Chrystalla Thoma's Blog, page 13
January 20, 2012
Interview with author J.W. Holmes
Chrys: Hi dear Jeff and welcome to my blog! Why don't you tell us a few words about yourself first?
Jeff: Sure, my name is J.W. Holmes. I'm a U.S. Army veteran, writer and broadcaster of about 20 years (much of it in journalism as well). I'm also the former CEO and chairman of a FOX News Radio affiliate and former executive producer, writer, and host for Top Dog Productions, LLC which also worked with ESPN Local here in the Big Ten market.
Chrys: That's an impressive resume! For now let's focus on your writerly side. 
What genre(s) do you write and why?
Jeff: I mostly write in sci-fi and mystery, but recently have published in Christian fiction. I like the freedom a writer has to go anywhere and do just about anything with their characters that sci-fi allows. In mystery I also like the imagination one has to come up with incredible ideas and story-lines. Things that can really get the readers thinking or catch them off guard. I like being able to keep readers on their toes, I guess. lol
Chrys: I like that you dabble in different genres. I agree that a writer should feel free to try any type of story they want. Talking of stories, what can you tell us about your writing projects and recent releases?
Jeff: Well, I've just released "A Riff of His Own" which is getting very good response. I've been running a number of promotions on it. I will be doing an audio version of it later this month for mp3 and the like. Here in a week or two will be releasing my initial book in the sci-fi series "The Nordic" which has also been decided to go into a comic-book format later this spring with the book series also continuing. In February, the first of the "Holy Moon" werewolf Trilogy will be released, waiting on mostly artwork there, and then in the spring will be the release of the of the first installment of the Paul Hawkinson mystery series. Right now, my main focuses are are simply on the Hawkinson mysteries, "The Nordic", and "Holy Moon".
Chrys: Not only you write all these genres, you publish them too. Well done! Could you tell us more about your latest release?
Jeff: My latest release is Christian fiction, called "A Riff of His Own". It's about a young man branching out into the world but who has taken up with a very questionable group of underground types in the music scene and really gets more lost than he could have ever dreamed. So much so, the only back to anything remotely close to the life he knew before is through God. The real problem is, Billy, the main character, is so confused and unsure of himself at this later point, he doesn't even know to ask God for help, so God comes to him through another person and the story goes on from there.
Chrys: If you weren't a writer, what would you be?
Jeff: Hmm. Good question. Probably an astronomer or a marine biologist. I like the ocean, but I also am fascinated by the universe. I remember the first time I tried to get my head around just how big the universe actually was and just about had sparks coming out of my ears trying to compute it! lol It's just limitless and for the ocean and the life living there, I think it's so odd here it is 2012 and we virtually have explored something like only 5% of it. That to me just hardly makes sense in this day and age.
Chrys: What person or person(s) has/have helped you the most in your career?
Jeff: I would have to say indie author Penelope Fletcher has been an incredible influence on me, so has J.A. Konrath. Miss Fletcher was the first though to really reach out to me and help me truly get my nose in the self-publishing business and to take a good hard look at it really works. Self-publishing is way more of a business than many indie authors I think want to admit and Miss Fletcher really opened my eyes to that fact.
Chrys: What gave you the idea for your most recent book?
Jeff: "A Riff of His Own" had been in development for quite sometime actually. We always see films or books written about the terrible New York or L.A. scene but never much having to do the music scenes around Chicago or the mid-west, and that's very much what "Riff" is about, only I remember seeing back in college up at Purdue when we had live music back in the '90′s how these music acts really kind of lived in their own world and they chose to seal themselves up in this underground society most wouldn't understand. I just remember one night thinking, 'I should write about this'. So, I did.
Chrys: What is special about this book – what sets it apart?
Jeff: I think the main things that set "A Riff of His Own" apart from many other Christian fiction books is I wasn't afraid to tell it how it really is. I've read enough Christian fiction, and maybe it was just the books I was reading, but I always saw how the author(s) were being careful not to offend or could have gone further. The problem is, you can't get to the wonderful truth is you're not going to face the terrible one. That meaning, things in real life do get quite awful sometimes and sometimes those people involved need incredible help and it can be ugly how bad off some get from very poor decisions. I kept the book very real for that point. The other thing that sets "Riff" apart is the fact it is based on several true story-lines that happen to these people in these underground groups all the time, so as you read and you're thinking, 'Something like this would never happen, nobody could be manipulative or lost…', well, I can tell you, yes, they can. The key element in "Riff" is desperation and how differently some respond to that desperation. It can get quite ugly before family, or a good friend, or God Himself decides to intervene. Things have to play out.
