Getting Past Rejection

I originally wrote The Arrow Catcher while a writing major at Stanford. I finished it in 1984. Two supposed friends, who were both teachers (not at Stanford), told me it was so bad that it was unreadable. As a result, I put it in a box, where it sat until around 4 years ago, when I published it and it became a Amazon #1 Best Selling Historical Thriller for several weeks and in their top ten for over two years. It's nice knowing I'm not along, as the following article describes:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/booknews/10877825/The-rejection-letters-how-publishers-snubbed-11-great-authors.html

Our wonderful alphabet!

Using just 26 letters, what knowledge we can pass on and tales we can create!

The Pen and the Sword

An interesting article on Yukio Mishima and the connection between warrior and scholar. Mishima was thrice nominated for a Nobel Prize in Literature. http://www.dawn.com/news/1224192/essaythe-pen-and-the-sword

The River of Writing

This river helps me to cultivate my fields with the mercy of its waters, supports my living and at time floods and nearly drowns me in its prolific streams. The River also demands from me infinite patience and daily hard labor through the changing seasons and passing time. How alike are writing and farming! One’s spirit must be on guard at every moment against storms and frosts. After such a long and vigilant watch over my field of writing and after such endless toil of imagination and poetry, can I ever be sure of a rich harvest? What I have written departs from me, never nourishing my void, and becomes nothing but a relentless whip lashing me on. How many struggling nights, how many desperate hours, had to be spent on those writings! If I were to add up and record my memories of such nights I would surely go mad. Yet I still have no way to survive but to keep on writing one line, one more line, one more line…

Yukio Mishima, Catalogue to the Tobu Exhibition

Reflections on being #1 Amazon Best Seller

For the last two weeks, The Arrow Catcher was #1 on Amazon's Best Seller's List for Books (Kindle, paperbacks, and hardcover) Teen/Young Adult Historical Thrillers and for Kindle Teen/Young Adults Fantasy. It was also #3 on all ages Historical Fiction. It's been an exciting and very comforting ride, which - as will all things - must surely end.

But the sequel to The Arrow Catcher, which is entitled The Arrow Shooter, is in the final phases of publication and may be released next week. Hopefully people will receive it as warmly as they have The Arrow Catcher. (There will be a third book in the Jonathan Lusk. It will be called The Arrow.)

I can't thank you all enough for your kind support, Jim

My interview in Traveling Book Junkie

This is the link for an interview I did on writing a few months ago and just appeared today. http://www.travellingbookjunkie.com/jim-mather/

12-weeks Amazon Best Seller List

12-weeks on Amazon’s Best Sellers list!

Twenty-one 5-star ratings!

"An exciting tale with an engaging young hero" - Kirkus Review

“The depth and breadth of (Jim) Mather’s work makes it easily one of the best books I have ever read. Its true message and overall significance is sure to compel the reader to look beyond the obvious outward lesson and more closely examine a journey of inner proportions. Without question, The Arrow Catcher is certain to become a timeless classic valued for generations to come and I enthusiastically recommend it.” Patrick McCarthy, award-winning author

“Beautifully written. Anyone who reads (The Arrow Catcher) will become instantly addicted… I adored the plot, because it is very different from any other book I have read.” – Taylor, GoodReads
 
http://www.amazon.com/Arrow-Catcher-Jim-Mather-ebook/dp/B00FKDYX46/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1386005985&sr=8-1&keywords=the+arrow+catcher

"I adored the plot..."

"Beautifully written, The Arrow Catcher surprised me on many levels, due to the fact that it is Mather's debut novel. Anyone who reads it will become instantly addicted, like I was as well as others who have read it. I adored the plot, because it is very different from any other book I have read. Most novels focus mainly on love or death, and while this novel did touch on those themes, it's main focus was bigger than just falling in love or losing a loved one. The Arrow Catcher explores Japanese heritage and keeps the reader glued to its pages. Would definitely recommend this to anyone who loves to read! I hope to see Jim Mather continue in his writing career because he is off to an awesome start!" - Taylor

Act quickly and receive a free copy of The Arrow Catcher

For three days more only (today is Tues 4/22), I'm sending out free copies to the ebook (Kindle/iPad/etc.) version of my novel, The Arrow Catcher, which is currently ranked #4 in Hot New Releases in its category. If you would like a free copy, post or pm me an email address and I'll send you one.

News on the sequel to The Arrow Catcher

I'm working my way through the sequel. The first draft is done and I just finished Chapter X of the rewrite. My editor is gone until the middle of May. I hope to get through this rewrite and perhaps another - each rewrite usually go quicker and the polishing finer - before her return. Then I'll send it to her and get her take on the storyline. After me polishing it further, she will do a line-edit, finding all typos, grammatical errors, etc. After those are fixed in the manuscript, it can go out for publication. My goal is to have it out this summer.

Get your book signed

If you'd like me to sign your copy of The Arrow Catcher, send it - along with a stamped return envelope and the name of person to receive it - to the following address:

Jim Mather
225 Crossroads Blvd, Box 173,
Carmel, CA 93923

Ending Soon!

