R.R. Virdi's Blog, page 2

R.R. Virdi Launches Patreon

Hey-o true believers. How are you?

Oh, me? Well, thanks ever-so-much for asking. I’m capital. See, some of you have been nudging me for quite the while to get up and start this Patreon thing. Others have wondered where I’ve been. I really haven’t been posting as much. Oops. My bad.

But I’m back. And, here it is. My patreon where you can get on up and get sneaky first hand/early access to all my imaginary gobbledy brain nuggets. If you want ’em, that is.

Here’s the linkaroo:

https://www.patreon.com/rrvirdi

^^How do you support me so you can see some more wordings? Well, if you can’t commit financially, which is so totally okay, maybe do a share and pimp the link around.

As always, thank you from the bottom of my heart for your kindness and investment in my career, whether it’s with money, or just your love of my work and word of mouth sharing. All of it makes a difference. You have an amazing effect on my career and life. So, thank you.

Author Spotlight: K.M. Vanderbilt

Author Spotlight

K.M. Vanderbilt

Author Interview Questions:


1: Hi, and thanks for joining today. In your own words tell us about yourself, not you the author, but just
you!

A: I am classified as a sentient meat suit. I like cheese.

 

2: Why did you decide to become an author and what’s the best part? Yeah, it’s a double-whammy of a
question. So unexpected!

 

A: I didn’t really DECIDE it, I guess. I just wanted it so bad I would have died if I didn’t do it. See…what
had happened was…I was living in this small town in the butt crack of AR, just on the edge of a black
hole of squalor and oh-god- please-don’t- throw-that- beer-bottle. I hopped a metaphorical midnight train
going anywhere. And then I just started writing, and editing, and writing some more, and editing EVEN
MORE. And then…there was this friggin’ book. It was epic.
As for the best part, anything fan-related. I have a dedicated little cult, and they are the bee’s knees. I’m
not even sure if bees have knees, but my cult members do. I had a point when I started this…

 

3: So, tell us about your work. Sell us on it! Why should we read it and why it will capture us?

 

A: *cracks knuckles* OKAY! If you like trope-flipping in dark fantasy; a thick dollop of gray morality; and
a sprinkle of blood, guts, and gore, Errant Tides is definitely for you! Did I mention drow pirates? That
seems to be the real selling point, to be honest.

 

4: Why did you choose the genre you write in over others to start your publishing career? Did others
appeal to you more and you chose this? Was there a bit of choice weighing or was it rather simple?

 

A: I’ve always written fantasy in some form, but this particular series has been banging around in my
brain for a while. After letting it beat me up for a decade, I just…word vomited. I didn’t choose this; it
chose me.

 

5: So far, what would you say has been the hardest part of being an author?

 

A: Toss up: time to write or time to market. There’s rarely a moment where I can do one without
ignoring the other. So I mostly just write. Figure production is more important at this point.

 

6: Now for the ever-so- shocking follow-up question. What’s the best/easiest part, if there is one?

 

A: The fight scenes. I throw on some Paranormal Attack and bathe in the blood of my
enemies—figuratively, of course. I DID mention in the acknowledgements portion of Errant Tides I
haven’t graduated to real murder. Yet.

 

7: Tell us about what your experiences in the author life have been like. I don’t mean the writing
aspects. I mean the daily human life. Tell us what it’s like to live the day life you do and be an author at
the same time. What’s it like when people in your life and, the people you come across, find out you’re
an author?

 

A: It’s pretty lowkey most of the time, to be perfectly honest. I only mention it if people ask about
something related…or what I do. Mostly I get the condescending nod and, “Oh. A writer.” Sometimes,
though, I meet really cool people that are into it. ANECDOTE TIME! I went to the post office a few weeks
ago to mail out some swag (letters, bookmarks, couple of signed books), and a woman asked if I was a
teacher. I laughed…because…NO. But when I told her what I was mailing and why (I DO IT FOR THE
FANS, I TELL YOU!), she was just wowed. We ended up talking for about 10 minutes about the ins and
outs of the writer life, and she looked me up on Amazon while I was standing there. It was a nice
moment.

 

8: Writing is a hard craft and a harder career. What are the things that keep you going, both in
improving the craft and enduring the downs/lows of the career?

 

A: Well, I mentioned the fans. My alpha reader has been a diehard Vanderbilt fan for like…12 years now.
Before I was even publishing, right? This woman makes me unload the finger gun when I want to
discharge it into my eyeballs. When I want to quit, think I’m a hack or absolute shit, there she is with
some pompoms and words of wisdom—or just a kick to the ass; that also works.
On my own, though, I just have this absolute fear of sucking. I try VERY hard not to put out subpar
material. I know it won’t be for everyone just the same, but I want to know and believe I’ve done the
best job possible when I put my work out there for other people to read.

 

9: What do you love about the genre/s you write and what others appeal to you?

A: Dark fantasy is fun because it doesn’t present itself in black and white lines. You can explore so much
through the societies you build, the races you craft, and the way all of that comes together…with a big
red magic cherry on top. I dunno. I grew up reading high fantasy and always hated the cop out happy
ending. I didn’t discover GRRM until I was almost 30, and I realized this was the type of story—not style,
but genre and no-holds- barred mayhem—I had been trying to put together.
Otherwise, I’m a fan of punk genres and sci-fi. And don’t even get me started on genre benders. I live for
something weird and new.

 

10: Tell us about the plans for your series and body of work.

 

A: Uhhh…hmm. Well, I don’t have a definite plan for a NUMBER in The Breadth Key Cycle. I thought it
would be around six originally, but it looks like it’s closer to ten. Heh. Tends to happen when you’re
working with nine separate worlds. Otherwise, though, I have some other one-offs and anthology pieces
in the works. The plan is to write until I die.

 

11: The writing and publishing world has changed a lot. Self-publishing, small to medium presses
popping up, and things like becoming a hybrid between indie pubbing and traditional. What are your
thoughts on that? Any predictions on what the future might hold? What would you like to see, both as
an author yourself, and, as a consumer/reader?

 

A: The publishing world blows my mind. I’m still trying to make sense of all of it. Anymore, it doesn’t
make sense to go for a full, trad pub contract. Newcomers don’t have the full backing of a publishing
house unless they have something marketable—and that doesn’t even translate to a GOOD body of
work. Indies CAN make it big, but it’s not the norm. I see a lot of hybrids, and I think that’s the future of
the market for people seeking a career. I reckon we’ll see a lot more of the hybrid published writers. As
for what I want to see? Diversity, good writing, new stories that settle themselves outside the beaten
path.

 

12: The always done and asked question. Who are your favorite authors? What are you favorite books?
What are you reading now? Tell us. Tell us!

 

A: Favorite authors stays pretty static, but David Farland, Melanie Rawn, and Kate Elliott. There are
more, but this is what I grew up on and come back to every year. Right now, I’m between reading
material. I’m editing for two authors, but those projects are hush hush.

 

13: I’ve got to know…what’s your favorite word to use. Every author has one. What’s the word you catch
yourself using a lot? We’ve all got those as well. What’s your favorite word just to say? Something
where you like the way it sounds. What’s your favorite curse worse, if you’ve got one and or use them?

 

A: I like the word onomatopoeia. I never use it in writing, though. It’s just fun to say. My favorite curse
word is “dick whiffle.” Just let that sink in. Erm…no pun intended. It gets more ridiculous the longer you
think about it.

 

14: Tell us about your latest release. Or, when can we expect your next one? What are we in store for?!
A: My latest Release is Errant Tides. It’s the first book in The Breadth Key Cycle. Deals mostly with a
drow cast—pirates, priestesses, and gods. Lots of pew pew and clang clang, little bit of love, and lots of
backstabbing and fuckery. Can I say fuckery? Well, I did.

 

15: Lastly, where can we find you? Facebook? Twitter? Website? Links to your material. Go on, don’t be
shy. Share!

 

A: I can be found on

 

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theauthorknownasvanderbilt/?ref=bookmarks
Twitter: https://twitter.com/KmVanderbilt
Website: https://www.kmvanderbilt.com/
Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/kmvanderbilt/



Click cover to be taken to book:

Bio: The author known as Vanderbilt is an avid smoker and a lover of words. She draws inspiration from beer bongs, empty toilet paper rolls, and the almighty chicken wing, using her experiences to pen stories infused with all the bits and pieces that make life interesting.

So, tell us what did you think of the interview?

