Welcome Today's Featured Author
Matt Schiariti!!!
Title: Funeral
with a View
Author: Matt
Schiariti
Published: September
28th, 2014
Word Count: 101,000
Genre: Romance
~ Synopsis ~
Content Warning:
Mild sexual content, minor profanity and adult themes
Age Recommendation:
18+
Thirty-two-year-old
Richard Franchitti didn’t believe in love at first sight until he
met free-spirited Catherine and started a brand new life. A devoted
father and husband, Richard fought to keep his family together when
it would have been easier to walk away.
Tragedy left him
with unfinished business.
Now a disembodied
spirit, Richard relives his most important days. From the beginnings
of unconditional love, to the joy of his daughter’s birth, and all
of the difficult times in between, each treasured moment brings him
closer to answering the question:
“Why am I still
here?”
He was born Richard
Franchitti, but his friends call him Ricky. Welcome to his funeral.
Amazon
buy link:
www.amazon.com/Funeral-View-Matt-Schiariti-ebook/dp/B00O0DPAPS/
My
Facebook author page:
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Matt-Schiariti-Writer/360351077411605?ref=bookmarks
Excerpt:
Excerpt 1:
I’d met Catherine Maddox (now the
widow Catherine Frachitti) through a friend of mine. My best friend,
in point of fact. Bill Henly.
While they were dating.
That tidbit must sound inherently evil. There are rules, especially among guys. The Man Code, to be more specific. Every male on the planet is born with these rules branded into his DNA. Don’t date a friend’s ex, don’t have sex with a friend’s girlfriend, so on and so forth.
Let the record show that I am no home wrecker! Bill and Catherine had been seeing each other when I met her. Nothing serious, and for reasons only known to them, their relationship didn’t last. After Bill did the requisite guy thing (read: talked post-breakup smack about her), I did the right thing and asked him if he’d be okay with me asking her out.
The conversation went something like this:
While they were dating.
That tidbit must sound inherently evil. There are rules, especially among guys. The Man Code, to be more specific. Every male on the planet is born with these rules branded into his DNA. Don’t date a friend’s ex, don’t have sex with a friend’s girlfriend, so on and so forth.
Let the record show that I am no home wrecker! Bill and Catherine had been seeing each other when I met her. Nothing serious, and for reasons only known to them, their relationship didn’t last. After Bill did the requisite guy thing (read: talked post-breakup smack about her), I did the right thing and asked him if he’d be okay with me asking her out.
The conversation went something like this:
Me: So, you’re not
dating Cat anymore, huh?
Bill: Nope.
Me: Um, would it be cool if I asked her out?
Bill: Yeah, sure.
Bill: Nope.
Me: Um, would it be cool if I asked her out?
Bill: Yeah, sure.
It was a
conversation for the ages. A manly conversation of epic proportions.
It may seem flimsy to an outsider, but to guys it was volumes’
worth.
I let the breakup embers fade, and a few weeks later, when I’d mustered up the testicular fortitude, I asked Catherine out. After a moment’s thought, she said yes. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Dating Catherine put no apparent stress on my relationship with Bill. Good looking in an All-American way, he never lacked for female companionship. At six-foot-five and almost as broad, he towered over my meager five-foot-eight. He’d played football in high school and college, earning an athletic scholarship to Princeton University, but blew out his knee in his second year. His spare time no longer filled with practices and games, he hunkered down and focused on his studies which paved the way to his future career as a financial advisor. Still, he remained an ever faithful workout freak. The combination of good looks, muscular build, and his large salary lured many a willing woman into his bed. Catherine was no exception, but that wasn’t entirely Bill’s doing.
The story is a simple one. Back in the day the three of us were nigh inseparable. Catherine and I were always double-dating with Bill and his love du jour. Even if he wasn’t seeing anybody (the exception to the rule), the three of us would go out to eat, see movies, hang out on lawn chairs in the summer drinking concoctions with little umbrellas in them.
It was on one such occasion when things took a change for the pornographic. I’ll never forget that day as long as I live. Or as long as I’m dead.
That day is where this story truly starts.
I let the breakup embers fade, and a few weeks later, when I’d mustered up the testicular fortitude, I asked Catherine out. After a moment’s thought, she said yes. And the rest, as they say, is history.