My post office box is expiring in three weeks. SO, if you’d like me to sign your copy of my novel, The Arrow Catcher, and also receive a signed arrow catching photo, you need to send it to me soon.

I also offered to send a signed photo to anyone who purchases a Kindle version and posts a review on Amazon, as some of you already did. If you’d like one of these, let me know soon as well.

The address to send your books for signing is as follows:

Jim Mather
225 Crossroads Blvd, Box 426,
Carmel, CA 93923

The Arrow Catcher Back in Print!

I made changes to my novel, The Arrow Catcher, in order to make it more appropriate for young adult readers. (For those who have read it, I softened the scene between Asim and Reiko.) While awaiting my changes and approval of the new proof copy, my publisher took the book out of print. I approved the proof this morning and The Arrow Catcher is again available on Amazon!

My great editor!

I have a great editor! I recently made changes to the novel, removing a violent scene that had been inserted when I was hoping to get the script accepted as an HBO pilot. (If you've read The Arrow Catcher, it's the scene between Reiko and Asim.) Even after adding more edgey scenes, I was told it was still too tame. After recently removing the scene from the novel, CreateSpace, my publisher, sent me the proof for the new version. It had some issues, some my fault (a word left out, a sentence not worded as well as I wanted) and some theirs (missing sentence breaks, etc). I changed the manuscript and at around 6 tonight, Saturday night, (after 9pm for her), I emailed my editor to ask if she could double-check my changes before I resubmitted them. Within an hour, she returned my changes with her thoughts and corrections. I was able to upload the new version to CreateSpace tonight so they can get the book back in print. (Apparently, you can't order the book until they make the changes and I approve them, again.) I'm very fortunate to have someone so sharp and dedicated.

A few words made my day!

Although it's very brief, I received what I thought a great review of The Arrow Catcher today. Someone who had just finished it said, "So how Long do I have to wait for the next book?"

Those few words made my day. Thank you!

The Arrow Catcher receives great Kirkus Review

Kirkus Reviews released a very good review today of The Arrow Catcher. You can follow the link to their website and their comments. https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/jim-mather/the-arrow-catcher/

It's never too late

Many years ago, I took a summer writing class taught by John L'Heureux, who headed the creative writing program at Stanford. (John’s acclaimed new novel, The Medici Boy, was recently released.) The class was full, except for an empty seat next to me. Just as the class was about to start, a white-haired old lady opened the door, apologized for being late, and sat down beside me.

John started that first class by having everyone around conference table introduce themselves and tell a bit about their writing to date. When my neighbor’s turn came, she said her name was Harriet Doerr and had just moved back to the United States from Mexico, where her husband had worked for years as a mining consultant. Other than the book she was working on, she hadn’t ever written anything before, other than letters to family.

For our next class, John asked us to come prepared to read something we had written. Most were papers most had written in high school and been given high marks by their teachers there. Everyone yawned or rolled their eyes as Harriet tried to quiet her quivering nerves so she would read her story. This is what she read:

In early November there was an emergency. Sara left Ibarra at midnight, arrived in Concepcion at one, and for the rest of her life could recapture this hour whole and bright, polished as it had been with fear. Time failed to blur the images and five years later, or even ten, glimpses of them would intervene between her and a gathering of people, a display in a shop window, her own reflection in the glass. She would never afterward stand under a full moon without seeing corn shocks and chaparral, ditches flooded yellow with wildflowers, the chandeliered lobby of the Hotel Paris, and the telephone on the reception desk, without hearing the doctor’s voice as he answered. “Bueno,” he had begun. “Bueno, senora.”

We were speechless. She looked shyly up, afraid everyone hated it. But it was wonderful. Harriet Doerr went on to finish and publish her book, Stones for Ibarra, which was selected as a National Book Award winner. Her second novel, Consider this, Senora, was also very well received.

It’s never too late to start writing.

Wallace Stegner almost made me quit writing

Wallace Stegner was one of America's greatest writers and also founded the Creative Writing program at Stanford. I never had the honor of meeting him, but his daughter-in-law, writer Lynn Stegner, helped me with my novel, The Arrow Catcher. While Lynn kept me writing, her father-in-law almost caused me to quit. I came across a passage in his novel, Big Rock Candy Mountain, that was so good that I felt I had no business calling myself a writer. The passage went as follows:

"There had been a wind during the night and all the loneliness of the world had swept up out of the Southwest. The boy had heard it wailing through the screens of the sleeping porch where he lay and heard the wash tub break loose from the outside wall and roll down into the coulee… and the slam of the screen door and his mother's padding feet as she rose to fasten things down. Through one, half-opened eye he had peered up from his pillow to see the moon skimming windily through an illuminous sky. In his mind’s eye, he could see prairie outside with its cactus and its wooly grass white under the moon. And the wind, whining across that vast, oceanic land, sang through the screens and sang him back to sleep.”