Estevan Vega's Blog, page 4

What Novels Make You Think? by Jill Williamson, author of Replication

 

EV: I have a very cool author on the site today. Jill Williamson, supafly spec fiction author. Or maybe her clone wrote this post, I’m not really sure. They look alike. Anyway, she has a rockin story posted on her website, which tells her story of publication and all that jazz, and I suggest any future writers out there, go and check it out. But here, and now, she’s sharing her insights about novels, about writing. In short, what novels make you think? These are the novels that stick with you, that make you feel something you didn’t before…these bad boys are powerful. So, without further ado, I give you Madame Jill Williamson. Hope you dig it!

 

JW: What novel impacted you and made you rethink something? One example for me was the novel The Giver by Lois Lowry. There were many powerful themes to take away from that novel, but what stuck with me was, “People need pain. They learn from pain. Pain can make us stronger and smarter.” The novel fascinated me on so many levels.

Have you ever read a novel that made you angry? I have. And I’m usually angry because I disagreed with the direction the author took his story. Either the story didn’t end the way I thought it should or it contradicted my beliefs about the world we live in. An example for me was the novel The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold. It was such a brilliant concept, but I had a hard time reading about a heaven with no God, and the possession scene at the end went too far. The novel left me angry and disappointed.

Most of us can forgive the direction of a story. Artistic license. The author has the right to weave his story however he wants. But readers have a harder time forgiving a contradicted belief. If a story says something against the reader’s beliefs, he gets offended. And an offended reader tends to say so in the form of a book review. Go read some one-star reviews to see what I mean.

But that’s one reason I love writing speculative fiction. In a fantasy, science fiction, or dystopian novel, I can make statements though my storyworld or characters that I couldn’t make otherwise. A clone that has never seen the light of day can ask questions a regular guy can’t. A story about pregnancy and abortion is easier for readers swallow when the pregnant character is a female cyborg. And some readers are more willing to read about God when he is shown as a black woman called Papa.

That’s why dystopian is so popular right now. Because the end of the word, global pandemic, or governments that turn on their people are real societal fears for many people. And if people can relate, if a story speaks to a reader’s fears or hopes about the world he lives in, the author has usually hit a home run.

How about you? What novels have you read that made you think? What novels made you angry?

Any insights, blog world?

 

Thanks to Jill (or clone) for the fun, thoughtful post, and…um…Spread the fire!

evega

twitter: @estevanvega

facebook: we are arson

Bass Ackwards

You can’t get good insurance rates unless you’ve been driving for a while and can “verify” that you’re good driver. It’s hard as crap to get a credit card or establish any kind of credit unless you’ve already had credit prior to applying for that nifty gold card or that mortgage on a low-income house. Try getting a book contract with a reputable New York publisher without first nailing an agent (not the sex version of the term. I’m not telling you to go have sex with them, obviously, but then again…who knows?). And the funny thing is, try getting an agent without first having been published. You can’t get a decent job without proving to the man that you are good at taking orders and coloring inside the lines. (I’ll take Study at the university for 200, Alex.) And by the time you actually earn that diploma, after kissing teachers’ butts and writing paper after paper about the importance of feminist literature or why the South is evil or who freakin framed Roger Rabbit, you have a monolith of student loans and Sallie Mae so far up your butt, you’d think you were getting an exam. Anyone else see something terribly wrong with all of this?

The majority of it all is money-driven. Somehow the insurance agents are allowed to take your money, at ridiculously high prices because you’re a novice driver and could potentially wreck your car or someone else’s, and they just don’t wanna pay out. An agent can reject you time and time again because they can and there are a million other writers who are searching for just that kind of rejection. Publishers can also reject you because they don’t like your manuscript or your eye color or the way you spell your name. Whatever the reason, they just think you won’t make them enough money, so they’ll look the other way when they apathetically reject you. And in an economy like this one, good luck finding a decent job, especially if you’re a young college grad. Hell, now you have to get your masters, phD, and the list goes on ad infitnitum.  It’s a backwards reality that we have all adopted, not necessarily by choice, but still. We have to eat it, whether we want to or not.

Maybe I should’ve colored inside the lines more. Maybe I should have joined some kind of fraternity or company and chase the corporate god. Why can’t it be that an artist can offer his stuff to the world and actually survive? To be real, what has the corporate world done to capture the essence of the human spirit? When has the average world contributed to the understanding of the psyche or seek to answer questions about the afterlife, about God, about the inner workings of love?

