Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Eric B. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Eric , thanks for joining us today. Let’s kick things off with your mission – what is it and what’s the story behind why it’s your mission?
Basically I enjoy telling stories filled with exaggerated scenarios as a way to illustrate the realities of average, ordinary, mundane everyday life. All of my books are works of fiction — and some of them are based in a different place and a different time — yet at the same time their purpose is to make a statement about real life, right here, today. Sometimes the best way to get people to more clearly see the world around them, you have to take them to a different place, display a different scenario, transport them to another period of time. Many of the world’s best storytellers throughout history have understood this concept, and as a result, have become famous for their ability to do do. But the trick is: how do you do it well? Well, from the author’s perspective, the best way is to stick with what you know well. In my case, my expertise is volunteering, public transportation, and superhero drama. These are my concepts to use to tell exaggerated stories that are relevant to mundane, ordinary, everyday life.
Eric , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a published author of four books, and counting. I’ve always been a writer, as I’ve always loved to tell stories. My decision to become a published author came when I realized I had a lot to say about particular topics: sharing my personal experiences with others in order to help them. My first book — Why Volunteers Get All the Breaks — was published in 2009. It is gleaned from my personal experience of dragging myself out of unemployment through volunteering, This self-help book constantly asks the question, “Why are you shelling out thousands of copies of your resume and going on countless job interviews with no success when you can be doing volunteer work in order to SHOW somebody (not TELL them) what you are capable of offering them?” This book does not teach you how to be noble or altruistic through volunteering; it tells you how to get yourself employed through volunteering. My second book — The Great American Adventures of Modern Big City Railroading — which was published in 2014, is a story about a carnival huckster to uses public transportation as an exhibition of everyday life in the big city. According to Circus Larry, public transportation is the vehicle while the big city is the attraction. Circus Larry’s constant contention is if you have never ridden public transportation, then you have not really experienced the big city you claim to have visited/lived in.
The Night Crusaders series was born in the summer of 2011 out of my desire to create my own superhero. I originally envisioned creating a comic book series. But I did not personally know any artists who were both highly talented AND as dedication to this project as I was. And I was too broke to afford to hire one. So I had to go with the medium I was already familiar with: book writing. In June of 2011, I created a super-human with a few traits…no personality. After that, I shelved this for a month. Then in July of 2011, I created a team of four superheroes. These four would be clad-in-black, flying motorcycle superheroes known as….well, they went through different names over the course of years, but in the summer of 2018 they officially became Night Crusaders. I had never created a superhero in my life before then, so I realized I could not just sit down in front of a notebook and list strengths and weaknesses. The only way I could “get to know” my new superheroes is to create a story around them. The process started in July of 2011 when I came up with the concept for three stories for these new superheroes of mine. In the spring of 2012, I realized it would be YEARS before I would be able to create any story of this series worth releasing. As the years went by, more “episodes” were added to the Night Crusaders series. The first episode — Cult of Steiphen — was published and released in April of 2020. The second episode — Realm of the Invader — was published and released in March of 2021.
To date there are 11 episodes of the Night Crusaders series. The first two are already published books. The third one is finished and ready for self-publishing, and I am currently running an Indiegogo campaign to raise money to publish it. The campaign ends July 18th. The other eight episodes are in varying stages of publishing.
Every single episode of the Night Crusaders series has its own central theme, that could be summed up in a single word. Cult of Steiphen’s theme is VENGEANCE. Realm of the invader’s theme is INVASION. The Night Crusaders all-encompassing series theme is LIFE. The not-yet-released episode 3’s theme will be MAGIC. All of the Night Crusaders series episodes are based in the future, and each episode has its own narrator. Episodes 2 & 3 are the only two that have the same narrator, but that’s because the narrator did not finish his story in episode 2, and will continue his story in episode 3.
