Bryan Murphy's Blog - Posts Tagged "writers"
Blog Hop
We are hopping our way through some great reads. For those who aren’t familiar with a blog hop…it’s a lot like a treasure hunt — once you find something on one blog, hop over to the next blog link for more treasure. In this case, the treasure is a wealth of new and exciting books. Some are still being written, some are just being released. Either way, for fiction lovers…it’s a treasure, and I’d like to thank my friend Delinda McCann for asking me to take part.
You can find Delinda here: http://delindamccann.blogspot.com/2011
Here are the questions Delinda asked me, and my answers.
1) What is the working title of your book?
“Goodbye, Padania”.
2) Where did the idea come from for the book?
My protagonist, Daria, was a minor character in an earlier story, also set in Padania. I wanted to flesh out her personality and look into her mind.
Italy has often had small states within its territory. Venice, Genoa, even Pisa have all been independent. Today, only San Marino and the Vatican State remain. Some people are pushing to carve a new one, called Padania, out of the north Italian lowlands, to be a haven of wealth and racism. I want to suggest that wealth and racism are incompatible in today’s Europe.
3) What genre does your book fall under?
It’s a kind of noir thriller set in the future, so I’d label it “speculative fiction”.
4) Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
For Daria, I’d want authenticity. I’d cast among southern Italians for someone short, dark and capable of glaring razor-sharp daggers. I’d go to Hollywood or Cinecittà for Mercurio. Di Caprio or Raoul Bova might do. A gaggle of the latest pretty boys for Daria’s disciples who become her lovers. A real priest for Father Francesco, and a hologram of Charles Bronson for the villain in the final showdown.
5) What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
Amid the death agonies of a pariah state, a young woman tries to escape the role that fate has apparently designed for her: killer.
6) Is your book self-published, published or represented by an agency?
For an anarchist like me, it has to be self-published.
7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I wrote it as a series of short stories over four years. I ran them together in a week.
8) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
The rise of racism in the country in which I was living.
9) What else about your book might pique the readers’ interest?
The psychology of Daria, I hope. The paradox of an ordinary girl who loves shopping and overeating, yet is a highly successful, cold-blooded killer.
10) What other books in your genre would you compare this to?
Nicoletta Vallorani’s “Eva” is a whodunnit set in a future, dystopian Milan. Irene Dische examines the banal mind of a contract killer in “The Job”. Harold Pinter often featured ordinary-seeming people who may or may not be killers. And Phil Zimbardo deals extensively with the psychological aspect in “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil”. They go beyond a single genre, but I hope that “Goodbye, Padania” does, too.
Continue on the blog hop by checking out these other wonderful authors!
Rosemary Adkins: http://www.extraordinaryireland.blogs...
Dan O’Brien: http://thedanobrienproject.blogspot.i...
Steven Nedelton: http://www.snedelton.com
Maggie Tideswell: http://maggiestorm.blogspot.com/
Delinda McCann: http://delindamccann.blogspot.com/2011
You can find Delinda here: http://delindamccann.blogspot.com/2011
Here are the questions Delinda asked me, and my answers.
1) What is the working title of your book?
“Goodbye, Padania”.
2) Where did the idea come from for the book?
My protagonist, Daria, was a minor character in an earlier story, also set in Padania. I wanted to flesh out her personality and look into her mind.
Italy has often had small states within its territory. Venice, Genoa, even Pisa have all been independent. Today, only San Marino and the Vatican State remain. Some people are pushing to carve a new one, called Padania, out of the north Italian lowlands, to be a haven of wealth and racism. I want to suggest that wealth and racism are incompatible in today’s Europe.
3) What genre does your book fall under?
It’s a kind of noir thriller set in the future, so I’d label it “speculative fiction”.
4) Which actors would you choose to play your characters in a movie rendition?
For Daria, I’d want authenticity. I’d cast among southern Italians for someone short, dark and capable of glaring razor-sharp daggers. I’d go to Hollywood or Cinecittà for Mercurio. Di Caprio or Raoul Bova might do. A gaggle of the latest pretty boys for Daria’s disciples who become her lovers. A real priest for Father Francesco, and a hologram of Charles Bronson for the villain in the final showdown.
