In The Presence of Greatness

Wow, I am a slacker.

Anyone with a writer’s gene in them knows that procrastination is our Achilles’ Heel. At least with most of the writers I’ve met.
I am no different.

I have had a book in my possession since February that I have not finished. I could sit and make excuses as to why, but they are feeble attempts to hide the fact that I absolutely love to procrastinate. I am a friend to the author so the excuse of ‘oh he’ll understand, life is busy’ has crossed my mind quite often. Fact is though, once I actually quit making excuses and sat down to read it, I couldn’t put the damned thing down.

The book is called Lucifera’s Pet by a dear friend and fellow author, M.T. Murphy. It is right up my alley as far as darkness and genre goes, and his writing is done beautifully. Now I’m not just stroking his ego because he’s my friend, fact is, and Mike should know this, if I thought it sucked I would tell him so. It was more than I thought possible for a first time author, even one that I have had nothing but faith in for some time. The fact that a man, no offense, could reduce me to tears with words on a page, make me feel as if I’m watching the story unfold on a movie screen with the detailed imagery he writes with, is just astounding.

Having known Mike now for going on 3 years, and now having read his debut novel, written about characters I already knew and loved, I have been sitting back and reminiscing all weekend, taking detours down memory lane to what led me to know Mike.

Myspace is a platform for some amazing writers that I have had the pleasure of knowing. It was through Myspace that I met Mike, met his beloved Lucifera and her comically shaggy wolf. I will admit to being as judgmental as most when I found out he was the writer behind Lucifera, having never really talked to him or read any of his writing I remember quite well asking myself what kind of man writes mainly from a female character? Truth is, the first time I read his writing I was blown away. I had known male writers, all of them were interested in one thing, writing porn. But Mike was different, he touched on female emotions, mannerisms and so forth that made me question for some time if he wasn’t in fact a woman on the other side of the computer.

Add 6 months to that, and the birth of a storyline so close to my heart, and I found myself falling deeper and deeper in love with Mike’s writing. It takes a special kind of writer to take another person’s vision and while adding their own flair to it, manage to stay true to the story the creator had in mind. Mike is one of the very few I know who can, and he gave life to a truly remarkable character, one of my favorites he’s ever written, Cash Montgomery.

Without going into too much detail, which would undoubtedly leave me going off on a tangent of sorts, the story centered around a professor, who just so happened to be a werewolf, and a student, a woman forced to grow up in a world that was her destiny was engineered from the moment she took her first breath. It was a vision that I explained to Mike, in brief, giving him only a few key insights at the time, and asked him to write it out with me. What happened was the creation of a story that to this day, I have trouble reading without bursting into tears. Not from my writing, not even really from the story itself, but because I could see the story in my head, could feel the emotion behind it, and I know I gave very little insight of that to Mike, and he took it and ran with it, making that emotion come to life in a way that would have never been possible otherwise.
And I’m rambling again. Sorry. ;)

Anyway, there were glimpses in this book, characters that I could identify with, certain moments that I loved, others I felt that apprehension over, and moments so touching that I cried over them. An amazing read, one I would highly recommend to anyone.

So this is just a random blog, in short to apologize to Mike for taking so long to read it, and secondly to commend him on an amazing story, I bow to your greatness!