Chrys: Do you have a favorite scene in the book?
Jeff: My favorite scene without a doubt is where, Billy, ponders on his life and is unable to explain to himself how he got there and what he's still doing there, in such a rough and confusing place and why he doesn't just leave. He reminds himself of his dream of making it and just gets sucked back into it all over again, begrudgingly, but he still goes back confusing his bad decisions for strength.
Chrys: What kind of research did you do for this story?
Jeff: Most of my research was done while spending time up on campus around Purdue University spending time with local acts and taking trips up to Chicago and interviewing some of the musicians up there and getting to know their climb to the stage. It really was shocking what some people will do to make their dreams come true and many stories I just couldn't put in the book because of respect to the reader, I had remind myself this was a Christian fiction. lol
Chrys: Nice! Jeff, where can people learn more about you and your writing?
Jeff: They can simply Google me for my official site as "J.W. Holmes", find my blog at http://jwholmes.wordpress.com/ , on Facebook under "J.W. Holmes" as well as Goodreads, and on Twitter as @JWHolmes1.
My latest novel "A Riff of His Own" is found on Kindle.
Interview with author Jeff Holmes
Chrys: Hi dear Jeff and welcome to my blog! Why don't you tell us a few words about yourself first?
Jeff: Sure, my name is J.W. Holmes. I'm a U.S. Army veteran, writer and broadcaster of about 20 years (much of it in journalism as well). I'm also the former CEO and chairman of a FOX News Radio affiliate and former executive producer, writer, and host for Top Dog Productions, LLC which also worked with ESPN Local here in the Big Ten market.
Chrys: That's an impressive resume! For now let's focus on your writerly side. What genre(s) do you write and why?
Jeff: I mostly write in sci-fi and mystery, but recently have published in Christian fiction. I like the freedom a writer has to go anywhere and do just about anything with their characters that sci-fi allows. In mystery I also like the imagination one has to come up with incredible ideas and story-lines. Things that can really get the readers thinking or catch them off guard. I like being able to keep readers on their toes, I guess. lol
Chrys: I like that you dabble in different genres. I agree that a writer should feel free to try any type of story they want. Talking of stories, what can you tell us about your writing projects and recent releases?
Jeff: Well, I've just released "A Riff of His Own" which is getting very good response. I've been running a number of promotions on it. I will be doing an audio version of it later this month for mp3 and the like. Here in a week or two will be releasing my initial book in the sci-fi series "The Nordic" which has also been decided to go into a comic-book format later this spring with the book series also continuing. In February, the first of the "Holy Moon" werewolf Trilogy will be released, waiting on mostly artwork there, and then in the spring will be the release of the of the first installment of the Paul Hawkinson mystery series. Right now, my main focuses are are simply on the Hawkinson mysteries, "The Nordic", and "Holy Moon".
Chrys: Not only you write all these genres, you publish them too. Well done! Could you tell us more about your latest release?
Jeff: My latest release is Christian fiction, called "A Riff of His Own". It's about a young man branching out into the world but who has taken up with a very questionable group of underground types in the music scene and really gets more lost than he could have ever dreamed. So much so, the only back to anything remotely close to the life he knew before is through God. The real problem is, Billy, the main character, is so confused and unsure of himself at this later point, he doesn't even know to ask God for help, so God comes to him through another person and the story goes on from there.
Chrys: If you weren't a writer, what would you be?
Jeff: Hmm. Good question. Probably an astronomer or a marine biologist. I like the ocean, but I also am fascinated by the universe. I remember the first time I tried to get my head around just how big the universe actually was and just about had sparks coming out of my ears trying to compute it! lol It's just limitless and for the ocean and the life living there, I think it's so odd here it is 2012 and we virtually have explored something like only 5% of it. That to me just hardly makes sense in this day and age.
Chrys: What person or person(s) has/have helped you the most in your career?
Jeff: I would have to say indie author Penelope Fletcher has been an incredible influence on me, so has J.A. Konrath. Miss Fletcher was the first though to really reach out to me and help me truly get my nose in the self-publishing business and to take a good hard look at it really works. Self-publishing is way more of a business than many indie authors I think want to admit and Miss Fletcher really opened my eyes to that fact.
Chrys: What gave you the idea for your most recent book?
Jeff: "A Riff of His Own" had been in development for quite sometime actually. We always see films or books written about the terrible New York or L.A. scene but never much having to do the music scenes around Chicago or the mid-west, and that's very much what "Riff" is about, only I remember seeing back in college up at Purdue when we had live music back in the '90′s how these music acts really kind of lived in their own world and they chose to seal themselves up in this underground society most wouldn't understand. I just remember one night thinking, 'I should write about this'. So, I did.
