Faerie Prince Book Tour: A Guest Post By Rachel Morgan On Writing For An International Audience

Hello, everyone! Today I have the honor of hosting author Rachel Morgan, who is here to talk about writing for people in the connected world of the web. Take it away, Rachel!


Writing for an International Audience

I'm a South African living in South Africa, which means I write and speak British English (we like to add extra letters to our words and use "s" instead of "z". Like neighbour instead of neighbor, and realise instead of realize). I wrote my first novel using British spelling, because that's the way I'd always written words. But when I started writing books that I knew I was going to epublish through Amazon, I figured the majority of my audience would be US readers. (There are people in South Africa who read ebooks, but we're way behind the US in that regard.) So ... I decided to switch to US spelling.

The thing is, the difference doesn't stop at spelling. We use different words as well, and I didn't always realis/ze that while I was writing! Fortunately, my critique partner lives in the US and she pointed out the differences as she went through my manuscript. I remember a particularly confusing email exchange about a plug in a bathroom, because she thought I was referring to an electrical plug (what is your character plugging in?) while I was referring to the plug you put in the bath to stop the water running out (oh, you mean a stopper, she said).

Here are some other examples of words I changed after the first draft:

post = mail
zip = zipper
bath = bathtub (I even asked for suggestions on Facebook about what word to use for the noun bath! People were very helpful.)
icing = frosting (although it seemed to me from my Googling that US writers use both icing and frosting, so I stuck with icing in the end)
sweet = candy

And there are a whole lot of other word differences that I didn't use in this novel but that I have to remember in future writing (like bonnet = hood and chips = fries).

If you're a writer, have you had to consider these spelling/word differences before when thinking about your intended audience? If you're a reader, do you notice whether the book you're reading has US or UK spelling, or do you just read the book?

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Rachel Morgan is the author of the newly released YA paranormal fantasy The Faerie Prince, second novel in the Creepy Hollow series. You can find it at the following online retailers (and if you haven't yet read the first book, The Faerie Guardian, you can find out where to get it on this page):

Amazon US | Amazon UK

Barnes & Noble

Apple iBookstore

CreateSpace (print)

~  ~  ~

Rachel Morgan was born in South Africa and spent a large portion of her childhood living in a fantasy land of her own making. After completing a degree in genetics, she decided science wasn’t for her—after all, they didn’t approve of made-up facts. These days she spends much of her time immersed in fantasy land once more, writing fiction for young adults.

Blog | Twitter | Facebook | Goodreads | Pinterest

Don't forget the giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Will I Ever Be Able To Do That Story Justice?: An IWSG Post

The Insecure Writer's Support Group is hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh, and co-hosted this month by Lynda R. Young, Mark Koopmans, and Rachna Chhabria. From Alex's blog:

Purpose: To share and encourage. Writers can express doubts and concerns without fear of appearing foolish or weak. Those who have been through the fire can offer assistance and guidance. It’s a safe haven for insecure writers of all kinds!

The first novel I wrote is the first I finished--and every once in a while, usually 1-3 times a year, I'll suddenly be struck with inspiration for how to revise it. The story has a particular piece of my heart attached to it, which may just be because it is my first novel, but I'm still continually drawn to it several projects later. It's a gigantic mess right now (I divided into a trilogy with a total of around 500,000 words . . . which is not as bad as it sounds when you realize it was originally a single book) and I want to fix it.

However, whenever I think about the story after that brief moment of inspiration, I run into walls. Perhaps (probably?) they're manufactured walls, but when I think about all the things I want to achieve in rewriting the project I always feel like I'm entirely inadequate to fulfill those aspirations. To capture the pieces of humanity I imagine in my head, to make the plot as intricate as those in the stories I really admire, to avoid turning the characters (one in particular) into stereotypes.

Then I wonder if it's even worth going back to. Few writers seem to have their very first novel published, having written and polished several projects before coming up with something truly publishable and/or ready to submit. Assuming it is . . . I wonder if I'll be skilled enough at writing to not turn the story into another mangled pile.

Have you ever had a story that returned to you again and again over several years? If so, did you wait until you'd worked on other projects before writing/rewriting it? Do you usually feel up to the task of working on your stories?


-----The Golden Eagle

A To Z Challenge: Quantum Physics And Quandaries Of The Universe (+ A Book Release: The Other Marlowe Girl)

Quantum mechanics, also known as quantum physics, is a field of study involving physics which cannot be explained through classical methods, such as Newtonian physics. Some extremely weird phenomena occurs in quantum mechanics, including--but not limited to--things appearing and disappearing at random moments and photons being both waves and particles.

This month, some interesting findings regarding a thing called quantum entanglement have been published. Quantum entanglement's premise is as follows: When two particles (let's say photons) are entangled, it means that when one or both of the photons is observed (i.e. measured) they assume opposite positions, such as one photon being up and the other down.

The interesting thing about the interaction is that before either of the photons is observed, they are considered to be in all possible states at the same time--therefore, when one photon falls into one state (such as the down state) upon observation, the other photon will fall into the complementary state (the up state). This means information travels between the two particles faster than the speed of light, which caused Einstein to call it "spooky action at a distance". The recent report closes three loopholes in this theory that could have poked holes in quantum entanglement, which serves to shore up the theory and affirm that, indeed, particles really are communicating between themselves about their different states.

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Sources:
http://www.thefreedictionary.com/quantum+mechanics
http://www.pbs.org/transistor/science/info/quantum.html
http://www.livescience.com/28808-spooky-quantum-entanglement-loophole-closed.html
http://www.livescience.com/28550-how-quantum-entanglement-works-infographic.html
http://www.itechpost.com/articles/8022/20130418/quantum-mechanics-physics-loophole-photons-experiment-lasers-einstein-theory-of-relativity.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/04/130415094839.htm

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And now, for a belated book release. In the madness of the A to Z Challenge, I thought this book release post was supposed to go up next Monday, when it was really supposed to be up last Monday. I apologize for the mistake--hope you can forgive me, Beth! And I hope this post can still do some good going up now.

Meet Beth Fred! That's me! I'm a full time ELF keeper and part time writer/blogger/writing instructor. I'm represented by Kathleen Rushall of Marsal Lyons Literary Agency. I like my tea hot, my romance sweet, and my guys chivalrous. Real men hold open doors, refer to you as ma'am, make promises they keep, and aren't afraid to profess their undying love. It's not breakfast if there aren't carbs(at least, not in the South). Fajitas, carnitas, and churros are just few of my favorite things. Bet you can't guess where I'm from ;) Wanna know more about me? You can find that here:

Email me: bethfred08(at)gmail.com
Blogger:  bethfred.com
Tweet me: bethfred08
FB Author Page: https://www.facebook.com/bethfred08

Available at: Amazon & Smashwords

When twenty-four-year-old Tiffany escapes her sister Kammy's too wild Cancun bachelorette party, she finds herself in a bar with the unwanted attention of a gorgeous local named Luke.