5) What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?
Amid the death agonies of a pariah state, a young woman tries to escape the role that fate has apparently designed for her: killer.
6) Is your book self-published, published or represented by an agency?
For an anarchist like me, it has to be self-published.
7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?
I wrote it as a series of short stories over four years. I ran them together in a week.
8) Who or what inspired you to write this book?
The rise of racism in the country in which I was living.
9) What else about your book might pique the readers’ interest?
The psychology of Daria, I hope. The paradox of an ordinary girl who loves shopping and overeating, yet is a highly successful, cold-blooded killer.
10) What other books in your genre would you compare this to?
Nicoletta Vallorani’s “Eva” is a whodunnit set in a future, dystopian Milan. Irene Dische examines the banal mind of a contract killer in “The Job”. Harold Pinter often featured ordinary-seeming people who may or may not be killers. And Phil Zimbardo deals extensively with the psychological aspect in “The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil”. They go beyond a single genre, but I hope that “Goodbye, Padania” does, too.
Continue on the blog hop by checking out these other wonderful authors!
Rosemary Adkins: http://www.extraordinaryireland.blogs...
Dan O’Brien: http://thedanobrienproject.blogspot.i...
Steven Nedelton: http://www.snedelton.com
Maggie Tideswell: http://maggiestorm.blogspot.com/
Delinda McCann: http://delindamccann.blogspot.com/2011
The Writing Process Blog Hop Tour comes to Turin, Italy
The author Marta Merajver-Kurlat (http://www.martamerajver.com.ar/marta...), author of Just Toss the Ashes and Why Can't I Make Money? among other works, kindly invited me to participate in this blog hop tour and answer four questions about my writing process.
1) What am I working on?
I’m working on a novel, set in Portugal in the 1970s. It’s my first novel – usually I write short stories or poems. And usually I write about the future, in order to write about the present.
2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?
Well, in the novel, I’m using the past, for once, to write about both the present and the future. I don’t read enough historical fiction to know how different that makes it. Most of my work, though, is speculative fiction. It’s really too low-tech to be true science fiction, though it tends to be set in the future, the near future. Perhaps a better descriptor is social science fiction. Wherever and whenever it is set, I aim to write literature first and genre fiction second.
3) Why do I write what I do?
I like to set my stories in places where I have lived and worked, like England, Italy, Portugal and China, but to move away from the present in order to get a clearer perspective on them.
4) How does my writing process work?
Writing a novel has changed this. Before, I would write the story or poem on paper. Then I would type it on to the computer, print it out and revise it (several times) using pen on paper, before keying in the changes to leave a final version on the computer. Now, the first version of each chapter goes straight on to the computer. It saves time and speeds me towards the goal of a completed first draft. I’m hoping to reach that particular target by the end of this year, after which I’m prepared to spend another year turning it from a finished novel into a good novel, if I can.
Three fine authors will be taking up the baton next week and explaining their writing process: Jacob Singer, Leigh M. Lane and David Whippman.
Here are their bios and links.
LEIGH M. LANE
Leigh M. Lane has been writing for over twenty years. She has ten published novels and twelve published short stories divided among different genre-specific pseudonyms. She is married to editor Thomas B. Lane, Jr. and has recently returned to the hustle and bustle of Las Vegas after a three-year stay in the beautiful but desolate mountains of western Montana.
Her traditional Gothic horror novel, Finding Poe, was a 2013 EPIC Awards finalist in horror. Her other novels include the supernatural thriller, The Hidden Valley Horror, inspired by Barker, Bradbury, and King; World-Mart, a tribute to Orwell, Serling, and Vonnegut; and the dark allegorical tale, Myths of Gods.
http://www.cerebralwriter.com
http://www.cerebralwriter.com/blog.html
DAVID WHIPPMAN
David Whippman was born and raised in Bristol, then lived in Devon and is currently based in Lancashire, England. He spent most of his working life in healthcare. Now retired, David is a poet, storyteller and essayist. He also devotes time to art, chess and music. His blog on his writing process will appear at http://on.fb.me/1fOYs3Z
JACOB SINGER
Jacob Singer was born in Potchefstroom South Africa. After he matriculated, he studied Pharmacy at the Chelsea Polytechnic in London, England. Five years later he returned to South Africa, met and married Evelyn Jackson, and opened a pharmacy in Potchefstroom.