It boils down to a dollar sign. It always boils down to a dollar sign. If you worked hard to get inside the bubble, congratulations. Welcome to being just another number. I’m happy for you. Really, I am. I’m glad you found your purpose. I’m glad they pay you well. I too have tried to coexist, to play the game, to seek first the kingdom of man. But it leaves me always wanting. In this post, I am not giving a solution. I am not asking you to sign a petition, and this is not a pity party. It’s just one frustrated artist attempting to cope with a distorted reality of existing inside the suck.

dysfunctional is the new normal,

evega

www.estevanvega.com

twitter: @estevanvega

facebook: we are arson

Do or Do Not. There Is No Try by Scott Appleton

 

For those of you who are interested, I love classic science fiction and fairy tales. I don’t read a lot of fantasy, but boy do I love to write it! Fantasy worlds are fantastic for story creation. I can do anything to the characters and send them on journeys that I can never take!

I was homeschooled right through high school and absolutely loved to read. I also enjoyed inventing stories of my own. Anything from Star Wars spoofs to alternate histories and talking animals. I always had a fascination with authors. They were the epitomes of success, the lords of the creative world, and how I longed to join their ranks.

After high school I traveled to Thailand for three months as a student Christian missionary. While there I first penned (or, in this case, typed) the beginnings of a fantasy story. For two years I worked on the story and the fictional world I created grew into a manuscript some 135,000-words long. At some point, a couple of people read the manuscript and absolutely fell in love with it. They wanted to know if I was going to try to get it published.

“Try” has never been part of my active vocabulary. I like to quote the all-wise Yoda. “Do. Or do not. There is no try.” So when I set about looking to publish my novel, I considered it a task that had to be accomplished. It was a goal that I must reach, even if it meant the path to that goal would be long and difficult. And it did prove both difficult and long.

I picked up books on writing, editing, publishing, book production, etc. and began educating myself about the whole process.

First option seemed to be to send out Query Letters to different editors and agents. I crafted a query letter and submitted to a New York publishing house with high hopes but prepared for disappointment. Six months later I received my first rejection letter. “Thank you for your consideration, but at this time your manuscript does not meet our needs. We wish you luck in your future publishing endeavors.” Yep, the letter really was that short and contained zero personal feedback. It was generic. So I sent out another query… no, I sent out half-a-dozen and all of them responded after a long wait with similar generic rejection letters.

The frustration of the query process is, typically, the editor or agent offers no personal feedback. I had no way of knowing why they chose not to look at my manuscript. Had I written a bad story, or had I poorly crafted my query, or did it not fit with those publishers? All of these were possibilities. None of them could be confirmed or denied.

Having worked as a salesman (successfully) I knew I could promote and sell my book. I decided to drop the querying process, travel to a writer’s conference, and meet the editors and agents. At least, I thought, if they don’t like my proposal, I can find out why.

I arranged an appointment with an editor from AMG Publishers because I’d researched and knew that he was looking for more young adult fantasy series. But at the appointed time the editor did not show up. I found out later that he was very sick with cancer. He made a point of asking me to have breakfast with him later in the conference, and over the breakfast table I proposed my series The Sword of the Dragon. The editor was sincerely interested and, for the next two years, he pushed my novel to the publishing board. At one point he almost sent the contract, but the board had one more meeting and my book was rejected.

The editor felt bad about this and recommended that I try one of the smaller publishers. But I wasn’t about to go through the process with another house for another two years just for that same possible rejection. Through my research I had learned that six out of ten novels never sell over a thousand copies in their lifetime. I determined to start my own little publishing company and sell my novel past a thousand copies in the first year. This, I believed, would be the stepping stone to getting in with a traditional publishing house.

I quit my hourly job and my wife and I hit the road in 2009. In five months we traveled through eleven states. I spoke to thousands of middle and high school students, held signings at book stores, and at the end of that first year we had sold over three thousand books. These numbers did not include digital book sales.

Meanwhile, although I was unaware of it, AMG Publishers had undergone some big changes. They had new editors who were pushing hard to publish more fantasy. Hearing of my success, they invited me to speak with them. I showed them the book I had produced and gave them details on sales and my sales techniques. They said “We’re impressed” and in a couple weeks offered me a three-book-deal. Pending those first books selling well they would sign me on for more novels.

Last year in March they released my first novel Swords of the Six, followed in October by Offspring, and just two months ago Key of Living Fire hit the stores. Already these books are among their top-sellers, and AMG has asked me to sign a contract for four more books (which will complete The Sword of the Dragon series).

Royalties with a traditional publishing house are not much, but I believe the benefit of their sales connections garners me more fans. Success as an author is all about platform. I self-published an anthology of my short fiction titled By Sword By Right and that seems to be selling pretty well.

I have several projects in the works. One is a sci-fi/steampunk novel called Star Train, which I am very excited about. I had considered self-publishing again, but my novels need marketing power put behind them. To that end I recently signed on with MacGregor Literary, and my agent will help guide my career to even bigger publishers.

I hope this answers a lot of questions. Publishing is a long road. Few succeed because most only try. Be a doer if you want to succeed. Never accept failure, but learn from your stumbles.

