Pippa Jay's Blog, page 80

Pageant Q&A #2

Just recently the lovely Allie Ritch posted some pageant style questions, and I was one of over 20 authors who took part. Over the next few weeks she'll be posting some of the answers. You can check them out here and below is a list of the authors whose answers will be up this week. It was a lot of fun! :)

A. R. Norris
Cara Bristol
Casey Crow
Cassandra Carr
Clancy Nacht
Cynthia Woolf
Emily Carrington
Jaleta Clegg
Jami Davenport
Jianne Carlo
Kate Rothwell/Summer Devon
Lynn Lorenz
Pam Labud/Leigh Curtis
Pauline Allan
Pippa Jay
Qwillia Rain
Selena Illyria
Stephanie Burke
Tarah Scott
Tibby Armstrong
T. K. Toppin
Viki Lyn

Even Villains Fall In Love by Liana Brooks - Review

My review of Even Villains Fall In Love is now live on the Critique de Book site here. Thoroughly enjoyable and a new twist on the old 'good vs. evil' in the greatest comic book tradition - but all grown up. :)

Worldbuilding for Refugees on Urloon by Melisse Aires

Lyrical Press
Thanks for hosting me, Pippa! You're welcome, thanks for stopping by. :)

My new release, Refugees on Urloon, is a sci-fi romance set on an exotic waterworld planet. In this far future setting, Terran descendants have adapted themselves to life on a planet with no large land masses and many small islands. Their adaption has changed their DNA so Urloon native are born with the gills, fins and other changes that make life underwater possible and safe.


In the initial stages of worldbuilding I made some assumptions--assumptions I will probably make in every world building task---Humans are eminently adaptable. They adapt themselves to harsh environments, which is why there are small cities all over Eastern Montana,  with it's frigid winters, rough topography and alkaline water. Likewise, there are humans living deep in rain forests. Humans, determined to live there, figured out how to do it.











I'm a visual writer, I see pictures in my mind. So as I start a new project I look for graphics to put in my file, pictures that invoke something of what I see internally, or pictures that inspire. I usually look at celebrity pictures because it is easy to find several facial expressions of the same person. For geographic graphics, I search wallpaper sites and graphic artist sites for fantasy and scifi pictures. I use a writing software program called Scrivener, which has a virtual corkboard for graphics and notes. I write on a split screen, with the corkboard always at hand.

Here are some pictures from my Refugees On Urloon file:


Liam and Svana





I keep world building notes on the corkboard, also. Some things I researched: dolphins, whales, biodomes, Norwegian fjords, coral reefs. krakens, giant eels, prehistoric water animals.

Then there are things I didn't have to research much--because I had experience in my real life. Jakkon, the Wilder leader/villian  has characteristics of a cult leader--hubby and I actually met in a cult as young adults in our hippy-dippy days! It wasn't as dangerous, but it was still nuts. Afterward we wondered how we ever went along with some of the wacked beliefs, and learned that cognitive 'stop thought' techniques are taught in such groups to prevent members from questioning, to just accept cognitive dissonance. Some of that colors Refugees' villain.

Blurb and Excerpt Link

Refugees On Urloon can be purchased in the usual formats on
 Amazon
and Fictionwise

Also--check my BLOG for Contest Drawing info!

