Maria Savva's Blog - Posts Tagged "the-tale-is-the-thing"

I was very fortunate to meet a wonderful fellow author recently on BestsellerBound
Joel Blaine Kirkpatrick is the author of Caraliza,Breathing into Stone,Harmony's Passing,and Shared (all currently on special promotion at Smashwords for $0.99 each!

Joel is a wonderfully giving author who does much to help promote fellow indie writers. He is also hilarious. Please take a moment to read my latest interview on his blog...


The Tale is the Thing

Today, I would like to introduce you to one of my favourite people. He's not only a gifted writer, but he is a marvellous person. I met Joel on the BestsellerBound forum, not long after it launched last summer. He immediately caught my attention because he is a bit of a practical joker, and full of fun. To put it simply, I love Joel. I am sure you will all fall in love with him, too.
I have read his novel, Breathing into Stone, and it is one of my favourite books. Joel has generously agreed to give away 2 print copies of this epic novel to readers of my blog. It's an international competition. All you have to do to enter is leave a comment below. Winners will be picked randomly on 5th May 2011.

Joel is the author of four novels, all of which have received fabulous reviews.

Joel is a great supporter of indie authors. On his blog, The Tales The Thing he features authors and books that he has found interesting. His interviews are always fun to read, and I'd highly recommend you to stop by his blog when you get an opportunity.

Last year, Joel single handedly put together a 3 volume sample anthology showcasing 62 authors. This anthology is available as a free download. It includes short stories and excerpts from novels, in various genres. Here's a link to the promotional trailer, for more information:
BestsellerBound Anthology Trailer

Here are Joel's answers to my interview questions:


Is there a particular author, or book, that inspired you to start writing?

Nearly every book I’ve read has inspired me; I just love stories. I really prefer hundred year old narratives, because they were not manipulated as things are today. I’ve admitted to being in love with Gary Jennings’ tales. I hope someday to form a novel as he did.

Do you have any tips for someone who is considering self-publishing their own book?

By all means get it done! There are few feelings as grand as reaching those last few pages. Self-publishing, to me, is the only thing the modern age has gotten right in literature. For someone who feels intimidated by the process – don’t isolate yourself and continue to feel alone; ask for help. Indie authors are a community – a very generous community.

You have published 4 novels in under 2 years, if we are to believe the rumours. That is quite a feat. Can you describe your writing process, and is it true that it took you only 36 days to write one of your books?

True, and still shocking to me. What I’ve only recently admitted, is that I took a year sabbatical from my career and spent the whole time writing. It was easy to write for 14 hours a day. I exploded, so-to-speak. Not knowing I could market on the web, three novels were in my hands before things slowed down. Then I began to poke around the internet and learn what self-publishing was all about. (I believed for months that traditional publishing was my only avenue. I got over that nonsense quickly.) And, yes, Breathing into Stone was completed at just under 200K words in five weeks. Someday I shall be ripped to shreds for that. It will be called a hopeless mess.

My process is very simple. Ideas get swished around in my mind, until they feel good. The best ones are typed a bit. About twenty good story-starts have been filed away. The first chapter is always done in a flash, so I know where I’m going, and those set the tone of the book. Then I unleash my brain to sort everything out. Nothing is typed until I’ve worked it out beforehand. I already have the first chapter of my fifth novel complete, it’s just waiting for me to get going.


From looking at the synopses of your four books, they seem quite unique in themes and genres. Which one was the hardest to write and why?

I don’t have a genre yet. In a few years that will arrive. It’s too much fun experimenting to worry about nailing that down just yet. Harmony's Passing caused me the most work, because the science is so familiar it had to be correct. I researched as the story formed, working out sky positions, and instruments, and a bit of biology. My desk was cluttered with star-charts the whole time. The other three books were just odd ideas that I loved exploring. My upcoming book will cost me a lot of research, because every element of it is taken from actual history – history that I will scramble apart completely.

Which one of your books was the most fun to write, and why?



Harmony was ‘fun’ because I’m a geek. But it was such a delight being with the characters in the others. I am quite in love with Caraliza (from Caraliza), and with Anoria (from Breathing into Stone). My wife thinks that is so stupid. To me, Shared is a bit darker, much more personal. Some elements of that book were difficult to write.

If someone was new to your work, which one of your books would you recommend they read first, and why?

Caraliza, would have to be my choice. It is my shortest novel, that’s a plus already. It is also the purest entertainment, asking only that the reader allow the ghosts to speak to them. Harmony requires some patience for the flood of scientific detail; Breathing into Stone is just a barge – you know that – a short vacation is needed to read that thing. Shared? That book wants into your mind, and into your heart. It wasn’t written to entertain. Shared is a spiritual expedition.

I own all your books, but have only as yet had time to read one of them. Breathing into Stone, is a literary masterpiece in my opinion. I am eager to read your other books after reading that one. Can you tell us what your inspiration was for Breathing into Stone, which is a historical drama, set in Italy, revolving around the life of a master sculptor and his beautiful daughter.

