Maria Savva's Blog - Posts Tagged "guardians-series"
Interview with Shelley Wilson
I've been following Shelley Wilson on Twitter for a while. She's very friendly and supportive. She divides her time between fiction and non-fiction writing. I haven't read her books yet, but have heard about her YA fantasy trilogy. It sounds great. I invited Shelley here for a chat to find out more about her writing.
INTERVIEW WITH SHELLEY WILSON
Welcome to my blog, Shelley! Thank you for joining me. Please introduce yourself.
Hi Maria, thank you so much for inviting me over for a chat. My name is Shelley Wilson, and I live in Solihull in the West Midlands with my three teenage children, a fat fish, and a loopy black cat called Luna.
Hahaha!
I write non-fiction for adults in the self-help and personal development genre as well as young adult fantasy fiction - I’m like the Jekyll and Hyde of the book world! My background is in Holistic Health, so the self-help books are a bit like my day job role. Writing my young adult books is pure self-satisfaction. I might be in my mid-forties, but I’m a huge YA fan.
Tell us about your latest book.
Just recently, my non-fiction book has been getting a lot of airtime. I was incredibly fortunate to appear in the June issue of Writers’ Forum Magazine, and around the same time, I hit the number one spot on Amazon’s bestseller list for self-help and women’s fiction. All of this is fabulous news, but it also means that my poor fiction books get overlooked. So, to put this right, I’m going to share my YA news with your readers.
My Guardian Series is a fantasy trilogy based around the protagonist, Amber Noble. She is a sixteen-year-old Oracle, who has a ton of special powers thrust upon her and struggles to cope. She never believed in magic, so it’s all a bit much for her to accept. Her family is spread across the realms, and her BFF is kidnapped by supernatural soldiers. It’s tough being a teenager! She embarks on a series of quests throughout the books, getting caught up with witchcraft, faeries and demons as she saves friends and family, and vanquishes evil along the way. The final instalment, Guardians of the Lost Lands, comes out in November and goes much deeper and darker than the first two – I’m really excited about this one as we find Amber clinging to her sanity as the reader is taken on a whirlwind of emotion and action.
Guardians of the Dead (Book 1)
Guardians of the Sky (Book 2)
Guardians of the Lost Lands (Book 3)
Here’s the blurb for Guardians of the Dead (book 1):
One girl holds the key to an ancient pact that could destroy the world…
When sixteen-year-old Amber Noble’s dreams begin to weave into her reality, she turns to the mysterious Connor for help. His links to the supernatural world uncover a chilling truth about her hometown and a pact that must be re-paid with blood.
As her father alienates her, and the Guardians take her best friend, her true destiny unfolds, and she begins a quest that will see her past collide with her present.
Drawn deeper into the world of witchcraft and faeries, it is only at the end of her journey that she realises how much she could lose.
How long did it take you to write your last book?
For all three books in the trilogy, I used NaNoWriMo to pen the first draft. For anyone who doesn’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, an online competition to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I love this competition as I’m a bit of a deadline freak. I block out chunks of my day in the diary and write consistently. Even my family and friends know that I’m ‘unavailable for comment’ during November!
I only use NaNo to write the first draft – without this, I wouldn’t have anything to work with. It then takes me a couple of months to do the re-writes and edits. Book one was written in nine days; book two took me thirteen days, and the final instalment took me just over twenty days. I’ve already plotted out the next book I want to write for this year.
You're a fast writer!
What’s your favourite genre to read?
When I was a teenager, I would devour my dad’s Wilbur Smith books and steal my mum’s Mills & Boon novels.
Hahaha, I went through the Mills & Boon phase too. I think I read them all in my teens :)
As I hit my twenties, I went through a horror phase and lapped up anything written by James Herbert.
Ooh... I did that too!
At each stage in my life, I seem to have read books that weren’t aimed at the age I was at that time, and never more so than when I reached my mid-thirties and discovered young adult books. It was Maggie Stiefvater who initially hooked me in with her Shiver series which was about werewolves. For as long as I can remember I have had a fascination with the supernatural, mythology, and science-fiction and fantasy, so to discover a vast array of books on these very topics was delightful. The coming of age element is easy to read, and as I have a Peter Pan complex, it helps me to keep my teenage mind alive inside the forty-four-year-old body!
LOL I'm like that too. I like a good fantasy book. They're great for the imagination, I think :)
Young adult books don’t waffle. You are thrown straight into the action and tend to be swept along at breakneck speed. There is normally plenty of action, some PG snogging, and the good guy always wins. As ‘real life’ frightens the hell out of me, I’m quite thankful that I can escape into an alternate reality.
The passion I have for reading YA fantasy highlighted the need to write my own teenage books. Its development over the years is exciting, and I look forward to seeing what happens next for this genre.