EV: If you like fantasy. If you like dragons. If you like reading, go check out Scott’s ish! He’s a cool guy, and you just might get sucked into his magical world. I hear it’s nice this time of year. May even give Narnia a run for its money.

Spread the fuego!

evega

www.estevanvega.com

twitter: @estevanvega

facebook: we are arson

Futures in Pieces by Esau Kessler

I love having fun, insightful posts. So today, I have Esau Kessler, a sci-fi writer and just an all around cool guy. He and I first made contact last year at the Idaho Book Extravaganza, and it was cool hanging out and talking with him. Since he’s a sci-fi buff, I invited him on the website to talk about what the future looks like or may look like. Hope you dig it!

 

EK: Let me introduce myself (If Estevan didn’t enough), I am a creative that has worked in commercial design for over 20 years. Currently I am completing a science fiction novel called “Edan” which is a story about a young coder who has his identity stolen by the devil, or a devil, or someone of evil design. The coder figures out how to hack DNA, which allows an island of clones to be created, and the devil and a host of digital demons go about destroying it to hack their own island of “creatures”. One of the clones is a 13 year old paraplegic girl who holds the keys to the whole plot. I live in Idaho, and I like Creed. There, we are now comrades.

What I want to talk about, and yes, I am totally just spitballin’ here folks:

It has been an interesting experience writing about science fiction these last 4 years, while real life becomes more full of science fiction than what I am writing (Perhaps I should start writing ‘fantasy’!). From real underground clandestine organizations like “Anonymous”, killer drones patrolling our skies, new digital currencies like “bitcoin” that threaten to upend the way we trade money, to quantum physics that prove quantum entanglement and that the world is not what it seems.

The future is here, and it is getting much more evenly distributed.

I cannot pinpoint the exact moment when things changed. The paradigm shift when things went askew and the future got here. But I do remember “ho-humming” Terminator 3: Rise OF the Machines (the one with the female Terminatrix) in 2003, as much of the technology was current day: military robots, air force intranets, it somehow became merely an action movie, which gave the film less meaning, and less value. That was my first clue.

And that is what I want to talk about: clues. Science fiction doesn’t have to be about the future, it can be fantasy or alternative future or past. But some of the really good sci-fi is good in my opinion because what it gives me: hints about what tomorrow might be like. And we all want that. Here we are on a planet zooming 67,000 MPH around a ball of nuclear fire, all held together by nothing, while our atoms shake and vibrate, and the world is filled with chaos and the unknown. Good heavens, it is a miracle anything ever gets done. While this can cause a case of profound and crushing fear, most of us find a little mundane corner to eek out our existence, and want only little tastes of what tomorrow might hold.

There was a time I wanted to know the future, but after more thought, I became aware that not knowing, was far more desirable and interesting. It begs mystery and adventure.

So I have settled with clues. Subtle hints, glimpses, and beams of revelation. This is what we all want. And this is what good literature offers. Authors like George Orwell who told us of a today that would be a dark police state with mind control and a boot kicking a human face forever 75 years ago, while Aldous Huxley painted a “Brave New World” of indulgence, pleasure, and apathy. Separately they were both wrong, but jointly, quite accurate about the now. How did they do that? Some of us just see things differently. One person sees an empty cardboard box, another questions what is inside, and another wonders if it’s a cat alive and dead at the same time.

One of my favorite films “Minority Report” produced by Steven Spielberg, actually had a conference of hand selected scientists, creatives, writers, and artists. Shaman who shook the tea leaves and scattered the bones. Now 10 years later they were amazingly accurate. Currently Homeland Security is working on it’s FAST system (Future Attribute Screening Technology) that measures body temperature, heart rate, and body language to predict what you might be thinking about doing before you do it. Or as Jon Anderton called it “PreCrime”.

As a creative generalist I always see things differently. At first I thought there was something wrong with me, but in time I have learned to know and love the way my brain works. How I process the information I receive and the data I spit out. I am often dead wrong about things, and don’t pretend to know the future, and avoid predicting outcomes. However, there is this uncanny ability I have to see the big picture and come up with original ideas that prove themselves to be true in some sense. It’s like having a useless superpower, I can see slightly into the future, but not quite enough to do anything about it. (Which is far better than being partially bulletproof or having healing punches, BTW.)

Recently I wrote “Aberrations and glitch are common to our digital experience. There is almost an analog layer that manifests itself in the zeros and ones. Yet, we march on, convincing ourselves that computing is reliable, linear, predictable and without foibles. To be trusted with our finances, our homes, our children, and our

very lives.”  This is a generalist statement that assumes you know the meaning of ‘glitch’, passively suggesting the sinister, speaking to mankind’s love of technology, and challenging it. Who does that? People like us. I say ‘us’, in that if you are still reading, you identify, and have not yet written me off as a dreamer and incanter of worthless spells, who vomits the obviously unknowable and irrelevant.

