Author Spotlight: Irving Podolsky

Irving H. Podolsky

Who's Irving H. Podolsky? He’s a young man who hates his name, and he thinks his parents unfairly gave it to him. They didn’t. This author did. You see, outside the trilogy of Irv's Odyssey and also Irving’s blog, there is no Irving H. Podolsky. Irv doesn’t know that though, and it’s best for all that we keep the secret to ourselves.

If you searched this author’s true identity, you'd find him laced through 23 consecutive pages of Google. That’s because he has earned nineteen film nominations and awards, including two Emmys. He is also a member of the Executive Board within his category branch of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and he has worked on every studio lot in Los Angeles in television and feature films.

The author’s personal life? He resides in an old house in a quaint neighborhood in Southern California. He loves vintage drums and antiques. Consequently, he has many. His wife collects and sells them. (Not drums, furniture.) He also enjoys fast sports cars so he owns two. The second is on its way to becoming vintage, which you might apply to this writer. But like Peter Pan, this writer refuses to grow old, and accordingly, Irv won’t either. Irving is perpetually twenty-five. So when the lad needs advice, he asks his alter ego, the creator of his thoughts.

Other than birthing Irv’s soul, this author leaves his character pretty much alone. Irving now has his own friends and Google links. You can contact Irv at IrvsOdyssey.com. Or check out his blog: IrvsOdysseyBlog.com. He will be happy to hear from you and respond as best as he can.

BOOK ONE – A NOVEL


A Comic Trilogy of Extremes

Irving Podolsky is a nice Jewish boy looking for a nice Jewish girl and a job out of college which would, you know, make the world a better place. But when our hero’s food supply dwindles down to a slab of Velveeta and a jar of pickles, our lad takes his only job offer: directing porn movies. This leads to the night shift in a mental hospital, only to be replaced by the lowest rung in food service, which drives Irv so bonkers his mind ejects out of his body to the Other Side. Irv’s Odyssey is a humorous quest for truth, love and meaning while lost in alternate life styles, a psychedelic drug culture and the free-love of the seventies. Lost in a Looking Glass starts the journey.


BOOK TWO – A NOVEL

A Comic Trilogy of Extremes

Irv’s still employed at the mental hospital, a place where all the people who don’t “fit in” get jobs behind locked doors. It’s a crazy circus and Irv’s life is far from settling down. A free-loading porn stud and con man moves into our lad’s apartment, and the jerk won’t leave! It gets worse. Irv discovers the place where humanity hides it’s most shameful secret. And it’s not in the Buckhead Steak ‘n Brew where Irv becomes a salad boy/dishwasher. And it’s not at the Cloisters Restaurant where Irv get pushed into bussing tables while tripping on acid. And it’s not in Europe where he meets three people who change his life in ways he only read about in Sci-Fi novels and mystical books. Actually that “shameful secret” is no secret at all, yet only Irv wants to know it. Will our friend ever find his way back to Normal? Not yet.


BOOK THREE – A NOVEL

A Comic Trilogy of Extremes

Food service and Irving Podolsky are NOT friends. Still, Irv rises to the level of waiter in the Fairmont Hotel. What about his film career, making the world a better place and finding a nice Jewish chick? Well, instead, Irv meets an exotic older girl from Germany. Could she be the one, Irv’s forever, but not-Jewish-at-all soul mate? Ben suggests she is. Ben is a drawling spirit voice channeled through a Puerto Rican pothead. And Ben knows all about Irv’s recent nocturnal fly-outs: those uncontrollable out-of-body trips that bring him to the Other Side where he encounters creepy crawlers in attack mode and goes back and forth in time and into his own future. These bizarre events are not dreams or fantasies. They are real. For as Irv finds out, magic and miracles do exist. And so does true love, if he can just convince his parents, it’s okay to marry a shiksa.

Guest post: 

You’re perusing novels. Some grab you. Some don’t. Some characters you like. Other’s you don’t. And some you hate so much you keep reading just to reach their demise.

I write novels. And I’m telling you shaping characters is the hardest part of writing fiction. I’d like a formula for that, like a recipe for rack of lamb. I want my characters popping off the page, and I want you to love them. But darn it, there’s no hard and fast rules, no black and white list or directions for building engaging characters.

And why? Because in real life, there’s no standard reason why anybody does anything.

The reasons why people are the way they are, and why we like them that way, or not, are freakin’ COMPLEX! Like hours-of-thought and five rewrites complex.

So, step one to writing likable characters, is making the time to study likeable people. And we authors better LIKE the process! ‘Cause if we don’t…if we’d rather surf porn or munch granola, our characters won’t get out of bed. They’ll lie on the page, boring as blobs, revealing our I-don’t-feel-like-writing mood.

This explains why some novels are better than others. Writing is work and doing it right takes serious commitment to living life ALL the way.
• How can he write a deep character when he’s not deep himself?
• How can she write a romantic character when she’s not romantic herself?
• How can he write about a kind character when he’s not kind himself?
• How can she write an optimistic character when she’s not optimistic herself?
• How can he write a humorous character when he’s humorless himself?
• How can she write a loquacious character when she’s not loquacious herself?
• How can he write about an informed character when he’s not informed himself?

Vivid characters are written by writers who live vivid lives, or at least imagine vivid lives. But imagination can bring an author only so far. A story has to ring emotionally true. Always! And it rings true only when it IS true. And the only way a writer can write truth, is to touch it, feel it, and watch it very carefully. And I don’t mean porn.
*****
Features and reviws links:
http://www.bibliophilicbookblog.com/2012/08/interview-with-irving-h-podolsky-author.html

http://www.moonlightgleam.com/2012/10/author-guest-post-with-irving-podolsky.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+MoonlightGleamsBookshelf+%28Moonlight+Gleam%27s+Bookshelf%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
http://www.junipergrove.net/featured-author-irving-podolsky-giveaway/
http://bookswithoutanypictures.wordpress.com/2012/10/24/irvs-odyssey-lost-in-a-looking-glass-by-irving-podolsky/
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/399680053
http://www.masoncanyon.blogspot.com/2012/11/author-irving-h-podolsky-writing-trilogy.html
http://abitofdash.blogspot.com/2012/12/guest-post-by-irving-podolsky-and.html
http://tweedling.com/2013/01/guest-post-chop-wood-and-carry-water-irving-h-podolsky/
http://closeencounterswiththenightkind.blogspot.com/2013/01/interview-and-review-of-irvs-odyssey.html
From I AM Indeed:
Book one Feb 8 http://wp.me/p2wTNo-tG

Book two Feb 13 http://wp.me/p2wTNo-tP

Book Three Feb 20 http://wp.me/p2wTNo-tS

http://cynthiashepp.wordpress.com/2013/02/13/guest-post-and-giveaway-from-irving-podolsky/
http://megancashmanbooks.wordpress.com/2013/02/27/wednesday-interview-irving-podolsky/
http://bookhimdanno.blogspot.com/2013/03/book-feature-friday-irvs-odyssey-lost.html
http://bexnbooks.blogspot.com/2013/03/guest-post-18-seduction-mans.html
DISTRIBUTION & REVIEW SITE LINKS
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11799088-irv-s-odyssey
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/s/Irv-s-Odyssey?store=book&keyword=Irv%27s+Odyssey
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=Irv%27s+Odyssey