Hello Inkshares Family, 

It has been a long time since we last spoke, and if I am writing to you today, it’s because I’m proud to share the first single that my band, Slim & The Beast, released a few weeks ago. My twin brother Aaron and my close friend Aurelien make up our folk-rock trio, and it was only fitting that it be named after a novel about brotherhood and the pursuit of passion. 

Here is the video for an acoustic version of "Close to You," which we performed live with a string quartet in Paris (where I still live, now with my brother): 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h0hDoESJlSs

If you enjoy the song, please consider giving it a thumbs up, a comment, and to share it far and wide! In the age of digital distribtuion, every single view and thumbs up counts. Also, for anyone interested in reaching out, please don’t hesitate to send me an email at slopezba@gmail.com for a more proper catch up.

Thank you once again for believing in Slim and The Beast way back when they were nothing more than fictional characters, and for supporting and inspiring me to believe in the pursuit of passion and the artistic life. 

All love,

Samuél

PS here is a link to the album version, which is now available on all major streaming platforms. 

Hello fine folks, it’s been a while indeed. All I can say is there’s  good reason (I think) for my radio silence the past 2.5 years: I’ve been toiling away on a new book and it has taken all of my mental energy to finish the drafting process.

The Requisitions is a historical fiction novel that takes place in Nazi-occupied Lodz, Poland, a real-world dystopia that was deemed Hitler’s "City of the Future" on one side and was home to a hermetically-sealed ghetto on the other, ruled by a Jewish despot who called himself, "King of the Jews."

Much like Slim and The Beast, the book is about how we search for and derive meaning in life when facing the unconscionable. It is about creation and destruction. It is about hatred and love. It is about the human relationships that sustain us when we ourselves are lost. If you’re interested in learning more, check out a summary and the first few chapters here:

www.inkshares.com/books/the-requisitions

And don’t hesitate to FOLLOW the book if you enjoy it, which serves two purposes:

1) The more followers I have for The Requisitions, the more chapters I can share. More followers = more chapters. That’s my promise. And whether or not I end up using Inkshares’ publishing model for this work, sharing these excerpts gives me a chance to give back to the community that first got me published.

2) Inkshares has grown since Slim and The Beast was first released, and there are a lot of literary agents and film makers now perusing the website. The more FOLLOWERS I get, the better the chances The Requisitions has of "being discovered." The publishing world is just as wonky as ever, but Inkshares has been gracious enough to put faith in my work, and that’s all I can ask for.

Thank you for taking the time to read this, and please leave a comment or post in the discussion on The Requisitions if you want to continue the dialogue. Alternatively, shoot me an email: slopezba@gmail.com.

All love,

Samuél

Started Saturday, finished Sunday - couldn’t put it down (except when my wife made me).  I really enjoyed it.  Great job!  I like to think that Slim is doing pretty just fine out there.

Dear Readers,

A brief update for you Monday inbox, with a few pieces of good news to welcome the harvest:

1) Back in July I was longlisted for the Crook's Corner Book Prize in Chapel Hill, NC. Crook's Corner is a staple of Southern cuisine in North Carolina (Chez Moi, the fictional restaurant in Slim and The Beast, was inspired by the spot), and it is an honor to be among the candidates for the debut novelist prize. Lee Smith, a literary legend down south, will choose the short list in the coming weeks. Regardless of whether I'm selected (it's a long shot, indeed), I'm honored to be considered and wanted to share it with you all:

http://crookscornerbookprize.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/CROOKSBOOKS_release16_fourthtake.pdf

2) I have finished the manuscript for my third novel, which is a historical fiction based in a Polish ghetto (Lodz) during the Nazi occupation. I spent my academic career (BA + MA) studying ethics during the Nazi era and the psychology of genocide, and this novel serves as a culmination of those studies. It will take some time before I move towards publishing, but after three years of writing, I am confident I have something now.

3) I have been accepted to the Vermont Studio Center artist residency program in Johnson, Vermont for February, 2016. Quite frankly, I didn't expect to get in. It's a huge honor. I will spend one month living with fifty international artists (visual artists as well as writers) and during this time, I hope to begin my fourth novel. I don't know where it will lead me, but I have an idea where to start ... as Andre Gide says, "One does not discover new lands without consenting to lose sight of the shore for a very long time." 