Author Spotlight: S.E. Anderson

Author Spotlight
S.E. Anderson

Interview Questions:

 

1: Hi, and thanks for joining today. In your own words tell us about yourself, not you the author, but just you!
A: Oh man, where to start? I’m one of those people who doesn’t really come from anywhere, with my parents from one place, being born in another, living yet somewhere else… it gets weird. But I’m incredibly fascinated by pretty much everything. I’m currently studying to become an astrophysicist, but in the meantime I write a lot about weird people and weird lives.
2: Why did you decide to become an author and what’s the best part? Yeah, it’s a double-whammy of a question. So unexpected!
A: I don’t think I ever decided, it’s just something that was thrust upon me. I’ve always been writing, or at least telling stories. I guess that comes from having an amazing father who told me great stories as a kid. I think the best part about being an author is being friends with other authors: they’re the kind of people who can damage you emotionally with a brilliant book, but you can still freak out about their series with them.
3: So, tell us about your work. Sell us on it! Why should we read it and why it will capture us?
A: Are you an anxious person? Constantly watching great shows on Netflix and dreaming of life in Space? Well, Sally Webber, my main character, she gets to live that: when she hits an alien with her car, suddenly she’s sucked into a life of constantly having to stop one crisis or another from happening, while keeping herself from becoming a crisis herself. It’s funny, it’s weird, and wholly relatable.
4: Why did you choose the genre you write in over others to start your publishing career? Did others appeal to you more and you chose this? Was there a bit of choice weighing or was it rather simple?
A: I love scifi. One look at my bookshelf and it just can’t be denied. I just love sprawling, epic stories with science at their cores – so it was only a logical next step!
5: So far, what would you say has been the hardest part of being an author?
A: Being happy with your work. Being able to say “yes, that’s enough.” I’m just never quite sure, I always think it can somehow be better. This book took me seven years to be happy with!
6: Now for the ever-so-shocking follow-up question. What’s the best/easiest part, if there is one?
A: Writing. Writing is a blast, there’s really no other way to describe it.
7: Tell us about what your experiences in the author life have been like. I don’t mean the writing aspects. I mean the daily human life. Tell us what it’s like to live the day life you do and be an author at the same time. What’s it like when people in your life and, the people you come across, find out you’re an author?
A: Massive question here! I mean, it’s fun to go home after class and just go to an entirely other world. To completely lose track of time and get an author hangover. I haven’t actually introduced myself as an author yet to my friends and family, though. I just tell them “I like to write” and most of the time, they tell me they do to! It’s really great to be linked by this.
8: Writing is a hard craft and a harder career. What are the things that keep you going, both in improving the craft and enduring the downs/lows of the career?
A: I just keep writing. I mean, if I feel like a book is bad, I switch projects until I feel like it’s worth working on again. I keep writing and reading and writing and reading and eventually, I have a book. It’s the other parts (editing, querying) that gets me down!
9: What do you love about the genre/s you write and what others appeal to you?
A: The world building. I love being able to explore the universe without leaving my room.
10: Tell us about the plans for your series and body of work.
A: So the Starstruck series is going to be fifteen books, and more of them are already done, pending edits. I’ve ben working on the series for seven years, just as a pet project, never expecting to publish. Maybe one other person has read them all. Then there’s a spinoff series of Starstruck, and a standalone with other characters. But that’s just Starstruck. I’ve got an SF/UF I can’t wait to spend time on and tons of YA that need to be worked on.
11: The writing and publishing world has changed a lot. Self-publishing, small to medium presses popping up, and things like becoming a hybrid between indie pubbing and traditional. What are your thoughts on that? Any predictions on what the future might hold? What would you like to see, both as an author yourself, and, as a consumer/reader?
A: Having spent so much time with self published authors, I really believe that it’s a trade that can work. But traditional publishing is not dead: there’s a lot of aspects that self published authors don’t yet have access too. And I see big houses as being promoters of quality, and I trust what their authors put out. But self pubbed authors, and indie press, bring fantastic authors to the table that cannot be dismissed. Honestly? The future of the industry is way too many books to read!
12: The always done and asked question. Who are your favorite authors? What are you favorite books? What are you reading now? Tell us. Tell us!
A: I love so many books, it’s hard to trim it down! I love Douglas Adams and Neil Gaiman, I love V.E. Schwab and Lauren Beukes and David Mitchell… Currently though I’m reading a lot of non-fiction, and Jon Rhonson is addicting!
13: I’ve got to know…what’s your favorite word to use. Every author has one. What’s the word you catch yourself using a lot? We’ve all got those as well. What’s your favorite word just to say? Something where you like the way it sounds. What’s your favorite curse worse, if you’ve got one and or use them?
A: I love defenestration. At least, that’s my word right now!
14: Tell us about your latest release. Or, when can we expect your next one? What are we in store for?!
A: Starstruck is coming out May 4th, and it’s going to be a blast. And there’s not long to wait on the sequel! Bolide Publishing and I are aiming for an October release, though a sample chapter will be included in the print copies of Starstruck. What I can tell you is that the sequel is called Alienation. But that’s all for now, wink wink!
15: Lastly, where can we find you? Facebook? Twitter? Website? Links to your material. Go on, don’t be shy. Share!
A: Links!
seandersonauthor.com
www.facebook.com/seandersonauthor
Twitter: @sea_author

 

Click the cover image to be taken to buy links.

 

New Spotlight: Olivia K. Spektor

Spotlight:

Olivia K. Spektor

Interview Questions:

1. Hi, and thank you for joining me here. Instead of me yammering about, why don’t you tell my readers who you are and what it is you write.
A: My name is Olivia K. Spektor, thank you again for featuring me. I am a writer, artist and, most importantly to me, an aspiring author. I have written a lot of poetry, mostly from my youth, detailing my own journey of self-discovery. Some of them are very much full of angst, but over the years I have come to terms with who I am and I think poetry helped me get to this point the most. I also write short stories and I am currently editing my very first Novel and hope to debut it within a year.
2. The particular thing that caught my, and many people’s notice, was a beautiful poem you posted in the Nanohana writing group. You used the titles (effortlessly and wonderfully so) of many member’s novels. Asides from it being a project, what prompted you to write that particular poem? I mean, you had a laundry list of titles you could have used, but you chose fellow members. Thank you for that.
A: My initial thought was to use the books on display, but as I skimmed through other people’s poem entries, I saw that everyone else was doing that too. I don’t like poems to be generic, so I thought “what else can I do”? It wasn’t hard to decide I wanted to use fellow Nanohana titles, because that community has become a large part of me and I like to give back to them whenever I can. Not only this, but it was self-promo Friday and I love seeing writers promote other writers and I wanted to be a part of that. So, I pulled up lists of the published titles, wrote down the titles that stuck out to me most and got to working. I noticed they all held a similar theme and my mind picks up easily on this specific topic: dreams. Most of the titles were fantasy based so it made it easy to find a subject. After that was just piecing them together like a puzzle.
3. I’ve normally interviewed novelists, so forgive me for being out of my depth and asking what might be some silly questions. But, what’s one of the challenges you face in writing poetry? I’m totally ignorant on the subject. I can read it, appreciate it, but it’s always harder writing it than enjoying it.
A: Not silly questions at all! For me poetry comes easiest when I’m feeling intense emotions. For me, this is different than being visited by a muse, because these feelings are their own entity and don’t inspire me so much as demand to be written. It is like ripping out a chunk of my heart and pasting it to paper. I have heard that many other poets have this similar problem. Also, a lot of poets can’t write unless they are in a mentally dark place, and unfortunately for me, I’m the same way most of the time. I know, that’s the most poet thing to say. I can’t help it. Anyway, my poetic prowess had hit a dry spell until my library had that challenge up for the students, then suddenly, I wrote that poem like I had been able to in the past, but without all the anguish and turmoil. This has actually inspired me to try new forms of poetry, like black out poetry and I can’t wait to see where that takes me.
4. The totally unexpected follow up. *BAM* What’s one of the joys of writing poetry? Obviously, you love it. But, is there something more? Do you love the way it all takes shape and form? Do you love the challenge of it? Maybe it’s how you make others feel. A combination of all of the above and or more?
A: Well, it took a long time before I decided to share my poetry. I decided to put them in the open because I wanted to know how many others can relate or understand. I knew I couldn’t be the only one who had these feelings. I know the best moment for me so far was a coworker of mine, who was in high school, read through my poetry on my blog and picked two poems as his favorite that he could relate to. The two he picked, and he could have chosen any of the forty-seven that were out at the time, just happened to be the two that were the hardest for me to share because of how emotionally taxing they were to write. The way that made me feel, that someone, even just one person, read my poems and could get something from it, was the best feeling in the world.
5. What are some of the things you’d like to see happen to your work, or from it as a result? Is this something you want to pursue as a career?
A: The only thing I can really hope will come from my poetry, or anything that I write, is that someone reads it and feels something. If I can do just that, I think I have succeeded as a writer, regardless of how much money it rakes in. I definitely want to pursue writing as a career, it is the one thing that brings me the most joy and relief from the hardships of the world and it’s the one thing that has always felt right in my life.
6. Who are some of the authors/poets that inspire you? Are the artists outside the literary field that you also draw inspiration from? I know that often times I’ve been inspired by digital artwork notably. In fact, the current science fiction I’m writing came about from a single still image of a sci fi scene. Tell us!
A: My number one inspiration for any and all of my writing is Emilie Autumn. She’s a musician/song writer/performer/actress/singer, really the list goes on. Her style is unique and vibrant in a way that is hard to explain. She has figured out a way to mesh Victorian, burlesque and asylum all together into her own genre of music and I can’t get enough. In fact, my current work in progress, a novel, is equal parts inspired by her song “Mad girl” and Olivia Plath’s poem “Mad Girls Love Song”. The poem also inspired the title for my novel, “A Mad Girls Lullaby”.
7. If you plan to pursue longer form writing, do you think your poetry, and the skills you’ve learned from it will show up in your novels? I’ve seen a fair hand of fiction where there’s beautiful, almost poetic prose. At times, there’s also just poems placed into those works.
A: Most definitely! I don’t know if I can say that my prose is poetic, but I do want to incorporate poetry into my future novels. The way that Tolkien did it in the Hobbit I think is what gave me the idea to incorporate poetry and prose together. I feel it adds more color and depth to the work in a way that isn’t seen often enough.
8. Thank you for doing this and for the last bit I’d love for you to share where people can find you, your work, and if there’s anything else you’d like to say, please go for it!
A: People can find me on Facebook and Instagram. I’m more active on Facebook, where I’ll post updates, and pictures that may be inspiring for some. On my website is where I put my poetry, some short stories, artwork, and more recently a blog.