Who does your cover design? Is there anyone you’d recommend?
Twitter is a wonderful place to meet people from the writing community and it’s thanks to this social media platform that I met my publishing partner, Blue Harvest Creative. I call them ‘publishing partner’ because they do so much more than just design my covers. These guys are fabulous to work with, taking your synopsis and turning it into a living and breathing product – I adore my YA covers and have received so many compliments about them – I can’t wait to see what book three will look like in November.
BHC not only create award winning cover designs but they also produce enchanting chapter headers for the interior, taking the theme of your book right the way through. BHC also provide Facebook and Twitter banners for your book launch, a full formatting service, and they can provide merchandising such as bookmarks and mugs, etc. They are hugely supportive of independent authors and have a dedicated author site. BHC is a full-service company who I would highly recommend – http://www.bhcauthors.com/
What advice would you give your 16-year-old self?
I wrote a blog post dedicated to this particular question a while ago – it’s one of my most popular posts. I’m fortunate to have three amazing young adults under my roof; my eldest son is 18, middle son is 15, and my daughter is 14. It’s certainly come in handy when I needed to ask a YA related question! However, being a teenager, and especially a 16-year-old in this day and age is a tough job. We didn’t have the lure of social media twenty-four-seven when I was 16, in fact, we only had five television channels and if you needed to call your mum for a lift then you’d have to use the big red phone box on the corner of the street!
LOL It's amazing how fast technology has advanced, isn't it?
I offer my daughter plenty of advice on a daily basis. Some of it she accepts with grace, but most of it only gets me an eye-roll. One piece of advice I do repeat often – and this is something I wish someone had told me when I was younger – is to be yourself! Don’t let anyone force you into doing something you don’t want to do, or be someone you don’t want to be.
That is excellent advice
It’s far too easy for teenagers to be swayed by the group (more so for girls I think) but staying true to who you are is the best strategy. I love the quote, ‘In a world of Kardashians, be a Helena Bonham Carter.’
What social media sites can you most often be found on?
Too many! I love social media. As a fairly sociable character, it gives me endless opportunities to meet new people, chat with old friends, and talk about topics that interest me with like-minded people. The writing and blogging community is fantastic, especially as I don’t have any other writer friends in my local area. There’s only so much ‘book talk’ my kids will put up with!
LOL
I’m incredibly active on Twitter where I’ve made some wonderful friends. On Facebook, I have three pages - one is personal, one is for my motivational blog (facebook.com/resolutionchallenge), and the other is my YA Fantasy Author page (facebook.com/FantasyAuthorSLWilson). I love the YA page as my followers are really interactive, and we have a lot of fun. I spend equal amounts of time on Twitter and Facebook as they provide my highest referrals to my blog and Amazon pages.
I love Pinterest, but don’t use it for business yet. I tend to create a board for every new book I write and pin all my character and scene inspiration to it. It’s nice to share this with my YA audience when I’m getting ready to launch a book.
I’ve recently joined Instagram to try and engage with my YA audience, but I got sidetracked by the incredible book bloggers and the gorgeous images they post! I need to sort my account out and stop drooling over all the ‘shelfies’.
I think I'm one of the only people who hasn't joined Instagram yet... it's on my to-do list
My kids have banned me from using Snapchat, but Terry Tyler told me that this is the place to be for my target audience – I wonder if I could sneak on without my kids knowing?
Hahaha!
I’ve also looking into Tumblr but can’t quite get my head around it. I do have a LinkedIn account but rarely look at it.
Not sure if it’s classed as a social media site but I do enjoy popping on Goodreads and joining in with some of the discussions. I’ve found tons of great books on this site.
If you could invite 3 writers (past or present) to dinner, who would you invite and what would you cook?
I love this question! I’ve had to write a list and then methodically cut people until I’m left with my final three – I clearly have far too much time on my hands! Firsts off I would have to invite J.K.Rowling; as a single mum and lover of magic, I think the two of us would have a lot to talk about. Then I’d ask Joss Whedon to attend so I can try and convince him to write another Vampire Slayer television series. Finally, I would invite the late James Herbert so I could find out all his horror writing tricks. What would I cook? Hmm, could be tricky as my pièce de résistance is probably fish fingers, chips, and beans. I’d probably order pizza for delivery – more time to chat if I’m not stuck in the kitchen!
Thank you so much for letting me join you on your blog, Maria, it’s been great fun.
Thanks for being a fabulous guest, Shelley. I'm looking forward to reading your books.
Author links:
Website: http://www.shelleywilsonauthor.co.uk
Blog: http://www.shelleywilsonauthor.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ShelleyWilson72
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/FantasyAuthor...
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/resolutioncha...
Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/singlemum101/
Amazon: http://www.amaon.co.uk/Shelley-Wilson...
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorslwil...
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Goodreads YA: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
INTERVIEW WITH SHELLEY WILSON
Welcome to my blog, Shelley! Thank you for joining me. Please introduce yourself.
Hi Maria, thank you so much for inviting me over for a chat. My name is Shelley Wilson, and I live in Solihull in the West Midlands with my three teenage children, a fat fish, and a loopy black cat called Luna.
Hahaha!
I write non-fiction for adults in the self-help and personal development genre as well as young adult fantasy fiction - I’m like the Jekyll and Hyde of the book world! My background is in Holistic Health, so the self-help books are a bit like my day job role. Writing my young adult books is pure self-satisfaction. I might be in my mid-forties, but I’m a huge YA fan.
Tell us about your latest book.
Just recently, my non-fiction book has been getting a lot of airtime. I was incredibly fortunate to appear in the June issue of Writers’ Forum Magazine, and around the same time, I hit the number one spot on Amazon’s bestseller list for self-help and women’s fiction. All of this is fabulous news, but it also means that my poor fiction books get overlooked. So, to put this right, I’m going to share my YA news with your readers.
My Guardian Series is a fantasy trilogy based around the protagonist, Amber Noble. She is a sixteen-year-old Oracle, who has a ton of special powers thrust upon her and struggles to cope. She never believed in magic, so it’s all a bit much for her to accept. Her family is spread across the realms, and her BFF is kidnapped by supernatural soldiers. It’s tough being a teenager! She embarks on a series of quests throughout the books, getting caught up with witchcraft, faeries and demons as she saves friends and family, and vanquishes evil along the way. The final instalment, Guardians of the Lost Lands, comes out in November and goes much deeper and darker than the first two – I’m really excited about this one as we find Amber clinging to her sanity as the reader is taken on a whirlwind of emotion and action.
Guardians of the Dead (Book 1)
Guardians of the Sky (Book 2)
Guardians of the Lost Lands (Book 3)
Here’s the blurb for Guardians of the Dead (book 1):
One girl holds the key to an ancient pact that could destroy the world…
When sixteen-year-old Amber Noble’s dreams begin to weave into her reality, she turns to the mysterious Connor for help. His links to the supernatural world uncover a chilling truth about her hometown and a pact that must be re-paid with blood.
As her father alienates her, and the Guardians take her best friend, her true destiny unfolds, and she begins a quest that will see her past collide with her present.
Drawn deeper into the world of witchcraft and faeries, it is only at the end of her journey that she realises how much she could lose.
How long did it take you to write your last book?
For all three books in the trilogy, I used NaNoWriMo to pen the first draft. For anyone who doesn’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, an online competition to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. I love this competition as I’m a bit of a deadline freak. I block out chunks of my day in the diary and write consistently. Even my family and friends know that I’m ‘unavailable for comment’ during November!
I only use NaNo to write the first draft – without this, I wouldn’t have anything to work with. It then takes me a couple of months to do the re-writes and edits. Book one was written in nine days; book two took me thirteen days, and the final instalment took me just over twenty days. I’ve already plotted out the next book I want to write for this year.
You're a fast writer!
What’s your favourite genre to read?
When I was a teenager, I would devour my dad’s Wilbur Smith books and steal my mum’s Mills & Boon novels.
Hahaha, I went through the Mills & Boon phase too. I think I read them all in my teens :)
As I hit my twenties, I went through a horror phase and lapped up anything written by James Herbert.
Ooh... I did that too!
At each stage in my life, I seem to have read books that weren’t aimed at the age I was at that time, and never more so than when I reached my mid-thirties and discovered young adult books. It was Maggie Stiefvater who initially hooked me in with her Shiver series which was about werewolves. For as long as I can remember I have had a fascination with the supernatural, mythology, and science-fiction and fantasy, so to discover a vast array of books on these very topics was delightful. The coming of age element is easy to read, and as I have a Peter Pan complex, it helps me to keep my teenage mind alive inside the forty-four-year-old body!
LOL I'm like that too. I like a good fantasy book. They're great for the imagination, I think :)
Young adult books don’t waffle. You are thrown straight into the action and tend to be swept along at breakneck speed. There is normally plenty of action, some PG snogging, and the good guy always wins. As ‘real life’ frightens the hell out of me, I’m quite thankful that I can escape into an alternate reality.
The passion I have for reading YA fantasy highlighted the need to write my own teenage books. Its development over the years is exciting, and I look forward to seeing what happens next for this genre.
Who does your cover design? Is there anyone you’d recommend?