NB: For all of you artists out there, you should DEFINITELY apply to these types of programs. You never know which reviewer may take a liking to your work--if I can make it, so can you. Multiple rejection letters only increase your odds (that might be flawed logic/a cognitive bias, but I'm running with it. DON'T TRY AND STOP ME).

Finally, Slim and The Beast is still selling a few copies per week, which is more than I expected. I'm lucky to have jumped on-board the Inkshares train when I did, and that comes with a HUGE thanks to the 232 original backers-- Stars of the Year, you know who you are--for being the main reason for any of this. You believed in me when Inkshares didn't have any previously published novels or well-known writers, and that makes you especially awesome.

In a society that glorifies self-aggrandisement, various gimmicks and constant social media presence, how is it possible to remain authentic?

I've been struggling with this question a lot,  as you probably noticed in my last update. If you're interested in an essay-version of the schizophrenic nature of being a "self-made" author, here is the Medium piece, "A Portrait of the Author as a Young Person." 

https://medium.com/@slbfiction/a-portrait-of-the-author-as-a-young-person-151713ac9ba4

It has been a while since my last update. Here's the reason why. The following is a fantastic variation on an exam question found in David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest

(Raw link to the article: https://medium.com/just-words/the-eye-of-sauron-d454ed83377a

Since I returned from the Slim and The Beast  book tour six months ago, I've felt stuck in this type of double-bind. On the one hand, as an author I want the recognition. I want to sell books. I know in order to do this I must Tweet; I must Facebook; I must Instagram and hand out business cards. In short, I must commodify myself--it isn't just the novel I'm peddling, but capital Me, The Author.

On the other hand, I hate this. It is everything I despise. The paradox of writing, of spending so many hours in my imagination, is that what I'm truly doing is escaping myself,  escaping the very notion of being heard by others. For a few hours each day (if I'm lucky), I can forget about Me, The Author. I can forget about the rat race; book sales; online reviews; career goals.  I can lose myself in a world that doesn't care about Samuel, The Author ... all that matters when I'm writing is the world I hope to discover.

This obsession with being seen and being followed and being liked in the digital world seems to be in direct opposition to what it truly means to be a good person, not to mention a good writer. The loudest people on Twitter always have the most followers. The more likes you get on Instagram (which requires tapping your thumb twice), the cooler your product. I have a feeling we are addicted to this need for validation, with social media only being the latest, most egregious enabler of narcissism. But the trouble with being someone who dreams of making a living through writing is twofold: 1) In order to write well, to write something authentic and human,  I must forget about my ego and about proving myself to others; BUT 2) In order to be seen (i.e. to be bought), I have to sell myself as Me, The Author, as soon as I've stopped writing. Once the book is "finished," it's no longer about spending time confronting myself, my fears, my problems, but turning that confrontation into a product. Something about this turns my stomach. What's worse, it makes me feel like a farce.

So how do I remain authentic while also trying to attract attention? Is it even possible to remain true to what really matters (a life of deference and humility, not celebrity and pomp) while simultaneously trying to get re-Tweeted and liked and obtain more followers? (The word "followers," by the way, makes me think of some selfie-inspired cult following). I have met quite a few pretentious people recently who care more about being seen than being heard--more about the make-up than the art--but they are also successful and well-off. So what does that mean? Is it possible to market myself as an author, rendering myself as some kind of product, without sacrificing the very essence of what it means to be a writer?

It is a double-bind and it's exhausting, but it does help to talk about it. My fellow Inkshares author, Yann Rousselot, and I have been discussing it quite a lot with my twin brother, Aaron, who has been on a music tour in Paris the past 1.5 months. He is an incredible musician and is also (not coincidentally) the most humble, least pretentious human being I know. So in a world that necessitates being seen and being liked, being followed and being admired, being swiped left or right, how do we "get out there" without hashtagging ourselves into oblivion? What does it mean to be a successful yet genuine artist while maintaining so many social media accounts? While reloading the page in case we have a new follower? How do we talk about ourselves as artists without turning  our very essence into a consumable product? These are questions I've been struggling with, and they're probably worthy of a future novel(s). It's also why I haven't been pushing Slim and The Beast the past few months.

