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This is the homepage for James Brokaw. I'm a Lieutenant Commander in the United States Navy, currently stationed in Washington State. I'm a avowed snow lover, part-time ski instructor, and year-round backcountry enthusiast. The header photo was taken of me atop Cowboy Mountain. Other hobbies include hacking, juggling, and generally being geeky.

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    Chapter One Released

    24 07 08 - 23:08

    Several years ago I deployed to Saudi Arabia, and found that absent the distractions of spouse, children, friends, beer, and perhaps most importantly, Internet, one finds a lot of free time they didn’t have before. I wrote a book, Waiting for War, which may not have hit the NYT Bestseller’s List, was still a lot of fun to write and sold far more copies than I had predicted. I promised myself I would write another book next time I spent a significant amount of time deployed….

    Well, as you probably know, my Big Deployment to the Persian Gulf was cut short by the rude arrival of my medical condition, and now I’m back in the States, with a new job, new bionic heart, and new uncertainties about my future. Such is life. In the meantime, I’d only gotten a small start on the book I promised myself I would write, and which I’ve basically forgotten over the last two months. However, I was talking on the phone to an old dear friend, and he asked if I would weave the heart condition into my book. I think it could work — my last book was based on real people, and this book was starting out to be pseudo-autobiographical, in that it was inspired by my life, but with a giant heaping LSD spoonful of creative license.

    So, in a vain attempt to pressure myself to actually write the dang book, I’m releasing Chapter OneChapter One for free download (Copyright 2008 James Brokaw, license to distribute freely as long as attribution remains). If you like this, by all means leave a comment or send me a message to pressure me to find the time to continue it. If you REALLY like it and haven’t yet read Waiting for War, go ahead and read that, too.

    Used tags: ,
    two comments

    More! Please?

    As I said in person, I would cut the whole first page, but after that, it really picked up. The scene transitions also need some work. But, overall, very funny. Poor Aaron… =)
    [Lady Hedgehog] (URL) - 25 07 08 - 15:07

    My quick impressions – these should be taken with a large grain of salt as I am no way a literary critic nor do I play one on tv.

    I liked the fact you managed to start with “It was a dark and stormy night” more books should start this way, no character development yet and I was left with no connection to Aaron positively or negatively by the end of the chapter (though this might be intentional on your part), very choppy (once again not sure where you going with it yet, so maybe this is also intentional).

    There seems to be two ways you can go:
    1) You have a story to tell, people are secondary. Many sci-fi stories are like this, the event and the world you paint are all important, people are just props. For this if you are you telling an interesting enough story, it can it carry a entire book all by its self. —- I’ve read other stories about joining the navy, are we heading somewhere new?

    2) It is all about the characters, they may have the least exciting lives in the world but if we gain a new insight into their soul or even better our own then the entire trip is worthwhile. —- Don’t know much about Aaron yet, will we learn more?

    All in all still feels like the start of a bit of USENET fiction, who is Aaron? Why does he do what he does? Why should we care? I don’t mind hating a character, loving him, or even being confused about him, but I want to feel something or I’m likely not to continue reading for too long.

    Please don’t misunderstand my comments, I’m really excited about the new book and I know it’s very hard to get much of a feel for where things are going in just 8 pages. While reading your last book I was a also bit uncertain in the beginning few chapters but I really enjoyed it as I got deeper into it, so all these comments may be meaningless.

    I’m looking forward to see where you’re going with this, and I hope you can find the time push on with the project!
    L. Towles - 27 07 08 - 11:47


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