Maria V. Snyder's Blog
December 5, 2009
Just a quick note - a book blogger and bookstore worker is offering a signed copy of STORM GLASS to commenters. Contest ends on December 13th.
If you'd like to enter go here: http://eoseventeen.blogspot.com/2009/11/...
December 4, 2009
December 2, 2009
Just in time for the holiday shopping season :) MAGIC STUDY (Study Book #2) is currently 40% off for $4.99 at eHarlequin.com - and I think they have free shipping (I remember a $10 min, but it could have been changed.) Prices are good until Dec. 31, 2009.
POISON STUDY (Study Book #1) is also 20% off for $7.99! You can start all your friends and family on the Study books for a mere $12.98 (cheaper than the price of one Trade paperback!). And both of these books are Trade Paperback size with a map of Ixia and Sitia :)
Here's the link to access the website and savings: http://www.eharlequin.com/storeitem.html...
Okay - that was borderline as far as shameless self-promotion - but I do love a good bargain and books make great gifts :)
I'm one scene away from typing THE END in SPY GLASS - YAY! The house is almost built, now I have to decorate it and re-arrange the furniture.
POISON STUDY (Study Book #1) is also 20% off for $7.99! You can start all your friends and family on the Study books for a mere $12.98 (cheaper than the price of one Trade paperback!). And both of these books are Trade Paperback size with a map of Ixia and Sitia :)
Here's the link to access the website and savings: http://www.eharlequin.com/storeitem.html...
Okay - that was borderline as far as shameless self-promotion - but I do love a good bargain and books make great gifts :)
I'm one scene away from typing THE END in SPY GLASS - YAY! The house is almost built, now I have to decorate it and re-arrange the furniture.
November 19, 2009
And the reason I haven't blogged in awhile ;>
The weekend of November 7-8, I spent in Monroe, Michigan.
I had a BLAST in Monroe! Treated like a ROCK STAR, spoiled rotten with chocolate, munchies, wine, goodies and surrounded by wonderful book-loving people.
I have to admit, one of my favorite moments of the fabulous weekend was at the book group's (Books with Bite) dinner on Saturday night when the discussion turned to the Kade vs. Delven debate...such fun to listen to the two sides argue about why Opal should end up with one or the other man - all good natured and sometimes loud - and I didn't have to say a word!
Here's a group shot of the book group:
They also printed up T-shirts and gave away 3 of them to those who showed up on Saturday.
Meeting fellow members of the Study Buddies was another highlight - Kristen drove 5 hours to come see me and Sara about 2 hours both came for the Sunday event. I also met Heather, Penny, Misty, Jenn, Ashley, and I really hope I didn't miss listing anyone else - if so...sorry!
Some Study Buddies:
Left to Right: Misty, Me, Sara and Kristen!
Jadin was a force of nature, selling my books to one and all at the Writers on the River event - she sold all but one - but that ended up going in the library's collection.
All in all a wonderful time - I hated to come home to the mountains of laundry and dishes that waited for me ;> Actually, the dishes were done, but I'm the designated Laundry Queen for some reason....
The following weekend I was at a release party for the anthology: The Stories in Between - my short story, Dr. Time is one of the 16 stories. It's a collection of SF, fantasy, and horror stories.
The collection is to celebrate the 30th anniversary! of Between Books, an independent bookstore - owned by one of the editors, Greg Schauer, who bought the bookstore when he was 18!
There had to be 10 authors and 5 or 6 of the artists at the party and it was a madhouse - I signed books from 2 pm until 6:30 pm - the place was packed!
If you'd like a copy - it's cheaper to order straight from the publisher - here's a link: www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/b...
The weekend of November 7-8, I spent in Monroe, Michigan.
I had a BLAST in Monroe! Treated like a ROCK STAR, spoiled rotten with chocolate, munchies, wine, goodies and surrounded by wonderful book-loving people.
I have to admit, one of my favorite moments of the fabulous weekend was at the book group's (Books with Bite) dinner on Saturday night when the discussion turned to the Kade vs. Delven debate...such fun to listen to the two sides argue about why Opal should end up with one or the other man - all good natured and sometimes loud - and I didn't have to say a word!
Here's a group shot of the book group:
They also printed up T-shirts and gave away 3 of them to those who showed up on Saturday.
Meeting fellow members of the Study Buddies was another highlight - Kristen drove 5 hours to come see me and Sara about 2 hours both came for the Sunday event. I also met Heather, Penny, Misty, Jenn, Ashley, and I really hope I didn't miss listing anyone else - if so...sorry!
