Tell us about yourself and how many books you have written.
Hey everyone! My name is Nicholas Kay. Where to start? I was born in 1986 in Utah, United States, and spent my childhood up through my early teenage-years moving all around the Western US. My childhood set me up for the future by instilling a deep wanderlust in me that carried me away to the Far East, where I spent my late teens up through my early thirties.
I graduated high school early with qualifications as a network engineer, spent some time in college learning graphic design and furthering my knowledge as a network engineer. Got bored of US college life pretty quickly and moved to Kitakyushu, Japan at the ripe old age of 19. After a brief stay in Colorado during 2007, my wanderlust once against swept me off to the Far East, this time landing me in Beijing, China where I stayed for the following 11 years.
My experiences in Japan and China had a lasting impact on me. In Japan, I worked as a drink-mixer at a shady karaoke bar while I got my bearings within Japanese society. No-one spoke English, and so I learned Japanese pretty quickly. I loved working at that bar for one reason and one reason only: It reminded me of the bar from Akira or any number of other dystopian/cyberpunk settings.
My time in Beijing was phenomenal, terrifying, wondrous, and exhilarating all at the same time. Much like my time in Japan, I opted to stay outside of the foreign ex-pat communities and integrate into local life. I learned the language and was soon street racing and practicing my filter techniques in the intense traffic Beijing is known for. Daily life was like being in a sci-fi adventure RPG.
It was during my time in Beijing that The Norcom Union began. I have written 12 manuscripts to date set in the fictitious nation of The Norcom Union, primarily centered on its capital city of NorCap and the Exclusion Zone surrounding it.
What is the name of your latest book and what inspired it?
My latest book is also my first published manuscript. It’s called Touching the Void.
When I first arrived in China back in 2008, I became aware of a trend among China’s fledgling upper-middle class. Young women would pay clinics to break their legs, pin them in stretching contraptions, then spend the following months slowly stretching their legs, re-breaking the bones, stretching them more, then breaking them again. They would repeat this process for months upon months in pursuit of gaining a few extra centimeters of height.
It fascinated me how these young women could be so concerned with their social standing that they would subject themselves to months or even years of torture just to achieve a marginally higher beauty standard. There were advertisements on busses, subway platforms, in shopping malls.
China is a high-profile culture. What this means is that there is little concern for the individual and greater emphasis on collective identity. I realized that it was for this reason that they would subject themselves to the pain and drugs needed to stretch their legs.
With the rise of AI becoming apparent in the early 2010s, I began to wonder what would happen to these women if AI somehow replaced leg-stretching and other similar torturous treatments. That’s when Touching the Void took shape.
It started as the prologue to my upcoming novel The Exclusion Zone. In it, a teenage girl is implanted with the latest in neurological augmentation technology. Her goal is to upload a portion of her mind to the Aether Network, a cloud network that contains a portion of the consciousness of all members of NorCap’s ruling elite. She allows her body to be mutilated to have this tech embedded and takes active steps towards assimilating with the Aether Network in order to upgrade her social standing within NorCap society. Originally, the girl is murdered, which set up the events of the novel series Destiny Outbound, of which The Exclusion Zone is the first part.
Gradually it evolved into its own standalone story.
Do you have any unusual writing habits?
I don’t know how common or uncommon it is, but I tend to start with the ending in mind, then start from the middle and work my way back to the beginning to see how things happened, then work forwards with understanding of the beginning in mind.
What authors, or books have influenced you?
Ben Bova and William Gibson.
I don’t really have a list of authors. Remembering artist and author names has never been a strong suit.
What are you working on now?
Destiny Outbound: The Exclusion Zone is in developmental editing right now. I anticipate publishing it in October. Aside from that, The Norcom Union consists of (currently) twelve short stories, novellas, and novels. I am working on them all concurrently.
What is your best method or website when it comes to promoting your books?
My website is www.nightlyreading.com. This site was originally built for my children’s phonics and reading comprehension courses. It’s being rebuilt now to be used as my author website.
Do you have any advice for new authors?
Don’t think too much about it.
When I began writing, I had nearly forgotten English. Seriously. While living in China, I rarely spoke English and by the time I started my first drafts for The Norcom Union, English could easily be considered a second language. I was often mistaken to be European because of my accent and grammatical habits.
Now, to be sure, when I say “Don’t think about it.”, I don’t mean to ignore rules and best practices. What I mean is not to worry about whether or not others will like it. Don’t think too much about whether or not it conforms to anything.
Just write. You will probably want to do at least some general plotting, give consideration to how the story gets from A to Z, and what each step along the way consists of, then just go at it.
What is the best advice you have ever heard?
With regards to writing? Not much. I have only begun to communicate with other authors. When I began my manuscripts, talking to people about my writing would have been enough to see me arrested and deported from China. I had to ensure that my internet security was top-notch in order to ensure that the CCP couldn’t spy on my research activities, which included research into the nature of nuclear detonations and the use of nuclear maps to predict how an atomic attack on Beijing would happen with given yield capacities, wind directions, ground-burst vs air-burts, etc.
I guess that best advice I’ve received since beginning to reach out to other authors in the past few months is that an editor is worth every cent. Just don’t go the super-cheapo route.
What are you reading now?
Nothing right now. At least not unless you count tax laws and articles about building a small business.
My wife and I are getting ready to launch an online store selling components for DIY electric motorcycles and home solar-power. That, plus launching Touching the Void have taken up almost all of my time.
I did read the book Solar rift 2120 by my friend Steve Rivers. That was a fun read. I recently read The Fall: Burning Skies by Devon C Ford. I also read a series of books recently about a bunch of people in England trying to rebuild society after a plague kills most of the people in the world. It was good, but I can’t remember its name at the moment.
What’s next for you as a writer?
Publish Destiny Outbound: The Exclusion Zone, followed soon after by the other two parts of the Destiny Outbound trilogy.
If you were going to be stranded on a desert island and allowed to take 3 or 4 books with you what books would you bring?
The Bible. Not because I’m particularly religious, but because it contains wisdom and gives one in a desperate situation much to think about.
A book on tropical flora and fauna for obvious reasons.
A sketchbook (hey, you didn’t say what NOVELS you would bring). I could char sticks for charcoal drawing.
A book on primitive cultures. Lots of good ideas on how to survive on the bare minimum, there.
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