In my story “Edan” I write about an augmented reality layer of virtual life, that plays out in our daily lives, feeding and stealing from our reality, and I mention one character’s obsession with mortality. Counting the days until his demise. Will tomorrow hold a deeper more vivid grasp on obsession, and enable a hyper-dystopia of human neurosis? Or will we learn to use technology passively with a focus on reality and simple human values? I cannot say, but I can suggest that what you’re thinking now and the subsequent actions you take will influence that future one way or the other. So beware of the powerful forces that lay deep within you. They might produce the unexpected.

Esau Kessler

EV: Thanks, Esau for coming onto the site and rockin’ the blog scene. You hit us with some serious insight. To all those of you intrigued by Esau and his work, go stalk his website. http://www.edanbook.com/

Til next time, stay fly and spread the fire!

evega

twitter: @estevanvega; facebook: we are arson

Come Inside, and I’ll Tell You Where The Beast Lives: Dehumanized by Michael Loring!

I love having this blog section on my site; it allows me to have really cool, awesome, creative people on frequently. Today, I have Michael Loring. Chances are you’re going to be hearing that name a lot in the coming weeks, especially around paranormal circles. He’s written a book called Dehumanized, and it’s about experiments, beastly creatures, love, and the occasional shirtless bro. I first heard about Michael a few years back when he messaged me for some publishing advice. I helped him out as best as I could, tried to steer him in the right path, and apparently something I said worked, because now he’s got a book coming out in less than 2 weeks! That’s right, this July, both eBook and print editions of Dehumanized will be devouring your brai…um, I mean…anyway, I can’t take credit for his success, just glad he finally got to see his stuff make it, and I have a feeling it’s goin to be a hit!

Here’s a guest post from Michael about what makes his “wolves” so very unique!

When it comes to today’s Fiction, you instantly think about vampires and werewolves, or at the very least something of that nature. You never have to look far to find something vampire-related, (e.g. Twilight, True Blood, Vampire Diaries) and the same could be said about werewolves; though not as strongly. At first glance, my novel, Dehumanized, may seem like just another werewolf book craving to become part of the recent movement of Supernatural-related media. But I can honestly say it isn’t.

First off, Dehumanized could easily be categorized as Non-Supernatural. The werewolves are scientifically created, and are really only called werewolves because of their similarity to the genre. They could have easily been branded something else, like Man-Beasts, or Wolf-Men, or just plain Wolves, or even Puppies-if puppies were seven feet tall with razor sharp fangs and claws and a rather violent disposition.

The book is still categorized as Paranormal, though. The werewolves in Dehumanized are quite a lot like how a few movies portray them; though with a few extra quirks. So then, with this information, you could ask yourself: “why should I read this werewolf book if it’s just going to be like all of the rest? I could easily go watch Twilight or Underworld or read one of the many werewolf-based series out there to get my fix.” But there are a few things Dehumanized has that the entire slew of new movies and books coming out don’t have. One of them being that the book wasn’t written in order to receive a high rating on the gore scale. A lot of people nowadays solely watch a movie based on how much blood there is in it-which saddens me personally, since Hollywood seems to have diverged from creating an actual story with real values-but this book was made to tell a tale of a young man dealing with an extraordinarily unfortunate situation. And on the book front: many of the werewolf books I find focus solely on the lust-factor between the main characters. Romance plays a big part in Dehumanized, as it does with many books, but there isn’t any sex scenes in it-sorry to disappoint. It has just enough sex appeal blended with modesty that it can attract both crowds.

Another aspect that this book has that many of the newer werewolf-related media outlets don’t have is its transformation scenes. Personally these are my favorite parts. In most werewolf stories-movie or book- the transformation is considered quick and painless. Take Twilight for example: Jacob jumps in the air and BOOM! He’s a wolf. I believe in the philosophy John Landis had for the transformation in An American Werewolf In London. If you’re turning into a werewolf, it’s going to be painful! In Dehumanized the transformation has elements of An American Werewolf In London, and also the 2010 version of The Wolfman and the TV show Being Human.  Everyone wants to be a powerful werewolf nowadays, because of the appeal all the new movies and books have been creating, but this book shows why you wouldn’t want to be one.

In Dehumanized, there is a great metaphor I implemented that not everything else has. In Dehumanized, the main character Ryan deals with the complexities of being what he is. He has to come to terms with what he has become, or else lose himself completely. He fights for control of not only these new powers forced onto him, but of his very sanity itself. Thinking of it from a psychological point of view: there is a werewolf inside all of us. It comes out when we’re angry, when we lose control of our senses and act wildly on instinct. Have you ever had those moments when it feels like you completely black-out and do something you normally wouldn’t do? That’s the werewolf inside of you coming out. When you find yourself thinking shameful thoughts, it’s the werewolf. Those moments you feel like you’re losing your mind and lash out of frustration…by now you get what I’m saying. This book takes that idea and makes it into literal sense. During the full moon everyone transforms into something they are normally not, much like normal people do during the apex of the moon. Statistically there are more 911 calls during the full moon, a lot of them false alarms. They don’t call them lunatics for nothing.

