Happy Mother’s Day, Beautiful People.
Shoutout to my mom, who read me Clan of the Cave Bear while I was in the bathtub as a kid and fostered a lifelong love of the written word. And also to my lovely wife, who gave birth to our three obstreperous spawn and puts up with my nonsense.
I try to keep author updates to a minimum—they are a bit navel-gazey for my taste. But I have a few things to share, so I figured I’d knock them out in one bit.
Podcast. I mentioned this one a few weeks ago. Here’s the short description:
The Surf and Turf Show is where two retired special operations officers—Green Beret Dan Pace and Navy SEAL Adam Karaoguz—take on the challenge of living well in the turbulent twenties. They explore what it means to be a good human and a good man: strong, self-reliant, emotionally intelligent, and oriented toward service. Through candid conversation, personal vignettes, and hard-earned lessons, they tackle everything from marriage and masculinity to risk, resilience, and redemption. It's not about perfection—it’s about showing up with character, curiosity, and a willingness to grow.
Show Links:
The Infernal Tower. I had already decided to independently publish this fall/winter.
Done and dusted.
A wonderful freelance editor copy edited the novel, and an artist in Australia designed a badass cover. I began learning how to record the audio book in Garage Band for Mac.
Then I took one last glance at the list of all the agents I’d queried, and realized I only had 142. Figured I would query a few more, you know, just to get to a nice round 150. And when I say I queried 142, that means I investigated around 300 agents— researched their wish lists, listened to interviews, and learned what they typically sell in order to get down to my actual query list.
Lo and behold, two of the next few agents I queried requested fulls (industry jargon for they wanted to see the entire novel). One of those full requests resulted in an offer of representation. So in a plot twist, this novel is on submission (again). It’s too early to tell what will come of this—the book is an order of magnitude better than the one that died on submission eighteen months ago, and the zeitgeist/vibe of the moment is different.
In traditional publishing, much of the process is out of the control of the writer. Writing a strong novel is only one part—there is both timing and getting the right eyes on the work. From a writer’s perspective, the statistics on traditional publishing are fairly bleak. The estimates I’ve seen regarding the percentage of authors who seek and obtain representation from a literary agent vary between 0.04% to 3%. This means that by the numbers, more people are accepted at Ivy League Universities (3-10%) and finish SEAL Training (20-30%) then get agented, per capita. I am confident that getting two agents for the same novel is improbable, statistically speaking. Definitely under 1%, by my super scientifically rigorous, feelings-based analysis.
It’s out of my hands now. It will either sell to a publishing house, or I will independently publish it.
A hundred sided die. Not super effective, but fun to look at. 2d10 (Two ten-sided dice) is much better for percentile rolls. New Project: The Heavenly Tunnel. I put myself on a deadline of Labor day (September 1st) to finish an approximately 80,000 word first draft. I have forty-two scenes blocked out with all the key elements (POV, conflict, setting, plot points, etc), so I should be able to jam. I know the start, I know the end, and I know most of what happens in between. If I finish by then, I get a reward. If I don’t make it, I will incur a penalty. And I REALLY don’t want to incur the penalty.
One sentence teaser: While trying to save an old teammate, a former Navy Linguist locks horns with the managers of a secretive military-industrial project and struggles to make peace with her past.
Writing journal by Page One. The essay production here at Renaissance Humans may slow down, at least for the summer. I’m certain I will still write essays on the side, but the main effort will be jamming this first draft.
Impressive output, Adam! And all while pursuing PhD studies? Man, you're plugged into the creative source. Ride that tide as long as she flows!
Thanks for the links to your podcast. I'm more of a reader, but I've been pushing myself to listen to some podcasts lately (big fan of interviews) to diversify my intake. Looking forward to hearing you on S&T!
Stay at it man is all there is. A Sisyphian journeyman, and we
Must imagine him happy