Indie Spotlight: Matt Micheli

Writing a novel can be a long and difficult process. One that may require the writer to put it down and leave it lie for awhile - In love, distance makes the heart grow fonder. In writing, it helps to put what a writer is trying to do or say into perspective.

Meet Matt Micheli. He is the author of Memoirs of a Violent Sleeper, which is celebrating it's 1st birthday this month. The novel was released through Creative House International Press, a small indie press that allows select members of it's Readers Club to preview manuscript submissions with an opportunity to offer feedback directly to the author.

This is what Matt had to say about the writing process for Memoirs of a Violent Sleeper:

"I started and wrote the 1st 80 pages of my 1st novel, Memoirs of a Violent Sleeper, over 10 years ago. I don't quite know what inspired me to write or what even gave me the idea for the story besides being influenced by the many books I was reading at that time as well as other forms of media input and life itself.

All that I do know is that I sat down at a computer and started typing. the typing continued and continued and after a while the characters and story manifested themselves. The book became another realm and I became the lead character. My thoughts changed to reflect how he would think and so on and so on. What would he say? How would he react? Once to page 80 for reasons unknown, my mind became blocked and i simply did not know where to go from there.

About a year ago, going through stuff in my closet, I came across the rough draft of those 1st 80 pages, decided to revise it somewhat and re-type it onto my new computer. Once i got to the end, the characters and story again took off and within a month, I had completed the manuscript."

Now that he had a completed manuscript, he needed to find a publisher. After doing some research, Matt decided to submit a synopsis of his novel to a small, local press. "There are components to the smaller publisher, exposure, editing, etc that make me wish I had gone after a larger publisher. But on the other hand, the smaller publisher did allow me to have creative reign over the project, keeping my integrity and creating a much more "raw" version of the book. It truly is MY book."

Here is the book's blurb:

Steven suffers from an extremely rare and scary sleep disorder that causes sufferers to violently and physically act out their brain’s dreams. Ever since his first bizarre, embarrassing occurrence at the age of seven, he has felt isolated, alone and crying out for the love and acceptance from his family, yet pushing them further and further away. His extreme fear of commitment, and anxiety, fueled by this embarrassing disorder sends him into a dangerous world of strippers, prostitutes, drugs and alcohol. That is until Gina walks into his life. With a cast of quirky characters, a satirical and funny look on society, and beyond, Memoirs of a Violent Sleeper takes you through an extraordinary story of the darker side of love.

Matt Micheli is a transgressive fiction writer out of Austin TX who deals with lead characters that don't quite fit the norm. You could say he's a hopeless romantic - not in the sense of your cliche' love stories such as the Notebook but more in a quirky way involving characters with pasts, issues, depth and layers of realness, emasculation, isolation, pain and hurt. He believes that you can't enjoy something until you know the true value of which you are enjoying; love. And would there be humor without sadness? He is a self-professed "off the beaten path" kind of guy when it comes to books and movies and these influences come through in his writing. His analytical, sometimes satirical, and often times blunt views of religion, love, loss, life and beyond are expressed through his storytelling. For him, writing is an escape from the confines of a consistent and ordinary normality.