Eric T. Benoit's Blog
June 1, 2013
Character Bio – Karthonis
The next character from Flames of Khyveria to be revealed is Karthonis, a knight from the king’s court.
An image of the way I conceptualize Karthonis
Name: Karthonis
Age: 23
Sex: Male
Hair: Blond
Eyes: Blue
Height: 5′
Race: Elf
Hometown: Coreheim
Bio: Karthonis is an elvish knight from the royal court at Corheim. Orphaned when he was 8 years old he has spent the past 15 years as a squire to the king who took him in and raised him like his own son. Karthonis was recently called before the king and knighted in order to carry out his mission of finding Hurlan.
On his way to find Hurlan, Karthonis ran into Bethriel and discovered that she was Hurlan’s daughter. Together Bethriel and Karthonis set out to find Hulan and in the proccess began an adventure they hadn’t anticipated. Upon meeting Hurlan, Karthonis told him of a great evil sweeping the land and asked for his advice. Hurlan told our adventurers about the evil they faced and what they must do to remove it from the world.
Together our adventurers set off to save the world of Khyveria from an ancient evil which has been waiting and growing for the last 100 thousand years, since the time of great wars. Will our heroes be able to save the world from utter desctruction? Read the Khyverian Chronicles to find out. Either way, Khyveria will never be the same again.
Related Posts:Character Bio – BethrielKhyverian ChroniclesAbout The AuthorFlames of Khyveria – Excerpt 1Flames of Khyveria
The post Character Bio – Karthonis appeared first on Book'em Eric.
May 17, 2013
May 15, 2013
Something Different – The New G+
I have decided to do something different today. Usually I write about my upcoming release, give writing tips or host blog tours and guest posts. Today, however, I thought it would be a good idea to cover some of the many changes that were made to Google+ today.
Some of the changes made to Google+ today are purely cosmetic but many add functionality and a couple don’t quite work the way they were intended to. The new layout is slick, pretty and much more efficient than the one we had yesterday. With it’s 2+ columns for your posts rather than the old style single column you can now go through your home page to find exactly what you are looking for much quicker. The number of columns you will see depends on your screen size and resolution as well as your zoom level. My Chrome 26 on Windows 8 running in 1366×768, for instance, displays 2 columns by default. If I set my zoom level to 75%, however, I will get 3 columns. The single column format is still available by going to your g+ home and clicking “more” near the top of the page. The only problem with the payout itself is that it doesn’t scale itself well and therefor wastes screen realty.
The new setup of communities appears to be broken to some extent. When you go to communities the communities you are a member of display at the top and suggested communities for you to join are below. The problem is that to get to a specific community it is sometimes like playing whack-a-mole as they move around. I am pretty sure that this is an “undocumented feature” aka a bug that should be fixed soon.
There are several new options dealing with images as well. I haven’t had a chance to play with them very much but those who have tell me they are awesome, especially the “Auto Awesome” option.
All in all, Google+ has done something very amazing with the new updates. Those of you who haven’t yet started using G+ should do so now. It is the next gen. social network with features that make it a much more powerful marketing tool than Facebook could ever hope to be.
Related Posts:Market Yourself, Market Your Book – Using TwitterMarket Yourself, Market Your Book – Building BrandMarket Yourself, Market Your Book – Using TriberrMarket Yourself, Market Your Book – You’re…Market Yourself, Market Your Book – Launch Time
The post Something Different – The New G+ appeared first on Book'em Eric.
April 18, 2013
Hello Again!
Hi everyone,
It has been a while hasn’t it? I am sorry for the interruption but I had some health issues to deal with and then my laptop decided it wanted some too and gave up the ghost. I recently got myself a new laptop so I will be posting regularly once more. If any of you have topics you would like to me to post about please feel free to comment below or email, tweet at me or post to me on Facebook what topics you would like to see me post about and I will try to get them asap.
Thanks for sticking with me,
Eric T. Benoit
Related Posts:Market Yourself, Market Your Book – Building BrandAbout The AuthorThe Hero Chronicles ReviewBook Review – The Spirit BoxBetter To Give Than To Receive?
The post Hello Again! appeared first on Book'em Eric.
