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Apart From Love
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AC: Uvi Poznansky of Apart From Love(February 6-7)

I hope you enjoy your time with our members; and good luck to you all!
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Members, if you can please write the questions in bold; it would be easier for Uvi to know that you have asked a question and less chance that it will be missed. Thanks!
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Place < b > before the question you have for Uvi and < /b > after the question. Make sure there are no spaces.


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✰¸.•*¨`*•.. .||. .||. ||_ ||_.||. ¸.•*¨`*•..

Thank you Shan, this is a great question, and it illuminates the writing process! Over a year ago I wrote a short story about a twelve years old boy coming face to face, for the first time in his life, with the sad spectacle of death in the family. The title of the story is Only An Empty Dress. In it, Ben watches his father trying to revive his frail grandma, and later he attempts the same technique on the fish tilting upside down in his new aquarium.
“I cannot allow myself to weep. No, not now. So I wipe the corner of my eye. Now if you watch closely, right here, you can see that the tail is still crinkling. I gasp, and blow again. I blow and blow, and with a last-gasp effort I go on blowing until all is lost, until I don’t care anymore, I mean it, I don’t care but the tears, the tears come, they are starting to flow, and there is nothing, nothing more I can do—”
I set the story aside, thinking I was done with it. But the character of the boy, Ben, came back to me and started chatting, chatting, chatting in my head. It became the seed of my just-published novel Apart from Love.
In writing it I asked myself, what if I ‘aged’ him by fifteen years? Where would he be then? Would he still admire his father as a hero, or will he be disillusioned at that point? What secrets would come to light in the life of this family? How would it feel for Ben to come back to his childhood home, and have his memories play tricks on him? What if I introduce a girl, Anita, a redhead who looks as beautiful as his mother used to be, but is extremely different from her in all other respects? And what if this girl were married to his father? What if the father were an author, attempting to capture the thoughts, the voices of Ben and Anita, in order to write his book?
So the process of writing became, for me, simply listening to the characters and trying, as fast as I could, to capture their thoughts. My role as an author was merely suggesting a place, coming up with the stage set and illuminating it as appropriate for the time of day, and allowing the characters to describe what they see and to act out their passions and fears.

Yes, all three covers are designed by me. The cover of Apart From Love is based on a triptych (three-panel) oil painting I painted a while ago. You can see the entire thing when you go to my Q&A with Uvi Poznansky group, here on Goodreads, where I placed it as a banner:
http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/6...
Or, here is a smaller version:



I did the preparatory work for these panels by drawing sketches of a nude model, who posed with a silky, red piece of fabric. Then I created a composition out of these sketches. I did a version of this arrangement in a different color scheme, in watercolor. You can see this version on my facebook author page, which you can see here:
https://www.facebook.com/uviart

I noticed you have shown your art work in Israel. That must have been amazing, it's definitely on my short list of places to visit.
Do you plan to or have you set any of your stories in Israel?
Have you illustrated any of your works? Would you like to add your art talent to your writing or do you prefer to keep them separate?

I can not wait to read Apart From Love. The cover caught my attention at first but after reading your answers about I'm even more interested in the book as a whole.
Do you used your art work for all of your covers?

Wow Fran, what a great question! This goes to my current projects, as well as the ones on the burner right now, so to speak. Yes! My new ebook--released the last day of 2012--is a new twist on an old yarn, the story of Jacob and Esav from the bible, and it takes place in Israel in our days, not old times. The name of the book is A Favorite Son. Here is an excerpt:
"My mother, you ask? She was—how shall I say it?—different. No woman among us in the camp, or out there in the grazing fields, was as captivating as her.
It was not just her beauty; nor was it the regal manner in which she carried herself, as if her tent served only as a temporary, makeshift shelter, a place to stay until the completion of a some new, modern wing in an imaginary palace. If there was something that set her apart from all other women, it was her garments.
She would never wear a burka, unlike my grandmother Sarah, bless her soul, who must be turning in her grave, horrified at the thought of modesty lost. Instead of the traditional loose clothes covering the entire body, my mother adorned herself with exotic silks, bought from merchants in Damascus, which hugged her figure tightly. The silks, I mean—not the merchants."