Dating Catherine put no apparent stress on my relationship with Bill. Good looking in an All-American way, he never lacked for female companionship. At six-foot-five and almost as broad, he towered over my meager five-foot-eight. He’d played football in high school and college, earning an athletic scholarship to Princeton University, but blew out his knee in his second year. His spare time no longer filled with practices and games, he hunkered down and focused on his studies which paved the way to his future career as a financial advisor. Still, he remained an ever faithful workout freak. The combination of good looks, muscular build, and his large salary lured many a willing woman into his bed. Catherine was no exception, but that wasn’t entirely Bill’s doing.
The story is a simple one. Back in the day the three of us were nigh inseparable. Catherine and I were always double-dating with Bill and his love du jour. Even if he wasn’t seeing anybody (the exception to the rule), the three of us would go out to eat, see movies, hang out on lawn chairs in the summer drinking concoctions with little umbrellas in them.
It was on one such occasion when things took a change for the pornographic. I’ll never forget that day as long as I live. Or as long as I’m dead.
That day is where this story truly starts.
Excerpt 2:
“You’re going
to wear grooves in the tile if you keep pacing like that. And lay off
the fingernails. You’ll end up bleeding on your bride-to-be.”
I’d been pacing
and sweating in my rented tux for the last half hour. I chewed my
nails until there wasn’t anything left. Then I’d chewed some
more.
“I know. But look
at all those people out there.” I poked my head out of the sacristy
door and snuck a look at over two hundred people sitting expectantly.
“You sure it’s
not cold feet, buddy? C’mon, you can tell me. I’m your best man
and your best friend. If you’re going to, now’s the time to back
out.” Bill slapped my back. “Before it’s too late.”
“Stop being a
shit.”
“Did you just say “shit” in church? Yes, I do believe you just
said “shit” in church. You’re going to Hell. First class all
the way. Do not pass go, do not—”
“Zip it before I
drown you in the baptismal font. No, I am not getting cold feet. I
just don’t like the idea of all those eyes on me.”
“Picture them
naked.”
“Won’t that
land me in Hell, too?”
“Why don’t we
ask Father Greg?”
“I think I’ll
pass.”
“You’ll be
okay, man. Besides, you’re not going to see them watching you the
whole time. Once the procession walks down that aisle and Cat joins
you, your back’s going to be to them anyway.”
“Good point.”
“Then they’ll
be free to point and laugh at the rip in the seat of your pants.”
“What? Where? Do
you know how much I paid for this tux?”
“If you two are quite done now,”
Father Greg walked in and put a hand on my shoulder, “it’s time
to face the music, Rick.” He winked, but it didn’t put me at
ease.
About Matt Schiariti:
Matt Schiariti is an
Engineer by profession, guitar legend in his own mind, and would-be
author, time permitting. When he’s not writing, he’s reading.
When he’s not reading, he’s enjoying a beer sporting a fancy name
on the label. When he’s not enjoying a fancy-named beer, he’s
most likely reading some more. Sometimes he does all three at once,
to disastrous effect.
Matt lives in
southern New Jersey with his wife, two children, and insane dog.
Funeral with a View is his second published novel, but not his last.
You have been
warned.
Interview with Matt Schiariti:
- Can you tell us a little bit about your book?
Funeral
with a View is essentially the life story of Ricky Franchitti. He
died in a tragic accident and is now watching his own funeral and
trying to figure out what’s keeping him here. As the funeral
progressive, he recalls memories of the most poignant moments of his
life, from falling in love to the birth of his daughter. It reads
like a personal memoir of the last ten years of his life, but at its
heart the novel is a love story.
- Where did you get the ideas for Funeral with a View?
The
basic premise came to me one night in the kitchen, of all places. I
don’t know why I asked myself the following question, and the truth
is I’ll never know why it came to me out of the blue, but I thought
“What would happen if a guy walked into his own funeral?” I’d
considered that for a while, fleshing out what had happened to him to
get him there, and why he would be sticking around. After several
days of mulling things over, I started to type a little bit here and
there. One of the more interesting things about the book is how I
filled in the blanks between the beginning and end. Without going
into too much detail, some of what happens in the book is based on my
real life experience.
- Do you have a favorite spot to write?
I
write wherever I can! The original manuscripts for Funeral with a
View, my novel Ghosts of Demons Past, and my novelette
Words With Fiends: A Short Story were written on my desktop PC
in my basement, mostly. I didn’t have a laptop at the time, so I
had to work with what was available. Now that I do have a laptop, I
write in my dining room and sometimes take it to work so I can crunch
out a few words on my lunch hour.