Thank you, R.R. Virdi, again for this and I really admire your work so this means a lot that you would give me this opportunity.
https://oliviaspektor.wordpress.com/



https://www.facebook.com/Oliviakspekt...
https://www.instagram.com/oliviaspektor/?hl=en

Author Spotlight: Paige L. Christie

Author Spotlight:

Paige L. Christie

Author Interview Questions

1: Hi, and thanks for joining today. In your own words tell us about yourself, not you the author, but just you!

A: Hi! I’m Paige Christie. I write under Paige L. Christie, because I have two first names, and if I don’t use the initial, everyone gets my name backwards.
I was raised in Maine. I was a cross country ski racer, biathlete and PSIA Ski Instructor. After college, I spent several years roaming the USA, before landing in the mountains of North Carolina where I have worked as a photographer, raft guide, website designer, gallery owner and wine shop specialist.  (Yes, I’ve had way too many jobs.)
My hobbies include reading, cycling, skiing, Middle Eastern and North African Folk dance, Raqs Sharqi, photographing native plants, and drinking wine. I share my house with my hubby, a herd of three-legged cats, and two loud hounds.
2: Why did you decide to become an author and what’s the best part? Yeah, it’s a double-whammy of a question. So unexpected!

A: I knew when I was seven years old that I wanted to be an author. I can’t remember not being a writer.  It just took me 35+ years to figure out how to write something that could be considered an actual book. Some part of me always assumed that I needed to know what I was doing to be an ‘real’ author, and not just a hack filling millions of notebook pages with stories no one was every going to read.
I decided to really go for it after my dear friend, Ellen, talked me into doing NaNoWriMo in November of 2014. By the time I’d written 50K words that month, I knew I had a real book on my hands. I knuckled down and finished the dang thing.  After that, it was all about deciding to do the real work of multiple revisions and edits, to transform the draft from a pile of sand into a castle.
The best part about being an author so far…that’s a tough question. So many things have been great! Having people believe in the book and help get it out into the world, seeing it in print, and having my favorite author in the world write a cover blurb for it, are my tops things.

3: So, tell us about your work. Sell us on it! Why should we read it and why it will capture us?

A: The first book is called Draigon Weather. My publisher says it’s “High Fantasy Meets High Noon”. I call it a feminist western with dragons. I started with classic idea of the woman chained to a rock about to be sacrificed to a dragon. Then I messed with the idea.  What if she didn’t want to be rescued? Why would that be? What would happen? You’ll have to read the book to find out how it turned out.

4: Why did you choose the genre you write in over others to start your publishing career? Did others appeal to you more and you chose this? Was there a bit of choice weighing or was it rather simple?

A: There was never really any doubt about what I would write. I love Fantasy and Westerns, so I smooshed them together – so dragons and cowboy knights. That’s the other great thing about being an author, being able to write the stuff I’d want to read. (Now, I just hope someone else wants to read it, too. So far, so good.) I love mysteries, but my brain is not organized enough to ever write one. And thrillers – same problem. I used to write ‘literature’, but it was not for me for so many reasons. I’ll happily stick with the weird and funky.

5: So far, what would you say has been the hardest part of being an author?

A: Time. Carving out the time to really get the work done. I wrote the first draft of Draigon Weather in four months while working seven days a week. It took another year, and a dozen alpha/beta reads, and ten edits, before I was comfortable showing it to anyone. I spent a lot of late nights, and lot of tears, and discovered a whole bunch of determination I never knew I had.

6: Now for the ever-so-shocking follow-up question. What’s the best/easiest part, if there is one?

A: I’m not sure there’s anything easy about being an author, at least if you’re really working at it. Maybe, for some people, things come easier. But I, for example, am a terrible typist. I also can’t spell my way out of a paper bag. And I’m a terribly slow writer. I’m also an introvert, so marketing is difficult. So…easiest thing…being excited that I’ve actually accomplished this!

7: Tell us about what your experiences in the author life have been like. I don’t mean the writing aspects. I mean the daily human life. Tell us what it’s like to live the day life you do and be an author at the same time. What’s it like when people in your life and, the people you come across, find out you’re an author?

A: It’s kind of weird to think about, because I’ve always held some identity as a writer, even if no one around me knew it. I knew I had good stories and was a decent writer, so that part I’ve always held confidently in the back of my mind. Being a real author with a published book, has been a new twist, though.
I was always super secretive about my writing, except for a few close partners-in-literary-chaos, so most people have been surprised to find out I have a book out. I’m still pretty surprised myself, every day, at the whole process. Mostly, I have been so busy learning how everything works that I am not sure I really think of myself as an author yet.  Give me a couple years and a couple more books, then ask me again.

8: Writing is a hard craft and a harder career. What are the things that keep you going, both in improving the craft and enduring the downs/lows of the career?

A: Writing has never been a choice for me. It’s always been something I needed to do. I just never thought anyone else would ever see it – ha! The things that keep me going now that I’ve decided to go for an actual career of some sort, are the people around me who believe I can do it. I have fantastic writing partners. We attack and critique each other’s work without mercy, edit for each other, tell each other no, encourage, cry together, laugh a lot. Without them, I’d be lost. I also lucked into an editor/publisher who is crazy in the same way I am. That helps. Plus, I’m a damn stubborn Yankee.

9: What do you love about the genre/s you write and what others appeal to you?

A: Oh man, what don’t I love? I love fantasy for the fact that I can be as creative as I want to be, no holds barred. I love that I can use rich language, and can take on big ideas and themes. I love that I can subvert the expected. Plus, dragons. I can have dragons all over the place. It’s like having dark chocolate for every meal. As far as other genres, I’ll pretty much read anything but Erotica, or anything racist or sexist. I just flat like to read.

10: Tell us about the plans for your series and body of work.
A: I have four books planned for the Legacies of Arnan series. I did not know, when I began writing the first book, that it was a series. But I got 100K words in and discovered there was a lot more story to tell.  So…two books, I thought. Then a minor character decided he needed to be a major character and get his own book…and then I still had more story to finish. So, now I’m looking at four books. I am in the process of revising book 2, and book 3 is ½ way into first draft.  Hopefully, I’ll have all these out in a reasonable time frame.

11: The writing and publishing world has changed a lot. Self-publishing, small to medium presses popping up, and things like becoming a hybrid between indie pubbing and traditional. What are your thoughts on that? Any predictions on what the future might hold? What would you like to see, both as an author yourself, and, as a consumer/reader?