Chrys: What is special about this book – what sets it apart?
Jeff: I think the main things that set "A Riff of His Own" apart from many other Christian fiction books is I wasn't afraid to tell it how it really is. I've read enough Christian fiction, and maybe it was just the books I was reading, but I always saw how the author(s) were being careful not to offend or could have gone further. The problem is, you can't get to the wonderful truth is you're not going to face the terrible one. That meaning, things in real life do get quite awful sometimes and sometimes those people involved need incredible help and it can be ugly how bad off some get from very poor decisions. I kept the book very real for that point. The other thing that sets "Riff" apart is the fact it is based on several true story-lines that happen to these people in these underground groups all the time, so as you read and you're thinking, 'Something like this would never happen, nobody could be manipulative or lost…', well, I can tell you, yes, they can. The key element in "Riff" is desperation and how differently some respond to that desperation. It can get quite ugly before family, or a good friend, or God Himself decides to intervene. Things have to play out.
Chrys: Do you have a favorite scene in the book?
Jeff: My favorite scene without a doubt is where, Billy, ponders on his life and is unable to explain to himself how he got there and what he's still doing there, in such a rough and confusing place and why he doesn't just leave. He reminds himself of his dream of making it and just gets sucked back into it all over again, begrudgingly, but he still goes back confusing his bad decisions for strength.
Chrys: What kind of research did you do for this story?
Jeff: Most of my research was done while spending time up on campus around Purdue University spending time with local acts and taking trips up to Chicago and interviewing some of the musicians up there and getting to know their climb to the stage. It really was shocking what some people will do to make their dreams come true and many stories I just couldn't put in the book because of respect to the reader, I had remind myself this was a Christian fiction. lol
Chrys: Nice! Jeff, where can people learn more about you and your writing?
Jeff: They can simply Google me for my official site as "J.W. Holmes", find my blog at http://jwholmes.wordpress.com/ , on Facebook under "J.W. Holmes" as well as Goodreads, and on Twitter as @JWHolmes1.
My latest novel "A Riff of His Own" is found on Kindle.
January 16, 2012
An award for Rex Rising and the upcoming sequel
Hi boys, girls and androids! Happy beginning of the week. Almost three weeks into 2012 and Rex Rising is doing well. The gang (Elei, Kalaes, Hera – for now) send their regards and wishes. 
Two big announcements regarding Rex Rising and the series (Elei's Chronicles):
1) Rex Rising is in the Top Ten winners of the Preditors and Editors Readers Poll in the category for Science Fiction and Fantasy novels published in 2011 (click on the image below to see the final tallies)!
It officially got the position #6, which is really amazing to me. Amazing for a number of reasons:
- Because this is a novel I self published (the only self published one in the top ten!)
- Because it is a novel I wrote (me, not a native speaker of English!)
- Because I don't even know who nominated Rex Rising for the poll (whoever you are, come out and let me give you a hug!)
- Because it's my baby!
I am well aware that in this sort of polls much depends on how many friends you get to vote for you and less on how many readers you don't know do vote – still, I'm ecstatic.
2) The sequel of Rex Rising, entitled "Rex Cresting" has been written and is now in revisions, so that the goal of releasing it end February is starting to look realistic! The cover is also in the works. So yay!
In all, these have been three good first weeks of the year. Happy 2012!
January 13, 2012
Guest Author Matt Posner
Today my guest is Matt Posner, author of YA fiction, including the wonderful School of Ages series.
Chrys: Hi dear Matt, and welcome to my blog! A pleasure to finally have a face-to-face with you (even virtually) after reading your School of Ages which was so wonderful. Why don't you tell us a few words about yourself first?
Matt: Hi Chrys. I'm Matt Posner, a New York City teacher and independent author. I'm also a poet, musician, architect, web designer, reiki healer, television producer, neurosurgeon, bandleader, cowboy, dinosaur rancher, arch-mage, trailblazing explorer, and…. Cough, cough. Well, I am also a poet and a musician. As a teacher, I work in special education English where I do what I can to care for those who are struggling or troubled. It's a tough time to be a teacher here in the United States, with the major political agenda of most everyone being to show that teachers are directly responsible for student failure and seeking the means to dispose of our salaries and the institutions that have emplaced us. I hope it changes, because when it comes to paying the bills with book sales, I'm no Amanda Hocking….
Chrys: Wow, first of all I'm impressed with all your activities, and I know I shouldn't be, because reading your books one gets a glimpse of your wide range of interests. Sorry to hear that it's hard being a teacher in the US. Here things aren't so bad – maybe you should move to Cyprus? Tell us, what genre(s) do you write and why?
