Twenty-two days.
My next book will be released in twenty-two days. It looks like I’m going to make my deadline for my October 5th release, like I have in the past. This time the book is called Scorch. The next six books will be named after a city or a landmark, a location of some sort important to the book. But this time is a little different.
The city it takes place in is called Scorch, but the name also speaks to the main theme I’m working on with this book. This book takes place after The Madness Wars and follows a character out of the Madness Wars and into another kind of war. So I’m dealing with the topic of PTSD. In my opinion, no soldier comes back from a war unfazed, and the same is true here. Our main character, Tack, has seen the horror and he’s haunted by it. Haunted by an action and a scene of destruction. He’s running. He’s running from fate. He’s running from loss. He’s running from images he just can’t get out of his mind. He’s gotten to an isolated, forgotten corner of the continent, to a country where half of its land has been devastated already. And the Drine war machine has somehow followed him here.
I want to talk about therapy, I guess, with this book. Or at least, therapeutic events. The fact is, I myself am a sufferer of PTSD. A lot of you know I had a very dark childhood. I’ve written an autobiography on the topic. And the only reason I am what I am today, and the only reason I am able to write these books and talk about these issues is because I’ve explored them. I’ve been where this character is, haunted by character flaws that just at the time seemed to leave me spinning in circles, digging ruts in a path I didn’t want to be on.
Therapy is hard. It’s painful to remember these things. It’s terrifying to have to make changes about yourself, and a lot of times therapy will break your pride and your dignity. Like when you have to re-break a bone to set it straight when it’s grown crooked. So many people walk away from therapy when things start getting too hard and they start to really get a look at themselves. So I take Tack through a series of therapeutic events, and I don’t heal him. Healing is what the entire series is about. By the end of Scorch, he’s not healed by the hard facts he learned about himself, the changes he made that make him stronger. I’m very proud of Scorch, because Scorch says something. Scorch shows you how difficult but worthwhile therapy can be. I’m gonna leave it here. I’m not gonna say anymore, because what I want to say will just spoil the book for you. I want to talk in depth about the things he’s been through and the situation he finds himself in. But I built my career on respecting the reader, and you don’t need a lecture on how to read this book.
I hope you look at Scorch and Tack and see how the Madness Wars burnt him. And I hope his journey will give you hope if you’re in pain.
