F. P. Dorchak

Speculative Fiction (New Weird) Author

Novels

Incredible Voice Review!

by

Voice. (© 2015, F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)
Voice. (© 2015, F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)

Writer friend Karen Albright Lin, who is a freelance editor, public speaker, screenwriter, and writing instructor—and is very “hard to please”—wrote up the following kick-ass review of Voice.

It floored me.
Thank you, Karen!
5.0 out of 5 stars Tangy and Sweaty
By Amazon Customeron November 13, 2015
Format: Paperback

Voice was a hard to define book. Amazon asked me to describe the mood and I was hard-pressed to figure out whether I’d categorize it best as suspenseful or dark or thoughtful….Sometimes it was even light-hearted. And sexy isn’t on the list, otherwise I might have checked that box. Mr. Dorchak has gone out on a limb with a quirky, sometimes irritating main character, seemingly cheating on all the beautiful women who come into his life – including the Voice in his head and his own (eh hmmmm) hand.

Voice is heavy on philosophy, challenging the reader to think outside of the worldly box. Like one of his previous books, The Uninvited, Voice explores the paranormal in a fresh way.

The writing voice in this aptly named book had so many shining turns of phrase that I bookmarked many of them to study them and figure out why they worked so well. Among other things, I admired his surprising way of depicting setting in which Ben experiences “the slumber-inducing roar and crash of frothy breakers” and ”the cushioned springiness of the forest floor.”

The women who haunt him are Bo Derek sexy, Winona Rider dangerous, and Kirsten Dunst enigmatic. They “crawl around inside him…” And there isn’t a part of him that they aren’t a part of. In fact there was a powerlessness in Ben when it came to his love objects. Their gazes stripped “away all that he was. Stripped away all the games, pretension. Stripped away all that society considered moral and immoral. Destroyed any sense of decency, valor, or guilt. Sense of right or wrong. Tore away everything down to one thing and one thing only. Desire.” This paragraph tells you much of what you need to know before buying this book.

Protagonist Ben notices in his lusty counterparts things most people wouldn’t. “The pores of her back—the emotion of her back…” one’s stare at the “hairs on one of Ben’s forearms.” Even the “bottleness” of Chardonnay pressed too tightly to his side as one of the temptresses lures him. At the heart of the book is the “Karma-sutric” nature of his desires.

And believe me, there are some crazy lusty scenes that I can’t describe here without censorship. Suffice it to say that the senses are fully engaged, “tangy and sweaty” smells lingering on fingertips after wild sex. R to X rated for sure.

Dip in, if you dare, and look forward to the surprising climax (pun intended). What happens in the end between Ben and the “erogenous tentacles” he’s obsessed over came as a surprise for me. Though looking back, it made perfect sense. I won’t spoil it for you. But if you like visceral sex and confused protagonists, this one is worth buying. For this I give Voice a 5-star rating.

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Voice Book Signing At The Bookman Nov 7, 2015

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Voice Book Signing Nov 7 2015, 1 - 3 P.M.
Voice Book Signing Nov 7 2015, 1 – 3 P.M.

Next month I am holding a book signing at The Bookman, in Colorado Springs, Colorado, from 1 to 3 p.m., Mountain time. It’ll be my first full-on book signing for Voice, though I’m also going to MileHiCon in Denver this month and I’m included in an en masse book signing of all the MileHiCon authors on Friday, October 23rd. I was there last year.

Next month’s book signing is on the West Side of Colorado Springs, just off and parallel to Highway 24. It’s catty-corner across from the Pizza Hut and within a stone’s throw of Safeway, where there’s plenty of parking.

I will also have some of my other novels on hand, but this signing is primarily about Voice.

Come on by (you, too, Vanessa!)…it’d be nice to see ya!

Voice Links:

Voice Facebook Events Page

The Bookman’s Facebook Voice Events Page

Voice Web Page

Voice Pinterest Board

Voice Reviews

Voice Amazon

Voice Smashwords

Voice Delivered…

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Plain Brown Wrapper: First Set of Voice Delivery, Sept 14, 2015
Plain Brown Wrapper: First Set of Voice Delivery, Sept 14, 2015

When I got the package of the first set of books for my new release, Voice, I just had to share, for it was not in the least lost on me the irony of its delivery: in a plain brown wrapper.

Is that still a “thing” in today’s world?

