We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.
—George Bernard Shaw

I sometimes forget this. I get so wrapped up in my career and my work that I forget to take a break and have a little play time. I don’t know about you, but even though my body gets older and my bones creak and my feet ache, I still feel eighteen inside, and playing should come naturally to me.

When I’m really feeling the strain, sometimes I just pick up my guitar and start strumming. Just like I did when I was a kid after I’d had my heart ripped out.

There’s nothing more soothing to the soul than music. Or to my soul, at least.

What do you do when just need to let go?

THIMNK

Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is the probable reason so few engage in it.
—Henry Ford

I don’t know what it is, but it seems to me that a whole lot of people spend whole a lot of time reacting these days, and very little time thinking. Of course, Henry Ford said this several dozen years ago, so maybe things haven’t really changed all that much.

I guess I could often be accused of thinking too much. I’ve always got something on my mind, a book I’m writing, a personal problem, a family issue, a money issue…

So maybe it isn’t that people aren’t thinking, but that they have so much to think about that they just get overloaded and finally explode.

Cue the clowns.

THE FEAR INSIDE

Self-confidence is the first requisite to great undertakings.
—Samuel Johnson

If this is true, then I certainly don’t ever have to worry about doing anything great. I find that creative people, by and large, are the most insecure people on the planet. And that’s saying a lot, considering pretty much everyone alive is insecure.

I don’t know what it is—maybe it’s that whole “putting yourself out there” thing—but when I finish a book and send it off, I’m almost certain that anyone who reads it is going to have to hold his or her nose as they’re turning the pages. And when somebody tells me they liked one of my books, there’s a little guy inside my head that says, “really?” with genuine surprise.

Don’t get me wrong. I have my moments of great confidence when I’m writing. I feel that, even though I’m still learning, I have a fairly good handle on my craft. And even if I don’t have that confidence, I think the writing itself sounds pretty confident, so that’s half the battle right there.

I’m always a little suspicious of people who seem to have no fear. I think most of them are just very good at hiding it.

LIFE AS WE KNOW IT

In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: It goes on.
—Robert Frost

Despite our trials and tribulations, life keeps rolling along and we can either give up on it or try to keep up with it.

As John Lennon said, life is what happens while we’re busy making other plans. Ain’t that the truth?

When I was twenty years old, I had big, big dreams. I had no clue how I was actually going to achieve those dreams, but I had ‘em, and I kept telling everyone I knew about them in hopes they’d get as enthusiastic as I was.

But of course they had dreams of their own. Some of them realized those dreams, but most of them, like me, just kept planning and planning as life went by in a rush around us.

A wife, two kids, several cats, a few dogs, a lot of rentals, a new house—now an old one. A strange city—now a familiar one.

Birthdays, graduations, vacations, illnesses, deaths, births, fights, kisses, hugs, smiles, laughter, and big doses of wine, cheese and chocolate. Oh, and sushi. Couldn’t have gone without the sushi.

And you know what? Fuck the plans. I wouldn’t trade one moment of my life—even the shitty stuff—to make any of those plans come to fruition.

I love the life I’ve led. Every moment of it. It has given me depth and character and a crapload of material for my books.

The one plan that finally worked out.

But sometimes we get negative reviews, and Paradise has had a few. One in particular says I’m pretty much the worst writer who ever put words to paper, and those are the kind of comments that tend to stick in a writer’s craw. Why, we wonder, can’t the reviewer see how brilliant we are?

Okay, maybe not brilliant. But does the book really deserve such scorn? When we read reviews like these we tend to feel the sudden need to lash out at the reviewer. To defend ourselves or even write a nasty comment on their blog. Some authors have gone so far as to create false Internet identities and go on the attack, only to be discovered and publicly embarrassed by their behavior.

Yikes.