A: That’s a question we could discuss for hours. I love that Indie publishing exists. I think it’s a brave way to go, and I would have done so myself if I had not found my publisher. (I found my home with a small press, and, so far, I have enjoyed the ride. I’ve learned a ton and had a great experience.) That said, I had no idea how much I didn’t know, despite all the research I did when I thought I was going indie. I am so grateful to have a small press with a long-game-view of publishing backing me up.
I’m not a fan of ‘hybrid’ publishing. While I believe that if you get help from folks, professional editors, cover artists, formatting experts, etc, those people should get paid a fair price, (and if those creative services are not part of your skill set as an author, then, by all means, carefully seek them out) ‘package deal’ publishing rubs me wrong. If the ‘publisher’ makes all its money up front, what’s the incentive to really look after the author and promote the book? For some folks, maybe it works, but it feels off to me.
I think the Big Five are still doing great work, but maybe they need to be more nimble in the market place. I also mourn the lack of willingness to take risks, and back new authors, and let authors really find their audiences and grow. I think it’s a loss on all fronts.
In general: Among Indies, I’d like to see more polished work coming onto the market. There’s a lot of un-edited stuff out there, and it dumbs down the market and hurts those who put in the work. I’d like to see big publishers taking more risks and thinking outside the box. And I’d love to see more support for small presses and Indie bookshops, both within the industry, and from readers. Also more female protagonists doing things besides pining for menfolk.  I also think people need to be willing to pay more for books. Writers have to eat, too.

12: The always done and asked question. Who are your favorite authors? What are you favorite books? What are you reading now? Tell us. Tell us!

A: My favorite question!  Top of the charts if Janny Wurts with her Wars of Light and Shadow Series. I’m a shameless fangirl and have been for twenty years. Other favorites include Octavia Butler, Leslie Marmon Silko, Robert B. Parker, Max Brand (aka Frederick Faust), Gloria Naylor, Sandra Cisneros, Tim O’Brian, Dan Simmons, Naomi Movik, Robin McKinley…. I could rattle on forever, but I’ll stop there. I am currently reading a lot of women genre writers, Lucy Hounsom, Becky Chambers, Kameron Hurley, Naomi Novik, NK Jemisin, etc.

13: I’ve got to know…what’s your favorite word to use. Every author has one. What’s the word you catch yourself using a lot? We’ve all got those as well. What’s your favorite word just to say? Something where you like the way it sounds. What’s your favorite curse worse, if you’ve got one and or use them?

A: My favorite word I have wanted to use, but haven’t yet, is calefaction, because I love everything about it. My favorite word to use is ‘awareness’. I have over-used words, too, but I won’t admit to them. My go-to cuss word is the eff-bomb (sorry not sorry Mama) because it’s just so versatile.
14: Tell us about your latest release. Or, when can we expect your next one? What are we in store for?!
A: Draigon Weather is the first and therefore the latest. It’s official release date is April 18, 2017, and I CAN’T WAIT! Next will come the rest of the series, and maybe some shorts based in the same world.

15: Lastly, where can we find you? Facebook? Twitter? Website? Links to your material. Go on, don’t be shy. Share!

A: I’m in all nooks and crannies. I might even haunt your dreams, if you get lucky.
Website: http://paigelchristie.com (Links to the book in all its fabulous forms can be found here.)
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/paigelchristie/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/paigelchristie
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16626561.Paige_L_Christie

[image error]Bio:

Paige L. Christie was raised in Maine, and lives the NC mountains, writing speculative fiction, walking her dog, and being ignored by her herd of 3-legged cats. Always a nerd, obsessive about hobbies like photography, Ghawazee Dance, and listening to the characters in her head, Paige can be found slightly left of center.

As a believer in the power of words, Paige tries to tell stories that are both entertaining and thoughtful. Especially of interest, are tales that speak to women, and open a space where adventure and fantasy are not all about happy endings.

Author Spotlight: Blaise Corvin

Author Spotlight:

Blaise Corvin

Author Interview Questions:

1: Hi, and thanks for joining today. In your own words tell us about yourself, not you the author, but just you!




A:  I grew up on the west coast, joined the military, got shot at in foreign countries, have a bunch of weird jobs, traveled the country, and now people pay me to tell them silly stories about murdering fantasy creatures.



2: Why did you decide to become an author and what’s the best part? Yeah, it’s a double-whammy of a question. So unexpected!




A: I’ve known I wanted to be a writer since I was about eight years old.  The unfortunate fact is that I didn’t have the skill, life experience, or discipline to do it seriously until recently.  A few other authors I read like Taran Matharu and Drew Hayes actually inspired me to finally take the plunge.



The best part of being an author is my interaction with readers.  I’ve always been part of the community, but now I’m seeing it from another perspective, and it’s legitimately cool.



3: So, tell us about your work. Sell us on it! Why should we read it and why it will capture us?




A:  Nobody should read anything I write, especially not Delvers LLC, a “transported to another world” story about two regular guys who have to learn magic to survive, or Secret of the Old Ones, a cyberpunk series set in the near future that mostly takes place within a Lovecraftian horror VR game.



Nope.  Nobody should read any of that stuff, especially since both series are on Amazon in multiple formats.  



4: Why did you choose the genre you write in over others to start your publishing career? Did others appeal to you more and you chose this? Was there a bit of choice weighing or was it rather simple?




A:  The only constant in my process is that I have no process.  I didn’t even know I was writing LitRPG (my main genre) until I saw a LitRPG podcast that reviewed my webserial work.




5: So far, what would you say has been the hardest part of being an author?




A:  Writing all the things.  Editing the things.  Publishing the things.  Not telling people to fuck off on a daily basis.



#thestruggleisreal




6: Now for the ever-so-shocking follow-up question. What’s the best/easiest part, if there is one?




A:  Occasionally telling people to fuck off.




7: Tell us about what your experiences in the author life have been like. I don’t mean the writing aspects. I mean the daily human life. Tell us what it’s like to live the day life you do and be an author at the same time. What’s it like when people in your life and, the people you come across, find out you’re an author?




A:  It’s invigorating, rewarding…and utterly exhausting.  Keeping a full time job and writing at the rate I do basically means I can’t have much of a life.  That said, when my coworkers read my stuff and legitimately like it, it’s an incredible feeling.  The entire journey so far has been incredibly validating, especially from a creative perspective.




8: Writing is a hard craft and a harder career. What are the things that keep you going, both in improving the craft and enduring the downs/lows of the career?




A:  Alcohol and dried black figs.  Don’t judge.




9: What do you love about the genre/s you write and what others appeal to you?



A:  I’m pretty much a fan of anything in the SciFi and Fantasy genre umbrellas.  I really love LitRPG because it’s so new and exciting.  It isn’t often that writers get to feel like they’re breaking new ground.





10: Tell us about the plans for your series and body of work.

A:  The answer to this question that will be most exciting for my readers is probably that I plan for most of my work to be interconnected.  I’ve spent most of my life coming up with a massive, interconnected universe.



While this is a cool concept, part of why it appeals to me is I’m a lazy writer.  Recycling world building I’ve already created means I can spent more time on writing.




11: The writing and publishing world has changed a lot. Self-publishing, small to medium presses popping up, and things like becoming a hybrid between indie pubbing and traditional. What are your thoughts on that? Any predictions on what the future might hold? What would you like to see, both as an author yourself, and, as a consumer/reader?



A:  I have no thoughts right now.  I need more dried figs and alcohol.  Come back later.




12: The always done and asked question. Who are your favorite authors? What are you favorite books? What are you reading now? Tell us. Tell us!

 

A:  I heard about this awesome new indie author named Blaise Corvin.  Apparently, he has a series called Delvers LLC and Secret of the Old Ones.  I dig Roger Zelazny too, pretty much anything by Zelazny.




13: I’ve got to know…what’s your favorite word to use. Every author has one. What’s the word you catch yourself using a lot? We’ve all got those as well. What’s your favorite word just to say? Something where you like the way it sounds. What’s your favorite curse worse, if you’ve got one and or use them?



A: Fuck.

 

14: Tell us about your latest release. Or, when can we expect your next one? What are we in store for?!

 

A:  Delvers LLC: Obligations Incurred comes out 4/7/2017.  I’m shooting to have Secret of the Old Ones, Airship Privateers out in late May or early June.




15: Lastly, where can we find you? Facebook? Twitter? Website? Links to your material. Go on, don’t be shy. Share!



A:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BlaiseCorvinWriter
Twitter: @Blaise_Corvin
Amazon Author page:  https://www.amazon.com/Blaise-Corvin/e/B01LYK8VG5/
Website: http://blaise-corvin.com/
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/BlaiseCorvin
LitRPG Society FB group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/LitRPGsociety/

 

 

[image error]

Bio: Blaise Corvin served in the US Army in several roles. He has seen the best and the worst that humanity has to offer. He is a sucker for any hobby involving weapons, art, or improv.
He currently lives in Texas, in a house full of enough geeky memorabilia to start a museum.
He likes talking about himself in 3rd person and posting pictures of himself holding tarantulas to Amazon.
It’s all very eccentric.
Blaise currently writes mostly in the LitRPG subgenre, an exciting new classification of fiction with video game and/or role playing game elements. Delvers LLC is lightly LitRPG, mostly Fantasy/SciFi Adventure. Secret of the Old Ones is hard LitRPG, complete with XP and leveling.
Cheers!