Well, I laughed.

The Naughty Little Book: What's Inside The Plain Brown Wrapper!
The Naughty Little Book: What’s Inside The Plain Brown Wrapper!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Voice Is Released!

by

Voice. (© 2015, F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)
Voice. (© 2015, F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)

Sex, love, and metaphysics. This intense sometimes explicit story is about what people do in the dark…especially when they’re hiding from themselves. A daring, sexy—even inspirational—read that explores relationships both familial and romantic and the tragedies that result from fractures in both. Voice is hard-hitting and unflinching…even uncomfortable…a novel for anyone who’s ever loved more than one.

After 16 years (18 if you count start to finish) and much angst, this novel is finally seeing the light of day! It’s also my longest published novel to date, at over 120,000 words.

Voice—my sexy, visionary fiction—is now available! Is it literary? Visionary? Erotica? Romance?

Truly, it is a little of each. But, whatever it is, it is my most mainstream effort ever. As I’ve said multiple times, I never wrote it, never intended it as erotic fiction. I still don’t even picture the story that way in my head. It is a story about people. It happens to have some explicit sex scenes in it, just like some novels have explicit violence in them. It turns out I actually wrote it as more of a love story: it’s a story about a guy who falls in love with a voice in his head.

That’s it.

I never had the plot nor story outlined…it just came to me as I wrote it. And I honestly did not know how it was going to end until I hit the “.” key after the last word in the manuscript. I do not exaggerate. I remember this vividly: I was banging along on the keyboard, excited how things had unfolded…wrote the last word. Hit the period key. Went to add a next page…and paused.

It was perfect. It surprised me. I ended it right there.

I’ve written a few “apologetic” pieces about the whole “erotica thing,” but…no more apologies.

It is what it is.

Writing Voice did more than expand my writing…it expanded my mind. My understanding of what I feel I’m capable of doing. Voice helped me go to emotional depths I’d never gone to before. At least in my own head. You, the readers, will tell me if I hit the mark or not. But, writing Voice took me down emotional rabbit holes. I found ways to write about the deep, sometimes hidden and painfully emotional details deep within stories. Which is really want I’ve wanted to do and hope I can do again. I’ve always wanted to write powerfully moving stories about the human condition. I didn’t want to just write about aliens or the supernatural. I wanted to write stories that were emotionally kick-ass as well as paranormal. I want to make people cry. Anger them. Excite them. Voice helped me learn how to “go there.” In Psychic I wrote a highly unpleasant rape scene. It was needed, so I did it. I didn’t flinch away from it. That scene’s power and mechanics came from having written Voice. In The Uninvited, I wrote graphic violence. I had to. They were important to the emotional context of the story. The ability to write out those scenes grew out of having worked on Voice.

And the utter irony?

When I finally made my way back to Voice and made that decision to actually follow through and put it out there…all the work I’d done on all my other novels all came back to help in making Voice the absolutely best, the most honest, emotional, and powerfully uncomfortable work I’ve ever created. And I’m proud of it—and I don’t use words like “pride.” If it wasn’t for Voice, none of the other novels would have been as good as they are…and if it wasn’t for the other novels, Voice wouldn’t be as good as it is. Or so I’ve heard from a couple readers (you just can’t trust me…).

And it is a powerful, emotional journey…but, really, that’s up to each of you to determine. I can’t please everyone, as a couple of my reviews show.

Sex, love, and metaphysics. This intense sometimes explicit story is about what people do in the dark…especially when they’re hiding from themselves.

I love this story, the setting. The whole gestalt. ERO and Voice rank as my favorite efforts. I hope you will also get lost in Voice and find the story. I did wonder if a couple of those who proofed and read it would ever talk to me again…and, well, so far they are. So, I have that going for me…which is nice….

Of those who’ve already read it, one reader told me half jokingly she wasn’t sure she could look me in the eyes “just now” when we first talked after her having read it.

That was so cool!

We laughed!

It meant I’d written something that had her look at me differently. And if she looked at me differently…how differently was she also looking at others? The world?

That meant I had expanded someone’s Weltanschauung.

That I had given another a different perspective.

Which is SO cool!

But I hadn’t done this alone!

