Moral Authority By Jacob Z. Flores

Literary Nymphs Interview

Title: Moral Authority

Author: Jacob Z. Flores

Publisher: Wilde City Press

Genre: Gay Mainstream Fiction

Release Date: May 22, 2013

Do you write in more than one genre?

Well, so far my three published books have been in three different subsets of gay fiction. 3 was an m/m/m romance, The Gifted One was a paranormal gay romance, and Moral Authority is gay mainstream fiction.

Some people often ask why I keep changing it up, but it’s really not a conscious choice. Once the plot bunny hops into my life, I go with it. Those fantastic little bunnies rule my writing world, and I wouldn’t have it any other way. In fact, my current WIP is a contemporary gay romance series set in Provincetown.

I don’t plan on leaving gay fiction. I have too much fun here!

What if any, is the hardest part of writing for you?

That changes with the project actually. Sometimes it’s the writer’s block, which can be crippling. With Moral Authority though, I didn’t have any writer’s block. The story just flowed from my brain and out my fingertips. I had plotted out most of the book before I’d written it, so that may have helped with the writer’s block. But Moral Authority was just one of those stories that couldn’t be contained and just had to come out. In fact, I stayed up late one evening to finish writing the last ten chapters or so. The characters and the plot just spoke to me that much that I couldn’t sleep until their voices were satisfied. It was truly an amazing experience.

What inspired the story?

I actually got the idea to write this book during a final exam. While my students were busily analyzing poetry, I suddenly thought: what would happen if the moral majority got everything it wanted?

My muse took over from there. I drafted up some amendments to the Constitution that created a fourth branch of American government called the Moral Authority. It was their charge to establish a moral code of conduct for citizens that would free the country from social ills, crime, and domestic terrorism. This was dubbed “lifestyle legislation.” However, in caring for the greater good of Americans, the Moral Authority ventured into micromanaging our lives. For example, if obesity was unhealthy, it was therefore immoral. So the country enacted lifestyle legislation that regulated caloric intake of all American citizens. In essence, everyone was assigned a meal card that tracked caloric consumption. Once the caloric credit on the card was used up for the day, food could no longer be dispensed or purchased.

From there, the ideas steamrolled, and Moral Authority was born.

Moral Authority is a dystopian novel not a romance. A romantic relationship develops between two characters, but their love story isn’t the crux of the novel. The novel follows three men—Mark, Isaac, and Samuel—and tracks their very different journeys through this nightmarish America.

Here’s the blurb that provides more information:

Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are prescribed ideals in America of 2050. The Moral Authority, the nation’s newest branch of government, has virtually eliminated crime, poverty, and most social ills, but it also rules the land with a tyrannical fist, championing ignorance and brandishing fear.

Mark Bryan is a gay man whose existence brands him an outlaw; Isaac Montoya is a charming stranger, who entices Mark to defy moral law; and Samuel Pleasant runs the Moral Authority and plans to punish moral offenders and a rebellious uprising—no matter the cost.

Will liberty and justice return for all?

Lastly, as part of my blog tour I’m holding a contest. All you have to do is leave a comment to this post and your name is entered to win a free copy of Moral Authority. If a reader happens to follow all my blog stops, then she or he can leave a comment at the other sites a well. This means that someone could enter 7 times for a chance to win the book. At the end of the tour, a winner will be chosen and announced.

EXCERPT:

“Good evening, Supreme High Chancellor,” one of the reporters from USA2 replied. Most of the others remained silent, most likely in awe of his presence.

“Are we about ready to begin?” Samuel asked while Anita placed a hot cup of tea on the coffee table in front of him—another tool to gain the nation’s trust, to show that Samuel was a simple, moral man just like everyone else watching.

“Yes, sir,” answered another reporter.

“Are you sure you don’t want a teleprompter?”

“Quite certain,” Samuel replied. “My words will come from my heart and soul. No teleprompter is needed for that.”

“We go live in one minute, sir,” announced a media technician, whose job it was to synchronize the live broadcast with all of the national news channels.

Samuel nodded and took a deep breath. The moment he waited for was at hand. His flesh crawled with goose pimples and his heartbeat accelerated. It wasn’t his arrhythmia or his high blood pressure. It was sheer excitement, with a touch of nerves.