Ryan is the personification of this metaphor. He has the beast inside of him, influencing his thoughts at all times, tempting him to do things he never would do by himself. And then during that one night out of the month he loses himself completely.

As the book progresses, experiments are preformed on Ryan and his affliction progresses, giving him abilities the other Lycanthropes don’t have. He learns to transform at will, and with this ability and the help of a few friends he makes along the way, he plots to escape the horrible establishment that has him imprisoned for being what he is.

This book is not like all the others-this I can guarantee you.

 

-Michael Loring.

NEW. YORK. COMIC. CON. October 11-14, 2012

 

I love comic cons. Maybe it’s the seven-year-old geek in me or the fact that I grew up watching nearly every comic book superhero cartoon ever made in the 90s…you know, that era of cartoons that is way better than this current one. Or maybe it’s the weird get ups I see so many sporting. Or it could be for the fun of spotting famous peeps. For whatever reason, comic con is the place to be.

I’ve signed at several: Boston, Granite Con, ComiCONN, Monster Mania (not technically a comic con, but still fun), etc. I enjoy doing them in spite of the fact that so many authors in this digital age have sworn them off because I love meeting with my fans. Seriously, there’s one girl who I’ve seen at several of the shows and she always comes up and says hey. I love that. Comic lovers are like country music lovers: they’re loyal and flat-out cool. When they support you, they really support you. I love meeting new potential fans as well. Granted, do I wish I could make enough to be at a point where I don’t have to go out and do signings? Yes. But I think even when I get to that point, I’ll still do signings because of the way it makes me feel, and because it allows me to hang will my target audience.

And heck, who wouldn’t wanna see a chick dressed as Leia from Return of the Jedi who really should never attempt to squeeze into something so scandalous. But still….

So, I was accepted to sign at this year’s NEW YORK COMIC CON. It’s at the Javits Center in Manhattan, and it takes place from October 11-14. Next to the comic con in San Diego, this is the big one, the largest on the East Coast. Plus I had to fill out an application just to be accepted to sign, so needless to say, I’m pretty stoked I got in. It’s a con I’ve been wanting to do for about 2 years, but I just couldn’t manage it. But this year, I’m so goin. And I’m bringing Arson. There will be fun. There will be mayhem. There will be blood. Well, okay, maybe not blood. But it’s gonna be awesome.

 

Spread the fire!

evega

www.estevanvega.com

twitter: @estevanvega

facebook: we are arson

Fairytale: Revisited

 

I have a really fun, very unique guest on the site today. Her name is Jessica Grey, author of Awake and Glimpses of Enchantment. She writes cool fantasy stuff, and loves fairytales. I asked her on the blog to tell us why she’s into this stuff, and what is the fascination with fairytales? I, for one, also love them. And no, that doesn’t make me any less of a man. Hey, The Brothers Grimm wrote some of them. Anyway, I’ll let her get on with the goods. And feel free to tell your friends about Jessica and about this site.

Jessica G:

When I was in my first few years of college I was really into this band.  They were indie and cool and played really good bubble gum pop with just the teeniest bit of edge (producing non-crappy bubble gum pop is harder than it sounds).  My totally nerdy, pre-hipster friends got me hooked.  If you took a poll I bet you couldn’t have found more than one person in a hundred who had even heard of this band.  They were called Fountains of Wayne.  Fast forward to 2003 and the newly reunited Fountains of Wayne releases this little song called Stacy’s Mom.  All of a sudden everyone knew who they were.  They were even nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy.  The rest of us, who’d had FOW albums in our collection for years were like “What? Best New Artist? I bought their first album in the mid-90s!”

So what does this have to do with fairy tales?  Well, sometimes what we think makes us unique and edgy suddenly becomes popular.  This is the case with me and FOW (okay, it’s gonna take a lot more than liking a particular band to make me cool, but go with me) and with fairy tales.  All of a sudden it’s a fairy tale obsessed world and those of us who’ve been geeking out over them for years are experiencing that “Wha’? Huh? Oh, yay, other people like the same things as me!” rush of excitement.  In the case of fairy tales, part of it might be the cyclical nature of popularity and story telling.  All those writers of Once Upon a Time and Grimm?  I bet dollars to donuts they wheedled their way into staying up late with mom and dad to watch the 1980s Beauty and the Beast television show like I did.  (Side note: they are redoing that show!  I’m both scared and excited, kind of like how you feel right before you get on that roller coaster you’re sure is going to kill you.)