Anoria came to me in a sudden burst of warmth. I had been wondering if I could write from a woman’s perspective, and make her believable. It seemed natural to make her challenge a man’s world, because I knew something about that. I adore that period of time, the 1700’s. The earth was much bigger then. I put Anoria in her father’s marble workshop just hours after imagining her. From that setting, I could indulge my love of that period’s art, and play it all against the Church. Also, I looked around to see if there were any women like her in that period, working with stone. There were so few turned up in my research, I knew Anoria would stand out as very unique. There is nothing unique in my antagonist, Novia. He’s as generic as they come – Furio might really just be cliché, but I like him. He did his job.

The setting is real, Resceto is a charming, tiny little village – right where I claim it is. It gave me some isolation, which enhanced the characters, and it afforded me the chance to fill the novel with the setting. It would have been boring, and half as long if I put them in a little house in Massa. When you stand in Resceto on that single street, it seems you are swallowed by the mountains. But climb just an hour above the village, and you begin to see the stunning landscape, the sea to the west, the mountains rushing away north and south. Suddenly you are in a wide world, and it is a perfect mirror for Anoria’s personal journey; from isolation to the grandeur and fame of the marble culture.

When I read Breathing into Stone, I thought that somewhere in your work background, or at least for a serious hobby, you were involved with carving marble! The description of the way the marble was carved was so intricate, that sometimes I could almost see each tiny detail being carved by the hand of Antonio Lisi or Anoria. But I read in a recent interview that you have no experience in this whatsoever, and didn’t undertake much research either. I find that amazing. Did any of your novels require much research, or do you find that you are always able to write convincing prose without researching your subject matter?

Beginning Breathing into Stone, I could already name more than a dozen of Michelangelo’s most famous marbles. I wrote as an admirer, it’s been a lifetime devotion, and I let that drive the text. If you can’t fill the narrative with love, you’d better be ready with something else, like facts. Harmony could not have been written without a second computer screen open to Google. My next novel will be oppressive work, I actually dread some of that research.

Your ebooks were recently pirated and up for sale on Lulu.com by an unknown seller. Did you ever find out how that happened, or manage to gain any insight into how other authors could possibly protect themselves from having the same happen to them?

Yes, that was resolved in just under two weeks. We had a stupid pirate. I found her on Facebook. She’s been banned by the websites that she used. 52 books were in her storefront on Lulu.com. I’ve had correspondence with nearly all those authors. Any one of them could file international complaints against the pirate. I have certainly done that.

As to protection from book theft: there is none at the retail websites. There are no systems to identify false books, only the author can do that. Also, nothing will be done by any retailer, other than remove the content and ban the pirate from the site. So, don’t believe the legal scarewords in the user agreements on those sites. Retailers could not care less if a work is stolen or legit. Retailers care about profit and nothing else. (Sheesh – isn’t that already sooo obvious?) Authors must be aware of themselves on the internet; you should do regular vanity searches. Know where your books should be. Know how your books appear at all times on the web. It is a lot of work, but it helped me uncover a thief.

You have gained a reputation as a man who likes to help other indie authors succeed. I understand you have a blog dedicated to seeking out and promoting authors who in your opinion should be read by the masses. You also masterminded the BestsellerBound Sample Anthology, where over 60 authors (including myself) were able to showcase a chapter from one of their books, or a short story in an anthology which is available free for anyone to read on various websites. What is your motivation behind such efforts?

Fun :)

What is your opinion of the current state of indie publishing as compared to traditional publishing, and do you have any predictions as to how the publishing industry will change in the coming years?

My opinion is tiresome. I’m really a whiner. No one in traditional publishing had time to look at me, so I complain about them. They shout their refrain ‘.. it is good, because we say it is good,’ but it is not the exclusive reality they think they own. It is no longer true. Oddly, my opinion is also shared by about 4 million people on earth....

Traditional publishing (modern publishing) has been strangling literature for my entire lifetime. Makes no difference they have published an increasing number of books every year since the advent of the printing press. In my lifetime they have applied ‘marketing’ which didn’t improve a single damned book. I cannot predict what traditional publishing is about to endure, but I’m thrilled they must change. If part of the industry dies... I don’t care. Writers are no longer suffering with false constraints.

The ants in the industry, who should be screaming in panic, are literary agents. They have no purpose in self-publishing. Even editors can enjoy some trust from Indie authors, but the agency driven paradigm is dying. It has already drowned in good submissions, and proven itself useless.

Who are your favourite authors and what is it about their writing that you like?

That’s a long list, Dear. I’ve already named Gary Jennings. He can make me close my eyes, and close the book, with a single sentence. His words are stunning. I enjoy classics, and have read most of the standards – Edgar Allan PoeHerman MelvilleJules VerneOrson WellesCharlotte BrontëJane Austen. If you want to be seriously challenged on every subject possible, in a single narrative, find and read Bulwer-Lytton. But, I also love quirky things. Christopher Moore is also a favorite of mine because he seems to be writing as though he cannot believe his books are being published. THAT must be such fun.