Twitter is a wonderful place to meet people from the writing community and it’s thanks to this social media platform that I met my publishing partner, Blue Harvest Creative. I call them ‘publishing partner’ because they do so much more than just design my covers. These guys are fabulous to work with, taking your synopsis and turning it into a living and breathing product – I adore my YA covers and have received so many compliments about them – I can’t wait to see what book three will look like in November.
BHC not only create award winning cover designs but they also produce enchanting chapter headers for the interior, taking the theme of your book right the way through. BHC also provide Facebook and Twitter banners for your book launch, a full formatting service, and they can provide merchandising such as bookmarks and mugs, etc. They are hugely supportive of independent authors and have a dedicated author site. BHC is a full-service company who I would highly recommend – http://www.bhcauthors.com/
What advice would you give your 16-year-old self?
I wrote a blog post dedicated to this particular question a while ago – it’s one of my most popular posts. I’m fortunate to have three amazing young adults under my roof; my eldest son is 18, middle son is 15, and my daughter is 14. It’s certainly come in handy when I needed to ask a YA related question! However, being a teenager, and especially a 16-year-old in this day and age is a tough job. We didn’t have the lure of social media twenty-four-seven when I was 16, in fact, we only had five television channels and if you needed to call your mum for a lift then you’d have to use the big red phone box on the corner of the street!
LOL It's amazing how fast technology has advanced, isn't it?
I offer my daughter plenty of advice on a daily basis. Some of it she accepts with grace, but most of it only gets me an eye-roll. One piece of advice I do repeat often – and this is something I wish someone had told me when I was younger – is to be yourself! Don’t let anyone force you into doing something you don’t want to do, or be someone you don’t want to be.
That is excellent advice
It’s far too easy for teenagers to be swayed by the group (more so for girls I think) but staying true to who you are is the best strategy. I love the quote, ‘In a world of Kardashians, be a Helena Bonham Carter.’
What social media sites can you most often be found on?
Too many! I love social media. As a fairly sociable character, it gives me endless opportunities to meet new people, chat with old friends, and talk about topics that interest me with like-minded people. The writing and blogging community is fantastic, especially as I don’t have any other writer friends in my local area. There’s only so much ‘book talk’ my kids will put up with!
LOL
I’m incredibly active on Twitter where I’ve made some wonderful friends. On Facebook, I have three pages - one is personal, one is for my motivational blog (facebook.com/resolutionchallenge), and the other is my YA Fantasy Author page (facebook.com/FantasyAuthorSLWilson). I love the YA page as my followers are really interactive, and we have a lot of fun. I spend equal amounts of time on Twitter and Facebook as they provide my highest referrals to my blog and Amazon pages.
I love Pinterest, but don’t use it for business yet. I tend to create a board for every new book I write and pin all my character and scene inspiration to it. It’s nice to share this with my YA audience when I’m getting ready to launch a book.
I’ve recently joined Instagram to try and engage with my YA audience, but I got sidetracked by the incredible book bloggers and the gorgeous images they post! I need to sort my account out and stop drooling over all the ‘shelfies’.
I think I'm one of the only people who hasn't joined Instagram yet... it's on my to-do list
My kids have banned me from using Snapchat, but Terry Tyler told me that this is the place to be for my target audience – I wonder if I could sneak on without my kids knowing?
Hahaha!
I’ve also looking into Tumblr but can’t quite get my head around it. I do have a LinkedIn account but rarely look at it.
Not sure if it’s classed as a social media site but I do enjoy popping on Goodreads and joining in with some of the discussions. I’ve found tons of great books on this site.
If you could invite 3 writers (past or present) to dinner, who would you invite and what would you cook?
I love this question! I’ve had to write a list and then methodically cut people until I’m left with my final three – I clearly have far too much time on my hands! Firsts off I would have to invite J.K.Rowling; as a single mum and lover of magic, I think the two of us would have a lot to talk about. Then I’d ask Joss Whedon to attend so I can try and convince him to write another Vampire Slayer television series. Finally, I would invite the late James Herbert so I could find out all his horror writing tricks. What would I cook? Hmm, could be tricky as my pièce de résistance is probably fish fingers, chips, and beans. I’d probably order pizza for delivery – more time to chat if I’m not stuck in the kitchen!
Thank you so much for letting me join you on your blog, Maria, it’s been great fun.
Thanks for being a fabulous guest, Shelley. I'm looking forward to reading your books.
Author links:
Website: http://www.shelleywilsonauthor.co.uk
Blog: http://www.shelleywilsonauthor.com
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/ShelleyWilson72
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/FantasyAuthor...
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/resolutioncha...
Pinterest: https://uk.pinterest.com/singlemum101/
Amazon: http://www.amaon.co.uk/Shelley-Wilson...
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authorslwil...
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
Goodreads YA: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...