I grew up on fairy tales.  The Beauty and the Beast t.v. show aside, we had amazing collections of fairy tales as kids and were raised on C.S. Lewis and George MacDonald (drop everything you are doing and go read his tale The Light Princess right now).  So many of these tales are strongly visual, and I almost always write to a starting image more than I write to a plot idea or story concept.  Those images were cemented into my head at a young age, and so when I’m daydreaming (cough, spacing out, cough) they are often the images that are strongest.  I think in fairy tale.

In the case of Awake: A Fairytale, the image that first popped into my mind was of Sleeping Beauty’s awe-inspiring bed, complete with metal thorns and jeweled roses…and a sleeping guy on it.  I wasn’t necessarily attempting to be all post-modern and gender role reversal-ey, I just thought it was an interesting image.  Why would a guy be sleeping on that bed?  The obvious answer to me seemed that if Sleeping Beauty got kissed by someone who wasn’t her true love, the spell wouldn’t break.  It would transfer instead.  And that opened up a whole new world of plot ideas!

But why do authors, like myself, keep messing with fairy tales?  Why not just leave them “as is” instead of trying to present them in new ways?  I think the answer lies in the tales themselves.  Many of them were part of an oral tradition before they were ever written down.  The version we have of a particular story is just a “snap shot” of the way it was being told in a certain location at a certain time.  Often there are variations of a particular story told across cultures.  The names and settings change, sometimes there’s even large plot alterations, but there are always a few pieces that remain similar.  We’ve grown up with those structural pieces of the stories firmly cemented in our cultural consciousness.  But the details can, and have, changed and adapted.

This makes it fun for authors to play with these stories and for audiences to read or watch variations.  If there are enough of the original structural pieces of a tale, the audience will allow an author a lot of leeway in the way the story is told.  We can have a Snow White with no dwarves, for example, but it would be very hard to have a Snow White who was a blonde, or who wasn’t very attractive.

For an author, re-writing a fairy tale is like designing a new house on a pre-existing foundation.  Those original pieces serve as a sort of shorthand for our audience to understand our structure and symbology, even if it’s only subconsciously.  The framework pieces are so powerful because they deal with the very essence of what it means to be human – family relationships, power, desire, the striving to change one’s destiny – who wouldn’t want to work with such great building blocks?

And one of the biggest building blocks, because they are fairy tales after all, is magic.  Never underestimate the awesomeness of being able to write magic.

It’s fun to ride the wave of fairy tale retellings, but will these reduxes remain as popular as they are now?  It’d be awesome if they did, not just because I write them, but because I like to read and watch them!  But the odds are that their popularity will wane and they’ll become untrendy again.  Those of us who love fairy tales will not despair, however, because true believers will always remain interested, and eventually, fairy tales will come back into their own again.  A new generation will re-discover them and add their own spin, possibly with new perspectives that we can’t even conceive yet.  Maybe it might happen when my own daughter is a teen and I’ll have that same feeling again – that “they just got nominated for Best New Artist?” feeling – and I can tell her, “Hey, I wrote those way back in the day!”

Jessica Grey is an author, fairytale believer, baseball lover, and recovering Star Wars fangirl.  A life-long Californian, she now lives in Montana with her husband and two children, where she spends her time writing, perfecting the fine art of toddler-wrangling, and drinking way too much caffeine.

Jessica’s first novel, a Young Adult fantasy entitled Awake: A Fairytale, is now available.  Glimpses of Enchantment, a compilation of short stories inspired by fairy tales, will be released on July 17, 2012.

You can find Jessica online at www.authorjessicagrey.com or on Twitter (https://twitter.com/#!/_JessicaGrey).

Link for Awake: http://www.amazon.com/Awake-Fairytale-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B0075WO1Q0/

Link for Glimpses: http://authorjessicagrey.com/2012/06/excitement-and-stuff/

Hope you liked it. Spread fire, not toolery,

Evega
www.estevanvega.com
twitter: @estevanvega
facebook: we are arson

reBORN

I’m convinced some writers are born, not made.

Do you understand the difference? Take Justin Beiber or Katy Perry or any politician, for that matter, and examine their success and how it was achieved. Was it because they were any more talented than half a million other singers in their age group? No. Is any politician any different than the last? Maybe, but probably only slightly. They all have connections. They all have multiple homes, and they’re all loaded. Do they really care about the average American? I doubt it. But what do these three examples prove? Simply, that some people are made into who they are. Others, on the contrary, are born to have certain passions and proclivities.

 

I truly believe some people are born creative. Some are born/meant to be writers and some are made into writers. Also, I believe some people are writers who probably shouldn’t be. Insert any extremely sucky title here. Or, just for fun, google the piece of horrendousness to the right. I was speaking at a school recently, and one of the high school kids asked me how I got to be so good at writing? Or maybe it was how did I get to be so attractive? It’s all still so very blurry. But anyway, my first fire-off answer was God. Blame him. Then I followed it up with a simple explanation that I personally felt some people are just good at certain things and while they still have to work on perfecting their craft, chances are it will come a whole lot easier than someone who is creatively/verbally-challenged. When I was young, I didn’t read very much. Even now, I try to read when I can, books that really catch my interest, but the reading pile is scarce. I spend a lot of time writing and marketing. I DO. Plus, every time I write, the hope is that somehow I’ve topped the last thing written, as I’m sure the hope is for any creative person striving to make a mark on the world. Whether this is true or not, who knows? You’ll have to ask my readers.