Luke may be charming but Tiffany is leaving in two days and doesn't need any complications. But complications are exactly what she gets when the cops show up to raid Kammy's party. When Kammy is arrested, Tiffany agrees to have dinner with Luke, so he'll help her get Kammy out of jail. Kammy's arrest forces her to spend an extra day in Cancun, meaning she'll miss a crucial meeting, and as an accountant in tax season, she is already drowning in work. Not to mention, every second she spends with Luke makes it harder to leave. With Luke, Tiffany can forget about work.

But will the airport be their final goodbye?

ebook, 42 pages
Published September 12th 2012 by Amazon
ASINB0096PWTUO
edition language: English
original title: Kismet
 

Available at: Amazon

When twenty-four-year-old dance school drop out Kammy Marlowe is evicted by her mother, she goes to her favorite bar. She finds an unlikely friend in the blunt eye candy, Enrique. But Kammy knows there is no way she and Enrique have a shot because he's her brother-in-law’s brother and has been privy to her wild past.

Enrique swears he’s only interested in the person she is today, but their relationship is tested when her ex-husband's drug dealer attacks her, looking for money. With no options and a money hungry drug dealer on her back, Kammy accepts a position as a dancer at a strip club. But when Enrique shows up at the club, their relationship is over. With no reason to stay in Texas anymore, Kammy auditions for the Bolshevik Ballet and gets the opportunity to go to Russia. Only Enrique is determined to stop her.

Will she give up the chance of a lifetime to stay with the man she still loves?


Ebook: 107 pages
Published: April 5th 2013
edition language: English

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Do you agree with Einstein's description of quantum entanglement as "spooky action at a distance"? Some scientists have accomplished minor teleportation using entanglement; would you agree to being teleported using quantum mechanics, if they succeeded at transporting things larger than individual particles?

Have you read any of Beth Fred's books?


-----The Golden Eagle

Book Release: Overcoming Adversity: An Anthology For Andrew Edited By Nick Wilford

Today's the release date of Overcoming Adversity, the book compilation of all the blogfest entries from the Overcoming Adversity Blogfest Nick Wilford hosted a month ago.

I should probably mention my short story's in the anthology; not only am I excited to contribute to a book created for such a good cause (see the blurb below) this is actually the first time a piece of fiction I wrote has appeared in anything other than my blog.


Here's the info for Overcoming Adversity:


Blurb:

Cover design by D.R. Cartwright; concept by Ella Wilson.

A collection of seventy moving and uplifting original pieces - real life, flash fiction, and poetry - about battling against the odds and the ultimate triumph of the human spirit. The contributors include Amazon bestselling authors Alex J. Cavanaugh and Kyra Lennon, and the cream of upcoming talent.
     The anthology is part of a fundraising effort to send the editor's stepson, Andrew McNaughton, to a specialist college in England. Andrew has cerebral palsy, and is a remarkable young man with a promising future. However, the free further education options offered in his own country of Scotland will not challenge him and allow him to progress. In order to access the education he deserves, Andrew will have to pay exorbitant fees, thus creating a situation of discrimination.
     Help us get Andrew to college by buying a book that runs the full gamut of human emotions, ultimately leaving you inspired and glad to be alive. Whatever struggles you are going through, our sincere hope is that this book will help.

Purchase links:

Amazon UK: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Overcoming-Adversity-Anthology-Andrew-ebook/dp/B00BM62EZA
Amazon US: http://www.amazon.com/Overcoming-Adversity-Anthology-Andrew-ebook/dp/B00BM62EZA
Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/290822
Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17452314-overcoming-adversity

Editor Bio: Nick Wilford is a writer and stay-at-home dad. Once a journalist, he now makes use of those rare times when the house is quiet to explore the realms of fiction. When not writing he can usually be found spending time with his family or cleaning something. He has four short stories published in Writer’s Muse magazine. Nick is also co-running a campaign to get a dedicated specialist college built in Scotland. Visit him at http://nickwilford.blogspot.co.uk.









-----The Golden Eagle

Book Release: The Neumarian Chronicles: Escapement by Ciara Knight

Today is the release date of Ciara Knight's newest book, Escapement, the first book in The Neumarian Chronicles and the sequel to Weighted, which you may recognize. Congratulations, Ciara!

Here's the promo and information about Escapement.

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We need your help! Thanks to our spy, Ciara Knight, we are able to communicate with you today via blogs, Facebook, Twitter and other social media.

The Neumarian uprising has begun. We are fighting for freedom and equality for all, but we need your help. Ciara informed us that you might want to know more about the uprising and why we ask you to risk your lives for our cause. To answer these questions I've agreed to let Ciara tell my sister's, Raeth's, story about her captivity. It will be free for you on a site called Amazon until March 1, 2013.

Our spies have told us this will help spread the word and find more recruits for our rebellion against the tyrannical queen. You can help by simply downloading a free copy of Weighted, a prequel to the Neumarian Chronicles. If you are intrigued and wish to follow our uprising, Escapement, book I of The Neumarian Chronicles, will be available for only $2.99 until March 1, 2013.

Escapement is told by Princess Semara. Don’t hold the fact Semara is a princess against her like I did, there is more to her than you can possibly imagine.

Here is a brief explanation of her telling of our uprising:

Ten years after the great war of 2185 the queen’s reign is threatened by uprisings and fear. In celebration of my sixteenth birthday it is my duty as princess to sacrifice a slave to be initiated into the ruling council, solidifying my mother’s empire. When my own erratic powers surface I’m captured and tried for treason. Slaves hate me, my mother wants me executed, and my only chance of survival rests in the hands of a young man, Ryder Arteres, whose sister I sentenced to death.

What people are saying about Escapement:

“A heady mix of action adventure and steampunk -- leavened with a dash of romance -- ESCAPEMENT offers up its fair share of thrills, horrors and heart-pounding moments. A strong start to a captivating new series.”
-- Jana Oliver, author of The Demon Trapper's Daughter

“A riveting tale of justice, mercy, honor and love. Take a deep breath and hold on, because you'll be turning the pages of Escapement quickly. Three unlikely comrades, Princess Semara, Ryder, and his sister Raeth, embark on a journey that will alter their lives forever. The beautiful love story nestled into these action-packed scenes will make you sigh and remember why you love to love. After reading the prequel Weighted, I knew this story would be amazing, and it was. Ciara Knight truly has a gift for creating awesome worlds and characters you won't forget.”
--Lindi Peterson--Award winning author of Summer's Song.

