Rach's Blog, page 2

Author Interview with Michael Brookes

Name or pen name: Michael Brookes Author of: Faust 2.0*Interviewer's comments are in bold. 1. What inspired you to write your first book? I’ve always enjoyed reading and that inspired stories, for most of my life I’ve sketched out ideas for books and written short stories. A few years ago I finally wrote a novel and people that read it told me that it was pretty good. I then decided to take that rough first draft and turn it into something presentable. I’ve been fortunate so far that my books have been well received and there is something very satisfying to see my skills as a writer improve with each book.

2. How did you come up with the title? I have a deep interest in the classics and the idea for Faust 2.0 came from the various Faust stories of a pact with the Devil. My book takes a different angle on the story with the Devil replaced with something more modern.


3. What genre do you consider your book(s)?I write stories that tend to cross genres, Faust 2.0 for example has elements of horror and science fiction, although both of those genres are quite broad in their scope.


4. Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life? Elements from the story have come from my own experiences, or events that I have heard of, but in the main the story comes from the imagination. I pose questions and the story is a way of answering those questions.

5. What books have most influenced your life most? A tough question! There are so many, I am a prolific reader and I manage to extract something from most books I have read. I consider John Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ the greatest story ever told and as well as being a great work of literature it’s also had a profound influence on my own writing.

6. If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor? I think I’ll cheat with this question and pick two authors, the first is Ian Banks, he has written many fine books and I’m a huge fan of his work, especially his science fiction stories, in fact Excession is my favorite novel ever written. What he does well as an author is take a big idea and make it comprehensible.
Clive Barker is the second author I would choose. He is a talented writer who has written some of the finest modern horror stories, but like my own stories he takes into some interesting directions. He writes with a clear visual style that has aided me in the development of my own writing.
Clearly, I do not read enough science fiction or horror. My experience science fiction has been pretty limited to Tom Clancy and other popular YA science fiction authors within the last ten years.
7. What book are you reading now?
I’ve just finished ‘The Reconstruction Descending’ which was a wonderfully bizarre collection of short stories, it’s a very quick read but contains some very odd stories. Highly recommended.
8. Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest and why? Oh yes, since publishing as an Indie author I’ve discovered many excellent authors. It might be true that the self publishing revolution has flooded the market with variable quality work, there are many gems amongst the crowd. For horror writers I’d like to shout out for David Haynes, his Victorian themed horror stories are some of the best horror you’ll ever read.
I’ve also widened my reading tastes thanks to be involved in the indie scene, I know read more self published work than authors from the big publishing houses. It’s a great time to be a reader!

9. If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book? I don’t think that I would, one of the aspects I enjoy as a writer is developing my craft, however I am satisfied with Faust 2.0 and I’m looking forward to writing the next book in the series.
10. Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing? Like many writers I find editing a difficult part of the process, I actually enjoy working through the draft, but it is difficult to get it done and reading right.

This is something I hear from authors over and over, editing is difficult. I copletely agree with the statement. I haven't talked to one author that does enjoy the editing process.
11. Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work? As mentioned earlier Ian M Banks is the author of Excession, which is my favourite novel. Like all great science fiction it tackles some big questions, but one of the aspects I enjoyed the most it the alien quality of the ship minds (they are essentially very powerful artificial intelligences) communicate. I also appreciate the world he creates, it’s a fantastic vision of the galaxy and the life it contains.

12. What was the hardest part of writing your book? The hardest part to writing any book is completing the process, the various steps on their own aren’t too bad, for example I love planning the story, I enjoy writing the first draft, I even find satisfaction in the editing process. But to complete it all is hard work and then once it’s done, you have to publish and promote the book. I’m not the world’s best marketer, but I keep at it because I want as many people as possible to read my work.

13. Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it? My books tend be explorations of ideas and I get to do some fun research for them. For Faust 2.0 in particular I researched a concept know as the technological singularity. This is an idea that technology will reach a stage that it will evolve beyond our control and beyond our understanding. The fear of losing control is one of our most basic fears, it spawned our belief in the supernatural, in many ways technology like computers and the internet share that threat of the unknown that primitive man had in the dark.

14. Do you have any advice for other writers? Stick with it and write want you want to write, listen to the advice of others but make your own decisions.

15. Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers? Thank you for reading and I hope you’ll continue to enjoy my stories. If you haven’t read any of my books yet then I invite you to do so, in fact if you sign up for my mailing list on my blog you can receive one of my e-books for free.


16. What books/authors have influenced your writing? As I mentioned earlier John Milton’s Paradise Lost has been a huge influence on my writing. It’s not simply the story but the ambition of what Milton created, I don’t pretend to be in the same league as Milton, but I do have the same ambition to share my thoughts.