Matt: I am writing primarily YA urban fantasy, with my School of the Ages series, because I enjoy writing about magic and teens. But I can write many other things. I've published recently in the fields of literary fiction, poetry, magic realism, action, and horror, and I'm working on nonfiction also. I don't think writers need to be specialized or constrained to a niche. If I want to write something, I'll write it and try to sell it. I'm a brand.
My motivation to write about magic goes back to my teenage years, when I read a lot of epic fantasy, ranging from Tolkien to Donaldson to Eddings. My earliest attempts at publication were in epic fantasy, such as the novel I sent to Del Rey Books when I was sixteen. (I'm pretty sure they considered it for a while before sending it back.) I made the shift to writing about magic in the real world when I began to sour on Tolkien's legacy. I didn't really want to read it or write it as much as I had used to – invented names instead of real-world names, maps full of trees and mountain ranges, all that stuff I had loved for years no longer felt right for me. This isn't to say that I can't dig something like Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire or your Rex Rising series – of course good writing is good writing – but I wanted to work more in a research-based real-world vein. Originally I wanted to write about one adult magician teaching a few apprentices, but I expanded to a whole school because I was teaching in a yeshiva high school and I thought it would be cool to have a place that was half Jewish and half non-Jewish magic students who were sometimes friends and sometimes butted heads.
My stuff seems similar to Harry Potter, but rest assured, that's not an advantage for me. I think buyers skip over me because they thing I'm some cut-rate Harry Potter imitator. I'm not. By the time my series is done, I intend to prove that I can write better than Rowling ever has. When my fifth book is out, I'll challenge people to read both series and argue for which is better. But it's not time for that yet; the third is due for this year. Want an ARC?
Chrys: I love epic fantasy and my first love was Tolkien as well. I do think that your world is very distinct from Harry Potter, much more mystical and with a lot more internal stuff going on. I'm not a big fan of Potter – but I loved your series! So, please tell us about your writing projects and recent releases!
Matt: I just released Tales of Christmas Magic (click on the cover here on the left for the link!), a short story book exclusively for Kindle, which has a sample of Ghost in the Crystal. It features stories about my School of the Ages supporting characters in a lighter mode than the relatively intense novels. I hope this 99 cent book will attract people to my novels, The Ghost in the Crystal and Level Three's Dream (which you reviewed). The cover story has Goldberry, a relatively posh and acid-tongued British girl with a heart of gold, get into a tussle with Christmas-themed entities on the school roof. Why would anyone enter combat against Santa? You have to read and find out.
Chrys: What gave you the idea for this book?
Matt: I wanted to contribute to Creative Reviews' Christmas Lites anthology, so I started "Goldberry vs. Santa Claus," but I couldn't meet their deadline, and I decided to release the story on my own. But I didn't think one story would sell as well for 99 cents as several, so I wrote two more, and then I rounded out the book with a selection from The Ghost in the Crystal as well as the promotional comedy blog I wrote for Saffina Desforges and … one other thing. See below for that.
Chrys: What is special about this book – what sets it apart?
Matt: You have never seen so many elementals in one story as are in the story "How the Magician Radish did NOT Cheat on the PSAT," nor have you ever seen Santa Claus and Father Christmas as separate character in the same story, as in "Goldberry vs. Santa Claus." But besides all these things, I also put in a novelty item – my first fantasy short story, written while bored in Honors English when I was sixteen. It's not as good as my present work, obviously, as twenty-six years lie between it and me, but I think it's good enough to show some continuity between my present and my past; alternately, my high school buddies on Facebook can find out what I was really up to when I was supposed to be reading Huckleberry Finn. J
Chrys: Very interesting! Can't wait to read it. Do you have a favorite scene in the book?
Matt: In Tales of Christmas Magic, I like the bit in which Goldberry is riding on …er.. and she is being chased by … er… and then she decides to … er… Well, I can't give it away.
Chrys: lol! Okay, fair enough. What kind of research did you do for this story?
Matt: I do most of my research on the Internet. Most of my research is either locating historical names and facts or translating expressions into other languages. I do a lot of nonfiction reading usually in magazines, and it gives me ideas for things I can incorporate into fiction, and then I go to the www for peculiar details I may need.
Chrys: Thank you for telling us what goes on in an author's mind! As a final request, can you give some advice to other authors?
Matt: Get a job in a moneymaking business. Writing is a labor of love.
Chrys: Thank you for being here! Where can people learn more about you and your writing?