Maybe it’s because of my roots in Hollywood, but over the years I’ve developed a pretty thick skin. If you can sit in a room with five people criticizing your screenplay without any regard for your feelings, you learn very quickly that it’s nothing personal. So when I read negative reviews of my books, I just remind myself that, as much as I’d like it to, what I write is not going to please everyone. And unless he or she has some sort of agenda against you—which is rare—the reviewer is simply offering an honest opinion.

And Lord knows I can be fairly critical myself.

So, here’s a piece of advice to all of the writers out there who are about to publish a book: when you get that inevitable bad review, mumble a few obscenities to yourself, quietly curse the reviewer, then forget about it. Don’t dwell. Just put it out of your mind.

And for godsakes, don’t respond. No matter how tempted you might be.

Stay classy, and sooner or later you’ll learn to simply laugh about it.

Really. I promise.

1. Obviously, as an author I want to promote my books. We’re told that social networking is the way to do this, although I’m not so certain. If you read this post by my friend and fellow author, Allison Brennan, you’ll see that she makes a very good point about the effectiveness of such endeavors.

2. Because sitting at the desk all day is a fairly lonely existence. Rather than talk to the walls, I’d rather trade quips on Twitter or Facebook and I enjoy the virtual interaction.

But I sometimes wonder if we authors are becoming a little TOO accessible. Nowadays anyone who’s paying attention knows an author’s likes, dislikes, politics, family life, number of pets, and so on and so forth—all thanks to the Internet.

When I was a kid reading my favorite books, all I ever got of the authors I read was a photograph and a short one paragraph bio.  And I have to say I didn’t really mind. I got to know these people through their words, not their social network profile.

There was a mystique there that made them much more interesting to me. I didn’t want them to be like my next door neighbor. I wanted to imagine them having wild adventures and writing about it.

That kind of mystique is gone with the Internet and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad one.

What do you think?

When you write a book, you live with it for so long that it becomes a very important part of you.  There’s the initial excitement of fleshing out an idea, then all the hard work that goes into getting it on the page.  The drafts, the rewrites, the polish, the editor’s notes, the copy edits, the galley corrections.  By the time you finish, you’re so sick and tired you can’t wait for a little peace and quiet, but when it’s out the door and getting ready to present itself to the world, you suddenly have an odd kind of emptiness in you.  You’ve done your best with it and aren’t likely to get another chance at fixing that one imperfect sentence or refining that one minor plot point that nags at you.

You’re done, it’s out in the world and there’s nothing left for you to do but get to work on the next book, if you haven’t started already.  And as you do, you wonder how your “child” will do out there?  Will she be accepted?  Admired?  Popular?  Have a lot of friends?

One can only hope.

I’ve been fortunate in that The Paradise Prophecy has been getting a lot of great reactions from readers so far.  The reviews are good.  And quite a few have been extremely enthusiastic about it—which is heartening to an old curmudgeon like me.

When I was reading a really terrific review the other day, it suddenly struck me that I will never be able to see what others see when they read one of my books.  I can never experience it in the way that I’ve experienced, say, Raymond Chandler or Stephen King or Donald Westlake or William Goldman or any of my favorite writers.  I can only see the mistakes, the imperfections, and will never look at my books with fresh eyes.

No writer ever can.  So we have to live vicariously.  Read those reviews—hopefully good ones—and remember what it felt like to crack open a new book and dive in.

And stay proud.  Because no matter what anyone thinks of our work, we took the time and effort and care to raise it, always doing the best we could.

At heart I’m a simple guy and something of a loner who likes to spend time reading a book or watching a movie or, you know, actually writing the next entry in a rapidly growing library of work. I’ve always thought that the best advertising for your books is the work itself, so I do the promotion thing a bit reluctantly—and who knows, maybe that reluctance shows.

Anyone who has been keeping up knows that e-books are now the big thing. I have friends who are making a lot of money self-publishing on Kindle and Nook, and for those who already have a following, the ebook revolution could well give them a chance to make a living doing what they love.

