Eleni Konstantine's Blog: Eleni's Taverna, page 22

Writing Buddy Wednesday: Juanita Kees

Today, I have RWAus blog extraordinaire, Juanita Kees, to the Taverna. I've known Juanita for a while now online. We volunteer for RWAus on the same team, and I completed a couple of banners for her last year (which I had huge fun doing). 
Juanita is a funny lady with a generous spirit, and she never complains when my information for the Cruisin' blog is late.



Thanks Juanita for joining me in the Taverna.

Thank you for having me here today. Great place you have here! Is that Ouzo over there? Oooh!


You recently had your first novel published, Fly Away Peta. Congratulations. Can you tell us a little about it?

Here is the blurb, Eleni, but first I have to tell you that this is a story of hope, trust, courage and forgiveness. Mostly it’s about learning to trust again. Peta faces many trials in this story and Jaime has way too many questions to answer before he can be the perfect hero. But hey, he’s Italian and, like Greek boys, what’s not to love?

Peta Johnson will go to extreme lengths to protect her daughter Bella. When the Bella is kidnapped, the search for her takes Peta back to the small Western Australian country town of Williams, a place she’d vowed never to return to. The town where her dreams were shattered and her nightmare began. Back to the place she’d been destined to meet two very powerful, yet very different men. One would break her heart; the other would destroy her soul. Both would change her life forever.

The search for Bella brings them together, secrets and lies keep them apart. Can Peta and Jaime renew their love in the face of danger or will he let her fly away again?

Can you tell us your road to publication.

Mine is one of those ‘wowser!’ stories. Readers are welcome to come over and read the full call story but the shortened version is that I’ve been writing since I was a teenager. 
I started out in notebooks and progressed to a typewriter and then…they invented computers! Although I’d submitted a few times over the years, I’d never so much as had a short story published. I gave it up for a while and packed my dreams away in the desk drawer to raise my boys. 
That took me a while J and by the time I rediscovered RWAustralia and found out what a thumb drive was, I found my style had changed. One day on a hunch, I submitted Fly Away Peta to Eternal Press and WHAM! I had an answer the next day and a published book six months later. The moral of the story: Never give up on your dreams.


Are you a plotter? Pantser? Or somewhere in between?

I’m a terrible pantser! I get half way through the story and realize, oops! They might need a plan here. My characters usually appear long before a story does so planning their lives makes things a little difficult. When I do get to the point where they need a little help, I pull out my dog-eared, sticky-noted 1993 version of Valerie Parv’s The Art of Romance Writing and show them where to go. I don’t know what I’d do without Valerie!


What or who inspired you to write?

My dad. He had so many stories to tell us when we were growing up. We loved reading, movies, and story-telling over camp fires. Long before we could afford a television, we used to listen to the radio after dinner, waiting patiently for ‘The Tales of Tracy Dark’, or ‘Ten o’Clock Tales’ and our favourite police drama ‘Squad Cars’. My late aunt Marita also played a huge part in me heading down the road to romance. Her endless love affair with Mills & Boon provided us with many hours of reading pleasure. If ever I’m lucky enough to publish with HMB, I’d definitely dedicate my first to her. Sadly she passed away from cancer a few years ago and couldn’t help me celebrate my publishing success. I hope I’ve made her proud with Fly Away Peta. It was at her house one school holiday that I dreamt up the title and penned the first paragraphs when I should have been practicing maths.


What are you working on now? And what’s in the near future for Juanita Kees?

I’ve finished book two, Taming the Tiger and have begun the submission process. I think it took longer to write the synopsis than it did to write the book! I loved writing it and was sad to see it go, but I hope it finds a good home soon. Scott and TJ are my favourite characters so far. Here I have to thank the wonderful Diane Curran, Susan Child and Sammy McHenry as well as all the others who popped in during 50K in 30 Days for their support. I might never have finished it without you!

As for the future, it’s time to make a start on book three Darkness & Light (working title) because the character from book four When the Wind Blows Cold are yelling very loudly for me to hurry up J



What would be your ultimate research trip? ;))

Ooooh, I could be very naughty here but I’ll be mildly naughty instead. Point me in the direction of Greece…but I’ll have to take you and Efthalia Pegios along to show me the…uh…ropes ;-)



You are also an editor and run Kees2Create. How do you balance your creative and technical sides of writing? Also tell us a bit about Kees2Create.
Balance? It’s more like a juggling act! I heard tell once that editors are frustrated writers. I can honestly say that is a myth – for me anyway. 
I’ve found that editing has brought a great deal of fulfillment for me. I get wonderful satisfaction from helping writers sharpen their writing, knowing that I’ve helped them polish a manuscript to perfection and that when they hold that book in their hands, they are proud to have their work out there.
Editing has taught me a lot about polishing my own work and having it as close to perfect as possible long before it finds its way into the hands of an editor.