17. Do you ever experience writer's block? All the time!
18. What do you do to overcome writer’s block?I believe in planning a book before I start writing the first draft so when I get stuck I can refer to the plan and move onto the next part and go back the bit I’ve missed when something comes to me.
Here is where I differ in the process. I personally will only write a very rough draft, often out on note cards. As I go I find I need to change events or their order within my novel(s). This is mostly because my books are more character driven than plot driven.
19. Do you write an outline before every book you write? Yes, I always plan a book out in advance, of course that plan often changes when I start writing, but that’s part of the fun.

20. Have you ever hated something you wrote? Yes, it happens all too often. There have been a few first drafts that have been put to one side never to see the light of day again, although sometimes they are resurrected in a different form.
21. What was you favorite book or series as a child?As a very young boy I loved the Thomas the Tank Engine books, there’s something cool about steam trains and especially talking ones.
22. What is your favorite television series?Millennium is my favourite TV show, I love the darkness of it and Lance Henrikson does an excellent job as the lead.

23. Do you have any unique talents or hobbies?Most of my time is spent writing, but I also volunteer for a local community magazine which I enjoy.

24. How can we contact you or find out more about your books?You can visit my blog at http://thecultofme.blogspot.co.uk/, as well as my writing and thoughts you’ll also discover other indie authors and a monthly short fiction contest.
Michael is probably not going to like what I'm about to write here. When I read the title of his blog, "The Cult of Me," I was very put-off. The title seemed so self-centered. I don't know if he picked it because it causes a reaction in people, but it sure got one out of me.

25. What can we expect from you in the future?I’m currently working on the final book in my Third Path trilogy, I’ll then be working on the follow up to Faust 2.0. I also have an audio short in production for one of my short stories which I’m quite excited about. 

Author Interview with Michelle M. Welch

Name or pen name: Michelle M. Welch Author of: The Sea Between the Worlds (Gbahn & Archipelago series), Confidence Game (Five Countries series)  *Interviewer Comments are in Bold  1. What inspired you to write your first book? I've been writing short stories since I was a kid. At some point my ideas became too long and complicated to fit in a short story. (Believe me, I tried. Some of the stories I wrote as a teenager were so dense and confusing even I don't understand what I was trying to say.) So it seemed a good time to step up to book-length works.
It's interesting when you are younger and you right, the storyline can make complete sense to you, but not anyone else. I can think of a few thing's I've written tha fall along those lines. 2. How did you come up with the title?The Sea Between the Worlds seemed an obvious choice for a book set in an archipelago between two land masses. That's one great thing about writing fantasy - you can create a world exactly the way you want it. Also, there's a cultural conflict between two (or more) societies that encounter each other, and the characters find themselves caught between these social worlds.
3. What genre do you consider your book(s)?My novels are fantasy. I also write short stories in the fantasy, science fiction, and magical realism/slipstream genres.
4. Are experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life? My novels are not autobiographical. Things in your life always find a way into your writing, though. Writing isn't compelling if it doesn't reflect things you hope, fear, and dream about.
More and more as I read and write, I realize my characters are often reflections of tiny facets of myself and my habits.
5. What books have most influenced your life most? My favorite genre authors are Ursula K. Le Guin and Harlan Ellison - kind of an odd pair - and their books have influenced me for years. I love Le Guin's use of language, her imaginativeness, and her powerful analysis of societies and how they affect the people living in them. Ellison's style of writing is like a brick to the head, and that kind of intensity is definitely at work in my Gbahn and Archipelago novels.
I haven't read either of these authors, but I will have to keep a look out for them.
6. If you had to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor? To be a mentor to me, you mean? Definitely Le Guin. She has so much knowledge and tells such wonderful stories. 7. What book are you reading now? I usually have several books going at once. Two that I just finished are Parasite, a near-future science fiction tale about medical technology gone wrong, and Murder and Mayhem, a nonfiction guide to crime scene and medical facts, for mystery writers.