“Betrayal, secrets, and a rebellion send readers on a grand adventure, caught in the plight to discover Semara’s gifts and purpose.”
--Alex J Cavanaugh, author of Amazon best sellers CassaStar and CassaFire

“The most unmissable series ever! I couldn't stop reading, the action and romance too breathtaking to break the spell!”
--ARC review by Sudah on Goodreads

"A courageous heart-stopping journey by young people to save their kind."
--Hildie McQueen, bestselling author of Where the Four Winds Collide


If you’d like to see a sneak peek into our world, view this short clip on You Tube. If you are now ready to join our fight, please add Escapement to your TBR shelf on Goodreads here. Shout out on all your social media sites, and tell everyone you know to stand up and fight.

Be Bold.
Be Brave.
Be Free.

In the name of the rebellion,
Ryder Arteres


Ciara is also hosting a giveaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

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Have you read Weighted? Are you looking forward to Escapement?


-----The Golden Eagle

Cover Reveal: From the Ashes by Jessica K. McKendry

Jessica K. McKendry has revealed the cover and blurb of her debut, From the Ashes! I'm excited to be part of the reveal, since it sounds like a really good book (and the cover is fantastic):

Blurb:

I'm not sure how it all went wrong.
The concept was simple.
The Trials were made to test us. They were made to challenge our strengths; our bravery.
We were supposed to come out better.
Winning the Trials would make us Superior citizens.
It would bring us honor and demonstrate our loyalty to the Imperial Alliance. I knew exactly what I wanted.
Until I met him.
There was something about him. Something dark. If only I had known the danger it would put us in.
I thought I knew the risks.
But I never imagined the price we'd pay.

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Sound like a book you'd check out? What's an upcoming debut that's caught your eye?


-----The Golden Eagle

The Look Tag (AKA The Thing Where I Post An Excerpt From My Novel)

Over the past couple of months (yes, I know, I took that long . . .) I've been tagged by JeffO at The Doubting Writer and Susan at Mywithershins to do the Look Tag.

The objective: Post the first instance of the word "look" (or variant) from your current project, along with some of the surrounding paragraphs. The following excerpt is from my National Novel Writing Month project--which is as yet unfinished, in case you were wondering; at the rate I've been writing this month, I think I might have it completed some time in January.

The project is untitled. And before you get confused, in the following scene everyone's aboard an airship called the Ornatus, all personnel have been called to the Engineering deck, and the main character's POV has not been introduced yet (this is only the first page), which is why it's all third-person omniscient.


   Behind the Captain stood three individuals: Two boys and a girl, all with the nose, eyes, and cheekbones of the Captain but with none of the overbearing authority. They weren't officers, not part of the full-time crew, and rarely filled in for the personnel on the lower decks though they had passed all the proper tests. They were the children of the Captain but still considered too green to perform major tasks on a mission as important as that of the Ornatus. They were there because, in an emergency, they could be a fallback.
   One of the boys, in particular, looked uncomfortable standing in front of the 87 crew members. His eyes shifted from one part of the room to the next and he swayed very slightly, like the movement of someone who needs to go to the bathroom very badly and doesn't want to show it.
   The girl, on the other hand, looked on the way to inheriting the mantle of her mother, the Captain. Standing still as feather in a void, she observed the proceedings with an intelligence lost on everyone except herself and another person she could not see.
   "Someone is playing havoc with this ship," the Captain announced, her voice carrying to the back row of the assembled crew. "And I want to clarify immediately that nothing, nothing shall put this mission in jeopardy under my command. Whoever has played these tricks on the noble Ornatus is a fool and has no purpose onboard this airship. All of you have been called here so that I may inform you directly of the fact that each and every one of you will have your quarters searched. In fact, your quarters may already have been searched, as I ordered a top-down check of the entire ship."
   The crew began to mutter, their voices turning into a sweep of anger and indignation that they should have their belongings nosed through by higher officers. The Captain clapped her hands once, and the murmuring stopped, though there was still a hum of discontent.

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Any thoughts, critiques, criticisms, opinions on the excerpt?

If you participated in NaNoWriMo, did you finish your novel in November or are you still working on it?


-----The Golden Eagle

The Hobbit Blogfest

M. Pax and Tyrean Martinson are hosting the Hobbit Blogfest (or Hobbit Fest) today, in celebration of the book and new movie. Being a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien, I had to participate. It's a simple event--participants just post their answers to four questions about the story.


What is your favorite hobbit characteristic or the one that you think closely resembles you?
I don't think I have a whole lot in common with hobbits, other than being relatively short. My favorite characteristic of hobbits would be their determination in the face of difficulty, even if they don't appear very fierce in their peaceful lives at Hobbiton.

If you could choose between a scrumptious second breakfast and a perilous unexpected journey – which would you prefer?
Oh, probably the unexpected journey. I'd feel too lazy sitting around munching food (even if it was delicious) if other people were doing something.

Have you ever left behind something on a journey (expected or unexpected) and wished you could have it over and over again? (A pocket handkerchief?)
A camera. It drives me crazy to see something interesting and be unable to photograph it.

What is your favorite part or quote from the book that you hope will be in the movie?
You may have already guessed my answer to this one: The eagles! I'm also highly looking forward to the Lonely Mountain. And the elves. And Beorn. And Bilbo Baggins played by Martin Freeman. And--heck, I'm looking forward to  the entire thing.


Who else is excited for The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey? Have any of you seen the movie, and if so, what did you think? 


-----The Golden Eagle

Guest Post By Cherie Reich: The Nightmare Collection Blog Tour

Today, I have a special guest post by Cherie Reich, author of the recently-released Nightmare series of books. It's an eerie tale, and the inspiration for one of her horror stories. Take it away, Cherie!

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Cover art by Nicemonkey at Dreamstime.com. 

Cover design by Aubrie Dionne. Bookworm logo for 

Surrounded by Books Publishing created 

by Cherie Reich.

Once Upon a December Nightmare – Loosely Based on a True Story

Thank you so much for having me on your blog today, Golden!

You hear all the time about horror stories being based off a true story, such as The Exorcist and The Amityville Horror. Thinking the story might be true greatly increases the fear factor. But I am here today to tell you that Once Upon a December Nightmare in The Nightmare Collection is loosely based off a true story.

On December 28, 2002, three friends (my best friend, her sister, and her sister’s husband) and I were going to go to a movie and out to eat. Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers was sold out, and we couldn’t decide on another movie to go see, so we ended up at Subway to eat dinner. We chatted for a while, and none of us wanted to go back home so early, so we piled into my friend’s husband’s old truck and rode around. We ended up on one of those one-lane mountain trails in the Jefferson National Forest.

We were having fun, joking around and the like. Then, we saw the tree blocking our path. No worries. The “James” of the ground said he knew a spot we could turn around and go the other way. All good, right?

