Guest blog: new author Brando Christo on inspiration behind "Transcended"

A guy I know from college, Brando Christo, is a tennis player and the author of "Transcended," a book that he released last week online. I asked him to write a little bit about that book. Below are his words:

I was a child when I first knew that I wanted to write a book. My goal was to write about travels I did with my family, either regionally for athletics or globally to learn about the world. How great a Christmas gift if I could create a narrated photo album based around our family story, "Christopher's Travels." Unfortunately, I lacked the discipline to make it happen.

The silver lining was that during our travels I found inspiration to live with energy, or better, to "be the light." This motto helped me excel socially, creatively and athletically. By the time I reached the University of Idaho, I competed for its Division I tennis program, and I won writing contests from the school of journalism.

After college, I traveled for tennis, this time on my own. For three and a half years I was based out of Las Vegas, Hawaii or Australia in order to coach or compete. In my free time I wrote.

I wrote about realities, personal experiences, and even far-fetched Kafka type of things. For the most part, I stuck with a common theme, to "be the light." This was a motto that I continued to live by, and became a message that I wanted to share.

And I thought, instead of becoming too preachy, why not weave the message into a fast-paced story called "Transcended?"

"Transcended" is a fiction -- Hypno-Fiction, a new genre that I designed specifically for this story. Hypno-Fiction entails a poetic delivery, surreal yet captivating writing and unpredictable twists.

I now march down the path of traditional publishing with a literary agent, editors and a publishing house, but first, that team and today's modern industry require that I prove myself and my product on the eBook market. The official Amazon release for "Transcended" was June 6. After promoting it amongst my own network, "Transcended" hit number two on the best sellers list for the Supernatural category, and held the spot for the following day as well.

My focus at hand is placed on the prequel to "Transcended," which is entitled "Zosimos." It's about an ancient Olympian who is recruited to study with Aristotle. That and I plan to increase my live and online presence. Online, I run a modest blog called thetranscendingsavant.com. It's geared towards my target audience, Avante Gardes, those who seek inspiration, innovation, imagination and the impossible. I also appear on two Twitter accounts, @trnscndng, and @brandochristo, and also facebook, instagram, linked-in and goodreads. As far as a live presence is concerned, I've already spoken to a middle school in Portland and the students seemed engaged. Next is a speaking tour, where I intend to spread the message to live with energy, or better yet, "be the light."