The Zurian Child - Five Things That Inspire Story Ideas by Jessica Subject

Thank you so much, Pippa for hosting me on your blog today.Oh, thank you for taking the time to talk to us! :)
My latest release, The Zurian Child, was meant to be a story for my daughter about superheroes, but when I started writing, it quickly changed into something else. Many things helped to inspire this story as well as others I have written, and I'm going to share them.
Night-time dreams – My story idea folder is filled with point form notes about dreams I've had, the ones I remember, of course. Much of the original Mark of the Stars story began as a dream, but it has changed a great deal since then.Daydreams – I'm not sure if all authors do this, but I daydream all the time. Whether I'm cleaning the house, or having a shower, my mind it always working, and I've come up with many new ideas and developed ideas and scenes further this way.Music – Not only does music help to portray the emotions I want to evoke in a story, but it can also be the basis of an entire story. Eighteen by The Lines Between helped to develop a story, and I have another story floating in my head based on a song by Bif Naked.Conversations (including overheard ones) – There are several pieces of conversation that have made it into my stories because they have suited the scene I was working on. I've also have brainstorming sessions with other authors that have spawned story ideas as well.Real-life experiences – Although the scene was later cut from The Zurian Child, there was a scene where Katrina is telling Lindsay about Bryce taking her out to the movies for her birthday. In it, Katrina mentions getting locked in the bathroom stall and Bryce had to crawl under to get her out. This actually did happen to my daughter when her uncle took her to see a movie.So, those are just some of the places I draw story ideas from. The news is another big contributor. No matter which, my muse is always trying to turn everything into a story. Unfortunately, I can't write as fast as my mind works.
Giveaway! Leave a comment for your chance to WIN an ebook copy of The Zurian Child.
[image error]
The Zurian Child Blurb
Lindsay Beckett longed to be reunited with her first love, Quinn Montgomery, until she learns the secret that sent him fleeing from her in the first place. He's an alien, a Hemera, and she's half-Hemera herself. As if that wasn't enough to ruin her dreams of a perfect life, when their child is born, they discover she fulfills a prophesy told twenty light years away and many years ago. Lindsay wants to ignore it, until her husband is murdered and suddenly believing becomes a matter of survival.
Lindsay and her young daughter are forced to rely on another Hemera, her husband's partner and best friend, Bryce Beuermann as more and more of the Hemera are slaughtered. Bryce will do anything to help his best friend's widow—including suppressing his own deep feelings for her. But he must prove they can trust him, even pretending he doesn't want her with all his heart.
Available from Silver Publishing (https://spsilverpublishing.com/product_book_info/coming-soon-c-2/the-zurian-child-ebook-p-786) and other ebook retailers.More information here: http://www.markofthestars.com/wp/?page_id=7702 Book Trailer:  




Bio: Jessica Subject started writing to encourage her daughter to read. Now she writes to keep herself grounded. Although she reads many genres, she enjoys writing Science Fiction Romance the most and believes everyone in the universe deserves a happily ever after. She lives Southwestern Ontario, Canada with her husband and two kids and loves to hear from anyone who has enjoyed her stories.Website/Blog: http://jessicasubject.comTwitter: http://twitter.com/#!/jsubjectFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jessica-E-Subject-author/205759796126370Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4959083.Jessica_E_SubjectGoogle : https://plus.google.com/100079570422204018357/postsAmazon Author Page: https://www.amazon.com/author/jessicasubject

Absent without leave...

I'm going to be off-line for the next week - I should be back next Saturday/Sunday. But the blog won't be inactive. I have the lovely Jessica Subject telling us about her Five Inspirations for her latest sfr release - The Zurian Child - on the 11th of April. The fabulous Melisse Aires will also be stopping by on the 12th for her upcoming sfr release - Refugees on Urloon. I'll also be taking part in The Romance Studio's Staying Home event here from the 13th-15th April when I'm 'back'. :)

Pageant Q&A #1

Just recently the lovely Allie Ritch posted some pageant style questions, and I was one of over 20 authors who took part. Over the next few weeks she'll be posting some of the answers. You can check them out here and below is a list of the authors whose answers will be up this week. It was a lot of fun! :)


A. R. NorrisCara BristolCasey CrowCassandra CarrClancy NachtCynthia WoolfEmily CarringtonJami DavenportJianne CarloKate Rothwell/Summer DevonLynn LorenzPam Labud/Leigh CurtisPauline AllanPippa JayQwillia RainSelena IllyriaStephanie BurkeTarah ScottTibby ArmstrongT. K. ToppinViki Lyn

How not to solicit a review.

Just recently I received this email. I'm not going to include the book title or the sender, since I refuse to give them the benefit of even bad publicity to aid their work, but this is a classic case of something you SHOULD NOT DO!

Hi there, <--- (clearly couldn't be bothered to look up my name, my blog title - or simply hit a load of random email addresses. I wouldn't have minded if they gave me some indication of knowing who the heck I was! Or actually giving a damn.)