In the clearing, some hunter, or hunters, had deposited deer remains. They were very creepy and sent a chill up my spine. Plus, I wasn’t thrilled about them, since I’m a vegetarian and feel bad for the poor creatures. We didn’t know why the deer were there, but the mood in the truck changed as we headed back the way we’d come.

When the headlights flickered out and plunged us into the dark, I knew our fun night had changed to one of horror. The cell phones didn’t work and we had no way of starting the truck, so we set out to walk to the main road.

In situations like this, I have to admit I become a great talker, even though I’m typically the more shy, quiet type. I talked about aliens, The X-Files, serial killers, and monsters. I kept saying we had to stick together and keep walking. I could’ve walked home that night, even though it was so cold and we all grew numb.

Eventually, we came out to the main road and found a house. The people in it wouldn’t let us inside, but they did let us use the phone to call my dad. We stood around there for a while before I said we should keep walking. Dad found us, and we climbed into the car with the heat blasting and went home.

Although our adventure ended much better, I don’t think I ever would’ve written Once Upon a December Nightmare without having lived the tale ... to some extent.

As a writer, do you or have you used real life events to inspire your stories?

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About The Nightmare Collection:

A legend is hungry tonight. 

A child monster will get its first taste of blood in Nightmare at the Freak Show. Four friends will enter the forest on December night, but only one can survive in Once Upon a December Nightmare. Almost ten years after Cassie's December nightmare, the monster awakens to hunt again in Nightmare Ever After.

Add to Goodreads.

Purchase links:

E-book format:

Smashwords

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon DE

Amazon FR

Amazon ES

Amazon IT

Amazon JP

Nook

Nook UK

Kobo

Print format:

Createspace

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon DE

Amazon FR

Amazon ES

Amazon IT

About Cherie Reich:

A self-proclaimed bookworm, Cherie Reich is a writer, freelance editor, book blogger, and library assistant living in Virginia. Her short stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies. Her e-books include the horror series Nightmare, a short story collection with authors Aubrie Dionne and Lisa Rusczyk titled The Best of Raven and the Writing Desk, the futuristic space fantasy novelette trilogy Gravity, and The Foxwick Chronicles, a series of fantasy stories. She is a member of Valley Writers and the Virginia Writers Club.

Website: http://cheriereich.webs.com

Blog: http://cheriereich.blogspot.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/bookworm0753

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorcheriereich

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4268457.Cherie_Reich

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I am giving away prizes to two lucky people. The prize packages are open internationally and include: a signed copy of The Nightmare Collection, a signed copy of Gravity: The Complete Trilogy, and a $10 Amazon Gift Card.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

-----The Golden Eagle

The Make Believe Anthology

The Make Believe anthology is out today! The blogger heading the launch day celebration is Lynda R. Young, whose story, Birthright, is included in the collection.

About Birthright:

Christa can mask the pain and hide the scars, but running from a birthright is impossible.
   She’s tried to escape her grief by fleeing to a small town in Florida. Much to her frustration, the locals think they recognize her even though she's never been there before. To make things worse, a man named Jack spouts outrageous theories about her.
   Both spur Christa to bolt, to start fresh yet again, but there’s something about Jack that intrigues her enough to stay. The only problem? Someone else wants her to leave, and they won’t stop until she’s dead.

About the other stories:

The Amulet of Ormisez by J. Keller Ford

There is only one way to save Elton Fletcher’s brother from an insanity-ridden death. After years away from home, fighting for his people, Elton returns to discover his only sibling, Cayden, possessed by greed and malice, and responsible for malicious, unthinkable deeds. Cayden, though, isn’t the only one afflicted by the Amulet of Ormisez, and Elton finds himself in yet another battle, where the price of failure could be his own life.

Petrified by Kelly Said

A mysterious storm has replaced summer with winter, devastating crops and smothering Castle lands in snow. Prince Sterling August stands alone as a leader, lost in personal grief as well as a desire to help his people but with an inability to do either.
   The answers he needs await him, but without Lochlyn, a woman who’s just as isolated as Sterling, he’ll never see what stands before him, cloaked in illusion.

Last Winter Red by Jennifer M. Eaton

Emily is a Red, a woman whose sole purpose in life is to produce offspring. When her husband dies and leaves her childless, she risks her life and forsakes the safety of Terra—a disease-free city born after the nuclear holocaust. Beyond its boundaries, she knows, survives a man with whom she can be properly paired.
   The Outside, though, holds secrets the government struggles to keep, and what Emily discovers on her quest for a mate will change her life forever.

Escort to Insanity by J.A. Belfield

From a charity auction, to a stroll in the park, to the craziest night of her life. Nicole Harrington can’t help but wonder how a simple event went so drastically wrong.
   Of course, the male escort she booked is wholly to blame. Not only charming but shrewdly intelligent, Benjamin Gold drags Nicole into a platoon of unimaginable problems—ones from which she’ll have to find the courage just to survive.

Sacrificial Oath by Terri Rochenski

An impetuous act unwittingly makes Alesuela the fulfillment of the Sovereign’s Blood Oath to their Goddess. In five days, she’ll be forced to make the greatest choice of her life: become the virginal sacrifice already promised, or force the man she loves most to die in her place.
   With an impossible choice in front of her, she searches for ways to undo the oath, and in her quest, finds not everything in her life is as she expects.

Purchase links:
www.amazon.com
www.amazon.co.uk
Barnes & Noble
All Romance
Diesel
Books On Board


About Lynda R. Young:
Lynda R. Young lives in Sydney, Australia, with her sweetheart of a husband who is her rock, and a cat who believes world domination starts in the home. She writes speculative short stories and is currently writing novels for young adults. In her spare time she also dabbles in photography and all things creative. You can find her here: Blog, Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads


Other people spreading the word about Make Believe:






Do you know Lynda R. Young? Have you read Make Believe yet? Do you check out many anthologies?


-----The Golden Eagle

The Big Smoke Blog Tour: Does Romance Equal Happiness In Fiction?

Today I have the honor of hosting Cally Jackson for her blog tour to spread the word about her new book, The Big Smoke. Take it away, Cally!

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Does romance equal happiness?

I’m a sucker for a good romance. Twilight is one of my favourite books and movies like Ten Things I Hate About You never fail to make me smile. But as much as I love stories like these, they make me slightly uncomfortable. Why? Because they seem to equate romance with happiness, and I’m not sure that’s a great message, particularly for young (and new) adults.

I know that those messages really affected me when I was a teenager, and consequently, I was slightly totally obsessed with finding 'true love' for myself. To prove my point, here are some real, live diary excerpts from when I was seventeen:

'Life just isn’t what dreams are made of. At least, not my dreams. The one thing that really scares me is, what if Billy [ex-boyfriend] is the best thing I’m going to get in life? What if it's all down hill from here?'