"So far I doubt she has caught the sound my footfalls. I edge closer, advancing stealthily along the shadow, a seemingly endless shadow cast across the flat surface of her roof by the western tower of my palace. Never once do I stop to remind myself that such behavior is unbecoming of a king.
And who can blame me? In her presence I am reduced to a boy.
I must find a way to impress her. Which is why I brought my crown along, even though it sits somewhat uncomfortably on my head. It is a bit too large for me, and too heavy, too."

Absolutely, Fran! I have not only written my two children books, but illustrated them and even created animations for them.
Let me give you two links to take a peek at the process of illustration:
Jess and Wiggle
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/05/fr...
Now I Am Paper
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/04/jo...

Yes Angela! So nice to meet you. Since we have already talked about the cover of Apart From Love, here is how I created the cover of A Favorite Son:
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/12/bo...

..."
I'm not a painter at all (can barely manage baseboards. Husband shoos me away) but I often think of my own writing as painting emotions all over the pages :) That's how it feels anyway.
And your paintings do seem to tell a story. I love the motion in these triptychs. Like following a dancer across the frames. It makes me very intrigued to read your writing and see how you bring that out with words. Neat.

So for those of you who, like Angela, are curious about my books, I would like to make an announcement.
[Drum roll please...]
So here it is: today and tomorrow, to celebrate the time we will be spending here together, the price of my Kindle ebooks is reduced to 99 cents.
They are:
Apart From Love (a novel: romantic suspense/family saga)
A Favorite Son (a story: biblical fiction)
Home (poetry)


Hi Iris! Thank you for reading my bio. Life is full of trials and tribulations, isn't it? When I came to the US, I could not find work (don't we all go through that nowadays...) So, I went back to school in Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where I got my Master in Architecture. I was thinking of perhaps going into academia, so I was then accepted to the University of Michigan, for my PhD in the same field. There, I took a computer class and found is fascinating! So I transferred my course credits to a different department and got my Master of Computer Science.
Then I worked as a software engineer for years. My particular expertise was designing software for user-interface for medical device companies. I worked for 8 years for Philips Ultrasound, and while designing for their ultrasound machine, I watched the work of sonographers with the machine.... So all this experience plugs in to my writing. Let me give you an example....

"She turns a few knobs, and pushes a few sliders and stuff on her keyboard, so a pale search light appears in the image. It’s scanning around some dusky nooks and crannies, where silvery, flat layers—some thin, some thick—have sunk down into the dark, just like wet mud. It isn’t barely clear to me that what I see up there is for real. Perhaps the light just flashes there, off the sludge, and what it mirrors back to me is like, false. Something just dreamed up.
The ray flutters about, slicing, somehow, across them layers of dense, grainy clay of what’s inside me. At first I don’t much mind all that slicing, ‘cause it don’t hurt me, and it don’t feel like nothing, really.
With a soft, squelching sound, little specs glitter in the dark fluid. And there—just behind them specs—something moves! Something catches the light and like, wow! For a second there I can swear I see a hand: My baby’s hand waving, then turning to float away.
This isn’t exactly what I’ve expected, ‘cause like, not only is that fluid kinda see-through—but to my surprise, so is the little hand. Like, you can spot not only the faint outline of flesh on them, but the shine of the bones coming at you, too."

Thank you so much, Dani. And yes, I let my characters bring it out in their own voices. Anita's voice (which you can read in my previous note) is rough around the edges: she is uneducated, talks in slang, but a tough cookie (which hides her softness.) Ben, on the other hand, is articulate, plays the piano (like his mother, who is now stricken with Alzheimer) and has mixed feelings about coming back to his childhood home in Santa Monica. So there is a great contrast between the voices, which allows for delightful conflicts in the story.