The Night Crusaders series falls in to what I mentioned earlier: me telling stories of overly exaggerated futuristic scenarios in order to make a statement about ordinary life today.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
The biggest thing I had to unlearn was that there was a point where you find that perfect moment of inspiration, that will bring to your mind just the right story to tell, and that there was a process where you could write said inspired story in a few weeks; maybe a few months. There is no such thing. Yes, there is a moment where you truly do find the perfect inspiration to write that great story. But that is where the writing process BEGINS! And you had better get the notion out of your head that you are going to be writing or releasing that story anytime soon. Or I don’t know: maybe if you have a TEAM of writers — whom you collaborate with 10 hours a day, 6 days a week — MAYBE you can get that story out in a few weeks or a month. But if you are a solo writer, or writing with ONE partner, you had better believe it will be YEARS (plural) of hard work, dedication and sacrifice before you will turn that great moment of inspiration into any story somebody is going to pay for, sit down and read! In my own experience, long before I ever even started dreaming about becoming a published author, I already had notebooks filled to the brim and isolated pieces of paper with my thoughts, feelings and made-up stories written on them.
Actually, here’s an interesting story. When I graduated from college with a degree in public relations, I was unemployed for about four or five months, until I got an internship with a PR agency called Hill & Knowlton (don’t know if that agency still exists). I remember working every Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 9 to 5 in a cubicle (Ooooh! I cringe just remembering that!). Anyway, every Friday at 10am, there was a creative meeting full of junior and senior executives to brainstorm ideas for a client’s advertising/promotional/marketing campaign. One particular Friday a senior executive walked up to where I was siting and said, “Eric, if you have any ideas, please feel free to share them. This is a brainstorming session, which means no ideas are bad ideas.” Well, be that as it may, I nevertheless had NO ideas to share. My mind was a total blank through this whole meeting. After work that day, while on the train ride home, my mind suddenly flowed with ideas. I was very upset. These ideas would have been very valuable to me six hours ago, except I’m only just getting them now!
One that day — at the age of 23 — I made a decision that changed the course of my life: I decided I would keep a pen and paper on my person at ALL times. And I stayed true to that decision. Most of my creative ideas come to me while I’m riding trains, riding buses, in lobbies, in waiting rooms, while at the park or beach, in airports and bus stations and train stations, while siting bored at friends’ houses, during downtime on my day (or night) job….heck, I’ve even had inspiration hit me while I was half-drunk at the karaoke bar! 90% of my best ideas come to me when I’m in no place nor position to write them down. That’s where my policy to have a pen and paper on my person at all times comes in. I originally adopted that policy so I would never embarrass myself on a brainstorming session again. But that habit has remained with me decades after that internship ended in failure (meaning without a job offer).
By 2008, when I decided to make my thoughts on “volunteering to help you get a job” an actual published book, I had more than enough to work with, thanks to my years and years and YEARS of writing great ideas when they come to me, NOT when it’s convenient to sit down and write.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
No doubt about it…the most rewarding part is reading an entire finished, ready-to-be published manuscript, and knowing that YOU were the one who made it happen. When you fan out that hundreds-of-pages-long manuscript, and remember back when it was nothing. Back when it was just a few words on a single sheet of paper, or — even less than that — when it was just a concept in your mind, that you wasn’t even sure would even become anything more. As much as I don’t want to sound blasphemous or offend anyone with certain beliefs, being an artist is like being a God of your own universe. Here is a space full of nothing, and you are creating an entire universe out of that. You are creating people with thoughts and feeling and emotions and everyday life scenarios. You are creating a place that did not exist, and breathing life into that place and the beings that exist within it. Reading your own manuscript affects you differently that reading the story of someone else’s book because you know where this one came from. YOU are the source. And when someone else tells you that you did a good job, or that your story was enjoyable reading or that your story affected them in a certain way, that you stirred that person’s emotions with your story, it produces an amazing feeling that cannot be described in words. But if I did try to find a word to describe it, that would would be “accomplishment”. 
Contact Info:
- Website: https://outskirtspress.com/realmoftheinvader
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ericbauthor/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ericb.author/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/eric-b-author-0b59511b9/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/MisterOoohYeah
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCz1mkeKu090hioYfc4awu5w
- Other: Raising funds for the publishing of Night Crusaders series episode 3. Many fun prizes for those who contribute! https://igg.me/at/nightcrusaders3/x/28803263#/