We were wondering if you could review Chrisso Diet. This is a book that has been very popular on the
internet. It is a very powerful book , we would really appreciate it if you could review the book.
I have attached the ebook , photo cover , and book description. You will need the Sony reader to view the book.



Now, I state quite clearly on my blog that I don't take review requests direct. It says so in my Review Policy. If they'd bothered to look me up they would know that. I could forgive them on that point, but they continue to insult me. The email is very extremely badly written in a way that makes me grind my teeth and would convince me that the book would be equally poor. If you can't manage reasonable grammar in the request, what the heck is a book's worth going to be like?! Typos and the like - well, we've all done that. 
They tell me how it's a 'powerful' book but don't actually tell me what it is. They've sent me the book without waiting to know if I'm prepared to review it, and clearly without even bothering to look at the genre of books I tend to review. They then 'tell' me that I will have to use a Sony reader to read the book. Um, I don't have one of those. I have a Kindle. Not that I actually say I'll accept Kindle compatible books to review any more than I accept requests at all. But even if it had been a Kindle compatible version, I still wouldn't read it. Because, on scanning down the email, I discover this is a DIET book. Um, hello? *waves* Reviewer of speculative fiction here! Not only do I not read or review diet books (or any kind of self-help books), but I don't believe in dieting full stop. Now, I know a lot of people DO believe in dieting, but not me. And it seems to me that the only way to really review a diet book is to do the diet? Nuh-uh, missy!
Basically this comes back to one of my 'rules' in the whole publishing industry. Research. If they'd taken the time to research prospective reviewers, they wouldn't have wasted my time and theirs with this request. They wouldn't have irritated me enough to do one of my few rants on the blog. Not only do I not want to read the book but I'm tempted to post a review condemning their book, their tactics and their grammar. Having done a quick scan of Twitter and Facebook, and after speaking to a fellow author, it would seem that pretty much anyone remotely connected to books is being spammed with requests to review this book. The sad fact is they may well get reviews from it, but the majority are more likely to ignore the requests, or possibly report/block them as spammers. Will that stop them? Probably not.
On the plus side, I got a blog post out of it. And now I've purged my system by unleashing my thoughts upon the world, what are your thoughts? What would you have done if this request appeared in your inbox? (BTW, what I actually did was tell them that I don't accept review requests, that it wasn't my genre, and suggested that they take a look at my Book Reviewers List. Something else that is probably too much bother for them.)

At Spacefreighters Lounge - April Journal

I'm over at Spacefreighters Lounge today for my monthly round-up of happenings and events. Stop by and say hello. :)

Six Sentence Sunday #50

Hello, welcome to another #sixsunday. Thanks so much to those who stop by and comment each week. :)I'm continuing with Keir this week, and after Quin's help is refused, she resorts to conversation in the hope of making progress...
"Why are you in here anyway?""What does that matter?" "I'm curious and there's not much else to do." She tilted her head. "Did you hurt someone?" When he remained silent, her expression darkened. 
© 2009-2012 Copyright Philippa J. Green All Rights ReservedThanks for stopping by. As always, you can check out the other snippets via the main website - just click on the banner below. :)

Love for the Bad Boys - Guest post by Liana Brooks

Who doesn't love a Bad Boy? You know what I mean, the rebel, the one who shot first, the one whose rough around the edges...

You know why we love them? Because they are the bad guys.

Everyone loves a villain. Name any book, and the protagonist is a villain. Want some examples?

The Odyssey - Possibly one of the most studied texts of human history is about a man who not only invades a neighboring country for the fun of it, but who spend the next twenty years wrecking every civilization he encounters between Troy and home. That's trespassing, invasion, armed robbery, murder, vandalism... all by the end of chapter one!

Taken from Wikipedia
Lord of The Rings - Take a look at Aragorn. He's a known terrorist (just ask the residents of Bree) who invades lawfully held territories of other sentient species so he can hack off their heads and then goes to a town that has lived with a pseudo-constitution for centuries to claim the throne because he passed medical school and knows how to make a tree bloom. Around here we call people like that scam artists, not kings.