- Do you have any “odd” writing habits?
Everyone
has something quirky, right? That’s a tough one, though. I’m not
sure if you could consider this “odd” or not, but I don’t
listen to music when I write. In point of fact, I can’t listen to
music when I write. I’ve been a guitar player for almost
twenty-three years now, and when I listen to music, I listen to
music. If my favorite tunes are jamming, I’ll end up banging my
head (big metal head, that’s me!) and playing air guitar the whole
time, while the cursor blinks on a blank page all lonely and
forgotten. Can’t have that! Seems as if a lot of writers have play
lists and listen to songs while they’re writing. I simply cannot
get away with that.
- How do you come up with your characters’ names?
Character
naming is another one of those things that “happens.” There’s
usually no great significance to what I call the people who wander
the pages of my stories. In the case of Rick Franchitti, I wanted him
to be of Italian decent with some strong family ties. Seth Gabriel,
the star of my debut paranormal novel Ghosts of Demons Past
was another matter. As the name would suggest, Seth deals with ghosts
and demons, and I wanted it to have an otherworldly type of ring to
it, even though he’s your average Joe who happens to be a medium.
There are other names for things I haven’t written yet that have
names which give you hints into their personalities and, for lack of
a better word, “character,” but more often than not I come up
with something I think sounds like a real name and go with that.
- Do you work with an outline, or just write?
So
far I write by the seat of my pants. That’s good and bad. Even
though I’d published Words with Fiends and Ghosts of
Demons Past first, Funeral with a View is the first book
I’ve ever written. It took five weeks to type out the original
manuscript which consisted of about 130,000 words or so. I wrote a
chapter, thought about the next one, wrote that, so on and so forth,
making notes in the margins of the word document as I went. Since it
was my initial attempt at writing a novel, the first draft was a
mess. But there was something there, so I eventually came back to it.
It took about a year of rewrites, editing, and sending it to beta
readers for comment to get it right. Ghosts of Demons Past was
written similarly, but that was a little easier and didn’t require
nearly as much editing to get everything straight. One of the best
things about flying without a net is that the story leads you where
it wants to go. Some great things can come about without having
planned them. On the flipside, it can take a lot of work to mine
through all the chaos to get to the good stuff. Moving forward I’m
going to try a little bit of both, some general outlining and some
“pantsing” and see how that goes.
- What’s one random fact about yourself that you can share?
I’m
the youngest of four, eight years removed from my closest sibling in
age.
- What’s your favorite season?
The
fall! Love the fall. The changing of the leaves, that slight chill in
the air, football season moving along full-force. Christmas is my
favorite holiday, but autumn’s always been my favorite season ever
since I was a kid.
- What’s the hardest scene you’ve ever written?
That’s
a tough one. Scenes can be hard in different ways. Technically?
Emotionally? Technically, I think the “final showdown” in Ghosts
of Demons Past was the toughest, just because there were so many
characters involved and all hell had broken loose. Emotionally
speaking, there were quite a few rough ones in Funeral with a
View, and it’s hard to say without spoiling the book! But I’ll
go with the ending. I’m not exaggerating when I say I’ve read the
book almost twenty times during the last couple years as I was
getting it ready to put out into the world, and that final scene,
those final lines get me choked up every single time and it was no
different when I wrote them.
- What projects are you working on now?
At the moment? Nothing. I like to gather my wits after I publish a
book. Then there’s the promotion aspect, so I don’t have a lot of
opportunities to write in the few weeks after one of my novels has
been released. Time is always at a premium since I work a full time
job and have two young kids. But I can tell you what my next project
will be and that I’ll be starting it in the next couple weeks. My
next book is going to be a follow up to Ghosts of Demons Past.
Readers who enjoyed the first one have asked me if there’s every
going to be a sequel. Truth be told, I like that quirky cast of
characters and want to spend more time with them. Also, there’s
been a working idea for a sequel that won’t stop bouncing around in
my head, and the story has been becoming clearer and clearer lately.
I have a title, I have direction for most of the cast, I have a plot
that’s starting to reveal itself. May as well strike while the
iron’s hot, right? Only this time I think I’ll take my own advice
and refer back to my answer to question 6 and do myself a favor by
sketching out a bit of an outline first. If all goes well it’ll be
out sometime in 2015. Beyond that? We’ll see. Plenty of ideas. If
only there were more time in the day!
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