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I wish I had heard of Siberian Ice Drummers or the use of Lake Baikal ice as a musical instrument when I wrote the second book in the “Many Worlds, One Life” series: “Coding Peter”! If I had, it would have been featured prominently in my story. Alas, some discoveries come too late…but at least they come! Take a listen:
I only have 4 more stops on my virtual book tour for “Harvest.” There have been a lot of fun stops and people who read my book gave it amazing reviews. Thank you! I can’t even begin to tell everyone how much those mean to me on a personal level and for my ability to introduce my stories to a wider audience of readers. Every review counts. It really does. So thank you all! Here are all of my stops so far, including one for today: August 28: Rogue’s Angels September 4: Candrel’s Crafts, Cooks, and Characters September 11: Lisa Haselton’s Reviews and Interviews September 18: Long and Short Reviews September 25: Readeropolis October 2: Kit ‘N Kabookle October 9: BooksChatter October 16: The Avid Reader — amazing review of “Harvest.” Made me so happy that morning! October 23: Wake Up Your Wild Side October 30: Sharing Links and Wisdom November 6: Renee Wildes Weblog — a really nice review of my book on Goodreads. Thank you Renee! November 13: T’s Stuff November 20: Independent Authors — this stop features “God of Small Affairs” a bit. I hope it is a nice introduction to that story. (I liked this stop so much that I turned it into a my own blog post!) November…
My husband asked me the other day what do I like more? Having my books on Amazon and other bookstores? Being “famous”? Getting a hard copy of my book in my hands (the unveiling, as people call it on Twitter and post videos of themselves crying upon opening a box of books)? Reviews? The strange thing is that it’s not any of these things (although reviews are great and greatly appreciated!). What I love most is the actual writing part of writing. I like the creation of a brand new world populated by beings from my imagination. I actually go through a mourning period after each story I finish. And I feel this way about my painting, too. Don’t get me wrong; having accomplished something as hard as writing a novel is nice. Real nice. But the time when I sit in front of my computer and put “words to paper” is the best part of writing for me. All those ideas and thoughts that were expressing themselves in my dreams (day and night), the little notes I wrote to myself about plot points or definitions of words, the searches through interesting imagery, the many months of research into the…
There is a general recognition that time perception speeds up as we get older. As kids, we felt our summers lasted a lifetime; as adults, summertime slithers out of our hands before we even get a chance to pull our sun hats from storage. With each year, time shortens and compresses to practically nothing. But is that all? Are there other changes that we are simply less aware of that transform our psyche as we age? And is this adult feeling for temporal foreshortening uniformly distributed throughout human cultures (historically and geographically)? Since I’ve just published two books this year (“Harvest” and “God of Small Affairs”) that considered human development on cosmological scales of existence, there was something in those stories that tickled my brain — what else changes so dramatically over our lifetimes? And I think the answer might be our goals and expectations. As a kid, I played at how long I could hold my breath, how long could I hang from a pole, how many times I could jump the rope before getting tangled up… How many grapes could fit into my mouth? (It was really gooseberries, but who knows what they are on this side of…
We are quickly falling into Fall. Warm sweaters, blankets, and books. But why bother with books when there is so much other entertainment around? Netflicks, HBOs, Amazons of the world are eager to grab hold of our eyeballs and never let go. It’s great for their bottom line. In 2017, the American Time Use Survey (Bureau of Labor Statistics) said that according to their survey, the number of Americans who read for pleasure had dropped by 30% since 2003. Who has the time, right? I hear that a lot too. “I’d read, but I have kids…I commute…I work long hours…I read at work…” There are many excuses. The one that most people don’t typically mention is that it is much easier to plump on a couch and watch something on TV or to simply play on one’s cell phone (for those who no longer own a TV). But reading is an active activity, while watching videos is passive. Cognitively, that makes a huge difference. Consider a piano. About 100 years ago, most households in America (middle class) had a piano in their parlor. Everyone learned to play a little bit. People could read music and play it off a sheet.…
Sometimes, when we finish reading or writing a story, the story is not done with us. Some characters linger in our thoughts and speak up and give rise to some other content and revelations. Mostly, such content remains private — I have tons of illustration, pages of story, and folders of research ideas that never made it into the final novel. But occasionally, I discover places on the Web where a bit of that background material can leak out and find an audience. The Protagonist Speaks is one such website. It allows authors to share interviews with their fictional characters, adding depth and dimensionality to those people who otherwise would be stuck on pages between the beginning and the end. Since my book “Twin Time” is currently part of the SPFBO 2019 competition (yes, as of today, it still stands!), I got to meet another competitor, Assaph Mehr. He runs The Protogonist Speaks, an award-winning fantasy blog that features these interviews. Here’s Alex Orlov interview with the police after the fire: “From the closed files relating to the Ms. Orlova’s house fire and the disappearance of Sasha Orlov: Transcript of Alex Orlov interview with Hillsborough police department’s Detective Hendle. (Additional…
The paperback version of “God of Small Affairs” is out everywhere (well, mostly in online stores) today! Here’s a link to “God of Small Affairs” on Amazon. In about two weeks, the ebook version will come out as well. The story already earned three 5-star reviews from Readers’ Favorite! You can read the first few chapters here. Like for all of my books, I’ve created a Pinterest mood board for this story. Check it out. I think illustrations really help the readers to see inside my head…a little. The illustrations for this particular story are more evocative than most. Something about gods that walk among us and help guide humanity into the future… And while there, look at my other mood boards, for other stories. I find that “collecting” imagery while writing is very inspiring. Some writing is very visual, and some art is very lyrical and story-driven. As you might have guessed, I am not a big fan of an empty canvas or flat, one color artboards. I want details. Descriptions. Illustrations. I like that in art as well as literature. SPFBO 5 Competition As I’ve mentioned last time, this year, I am also participating in a little friendly…