June 26, 2012
Mark Landen Guest Post
Hi, I’m Mark Landen, college student, programmer, and budding novelist. I began writing a novel last year and looked for someone to critique my work, but to my surprise no website did what I wanted. So I created one. Enter: http://www.Criticular.com
The wish list:
Get anonymous critiques
Get an entire book critiqued
A directory to find critique groups, critique partners, and beta readers
One-for-one Critiques
The core activity at Criticular is, you guessed it, critiquing. It’s not meant to replace your critique group, but to enhance it, providing you with more critiquing options. We have three queues—anonymous, friend, and a group’s queue—each have their own levels of privacy and anonymity. Let’s talk about the anonymous and friend queues. It’s one of Criticular’s unique services.
The anonymous queue gets you objective-style feedback, similar to getting reviews when you’re selling your work. The friend queue similar, except in this case it’s among authors on your friends list.
The cool part? You’re all but guaranteed a critique. At Criticular when you give a critique, you get a critique. No credits, no cherry-picking, no door-to-door pleas. After you’ve critiqued someone’s work, yours is placed in an ordered waiting line. It’s more private than any critiquing site out there.
Critique groups work a little differently because in them critiques are done the traditional way. No waiting line here, but your work is still private among group members.
I want my book critiqued!
At Criticular when you do a critique, you get a critique. So if you put in the effort, you can get your book critiqued over time. But that’s not all you can do. At Criticular your book-in-progress can have its own profile page where you can track progress, update wordcounts, blog about writing your book, and gather fans. We think that’s pretty cool!
Critique Groups 2.0
Need a critique group? Where most sites have predetermined groups, Criticular is flexible. Create your own group in a few clicks, or search for them on a map, by genre, or by networking on the site. Groups have their own calendar of events and you can even create private groups for confidential alliances. Critique groups, say hello to web 2.0.
Check it out!
Criticular is easy to use. All you do is submit a piece of work you want critiqued, click the button “Do A Critique”, then fill in the boxes. Now your submission is ready to be critiqued. Also you can meet authors through Facebook-style social networking, and we even have forums for topic based discussions. Go check out Criticular! It’s the best thing since paper shredders.
Related Posts:Publishing And EditingBetter To Give Than To Receive?Market Yourself, Market Your Book – Using Triberr
The post Mark Landen Guest Post appeared first on Book'em Eric.
June 20, 2012
Book Review – The Spirit Box
I was recently invited to read and review The Spirit Box as part of a Tempting Book Tour.
Back Cover Blurb: When Walt Turner’s mother died, he inherited her apartment and the antique shop below. After losing his job due to the treachery of a co-worker, The Spirit Box calls to him from the darkness of the shop with an offer of revenge.
Lured by the promise of ultimate power and eternal life by the prisoner inside the box, Walt agrees to help it gather the final spirits it requires to return to human form.
John Hazard is investigating a series of murders and missing persons in this otherwise quiet town. His perceptions of reality are about to be altered in a life changing confrontation that will force him beyond the boundaries of darkness and ancient evil.
It is a spiraling descent into madness, where you may have everything you desire, if only you are willing to sacrifice all that you believe.
When you look into The Spirit Box, be prepared to have more than your breath taken away.
JH Glaze shows us his unique imagination and voice in The Spirit Box, an intriguing paranormal thriller. The story is wonderfully fresh and the characters will pull you along as one kills to appease the box and the other tries to get to the bottom of a double homicide followed by 4 missing persons reports. All of this takes place in a sleepy little town where nothing ever happens. Needless to say, our hero, John Hazard is almost overwhelmed and Walt is nearly driven mad. I enjoyed reading this book though I found some of what was happening a little predictable. The originality of the concept itself and the characters as well as JH’s unique writing style are what keep you moving forward. JH brings his characters to life, he has a way of making you truly interested in what happens to them. If you like paranormal thrillers then this one you should pick up and read. JH Glaze will push you to the edge of reason, pulling you back just in time to see rest of the world join you.
About JH Glaze: When was the last time you saw someone working on a laptop while riding Public Transportation during rush hour? There is one Atlanta area author, JH Glaze, you may have seen. He would have been writing one of his novels on his way to ‘the day job’.