Some Study Buddies:
Left to Right: Misty, Me, Sara and Kristen!
Jadin was a force of nature, selling my books to one and all at the Writers on the River event - she sold all but one - but that ended up going in the library's collection.
All in all a wonderful time - I hated to come home to the mountains of laundry and dishes that waited for me ;> Actually, the dishes were done, but I'm the designated Laundry Queen for some reason....
The following weekend I was at a release party for the anthology: The Stories in Between - my short story, Dr. Time is one of the 16 stories. It's a collection of SF, fantasy, and horror stories.
The collection is to celebrate the 30th anniversary! of Between Books, an independent bookstore - owned by one of the editors, Greg Schauer, who bought the bookstore when he was 18!
There had to be 10 authors and 5 or 6 of the artists at the party and it was a madhouse - I signed books from 2 pm until 6:30 pm - the place was packed!
If you'd like a copy - it's cheaper to order straight from the publisher - here's a link: www.fantasistent.com/books/anthologies/b...
November 6, 2009
November 2, 2009
Better late than never :) My good friend Mindy had a new release in October and I've had this interview in my inbox for a couple weeks. I'll blame it on SPY GLASS the book that refused to be written - grrrrrr.
Okay, back to Mindy :) Mindy's new book is HOW NOT TO MAKE A WISH. It's classic Mindy - a humorous romp in the bowels of a theater! And Mindy is also offering one commenter a signed copy of her new book! YAY! If you'd like a chance to win, leave a comment here or on my Myspace blog and I'll pick a name next Monday the 9th.
While cleaning an old lantern, Kira Franklin releases a genie. But this gender-morphing, appearance-bending creature doesn't do "big" wishes. So forget stopping world hunger or ending war. And still heartbroken from the jerk who dumped her, Kira doesn't believe in the perfect man.
So she wishes for her dream job. Stage manager at the hottest theater in town, the Landmark. And presto: she's running Romeo and Juliet. Except, like everything else these days, this is one crazy production. And now Teel, the genie, insists she finish her wishes so "he" can move on.
Her second wish is about her appearance, which isn't exactly catching her third wish's eye. And there's the rub.
Because that old saying about being careful what you wish for is so spot-on. And Kira is about to discover that moxie, not magic, is what can make all your dreams come true.
My Take 10 with Mindy Klasky:
1.) Why this book? What made you want to write this story and series?
When I finished writing the Jane Madison series (about a librarian who finds out that she's a witch), I found that I still wanted to write about real, living magic in the world around us. One of the most interesting aspects of magic, to me, is how it can be limited. I always want to know what the costs are when a person works magic, and I'm often intrigued by what can go wrong. As a child, I read a lot of fairy tales, and I was fascinated by the people who got (and usually wasted!) wishes. Therefore, it just seemed natural to look at the havoc that can ensue when a genie grants wishes to unsuspecting people.
2.) Which authors inspire you? Has that changed over time?
The more that I write fantasy and romance, the more I find myself reading in other genres - sort of a literary palate cleanser between courses! I have been truly enjoying Deanna Raybourn's "Silence" mysteries, which involve the unconventional Victorian Lady Julia Grey and the mysterious half-Gypsy Nicholas Brisbane. I also read a lot of young adult fiction, novels that are typically somewhat shorter than adult fiction, with strong characters, plots, and motivations. I recently escaped into Patricia Wrede's THE THIRTEENTH CHILD, an alternate history of the American frontier. I go through phases where I read a lot of one time of story - tons of category romance, lots of creative non-fiction, volumes of literary fiction. Often, my reading is in preparation for a writing project that I want to undertake.
3.) Why fantasy? Is there something special about fantasy that draws you to write in the field?
While I've always been a person who follows the rules, I also enjoy pushing those rules to their very limits. To that end, fantasy is a fascinating genre - magic comes with a lot of strings attached! In the As You Wish Series, for example, genies are very strict about
granting Grand Wishes (e.g. world peace), because of the extreme demand on magical resources. Also, my wishers need to be extremely careful about how they phrase their wishes, or they're likely to end up with side effects they never anticipated. I've always enjoyed working within a limited space, and fantasy fiction inspires me to maximize the potential of any specific story.
4.) What do you find most interesting about Kira Franklin?