Kees2Create started out as a writing and proofreading business in 2011 when I graduated from college with a diploma in Editing, Publishing and Proofreading. I write blogs, reviews, web content and training manuals. I recently started editing fiction for US publisher Damnation Books and scientific text books for Elsevier Press (UK). I have another very exciting editing project starting soon, but I can’t tell you about it just yet…all I can say is – I’m excited!


It’s been such a pleasure having you on the blog, Juanita.

Thank you for having me here today. It’s always fun hanging out with you. Am I allowed that Ouzo now? Efharisto, Dimitri. Yammas!!


LOL, Juanita, yes, you can have the Ouzo. Stin iyia mas :)


~~~ You can find Juanita at the following locations:
On the Web Twitter Facebook

Musa Monday with HL Carpenter

Today, I have mother-daughter writing team, HL Carpenter in the Taverna. Welcome ladies!




Your current release is The SkyHorse, published by Musa. Can you describe your book for us?
The SkyHorse is narrated by Tovi Taggert, a teenager who lives in Honeysuckle Hollow, Florida. She finds an egg from which a flying horse hatches, and all sorts of strange things start happening. Tovi asked us to help her make her adventure sound like a novel, though it’s really a how-to manual on flying horses. She says everyone needs to read the book, because you never know when a SkyHorse will canter into your life, and it’s best to be prepared. She’s a good salesperson, that girl.



How did you come to write fantasy YA? What attracted you to the genre?
We wanted to write a girl-and-horse story that was both traditional and yet not quite traditional, and the flying horse idea resonated with us. We like YA, because that’s the time of life when anything and everything is possible, emotions are intense, and there’s so much to figure out. Exploring the universal questions of “who am I?” and “what will my life be like?” is challenging and fun.



Please tell us a little about your road to publication.
We started out writing tips and short features for women’s magazines while trying to break into the romance market. Unfortunately, though the sales of tips and features went well, we really stink at writing about romance. Dead bodies and assorted mysterious goings-on kept popping up and stealing our heroine’s attention away from her love life. So we switched from mysteries of the heart to murder and crime. With that focus, our writing got better, and we had several stories featuring a septuagenarian sleuth published in anthologies. Ours is not an overnight success story (or even a novella), though we guess it could be if you think of the night as especially long and dark, with a booming thunderstorm, flashes of wicked lightning, eerie, flitting shadows, and a few treacherous turns on a slippery road designed to discourage the tenacious wayfarer. Hmmm. That could be an opening scene...



You work as a mother/daughter writing team. How do you co-write your books? I’m assuming you would have to plot? We start with the bones, then build a skeleton, sketching the entire story to make sure it will hang correctly. Once the frame is in place, we tag-team, with one of us writing to a natural stopping point, and the other picking up at that point and going forward. We swap back and forth until the story or book is finished.



What is your favorite part of the process of writing?
Besides the thrill of an acceptance? We love those! Another fave is the “YES!” feeling we get the very first time we read one of our stories after the cooling off period. That sense of accomplishment, of “we did this, and it’s good”, is pure pleasure.



What are you currently working on?
We’ll be publishing a New Adult novella, Jack and the Fountain of Youth, in time for the 500th anniversary of the arrival in Florida of Juan Ponce de Leon, so that’s exciting! We recently finished the first draft of a new YA novel, and we have three finished manuscripts cooling off and waiting for revision. We also have a cozy mystery for adult readers that’s in the final stage of revisions, and three completed novellas featuring the same character.



You have a writing web site called Top Drawer Ink Corp. Can you tell us how this came about and what you feature on this site?
We enjoy many types of writing, including poetry, essays, satire, and nonfiction, and Top Drawer Ink gives us a place to showcase those other works. We’ve put the first chapter of The SkyHorse there, along with a free reader’s guide, and we plan to post Jack and the Fountain of Youth on the site in free installments. So you might say www.TopDrawerInkCorp.com is a one-stop shop for all things HL! Stop by and say hi. We’ll be happy to meet you!



Thank you for giving us this opportunity to talk about The SkyHorse, and about writing in general. It’s been a pleasure!

~~~Thanks, ladies. Loved learning more about you. 
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The SkyHorse, a young adult novel by HL Carpenter
BLURB:

When fourteen year old Tovi Taggert moves to Honeysuckle Hollow to take care of her grandmother, she has a hard time fitting in. For one thing, she’s been tagged with the hated nickname Too-Tall Tovi. For another, everyone at Honeysuckle Hollow High believes Tovi played the Choking Game with someone else’s boyfriend – and made out with him besides.

As if she doesn’t have enough problems, after the latest standoff in the school hallway, Tovi finds a gorgeous speckled egg nestled in a feather lined nest.

She takes the egg home – and mysterious visitors begin appearing almost immediately. Even more worrisome, whatever is inside the egg starts chipping its way out.

