Best-Case Scenario, Act I of Nyra’s Journey
New Adult
Date Published: Nov 2018
Publisher: PhoenixPhyre
More than a year after graduating from college, Nyra is beginning to wonder
when her life, professional and personal, gets started. Was it like this for
her mother? She doubts it, but things were different, then. Nyra's reality
is nothing like her mother's. Each generation confronts its own
challenges.
Still, she's tired of feeling like she's wading through waist-deep wet
cement. Buried somewhere deep in a future she can sense but not feel, Nyra
can hear the siren's song of hope and hypothetical options whispering to
her. She's so ready! But is the song she hears hope or just an
illusion?
Best Case Scenario is the first act in Nyra Westensee's journey from
student to self-aware, fully actualized woman.
Interview with D.B. Sayers
For those
interested in exploring the subject or theme of your book, where
should they start?
Best-Case
Scenario
opens with Nyra Westensee (our protagonist) confronted with a dilemma
familiar to so many college graduates. Facing a mountain of student
loan debt, she desperately needs a job. But not just any
job. She wants a career position that leads
somewhere while leaving space for “a life.” But before Nyra’s
first day is over, the reader senses Nyra’s professional identity
may be the least of her issues. Deep seated uncertainties about her
true identity may complicate not only her search for “a job,” but
for wholistic fulfillment.
How did you become
involved with the subject or theme of your book?It
was a combination of things. Watching my daughter make that
precarious leap from responsible teenager to autonomous adult was
part of it. It’s usually challenging, whoever we are, and
my
daughter’s growth was no exception. But later as a corporate
trainer, I began noticing some of my students confronting things I
hadn’t had to deal with, personally. I started asking questions and
what I learned from my management trainees became the basis for
Best-Case
Scenario.
Eventually I wove elements of several stories into Nyra Westensee’s,
who became the protagonist of the series. She represents both the
dilemma and the promise of the generation just beginning to assert
itself in this unique time in our history.
What were your
goals and intentions in this book, and how well do you feel you
achieved them?
First
and foremost, to tell an entertaining, evocative story about an
interesting human in a series of challenging situations. As
importantly, I wanted to offer an empathetic and hopeful look at the
unique challenges confronting young people today, from the
perspective of someone with more road in the rearview mirror. Having
walked parallel but different paths searching for my own “true
north,” I remember vividly what it’s like. What it’s like,
trying to navigate shifting paradigms while simultaneously sorting
out the existential puzzles confounding most of us starting out.
With
respect to how well I feel I’ve achieved my intent. Since this is a
series, the jury’s still out, I think. But I’m confident that
Best-Case
Scenario
is an excellent start. The young people (men and women) in my
critique group loved it and my editor (also in this age group)
confirmed it was dead-on accurate. But I’m only half-way through
The
Year of Maybe,
which is Act II of Nyra’s journey, so Nyra (and I) have a long way
to go yet.
Anything you would like to say to
your readers and fans?
Thematically,
Best-Case
Scenario offers
the kind of thoughtful hopefulness we need, today. Too often, times
like these spawn pessimism, even cynicism. But it’s precisely when
things get rocky that we need to tap into our better selves. In the
end, the difference between surviving and thriving is courage and
attitude. In Best-Case
Scenario,
that’s literally lesson one for Nyra and (hopefully) one of the
prime takeaways most readers glean from this story.
What did you enjoy most about
writing this book?
Trying
to see the world through the lens of someone much younger than I.
Replaying the upheavals of my own time (the 60s), the similarities
are almost eerie, to include a lot of the same issues. It’s
encouraging to see the thoughtful engagement of young people today.
I’m optimistic about the future and looking forward to finishing
the next book in the series and starting Act III.
Can you tell us a little bit about
your next books or what you have planned for the future?
I’m
currently working on the sequel to Best-Case
Scenario, The Year of Maybe, and
I’m about halfway through the first draft. In it, Nyra’s
self-discovery accelerates exponentially as does her tolerance for
risk. As she’s testing her new-found limits, she gets herself in
trouble, a couple of times. But in recovering from her missteps, she
gains greater confidence and begins to realize who she is. I’m also
waiting for Eryinath-5,
the
second volume in
the
Knolan Cycle
to come back from my editor. It continues the story of first contact
between Earth and Knola begun in Tier
Zero. Most
importantlyl, it sets the stage for the upcoming war for Earth
between the Knolans and their implacable enemy, the ValdrÅsians.
How long have you been writing?
Most
of my life, but I didn’t publishmy first novel, West
of Tomorrow,
until 2015. I now have four volumes in print, with two more
full-length novels on the way, both due out in 2021.
Can you tell us a
little bit about the characters in Best-Case Scenario?
Nyra
Westensee—protagonist.
Attractive, more so than she realizes. She focuses too much on her
physical flaws, less for any objective reason than for lack of
confidence. Matters aren’t helped by her mother’s uxorious
fondness for Kip, her brother who is way too handsome for his own
good, not to mention how easily everything seems to come, for him.
It’s given her a skewed view of her own competence.
Kip
Westensee—Nyra’s
older brother. She idolizes her effortlessly successful and sublimely
confident sibling. Kip’s example has always cast a shadow in which
Nyra has been forced to live, often resentfully. She loves her
brother and knows he has her back, but she hates how his example
makes her feel “less than.”
Corinn
Westensee—Nyra’s
mother fills her daughter with a mixture of admiration, pity and
dread. Admiration at how she has provided for two children, despite
precious little help from their father. Pity for all the bad breaks
she has gotten, despite (as nearly as Nyra can tell), doing pretty
much everything right. And dread because there’s no missing how
similar they are both in appearance and temperament. Nyra does not
want to wind up like her mother, alone and hanging on most of her
life by her fingernails and sheer determination.
If you could spend the day with one
of the characters from Best-Case Scenario who
would it be? Please tell us why you chose this particular character,
where you would go and what you would do.
It
would have to be a day with Corinn Westensee, but on a day she must
relate productively to and cordially with her daughter. I think it
would be instructive to watch them together, preferably working on a
household project. While I’m fascinated by Nyra, how her mother has
shaped her and continues to shape her offers significant clues to
Nyra’s liabilities and potential, as well as how she may evolve.
D.B.
Sayers is a retired Marine Lieutenant Colonel and former corporate
training manager turned full-time author and editor. You can follow
his work, subscribe to Dirk’s
Tribe, retain
him as an editor, or just drop in and say hi at,
https://dirksayers.com/.
About the Author
Dirk’s path to authorship wasn’t quite an accident, but almost.
It’s not that he didn’t write. He did. But through two previous
careers, first as a Marine officer and subsequently as a corporate trainer,
Dirk started way more stories than he finished.” But in the backwash
of the 2008 financial meltdown, his employer filed for Chapter 11. Cordially
invited to leave and not return, Dirk found himself out of work and
excuses.
Since then, Dirk has published West of Tomorrow, Best-Case Scenario and a
collection of short fiction entitled, Through the Windshield and Tier Zero,
Volume I of The Knolan Cycle, all available from Amazon in Kindle and
paperback formats. Works in progress include The Year of Maybe, sequel to
Best-Case Scenario, and Eryinath-5, Volume II of the Knolan Cycle.
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