His first novel ‘The Spirit Box’, a horror/thriller about a man who inherits an ancient box from his deceased mother, was written almost 80% on the train. It was finally published in September 2011. Since then, he has completed a second novel in the series, ‘NorthWest’. This exciting cross-genre novel was 100% written on Public Transportation.
When asked why he enjoys writing on the train, he’ll tell you, “Riding on the train is the only time of the day when I won’t be distracted by email and other things that just seem to come up when I’m in my office. The atmosphere on the train also incites an atmosphere of uncertainty and excitement that can’t be duplicated in a home office environment. Anything could happen on that train at any time and my writing channels that energy!”
What does he say about his writing style? “I want to involve you in the stories, to bring you into my worlds and share with you the thoughts that inspire them. The stories originate with simple ideas, and I tell them in a way that carries you the reader, through it inside of your own mind.”
The writing style of JH Glaze has been called ‘Unique’ and has been well received by readers from a broad spectrum of genres. Readers and reviewers alike have given high ratings to both of the first 2 books in the series. The release of the third, ‘Send No Angel’, scheduled for release in Summer 2012 and is highly anticipated by fans of this author.
JH Glaze was born in Niles, Ohio and currently resides in Atlanta. He lives with his wife and editor, Susan Grimm, their dogs, Harley and Jake, and JoJo, the Senegal parrot. To find more information, search the web for JH Glaze, The Spirit Box, NorthWest, Send No Angel and The Horror Challenge.
The Spirit Box is currently on tour with Tempting Book Tours. Please be sure to stop by Storytime Book Reviews tomorrow for a guest post by JH Glaze.
a Rafflecopter giveaway
Related Posts:Guest Post – Why I Write What I Write – By Michael MeeskeMarket Yourself, Market Your Book – Launch TimeJoan H. Young – Interview
The post Book Review – The Spirit Box appeared first on Book'em Eric.
June 19, 2012
Guest Post – Why I Write What I Write – By Michael Meeske
HORROR YOU CAN LOVE
Last fall, I started a blog on Goodreads called “Horror You Can Love.” Since then, I’ve developed a decent following and blogged on a variety of topics from the loss of a pet to writing. My blog’s title is a tribute to genres I dearly love: horror and romance, particularly when they combine.
As I child, I was fascinated by the tales of Edgar Allan Poe. When you look closely at Poe, you can find romance, although
often off-kilter, and, of course, the elements of horror, mystery and suspense that are so deftly woven into
his stories. Poe was a true master of the Gothic. As I progressed in my reading, I found that the books that fascinated me the most had similar elemental themes: They were sinister, dark, brooding and Byronic.
What appeal did these novels hold for me? I had to look no further than the Brontës or Flaubert to find the answer. Their works are filled with tension, suspense and they pushed the limits of convention at the time. Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) is a 500-page tour de force of romantic writing. Every budding romance writer would be wise to study Anne’s novel, which attacks the marriage laws of the time and the double standards that existed between men and women. Wildfell Hall keeps hero and heroine apart for nearly three times the length of the standard category romance.
The same can be said for Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, which appeared serially in the Revue de Paris in 1856 and promptly was taken to trial for “offenses against morality and religion.” Through Emma Bovary, Flaubert created one of the great literary characters of all time, a sad, doomed woman who could not bear the constrictions of her comfortable, yet unfulfilled life.
My writing flows from these literary antecedents. Believe me, I make no pretense to write as beautifully or be held in comparison to Poe, the Brontë sisters or Flaubert; however, I have taken their literature to heart. Their works speak to me on emotional levels that have propelled me forward. My other reading interests as a child lay in science fiction and action-adventure. So, I have gleaned what I loved from both – page-turning tales filled with emotion and suspense.
Much of horror today is devoted to graphic violence or what filmdom used to call “slice and dice.” And there’s nothing wrong with that if that’s the style you favor; in fact, I appreciate a great zombie movie like 28 Days Later as much as the next fan.