 

Author Spotlight: L. Anne Wooley

Author Spotlight:

L. Anne Wooley

Author Interview Questions

 

1: Hi, and thanks for joining today. In your own words tell us about yourself, not you the author, but just you!

A:  Outside of writing,  I love walking my roommate and I’s dogs, playing with my cat, and even enjoy my roommates bird from time to time (except when poops on me).

2: Why did you decide to become an author and what’s the best part? Yeah, it’s a double-whammy of a question. So unexpected!

A:  A now former friend, (long story), encouraged me to pick up the pen again.  I’ve written off and on for much of my life, but hadn’t really gone anywhere with it.  The best part is getting in the zone, when the muse is with me.  The words just flow out of me, and onto the screen or page.

3: So, tell us about your work. Sell us on it! Why should we read it and why it will capture us?

A:   I write a little bit of everything, but my urban fantasy is set in a world where shapeshifters exist, and my main character, thinking that they were only legends; is in for a huge surprise.  It’s based on Native American myth and she discovers much more about her world, than she ever realized.   And she gets closer to her heritage.

4: Why did you choose the genre you write in over others to start your publishing career? Did others appeal to you more and you chose this? Was there a bit of choice weighing or was it rather simple?

A: This is the first novel that I believed I could finish and get out there.  I still feel that way, but I’m learning so much by writing book two in the series, that I cannot *finish* it until book 2 is first draft done.

5: So far, what would you say has been the hardest part of being an author?

A:  Getting motivation to finish something other than a short story or poem.   But I have figured that I have hurdles that I have to jump over, to prove to myself that I can…once I’ve got a novel done, I hope that the process will be easier the next time.

6: Now for the ever-so-shocking follow-up question. What’s the best/easiest part, if there is one?

A: Character creation   I normally never have trouble doing it, I learn my story what it’s about, and the characters usually introduce themselves.  Though that is not always the way.  Though it can be challenging when they fling something about themselves, that I didn’t know.  Like my Raven shapeshifter (mc in the story above), Miranda Stromraevyn, she is afraid of heights.  I found that out the hard way, writing the first draft.   This is one reason I’m a plantser (plotter and pantser hybrid), if I do a full outline, the first draft NEVER follows it.

7: Tell us about what your experiences in the author life have been like. I don’t mean the writing aspects. I mean the daily human life. Tell us what it’s like to live the day life you do and be an author at the same time. What’s it like when people in your life and, the people you come across, find out you’re an author?

A:  That’s a toughie.  I haven’t had many experiences outside of social media.  But that has begun changing slowly.  I have a group of diverse writers (that are mixed in with a group of other non writers), that hang out pretty much every Thursday night at a watering hole.  So I get to discuss writing, and also have a built in fan club all at once.

Like a lot of writers, I have to have a day job…which is totally unlike writing, I’m a contractor in the Health Insurance field.  The only thing writing related, is emails to my team leads/supervisors. Which isn’t much of a stretch at all.
Usually I do not talk about writing, though when I do, some folks do ask what write, and/or if I’ve been published.

8: Writing is a hard craft and a harder career. What are the things that keep you going, both in improving the craft and enduring the downs/lows of the career?

A:  Well, I host an online writing group that meets once a week.  I rarely put stuff out for feedback, because I’m a perfectionist and like my drafts as clean as possible.  But I do beta read for others on occasion, and reading for pleasure is pretty much not a thing anymore.  I’m always studying craft, structure, how the author puts his/her story together.

9: What do you love about the genre you write and what others appeal to you?

A:   I love the freedom to create new worlds with the Urban Fantasy, even though most of the settings I deal with are real (Phoenix for Stormraevyn).  Though it also has an alternate world it inhabits as well.
I also like to write poetry, and have dabbled in romance.  Erotica some too, there are differences between them, which is fun to try to blur the lines a little.   Science fiction is a love too.  I have read that genre for many years.  Some of the writers I most admire are from that genre.

10: What can we expect from you next? Tell us about the plans for your series and body of work.
A:  I’m working on putting together an anthology, getting stories ready for a couple of anthology’, and finishing my second in the Stormraevyn series Stormwolfe.  Plus a poetry chapbook.

11: The writing and publishing world has changed a lot. Self-publishing, small to medium presses popping up, and things like becoming a hybrid between indie pubbing and traditional. What are your thoughts on that? Any predictions on what the future might hold? What would you like to see, both as an author yourself, and, as a consumer/reader?

A:   The publishing world sure has changed, from just the traditional path, to traditional/self to more self than traditional, I feel the traditional market has finally realized that they have to move with the times.   I think that self publishing has to come a long way, to get the respect that traditional publishing has held.  For instance in the arena of professionalism, and putting out quality work.  Some of the stuff that has been “published” is barely, if at all, past first draft.   This is something that annoys me no end.  If you are going to publish, put your best polished/edited work out there.  You make it look bad for us that are doing so.  Though I think it is getting better?

I’d like to see more professional quality in the self pubbing area (traditional mostly gets it right, but have seen some errors there too).  Self pubbing is not going away, but it is nice to see Trad seeing that and taking on self published folks under their houses.
Which helps all of us really, the traditional publishing industry has the ability to get a wider reach and distribution for writers.

12: The always done and asked question. Who are your favorite authors? What are you favorite books? What are you reading now? Tell us. Tell us!
A:  My old school go to’s are (in no particular order):  Mercedes Lackey, GRR Martin, Harry S. Turltledove (his Guns of the South, and the Two Georges are excellent), Anne MacCaffrey, Anne Rice (of course the vampire stuff), Neil Gaiman (a god of writing, Neverwhere, The Graveyard Book), Harlan Ellison (Ellison in Wonderland, master of the short story), though I don’t care for his stance on homosexuality, Orson Scott Card writes excellent short stories, and he writes good writing help books.  Also love Charlotte Bronte (not so much her sisters Wuthering Heights icky :P)

Reading now… several things now.   Some writing books…R.R. Virdi’s “Dangerous Ways,” really I am, not just saying J    Though my TBR pile is getting really high.

13: I’ve got to know…what’s your favorite word to use. Every author has one. What’s the word you catch yourself using a lot? We’ve all got those as well. What’s your favorite word just to say? Something where you like the way it sounds. What’s your favorite curse worse, if you’ve got one and or use them?

A:  Depends on, and anything purple prosey.  Though those are pretty much for poetry.  But if a description calls for it, I would use it.
14: Tell us about your latest release?!
A:  That would be the one that I’m also in with you R. R.  The Longest Night Watch Vol. 2 for Alzheimers research.  It was truly a labor of love, and I also loved being part of the promotion of it (though that was something  hadn’t planned on, but was proud to do it).

15: Lastly, where can we find you? Facebook? Twitter? Website? Links to your material. Go on, don’t be shy. Share!

A:   First, thank you for having me.  I enjoyed your interviewing style J
I can be found in several exotic locales.
Facebook:
https://www.facebook.com/LAnneWooleyAuthor/

Twitter:
https://twitter.com/velvetdelenn

Amazon:
 https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B01M61BBLG

My Blog for Writers
http://velvetdelenn.blogspot.com/

Goodreads:
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15853795.L_Anne_Wooley

Author Showcase: Kyleen Valleaux

Author Showcase

Kyleen Valleaux

Showcase Questions:

 

1: Hi, Kyleen. You’ve been here before. I hear you’ve got something new out, but before we get to that, would you like to give a quick refresh to those who might be new to my blog who you are and what you’ve written?

A: Hello! Thank you for having me back! My name is Kyleen Valleaux, and I masquerade as a functioning adult working in the telecommunication business. My debut novel came out in June of 2016 and is called Manor Town. It is a space fantasy opera about what would happen if the Earth was annexed into an alien empire. It’s pure escapism fluff. This was the first in what will be a long-running series called “The Chronicles of the Garlon T’zen.”

2: Now that we’ve answered that, let’s jump right into it. What’s in the box? What’s new?

A: In this box? This one right here? I have a brand new novel being released!