All this to say I've been thinking about (and avoiding) the double-bind as much as possible since March, thoroughly happy to lose the "Me, Author" mentality by escaping into the third novel.  It's also been helpful to re-read David Foster Wallace and his thoughts on this very infectious human desire to be seen and wanted: “Something happens in your late twenties where you realize that how other people regard you does not have enough calories in it, to keep you from blowing your brains out.” It's an extreme statement, but I don't think he's wrong. There aren't any calories in red Facebook flags or Instagram hearts.

So here's to caring less about what others think about me, and more about what's important: the next novel. Note: this is a work in progress and it comes in the middle of the book (divided into three sections). The scene involves a brutal SS officer, which means this section is offensive and is rated R.

http://www.samuelbarrantes.com/excerpt-novel-in-progress/

Hey Folks,

Just a quick reminder for all of you in Paris (and those who want an excuse to spend an exorbitant amount of money to fly to Baguette Land for the night) that the next reading is TOMORROW, APRIL 9 AT 7PM at the glorious SHAKESPEARE AND COMPANY, Kilometer Zero, Paris.

It is a major honor to speak at my favorite bookstore in the world ... yet another example of how far you guys have brought Slim and The Beast. I'll be speaking/reading/sipping a glass of wine with Yann Rousselot, a great friend and fellow Inkshares writer. His Dawn of the Algorithm  is a beautiful poetry collection complete with illustrations from around the world, including work from my girlfriend and twin brother.

NB: Speaking of Aaron, he is currently in an international music competition (Toyota is sponsoring it) and has a chance to be flown to New Zealand to spread his musical love. He needs virtual credits (no real money is spent), so if you are a fan of his music,"voting" takes about 15 seconds and could very well change his life. (In case that hyperlink didn't work, here's the original source: http://feelingthestreet.com/profile/aaron-lopez-barrantes)

Dearest Folks,

As of today, I’ve sold 1,108 books. There are 11 first edition copies left. There are just two things I wanted to mention before the second edition is air-dropped into the hands of rabid, screaming fans:

Book reviews on Amazon and Goodreads

I’ll be the first to admit: I’m not good at this. Reviewing books online is not something I’m accustomed to. BUT, for better or for worse, it makes a HUGE difference going forward. And since I created a Goodreads account, I’ve actually found that it’s a pretty awesome website (think of it as a digital library that evolves with you, reminds you of what you like, and provides great recommendations). The truth of the matter is: the more reviews I receive, the more readers I get. It’s that simple. So if you’ve read the book and have a few minutes to jump on Goodreads or swing over to Amazon to tell the world (and me) what you think, it really does make a huge difference (even if you just give me “stars”). Just as every backer counted towards the 232 who originally funded me, every review now counts in getting me to “the next step.” (Note: please be honest if you do review it … hearing actual opinions is the only way for me to improve as a writer).

(Secret double note: my twin brother, Aaron, and I are envisioning an artistic adventure, a twin tour extravaganza—a TWOUR if you will. Combining his blues/folk singer/songwriting skills, vocal harmonies, Slim and The Beast and my harmonicas, we’re hoping to travel around the U.S. and spread the brotherly love. But for this to happen, we need to gain more of a following. So pop on some tunes and write that Goodreads review—it’s a major help for the next step).

Inkshares Credit System

You may have noticed Inkshares’ new “credit system.” At its most basic level, you are being rewarded for funding a “best-seller” (we’ve sold over 1,000 copies, and that’s awesome). This is kind of like a “buy one get one free” system, except better: Inkshares is reinvesting book sales in readers. As far as I know, that’s unprecedented. So jump on your Inkshares account and bask in the glory of believing in humanity. Browse the website to see what tickles your toes ... I suggest you check out Yann Rousselot’s poetry collection, Dawn of the Algorithm, which includes beautiful, unique illustrations from around the world (Aaron was an illustrator, as was my girlfriend). Yann is one of my Parisian writers in arms. We met at a book swap. Call it romantic.