Kira has a complicated relationship with her father - she loves him, and she appreciates the things that he does to help her, but she resents his pushing her to leave her often-unreliable stage management job for a more stable legal career. I loved writing the scenes between Kira and her father - they're outside the strict four walls of "contemporary fantasy romance", but they add depth and meaning to the characters' lives. They also remind me of one of my first literary heroines - Nancy Drew - and her loving relationship with her father. (My father and I are quite close, but we never had any of the conversations depicted between the characters in HOW NOT TO MAKE A WISH.)
5.) What else do you enjoy doing besides writing? Interests? Hobbies?
I spend a lot of my free time quilting, a hobby I picked up years ago, when I worked as a trademark and copyright lawyer and would come home too exhausted to do anything but sit in front of the television set. I also do some scrapbooking and some beading - when my two cats don't take over the supplies! If I were given a full week of vacation, I'd spend at least two of the days reading, trying to tame my apparently endless to-be-read shelf.
6.) Did you have to do any special research for this book? What did you learn that you didn't know before?
Kira Franklin, the heroine of HOW NOT TO MAKE A WISH, is a professional stage manager who lives in Minneapolis. At the beginning of the novel, she works in a run-down dinner theater, but then she takes a job working on a production of ROMEO AND JULIET. I used to stage manage plays in college, and I've ushered shows at local theaters for the past twenty years, so I had a fair amount of familiarity with the theatrical world. I lived in Minneapolis for a
few years, and I still go to visit relatives there occasionally. Despite that basic groundwork, though, I constantly reach out to do bits of spot research while I work. In any one chapter, I might research a specific line from ROMEO AND JULIET, look for a musical set in Arabia (perfect setting for a genie's lamp!), track down a restaurant close to Kira's Lake of the Isles home, or refresh my memory on a shade of lipstick manufactured by MAC. I emerged from drafting HOW NOT TO MAKE A WISH with a much better knowledge of ROMEO AND JULIET, including how each of that play's major scenes fit together.
7.) How did you become a writer? Is this what you saw yourself growing up to be? Or did it take you by surprise?
I always loved telling stories and writing them down - some of my favorite school projects were creative writing journals. In seventh grade, my best friend and I decided to write a sequel to THE LORD OF THE RINGS. (We worked over our entire spring break. We didn't finish our brilliant creation.) In college, I was an English major, which gave me a chance to read widely, but I always intended to go to law school. I started writing seriously while I was in law school (OK, while I was in my Evidence class...), but it took me almost ten years to finish a publish-able novel, find the right agent, and make that first sale. I continued to juggle day job (after I was a lawyer, I was a librarian) and writing for ten years before I started writing full time. My current writing career take me by (happy) surprise every single morning, when I sit down to work!
8.) Do you have a writing routine? Talk process for a moment, how do the words get on the page?
The nitty-gritty: I write primarily on an iMac, using the software package Scrivener (which I export to Word, to turn in to my editor.) I work from home, on the ground floor of my three-story townhouse. More often than not, I have a cat on my lap; I have perfected the art
of typing with a feline chin balanced on my right wrist. (Although I'm right-handed, I do all of my mouse-work with my left hand, to avoid repetitive stress injuries and to keep the cats happy.) I spend about 1.5 hours each morning answering emails, processing contest entries from my website - www.mindyklasky.com , updating my LiveJournal blog and my Facebook status, etc. Then, I try to write for about two hours before I take a lunch break. In the afternoon, I fit in another two hour writing session, along with Exciting Household Management (grocery shopping, runs to Target, etc.) I spend the end of my writing day working on "writing support" matters, completing interviews like this one, researching reviewers, etc. I'm a relatively rapid writer - I can draft a 5000 word chapter in one day and revise it the next. (On my most productive day ever, I drafted about 18,000 words.)
9.) Office? Closet? Corner of the living room? Do you have a set place to write? A favorite?
I do my best work sitting in my home office, where I have minimal distractions and all my writing tools (a giant pot of tea, a dictionary, a giant pot of tea, a thesaurus, a giant pot of tea... You get the idea.) In a pinch, I can work on my laptop, but it's often difficult to configure an ergonomically sound environment for laptop writing, and my right wrist begins to resent me.
10.) What are you writing now? What's coming out next?
In April 2010, the second book in the As You Wish series - WHEN GOOD WISHES GO BAD - will be in stores. (It follows the genie from HOW NOT TO MAKE A WISH, heading to New York and the life of a professional dramaturg.) In October 2010, the As You Wish series will wrap up with TO WISH OR NOT TO WISH (same genie again, working with a professional
actress in New York.)