 

Knowing what you’re good at is half the battle. Understanding your weaknesses and striving to improve them is also a key element. Then there’s that other twenty-five percent, that experimenting part, that curious part, that imaginative piece of the grand puzzle that allows you to take a shot at something. Even the writers out there who shouldn’t be writers should be commended. Why? Because they took a shot. They tried something to see if they were good at it. Think of it like joining the priesthood. Some things you just feel you need to do; you feel it in your soul. I’ve known since I was about eleven that I was gonna be a writer, and it has been confirmed time and time again. Maybe you’re the writer who is too timid to take a shot. Or maybe you’re the person who’s been squelching a dream you’ve had since you were young. It doesn’t matter why you’ve lost sight of the dream. Start looking again. Start believing again. Possibilities are endless. What hurts us, I think, is following in a line, doing a job we hate, becoming something we knew were never meant to be. It takes guts to be a committed writer. It takes guts to put your creative talent out there where it can be judged, scrutinized, rejected. Do you have what it takes? Time will show the true artists from the false ones. This is your chance to be reBORN. What’s your move?

Dysfunctional is the new normal,

Evega

www.estevanvega.com

twitter: @estevanvega

facebook: we are arson

Fantasy: The Ultimate Escape! Devri Walls Breaks into Fiction and estevanvega.com

Some of you may not know Devri Walls, but I have a feeling that’s going to change very soon. She writes fun, magical stories, and her new book Wings of Arian, has been doing considerably well on the Kindle charts the last few weeks. So I asked her to invade the site for a day and talk about her love for fantasy and why she chooses to write in this genre. So…lend her your eyes for a bit, and allow yourself a bit of escape!

So Estevan wants to know why I write fantasy. And this is the part where I admit I was a total nerd for a large majority of my childhood. Well, let me amend that. First I was mercilessly teased and harassed for a few years, after which I fell into being a nerd. I think by the time I graduated I had migrated to ‘middle of the road’. Yea for me!

What does that have to do with anything you may ask? When I was growing up I loved reading because it was the only place where I could escape from everything.  I would go to the library, come out with arms stacked nearly to my chin, and disappear in my room for hours. It was so bad that my parents literally banned me from the library. Yes, you read that right. My parents banned me from books. Now, not all books gave me that escape I craved. Some were too real and hit too close to home and just made the hurt worse. But Fantasy… well, that is a different story!

Fantasy always gave me that total escape I was looking for, into worlds so different from our own. I also loved the idea of having special abilities, or magic! To be honest it is probably because I felt like there was so much more inside of me than what people were seeing. It almost felt like I had some super secret hidden super power. Only I just couldn’t seem to get it out. But in a book, it could all come out!

Then it got even better. Because now I don’t just read fantasy, I write it!!  This allows me that total escape from everything (even those kids going, “mom, mom, mom…”). But it also allows me a complete release of all my pent up creative energy.

I write YA Fantasy because I really do like my fantasy just a little more low key. High Fantasy has too much detail for me. I don’t feel the need to read or write anything that requires maps, a pedigree chart and a five page description of the dwarfs’ lair. (I’m sorry, high fantasy lovers.) Now, it’s not that I don’t EVER read high fantasy, but I have been known to scan the description of said dwarfs’ lair.

Perhaps it’s because I am not very observant. I am one of those people who drives by a Walmart they have been building for months and say, “Hey! When did they build that!?” Just not my thing. I am usually focusing on people. How they move, what they said, how they said it, body language. People amuse me. I like watching their interactions. Mix that with my degree in theater and you have the perfect mix for a YA Fantasy reader and writer!

Great post, huh? Feel free to go pick up a copy of her book.

http://www.amazon.com/Wings-Trilogy-Paranormal-Fantasy-ebook/dp/B007WMYJ7E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336615334&sr=8-1

 

Also, stalk her responsibly here:

http://writingmyfuture.com/

https://twitter.com/ – !/DevriWalls

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13517384-wings-of-arian

Thanks for dropping by. Spread the fire!

evega

twitter: @estevanvega

facebook: we are arson

Heather Hildenbrand Invades Estevanvega.com

Well, it’s Monday, and typically, there aren’t too many reasons for me to be excited about Mondays. But today’s special. I have a cool writer on the site, a certain Heather Hildenbrand, and she’s hear to fill your skull with knowledge and swagger. She’s authored a few books, and she’s starting to make some waves in the literary world, so get used to hearing her name. You’ll be better off in the long run. So, no more jibber jabber from me. Get busy reading…

 

Awkward moment #317

When an acquaintance finds out I’m an author and says “Oh, what do you write?” with that polite smile pasted on their face, and I have to say, “I write YA. You know, like, werewolves…”

Yeah.