Matt: My website is http://schooloftheages.webs.com which has a lot of links. I also have an Amazon author page, and my Goodreads author page also includes a lot of anthologies that I have been in.
January 11, 2012
What's your heroine snacking on? (guest post by Krista D. Ball)
Detail from the Book of Hours "Les Tres Riches Heures" painted by the Limbourg brothers for Jean, Duc de Berry, in the early 15th century.
What's your heroine snacking on?
By Krista D. Ball
I feel bad for characters in my stories. They are under huge amounts of stress, their lives are constantly at risk, and they have to make difficult choices that never turn out well no matter what they do. The least I could do for them is give them a decent last supper.
In contemporary urban settings, food doesn't seem all that important. Cities are filled with restaurants of every flavour, so there's not much opportunity to use food to develop the mood and setting of a scene. That's where science fiction and fantasy can really shine.
My novella, Spirits Rising, is set in the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador. The island of Newfoundland only joined Canada in 1949, so there is still a strong sense of island identity. The island has been isolated from the world, sparsely populated, and for most of its history survived off the sea.
Since Spirits Rising takes place in a town of twenty people, I was able to use those traditional Newfoundland foods that might have been missed in an urban setting. My heroine eats Jig's Dinner, a traditional Newfoundland meal of salt pickled beef, cabbage, potatoes, carrots, turnips, and pease pudding all boiled in the same pot. She chomps down on molasses cookies, a local favourite, and drinks Newfie Screech, a potent rum concoction.
In my science fiction novel, Road to Hell, I used food as a tool to show how bad things really were. The military officers belonging Perdition lived exclusively off field rations and packaged food, leaving what little fresh food was left after an attack for the civilian population living at the port station.
I love the concept of Star Trek's food replicators, but I also believe they aren't possible (or, at least not possible in my SF world). Instead, I developed a quasi-food vending machine for individuals in their rooms. A person could get banana bread and a coffee from their wall panel vending machine, freshly baked reconstituted soy protein. Yum.
I'd find it difficult to write in a typical setting with the standard meal fare being offered. I love to use food as part of the story. For me, it is its own minor character.
L
inkage:http://kristadball.com
Krista D. Ball is a Canadian speculative fiction author currently hiding from necromancers. Better safe than undead.
Get Krista's latest releases!
Spirits Rising by Smashwords or see author's amazon profile
Road to Hell by Mundania,Diesel, Powell's or see author's amazon profile
January 9, 2012
Interview with author Kelly Jennings
Today I am very excited because my guest is an author whose book Broken Slate (mature YA SF) I loved – welcome Kelly Jennings!
Chrystalla: Hi and welcome to my blog! Why don't you tell us a few words about yourself first?
Kelly: I'm a writer and teacher in Northwest Arkansas. I've traveled the country, teaching and writing, camping and hiking. I like to walk around in mountains. I like to look at rocks. I've got two dogs, a cat, a husband, and a kid. We're all writers, (the humans are all writers!), which makes for a quiet if occasionally grumpy household. You don't want to be around here when we all have writer's block.
Chrystalla: What genre(s) do you write and why?
I spent a lot of time thinking I had to write literary fiction if I wanted to be a real writer. But finally I came to my senses. A writer can only write the writer's own stories. I write science fiction because that's the writing I love. I read nearly everything, and I love a lot of different kinds of books, but the only books and stories I want to write – care deeply about writing – are science fiction stories.
Chrystalla: So true! I do believe also that one should write what one loves, not what one must. What can you tell us about your writing projects and recent releases?
Kelly: My latest novel – oh, okay, my only published novel so far – is Broken Slate. It's meant to be a prequel in the series I am calling Martin's War.
I plan five books in the Martin's War series – Triple Junction, the opening book, is nearly finished; On Through the Night is in its first draft. Riding The Scree and The Drift are the third and fourth books; I have only vague plans for the final book in the series at this point. Altogether, these books will track the story of a slave revolt leading to a Revolution on Julian, a planet 43 jump points from Earth.
Broken Slate introduces the main character, Martin Eduardo, and the culture of Julian just before the Revolution. Among other things, in this book, I attempt to answer a question that sometimes seems so mystifying from this end of history – why don't slaves rebel? Why don't the oppressed rise up? Why did the Jews walk into the camps? That question. Obviously the oppressed outnumber their oppressors, sometimes enormously so. Why go down so meekly?