There were others. Named and unnamed. I can never thank enough those who took a chance on this story—and me—to read it. Those who listened patiently to my conversational angst about should-I-or-shouldn’t-I? In one case, Mandy Pratt, who did the lion’s share of proofing and editing, having spent April to July picking things apart and pointing out misspelled words (dang it!) and messing with my head with shades of meaning—and, oh, let’s not even begin to talk about my own annoying employment of M-dashes and ellipses!

Yes, she kept me honest. Thanks, Mandy!

To Edie, Amy, Karen, Lon, and Joseph—thank you all for taking time out of your life to help out in the various ways you all did! Amy—you read this twice! Amy, an actual editor, read this back in 2002 or 2003…and when I asked if she was up for reading it again, she actually leapt at the chance (okay, maybe not actually launching herself up and into the air, but consider that “artistic license”…)! Karen, for helping me refine my “pitches” (Karen was there at the beginning, waaay back at a writers conference in the late nineties—thank you for sticking with me through all this, Karen!), back cover text, sounding board, et cetera. Joseph Reininger, no longer in the book retail business, was the first to read Voice and, again, waaay back in the 90s, and his reception of it literally stunned me. Never had I ever received such glowing praise (his is the blurb in the front of the novel) for anything I’d written up to that point! And he sold books! Reads tons of them. Wow. Joseph, yes, it’s finally going to see the light of day—thank you for all of your support!

And perhaps the oddest thanks goes to Joelle Yudin.

She was an Associate Editor at HarperCollins from 2000 – 2006. I’d sent a query to a publisher, and the long-and-the-short-of-it was that it had gotten routed to her. She’d read it, and on January 3, 2003, had sent me the following note:

“<Name withheld> passed along your proposal to me for my thoughts. I found the premise to be quite intriguing and so I shared it with my colleagues. Unfortunately, I will be passing, as I could not get them excited about it. I wish you the best of luck with this.”

I looked back in my writing ledger (yes, I have one; I keep track of things like this), and on January 23, 2003, at about 11:20 a.m. MT, I called her.

Yes, actually called her and I actually got her.

I wanted to know why the oligarchy’d passed on it. I do remember she’d been so kind and easy to talk to and didn’t slough me off in the slightest. What I wrote in my ledger was that Joelle said she thought my writing was good, my “voice” (heh-heh, pardon the pun) interesting, but her colleagues thought the manuscript “small,” in that they were unsure if it would “stand up in the market.” That it was “all about the $$$.” That the “size” of the piece wasn’t “large” enough and they recommended a small publisher. Then, at the end of all my notes I’d added: “Very (underlined) nice lady and open and forthcoming. Even said ‘sorry.'”

So, Joelle, I will always remember you and your kindness…your interest in Voice. Thank you for all of it! If I can ever get in contact with you, I’m sending you a gratis copy or two!

So…here it is.

Voice.

Now what??, Mandy had asked. Now what, indeed!

I gotta find something else to work on….

****

Voice is available at Amazon.com (e-book and trade paperback), CreateSpace, Barnesandnoble.com, and Smashwords.com. There will be additional outlets as the distribution “takes.”

If anyone would like a signed paperback, feel free to send this or any other of my work to the following address—WITH THE PROPER POSTAGE OR IT WILL NOT BE RETURNED. I will use any unreturned books as free giveaways. Send to:

F. P. Dorchak, P. O. Box 49393, Colorado Springs, CO 80949.

Related Articles

Voice Synchronicities

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Charting Synchronicities. (Prosopee derivative work: Augurar [Schéma_synchronicité.jpg] [CC BY-SA 3.0 {http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0}], via Wikimedia Commons)
Charting Synchronicities. (Prosopee derivative work: Augurar [Schéma_synchronicité.jpg] [CC BY-SA 3.0 {http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0}], via Wikimedia Commons)
I couldn’t write about these until I made my new novel’s title (Voice) public, but the past couple of months I’ve been seeing all kinds of media and movies and commercials tied to “voices.” Many will say it’s merely a case of being more aware of whatever it is I’m doing. But I have to say I’ve had this manuscript on the back-burner for almost 20 years, and it’s always been on my mind. Pardon the pun.

Should I revive it?

Should I change it’s title?

Should I edit out the sex scenes?

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’ve given this manuscript tons of attention and/or thought over the years. But it’s literally only been the past few months to a year where I’ve seen a spate of “Voice“-related media:

The Affair the Showtime TV show.

The Birdman movie, with all its voices.