This happens to me a lot.

I’m not gonna lie. I actually try to avoid telling people in real life what I do. It’s not that I’m embarrassed, necessarily. It’s that I know they won’t “get it.” Not like my online peeps get it. Not like YOU get it. It’s like there are two completely different classes of people. The ones who read YA and the ones who look at you like you write toddler board-books. (Not that there’s anything wrong with that, either, let’s be clear.)

I’m going to try and explain to you why I love—and therefore write—YA. I know I don’t need to, because I’m talking to the very people who already get it, but we’ll call it practice for RL doubters. It began with Twilight.

I realize that is almost as cliché as “a dark and stormy night” nowadays, but bear with me.

I hadn’t read much at all in the couple of years leading up to Twilight. A little Danielle Steel, Nora Roberts—that was all I had time for. I had a FT job and two kids under the age of four. But then something traumatic happened in my life. Something unimaginable. Someone very close to me became the victim of a sexual abuse crime—and someone ELSE very close to me was the guilty party. (This is the FIRST time I’ve ever shared this in the blogosphere, but to tell the story, it needs to be said.) It was a shock and devastating and it basically shattered my world and who I was as a person. I won’t go on and on about the devastation I felt, but it was there. It was bad. By far, the worst time of my life.

A month later, I watched Twilight. I cried. Yes, I realize the movie is not top-notch, cinematically speaking, but remember my state of mind. I went out and got the books that same week and read them three times back to back. I remember the first time I finished New Moon, I cried in the shower for over an hour, even though I knew they end up back together at the end.

These stories are good, but it was more than that. It was the message. It was that I needed to grieve. I needed an outlet. I needed to connect. All things I felt crippled at in my real life. So, I found it in books. I am fairly certain I could’ve picked up any number of series books and become just as attached as I did to Twilight. (The Hunger Games prob would’ve done it, but I only recently read that one.) It was much more about connecting to a character and having something else to focus on and feel, than it was that specific story. Maybe. It’s only a theory. I’ll never know.

Three years later, Twilight is still a favorite for me, because it was so intensely personal and because, in essence, it got me through the roughest part of my life. Say what you like about Stephenie Meyer, but she inspired a ton of people, myself included. Until then, I’d never connected with a story on such an intensely personal level. I’d never seen or even knew about the underlying messages a character can project if the author knows what he/she is doing. In Twilight, I saw hope. I saw growth. I saw that a character/person can change and become something more, something better than when they began. I saw those things because Stephenie Meyer put them there, but also because I needed to see it somewhere. And if I was looking for a “message” in those stories, you can bet others were, too.

Estevan asked me to tell you why I write YA. This is why.

At first, it was because that’s the genre I connect to, but somewhere along the way, it became about wanting to connect to other readers who are looking for the same sort of meaning I was. I want them to find things like hope, growth, and permission to be who you want to be in my stories. And I think YA is the best voice to project those messages. Being a teenager is all about self-discovery. It’s such a TRUE, resonating voice to use. It’s real. I love that.

For those of you who don’t know, the best example of this is Whisper—my newest release. It’s about a girl who is grieving the loss of her parents and trying to rediscover who she is without them. It’s full of hope through grief and the beauty of it when you come out the other side. The message is loud and clear. I hope you’ll appreciate it as much as I do.

Oh—and Estevan asked me to mention my covers—because they basically rock faces off on a regular basis. Here’s the deal, the fabulous SM Reine (author of Six Moon Summer and other fantastic stories) does my Dirty Blood series. She’s mine. You can’t have her. Hehe. Just wanted to rub that in. Seriously, I have been VERY lucky where covers are concerned. Sara is awesomesauce, pure and simple, but she isn’t taking on new work because she’s got a full plate for the rest of 2012. My other covers are courtesy of Char Adlesperger. A college student in CO who just happens to live in the right place to have snapped the background photo for Whisper herself. Yeah, that’s HER view. Pretty stinking fab.

A reader asked me recently which of my covers is my fav and actually, it’s Across the Galaxy, because it looks all shiny and glittery. I’m a sucker for glitter and all things shiny.

“Oh, look! Something shiny!” *said in the voice of Dori from Finding Nemo*

 

Out of curiosity, which cover is your favorite?

P.S. Thanks so much to Estevan for having me today!! YOU RoCK!

Nah, you RoCk, Heather!

Feel free to keep tabs with Heather on her blog: http://heatherhildenbrand.blogspot.com/

Spread the fire!

evega

www.estevanvega.com

twitter: @estevanvega

facebook: we are arson