I've actually been dreaming about him [an ex-crush] recently, but it’s not really him. I mean, it’s him physically, but personality wise, it’s someone else. I guess it’s my made-up Mr Perfect's personality – someone I unfortunately haven’t had the pleasure of meeting…

The first kernel of an idea for a novel came to me in the same year I wrote those diary entries, and the idea was in the form of a lesson I wanted to teach myself. What was the lesson? That your happiness and life journey are your own responsibility, nobody else's.

Somewhere along the line, I realised that I'd totally bought into the message that romance equals happiness and it’s impossible to be truly happy without it. I decided then that I wanted to write a book that showed this wasn't the case. That book became what we now know as The Big Smoke.

Don't get me wrong, The Big Smoke is not anti-romance, but it attempts to demonstrate that if you have issues, they'll still be there whether you’re in a relationship or not. And in fact, if you get too hung up on being in a relationship, it can actually be an obstacle to happiness.

This was the case for me as a teenager, and it's also the case for The Big Smoke's main female character, Ceara. I have a feeling it may be the case for many other girls (and maybe guys) out there who love teen fiction too.

While The Big Smoke is about a lot more than just this one idea, the issue of romance and happiness is definitely at the heart of the story. I hope that my novel might make some teenagers question whether romance does indeed equal happiness and help them to realise that their happiness is in their own hands, nobody else's.

What about you? Do you think that fiction (particularly fiction aimed at teens) equates romance with happiness? Do you enjoy a good romantic read or would you prefer something more realistic? Or perhaps something that combines the two?

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More about The Big Smoke

Ceara’s desperate for love; Seb's desperate to get laid. Ceara adores reading novels; Seb hasn't finished a book in years. Two strangers, both moving from small country towns to Brisbane – the big smoke. As they prepare to attend the same university, their paths seem set to collide, but they keep missing each other. Maybe fate is keeping them apart, or maybe it's just chance.

When the semester starts, things get complicated. Ceara's best friend withdraws from her, Seb's closest mate turns into a sleazebag, and the relentless demands of university make their stress levels soar. Before their first semester is over, both Seb and Ceara will be forced to question who they are and what they want from their lives. Will they have the courage to find the answers, or will they crumble under the pressure? And when they finally meet, will it be love at first sight or a collision of headstrong personalities?

You can purchase a copy of The Big Smoke: 
• in paperback format from Cally's buy page (Australia and New Zealand) or Amazon (rest of the world)
• in e-book format from Smashwords (preferred digital supplier), Amazon, iBooks, Kobo, Diesel and other e-stores.




-----The Golden Eagle

Blogfest: Did I Notice Your Book?

The Did I Notice Your Book Blogfest is hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh and Ciara Knight, and is all about spreading the word about books.

Post about a book you've noticed. You can choose a book that you've read, something you saw on a blog or social media site, Goodreads, or a sales website. Anything that caught your eye because of a great cover, blurb or reviews, but DON'T tell the author that their book has been noticed. Instead, shout out on social media sites, and encourage others to do the same, until the author finds his/her book.

Leave a blog comment at Ninja Captain Alex's BLOG or Ciara Knight's BLOG when the author finds their book.

Only two rules:

1. You can't post about your own book.
2. The book shouldn't be on the New York Times or USA Today bestseller list. 

This is your chance to shout out about a book that might not have been noticed by others.

I had a hard time deciding which book to post about for this. I follow hundreds of authors, many of whom have published their work, and they're all impressive. However, as I had to narrow it down to something, here's what I went with:

Year Zero by Rob Reid.

An alien advance party was suddenly nosing around my planet.
Worse, they were lawyering up. . . .

In the hilarious tradition of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, Rob Reid takes you on a headlong journey through the outer reaches of the universe—and the inner workings of our absurdly dysfunctional music industry.

Low-level entertainment lawyer Nick Carter thinks it’s a prank, not an alien encounter, when a redheaded mullah and a curvaceous nun show up at his office. But Frampton and Carly are highly advanced (if bumbling) extraterrestrials. And boy, do they have news.

The entire cosmos, they tell him, has been hopelessly hooked on humanity’s music ever since "Year Zero" (1977 to us), when American pop songs first reached alien ears. This addiction has driven a vast intergalactic society to commit the biggest copyright violation since the Big Bang. The resulting fines and penalties have bankrupted the whole universe. We humans suddenly own everything—and the aliens are not amused.

Nick Carter has just been tapped to clean up this mess before things get ugly, and he’s an unlikely galaxy-hopping hero: He’s scared of heights. He’s also about to be fired. And he happens to have the same name as a Backstreet Boy. But he does know a thing or two about copyright law. And he’s packing a couple of other pencil-pushing superpowers that could come in handy.

Soon he’s on the run from a sinister parrot and a highly combustible vacuum cleaner. With Carly and Frampton as his guides, Nick now has forty-eight hours to save humanity, while hopefully wowing the hot girl who lives down the hall from him.

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What book(s) have you noticed recently and/or are on your TBR? If you're participating in the Did I Notice Your Book Blogfest, which book did you choose? Heard of Year Zero before?


-----The Golden Eagle

Cover Reveal: The Faerie Guardian by Rachel Morgan

Rachel Morgan from Rachel Morgan Writes is releasing the cover for The Faerie Guardian today. The book comes out November 5, 2012 and is comprised of four separate stories published individually which have been brought together into a single book.

Blurb:

Protecting humans from dangerous magical creatures is all in a day’s work for a faerie training to be a guardian. Seventeen-year-old Violet Fairdale knows this better than anyone—she’s about to become the best guardian the Guild has seen in years. That is, until a cute human boy who can somehow see through her faerie glamour follows her into the fae realm. Now she’s broken Guild Law, a crime that could lead to her expulsion.
     The last thing Vi wants to do is spend any more time with the boy who got her into this mess, but the Guild requires that she return Nate to his home and make him forget everything he’s discovered of the fae realm. Easy, right? Not when you factor in evil faeries, long-lost family members, and inconvenient feelings of the romantic kind. Vi is about to find herself tangled up in a dangerous plot—and it’ll take all her training to get out of it alive. 

[This novel was originally published in four separate parts: Guardian, Labyrinth, Traitor and Masquerade. It includes bonus scenes at the end.]

Goodreads link.


Also, because this is a paperback release, there's a full wraparound cover image which is as gorgeous as the front alone:

Giveaway Time!

The bonus scenes at the end of the book are NOT written from the main character's point of view. If you'd like to win a $10 Amazon gift card, all you have to do is guess whose point of view these scenes are written from! Head on over to the cover reveal post at Rachel Morgan Writes and fill in the Rafflecopter form. There's a list of characters there that you can choose from. Good luck!


Read any of the books from The Faerie Guardian: Guardian, Labyrinth, Traitor, Masquerade? Know Rachel Morgan and/or follow her blog?