8. Are there any new authors that have grasped your interest and why? I just picked up an ebook by Trista DiGiuseppi, who came to my attention through social media. I think she started by following my blog, then I followed her on Twitter, then she tweeted that her book was available... It's fun that new technologies put you more in contact with other writers, and you can get more excited about their successes than you might have if they were just a name on a cover in a bookstore.
I personally love Twitter for keeping up with others. I wouldn't have outright conversations on there, but it does make for an interesting way to network. 9. If you had to do it all over again, would you change anything in your latest book? Probably. I'm one of those writers who's never satisfied. I'd re-edit my first book, which was published ten years ago, if I could. At some point I've just got to say I'm done with it and it's time to go out into the world.
I feel you there, I did twenty plus edits of my first novel and I'm sure I could have done more. At some point you just have to say, "Stop! This is the best I can make it." 10. Is there anything you find particularly challenging in your writing? Every book presents its own challenges. The Sea Between the Worlds takes place partly at sea, and getting a handle on the seafaring terminology and the kinds of events that would occur at sea was kind of overwhelming. (But a lot of fun!) I've been working for at least fifteen years on a historical fantasy, and I still can't decide exactly how the magic should work in a real-world setting, not to mention the mountains of historical research involved. My new work in progress is a science fiction/mystery crossover, and there's a lot to consider about how a good mystery should work. The biggest challenge, I guess, is satisfying myself, accomplishing the kind of story I'm trying to write.
This is probably the largest reason I'm hesitant to write historical fiction myself, there is a lot of research and interpretation involved. I do have one book that will be in part historical which I know for sure I have to write, but when I take on the task is a whole different question. 11. Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work? If I have to come up with another author I haven't mentioned already, I'd like to go with one I enjoy reading just for the sake of reading, not as a direct influence on my writing. I'm delighted by Jim Butcher's Dresden Files books. I love how they work on so many levels: wild adventure and humor on the surface, a deep portrayal of a really tortured character beneath.

12. What was the hardest part of writing your book? I'm going to skip ahead to book two in the series, The Source in the Desert, because that was the harder one to write. I realized that I left an important character out on the sidelines, and he really needed to be one of the primary narrators. This meant that I not only had to rip out a third of the chapters and rewrite them from his point of view, but I really had to get inside his mind - a pretty dark place to be.

That is a huge challange, I write in limited omniscient, but from scene to scene I shift characters. Sometimes I know what character's mind I need to be in, how they will react, other times it's a guessing game.
13. Did you learn anything from writing your book and what was it? How to take chances. The character I mentioned above, the one who needed to be a primary narrator despite how dark his headspace was, wasn't the only one who was hard to write. Many of the characters in these two books experience a lot of brutal things; some of them do pretty bad things. But it was all necessary to tell the story I wanted to tell - about how people can overcome their past, hold on to their humanity, and do better. 14. Do you have any advice for other writers? First, figure out why you're writing. This is both on the level of individual books (what you're trying to say with a book, so you can do it convincingly) and on the career level (deciding whether to go for the autonomy of self-publishing or the support and wider reach of traditional). Second, find the right balance between trusting your vision and being critical enough of your own work to really polish it. Your book isn't a precious flower, and at the same time, it is.

15. Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers? Thanks. I'm glad you took a chance on something that isn't the usual fantasy, and I hope you found something worthwhile.
16. What books/authors have influenced your writing? I try to gather a little bit from everything I read - inspiration from other fiction writers in different genres, useful details and story seeds from nonfiction of all kinds.

17. Do you ever experience writer's block? I think there are different kinds of writer's block. There's the kind where you just can't figure out what scene, or even what sentence, comes next. Then there's the kind where you can't get up the motivation to write at all. I have a little of the first kind all the time, and it's why I write fairly slowly. The second one comes and goes in cycles. I once spent most of year not writing a thing.
I completely agree with this! When I get writers block, it's generally, "I'm afraid, because I don't know where I am going. I don't know what is going to happen next."Then I realize I never really know, my characters are constantly surprising myself. It's just how I write.
18. What do you do to overcome writer’s block?The answer is the same for both kinds. In both cases, the problem is that the idea I had isn't where the story really needs to go, so I need to look at it differently. Toss the scene and start over. Try putting it somewhere else, or having different characters involved. In the case of year-long blocks, I was trying to write the wrong project entirely. I had to get over my desire to write something that wasn't working and come up with a better project.

19. Do you write an outline before every book you write? My initial outlines are very brief. The outline for books 2 and 3 of the Five Countries novels was, "At the end of book 2, Aron makes the wrong choice. At the end of book 3, he makes the right one." I had no idea what these choices were going to be when I started writing, but I filled in the details and fleshed out the outline as I went along. 20. Have you ever hated something you wrote? All of my attempts so far at the historical fantasy project. There have been at least five or six of them. One version had 20,000 words and I threw them out. Another had 30,000 words, all crap. I'm still trying to find the right take on the story, and I won't like it until I do.
I have one piece where the MC was so void of emotion and so willing to do anything, no matter how bad it was, because she didn't care. I quickly was fed up with the story. It was just too dark for me.
21. What was your favorite book or series as a child?I read all the usual suspects: Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Lloyd Alexander. Alexander's book The Kestrel was an early influence on my writing: a story set in a fictional world that looks a lot like 18th-century Europe, where an otherwise good guy finds himself turning into a brutal military leader when his country goes to war.
22. What is your favorite television series?My TV watching habits are as eclectic as my reading habits. I don't have cable, so I catch up on a lot of series on Netflix, and my queue is split between goofy comedies like 30 Rock and heavy mystery/suspense stuff like Dexter and Luther, with some costume dramas thrown in. I like Mythbusters and Doctor Who. I've been turning on network TV only because Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. is on.
I love Doctor Who. I can't wait to watch this year's Christmas special.
23. Do you have any unique talents or hobbies?I play a variety of instruments, although not as much as I used to. I've been involved in symphony orchestras, Irish fiddling, and Renaissance music for a historical re-creation group. 24. How can we contact you or find out more about your books?My website is at mmwelch.wordpress.com. All my books and published short stories are listed there, as well as some free short fiction and a link to the free podcast anthology that I edited, Theme and Variations. Email, Goodreads, and Twitter contacts are there as well.