Then there are guys like John Locke, who came out of nowhere and has become one of self-publishing’s biggest hitters, and he tells us exactly how he did it in his recently published book on the subject, HOW I SOLD A MILLION EBOOKS or something along those lines.

When I saw the book on Kindle, I had to buy it. Anyone who has sold a million books of any kind tends to get my attention. I’m somewhat obsessed with James Patterson, whom a lot of writers disparage for his factory-like approach to producing novels. I, on the other hand, think he’s a genius who has hit upon a formula that works for him. And I doubt he cares what those writers think as he sits back in his luxurious home and rakes in the cash.

So, I’m one to appreciate Locke’s ability to sell books, no matter how he manages to do it. And, of course, I wanted to know how.

My problem, however, was that I got bored with his how-to book about halfway through. The first half seemed to be all tease (just hang on folks and I’ll tell you how YOU, TOO can sell a million books. No, not now, just wait a little longer…), and by the time I got to the second half, it turned out to be the usual advice about—guess what?

Blogging. Twitter. Facebook.

As if every writer I’ve ever known hasn’t done all this stuff already. I started a blog six or seven years ago when I was still trying to get a publishing deal, and I was on Murderati for years until I finally ran out of things to blog about.

Now, if you believe Locke, he’s found a way to make social networking work for you, but I stopped reading and still don’t know his magic formula. I should probably finish the book, because, who knows, maybe there’s really something there I’ll find useful. Maybe I’d be singing his praises. He was, after all, a millionaire before he even started writing books, so he must know something about something.

God knows I need help. According to the statistics, I’ve got a problem on my hands. My new book, THE PARADISE PROPHECY, comes out in just a few days and despite a lot of great reviews and the fact that many people have told me, unsolicited, that they couldn’t put the book down, I know I have an uphill climb.

Because the book is being released in hardback. Remember those? It has a beautiful cover and a bit a heft to it and inside are some wonderful Gustave Dore illustrations and it’s just one of those books you have to buy on paper because it’s so gorgeous to look at. The kind of book that looks great on a shelf.

But hardbacks don’t sell anymore. Only low-priced e-books do. That’s the conventional wisdom. And while the book is available via e-book, of course, there’s a part of me that hopes people will go for the hardback this time. If I could personally sign each and every one of them, I would.

I’ve never been one, however, to care much about conventional wisdom. I think all the social networking in the world will not help you if the book you write is no good.

And while I’m biased, I think THE PARADISE PROPHECY is the best book I’ve ever written. It’s big and bold and both epic and intimate at the same time. It’s fantasy and thriller and mystery and suspense all wrapped into one and I think most who read it will come away feeling satisfied.

At least I hope they will.

The trick, of course, is getting people to pick it up and read it. Mr. Locke seems to know that trick, and I should probably be listening to him.

Or maybe I should just stick to writing. It’s what I do best.

Before they met, he knew nothing of the book, or the story surrounding it.

He hadn’t known about its size or the scope of its contents or the blackening skin of its pages or the ornate, nearly perfect penmanship that adorned them. He hadn’t known that it was housed in Prague, in one of the collections of a Holy Roman Emperor, patron of the arts and practicing alchemist. He hadn’t known that a hundred and sixty donkeys had been slaughtered to further its creation.

And he was completely unaware of the seven missing pages.

The pages that would lead to his undoing.

These are the opening lines of The Paradise Prophecy, which refer to a book that’s very much real—but that few people know about.

That book is the Codex Gigas. Or, as it’s more commonly known, The Devil’s Bible, which legend tells us was created by a Benedictine monk in order to keep his brethren from walling him up alive, after he’d sinned against the church.

It’s said that the monk took just a single night to complete the tome—a book containing hundreds of handwritten pages and illustrations—and he was only able to do this after he appealed to Satan himself for help.

This book, which is the size of a small packing trunk (hence the name Codex Gigas or Big Book), still exists today, and is on display at the National Library in Stockholm. You can learn more about it here.