When the egg hatches, revealing a winged horse, Tovi’s troubles multiply.

As she struggles to return the horse to the magical land where he belongs, Tovi must make a courageous decision – and accept what that decision will cost her.


Musa link
Amazon link 

BIO
HL Carpenter is the pen name of a Florida-based mother/daughter duo who writes of flying horses and other fabulous creatures from their home in Carpenter Country, a magical place that, like their stories, is unreal but not untrue. When they’re not writing, the Carpenters enjoy exploring the Land of What-If and practicing the fine art of Curiosity. Their multi-genre collaborative work includes mysteries, short stories, essays, and non-fiction articles, and is featured in the bi-monthly newsletter Top Drawer Ink. Their most recent book is The SkyHorse, a young adult e-novel published by Musa Publishing. Their home on the web is www.TopDrawerInkCorp.com.

Super Sunday: Remembrance Day....

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

Writing Buddy Wednesday: Fiona Gregory

Welcome to another Writing Buddy Wednesday. Today, I have one of my favourite buddies, my critique partner, and all round amazing person, Fiona Gregory. 


Welcome Fiona to the Taverna. 

You have had 4 stories published in different anthologies of Little Gems. What attracts you to shorter fiction?When I first started writing I did an excellent short story course through Adult Education. I loved every second of it. Ever since then, I've written short stories continually. It's challenging to tell a story in a really short word count. 

How do you approach writing a short story? What comes first – the plot or the character? I've got a huge ideas folder - articles and photo's from magazines and newspapers. There's a few scribbled notes in there as well. I usually "go shopping" in my ideas folder and pull out an article, some characters and maybe some scenery. Then the creative process begins.

My latest Little Gems story "Hope for the Future" started life as a clipping about a fireman rescuing a cat from an engine bay, a print catalog from an online retailer of country clothing and watching the construction and commissioning of a new police station near my house. The fireman who was supposed to be the hero of the story is now languishing back at the fire station after the local vet took over the rescue of the trapped kitten.


You also write futuristic romances. What is it about this genre you enjoy?I'm a huge sci-fi fan from way back. I find writing futuristic a really freeing experience - what's not to love about creating new worlds with all of the associated rules and then thinking "What if?"



What or who inspired you to write?As corny as it sounds, my high school English teacher - Mr Blond, a six foot tall Shakespeare actor who made books come alive. I went to a "football" high school - sport was a huge priority and in my senior classes girls were outnumbered nearly 3 to 1. Mr Blond took the kids who didn't live and breathe sport on a wonderful creative adventure through a library of treasures.


What do you love about being a writer?My day job is a really black and white, high pressure environment with absolutely no creativity. I love being able to step away from that and have complete and utter control over what happens to my characters.

And then there's the writer's community, especially RWA. There's nothing better than getting together with your writing buddies for a coffee and a chat and a bit of off the cuff plotting.


What are you working on now? And what’s in the near future for Fiona Gregory?Our first writing group meeting of every year involves us sharing our goals for the next twelve months and a ceremony for writing them up in a special journal, so I'm trying to tick things off my list - Emerald Entries, draft of next year's Little Gems story, revision of my first and second novels in preparation for subbing, completing NaNoWriMo. I've just completed Angela James' "Before You Hit Send" editing course which was great.

Oh, and to spice things up, my writing group does a creativity exercise called The Black Book. Someone starts the story (in a black notebook) and at the next group meeting the book is the passed on to the next person on the list, who writes the next chapter. We don't discuss the story or in any way plan what happens next, or even identify who wrote what. The aim is to take what you know of the characters from what is shown in the writing, and write them forward. The person who starts the story writes the final chapter. I'm on a deadline to write chapter two of a brand new story before Friday, and I'm busy dissecting the three characters I've been given to work with.


You are currently doing NaNo. This brings me to the question are you a plotter or a pantser? What is it about NaNo that helps you along with a story?I'm a plotter! I start with a spiral bound notebook for each book and during the pre-writing phase I collect my photos, clippings etc. I use the Index Card Method to plan out my scenes and I carry those cards with me everywhere while I'm working on a story. Then when I start writing, I stick to the basic outline and I have surprise pantser moments along the way.

NaNo is great for me - I don't have time to think. I just bash it out and I find out things about my characters that I'm not consciously aware of. I end up with a story that needs a lot of rewrites and editing. If I wrote and edited I'd never get past the first few chapters in the same timeframe.

This NaNo story was born from someone on TV explaining the derivation of the term "the wrong side of the tracks" to a group of teens. I grew up in a railway town where this old adage was true, and it got me thinking about what would happen if someone who grew up on the wrong side of the tracks returned to their rural hometown and tried to make a life on the other side of the trainline. 


What would be your ultimate research trip? ;))
I guess space travel is out?