It’s a character-driven romantic fantasy with a shapeshifter vibe. It’s called “Dragons of the Thaumaturgic Realm: Revolt.” This is the beginning of the story of our world, the Geotic Realm, and the world of the fantastic, the Thaumaturgic Realm. We have a young dragon who falls in love with a human woman. Their relationship, along with a lot of previous, history that is delved into more deeply in the novel, triggers a war with the immortal fairy king and the very survival of the dragon race is at stake.

3: This might be horribly generic, but as an author myself, I have to know it. What prompted you to write start this project/series? I know we all have those pulls, deep signs and plot bunnies that make us choose our projects.

A: This book was my very first NaNoWriMo project. It was in 2006. I had just come home from working a project where I’d been living in Louisville for nine months with my 13-year-old, and I had a little time off. So I took up the challenge. And sat on my couch with my laptop for a month and wrote 120,000 words in 30 days. One of my friends was encouraging me to write a YA story. This is the project that made me determine that I cannot write young adult. So I was writing along, and this dragon just pushed his way into the story and totally took it over.

Now that first attempt barely resembles what the final novel is. Which is a good thing. I let one of my best friends read it, and she was like “Oh honey…” I love her for doing that, but it’s hard to take on your “baby.” So I tore it apart twice for rewrites, broke it down, kept what worked and trashed the rest. I am proud of this project.

I can’t say what prompted this story, other than just writing a lot of words, totally by the seat of my pants, and got a novel, the world, and series, that I know people will love as much as I do.

4: What are your plans for this series that you can share with us?

A: This book ends with a strong lead into the next novel. I know my readers are going to be eager (hounding) me for the next book. The good news is that book is written, and I’m pushing very hard to have it done by June. That book completes this particular story arc, and I promise, the pay off is worth it.

I have written a few other books and stories set in this world that we’ll also see in the future. I think I’m going to keep the same theme, but the series would “Mercenaries of the Thaumaturgic Realm: Good Work.” (That’s going to happen, I already have it written.)

Big seismic (literally) changes are coming to the Thaumaturgic Realm, and we’re going to follow our characters through them.

5: What are your hopes for it? Don’t hold back. We all have those for our works. Is there something you want it to accomplish? A message to get across? A personal fulfillment out of it? Something?

A: I hope that people love it so much they create fanfic for it. My main goal in being a writer is to entertain others with my daydreams. I write for myself first. And if I get into it, love it, then I’m sure that others would enjoy it as well. I want to share the world that I escape into.

6: Asides from the obvious awesomeness of completing the project, and seeing it come to light, is there anything else you’ve found you’ve gotten out of it? A new perspective? Something fun that just really swept you over in writing? Maybe a great scene you never thought you could come up with, but did? Anything?

A: Some of my favorite scenes in the book are when Maug, the main dragon character, interacts with his foster parents, Charles and Maggie. I could feel the love and affection the characters felt for each other when I wrote it. I tell a story from multiple points of view, and with probably more characters than most writers use. But I think that’s important to shape the whole story.

7: How do you feel this particular project has changed/improved your writing from a technical point? Everyone has those moments. For me, one of my novels drastically changed how I used dialogue tags.

A: I think this particular project helped me grow as a writer. Because it was such an unwieldy mess, I had to learn about pacing, flow, characters. More than one ended up on the cutting-room floor, so to speak. I also had the tremendous guidance from my developmental editor, Michelle Dunbar. She pointed out things I was doing that I didn’t even realize, and pushed me to make this an even better story than the one I started with.

8: What are you reading right now? Who?

A: I have a couple of books going. One is “Writing Down The Bones” by Natalie Goldberg. It’s a great book on writing as a craft, and I get snatches of reading in here and there. Then I’m also working on DR Perry’s “A Change in Crime.” After that, I have a few others, including one called “Dangerous Ways!”

9: And lastly, where can we find your new work? What about where we find you? Yes, yes, we’ve gone over this before. But once again. Drop those links. Share, if you’d be so kind.

A: My book is available today on Amazon at:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06XWFD432

I can be found at:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kyleenvalleaux/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kyleen66
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/15340060.Kyleen_Valleaux

^^Click the cover to buy the book^^

Bio: Kyleen Valleaux writes because it’s cheaper than therapy. She works as a telecom mercenary and takes the stress out on fictional characters. Never one to back down from a writing challenge, she will go without food or sleep to get the stories written. Her family and friends have adjusted to her complete withdrawal from the human race each year during the month of November. She resides in Michigan with three big German Shepherd Dogs, and a millennial.

 

Author Spotlight: D.R. Perry

Author Spotlight

D.R. Perry

Author Interview Questions

1: Hi, and thanks for joining today. In your own words tell us about yourself, not you the author, but just you!

A: Hi, I’m D.R. Perry and I write down stories about imaginary people. I’m probably not imaginary myself. I think.

2: Why did you decide to become an author and what’s the best part? Yeah, it’s a double-whammy of a question. So unexpected!

A: I didn’t decide to become an author until last year. Mostly, I had a moment where I said “enough already” while looking at all of the drafts cluttering my desktop. It was just time, like when you finally decide to go to Six Flags or Disney World. So here I am a year later with nine books published and more on the way. Well that’s not technically true. There are three anthologies out there with my work in them, so it’s actually twelve. The best part is that feeling, looking at all those books and thinking “did I actually make these?” It’s bewildering but exciting at the same time, kind of like when you get off a roller coaster with a huge drop and a few upside-down twists. You look over your shoulder, blinking in the sunlight wondering what other rides your amusement park day has in store.

3: So, tell us about your work. Sell us on it! Why should we read it and why it will capture us?

A: The first novel I wrote was A Change In Crime, the first book in an Alternative History series set in 1929. It’s the biggest “what if” story I ever came up with. What if Prohibition didn’t end? What if the Increased Penalties Act stuck, making things harder on the illicit liquor trade? And what if a small-time Boss discovered something to give himself an edge? Changes come to Fall River, MA that could make the small city more important than Providence or even Boston. But there are strings attached and monsters pull them. The Boss goes too far and the consequences everyone suffers are only the beginning.

4: Why did you choose the genre you write in over others to start your publishing career? Did others appeal to you more and you chose this? Was there a bit of choice weighing or was it rather simple?

A: I actually didn’t start publishing with A Change In Crime. I started with something a bit more whimsical, a humorous paranormal series set in a modern version of Providence, Rhode Island. I chose to start with speculative fiction because it’s what I’ve always been drawn to. I wanted to write in the genres I’d loved all my life, but decided to publish Providence Paranormal College first because anything historical takes extra time and help to research. It’s important to capture the feel of the time period, even when you’re changing and muddling things around a bit like I am.

5: So far, what would you say has been the hardest part of being an author?

A: Answering questions like this. Seriously. It’s not so easy to talk about myself or my work unless I’m “talking shop” with other writers. Maybe it’d be easier to write a batch of song parodies and post those on my blog or something, instead. But then, people would want me to sing them. I’m not Weird Al even though he’s my Rock and Roll hero. The other sticky widget for me is time. Finding a long enough stretch to keep momentum isn’t easy with a Preschooler and a small dog in the house. Somebody always needs something.

6: Now for the ever-so-shocking follow-up question. What’s the best/easiest part, if there is one?

A: The actual story. I don’t often run out of idea-fuel. Instead, when I get stuck, it’s because there’s just too many ideas or possibilities. Sometimes I have to open another document and jot down new ideas, snippets, or drabbles so they’ll let me go back to my focus project. Other times I need to write something down while in the shower or driving. No easy feat before smartphones with voice recording apps.

7: Tell us about what your experiences in the author life have been like. I don’t mean the writing aspects. I mean the daily human life. Tell us what it’s like to live the day life you do and be an author at the same time. What’s it like when people in your life and, the people you come across, find out you’re an author?

A: Oh wow. That’s something I don’t get asked too often. Well, I had a doctor who helped me out ask for one of my books recently. Hi, Dr. Mo! Also people think I only have one book. When they find out I have nine, they get a bit blinky and kind of speechless. Sometimes, I hear things like “you mean you kept on working?” Well, yes. Of course I did and still do. Making enough money for the rest of my life on just one book is unrealistic. And anyway, even if that had happened, I’d still want to write more. It’s fun!

8: Writing is a hard craft and a harder career. What are the things that keep you going, both in improving the craft and enduring the downs/lows of the career?

A: Spending time with that preschooler and that doggie keep me going. A cuddle break is right down the hall almost all the time if I have a bad day. Other writers also help. We can joke and laugh and cry together, help each other back up from stumbles and cheer each other on when we’re out in front. And then, there are the readers. Hearing back from them, whether it’s just simple thanks in a short review or a stack of fan art, makes such a difference. Sometimes, writing is like talking into the wind. You don’t know where your words go, who hears them, unless someone else talks into it back at you.