A “Make your voice heard – take this survey” e-mail survey I recently received.

The TV show “The Whispers.”

A billboard or two “talking” about “voices.”

A line in the poem, “Song of The Choosing,” by the deceased Jane Roberts, just made public (see the Black Sheep #126, the August/September 2015 issue, page 5): “And the hidden voices….”

On the SyFy Channel, August 18, at 6:30 in the morning MDT, was the series Paranormal Witness, the episode “A Ghostly Affair.” One of the people in the show was named “Rebecca.”

Voice. (© 2015, F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)
Voice. (© 2015, F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)

And as I wrote the cover-reveal post, I was playing Pandora, and the Hinder song “Better Than Me” played, which includes the line “…miss your hair in my face…”; you just have to love the synchronicity there!

There is a connectedness to all things. We just have to be aware of this and be open to them.

What should we make of all this “connectedness”?

Everything we do touches something else. Nothing occurs in a vacuum. Consider what it is you’re doing and how it will affect the world. You. Consider what this means to you. Everything has meaning. Just because we may not be able to discern a reason for something at the time of the event does not mean it has no meaning.

Everything is connected.

Consider the implications of that statement.

(The Butterfly Effect)

They are…quite far-reaching….

Voice is Released!

by

Voice. (©2015, F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)
Voice. (©2015, F. P. Dorchak and Lon Kirschner)

Sex, love, and metaphysics. This intense sometimes explicit story is about what people do in the dark…especially when they’re hiding from themselves. A daring, sexy—even inspirational—read that explores relationships both familial and romantic and the tragedies that result from fractures in both. Voice is hard-hitting and unflinching…even uncomfortable…a novel for anyone who’s ever loved more than one.

After 16 years (18 if you count start to finish) and much angst, this novel is finally seeing the light of day! It’s also my longest published novel to date, at over 120,000 words.

Voice—my sexy, visionary fiction—is now available! Is it literary? Visionary? Erotica? Romance?

Truly, it is a little of each. But, whatever it is, it is my most mainstream effort ever. As I’ve said multiple times, I never wrote it, never intended it as erotic fiction. I still don’t even picture the story that way in my head. It is a story about people. It happens to have some explicit sex scenes in it, just like some novels have explicit violence in them. It turns out I actually wrote it as more of a love story: it’s a story about a guy who falls in love with a voice in his head.

That’s it.

I never had the plot nor story outlined…it just came to me as I wrote it. And I honestly did not know how it was going to end until I hit the “.” key after the last word in the manuscript. I do not exaggerate. I remember this vividly: I was banging along on the keyboard, excited how things had unfolded…wrote the last word. Hit the period key. Went to add a next page…and paused.

It was perfect. It surprised me. I ended it right there.

I’ve written a few “apologetic” pieces about the whole “erotica thing,” but…no more apologies.

It is what it is.

Writing Voice did more than expand my writing…it expanded my mind. My understanding of what I feel I’m capable of doing. Voice helped me go to emotional depths I’d never gone to before. At least in my own head. You, the readers, will tell me if I hit the mark or not. But, writing Voice took me down emotional rabbit holes. I found ways to write about the deep, sometimes hidden and painfully emotional details deep within stories. Which is really want I’ve wanted to do and hope I can do again. I’ve always wanted to write powerfully moving stories about the human condition. I didn’t want to just write about aliens or the supernatural. I wanted to write stories that were emotionally kick-ass as well as paranormal. I want to make people cry. Anger them. Excite them. Voice helped me learn how to “go there.” In Psychic I wrote a highly unpleasant rape scene. It was needed, so I did it. I didn’t flinch away from it. That scene’s power and mechanics came from having written Voice. In The Uninvited, I wrote graphic violence. I had to. They were important to the emotional context of the story. The ability to write out those scenes grew out of having worked on Voice.

And the utter irony?

When I finally made my way back to Voice and made that decision to actually follow through and put it out there…all the work I’d done on all my other novels all came back to help in making Voice the absolutely best, the most honest, emotional, and powerfully uncomfortable work I’ve ever created. And I’m proud of it—and I don’t use words like “pride.” If it wasn’t for Voice, none of the other novels would have been as good as they are…and if it wasn’t for the other novels, Voice wouldn’t be as good as it is. Or so I’ve heard from a couple readers (you just can’t trust me…).