But when it comes to my own preference in horror, I practice a more subtle approach – one you can love if you’re more into goose bumps than blood letting. I love the creepy house, things that go bump in the night, the shadows caught out of the corner of the eye, the blurred distinction between good and evil, the terrible effects of tragic relationships. These things are scarier to me than the franchises that thrive on chainsaws and sharp knives, although I do admit that Halloween scared the hell out of me when I first saw it.
Poe, Shirley Jackson, Daphne du Maurier, H. P. Lovecraft, the Brontës, Flaubert, have added immensely to my understanding of literature. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing finer in this world than discovering an author – living or dead – who, through their work, inspires you to reach your creative potential. Keep searching for those authors who touch your soul and you will find your voice.
Don’t forget to follow the tour, visit Jenn’s Book Reviews tomorrow!
Related Posts:Find Your Muse – Or Be Your OwnBook Review – The Spirit BoxCharacter Development Vs. Plot Devlopment
The post Guest Post – Why I Write What I Write – By Michael Meeske appeared first on Book'em Eric.
Guest Post – Why I Write What I Write
HORROR YOU CAN LOVE
Last fall, I started a blog on Goodreads called “Horror You Can Love.” Since then, I’ve developed a decent following and blogged on a variety of topics from the loss of a pet to writing. My blog’s title is a tribute to genres I dearly love: horror and romance, particularly when they combine.
As I child, I was fascinated by the tales of Edgar Allan Poe. When you look closely at Poe, you can find romance, although
often off-kilter, and, of course, the elements of horror, mystery and suspense that are so deftly woven into
his stories. Poe was a true master of the Gothic. As I progressed in my reading, I found that the books that fascinated me the most had similar elemental themes: They were sinister, dark, brooding and Byronic.
What appeal did these novels hold for me? I had to look no further than the Brontës or Flaubert to find the answer. Their works are filled with tension, suspense and they pushed the limits of convention at the time. Anne Brontë’s The Tenant of Wildfell Hall (1848) is a 500-page tour de force of romantic writing. Every budding romance writer would be wise to study Anne’s novel, which attacks the marriage laws of the time and the double standards that existed between men and women. Wildfell Hall keeps hero and heroine apart for nearly three times the length of the standard category romance.
The same can be said for Flaubert’s Madame Bovary, which appeared serially in the Revue de Paris in 1856 and promptly was taken to trial for “offenses against morality and religion.” Through Emma Bovary, Flaubert created one of the great literary characters of all time, a sad, doomed woman who could not bear the constrictions of her comfortable, yet unfulfilled life.
My writing flows from these literary antecedents. Believe me, I make no pretense to write as beautifully or be held in comparison to Poe, the Brontë sisters or Flaubert; however, I have taken their literature to heart. Their works speak to me on emotional levels that have propelled me forward. My other reading interests as a child lay in science fiction and action-adventure. So, I have gleaned what I loved from both – page-turning tales filled with emotion and suspense.
Much of horror today is devoted to graphic violence or what filmdom used to call “slice and dice.” And there’s nothing wrong with that if that’s the style you favor; in fact, I appreciate a great zombie movie like 28 Days Later as much as the next fan.
But when it comes to my own preference in horror, I practice a more subtle approach – one you can love if you’re more into goose bumps than blood letting. I love the creepy house, things that go bump in the night, the shadows caught out of the corner of the eye, the blurred distinction between good and evil, the terrible effects of tragic relationships. These things are scarier to me than the franchises that thrive on chainsaws and sharp knives, although I do admit that Halloween scared the hell out of me when I first saw it.
Poe, Shirley Jackson, Daphne du Maurier, H. P. Lovecraft, the Brontës, Flaubert, have added immensely to my understanding of literature. As far as I’m concerned, there’s nothing finer in this world than discovering an author – living or dead – who, through their work, inspires you to reach your creative potential. Keep searching for those authors who touch your soul and you will find your voice.
Don’t forget to follow the tour, visit Jenn’s Book Reviews tomorrow!
Related Posts:Find Your Muse – Or Be Your OwnCharacter Development Vs. Plot DevlopmentPublishing And Editing
The post Guest Post – Why I Write What I Write appeared first on Book'em Eric.
