Sanctuary Now

After a long period of time writing three separate manuscripts, a round of rejections totaling into the nineties from literary agents through both cold queries and in person pitches, many of which resulted in requests for partials but none of which manifested in offers of representation…

I am deciding to self-publish my manuscripts.

I apologize that I haven’t been blogging as much as of late, but that’s mainly a product of my having focused on writing and polishing three full length manuscripts that I intend to promote and publish in the coming months and throughout 2018. The first of which is a story about a fallen Angel manipulating the global economy in the 1920’s.

Sanctuary Now Cover

I started writing Sanctuary Now around five years ago in late 2012, and I completed it in its current form after several drafts in early 2016. It’s around 96,000 words in length, and is strongly inspired by Mark Twain’s The Mysterious Stranger, though its setting and overall content is quite different. It’s set in 1925 four years before the economic collapse of 1929, and follows a formerly homeless man named Nathan Dance through a near death experience to a position of power influencing the global economy within a secret organization known as “The Illuminated.” And along the way, he’s taken by a mysterious stranger to see slivers of the tragic future and past of the Earth.

It’s available today on Amazon Kindle, and is enrolled in Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing, so it’s absolutely free for anybody with a kindle unlimited subscription.

I’ve also written two separate manuscripts which are two parts of a series I intend to make into a trilogy. They are thrillers based around masked psychopaths inflicting a viral pandemic on the world, and a character named Elliot Hayes whose blood may be the only hope for protecting people from the outbreak. They are around 70,000 words and 90,000 words in length, and I have very real intentions of getting professional cover art for them both.

If you’re at all interested in reading these stories, click here to read Sanctuary Now on Kindle and swim in a sea of existential nihilism. I’m hopeful that I can get some help funding the launch of my other books through what might come my way with Sanctuary Now. And I hope that, with some luck with these three stories, I might be able to really start converting my writing into a source of livelihood, and accelerate my writing pace.

A piece of the reason I wrote Sanctuary Now and set it in 1925 is because I believe that we are currently enjoying a time of relative economic stability and potential coming prosperity in the wake of the Great Recession. But this period of protracted growth with artificially low interest rates might end in an economic boom and a secondary 2008esque collapse. And so we may not realize just how perilous an economic period we’re in, just as people in 1925 didn’t know how perilous a time was coming in 1929.

All things considered, I just really love writing stories. It’s a flow activity that I’ve become addicted to, and I’m hopeful that my obsession with writing might be able to provide some value to those people who read those stories, as they’ve provided value to me in the making of them. I’ve never felt more at peace as I do while writing.

It’s the only thing that’s ever made me feel free.

39 thoughts on “Sanctuary Now

  1. Go for broke, Oscar! The plot sounds complex and interesting and, to me, original. I haven’t read the Twain book you cite. I might just juice up my Kindle PaperWhite and buy your book on Amazon. It sounds like fun… Thanks for sharing your enthusiasm for writing. I still make posts every day, whether they get read or not. This morning I decided to comment on others’ posts for a bit of good karma. There’s an old ’70s pop song: “Darling if you want me to be / Closer to you / Get closer to me.” Chuckle… The other morning I finished a small selection of Carl Sandburg’s poems. I really enjoyed them. Sandburg was a modern American poet who wrote in free verse. As a Socialist, he was very concerned for the working class. Some of his passages made me think of Walt Whitman’s panoramic descriptions of people, all kinds of people. People, people, people. Sandburg’s colorful details of cities and prairies in Illinois and the Midwest in general were good for me to absorb… Looks to be a beautiful day here. Sun is just clearing the treeline outside my window. Hope you have a good day, and keep writing till you drop!

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    • For sure The Mysterious Stranger is a solid read! It’s a bit incomplete as Twain never fully completed the published manuscript in its absolute totality, but it is an interesting albeit pessimistic exploration of human psychology and the nature of reality itself. I don’t entirely vibe with the philosophy of Solipsism but it’s an interesting perspective to explore for a story that only one being exists and we’re all figments of their imagination. It’s great that you’re able to get posts up every day I get plagued by bouts of blogging writer’s block, but I’m still usually able to get a good amount of fiction writing done at the very least thankfully. I haven’t read enough of Carl Sandburg outside of quotes here and there but I always liked his quote “Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.” Happy to hear it’s looking like a beautiful day outside! Weather’s starting to get nicer around here too haha hope you have a great day too and thanks so much for the support Rob!!