And it is a powerful, emotional journey…but, really, that’s up to each of you to determine. I can’t please everyone, as a couple of my reviews show.

Sex, love, and metaphysics. This intense sometimes explicit story is about what people do in the dark…especially when they’re hiding from themselves.

I love this story, the setting. The whole gestalt. ERO and Voice rank as my favorite efforts. I hope you will also get lost in Voice and find the story. I did wonder if a couple of those who proofed and read it would ever talk to me again…and, well, so far they are. So, I have that going for me…which is nice….

Of those who’ve already read it, one reader told me half jokingly she wasn’t sure she could look me in the eyes “just now” when we first talked after her having read it.

That was so cool!

We laughed!

It meant I’d written something that had her look at me differently. And if she looked at me differently…how differently was she also looking at others? The world?

That meant I had expanded someone’s Weltanschauung.

That I had given another a different perspective.

Which is SO cool!

But I hadn’t done this alone!

There were others. Named and unnamed. I can never thank enough those who took a chance on this story—and me—to read it. Those who listened patiently to my conversational angst about should-I-or-shouldn’t-I? In one case, Mandy Pratt, who did the lion’s share of proofing and editing, having spent April to July picking things apart and pointing out misspelled words (dang it!) and messing with my head with shades of meaning—and, oh, let’s not even begin to talk about my own annoying employment of M-dashes and ellipses!

Yes, she kept me honest. Thanks, Mandy!

To Edie, Amy, Karen, Lon, and Joseph—thank you all for taking time out of your life to help out in the various ways you all did! Amy—you read this twice! Amy, an actual editor, read this back in 2002 or 2003…and when I asked if she was up for reading it again, she actually leapt at the chance (okay, maybe not actually launching herself up and into the air, but consider that “artistic license”…)! Karen, for helping me refine my “pitches” (Karen was there at the beginning, waaay back at a writers conference in the late nineties—thank you for sticking with me through all this, Karen!), back cover text, sounding board, et cetera. Joseph Reininger, no longer in the book retail business, was the first to read Voice and, again, waaay back in the 90s, and his reception of it literally stunned me. Never had I ever received such glowing praise (his is the blurb in the front of the novel) for anything I’d written up to that point! And he sold books! Reads tons of them. Wow. Joseph, yes, it’s finally going to see the light of day—thank you for all of your support!

And perhaps the oddest thanks goes to Joelle Yudin.

She was an Associate Editor at HarperCollins from 2000 – 2006. I’d sent a query to a publisher, and the long-and-the-short-of-it was that it had gotten routed to her. She’d read it, and on January 3, 2003, had sent me the following note:

“<Name withheld> passed along your proposal to me for my thoughts. I found the premise to be quite intriguing and so I shared it with my colleagues. Unfortunately, I will be passing, as I could not get them excited about it. I wish you the best of luck with this.”

I looked back in my writing ledger (yes, I have one; I keep track of things like this), and on January 23, 2003, at about 11:20 a.m. MT, I called her.

Yes, actually called her and I actually got her.

I wanted to know why the oligarchy’d passed on it. I do remember she’d been so kind and easy to talk to and didn’t slough me off in the slightest. What I wrote in my ledger was that Joelle said she thought my writing was good, my “voice” (heh-heh, pardon the pun) interesting, but her colleagues thought the manuscript “small,” in that they were unsure if it would “stand up in the market.” That it was “all about the $$$.” That the “size” of the piece wasn’t “large” enough and they recommended a small publisher. Then, at the end of all my notes I’d added: “Very (underlined) nice lady and open and forthcoming. Even said ‘sorry.'”

So, Joelle, I will always remember you and your kindness…your interest in Voice. Thank you for all of it! If I can ever get in contact with you, I’m sending you a gratis copy or two!

So…here it is.

Voice.

Now what??, Mandy had asked. Now what, indeed!

I gotta find something else to work on….

****

Voice is available at Amazon.com (e-book and trade paperback), CreateSpace, Barnesandnoble.com, and Smashwords.com. There will be additional outlets as the distribution “takes.”

If anyone would like a signed paperback, feel free to send this or any other of my work to the following address—WITH THE PROPER POSTAGE OR IT WILL NOT BE RETURNED. I will use any unreturned books as free giveaways. Send to:

F. P. Dorchak, P. O. Box 49393, Colorado Springs, CO 80949.

Related Articles