I'm currently writing an all-new series about vampires. My take on fanged creatures is just starting to come together - suffice to say that they'll be similar in tone to the Jane Madison and As You Wish books, but they'll also hold true to classic vampire lore.
Thank you, Maria, for the opportunity to answer these questions! If you or your readers have more questions, I'll be stopping by to answer
them in comments!
Here are a few links that might help:
Mindy's website: http://www.mindyklasky.com
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Wish-Mind...
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Make-Wish-...
B&N: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/How-Not...
Okay, back to Mindy :) Mindy's new book is HOW NOT TO MAKE A WISH. It's classic Mindy - a humorous romp in the bowels of a theater! And Mindy is also offering one commenter a signed copy of her new book! YAY! If you'd like a chance to win, leave a comment here or on my Myspace blog and I'll pick a name next Monday the 9th.
While cleaning an old lantern, Kira Franklin releases a genie. But this gender-morphing, appearance-bending creature doesn't do "big" wishes. So forget stopping world hunger or ending war. And still heartbroken from the jerk who dumped her, Kira doesn't believe in the perfect man.
So she wishes for her dream job. Stage manager at the hottest theater in town, the Landmark. And presto: she's running Romeo and Juliet. Except, like everything else these days, this is one crazy production. And now Teel, the genie, insists she finish her wishes so "he" can move on.
Her second wish is about her appearance, which isn't exactly catching her third wish's eye. And there's the rub.
Because that old saying about being careful what you wish for is so spot-on. And Kira is about to discover that moxie, not magic, is what can make all your dreams come true.
My Take 10 with Mindy Klasky:
1.) Why this book? What made you want to write this story and series?
When I finished writing the Jane Madison series (about a librarian who finds out that she's a witch), I found that I still wanted to write about real, living magic in the world around us. One of the most interesting aspects of magic, to me, is how it can be limited. I always want to know what the costs are when a person works magic, and I'm often intrigued by what can go wrong. As a child, I read a lot of fairy tales, and I was fascinated by the people who got (and usually wasted!) wishes. Therefore, it just seemed natural to look at the havoc that can ensue when a genie grants wishes to unsuspecting people.
2.) Which authors inspire you? Has that changed over time?
The more that I write fantasy and romance, the more I find myself reading in other genres - sort of a literary palate cleanser between courses! I have been truly enjoying Deanna Raybourn's "Silence" mysteries, which involve the unconventional Victorian Lady Julia Grey and the mysterious half-Gypsy Nicholas Brisbane. I also read a lot of young adult fiction, novels that are typically somewhat shorter than adult fiction, with strong characters, plots, and motivations. I recently escaped into Patricia Wrede's THE THIRTEENTH CHILD, an alternate history of the American frontier. I go through phases where I read a lot of one time of story - tons of category romance, lots of creative non-fiction, volumes of literary fiction. Often, my reading is in preparation for a writing project that I want to undertake.
3.) Why fantasy? Is there something special about fantasy that draws you to write in the field?
While I've always been a person who follows the rules, I also enjoy pushing those rules to their very limits. To that end, fantasy is a fascinating genre - magic comes with a lot of strings attached! In the As You Wish Series, for example, genies are very strict about
granting Grand Wishes (e.g. world peace), because of the extreme demand on magical resources. Also, my wishers need to be extremely careful about how they phrase their wishes, or they're likely to end up with side effects they never anticipated. I've always enjoyed working within a limited space, and fantasy fiction inspires me to maximize the potential of any specific story.
4.) What do you find most interesting about Kira Franklin?
Kira has a complicated relationship with her father - she loves him, and she appreciates the things that he does to help her, but she resents his pushing her to leave her often-unreliable stage management job for a more stable legal career. I loved writing the scenes between Kira and her father - they're outside the strict four walls of "contemporary fantasy romance", but they add depth and meaning to the characters' lives. They also remind me of one of my first literary heroines - Nancy Drew - and her loving relationship with her father. (My father and I are quite close, but we never had any of the conversations depicted between the characters in HOW NOT TO MAKE A WISH.)
5.) What else do you enjoy doing besides writing? Interests? Hobbies?