-----The Golden Eagle

Kismet Blog Tour: Guest Post: Why I Decided To Self Publish

Last Thursday I posted the cover for Beth Fred's Kismet. Today, I have a guest post by the author about why she decided to self publish.

Take it away, Beth!

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Eagle, thanks for having me today.

For me, deciding to self publish was a bit of a process. It’s something I always wanted to do, but never had the confidence for. Then I wrote a really cute "sweet romance." It got full requests and revision requests from multiple small presses. I vented about the revision requests as they came in, took a week to think, made the revisions and responded. But then I started getting round 2 requests for revisions, and at this point was un-changing things. True, it’s because each editor is looking for something different, so something one editor had me changed another liked, but still, it was maddening. And in addition to un-changing things, there were new changes that I didn’t agree with. Royalties have always been higher self publishing. Big publishers don’t buy short stories, and marketing budgets are about the same for a self published author and an author with a small press. And it allowed me greater controlled. I did un-change things, because I wanted to. I changed something no one told me to. And I didn’t change anything else. I wrote a beautiful story that could have perpetually changed or stayed dormant on my hard drive. Instead, I’m sharing it with the world, still intact. I hope people enjoy Kismet.


About Kismet:

When twenty-four-year-old Tiffany escapes her sister Kammy's too wild Cancun bachelorette party, she finds herself in a bar with the unwanted attention of a gorgeous local named Luke.
   Luke may be charming but Tiffany is leaving in two days and doesn't need any complications. But complications are exactly what she gets when the cops show up to raid Kammy's party. After Kammy is arrested, Tiffany agrees to have dinner with Luke, so he'll help her get Kammy out of jail. Kammy's arrest forces her to spend an extra day in Cancun, meaning she'll miss a crucial meeting, and as an accountant in tax season, she is already drowning in work. Not to mention, every second she spends with Luke makes it harder to leave. With Luke, Tiffany can forget about work.
   But will the airport be their final goodbye?

And for a limited time it includes an excerpt from best selling author Lizzy Ford! Available at amazon, B&N, and Smashwords.   

About Beth Fred:

Beth Fred lives in Wisconsin with her husband and their little ELF (Emily Lace Fred). She spends her time bringing her day dreams to life on paper, and blogging about bringing day dreams to life. You can find more about that at www.bethfred.com.

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Any of you considering self-publishing? Have you already self-published your work? If you're a writer who's gone the traditional route, would you ever try self-publishing?


-----The Golden Eagle

Genre Favorites Blogfest

The Genre Favorites Blogfest is hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh, and the rules are simple:

One blogfest, four favorites!
List your favorite genre of:

Movie
Music
Books

And a guilty pleasure genre from any of the three categories!

My favorites:


Movies: Fantasy
I was going to say Science Fiction for this category . . . but then I realized that a lot of my favorite movies (The Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter) are Fantasy. I've seen more Fantasy than SF.

Music: Classical
I do like some contemporary music. But classical is the type I can listen to non-stop, and there are so many amazing composers/works that have emerged over hundreds of years.

Books: Science Fiction
Would you believe I used to somewhat avoid SF? I'm not really sure why . . . but most of my reading was Fantasy/Contemporary before I began writing my first novel, which was inspired by a Science Fiction book. And now I'm a bit obsessed with the genre.

Guilty Pleasure: Books: Young Adult Dystopian
I suppose you could put this under Science Fiction, but Dystopian (particularly YA Dystopian) has its own distinct traits. The genre can be very formulaic, predictable, and after reading too much of it I begin to feel like the future is a mire of hopeless politics and oppression (not to say that current events are full of sunshine and optimism, of course), but I do enjoy the character development that usually comes with the protagonist's refutation of their world's rules.


What's one of your favorite genres from the above categories?


-----The Golden Eagle

Kismet Cover Reveal + What's Your Favorite Book-to-Screen Adaptation?

First, a cover reveal. Last Tuesday, Beth Fred released the cover for her new book Kismet. I had actually meant to post about it on Tuesday, but managed to forget the date. *facepalm* But without further ado from me, here's the cover!

Blurb:

Tiffany is a hard-working accountant with no time for love. After escaping her sister's too wild Cancun bachelorette party, she meets a local guy, Luke, in the bar. When they're forced to spend time together, Tiffany lets her guard down, but she still has to return to the US in two days. Will the airport be their final goodbye?

Purchase links:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Smashwords

About Beth Fred:

Beth Fred lives in Wisconsin with her husband and their little ELF (Emily Lace Fred). She spends her time bringing her day dreams to life on paper, and blogging about bringing day dreams to life. You can find more about that at www.bethfred.com.

**********

And second, a question:

Out of all the thousands of screen adaptation of books, which interpretation(s) have you enjoyed the most?

After posting last week about the pros and cons of a recent Sherlock Holmes movie and a TV show, it got me thinking. Personally, I would have to say The Lord of the Rings and the Harry Potter movies are at the top of my list . . . but what about you? Any classics you could watch again and again?


-----The Golden Eagle

Combating Outside Influences: An IWSG Post

The Insecure Writer's Support Group, founded by Alex J. Cavanaugh, is here again! This monthly event, in case you haven't heard of it before, is a day when writers across the blogosphere post about their insecurities, worries, problems, questions, and other things that quietly undermine their writing efforts.

You've probably guessed my issue from the title.

Sometimes, I think I should avoid everything like the plague and hide in a cave when I'm working on a project. It can be so easy for another person's style to influence what I'm trying to do, or for a concept from another work to slip itself into one of my projects, or for a plot twist to emerge in a slightly-different form. Not as a conscious decision, of course, but because my imagination liked the idea and thought "Hey! Let's do it again!" without proper authorization.

Problem is, I like to read (and watch things) when I'm writing a story. I feel more creative when I'm absorbing other fiction, finding out what other people are doing in their genres--you know, actually being a consumer. Hence, the conflict between wanting to experience the good ideas but not wanting to unwittingly copy them into my own projects. It's only on very rare occasions that I actually want someone else's style to leak through into my own.

Do you find outside influences to be a problem when you're writing? Developed any methods of avoiding them from getting into your own projects?


-----The Golden Eagle

Book Release: The Lost Girl By Sangu Mandanna

Yesterday, The Lost Girl by Sangu Mandanna (from Echoes of a Wayward Mind) was released. I've been following Sangu for so long I can't remember when I started, and finally, her book is here!

