That Crazy Perfect Someday by Michael Mazza Book Spotlight and Q&A!

That Crazy Perfect Someday Synopsis:

The year is 2024. Climate change has altered the world’s wave patterns. Drones crisscross the sky, cars drive themselves, and surfing is a new Olympic sport. Mafuri Long, UCSD marine biology grad, champion surfer, and only female to dominate a record eighty-foot wave, still has something to prove. Having achieved Internet fame, along with sponsorship from Google and Nike, she’s intent on winning Olympic gold. But when her father, a clinically depressed former Navy captain and widower, learns that his beloved supercarrier, the USS Hillary Rodham Clinton, is to be sunk, he draws Mafuri into a powerful undertow. Conflicts compound as Mafuri’s personal life comes undone via social media, and a vicious Aussie competitor levels bogus doping charges against her. Mafuri forms an unlikely friendship with an awkward teen, a Ferrari-driving professional gamer who will prove to be her support and ballast. Authentic, brutal, and at times funny, Mafuri lays it all out in a sprightly, hot-wired voice. From San Diego to Sydney, Key West, and Manila, That Crazy Perfect Someday goes beyond the sports/surf cliché to explore the depths of sorrow and hope, yearning and family bonds, and the bootstrap power of a bold young woman climbing back into the light.

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Author Bio:

Michael Mazza is a fiction writer living in the San Francisco Bay Area. His stories have appeared in Other Voices, WORDS, Blue Mesa Review, TINGE, and ZYZZYVA. He is best known as an internationally acclaimed art and creative director working in the advertising industry. Along with being named National Creative All-Star by Adweek, his work appears in the Permanent Collection of the Library of Congress. He has lectured throughout the country and abroad, most notably at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. He has attended the Iowa Summer Writers’ Workshop, the Stanford Creative Writing workshop, and the Wharton School Executive Education MBA program. That Crazy Perfect Someday is his first novel. Connect with Michael at his website: www.mazzastory.com or on Twitter and Instagram: @mazzastory

Q&A with Michael Mazza

1. What inspired you to center your novel on surfing?

My son took to surfing at an early age. On occasion, we’d ride waves together. But then he started to surf big and left me behind. When he began to compete in the NSSA, the contest schedule dictated long and tiring trips up and down the California coast. I became a surf dad, carting him to each contest for nearly a decade. This is where I absorbed surf culture and witnessed the talented men and women competing first hand. I’ve never come across a novel about a professional female surfer and thought how much I’d like to write a smart portrayal of one living in a world of high-stakes competition and the family drama that comes with it.

2. You spent over a decade as a surf dad carting your son around to his competitions.

Have you ever surfed yourself, and did this help you write the surfing action scenes?

Yes, of course. I surf, but by no means am I a surfer. The experience of riding a wave is like no other. When you feel the power of the ocean beneath you, carrying you along, the free and beautiful connection to the sea, you’ll understand the meaning of the word, stoked.

3. That Crazy Perfect Someday is set in 2024. Can you tell us how the world has changed in this near future?

Machine learning and AI are evident in subtle and not so subtle ways. Cars drive themselves, surgery is performed remotely, holograms are in wide use, robots take on menial tasks, and chips are hacked under human skin to read vitals. Typical TV resolution is 8k. Drones monitor the sky and deliver packages. On the Social front, offerings become more fragmented, catering more and more to specific interests. Also, people shift brands, and Facebook begins its decline. Whether all of it or some of it comes to the fore, we’ll have to wait and see. My goal was not to predict the future but to make an entertaining read.

4. How does your “day job” creating ad campaigns influence your writing?

Copywriting is clear and colloquial, designed to speak directly to the reader as a means of persuasion. Get the reader on your side, in other words. It’s often fast and to the point. I think I’ve carried that sensibility into my fiction.

5. Can you tell us a little bit about your writing process? Are there certain tricks you have to get creative boosts?

I begin my day at 5:00 am and write for a couple of hours before I take off for work. I read on the train on my commute in and out of San Francisco. My best creative ideas come when I’m walking or boxing, a sport and workout regime I’ve maintained for several decades.

6. What can readers look forward to from you next?

I have two other novels in the works: One novel is in its fourth draft the other is half done. We’ll see where they go.