Memoir Of an Immortal Excerpt as read by Latavia T.

This novel has been a labor of love and a challenge of time. 

The birth of this book idea came from a phrase that I use in my life as a stand-up comedian. "I have lived a life and I have stories." Well, the main character of this book, is a woman who has lived a life. And man does she have a story.

 I wanted to write a book that no one would try to write. A book that would tell the life story of someone that will not die, but experiences a lifetime of peril. I began researching the subject of this book at the Downey Public Library back in early 2008. I was working a day job, traveling to do shows in weird places for little cash and sleeping in my car at night in various parking lots due to a horrible gambling addiction. So, in order to stop gambling I poured myself into learning and developing the character that would become a woman named Sti-La.

I researched various histories and looked up myths and religions. World occurrences. Tragedy. I determined that I wanted her to begin her life in a specific era. Because of this particular era, I determined that I would have to create a language from scratch. A language that would have existed that is now dead. So that happened.

I also determined that I would have to get the science right. So extra research in the field of genetics began. Which led to a lot of changes in the book and where I wanted to go. History. Science. And finally, I knew that my character would be immortal, so the final touch would be, forecasting the future realistically. Speculating. What will happen? What might happen? What should happen? What won't happen? I think I have achieved that.

Inventing a language by the way... Shout out to Tolkien. I Had no idea that it would take the better part of 8 years to create one that could be functional and realistic. And praises to all the scientists I have ever known that answered innocuous questions that went nowhere not knowing that I was picking your brain about a certain element of the story.

It took until December of 2020, during a pandemic that cost me that same day job and a halt in my career of stand-up comedy to finish this novel. After over 12 years of multiple personal hardships that really did cost me everything. A novel I am proud of.

A novel that I can't get most literary agents to look at. I told myself, just 100 query letters. 100. After that, I self-publish if I don't get anyone to represent this novel. To date, May 8th, I have written 81. I've gotten 26 rejection letters since January.

In the meantime, while waiting on one literary agent to take a chance on a well-written and visionary labor of love, I plan on self-publishing my book of poetry, "25 YEARS" in early June.

I hope you got through all of this writing.

I hope you decide to pick up my debut novel.

If you are a literary agent, I hope you send me a message after reading all of this.

If you don't, I believe in my novel even if none of the agents I queried do. I will self publish and self-promote and sell my baby.