I'd want to start with a visit to NASA, spend a few weeks combing through the Intrepid Space, Air and Sea Museum in New York and then head off to look at some ancient ruins - Mayan or Egyptian. (My long-suffering husband is starting to look worried...)

You were recently the Conference Coordinator at the Romance Writers of Australia’s Diamonds Are Forever conference. How much did this impact your writing?I'll be honest. In the six months prior to conference my writing took a back seat to the conference. Coming out the other side now, I can see how much I learned about the industry, RWA and its members and also about myself - especially the way I work on long term projects (like writing a book). The end result - I'm much better at managing my time now than I've ever been. I found the time to bring the conference together, yet I hadn't previously found that time to write.

I'm looking forward to the Fremantle conference next year - hopefully I'll get to talk to everyone I didn't have a chance to catch up with at Gold Coast this year.




Thanks for joining me once again, Fiona. As always it’s a pleasure having you here.

~~~
To celebrate Fiona's inclusion in the Diamonds Little Gems Anthology, I'm giving away a copy. All you have to do is a leave a comment below.

Also here is a list of Fiona's Little Gems stories
The Protector - Little Gems Amethyst 2007
A Happy New Year - Little Gems Turquoise 2009
Seize the Man - Little Gems Topaz 2010
Hope for the Future - Little Gems Diamond 2012

 You can still get a copy of the Little Gems Diamond Anthology from the RWAustralia website.


~yia~

Tuesday Tunes: Whitesnake ~ Here I Go Again

Here I Go Again....

Ah, Whitesnake - that brings back memories of the 80s...and the hair!


The first version is the one I'm used to....the one with the bleached blonde hair



Youtube link


And here is the original from 1982....




Youtube link


Rock on!

~yia~

Musa Mondays: Wench Samantha Combs ~ Covers

There are a few Musa authors who have gotten together and unofficially called ourselves Wenches of Words. So when I refer to the Wenches, this is who I mean.

Today, I'm showcasing the covers of Wench, Samantha Combs .


Musa covers...



Non-Musa covers...







Pretty cool, eh?
~yia~

Winner of Blog Hop

What a hoot is has been checking out the 2nd Anniversary Halloween Blog Hop with the DarkSiders.

Thanks to all participants.

Now the winner on my blog is:

wandaf

Wanda, I will be contacting you soon regarding your prize.


~yia~

Stunning Saturday: Fantasy Art

Here is a link to some amazing digital fantasy art:
http://www.cruzine.com/2012/03/21/fantasy-digital-paintings

You won't be dissappointed.

~yia~

Fantabulous Friday: Joss Whedon and the election

Thanks to Nicky Strickland for sharing this on Facebook. I thought it was Fantabulous!!




Youtube Link



Ah, Joss Whedon, your fantabulousness knows no bounds.


:)

~yia~

DSDU 2nd Anniversary Halloween Blog Hop

I can't believe it's been two years since the DSDU started.  Where has the time gone?....

We started on Halloween because it was appropriate for the Dark Side. What could be more dark than Halloween? The ghosts, the ghouls, the general bumpity bump that goes in the night that's supernatural.

But while there is the dark side, I find that I'm also attracted to the lighter side, and we have DarkSiders who also write the lighter side...

In honour of the lighter side, and because I just love having a laugh (long time followers of the blog will know I have a weird sense of the ridiculous), here are some pictures to make you hopefully laugh....


source: http://www.squidoo.com/draw-goofy-ghosts


source: http://www.funandmusic.biz/funny-pic-haloween1.htm

source: http://captainscratchy.com/page/11/

And lastly.....


source: http://www.military-history.us/tag/zombie

Now to the prize part of the post...

To win a copy of either Enchanted Realms or Gateway to Hell, please comment below on what you find funny about Halloween.


The big prize of the hop is a $30 Amazon Voucher (see the DarkSide DownUnder blog post).



Here are the rules of the blog hop
To be eligible to win a prize on the blogs, the reader must do as what’s instructed on each blog by 11.59pm 4th November Australian Eastern Daylight Savings Time. To be eligible to win the Amazon voucher, the participants must comment on each participating blog. Only one comment needed. Multiple comments will be ignored for the purposes of the contest. Have fun! 



Halloween Special - 2nd Blogiversary Participants1. Eleni Konstantine
2. Mel Teshco
3. Nicole Murphy
4. Imogene Nix
5. Christina Phillips aka Christina Ashcroft
6. Amanda Ashby
7. Jenny Schwartz
8. Shona Husk
9. Maree Anderson10. Kylie Griffin
11. Lilliana Rose
12. Nicole Hurley-Moore
13. Eden Summers
14. Erica Hayes
15. Sandra Harris
16. Keziah Hill
17. S E Gilchrist
18. DSDUPowered by... Mister Linky's Magical Widgets.