Star Wars - Where to start! Look at the main characters: a traitor worthy of Benedict Arnold's fame, a known smuggler and murderer, and a slave trader. You could excuse Princess Leia by saying she made a moral choice, but she's still a woman rebelling against the legal government as voted by the citizens of the constituency who murders poor infantry men. Han is an unapologetic criminal, and Luke buys and sells sentient beings. Yeah, he's slave owner, or did you think C3PO was getting paid?
Taken from Wikipedia
Harry Potter - The entire series Harry spends doing what? Go ahead, admit it... he spent seven books rebelling against authority for no other reason than he could! He should have been in a correctional facility not Hogwarts!

And the list goes on.

We love villains because they are the agents of change. In normal, everyday life these are the people and practices we would shun. No one wants a racist murderer next door, but change that to Orlando Bloom with pointy ears shooting orcs and you'll get a queue a mile long!

The protagonists in fiction are often people with criminal tendencies. We like them that way. We don't want to read about a perfectly virtuous and upright person because that isn't how we see ourselves. We all know we're a little flawed. And we all have situations where we'd like to haul off and beat the living daylights out of someone. We can sympathize with the villains in fiction because, secretly, that's who we want to be.

In EVEN VILLAINS FALL IN LOVE the protagonist, Evan, fully indulges his wicked side and is an unapologetic super villain. He knows he's in the wrong. He knows he's not the good guy, and he doesn't care!

Here's the other thing we love about our villainous characters, we love for them to reform. Odysseus returns to his wife and son, Aragorn actually makes a good king, Han Solo gives up crime, Luke frees his slaves, and Harry eventually learns how to work with the authorities instead of thumbing his nose at them.

Evan starts as a super villain, the question throughout the book is will he stay one? When the chips are down and he has to choose between taking over the world or winning back the woman he loves, will the villain reform?

Do you have a favorite villain? A new way at looking at some favorite characters? A rousing defense of the wonderful characters I've so shamelessly defamed? Hit me with it in the comments. :o)



EVEN VILLAINS FALL IN LOVE by Liana Brooks   
Blurb A super villain at the top of his game must choose between the world he wants and the woman he loves.
If you believe the rumors you know that Doctor Charm, the wickedly sexy super villain, retired in shame seven years ago after his last fight with the superhero Zephyr Girl. The fact that the charming Evan Smith - father of four and husband of the too-beautiful-to-be-real Tabitha - bears a resemblance to the defeated Doctor is pure coincidence. And, please, ignore the minions.

Everything is perfect in the Smith household until Tabitha announces her return to work as a superhero. Evan was hoping to keep her distracted until after he rigged the 2012 presidential election, but – genius that he is – Evan has a backup plan. In his basement lab Evan has a machine whose sole purpose is keeping Tabitha hungry for him.

But children and labs don't mix. The machine is broken, and Tabitha storms out, claiming she no longer knows him. World domination takes a back seat to meeting his daughters' demands to get Mommy back right now. This time his genius isn't going to be enough – he's going to need both his evil alter-ego and the blooming super abilities of his children to save his wife. But even his most charming self might not be enough to save their marriage.
BioLiana Brooks was born in San Diego, California. Years later she was disappointed to learn that The Shire was not some place she could move to, nor was Rider of Rohan an acceptable career choice. Studying marine biology  so she could play with sharks seemed to be the only alternative. After college Liana settled down to work as a full-time author and mother because logical career progression is something that happens to other people. When she grows up, Liana wants to be an Evil Overlord and take over the world. In the meantime, she writes sci-fi and SFR in between trips to the beach. She can be found wearing colorful socks on the Emerald Coast, or online at www.lianabrooks.com.
Find her at:
* Author Website *
* Book's Homepage *
* Blog Tour Schedule *
* Liana's Biography Page *
* Breathless Press New releases *
* Breathless Press Forthcoming books *
* Liana's Twitter Page *
* Liana's FB Fanpage *
* FB Page for EVFIL *