You are such an inspirational woman! Your artwork is beautiful, and I cannot wait to read your work. My question is:
Writing poetry is very difficult because each word is critical and must be written perfectly to portray the right emotion. Do you think writing novels is easier for this reason, or do you use your poetic prose style throughout your novels to increase the emotional impact of your work?

"She turns a few knobs, and pushes a few sliders and stuff on her keyboa..."
Uvi, it sounds like you've taken every thing you've learned and experienced and used it as inspiration and basically research for your books. That's awesome.
Do you map out your stories (outline them) before writing or are you a fly by the seat of your pants type?

Thank you so much Katy, this is a deeply insightful question. In a recent radio interview, I discussed this exact question, and compared prose and poetry by comparing the white space on the page.
The white space, in my mind, is like the surface of an ocean. In poetry, it covers nearly all the page, allowing only the words of the poem to erupt over the surface, because a poem in essence is a burst of emotion. But reading a poem, you cannot see under the white surface--there is so much hidden underneath! In prose, on the other hand, the writer 'mines' through all these undercurrents and the landscape sunk beneath the surface, so there are many connections being created and being understood by the reader.
My writing has often been called 'lyrical' by many of my reviewers, on Goodreads and Amazon alike, perhaps because I treat each word with great care, and give thought to every sentence, every phrase, every comma. Similar to the rhythm and rhymes in poetry, I listen to the rhythms of our speech, so the characters in my prose will talk in the flow that reflects their feelings. So all in all, I think I use parallel techniques for my poetry and prose.

A Good Story Is A Good Story
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2013/01/a-...
And here is another one:
Not With A Rambling But With A Roar
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/12/no...
There are more radio interviews down near the bottom, here:
Uvi's Blog
http://uviart.blogspot.com

Thank you Shan, this is a great question, and it illuminates the writing process! Over a year ago I wrote a short story about a twelve years old boy comi..."
Thanks for answering my question. I look forward to reading this story. I realized after reading the blurb that the book sounded familiar, so I checked and I have copy and I will definitely be putting it at the top of my TBR pile.

How much of your writing is extracted from your own life experiences, or those close to you, if any?

What a great question, Iris! It is very telling, too, about the writer. In my case, I have an idea of where I want the story to go, but happily my characters put up a rebellion and take it to where they want to go... It is a delightful game between me, the would-be structured creator, and the playful characters who have a life of their own.
The one thing I do to play this game is throw an obstacle in the character's way, and see how she overcomes it, according to her own history and character.


Thank you Jane for the warm greeting. Ah, the inside story! Truth is, everything I experience feeds into my stories. For example, a while ago as I strolled down the boardwalk in Santa Monica, my ear caught someone berating a young woman, telling her to go to her mama. And I said to myself, wow, this is just the line I need for this point in Apart From Love. So a whole chapter sprung out of this chance encounter.
You can read an excerpt of this chapter here:
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/04/pa...



"So far I doubt she has caught the sound my footfalls. ..."
They both sound interesting Uvi, biblical stories set in modern times. I will definitely check them out :)

Jane, when I wrote Apart From Love I could barely keep up with the characters. They chatted in my mind so profusely that writing just flowed. The only difficulty I had was this: the novel is written in two voices, Ben's and Anita's, looking at events from different angles. So when I finished a chapter in Ben's voice, I had to undergo a 'transition'--go out of Ben's skin and enter into Anita's, so I can identify with her view of things. That transition takes a lot out of me, why? Because Ben is still hanging on and chatting away, not letting me leave him. The same is true with the transition the other way.
So, how do I overcome this? By doing it. I never wait for the muse, but rather start writing. As soon as the first words appear on paper, the rest starts clearing up.
To me, starting a new chapter, or a new book, is similar to shining a flashlight into the darkness. You start seeing one detail, then another, and pretty soon you figure out the entire context.

