An Interview with J D Beck on the Release of “Savant Reign”
A good friend of mine has continued to create various works of art, and I’m proud to have finally gotten an interview about his latest work. Regular readers of the blog here might have heard of The Scenic Route, who released an album last year and has been showcased as a featured band a number of times.
Well, leader singer/guitarist Jeremy “JD” Beclk has just written a novel, further showcasing his ability to dabble in various artforms, and discussed the project recently with yours truly.
1. Who is J.D. Beck? Where does your inspiration for writing come from?
As an artist we always think of how to pen ourselves. With today’s information highway we find out easily who Eric Hebert is, or in this example Jeremy David Beck. There are a couple Jeremy David Becks in the world in almost every platform I have explored, as well as others like actors, published university professors. So it’s always nice to plant ones name in their own territory . . . if of course there is one to be had.
Writing has come from my childhood. I had always written in journals, small stories, maps for dreamscapes I had wondered through at night. . . testing what everything was supposed to be about, journals on first kisses, red-penned angst against a society I didn’t really feel anger towards. Then my first college experience brought a chance to study the methods of writing, only to play itself out through the sore execution of a college withdrawal.
Later, after a stint in Europe I found my reasoning telling me to return to school. I went for music and musical composition at The Boston Conservatory and Berklee School to learn another architectural method of writing, and it was here I was taught to find my own system to write music. Some wrote from formulas, actual numeric formulas, some wrote based off of the texture of paintings, but I wrote from story.
If there was a solo work to be written I first needed a design in word. Savant Reign was such a beginning, which found itself instead of a musical, as it was intended, as a novel. There must be about four to five works already in sketch finding a way out. The whole process is really exciting.
2. You’re releasing your first novel, Savant Reign. What is the book about? Where did your inspiration for it come from?
Let us see. I just finished the premiere of a multi-media musical in Boston based from Samuel Coleridge’s The Rime of the Ancient Mariner, and as most works that come and go, I was already nose deep in research for another major work of the like. I was reading Poe, Nix’s Mate by Rufus Dawes, and The Count of Monte Cristo.
All the while, I was learning to sail in one of the most historic harbors and ocean mouths in the country, the Boston Harbor. Later that Fall it was cold and I was head-over-heels for Poe when my eyes fell upon Annabel Lee. Perfect scene, the ocean before me, I’m at the helm, the book eared and ready to be read again. I was alive in antiquity.
Inspired to write another stage work based on Nix’s Mate, Poe, and others I started to write miles out into the ocean, drunk and passed out on expensive scotch. What a place to write a draft. The work never realized to be set to stage, but I took the notes and cut them all away except for certain images. Years later I stumbled upon those remaining ramparts and began to write Savant Reign.
The work is about a sailor with amnesia on a boat out at sea, driving aimlessly toward the discovery of where his lost mind began. At the same time, there is a parallel story of a man who lost his wife in a car accident. Through the realms of the human condition, in its perfection and imperfection, their stories slowly merge into one . . . but that’s just the dumped down version. The work spans verse to prose, first person to third narrative, discombobulating to utter clarity.
3. How are you releasing the book?
I have micro-managed and self-published; I wanted to learn the ropes of the industry. I couldn’t think of a better way. It is available at www.blurb.com–search Savant Reign–as well as through www.savantreign.com. Though soon the novel will be available on Amazon. I really love the indie shops in the area, spanning Newark through Philly. Thus, I’ll be knocking on the doors of Rainbow Books and Music, Between Books, Ninth Street Book Store and other independents. In lieu of the commercial stuff, we’re bringing it to a personal level this coming Sunday, November 15th, as we host a signing-release soiree at Home Grown Cafe, from 6-9 PM. A short run of signed first editions will be available, and for a meager fee you’ll get a copy of the book, libation, food, and cheers. Hope to see people there. It’s going to be a hoot. And they are going to make me read . . . yikes.
4. Obviously I’m in the promo business. What kinds of steps are you taking to get the book noticed? How are you utilizing the web to promote the novel?
Well the amazing part about this process and others that have been larger in scale is you first find people who care about the progression and preservation of the fine arts. I probably would still be questioning any process I undergo if it weren’t for certain energetic people much like you. It started with a village and suddenly I am able to launch this ship off into different arenas.
Through attaining a barcode, privileges are granted, electronic filing of a title in the world library archives, spotlighting in agents and publishers ponds, etc. On top of that all, copywriting the work allows people to go to the Library of Congress to attain all info needed to find the book and the author. Funnily that last thing I did was to secure a domain name with corresponding cards—where the old meets the new.
To embrace the producer in me, I wanted to be with the local scene, throw a party while encouraging friends through Facebook, emails, hearsay, paper ads, help from Mike Pollock for OUT AND ABOUT Magazine, radio time with Rick Martel . . . more Facebook.
Facebook has gotten the book to a few dozen of my colleagues and friends in different parts of the world before I even released it here in Delaware—joining alumni groups and tagging it on their blogs. And, of course, there is still more to do; competitions, agencies, other radio stations and periodicals. The buzz has to be generated or else it is just a bunch of words. It is people like yourself and all others who care and push forward . . . Preservation of the arts in this big, beautiful world, indeed.
5. What are your goals as far as being a writer are concerned? Do you have any special goals you’d like to achieve by releasing the novel to the masses?
My goals as a writer specifically are not much different than what they may be as anything else, or any other artist for that matter. I just simply want to push ideas, stories, sounds that swarm my mind, and share them. I read, listen, watch, love other’s art so much, a live world filled with rills of activity.
In that, I am grateful to imagine I was a part of a color someone saw, or a tune someone heard and thought of, images in dreams onward and out. I believe this is to be the human drive: to affect someone.
Truly, I want openly to be able to create and be supported no matter what the outcome or production. I believe this novel is a work of art, not in a language meant for the masses, but it’ll stand as architecture in word nevertheless. By releasing this piece I hope to reinvent, change a method of thought, however small . . . not forever, just for the time the reader is enveloped.