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  2. Oscar… Sanctuary Now sounds like one of the most original and intriguing plots that I’ve ever heard! I’ll definitely be reading it on October 6th!

    Congrats on taking matters into your own hands with self-publishing! I hope this book goes viral and proves those agents wrong!

    Cheers,
    Jamie

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    • I’m so happy you think it sounds amazing! =D I hope you enjoy reading it, this is my first dive into the self-publishing world and I’m doing my best to learn all that I can of what works and what doesn’t to ensure future launches have the kind of momentum they need to reach escape velocity, and hopefully I can continuously drive traffic to my backlist so others in the future who don’t know my writing can discover Sanctuary Now as well. So much more risk in self-publishing but you’re absolutely right that all the control becomes yours, and that’s a very liberating thought. Thank you so much for the support and all the best to you!!

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  3. Oh my God, Oscar! Such happy news! I’m over the moon for you. I don’t have an Amazon Kindle, nor do I have an account, else I would have bought this in a heartbeat. But what I can give is my full support, and I’m sending you my best wishes in this new endeavour.

    Liked by 1 person

    • I really appreciate the support Karan! I intend to make a CreateSpace version of it in the future and I’ll definitely make CreateSpace versions of those other two books. Hopefully it will be able to reach a wider readership than the Kindle sphere moving forward!!

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      • I hope so too, and would love to read once you publish them. Also wanted to say that I’ve missed your notifications in my inbox, but now I see you’ve been up to some amazing things! Happy writing and take care 🙂

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      • You got no idea how much it means to me to hear people say they miss my writing I apologize for the infrequent blogging! I hope these stories can manifest in a readership for my fiction that would be a real blessing. As a sidenote I also am consistently present on my subreddit at reddit.com/r/Oscar_Relentos if you ever feel like checking out some of my fiction, I only just launched it a few days ago but I’m hopeful I can start to draw traffic to that spot. Feel free to drop by some time! Happy writing and reading to you too Karan!! =D

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      • I have a fair idea of how it feels to write something you truly love 🙂 It sounds cheesy, but I’m happy I was able to make you happy by just expressing my admiration for your craft. And the Reddit link is perfect…I’ve been meaning to create an account there for the longest time, now I have a solid reason to finally check it out. Expect to see me there soon! Thanks for the good wishes 🙂

        Liked by 1 person

    • Thanks so much for the support! And no problem at all you guys have a pretty cool site running, hopefully we can get to Mars in our lifetimes and I’m hopeful that Puerto Rico can soon get aid at the speed it needs to recover from Maria sooner rather than later

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    • No problem at all man that was a very interesting piece and I like that you took the life affirming perspective of ‘yes’ when wondering if we have significance and finding it in our ‘innate potential to improve our condition’ as you so eloquently put it. I’m hopeful we’ll at the very least retain our significance on this floating blue marble for the forseeable future, and hopefully we can someday spread out across the galaxies to retain significance indefinitely though I’m not holding my breath that it’ll happen in our lifetimes. I really did like how you touched upon so many existential dilemmas that humanity faces. Your post kind of touched upon a lot of subjects that concerned me when writing Sanctuary Now to be completely honest which kind of blows my mind in a way haha but yeah I digress thanks so much for the support Robert I really appreciate it!!

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  4. Oscar, self-publishing seems to be the thing to do now, and I’m rooting for you! Cover art is important; good to know you are going professional with that. Your book sounds intriguing. Must give it a try.
    I’m in the midst of numerous submissions to literary journals. Your comments inspire me to keep writing! And thanks for checking out my blog.

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    • Thanks so much!! =D Cover art really is important I need to make sure I get something solid for my thrillers I’ve written. If you do decide to give my writing a try I hope you enjoy the read! And no problem cats can be crazy I don’t blame you for not being a cat person but depending on the day they have a certain charm to them, I’m personally a dog lover too and my love of dogs seems to be growing exponentially every day now that I’ve realized Allegra holds up my allergies to them haha best of luck with your submissions!!

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  5. Thank you for liking one of my posts. I am Regina, and one of the things I guess all bloggers worry about, especially when starting out, is that no one will read their words or appreciate them. I really need to take a class on blogging. I thought about stopping my blog, but seeing your determination has convinced me to hold on and simply do what I love, and my husband told me just to take a break. Thank you for the encouragement of reading this post.

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    • No problem at all I definitely think even in the secular age we live in there’s a very important place for faith and religiosity. I’m very happy that my post had that effect on you! Happy blogging!!

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