June 15, 2012
Zombie Candy – Excerpt
Please enjoy this excerpt from Zombie Candy, a genre-bending mystery by Frederick Lee Brooke. Then read on to learn how you can win huge prizes as part of this blog tour, including $550 in Amazon gift cards, a Kindle Fire, and 5 autographed copies of the book.
They sit at long tables under grape arbors. Heavy bunches of grapes hang from the vines. An eight-piece dance band in white tuxes and black bow ties plays tunes from every decade. Heavy silver dessert forks and coffee spoons rest untouched on the linen tablecloth. She can’t eat another bite. All the glasses, at least, she has used: white wine, red wine, water.
A light breeze comes up. It feels heavenly on her face. With nightfall, the heat has gone out of the air. The heat must be trapped in these old stone walls — the walls of the farmhouse, the walls surrounding the vineyard. The aroma of fresh herbs floats from a nearby garden, rosemary, and mint, she thinks as she watches people dancing. The bride, her beautiful white dress with the daring silk bodice; the groom’s parents, a man with close-cropped gray hair and a red rose in his lapel, and his wife in a shimmering blue dress that looks specially made by an Italian designer.
She keeps one eye on the young man in the navy suit with the green silk tie. He looks like something Michelangelo might have sculpted, then breathed life into. This young man knows everyone here, and has danced every dance for the last hour. But he’s dancing with both older and younger women, probably cousins, friends, the mothers of cousins and friends. She has no idea who he is.
She feels outclassed in her red silk dress from Bloomingdale’s. She had worn the same dress at a wedding in June in Chicago. No one here has ever seen it. If there are any more weddings this fall, she will just have to go shopping in Siena or even Florence, that’s all there is to it.
“May I have this dance?”
Like a vision, Michelangelo man stands beside her. Has somebody cast a magic spell here? How did he sneak up on her like that? She didn’t even notice the song had ended. Or that another one had started.
“I’m not much of a dancer.”
“We’ll see.” He tugs her hand.
“Really, you don’t have to.” He obviously feels a duty to make sure every woman in the place gets at least one dance.
“Of course I don’t have to. I’ve danced with all the women I was obligated to dance with. Now I want to dance with you.”
She doesn’t need more arm-twisting than this. He leads her to the dance floor. The band is playing a quiet song from the 1940s, she thinks, something familiar. Grape arbors surround the dance floor and fill the air with sweet perfume. He turns and puts one hand around her waist. “My name is Giancarlo,” he says, switching to Italian.
“Candace,” she says. “I’ve been here for three weeks. I can’t believe I’m at this beautiful wedding.”
“Your Italian is marvelous.”
Your lips are marvelous, she thinks. Your curly hair, the color of black coffee, and your handsome chiseled face are marvelous too. But you can’t say such things to a man you’ve never met before. Not in Tuscany. At least not before the end of the first dance. He glides around the floor, leading her with slight shifts in his weight, slight pressure with his hands. Her feet know where to go, just as her mouth knows how to form the words.
“We don’t have weddings like this in Chicago. The food … the music … the grapes.”
“My uncle’s house is nice,” Giancarlo agrees. “But I am sorry for Lucia. She has married a playboy. I do not think they will be happy.”
“They certainly look happy.”
Giancarlo makes a face. “I should not talk about the details. I know him. I’ve known him all my life, and he will never change. I tried to talk to my cousin, but she is in love and blind. What can we do?”
Giancarlo’s smile, Candace realizes, has a hypnotizing effect. Thank God a fast dance is starting, the Bee Gees. He makes no attempt to bring her back to the table, merely releases his hold on her waist.
“You are a beautiful dancer,” he says when the Bee Gees song ends. The band takes a break. Everyone is leaving the dance floor. Her heart sinks. Somehow she has managed to cling to him for two dances, something no woman before her had managed. Now he will bring her back to her table, his duty done. He will go back to his people.
“Thank you for the lovely dances.”
“Come, let’s get some fresh air. I’ll show you around,” Giancarlo says. And the really amazing thing is he doesn’t let go of her hand.