The actual answer, as I've found through research, is that the oppressed did not go down meekly. The history we get taught in school and the true history (and I know, hah, what a shock) are often yards apart. The Jews didn't walk into the camps – there was lots of resistance, and lots of it was successful resistance. The American slaves didn't accept their fate. Everyone knows about Nat Turner, and I suppose plenty of people even know about Haiti now, but who knows about Gaspar Yanga? Or Zumbi Dos Palmares? Even the unsuccessful resistance is important: it demonstrates that the narrative of the meek victims is a convenient fable.
On the other hand, it is true that resistance is difficult. What makes it difficult is what I explore in Broken Slate. How is it that a relatively small group of oppressors (the famed 1%) can control a large group of oppressed? (We are many, they are few, Shelley famously pointed out, so how do they keep us under the boots so successfully?) In Broken Slate, through Martin's eyes, I look at that question; and also at how the oppressed can come to resistance.
Other writing projects – ha, well: My kid asked me recently, "Why is everything you write about the revolution?" "Shut up, that's why," I told her.
I'm afraid that it is the truth. I've got a story coming out with Strange Horizons, "In the Cold," in January. It looks like it's not about the revolution, but of course it is. And I'm working on another short story right now, "Buddha's Wings," for an Arkansas anthology, which I thought wasn't going about the revolution; but yeah. It's about the revolution too.
Chrystalla: I just loved Broken Slate so much, I hope you will continue writing about that revolution at least! Can you give us an excerpt from your latest release?
Kelly: This is from Broken Slate: Martin is riding home on a monorail in the contract labor car, listening to the other contract laborers telling stories.
"Outside, the contracts were telling stories – the sorts of stories that did get told whenever cots got together, low-voiced, muted: a half dozen field cots had run from an estate in the West Country timber yards, been caught by Labor Security helos and though they had fought – they had armed themselves with thieved cutters, retooled so that they would fire short bursts, an inept kind of plasma gun, risky, but better than nothing: every cot knew how to do that to a cutter, much good it did them, since Security had to get with a few meters for that weapon to be useful – been captured, three of them still alive, and dragged back to their estate, where, as was the usual practice, the runaways were put on their knees by the flagpole, shot in the back of the head, and their bodies burned.
After that a cook told another story, about a cook she had heard of, in the Bragg Mountains, who had slipped a poison in the food of her holder's family, killed all of them, four children, holder, holder's wife, that fast, the physician didn't have time to arrive. "It was because the holder had been raping her," the cook said, "every night, that's what I hear. Labor Security came in on helos, but before they could tank her, or even get hold of her, Lord Holders in the town got her." The cook paused dramatically.
Martin didn't really need to hear how this story ended. The rest of the truck was waiting, though, their eyes wide.
"Didn't bother shooting her. Dragged her through the town," the cook said. "Yelling names at her, howling. Poured the coal oil over her and set her alight still alive."
Gasps and curses through the truck.
"After, they tore her body apart and carried bits away. That's what I heard."
Other contracts had other stories, this contract attacking his boss in the field, this holder and what had happened here. Martin didn't exactly want to listen, but it was hard not to. Only a few stories got told about those who made to the mountains and might be mounting a resistance. Martin never knew whether to believe in these contracts or not. Certainly Julian Security acted like they were actually up there. Certainly the few times Deja had taken him along to the Julian Parliament, Parliament acted as though the Contract Revolution was real. But Martin knew better than anyone how paranoid and delusional Republic politics could be."
Chrystalla: What gave you the idea for this book?
Kelly: Ooh, good question. Looking back, I see three real seeds. One was reading C.L.R. James' The Black Jacobians. This is just a great book, the story of the slave revolt in Haiti. It's wonderfully written, for one thing, and it gave me an understanding of history like no other book I've ever read has done. I kept thinking as I read this, wow, this would make a great novel. So that was one bit.
Another was, back in 2003/2004, all over the internet, Far-Right blogs, guys that are eventually going to become Tea-Party members, were arguing about the For-Profit Prisons being built in Texas and Arizona. I keep reading comments about how prisoners ought to be rented out, how they ought to have to work for their food and board. This is during one of the biggest expansions of prisons in our history, mind you, people being sent to prison for ten years or twenty years because they're smoking crack, not because of any violent crime they've done.
And then I read Douglas Blackmon's Slavery by Another Name, which is about how the South kept the system of slavery going by work farms and prison farms – by convicting black men and women for ridiculous crimes or no crimes at all, the crime of vagrancy or back talk or nothing, just some white guy saying this black guy had committed a crime, and then the black guy would be sentenced to twenty years and rented to a mine or a road crew and worked to death – and bam, there it was. I started writing.
Chrystalla: What is special about this book for you – what sets it apart?
Kelly: When I started writing, I said what would be special about this book was that it would be the story of a successful slave revolt. Now I know that's not so, that many of them succeeded. Maybe I'm bringing that point to the forefront, for one thing.