All cameras pointed toward him, focusing their lenses on him and preparing to broadcast his image to every available television screen in the nation. The media technician informed him, “We go live in five, four, three….” after which the technician held out two fingers. Then one, and then he pointed at him. All cameras stared at Samuel with their red eyes glowing. He was now live.

“Good evening, my fellow Americans. As many of you know, today marks the official thirty-fifth anniversary of the Moral Authority. I consider this a great accomplishment in American history. While many of you out there didn’t know an immoral America, I, as well as many others, did.

“The immoral American way of life was full of heartache and misery. While the nation certainly enjoyed its privileges, it shirked and often renounced any moral code. This lack of morality wasn’t an isolated incident in the America of the past, but it was a virus that spread through the nation like a plague, slowly debilitating the essence of America from within its own national body.

“Drugs, violence, and crime were rampant symptoms of our moral infection, and as many of you know, these diseases spared no one, not even me. I lost my own mother and my brothers to these immoral actions. Like a contagion, these diseases spread from home to home, neighborhood to neighborhood, state to state.

“They were spreading, and they were growing. On our own soil, our nation suffered constant attacks by other nations. Our economy was failing due to mismanagement of funds and political corruption. Our citizens were under attack in other countries. Even at home, Americans were losing jobs, facing economic upheaval and the loss of the family unit.

“While most citizens’ eyes were turned outward, blaming other people, other countries, or the government for their failures and losses, our president at the time, the first woman ever elected to the office, Sarah Palin, turned our eyes inward. She showed us what needed fixing in America was within America. She made us realize that if the nation was indeed going to get better, the very fiber of America itself must change, must grow, must become more than it was becoming.

“As many of us now call Sarah Palin, she was the mother of the Moral America. With great struggle and some resistance, she birthed unto the nation a moral age by establishing the Moral Authority as the fourth branch of our nation’s government. She envisioned an America that could recover from its sickness by returning to the moral piety on which our nation was founded.

“It’s because of that vision that we now live in this golden moral age. Gone are the days of rampant street violence, domestic abuse, terrorism, and drugs. Where once national news was negative and alarming, our nation now sees a nation of goodness reflected in the news programs of inspiration, growth, and moral success.

“Ask yourself when was the last time you saw violence or corruption in the media or heard it in a song or even read it in a book? If we ask ourselves that question, we will no doubt answer—not until recently.

“While we are human, and humans certainly err in their morals, we have lived through decades of moral peace and strength. We could turn on televisions without fear that our children would be assaulted by violent words or images. However, in recent months, there has been a great change.

“A group exists within this very nation that wishes to return us to the infection of immorality. They want us to suffer through the fevers and upset of crime, the apathy of uncaring citizens, the harshness of unfair treatment, the curse of disloyalty, the arrogance of disrespect, and the absence of all that is pure.

“This group is the Human Rights Campaign. This group has attacked our moral code. They threaten us because they feel that wanting only goodness and moral behavior is wrong. For them, chaos and immorality are right.

“They attack peaceful moral officers who are doing their moral duties. They hole up in secret hiding places, plotting how to disrupt the moral fiber of America. They gather ammunition and weapons, wishing to build an immoral army to defeat all moral codes of law.

“They speak of humanity, they speak of rights, and they speak of campaigning against morality. Yet, their actions and their words show us only inhumanity, the taking away of moral rights, and a campaign for immoral corruption.

“They believe they know better than the moral majority, and they wish to impose their beliefs on us, force us to view their moral actions and accept their immoral behaviors. They want men to marry men and women to marry women. They want fathers to leave their families for mistresses. They want pornography available for all to see, even children. They want drugs made legal, crimes to increase, and violence to return to our streets.

“This is not a human rights campaign at all. This is anarchy, pure and simple, and it is un-American to the core.”

Where can we find your website?

You can find me at www.jacobzflores.com 

Or become a part of my social media network by visiting http://www.facebook.com/jacob.flores2, http://twitter.com/#!/JacobZFlores, or http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5142501.Jacob_Z_Flores.

  All are welcome to stop by and visit. I try to post content at least three times a week and love hearing what readers have to say. I’m even hosting a “Choose My Inspiration” Contest on my website. Readers have a chance to vote on the inspiration for one of the MC’s for another series I’m working on. One winner will even be able to name the characters. How cool is that? If you’re interested, stop on by my website.