As part of this special promotional extravaganza sponsored by Novel Publicity, the price of the Zombie Candy eBook edition is just 99 cents this week. What’s more, by purchasing this fantastic book at an incredibly low price, you can enter to win many awesome prizes. The prizes include $550 in Amazon gift cards, a Kindle Fire, and 5 autographed copies of the book.
All the info you need to win one of these amazing prizes is RIGHT HERE. Remember, winning is as easy as clicking a button or leaving a blog comment–easy to enter; easy to win!
To win the prizes:
Purchase your copy of Zombie Candy for just 99 cents
Enter the Rafflecopter contest on Novel Publicity
Visit today’s featured social media event
About the book: Weaving elements of mystery, horror and romance in a hilarious romp that starts in Chicago and ends in a quaint medieval town in sun-drenched Tuscany, Zombie Candy is a genre-hopping knee-slapper of a novel. Get it on Amazon.
About the author: Frederick Lee Brooke has worked as an English teacher, language school manager and small business owner and has travelled extensively in Tuscany, the setting of part of Zombie Candy. Visit Fred on his website, Twitter, Facebook, or GoodReads.
Related Posts:Frederick Lee Brooke Guest PostFrederick Lee Brooke – InterviewMarket Yourself, Market Your Book – Launch Time
The post Zombie Candy – Excerpt appeared first on Book'em Eric.
June 13, 2012
Frederick Lee Brooke – Interview
Please enjoy this interview with Frederick Lee Brooke, author of the genre-bending mystery Zombie Candy. Then read on to learn how you can win huge prizes as part of this blog tour, including $550 in Amazon gift cards, a Kindle Fire, and 5 autographed copies of the book.
1. What was the inspiration behind your novel, Zombie Candy?
There was a famous golfer whose wife chased him out of the house with a golf club in the middle of the night a couple of years ago. It was funny that she attacked her husband with his own weapon of choice. I got to thinking what must be going through a woman’s mind in that situation? I thought it would be interesting to explore the thought processes of a woman who discovers that her husband is a serial cheater. After the denial comes anger, but there is also a phase of grief. There’s guilt. Maybe she blames herself, rightly or wrongly. Candace oscillates between wanting revenge and wanting her husband back, and as the novel winds up she makes discoveries about herself that I thought a woman in her situation would be likely to make.
2. Do you think Zombie Candy will appeal to true zombie fans?
What’s a true zombie fan? I don’t want to give anything away, but any active zombie fan who participates in zombie walks, goes to festivals, etc. will love Zombie Candy. That being said, this is a book that has elements of mystery, horror and romance all in one. It had quite a few early readers, fans of all different genres, and the consensus is that it really works.
3. The book contains some of Candace’s favorite recipes. Why?
I confess, I love to cook, and it’s such an important part of my life, it just felt natural to have Candace want to share her recipes. We are all vulnerable to being attacked through our taste buds. I like reading about cooking, and I love watching cooking shows on TV. I feel like I’m learning something and tasting it at the same time. It felt right for this to be really important for Candace. At the same time, her husband Larry is so incredibly lacking in appreciation of her talents, not just the cooking itself, but organizing complex meals and directing the preparation of them by her class of twelve people. These are amazing skills, and Larry is blind to them. I thought marriages are sometimes like that, where people get to a point where they are totally ignorant of what their partner is great at.
4. There is a no-cilantro label on the back cover of the book. What is the significance of it?
Candace is a gourmet cook, and her cheating husband Larry insists on covering all his food with cilantro. This is one of those minor points of contention in a marriage that flares up and becomes important, like a trigger. I thought it was funny. And it seems a lot of people really do have strong feelings about cilantro, either for or against. When I was searching for a good graphic I came across pages on the internet like ihatecilantro.com and facebook.com/i-hate-cilantro.
5. After starting out in Chicago, why did you decide to set the story in Tuscany?
I’ve been fortunate enough to travel to Italy forty or fifty times in my life, sometimes for a two-week vacation, sometimes just for a very short trip. I absolutely love it there, from the food to the language to the beauty of the countryside and the architecture. In Zombie Candy, Candace realizes at a certain point that she has to get Larry out of his comfort zone. This is a guy who travelled all over the country every week for his work, and cheated on Candace with waitresses, flight attendants, whoever. He can adapt just about anywhere. But in Tuscany Larry discovers two things: 1) it’s not so easy to find a willing waitress or flight attendant to spend the night with him; and 2) there are zombies here.