Another difference, though, is that this narrative, this revolution, comes from the point of view of the oppressed, the slaves themselves. My main character, Martin, was a deckhand as a kid – he had his first job at age six – and has been a miner and a quarry worker. In Broken Slate, a number of aristocratic characters play significant roles; in later books, as we move further into the revolt, the slaves will be even more prominent.
Another difference: my main character, Martin, is a bisexual; on Julian, that's not a big deal.
On Julian, sexual taboos have to do with class. For anyone who is not a wealthy property owner and a legal citizen, sex is legally restricted. Children are not citizens, so they are restricted from access to sex. Contract labor are not citizens. Both free labor and Service class are citizens; they are allowed sex, but this gets complicated: free labor and Service class are meant to have sex only insofar as they can legally support the products (children) of their sexually activity. So there's a whole category of legal (and moral) code on Julian having to do with illegal sex. Having sex before you're an adult is illegal sex, which will get you convicted into contract labor; having more children than you can support will get you, and your children, convicted into contract labor.
So being gay is perfectly okay, both for Lord Holders and for cots like Martin. It's being poor and having babies that's a crime – literally, and morally. (Rich people get to have all the babies they want, obviously.)
Chrystalla: Amazing, all the research, and we the readers see the tip of the iceberg as it were. But it also explains why we are able to immerse ourselves so completely in your world, you really created it in so much detail. Tell us, do you have a favorite scene in the book?
Kelly: Good question! I have several. One I really like, though, is a scene in which Martin is shoveling snow in the Bourbon Mountains. He's gone with his contract holder, Deja Lord Strauss, to do research at a university there, but a giant blizzard snows them in. Anyway, he's shoveling snow and he talks to two contract labor kids, boys about 12 years old, kids who have come up in an orphanage, and don't really know anything about how to act. We get to see Martin being a leader and a teacher for the first time – it's a foreshadowing of a role he's going to take on in later books.
Chrystalla: What kind of research did you do for this story?
Kelly: Tons. Endless research. I'm still doing it. I had to build not just Julian, but the worlds Julian came from, and the Pirian culture and the Free Merchant culture Martin came from, and the culture all of these cultures came from – the notion is that some disaster happens a couple hundred years from now which renders all of the Earth uninhabitable except for Oceania, over there by Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, maybe Malaysia, maybe Japan, some of India. And so these are the areas that survive to launch into space (some handwaving here) and colonize the Core planets.
Lots of my research, then, is into what sorts of food, what language, what mythic backgrounds, would come with the people who go outward into space. It's been 1500 years, so I'm assuming lots of cultural blending; also I'm assuming refugees from other places on the planet did reach the inhabited zone; also, I'm assuming Earth does recover, eventually.
Other research was into slave revolts, slave cultures, slave narratives, resistance narratives, histories of revolutions, of resistance, of guerilla wars, about tactics – I used to joke that probably Homeland Security has a file on me, just from my Google Searches and Interlibrary loans alone.
Linguistic research: I want the dialects to work. Obviously we're going to have several different dialects and levels of dialects on Julian, and that's before we bring the Pirians onto the planet, as we do in Triple Junction. So we've got the different dialects spoken by the different Lord Holders – your East Country holder, your Far North County Holder, your University of Durbin Holder, so on – and then you have your Service class diction, and your free labor speaker, and your field cot dialect and your North Country miner contract: they all speak different dialects. I'm not sure I succeed in demonstrating this in the books, but I'm working at it.
Chrystalla: I must say, all this makes me so impatient to read the next book in the series! I do hope it will be released soon! Kelly, what advice do you have for other authors?
Kelly: Write what you care about. Read what you write about – and read everything else, too, certainly. Read everything you can get your hands on. Read bad fiction as well as good fiction – the bad stuff can teach you more than the good stuff, sometimes. Read non-fiction as well as fiction. Listen to fiction as well as reading it.
Write every day. Write a lot – at least 1000 words a day, more if you can. (I can't, usually.) Revise, revise, revise. Send your writing out. Submit, submit, submit (your writing – don't submit to the oppressors!). You'll get rejected, but that's part of the job. Send it out again. Join a writers' group if you can. I currently belong to an excellent group; we meet once a month. They're so wonderful I can't tell you.
Chrystalla: Thank you for being here today! Where can people learn more about you and your writing (links)?
Kelly: I have a blog (http://delagar.blogspot.com/) and a group blog (http://www.fansci.org/). Read more there!
Get Kelly's book "Broken Slate" here – links to all retailers.