9: What do you love about the genre/s you write and what others appeal to you?

A: I love magic. I love science that pushes the boundaries of human discovery. I love laughter, whether it’s my own or someone else’s. Being able to let my imagination run with fun speculative ideas is like getting a kite into the air. Once it’s up there and soaring, I’m tired out but also a bit breathless, looking up and out.

10: Tell us about the plans for your series and body of work.
A: A Change In Crime is the first in a four book series called La Famiglia di Mostri. I’m planning to write more books about those characters during different time periods. Some will be in the past back before 1929, exploring the backstories of the older characters. Others will detail what happens when La Famiglia comes up against new threats and conflicts in the future. I think La Famiglia will be my one big “serious” project. As in, it’s probably the only one which doesn’t fall into some sort of humor category. Writing the funny books is just my idea of a good time, I guess.

11: The writing and publishing world has changed a lot. Self-publishing, small to medium presses popping up, and things like becoming a hybrid between indie pubbing and traditional. What are your thoughts on that? Any predictions on what the future might hold? What would you like to see, both as an author yourself, and, as a consumer/reader?

A: I haven’t done a tarot reading on the future of publishing. Maybe I should. Nah, I shouldn’t. There are folks out there who’ve been keeping track of the industry and they have a pretty good handle on things. I’ll keep on reading their reports and save the cards for individual people. As far as I’m concerned personally, it is what it is. I’m going to write what I do regardless and base future decisions on direct reader feedback when my rampaging imagination lets me. Publishing independently is the best fit for that in my own foreseeable future.

12: The always done and asked question. Who are your favorite authors? What are you favorite books? What are you reading now? Tell us. Tell us!
A: Gaaah! D.R. tumbles to the floor and covers her eyes. No, Precious! Not the nasssty Elvish Bread question! D.R. takes a deep breath then releases it, counting to five. Out with the Gollum, in with the Samwise. Okay, that’s better. So, most of these are seriously old-school. Tolkien, as you may have already guessed. He’s a favorite of mine. And L. Frank Baum. I grew up reading all thirteen Oz books and if you haven’t, you should, too. There’s so much more than that first trip down the Yellow Brick Road. Robert Aspirin’s Myth series turned me on to the idea that Fantasy and Humor are genres that go together like chocolate and peanut butter.

13: I’ve got to know…what’s your favorite word to use. Every author has one. What’s the word you catch yourself using a lot? We’ve all got those as well. What’s your favorite word just to say? Something where you like the way it sounds. What’s your favorite curse worse, if you’ve got one and or use them?

A: I like using collide. It’s versatile and exciting. I overuse actually and anyway. They work okay in the tongue-in-cheek paranormal stuff, but have no place in La Famiglia. Thingamabob is one of my favorites to say, with whosiwhatsis a close second. I constructed a swear for a dragon character that I absolutely love. Tiamat’s Scales!
14: Tell us about your latest release. Or, when can we expect your next one? What are we in store for?!
A: You’re in store for way too much, which means I’m freezing my behind off right about now. I’m talking about all of the drafts everywhere. I’m releasing book 9 in Providence Paranormal College as soon as the cover and edits are done. I’m revising, editing, and polishing the second La Famiglia book, Wiser Guys with hopes to publish that in May. And I finished the first draft of the first Supernatural Vigilante Society series. That’s UF/Superhero mashup parody and pure fun. I hope that’s out by June.

15: Lastly, where can we find you? Facebook? Twitter? Website? Links to your material. Go on, don’t be shy. Share!

A: Okay, here’s where I crank things up to eleven. My mitts have been all over the web so the list is long.
I’m on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/drpperry/ 
Twitter https://twitter.com/DRPerry22 
Instagram https://www.instagram.com/d.r.perry/  
Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com/drperryauthor/  
Wattpad https://www.wattpad.com/user/DR_Perry
Patreon https://www.patreon.com/drperryauthor  
and have a blog at my website  http://www.drperryauthor.com/
and a newsletter, too!
https://app.mailerlite.com/webforms/landing/p9i8u6



Bio: D.R. Perry lives in Rhode Island, where all her books are set. Although she’s not a native New Englander, once up north she got so inspired she couldn’t leave. A wild Northern Muse attacked. D.R. used Typing; it was Super Effective.

D.R. writes all kinds of things. Mostly, they have strange and unusual elements. Not strange isotopes or Strontium or anything like that, but creatures who are people or people who are creatures. Beware of the Attack Poetry and rampant puns. Keep off the grass, or the song parodies may bite.

She lives with her husband, daughter, and dog in the Ocean State, which she loves to remind people is not an island and not Long Island. D.R. is well aware that her home state has both of those things, but isn’t defined by them. Maybe she likes it here so much because it reminds her that she’s also more than the sum of her parts.

D.R. hopes you have as much fun reading her books as she did writing them.

You can find out more about D.R., including links to social media and mailing lists, here: http://www.drperryauthor.com/

Credit to Guy Natelli for Author Photo and James Ruggiero for cover art.

 