I spend a lot of my free time quilting, a hobby I picked up years ago, when I worked as a trademark and copyright lawyer and would come home too exhausted to do anything but sit in front of the television set. I also do some scrapbooking and some beading - when my two cats don't take over the supplies! If I were given a full week of vacation, I'd spend at least two of the days reading, trying to tame my apparently endless to-be-read shelf.
6.) Did you have to do any special research for this book? What did you learn that you didn't know before?
Kira Franklin, the heroine of HOW NOT TO MAKE A WISH, is a professional stage manager who lives in Minneapolis. At the beginning of the novel, she works in a run-down dinner theater, but then she takes a job working on a production of ROMEO AND JULIET. I used to stage manage plays in college, and I've ushered shows at local theaters for the past twenty years, so I had a fair amount of familiarity with the theatrical world. I lived in Minneapolis for a
few years, and I still go to visit relatives there occasionally. Despite that basic groundwork, though, I constantly reach out to do bits of spot research while I work. In any one chapter, I might research a specific line from ROMEO AND JULIET, look for a musical set in Arabia (perfect setting for a genie's lamp!), track down a restaurant close to Kira's Lake of the Isles home, or refresh my memory on a shade of lipstick manufactured by MAC. I emerged from drafting HOW NOT TO MAKE A WISH with a much better knowledge of ROMEO AND JULIET, including how each of that play's major scenes fit together.
7.) How did you become a writer? Is this what you saw yourself growing up to be? Or did it take you by surprise?
I always loved telling stories and writing them down - some of my favorite school projects were creative writing journals. In seventh grade, my best friend and I decided to write a sequel to THE LORD OF THE RINGS. (We worked over our entire spring break. We didn't finish our brilliant creation.) In college, I was an English major, which gave me a chance to read widely, but I always intended to go to law school. I started writing seriously while I was in law school (OK, while I was in my Evidence class...), but it took me almost ten years to finish a publish-able novel, find the right agent, and make that first sale. I continued to juggle day job (after I was a lawyer, I was a librarian) and writing for ten years before I started writing full time. My current writing career take me by (happy) surprise every single morning, when I sit down to work!
8.) Do you have a writing routine? Talk process for a moment, how do the words get on the page?
The nitty-gritty: I write primarily on an iMac, using the software package Scrivener (which I export to Word, to turn in to my editor.) I work from home, on the ground floor of my three-story townhouse. More often than not, I have a cat on my lap; I have perfected the art
of typing with a feline chin balanced on my right wrist. (Although I'm right-handed, I do all of my mouse-work with my left hand, to avoid repetitive stress injuries and to keep the cats happy.) I spend about 1.5 hours each morning answering emails, processing contest entries from my website - www.mindyklasky.com , updating my LiveJournal blog and my Facebook status, etc. Then, I try to write for about two hours before I take a lunch break. In the afternoon, I fit in another two hour writing session, along with Exciting Household Management (grocery shopping, runs to Target, etc.) I spend the end of my writing day working on "writing support" matters, completing interviews like this one, researching reviewers, etc. I'm a relatively rapid writer - I can draft a 5000 word chapter in one day and revise it the next. (On my most productive day ever, I drafted about 18,000 words.)
9.) Office? Closet? Corner of the living room? Do you have a set place to write? A favorite?
I do my best work sitting in my home office, where I have minimal distractions and all my writing tools (a giant pot of tea, a dictionary, a giant pot of tea, a thesaurus, a giant pot of tea... You get the idea.) In a pinch, I can work on my laptop, but it's often difficult to configure an ergonomically sound environment for laptop writing, and my right wrist begins to resent me.
10.) What are you writing now? What's coming out next?
In April 2010, the second book in the As You Wish series - WHEN GOOD WISHES GO BAD - will be in stores. (It follows the genie from HOW NOT TO MAKE A WISH, heading to New York and the life of a professional dramaturg.) In October 2010, the As You Wish series will wrap up with TO WISH OR NOT TO WISH (same genie again, working with a professional
actress in New York.)
I'm currently writing an all-new series about vampires. My take on fanged creatures is just starting to come together - suffice to say that they'll be similar in tone to the Jane Madison and As You Wish books, but they'll also hold true to classic vampire lore.
Thank you, Maria, for the opportunity to answer these questions! If you or your readers have more questions, I'll be stopping by to answer
them in comments!
Here are a few links that might help:
Mindy's website: http://www.mindyklasky.com
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/How-Make-Wish-Mind...
Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/How-Not-Make-Wish-...
B&N: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/How-Not...