January 8, 2012
Akrotiri – where the flamingos go in winter
Just because not everything in my life is about writing and stories (although about 80% is!) today I will show you a part of Cyprus that is quite new to me: a wetland.
Cyprus is arid as a desert. What water falls here in Winter is collected in dams to keep for summer. But we have some wetlands too with brackish water (those not drained by the British to fight malaria in the 19th-20th centuries) and there lots of birds live or pass by on their migratory trip to other countries.
It's muddy and many people think they can throw their trash there because hey, nobody lives there! Amazing how people are…
Water stretches in glass like surfaces, mirroring the sky and reeds. It's peaceful and beautiful.
Shards of glass meld with the water.
And then evening falls and it all turns to gold.
Welcome to Cyprus.
December 31, 2011
A year is ending – Long live new year 2012!
It's tradition to account for the ending year and to lay out the plans for the next, so here I go:
2011 was an interesting year. Lots has happened writing and publishing-wise in my life.
I published my YA urban fantasy novella Dioscuri with MuseItUp and finally accepted that I tend to write for Young Adults and better own to it. So yes, this year I declared publicly that I'm a YA author. I'm out of the closet.
I also wrote and submitted another novella set in the world of Diocsuri, this one about Theseus and the Minotaur. I don't know yet if it has been accepted or not.
I also published short stories in magazines/anthos.
And I self published my YA novel Rex Rising. This was a high point of my year, as I had vacillated a lot between traditional publishing and self publishing for this one. Self publishing won out – mostly because I was so curious to try it out. I'm happy with my decision. I learned a lot about editing and beta readers, formatting, cover design, pricing and marketing.
I also wrote Book two of this series to self publish soon and started on Book 3.
I also started a LBGT YA novel. This had been on my mind for a while but I was hesitating – just because it's something new for me. But I love writing it and I plan to sub it to a traditional publisher.
PLANS for 2012:
Finish Book 3 of the YA series and self publish the whole series.
Finish LBGT YA novel and sub it.
Finish my Reversal trilogy (epic fantasy – I have 1, 3/4 books written, but first book needs a complete re-haul anyway) and sub it
Write my Beautiful Dead trilogy (Steampunk paranormal set in Cyprus) and sub it.
Some short stories for contests and anthos and some novellas…
Oh and a non fiction book! About dragons! I must write and sub the proposal in January!
What, not enough?
We'll just have to see. It's a new year. One can dream, right? And dreams sometimes come true.
Happy New Year 2012!
(Akrotiri, Limassol, Cyprus, Dec 2011)
December 26, 2011
A shiny anthology of the fantastic for shiny days
Merry Xmas everyone! May your days be full of joy and smiling faces and may your electronic readers be full of wonderful stories to read.
Christmas time always seemed to me the best time for fantasy. It's a time of magic and possibility and am on the lookout for great books to load on my kindle and read curled in my warm nest of blankets, with a glass of brandy in my hand…
How about an anthology with great fantasy stories? Escape Collective Publishing has released recently Corpus Pretereo (I escape my body), a collection of stories by an international group of writers exploring the idea of 'Escape'. From dark fantasy to sweet surrealism, biting humor to straight out horror, these 16 tales showcase the best of fantastic fiction, in every sense of the word.
In Corpus Pretereo you can read my story "Dreamdancer". Dreamdancers are a race related to elves who can control their dreamscapes and invite others in them.
In this story, dreamdancer Aivar has fled the devastation of his homeland and must whore his dreams out to humans to scrape by day to day. To save a sick friend from death, he pretends to posses a higher level of dream control. But when this deception causes a vicious customer to wound him, only an old love of his, a High Elite kinswoman, can save him. However, the price may be more than he is willing to pay.
I loved writing this story and I hope you will enjoy reading it.
And one more thing: Because it's Xmas, ECP announces that we will donate all ECP profits for our book sales today to ProLiteracy, a charity that supports literacy in the US and around the world.
So here are the arguments. If you look for some great fantasy, here is a suggestion for you.
December 18, 2011
Rex Rising
In a world where parasites create new human races, Elei leads a peaceful life — until a mysterious attack on his boss sends him fleeing with a bullet in his side. Pursued for a secret he does not possess and with the fleet at his heels, he has but one thought: to stay alive. His pursuers aren't inclined to sit down and talk, although that's not the end of Elei's troubles. The two powerful parasites inhabiting his body, at a balance until now, choose this moment to bring him down, leaving Elei with no choice but to trust in people he hardly knows. It won't be long before he realizes he must find out this deadly secret – a secret that might change the fate of his world and everything he has ever known – or die trying.