Thank you Fran! btw, I have another project in the works, not out yet--it will be published at the beginning of the summer. I have been invited to participate in an anthology called Poets in Hell in which each character is based on a mythological or historical figure, as it arrives in Hell. I chose to write about Job's wife (Job as in The Book of Job.) You can read a teaser about my story here:
The Next Big Thing: I Am What I Am
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/12/th...
As well as here:
A First Glimpse of my New Story, I Am What I Am
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/12/a-...


Aw... Thank you so much Marilyn! And I'm writing David as fast as I can.... xoxox

Best Illustrated Book Covers
http://www.goodreads.com/list/show/33...


As you can see, the image is intensely personal, because it is based on the way I saw my childhood home at a time of grief. No cover artist would have been able to generate that for me. It is that vision that comes through both my art and my writing--which you can see by reading the poems as well:
You can see the original painting here:
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/08/my...
The details, here:
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/08/mu...
And the finished cover, here:
http://uviart.blogspot.com/2012/08/ho...
These three posts describe the process you asked about at great depth, both the painting of the art, and the photographing difficulties for this particular painting as well.

Oh what is there to say
Come Valentine's day?
You bring a dozen blood-red roses
She thinks, Is this how he proposes?
With a bottle of wine
You whisper, Be mine
You offer a big chocolate heart
She thinks, Well, that's a start
She loosens your tie
And gives a deep sigh
The fire is burning, the music is on
But all you can see on her face is a yawn
Then from your pocket you pull out the ring
She shakes her head, No, I want one more thing
What does she want, come Valentine's day?
In cupid's name, what should I say?
She smiles, Bring me Home, Apart From Love
Then I'll be yours, like a hand and a glove
And you say, Give me A Favorite Son
Now let's blow off the candles, one by one
What more is there to say
Come Valentine's day?


My Interview at the Author's Corner with Elaine Raco Chase
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/triangle...
UPDATE: Due to an emergency the interview has been canceled tonight (Elaine has to take her husband to the hospital.

Thanks for joining us - were the characters in Apart from Love inspired by anyone? Or how do you develop your characters?

Thank you Dee for your question, I'll answer it by focusing on one of my characters, the female lead in Apart From Love. Many readers asked me about Anita, the girl in the midst of a firestorm of passion in my new book, Apart From Love. She is so different... How, some of you have wondered out loud, did she spring from your mind?
The answer is, at first I decided to model her as the-opposite-of-me. By which I mean a lot more that just her use of language (talking in sentences laden with 'like' and the dreaded double-negatives.) Anita was to become a bold and spontaneous spirit, anything but repressed. She would be promiscuous. Her voice would be shockingly direct:
"In my defense I have this to say: When men notice me, when the lusty glint appears in their eyes, which betrays how, in their heads, they’re stripping me naked—it’s me they accuse of being indecent.
Problem is, men notice me all the time.
How can a girl like me ever claim to be innocent? Even if I haven’t done nothing wrong, I’m already soiled, simply because of their dirty thoughts."
From the beginning she would move quickly to get what she wants:
"The minute our eyes met, I knew what to do: so I stopped in the middle of what I was doing, which was dusting off the glass shield over the ice cream buckets, and stacking up waffle cones here and sugar cones there. From the counter I grabbed a bunch of paper tissues, and bent all the way down, like, to pick something from the floor. Then with a swift, discrete shove, I stuffed the tissues into one side of my bra, then the other, ‘cause I truly believe in having them two scoops—if you know what I mean—roundly and firmly in place.
Having a small chest is no good: men seem to like girls with boobs that bulge out."
She would do what I would not admit to even dream about doing:
"So I asked, “So? What kind of cone for you?” but that woman cut in, ‘cause I was still holding her three-scoops tower of pistachio nut on a sugar cone. And she started to cry out, and like, demand some attention here, because hey, she was first in line, and how about whipped cream? Or some of that shredded coconut?
So I smiled at her, in my most cool and polite manner, and squeezed out a big dollop of whipped cream, which was awesome, ‘cause it calmed her down right away.
And I scattered some of them coconut flakes all over—quite a heap—and went even further, adding a cherry on top. At last, I raised the thing to my lips, because at this point, it was starting to drip already.
Then, winking at him, I passed my tongue over the top, and all around the ice cream at the rim of the cone, filling my whole mouth and, just to look sexy, also licking the tips of my fingers. Then I came around the counter, swaying my hips real pretty, and steadying myself over the wobbly high heels. I came right up to him, and before he could guess what kind of trouble I had cooked up in my head, I kissed him—so sweet and so long—on his lips, to the shouts and outcries of the offended customer."
I do not even know how it happened, but once Anita started talking in my mind—which she did for nearly a year—I started to like her more and more. I asked myself, how would she play against Ben, who is a complex character, hesitant, highly sophisticated? How would she play against Lenny, a would-be author who is so proud of his refined expressions, when her background is so different from his?
So to my surprise, Anita ended up taking over not only the story, but also me.

