Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
My name is Shea Barbacci. I’m just a man who, for a long time, tried to make sense of the world. I gave up on that endeavor, and now I just try to experience life in a worthwhile manner. I still contemplate what has happened, and I try to be prepared for whatever might happen in the future. Being alive, however, here and now, sometimes gets in the way, and I’m satisfied by that.
I’ve just published my first book, “Vagabond Nemophile: A Vicarious Adventure.”
Have you ever had a car you really loved? One that you can get in, go anywhere, and feel like you’re on an exciting adventure even if you’re just going to work or running errands? When you push on the pedals, you can feel how your car reacts, you can hear how well it’s running. You can sense what sort of maintenance you need to perform to keep your car running like the well-oiled machine it can be. When you get home, you look at it and feel proud you get to drive it. You can imagine modifications you’d like to make to it, and with the right tools, materials, and a bit of elbow grease, you can bring your vision to reality.
That is how I feel about the relationship between my books and my self.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
The name of my latest and first completed novel is Vagabond Nemophile: A Vicarious Adventure. It was inspired by wanting to walk away from everything I was doing as a feeling of futility permeated my day to day ambition, allowing hopelessness to creep in and cripple my motivation. I was finally yielding to the realization the rewards I sought along the path I traveled would not truly be what I wished to work towards. So, I abandoned my studio and my studies, and hopped a greyhound bus from Florida to the opposite corner of the continental USA, and set off hiking and writing without a plan. Everything I encountered along the way inspired the book to become what it did. It’s the sort of book I’ve always wanted to pick up and read.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I’ve tried writing a lot of different ways. I rented a small warehouse once and built a studio there that was the most conducive environment for creativity that I could possibly imagine. I had motorcycles and a space to work on them in one corner, I had a place to paint in another. On the other side of the room, I had music and recording equipment, and I even set up a small talk-show stage with video cameras, all connected to computers so I could broadcast live on the internet. Before I knew it, I had spent all of my time setting things up, and none of my time creating anything. Whenever I did sit down to write or produce any sort of media, I became distracted by something else, and nothing was ever being accomplished. If I managed to block out all of the distractions and focus on writing, I was majorly disappointed by anything I put down on paper. There’s a short song by The White Stripes, called “Little Room,” and I think that song sums up this predicament quite well.
I tried writing in the dirtiest dive biker bar I could find in Daytona Beach for awhile, but I always ended up too far towards the bottom of the bottle to ever put anything comprehensible on the page.
As I said earlier, I began writing my first novel as I abandoned this place I created and took off to the opposite corner of the United States on a Greyhound Bus, with very little money, and a bit of wilderness survival gear. As I crossed through backcountry forests, over mountains, and through valleys and canyons, I found I was much more comfortable writing outside, exposed to the sun, wind, rain, sweltering heat, freezing cold, carrying my writing supplies everywhere I went.
Since then, I’ve found stepping outside of my comfort zone brings me the greatest comfort in creativity.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Aldous Huxley, Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac, Hunter S. Thompson, Kurt Vonnegut, Roald Dahl, Michael Crichton, Stephen R. Donaldson, Arthur C. Clarke, H.P. Lovecraft, Carl Sagan, Lewis Carroll, Clive Barker, Jon Krakauer, Stephen Ambrose, and many, many more.
What are you working on now?
Well, I make a lot of photoshop art, so I’m currently working on figuring out the best way to print those pieces onto posters so I may sell them to anyone who might like weird bewildering images on their wall. That isn’t really as relevant to our discussion as these other three things I’m working on, though:
1) A book that shall house a number of the strange and twisted dreams I spend the first few moments of my morning recovering from.
2) The sequel to my first Novel. The working title I have for it is “Vagabond 2: Nemophile in the City,” Although it will be a sequel of sorts, I’m trying to craft it into a book that will rightly be able to stand on its own two feet, without leaving readers feeling lost if they haven’t read the first.
3) I’m trying to figure out how to promote my first novel, which I’ve just recently published. I suppose this leads us into the next question.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
I just published my first novel, so I’m trying to figure out how to promote it now. I don’t have a ton of money to dump into marketing ad campaigns all over the internet, so I’m investigating any free promotional tactics I can conjure. Their results are yet to be determined. I don’t shut up about my writing, so anyone that comes into contact with me learns about it. I can lead a horse to water, but I can’t make them think. Or read. Or buy my novel. So, I’m hoping my novel finds readers who thoroughly enjoy my writing style and those readers will tell their like-minded friends about it. I’m scouring the internet for appropriate websites, groups, and any forum that will let me promote my work, but that’s proving to be an endevour much like treading water in a rip current by the shoreline. When I have the funds to do so, I’ll begin launching calculated ad campaigns on a few different distribution platforms. I’m curious to see what results that may yield. If anyone else has any great suggestive ideas, I encourage you to visit my website and leave a comment.
I think the best method for promoting my work won’t be any specific website or ad campaign, though. I think the best method will be to put my heart and soul into crafting my words, sentences, paragraphs, and chapters. I believe if I dedicate all the time and energy I can into expressing my thoughts and feelings with integrity, and into sharing what impacts me in a way that might equally impact readers, then hopefully I gain the interest of open minds and creative, imaginative fans through the years, and my work will promote itself through notoriaty and word of mouth.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Although I’ve been at it for quite a while, I still feel like I am a new author at the stage, myself. However, yes, I do have advice for new authors:
Keep writing. Keep reading. Keep revising and polishing your work. Don’t be your own worst enemy. When you feel stagnant, find a way to shake things up. Tuck, roll, and react.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
“Take any advice with a grain of salt.”
What are you reading now?
“The Naked Ape,” by Desmond Morris
What’s next for you as a writer?
Wouldn’t we all like to know what’s next for us, as anythings? As writers? As artists? As humans? I believe there will come a day when I might be able to answer this question with some level of certainty, but the only thing I can be certain of right now, is I can’t be certain of anything.
What’s next, you ask? Could it be poverty? Could it be a dead-end job? Could it be success? What is success, anyway? I bet the same people who can tell me what they think success is are the same people who could tell me what’s next for them as a something or other.
While I look forward to having the sort of stability in my life where I can tell you what I foresee in the future without the recognition of my forecast causing a heavy stone to swell in the pit of my stomach, I also enjoy gazing out into the abyss of the unknown future.
What is your favorite book of all time?
Brave New World by Aldous Huxley
Author Websites and Profiles
Shea Barbacci Website
Shea Barbacci Amazon Profile
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