6. How would you describe the way you work as a writer?
I guess I’m a bit of a chameleon, able to adapt pretty well to circumstances around me. My wife and I have three boys and they are not quiet. I can do most revision with significant background noise and interruptions. Only when I’m writing a first draft or doing some serious planning work do I need peace and quiet. Then I’ll often take a walk in the forest anyway. It helps a lot to be adaptable. If I had to put off writing every time someone asked me to cook dinner or help them with their homework, my book would never have been finished. For me, being able to jump right back in has been the key to being able to finish big projects.
7. Did you always want to be a writer?
I was an early reader and this led to curiosity about writing stories. My sister and I wrote stories during long car trips. In high school and then in college I dreamed of writing novels, but I only started writing short stories after graduating from college. That writing phase lasted about five years, and I learned a lot about writing, but life got in the way, with marriage and job and career and kids. Only when my kids were halfway grown and my career reached a certain level of success did I find a way to return to writing. Now I’m fulfilling a lifelong dream.
8. What process do you go through to define your characters?
I start with an image of them as basically good or basically evil, and put them into a context or a situation, and then just basically make sure there is plenty of conflict. My characters are never perfectly white or black. I think we’re drawn to weaknesses. We want to watch them mess up, and see how they’ll extricate themselves. Of course, sometimes all my planning goes out the window. It’s a cliche to say that characters surprise you with their actions, but they do. They’re defined by what they do and what they say. I did some acting in high school and have always loved the theater, and knowing what it means to be in character helps me be in character when I’m writing dialogue. My books are fairly dialogue-driven. What the characters say reveals what they are thinking and feeling.
9. What writing advice did you receive that was most beneficial to you?
I had to learn to love conflict. The conflict is the story. The conflict shows the true colors of your characters. I grew up in the suburbs in a family where we avoided conflict at all costs. We talked like diplomats. So embracing conflict has been something I had to learn.
10. You’re an indie author. Any thoughts on the divide between independent publishing and traditional publishing?
I think the market will sort itself out, but it’s going to take time. Good books will find their way into readers’ hands somehow, whether in printed or electronic form. We need our stories every day. We can’t live without stories. For me personally, independent publishing has been the perfect solution. I found an excellent editor who professionally edited my manuscript. I like the idea that I can control the timing of the publication of my books. If my first book, Doing Max Vinyl, had been traditionally published in April 2011 instead of the way I did it, it probably would have hit the remainder tables by Thanksgiving, and it would be out of print now. I think Zombie Candy might spark some interest in Doing Max Vinyl, so it’s a benefit to readers as well as to me that it continues to be available, rather than going out of print and being forgotten. E-books are clearly here to stay, because the consumers (readers) and providers (authors) are the big winners. The only losers are the bookstores, publishing companies, agents and others who refuse to adapt.
As part of this special promotional extravaganza sponsored by Novel Publicity, the price of the Zombie Candy eBook edition is just 99 cents this week. What’s more, by purchasing this fantastic book at an incredibly low price, you can enter to win many awesome prizes. The prizes include $550 in Amazon gift cards, a Kindle Fire, and 5 autographed copies of the book.
All the info you need to win one of these amazing prizes is RIGHT HERE. Remember, winning is as easy as clicking a button or leaving a blog comment–easy to enter; easy to win!
To win the prizes:
Purchase your copy of Zombie Candy for just 99 cents
Enter the Rafflecopter contest on Novel Publicity
Visit today’s featured social media event
About the book: Weaving elements of mystery, horror and romance in a hilarious romp that starts in Chicago and ends in a quaint medieval town in sun-drenched Tuscany, Zombie Candy is a genre-hopping knee-slapper of a novel. Get it on Amazon.
About the author: Frederick Lee Brooke has worked as an English teacher, language school manager and small business owner and has travelled extensively in Tuscany, the setting of part of Zombie Candy. Visit Fred on his website, Twitter, Facebook, or GoodReads.
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