Blurb:

Eva’s life is not her own. She is a creation, an abomination—an echo. Made by the Weavers as a copy of someone else, she is expected to replace a girl named Amarra, her “other”, if she ever died. Eva studies what Amarra does, what she eats, what it’s like to kiss her boyfriend, Ray. So when Amarra is killed in a car crash, Eva should be ready.
   But fifteen years of studying never prepared her for this.
   Now she must abandon everything she’s ever known—the guardians who raised her, the boy she’s forbidden to love—to move to India and convince the world that Amarra is still alive.
   What Eva finds is a grief-stricken family; parents unsure how to handle this echo they thought they wanted; and Ray, who knew every detail, every contour of Amarra. And when Eva is unexpectedly dealt a fatal blow that will change her existence forever, she is forced to choose: Stay and live out her years as a copy or leave and risk it all for the freedom to be an original. To be Eva.

Reviews:

“Both an interrogation of bioethics and a mesmerizing quest for identity, this debut succeeds through its careful development of the oh-so-human Eva and those around her. A provocative and page-turning thriller/romance that gets at the heart of what it means to be human.” 

(Kirkus Reviews)

“THE LOST GIRL was the most honest portrait of grief and loss that I’ve read in a long time. Filled with heartache, love, and things that would stir Mary Shelley’s ghost, this is a story not to be missed.” 

(Lauren DeStefano, New York Times bestselling author of The Chemical Garden trilogy)

“Mandanna’s debut novel is lovely and at times heartbreaking... A thoughtful study of both a girl’s search for her identity and the human reaction to death.” 

(Publishers Weekly)



Trailer:



Purchase links:

Amazon
Amazon UK
Barnes & Noble
The Book Depository
Indiebound



About Sangu Mandanna:

Sangu Mandanna was four years old when she was chased by an elephant and wrote her first story about it and decided that this was what she wanted to do with her life. Seventeen years later, she read Frankenstein. It sent her into a writing frenzy that became THE LOST GIRL, a novel about death and love and the tie that binds the two together. Sangu now lives in England with her husband and baby son.

Website: www.sangumandanna.com

Blog: http://sangumandanna.blogspot.com

Twitter: @SanguMandanna

**********

Have you read The Lost Girl? Know Sangu? Have the book on your TBR?


-----The Golden Eagle

Alligators Overhead Blog Tour: Teaser Tuesday With C. Lee McKenzie

As you may know, I usually reserve Tuesdays for Teaser Tuesday, hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading. But today, I'm not the one who'll be sharing some teasers: Instead, C. Lee McKenzie, author of the Middle Grade Alligators Overhead is here with some sentences to share.

Here's Lee!

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You’ve been a great supporter of my launch. You created a terrific badge (proudly displayed on my webpage) and you’ve opened your blog to me today. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

   Since you post a lot of teasers on your blog, I thought I’d give your readers a few teasers that I’ve loved, but since you’re all about Aerial Perspective, I’ve chosen to tweak your rules just a bit. My teasers are in keeping with the eagle’s view theme and not randomly chosen. These should be familiar to a lot of readers.

“The Eagles! the Eagles!” Bilbo cried, dancing and waving his arms. If the elves could not see him they could hear him. Soon they too took up the cry, and it echoed across the valley. 

(The Hobbit, J.R.R. Tolkien)

In no region had the messengers discovered any signs or tidings of the Riders or other servants of the Enemy. Even from the Eagles of the Misty Mountains they had learned no fresh news. 

(The Fellowship of the Ring, J.R.R. Tolkien)

Well, I have no eagles flying in my book, but I do have a few alligators that I’ve managed to put overhead. So here are a couple of teasers from Alligators Overhead.

If Lizzy Glopp (spelled with two P's) had heard about the sightings over the Ornofree Swamp, the suspicious-odd shapes almost like—maybe exactly like—alligators she would have known there was something brewing.

The alligators hovered near the tree tops, closing ranks and throwing a huge
shadow over the ground. In perfect formation, they swooped down on the bulldozers, and the crews scattered for cover.

Hope these entice readers to take a look at my middle grade adventure. If they do, I’d love to hear what they thought of the story.

So great to be here!

**********

Blurb for Alligators Overhead:

Alligators, witches and a spooky mansion aren't your average neighbors unless you live at the edge of the Ornofree swamp in the backwater town of Hadleyville. The town's bad boy, Pete Riley, may only be twelve, but he's up to his eyeballs in big trouble, and this time he isn't the cause. This time the trouble arrives when a legendary hundred-year-old mansion materializes next door and the Ornofree alligators declare war to save their swamp from bulldozers. Things only get worse when Pete's guardian aunt and several of her close friends vanish while trying to restore order using outdated witchcraft. Now Pete must find the witches and stop the war. He might stand a chance if his one friend, Weasel, sticks with him, but even then, they may not have what it takes.

Purchase links:
Amazon (Kindle)
Amazon (paperback)
Barnes & Noble
Smashwords

Book Trailer:

About C. Lee McKenzie:

C. Lee McKenzie is a native Californian who grew up in a lot of different places; then landed in the Santa Cruz Mountains where she lives with her family and miscellaneous pets. She writes most of the time, gardens and hikes and does yoga a lot, and then travels whenever she can.
   She takes on modern issues that today's teens face in their daily lives. Her first young adult novel, Sliding on the Edge, which dealt with cutting and suicide was published in 2009. Her second, titled The Princess of Las Pulgas, dealing with a family who loses everything and must rebuild their lives came out in 2010.

WEBSITE: http://cleemckenziebooks.com

BLOG: http://writegame.blogspot.com

FACEBOOK: https://www.facebook.com/cleemckenziebooks

TWITTER : @cleemckenzie

AMAZON AUTHOR PAGE: http://www.amazon.com/-/e/B0042M1KYW 

GOODREADS: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2809083.C_Lee_McKenzie

-----The Golden Eagle

We Can Be Heroes Blog Tour: Interview With Scott Fitzgerald Gray

Today I have an interview with Scott Fitzgerald Gray, author of the recently released We Can Be Heroes, a Science Fiction Thriller.

Blurb:

Death and Friendship.
Love and Gaming.
Mind and Machine.
The Meaning of Life.
High School Graduation.
The End of the World.
That Kind of Stuff.

If you press them, anyone who games will admit to some variation on the idea of how they'd love to be the hero for real, just once. Just for one day. But right now, I'm on an empty street five hundred kilometers from home, barely able to walk. I'm soaked and shivering, wearing someone else's clothes, and with way too many memories of almost dying rattling around in my head. And right here, right now, all I can think about is what I'd say if anybody asked me how much I want to be a hero...

I try to focus. I need to bring the previous days into some sort of relief that will let me sum things up.

"Me and some friends of mine, we got caught up in something. We thought we were beta-playing a game. An online tactical simulation, but the game turned out to be... you know what, that doesn't matter. But none of it was our fault, and now we have something this guy Lincoln wants. A piece of tech. I want to give it back to him, but I can't trust him to leave things alone after that."

"What kind of tech?"

