Rob Tobin Guest Posts

Good Morning Fandies! Today I am so excited to have the wonderful Rob Tobin Guest posting as part of his e-book tour with Bewitching Book Tours.

I thoroughly enjoyed reading his post and I know you will too, now you might wanna run to the restroom, refresh your cuppa and then sit back and enjoy this fresh and funny post.

I also have ONE copy of e-book copy that Rob has so graciously donated for a giveaway. Entering is simple, Leave me a comment on this post and don't forget to include your email address! Ends 3/18  Extended to 3/20

I want to thank Miranda for letting me guest blog today, it's an honor and I'll try to live up to her high standard of writing. Let me begin by introducing myself and then getting in the obligatory plug. I'm Rob Tobin, Canadian screenwriter, novelist and non-fiction book author living and writing full-time in southern California -- specifically Huntington beach, about 50 miles south of L.A. now the plug -- this guest blog is part of a blog tour I'm doing to promote my latest book, an urban fantasy e-novel called God Wars: Living with Angels from Echelon Press, available the first week of March on Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and Omnilit.com. It 

God Wars is about a young witch using her powers to battle evil but in the process accidentally opening the gates of Hell and then having to battle a demon she can't defeat, an angel she can't trust and three-foot tall aliens with really bad attitudes to save the world and her own soul. It's a rollicking, action-packed, sexy, funny look at good and evil and the dangers of vengeance, and I hope that when you download the book you'll enjoy the read.

   You know, I have to greatly admire bloggers like Miranda who come up with daily perspectives on the world told in entertaining fashion and adding to the community conversation on so many different topics. It ain't easy, not even for professional writers like me. I mean, over the past twenty years or so I've done just about every kind of writing you can imagine to keep my ship afloat -- I worked for years as a tech writer, creating more than 200 technical manuals. I worked as a marketing communications writer producing all manner of marketing materials from articles to 500-page product catalogs, and all under tight deadlines, but it is here, writing these guest blogs, that I feel the most pressure, perhaps because I care the most about this particular bit of writing -- you are the audience not just for this little guest blog but hopefully for my books and movies, and Miranda has already spoiled you with her level of writing, so how do I top that?

  But you know, writing is like that -- hard slogging work filled with doubts and angst. I don't know if you readers realize what writers go through in pursuing their art and craft. Let me give you an example. 

  I wrote a book on screenwriting called The Screenwriting Formula. It got good reviews, sold a few thousand copies, did well, but it also required me to do things to help promote it, like speaking at film festivals and writing conferences all over the country, in Canada and even in Europe. No, seriously, I actually had to do this.

One year Disney flew my wife and me out to Boston to address more than a 1,000 animators about story. While there my wife and I found this little bakery, I think it was called Michael's, in the northern, Italian section of town, and we ate a cannelloni there that was to die for. Single best pastry I've ever had. We actually split the cannelloni because we didn't want to spoil the lobster dinner we had that night on the harbor. See what I mean by "hard, slogging work?" 

   Then, after my presentation to the Boston animators, just when I thought I'd discharged my obligations, this French gentleman came up to me and browbeat me into going to the south of France to address an animation festival in a little town called Angouleme! I mean, come on, I hadn't even recovered from the Boston trip yet! 

   But okay, so my wife and I flew to Paris, then took the train down to Angouleme, in the Cognac region of France. Okay, the scenery was nice, but still… anyway I addressed the conference, it went well, but then I found out that all the speakers were invited by the local Countess to her chateau for dinner!  Geez… give me a break. 

   So my wife and I attended the dinner and then the Countess took a few of us on a personal tour of the 1300-year-old chateau which ended with us having a glass of the finest cognac from the region with the countess. Then we had to go back to Paris where we stayed in a little bed and breakfast near the site of the bastille, and the B&B owner would roll in fresh baked pastries and homemade yogurt every frigging' morning which we had to eat, of course, before going out for the obligatory tour of the Paris sites. I even ended up having to visit Ernest Hemingway’s favorite pub and, well… on and on. The Louvre, arc de triumph, cafes, etc. etc. etc.

   I could go on but I think you get the point, which is that despite what you readers may think, the life of a writer is hardly romantic. So when you download God Wars: Living with Angels and are enjoying the story, you may be tempted to think that the author (me) must have the world's greatest job; earning a living spinning fanciful stories, but think again…

   Oh, did I mention the time I spent a week in Telluride receiving an award for one of my screenplays, or the time I appeared on a panel at Sundance and my wife and I got in some skiing at Deer Valey and… oh, never mind, why bore you with the drudgery of my life as a writer…

Thanks for the chance to explain the hardships of writing to you, and thanks to Miranda for letting me say my peace. I hope to breeze through here again sometime, perhaps during the blog tour promoting my next novel, Jo-Bri and the Two Worlds which I'm hoping will be out by the end of the year. And remember: writing is sooooooooooooo hard! Ciao.

Book Description:

A young witch with justice in her hands and a chip on her shoulder, seeks revenge on the evil people of the world but in the process opens the gates of hell, meets a demon she can't resist, an angel she can't trust and three-foot-tall aliens. Now she must find a way to save the world and her own soul.

I thoroughly enjoyed Living With Angels and can't wait for Book Two in the God Wars. I will tell you Rob threw me for a loop about 3/4 the way through but then my world righted and before I knew it the book was ended with me sitting here going WTH??? Not another one I have to wait to find out more on!! I am not going to reveal a lot simply because I think you need to read the book. Your heart will go out to Diana and if you are like me there will be a time or two when you will want to slap Doc. All in all this is one you want to plan on picking up. Make sure you have time to sit and read though, you will get sucked in and before you know it, it's 1 am and you have to get up in 5 hrs to put kiddos on a bus. :) 4/5 stars

God Wars will be available for sale after March 1 at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and  Omnilit.com

Biography: Rob Tobin

Screenwriter and Novelist

Rob is a husband, father, screenwriter, novelist, non-fiction book author, frequent guest speaker at film festivals and writing conferences, and a graduate of USC’s Master of Professional Writing program and of the University of Victoria’s Creative Writing program. He has a $15 million feature film (“Dam 999”) in post production, a $40 million feature (“Camel Wars”) in development with legendary filmmaker John McTiernan (“Die Hard,” “Predator,” “Hunt for Red October”) attached to direct, a novel (“God Wars”) scheduled to be published in early 2011, and two published non-fiction books. Creative Screenwriting Magazine recently produced two of Rob’s instructional screenwriting DVDs.

Rob is a former VP of Writers Boot Camp, the country’s largest private screenwriting school. As a story analyst, he read 5,000+ screenplays for Goldwyn, Spelling, Interscope, TriStar, TriMark, HBO, et al. He also helped establish a feature film department for Stephen J. Cannell (“The A-Team,” “Hunter,” “The Commish”).

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