In 1985 he retired and in December 1992, with his family, he emigrated to Canada. His family had been threatened by the South African Security Police because of his work against the apartheid Government.
In 1995 he started writing his first book, BRAKENSTROOM, self-publishing it in 1999. In 2006 he started writing his second book, The VASE with the MANY COLOURED MARBLES, a story about a mother and daughter he knew when he was a boy, a story that explains in detail the horror of being classified a second class citizen in apartheid South Africa.
He is presently working on a third book, a true story about three friends.
You may visit his website at www.jacobashersinger.com
You can find his blog here: http://patroosp.blogspot.ca/
Join them next Sunday!
1) What am I working on?
I’m working on a novel, set in Portugal in the 1970s. It’s my first novel – usually I write short stories or poems. And usually I write about the future, in order to write about the present.
2) How does my work differ from others of its genre?
Well, in the novel, I’m using the past, for once, to write about both the present and the future. I don’t read enough historical fiction to know how different that makes it. Most of my work, though, is speculative fiction. It’s really too low-tech to be true science fiction, though it tends to be set in the future, the near future. Perhaps a better descriptor is social science fiction. Wherever and whenever it is set, I aim to write literature first and genre fiction second.
3) Why do I write what I do?
I like to set my stories in places where I have lived and worked, like England, Italy, Portugal and China, but to move away from the present in order to get a clearer perspective on them.
4) How does my writing process work?
Writing a novel has changed this. Before, I would write the story or poem on paper. Then I would type it on to the computer, print it out and revise it (several times) using pen on paper, before keying in the changes to leave a final version on the computer. Now, the first version of each chapter goes straight on to the computer. It saves time and speeds me towards the goal of a completed first draft. I’m hoping to reach that particular target by the end of this year, after which I’m prepared to spend another year turning it from a finished novel into a good novel, if I can.
Three fine authors will be taking up the baton next week and explaining their writing process: Jacob Singer, Leigh M. Lane and David Whippman.
Here are their bios and links.
LEIGH M. LANE
Leigh M. Lane has been writing for over twenty years. She has ten published novels and twelve published short stories divided among different genre-specific pseudonyms. She is married to editor Thomas B. Lane, Jr. and has recently returned to the hustle and bustle of Las Vegas after a three-year stay in the beautiful but desolate mountains of western Montana.
Her traditional Gothic horror novel, Finding Poe, was a 2013 EPIC Awards finalist in horror. Her other novels include the supernatural thriller, The Hidden Valley Horror, inspired by Barker, Bradbury, and King; World-Mart, a tribute to Orwell, Serling, and Vonnegut; and the dark allegorical tale, Myths of Gods.
http://www.cerebralwriter.com
http://www.cerebralwriter.com/blog.html
DAVID WHIPPMAN
David Whippman was born and raised in Bristol, then lived in Devon and is currently based in Lancashire, England. He spent most of his working life in healthcare. Now retired, David is a poet, storyteller and essayist. He also devotes time to art, chess and music. His blog on his writing process will appear at http://on.fb.me/1fOYs3Z
JACOB SINGER
Jacob Singer was born in Potchefstroom South Africa. After he matriculated, he studied Pharmacy at the Chelsea Polytechnic in London, England. Five years later he returned to South Africa, met and married Evelyn Jackson, and opened a pharmacy in Potchefstroom.
In 1985 he retired and in December 1992, with his family, he emigrated to Canada. His family had been threatened by the South African Security Police because of his work against the apartheid Government.
In 1995 he started writing his first book, BRAKENSTROOM, self-publishing it in 1999. In 2006 he started writing his second book, The VASE with the MANY COLOURED MARBLES, a story about a mother and daughter he knew when he was a boy, a story that explains in detail the horror of being classified a second class citizen in apartheid South Africa.
He is presently working on a third book, a true story about three friends.
You may visit his website at www.jacobashersinger.com
You can find his blog here: http://patroosp.blogspot.ca/
Join them next Sunday!