A Good Story Is A Good Story
http://uviart.blogspot.com/201..."
Uvi - such a beautiful response. Thank you. The ocean metaphor was simply gorgeous. Thank you for answering my question and for providing the links. I look forward to reading your work!

Aw... It's truly my pleasure, Katy!

Shan, Dani, Katy and Iris!
Congratulations to the winners!
Please PM me your email address and I will send it on to Uvi so she can get your ebook right out to you.
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Books mentioned in this topic
Home (other topics)A Favorite Son (other topics)
Apart From Love (other topics)
Apart From Love (other topics)
Apart From Love (other topics)
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Meet Uvi:
Uvi Poznansky is a California-based author, poet and artist. You can view daily posts of her writing and art on her blog.
She earned her B. A. in Architecture and Town Planning from the Technion in Haifa, Israel. During her studies and in the years immediately following her graduation, she practiced with an innovative Architectural firm, taking a major part in the large-scale project, 'Home for the Soldier'; a controversial design that sparked fierce public debate.
At the age of 25 Uvi moved to Troy, N.Y. with her husband and two children. Before long, she received a Fellowship grant and a Teaching Assistantship from the Architecture department at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where she guided teams in a variety of design projects; and where she earned her M.A. in Architecture. Then, taking a sharp turn in her education, she earned her M.S. degree in Computer Science from the University of Michigan.
During the years she spent in advancing her career--first as an architect, and later as a software engineer, software team leader, software manager and a software consultant (with an emphasis on user interface for medical instruments devices)--she wrote and painted constantly, and exhibited in Israel and California. In addition, she taught art appreciation classes. Her versatile body of work can be seen online at uviart.com. It includes bronze and ceramic sculptures, oil and watercolor paintings, charcoal, pen and pencil drawings, and mixed media.
Uvi has published two children books, Jess and Wiggle and Now I Am Paper. For each one of these books, she has created an animation video. see Author Videos at the bottom of this page.
Her novel, Apart From Love, was published February 2012 to great acclaim. Her poetry book, Home, has been published this past Fall.
Apart From Love-
Written with passionate conviction, this story is being told by two of its characters: Ben, a twenty-seven years old student, and Anita, a plain-spoken, spunky, uneducated redhead, freshly married to Lenny, his aging father. Behind his back, Ben and Anita find themselves increasingly drawn to each other. They take turns using an old tape recorder to express their most intimate thoughts, not realizing at first that their voices are being captured by him.
Meanwhile, Lenny keeps a secret from both of them: his ex-wife, Ben’s mother, a talented pianist, has been stricken with an early-onset alzheimer. Taking care of her gradually weighs him down.
What emerges in these characters is a struggle, a desperate, daring struggle to find a path out of conflicts, out of isolation, from guilt to forgiveness.
Website: http://www.uviart.com
Blog: http://uviart.blogspot.com
Books:
Giveaway: Uvi will be giving away 4 ebook copies of Apart From Love. This giveaway is open to everyone.