But what I, as a writer, find intriguing about the book, are its seven missing pages, and the simple fact that nobody seems to know where these pages went or what they might contain.

This is what sparked, in my mind, the central mystery behind The Paradise Prophecy. A mystery linked to ancient rituals and religious doctrine and coded messages and dark angels who walk the earth, threatening us at every turn.

My two heroes, Sebastian LaLaurie and Bernadette Callahan, spend a considerable amount of a time and energy to uncover this mystery, and I have to say I had a blast making it as difficult as possible for them.

I hope you’ll have just as much fun taking the ride with them.

My editor, Ben Sevier, who knew what I was looking for, sent me an email with a link toSteganographia, a work that was so controversial in its day that the author, Johannes Trithemius, pulled it from publication.

Trithemius, a sixteenth century Benedictine abbot, who was an expert in cryptography, got into some hot water after he completed the three volumes of the work, because the friends who read it thought he had fallen prey to the dark arts.

While Steganographia seemed, on the surface, to be about magic and communicating via angels, it was really an exercise in hidden text that created quite a stir when it was privately circulated, despite Trithemius’s ban on its publication.

The volumes weren’t published officially until after his death—much to the chagrin of the Catholic church—and once the code for the first two volumes was cracked, experts found that Trithemius had been telling the truth about its contents. That the text was nothing more than a clever exercise in cryptography.

Or was it?

The code for the third volume wasn’t cracked until 1998, and many people believed it to be a treatise on summoning up dark spirits. And Trithemius has long been revered as an occult hero.

When I read all of this, I knew I had something special here, as if it were tailor made for The Paradise Prophecy. And I knew my two modern-day heroes—Bernadette Callahan and Sebastian LaLaurie—would find the work very useful in their quest to solve the Prophecy mystery.

I think they got a lot more than they bargained for.

There’s nothing like that anticipation you feel when you’re tearing the envelope open, wondering if you’ll be happy with what you see. It doesn’t matter if you’ve seen it as a digital file. Or an ARC. As beautiful as you my think the typesetting looks on a computer screen, or on the slick pages of that ARC, you can’t really know what the real thing will look and feel and smell like until you have it in your hands.

I’m happy to tell you that The Paradise Prophecy looks and feels and smells wonderful. The book’s design is truly a work of art. But it isn’t just the cover that wows me (created by Richard Hasselberger). The interior design is beautifully rendered, utilizing the striking and evocativeParadise Lost illustrations of Gustave Dore.
In portraying his subjects—such as Satin falling to earth after being cast out of Heaven—Dore gave us works of art that managed to be both dramatic and eerily transcendent. We’re looking at the otherworld in motion, populated by creatures that seem both human and alien. Angels who have warred against their god and lost.

These are not the evil creatures that we think of as demons. That’s something we can assume comes later in their history. Instead, what Dore shows us—just as Milton did—are misunderstood rebels who feel betrayed. Who would rather build their own kingdom in Hell than be subservient to anyone.

Dore’s etchings so perfectly match Milton’s masterpiece that you think the two men must have been in psychic communication.

So, obviously, I’m thrilled to see some of these illustrations as part of The Paradise Prophecy‘s design. While they don’t comment directly on the story itself (the book’s setting is predominately modern—pretty much a balls-out international thriller), they do allow the reader a glimpse into another world and help convey the story’s historical and mythical underpinnings.

Thank you, Dutton, for an amazing job.

The book is a bit different from my previous work in that it’s much broader in scope and covers a large canvas.

Publishers Weekly gave it their coveted STARRED review, calling it a “riveting, cinematic novel,” and Raymond Khoury—New York Times author of THE TEMPLAR SALVATION—says, “Browne has not only conjured up an epic story, The Paradise Prophecy is thoroughly entertaining and imaginative. Just don’t distract him with too much praise once you read it; I really need him to finish its sequel.”

Needless to say, this makes me happy…

You can find out more about it HERE.