Indie authors thrill me, and I’m a kid in the candy shop again. Just look at the authors featured on my blog, and discover cutting edge talent.

Is there a book you own that you’ve read more than once?

I’ve re-read every classic that I own. But I’ve gone back to J R Tolkien and Lewis Carroll more than any others. Half a dozen times for Tolkien’s Ring fantasy. I have an original 1898, first edition printing of a rare book by a dentist, Dr. Henry Allen Tupper. Around the World With Eyes Wide Open: The Wonders of the World Pictured by the Pen and Pencil 1898 is a travelogue, written at the moment the world began to shrink, and modern transportation made the globe a vacation ground. I’ve read that several times.

What was the last book you read? Yours - The Dream (soon to be published). Before that, two of mine, because I was hunting errors in my own text. Before that....several other Indie authors. I did finish reading Tolkien’s ‘Hobbit’ aloud my son Colin, just a month ago. He loved it.

Are you reading a book at the moment?

At the moment I’m reading first chapters of submitted works for the JournalStone Publishing Horror contest. That has been an enlightening exercise, because I’m not reading to be entertained, but to judge. Jurists have been asked to read with very particular guidelines, and then score the work for the next step in the competition. It has made me think very differently of the way stories are created. I have ten elements that must be considered with each submission. I’m having great fun with it.

What do you think of ebooks?

eBooks have made reading fun again. We’ve invented a cool way to tote our books. I love them, for their ability to show text to the masses. I hate them for their inability to make a page look as the author intended. I’m good at sneaking things into the format that I demand, like fonts which normally refuse to appear. I don’t just submit, I experiment and then hammer on the file before upload. One retailer finally gave up on me, because I couldn’t get what I wanted in the final ebook’s appearance. They got tired of refusing my submission.

How important are reviews for you as a writer?

Don’t tell me you are reading my book. I’ll drive you nuts to hurry you and get the review. Can’t grow without it, can I?

How do you go about choosing a cover for your books?

Um...I may be bad at it? Caraliza is a professional bit of work by Serendipity Graphic Design in Holland. I paid for that. I love that image, but also saw the other couple hundred taken. That photoshoot, in The Hague, was magic. The model, Maret Reutelingsperger, captured my character perfectly. At least for me.





Shared also has a stunning cover, and that was a lucky find on a photo website. I really only care the cover give some impression of the book, and perhaps only the mood of it. I really couldn’t care a whit that my name be on the cover.


What are you working on now?

Something which is so secret that I won’t say more than this: it is an alternative history. We all know the story, up to the point I take it over. It will only be available in hardbound print; no ebooks. And the synopsis is a single sentence of five words. It might be ready sometime in 2012.

Where can people buy your books?

Smashwords for the best price and selection of formats

Lulu for prints

I’m beginning to use Createspace for prints too. Only Shared is available there now.


Apart from your blog, where people can read more about your work?

Hehe Google my full name. I have a huge footprint.

Is there anything you’d like to say to your readers?

Read Indie Authors! Hug your kids a lot. Don’t get dressed in the dark; people will stare at you.

Thank you, Joel, for being such a splendid guest :)


Remember, you can win a print copy of Breathing into Stone just by leaving a comment on this blog post :) Good luck!

That got your attention, didn't it? Well, I haven't won the Man Booker Prize for fiction... yet ;)



I have been awarded the "The Irresistibly Sweet Blog" Award, by my fellow author and blogger, the awesomely talented Jason McIntyre

Thank you, Jason, that's very "sweet" of you :)

The rules for accepting the award are as follows:

1) Thank and link to the person that nominated you.
2) Share 7 random facts about yourself.
3) Pass the award to 15 of your blogging buddies.
4) Notify the recipients.

Here's where you can find Jason's blog
I would highly recommend it as a very entertaining place to visit on the world wide web.

7 Random facts about me...

1. I am no good at writing lists of facts about me
2. I'm currently putting the final edits on my soon to be released novel, 'The Dream'
3. I like heavy metal music
4. I once acted as a defence lawyer for a celebrity's brother when I was a criminal solicitor, and met the said celebrity's mother (sorry, can't disclose who it was... client confidentiality)
5. Babies always seem to like me for some reason
6. I can knit
7. I can't swim


Here (in no particular order) are 15 more wonderful blogs I would recommend:

Darcia Helle -- A Word Please

Joel Blaine Kirkpatrick -- The Tale is The Thing

Lisette Brodey -- Molly Hacker

Neil Schiller

The Secret Writer

Julie Elizabeth Powell

Quentin R. Bufogle

Ann Mauren

Catherine Rose

Stacy Juba

Jen Knox

Paul Mansfield Keefe

Marty Beaudet -- By A Thread

Susan Helene Gottfried -- West Of Mars

Notes from an Alien