a book takes a long time to write.  While my novel didn't get to the point where it was "finished" until 2009, the initial first draft -- the one I was willing to let people read -- took roughly a year to write.  In fact, the initial first draft of "Pray" took a year to write...just like the initial first draft of my YA book.

Apparently, one year is my time frame for completing a solid first draft, which is actually pretty impressive, given that I have a day job.  It's considerably less impressive when I factor in all the revisions I end up doing, which results in something like, oh nearly 7 years going by before I'm comfortable with my novel.  It is interesting to note that the copy of my YA book that I gave to my in-house editor has already undergone some substantial revision, perhaps more so than any other book I've given to her, which is a result of how much less time it took to write the initial draft.

Not at all what my editor is like.

Now, there are a number of reasons for this.  Obviously, I'm getting better and the whole "writing a really long book" thing.  And a YA a book that features monsters and magic and teen romance?  Well, that's right in my wheel house (it also offers fewer opportunities to be horribly self-indulgent, which is one of my biggest flaws as a writer...and as a person, really).  So it make sense that writing my YA book was a smoother process.

But I think the main factor was the fact that I'm older.

On one hand, I could chalk it up to realizing that my dream of writing for a living is starting to fade away with every candle I add to my birthday cake.  On the other hand, I think that, as we get older, we tend to put things into perspective.  I know the things that are important to me and I waste less time on the things that aren't.

Honestly, I think that's a byproduct of writing "Pray."  I think it's a byproduct of learning how my grandparents lived their lives.  I'm still distracted by all the various and sundry gadgets and flashing lights of the modern world, but at the end of the day I feel far more focused than I was, say, ten years ago.

This new found maturity is also a result of the influence of my in-house editor, Nicole, who is also known as my wife.  I could point to a lot of ways in which Nicole and I work well together -- some of which are actually in "Pray" -- but on a purely symbolic level (and I'm a sucker for symbolism), it's hard to beat the fact that she's an editor and I'm a writer.

Much closer to what my editor is like.

Granted, Nicole doesn't edit books, she edits those fancy moving pictures all the kids are talking about.  But editing is editing, particularly when it comes to story.  She knows what is needed and what is fluff.  She knows what works and what doesn't.  The fact that she reads a lot helps a great deal, too.  Oh, and she's absolutely not afraid to tell me if something is awful, even if it hurts my delicate writer ego.

It should come as no surprise that the first book I ever wrote was written before I met Nicole and, in turn, took the longest to get right.

All of this has me wondering: how long will it take me to write my next book?  You know, it would probably take substantially less time if I didn't have a day job...

Street Team!

Back in the day, before everyone knew how to use the internet, "indie" bands (as they came to be known) had to depend upon the kindness of strangers to spread the word about their music.

Basically, they would get fans to sign up to be a part of their "street team."  These fans would then be tasked with promoting the band in their particular neck of the woods.  When the band came to town for a show, the street team would put up fliers, often sent to them by the band itself.  When a new album came out, the street team would do whatever they could to make sure people knew about it.  Stickers often came into play.  Sometimes there were patches

These street teams were like an advance squad, sent to lay the ground work for the coming force.  And the success of that force could often times be directly connected to the success of the street teams.

I've decided that I need a street team or, more specifically, that "Pray" needs one.

I've managed to live in a few different parts of the country over the span of my life, and I've manage to make some friends who have moved to even more parts.  Were I an international man of intrigue, I would say that I have a network of spies set up around the country.

My hope is that these kind souls -- and anyone else who might be interested -- will decide they'd like to help me out, that perhaps the cause of promoting "Pray" is a worthy one.

So if you're interested, let me know, either here or on Facebook.  I probably can't offer anything besides my undying gratitude and perhaps a few freebies.

The Beginning!