"A Soviet-era mobile weapons platform, whose heuristic on-board systems developed advanced artificial intelligence capability while it sat forgotten in a bunker in Smolensk." Saying it sounds just about as ridiculous as I expect it to.

"I didn't think you wrote fiction." Connor tries and fails to laugh. It's like he has some sort of esophageal deformity that routes all intent to guffaw straight from his lungs to his nose.

"Not fiction. This is the truth..."

And now, for the interview!

What inspired We Can Be Heroes?

The story behind We Can Be Heroes is one of those uber-geek recollections that really has no interest for anyone except me. But since you ask… :-)

The novel is a kind of homage to my own experience of high school, and being a geek and a gamer, and developing friendships at that age that helped shape the person I was and the person I became. The book starts out in a kind of analogue version of the small town in which I grew up, and features an analogue version of the high school in which my precocious intellectualism was first given voice, and its characters are an analogue version of me and analogue/gestalt versions of the above-mentioned friends, and its baseline emotional story is built largely on a question that really defined much of my own adolescence — How we meet the challenges of a world so large, so impersonal, and so out of control that we as individuals have no ability to face up to it?

Then as a kind of ironic metafictional thing, the larger techno-thriller plotline that sees the main characters on the run from a private paramilitary group with a load of stolen technology is actually inspired by a roleplaying game that was a big part of the high school experience of my friends and I. For me as a writer, it was fun to play with the resonance between the different layers of the story, knowing how they related to each other. And though the book contains pretty much nothing in the way of actual events drawn from real life, I was able to write it very much with the feel of something “based on a true story”. To judge by the initial feedback I’ve had on the book, that sense of the story feeling real — of it feeling very personal despite a fairly high-concept plot and a lot of action — has come through in the writing, and that’s very gratifying.

What draws you to speculative fiction?

Like a lot of bored middle-class North American kids coming of age in the 70s and 80s, I was first drawn to speculative fiction because it represented a great alternative to a real world that seemed pretty profoundly dull. (With the benefit of much hindsight, I’m happy to report that I understand a lot of significant things actually happened during the 70s and 80s. But growing up in a very small town in Western Canada, I wasn’t in a much of position to appreciate them at the time.) And though my interest as a reader covers just about every genre and type of fiction, I continue to focus on speculative fiction and fantasy as a writer because I like to be able to tap into the broad possibilities of those genres.

It’s been said before by people smarter than me, but working within a fictional world limited only by your own imagination is both a blessing a curse. A blessing because you can tell literally any story that comes to mind; a curse because it gets very easy to tell stories that disconnect from the core essentials of dramatic storytelling — morality, the struggle for survival, and what William Faulkner famously called "the human heart in conflict with itself." SF & F writers can too easily get caught up in the world building that's a core part of speculative fiction and fantasy, and character story too often suffers as a result. Even working within SF & F, I'm a writer who believes pretty strongly that real character story is the ultimate point and purpose of fiction, and I like the challenge of crafting effective character story within the wide-open narrative vista that speculative fiction represents.

How do you view the future of indie authors/publishing?

Again making full acknowledgement that this has been said by smarter people than me, the publishing world is obviously at a point of massive upheaval and transition, and it seems pretty clear that the larger publishers (what many call the Big Six or "legacy publishing") aren’t doing a particularly good job of navigating that upheaval and transition. I’m fairly ambivalent about the whole tradpub-vs.-Amazon/indie-vs.-legacy debate that a lot of writers get very passionate about, though I don’t begrudge anyone the right to voice their opinions and back them up with action. But I think the one thing that is clear is that indie-author publishing is a great opportunity for those authors willing to take advantage of it.

I think that in the future of indie author/publishers, you’re going to see a lot more authors making the leap to define themselves as publishers first and foremost, in recognition of the importance of the full process of publishing — writing, story/developmental editing, copy editing, proofreading, cover design, promotion, distribution. And I think that indie author/publishers are going to have to do so in order to separate themselves from the increasing numbers of authors who simply focus on the first and last steps in that process — writing the book, then getting it out there without any real sense of whether the book is ready to be out there. Uploading to Amazon, Smashwords, Lightning Source, or what have you is only the final stage of the publishing process, and the unfortunately large number of writers who don’t understand that are missing out on the ultimate rewards of what indie publishing can do for authors.

If you could have a conversation with any author (living or dead) who would it be?

Probably Joseph Conrad. There are any number of writers who have inspired me that I’d love to sit down with for an afternoon over a beverage. But for me, Conrad had a singular ability to weave intellect and emotion into his narratives in a way that made each aspect of the narrative stronger. A lot of literature does intellectual narrative really well, but at the expense of emotional resonance; a lot of literature focuses on the emotional journey of characters but creates a kind of internalism that comes up short when dealing with broad ideas. Standing right at the transition point between romanticism and modernism, Conrad managed to nail down both the internal and external, the emotional and the intellectual, with a degree of skill that gives his works an incredible resonance for me.

Additionally, I think Conrad's writer’s journey is a pretty interesting one, and I'd love to be able to hear about that first hand. He didn’t speak English until well into his twenties and didn’t publish his first works until nearly forty years of age, but still managed to create some of the most significant works in English literature. That seems pretty cool to me.

What's a random fact about you that isn't a secret, but which few people know?

I spend much of my day in a state of seething rage at the world and all the people in it. (Except for all of you reading this; you’re totally awesome.) This usually comes as a surprise to people who know me casually, though most of those who’ve put up with me for a number of years know of what I speak. I've always had a somewhat dark view of things that I’ve spent many years trying to deal with (thankfully mostly successfully). In We Can Be Heroes, the first-person narrator Scott is a semiautobiographical version of me during my high school days, and his somewhat bleak view of the world is very much an echo of me on my bad days. The book ultimately is a kind of expression of the process of coming to terms with understanding that the world is only as bleak a place as our own fear of the world allows it to be. The Scott in the book figures that out in the course of the events of the novel, which means that on some level he did a better job of getting his life in order than I did. Still, the fact that I was able to write the book means I caught up to him in the end. :-)

About Scott:

Scott Fitzgerald Gray has been flogging his imagination professionally since deciding he wanted to be a writer and abandoning any hope of a real career in about the fourth grade. The time since has seen him indulge in educational forays in science, arts, and film, and the bewildering variety of occupations that have driven his search for the secret of the human condition include information systems specialist, multimedia developer, teacher, facilitator, journalist, production manager, editor, graphic designer, and logger (because this is Canada, after all).

Purchase links for We Can Be Heroes:
www.amazon.com
www.amazon.co.uk 

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Also: I've been interviewed myself over at the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge blog! Hope you'll stop by--I talk about my favorite scientists and post subjects, and even what I might be doing for 2013's Challenge.

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What do you think of self-publishing? What author would you meet, if you could? Have you read We Can Be Heroes, and/or do you know Scott?


-----The Golden Eagle