Author Spotlight: Gregory D. Little

Author Spotlight
Gregory D. Little

Author Interview Questions

1: Hi, and thanks for joining today. In your own words tell us about yourself, not you the author, but just you!
A: Virginia born and raised, I love traveling with my wife, playing video games (though I have less time for that these days), anything combining chocolate and peanut butter, The Simpsons seasons 1-9 (I’m dating myself), and Virginia Tech football. I am a sucker and will give my yellow lab snacks anytime he wants. In return, he carries his bag of poop on walks. Seriously.
2: Why did you decide to become an author and what’s the best part? Yeah, it’s a double-whammy of a question. So unexpected!
A: As a kid I would make up stories for characters from my favorite shows, books, and, yes, video games, after they were done. In high school friends and I would take turns DM-ing our own, invented tabletop RPGs, and I remember the feel of satisfaction I’d get when I’d come up with a plot twist that would surprise the players. Not long after I’d realized that Star Wars novels were a thing, my friend and I started passing a notebook between us, writing our own. This mostly consisted of trying to end the chapter in a situation it would be impossible for the other person to recover from, but it was a lot of fun.
I’m something of a pantser when I write, so I’d have to say my favorite part of being an author is the little thrill I get when I’m able to connect two disconnected aspects of the story in a way I hadn’t expected or intended.
3: So, tell us about your work. Sell us on it! Why should we read it and why it will capture us?
A: This one got a bit long, so for the tl:dr crowd: Giant skeleton cities! Spider police! Hollowed-out center of the planet with the gods imprisoned inside! Skeleton mass-transit systems! Magical tools and weapons powered by souls harvested from Heaven and Hell! A protagonist who is the secret, teenage daughter of a terrorist and a business mogul who are now arch-enemies!
For those who’d like a more rambling explanation: I wanted to create a setting that was weird, wild, and really captured the imagination. What I came up with was a non-Earth world whose gods tried to destroy humankind. Despite creating immense, city-sized beasts to wipe out all human civilization, the gods failed in their attempt. Humans hijacked the gods’ soul-powered tools (called wrightings) and used them to slay the beasts and imprison the gods in the core of the hollowed-out center of the planet. Humankind transformed the corpses of the great beasts that had smashed human cities into new cities themselves, and a new social structure emerged where any humans that had supported the gods, along with all their descendants, were marked by glowing eyes and cast down as an underclass for nearly two-hundred years.
In my short story “Godbane” (which you can read for free on Wattpad), I introduce readers to Larimaine and Cassia, teenage lovers from across the two social classes who decide to sneak into the Pit, the hollow core of the world where the gods are kept imprisoned. What they find there changes their lives profoundly. Cassia eventually goes on to become a business mogul, while Larimaine becomes a terrorist leader dedicated to destroying everything she’s built.
The Unwilling Souls series is the story of their secret daughter, Selestia. Sixteen and apprenticing in the Pit to be one of the smiths that will help maintain the prison of the gods, Selestia (Ses for short) is sent to investigate a routine disturbance when the Pit is attacked. In order to protect the secret of her parentage, Ses is forced to flee first the Pit and then Crocodilius, the crocodile-skull city she calls home. Running from officials of the Centrality who think she has ties to the attack, Ses has to hope that one of the parents who never cared enough to acknowledge her will take her in. Along the way, she learns the dark truths about her family that shatter her understanding of the world and risk the return of the gods themselves.
Also, there are spider police and skeleton mass-transit systems. And that’s just the first book.
4: Why did you choose the genre you write in over others to start your publishing career? Did others appeal to you more and you chose this? Was there a bit of choice weighing or was it rather simple?
A: This series is my first attempt at writing YA, though it’s morphed into an epic fantasy with a YA protagonist. That’s not terribly surprising. I tend to like big, sprawling epics. The first manuscript I ever wrote was a 280,000 word monstrosity with at least a dozen points of view. It was a mess in many ways, though it is still my cousin’s favorite book I’ve written, so I must have done something right! I’m working hard to keep the Unwilling Souls series under control, adding just one new secondary POV to each volume.
5: So far, what would you say has been the hardest part of being an author?
A: Marketing is the worst. I hate doing it, and trying to focus on it can easily eat up all the time that could be spent writing or editing. What I’m doing right here is the only kind of self-promotion I enjoy, and even then I massively overthink it.
6: Now for the ever-so-shocking follow-up question. What’s the best/easiest part, if there is one?
A: That feeling as a messy, disjointed bunch of scenes and plots and characters is gathered together and fused into a functioning, thematically cohesive story. That, or maybe when the first draft of a scene just pours forth, perfect in the first draft. That’s pretty great.
7: Tell us about what your experiences in the author life have been like. I don’t mean the writing aspects. I mean the daily human life. Tell us what it’s like to live the day life you do and be an author at the same time. What’s it like when people in your life and, the people you come across, find out you’re an author?
A: I work a full-time day job with a long commute, an hour each way. This is great if I’m in the brainstorming phase of a project, because instead of an audiobook or podcast I can just put on music and let my brain wander, plotting out the story. It’s bad when I need actual writing time, as well as time to see my wife, friends, family, etc. I’ve tried the dictation thing and just can’t seem to make it work. So writing is relegated to nights, weekends, and early mornings if I can’t sleep. It means projects take longer than they otherwise would.
People are always very excited to find out I’m an author, but I always hope the people who aren’t into fantasy as a genre won’t ask me to describe the plot of the books. Have you ever tried explaining a fantasy book to someone who isn’t into fantasy? You come off sounding like a crazy person.
8: Writing is a hard craft and a harder career. What are the things that keep you going, both in improving the craft and enduring the downs/lows of the career?
A: My mom used to work in a school library and so her librarian friends always stock their shelves with a couple of copies of my books, which is really great of them. I got a second-hand story from one of them that a student had borrowed Unwilling Souls and, upon returning it, called it the best book she’d ever read. That one still works to keep me going when the going gets rough.
9: What do you love about the genre/s you write and what others appeal to you?
A: I love that fantasy and science fiction can explore the messy realities of being human in ways that can provoke thought while not provoking the same kind of heated responses and closed minds that they might if presented in a political essay. Also, there are the pure senses of wonder, possibility, and escapist fun. I know people who say they don’t want to read about anything that couldn’t happen in real life. If I want real life, I’ll go outside. When I read, I often want to read about something I couldn’t see in real life.
10: Tell us about the plans for your series and body of work.
A: I’m not sure I’ve ever put this down in writing, so I’m probably jinxing myself, but the plan for the Unwilling Souls series is to wrap it in four books. The first book has only Ses as a POV, but beginning with Ungrateful God, I introduce a secondary POV, and the idea will be to add one secondary POV with each volume. So the fourth and final volume would have Ses plus three secondary POVs. This is to help give the series a more epic feel as events ripple outward from Ses’s actions and consume more and more of her world.
For the rest of my work, I’ve got plenty of other story ideas on the back-burner while I work on this series. Some of those may involve cleaning up earlier, pre-Unwilling Souls manuscripts for eventual release, while others will be entirely new. But I find it easier to keep my focus on one invented world at a time.
11: The writing and publishing world has changed a lot. Self-publishing, small to medium presses popping up, and things like becoming a hybrid between indie pubbing and traditional. What are your thoughts on that? Any predictions on what the future might hold? What would you like to see, both as an author yourself, and, as a consumer/reader?
A: I think we’re already starting to see the traditional publishing world adapting in an attempt become more flexible. Just in the time that I’ve been writing seriously, I’ve seen publishers relaxing rules on simultaneous submissions, recognizing that authors are increasingly leery of locking down a submitted manuscript for months at a time with a single publisher. That being said, I think we’re also seeing an increased focus on finding the next home run author or series. Combined with the incredible surge in self-published titles, the difficulty in getting noticed is increasing at least as fast as the tools to help. Like television, books are becoming an ever-more-fragmented market, with more and more competition in the form of both books and other media. That said, the advent of bingeing means people are consuming more content than ever before as well. I certainly can’t predict where we’ll be ten years down the road. I just wish I had the time to churn out books a little faster, as that really seems to be the key to
12: The always done and asked question. Who are your favorite authors? What are you favorite books? What are you reading now? Tell us. Tell us!
A: My favorite current series is The Expanse, by James S.A. Corey (the pseudonym for Daniel Abraham and Ty Franck). Old-fashioned space opera with a modern sensibility, a solid grounding in hard-ish science, and fantastic character work. Right this instant I’m actually concluding a reread of all the books in that series available to date (six with a total of nine planned). Daniel Abraham is one-half of the James S.A. Corey pseudonym (the other half being Ty Franck), and I love Abraham’s solo work as well, in particular his epic fantasy series The Dagger and the Coin, which concluded last year. Honestly, the world would be a better place if everyone read Daniel Abraham’s work.
R. Scott Bakker’s The Second Apocalypse series-of-series presents a dark, challenging deconstruction of Tolkienesque epic fantasy, laced with philosophy based magic systems and underpinned by concepts drawn from modern neuroscience. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever read before, and his command of the language to evoke imagery is often awe-inspiring. Prospective readers should note that Bakker’s world is several notches more grimdark than George R.R. Martin’s Westeros, though, so it won’t be for everyone.
And I’d be remiss if I didn’t recommend Blindsight by Peter Watts, an alien first contact story that’s probably the most jaw-dropping book I’ve read in the last five years.
13: I’ve got to know…what’s your favorite word to use. Every author has one. What’s the word you catch yourself using a lot? We’ve all got those as well. What’s your favorite word just to say? Something where you like the way it sounds. What’s your favorite curse worse, if you’ve got one and or use them?
A: Ha! If I tell you, everyone will just be looking for it! In all seriousness, I know I’ve got several, and if you’d asked me a few weeks ago, in the throes of final edits, I’d have been able to give you a list. Right now, though, I’m drawing a total blank. This is probably part of the problem.
14: Tell us about your latest release. Or, when can we expect your next one? What are we in store for?!
A: I’ll keep things vague for those who haven’t read the first book, but Ungrateful God picks up a couple of months after Unwilling Souls leaves off, with Ses and several companions nearing the end of a long journey when Ses wakes one morning to discover something … demonic. Keeping to the spirit of the first book, I introduce a crazy new city carved into one of the slain, giant beasts (this time it’s a ghost crab), a city where no one can remember what happens at night. As I mentioned above, I add a secondary POV, a character readers of the first book will be familiar with (and have strong emotions toward). I had lots of comments after Unwilling Souls from readers who wanted more time spent in the Pit (the hollowed-out center of the planet where the gods are imprisoned, for those future readers who are skipping questions). Let’s just say I listened.
15: Lastly, where can we find you? Facebook? Twitter? Website? Links to your material. Go on, don’t be shy. Share!
A: This is getting long these days, which I guess is a good thing!
Website: www.gregorydlittle.com
Facebook page: www.facebook.com/gregorydlittleauthor
Twitter: @litgreg
My work:
Unwilling Souls

Book 1 of the Unwilling Souls series
Ungrateful God

Book 2 of the Unwilling Souls series
A Game of Horns

A Red Unicorn Anthology (two stories, “The Whole of Me” and “His Most Violent Friend”)
Dragon Writers

An Anthology (my story “Shattered Pieces Swept Away” is set in the distant past of the Unwilling Souls universe and serves as a nice lead-in to the series or Book 2)
The Colored Lens: Spring 2014

My first published story, “Some Say in Surf”
Wattpad: https://www.wattpad.com/user/litgreg

You can read “Godbane” the story that inspired Unwilling Souls and serves as a more direct prequel.
I’m also a member and regular contributor of the Fictorians writing blog: www.fictorians.com

 

Bio: Rocket Scientist by day, fantasy and science fiction author by night, Gregory D. Little’s short fiction has appeared in The Colored Lens and A Game of Horns: A Red Unicorn Anthology. He is currently working on his fantasy YA series Unwilling Souls, set in a world where technology is powered by the souls of the dead, the gods are locked away in the hollowed out center of the planet, and what remains of humanity has rebuilt its cities out of the corpses of the great beasts that destroyed them.
Gregory D. Little is a member of and regular contributor to the Fictorians writing blog (www.fictorians.com). He lives in Virginia with his wife and their yellow lab.