25. What can we expect from you in the future?I've got two other projects out on submission, the science fiction/mystery novel and a crossover fantasy/romance series. (I'd like to try several different publishing venues, small press and self-publishing, to gather more experiences and compare them to my prior experience with traditional publishing.) I'm also looking at my backlog of short fiction and trying to find homes for some of the stories.

Interview

I recently had an author interview with Mia Darien. She posted it on her blog this morning. http://www.miadarien.com/ten-questions-with-rachael-horsma/

Featuring authors and their books!

 I am looking to feature authors and their books!
Contact me on my Goodreads page https://www.goodreads.com/author/show... or email me at rhorsma@yahoo.com if you are interested.

Blogging Hiatus

So my blogging took a little hiatus over the last few days because I was in Chicago! I went there with the Design Guild from my college to visit a Trade Show. It was a very fun & educational experience. We stayed on the loop so we walked to everywhere. Boy, do flats kill after walking that much in them! I saw the Bean for the first time in my life & in the Chicago Institute of Art I saw many artworks that I have admired for a long time. I got fired from the front seat of the van we drove to Chicago. Apparently I am very distracting/annoying when I sketch and design. (Truthfully, I can see that.) We were almost killed twice on the way back, once by a tarp, the second by a several car pile-up caused by a distracted (presumably texting) driver. Both our vans and riders remain unscathed. Honestly the trip was a blast and I can't wait to work in the exhibit design industry!

Three no-no's that will pull a reader out of a story.

When it comes to writing, there are a lot of rules. Otherwise, would we spend so much time in school studying languages?  Not all of the rules are written though. When writing fiction, here are three basic rules not to break.
1) Don't be cliche, nothing will hang the reader up faster than a tired cliche. The problem with cliches is they are so overused, they loose their meaning. Worse case scenario, said cliche reminds readers of other works they are used in. This can give an unintended message. I read a book which used a cliche that screamed Spider-Man. The book was a YA fantasy, not a comic book. To be honest, leaving cliches in your writing can make the work clunky and sloppy.
2) Using a specific branded item in your story without giving it a physical description. This is in part realizing who your audience is. You probably don't have to describe an iPod touch, but if you said, "Sally drove her Saturn SL1," most people would have no clue what to imagine. One quick fix is to keep the object generic, you can still give it a description, but now you are allowing the reader to make their own decision about what the item looks like.
3) The ever obvious spelling and grammatical errors. I don't think I have to explain this one.

Unintended Audiences

Something funny has happened since I published Soul Seed. I am increasingly getting an audience who think I am a christian/inspirational author. This is something I did not anticipate, mostly because even though my title may suggest my book is religious, it most definitely is not.

It purely is a work of fiction and fantasy. I guess that's what happens when people judge a book on its title. If I were a company and I was hiring readers, I wouldn't hire any of my new unusual audience because they didn't do their research. Just kidding, it is partly my fault because I'm reaching an unintended market, oops!

First Review

I just had the first review of my novel, Soul Seed. I have to admit I am feeling good. I'd Imagined what it would feel like to be an author, but I couldn't imagine how good it feels! Thank you to the reviewer, you are amazing and I am glad you enjoyed Soul Seed.

The review is posted here: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show....

Latest responses and character inspiration.

After the (soft) launch of my fist novel Soul Seed, I have had more response than I ever expected. I've had people contact me both on my Goodreads page and by my email to tell me that they are genuinely interested in reading my book, and can't wait to start it. I have to tell you, I feel like I am floating on top of the world. I cannot wait to be in contact wit more of my readers!

On another note, I thought I'd start sharing obscure facts about my book, such as where I get certain idea's and how certain characters were inspired. I'll try hard to warn of spoilers, really I will.

Landra, who is one of the main character of Soul Seed, was inspired by a video of Emma Watson. It's just how Emma caries herself, she is so confident. She is having fun. This is exactly who Landra wants to be; confident, fun, and strong. It really wasn't till the end of Soul Seed did I realize exactly what kind of character Landra is. She is the friend character, the one everyone whats to be around, but not so much in a way where she HAS to be the center of attention.

Interview with the Author!

I was recently interviewed. Thank you, Book Goodies. You can see the interview at http://bookgoodies.com/tag/rachael-horsma/