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Author Interview—Anatoly Belilovsky

You’ll enjoy reading my interview of Anatoly Belilovsky, another author whose story appears in the anthology Hides the Dark Tower.

Anatoly Belilovsky is a Russian-American author and translator of speculative fiction. His work has appeared in the Unidentified Funny Objects anthology, Ideomancer, Nature Futures, Stupefying Stories, Immersion Book of Steampunk, Daily SF, Kasma, Kazka, and has been podcast by Cast of Wonders, Tales of Old, and Toasted Cake. He blogs about writing here, pediatrics here, and his medical practice web site is here. He was born in what is now Ukraine, learned English from Star Trek reruns, worked his way through a US college by teaching Russian while majoring in chemistry, and has, for the past 25 years, been a paediatrician in New York, in a practice where English is the fourth most commonly spoken language.

Here’s the interview:

Poseidon’s Scribe: When and why did you begin writing fiction?

Anatoly Belilovsky: I vaguely remember writing fanfic as a child, at least in my mind: a prequel to 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, a sequel to the original Lost World of Arthur Conan Doyle, apocrypha of Strugatsky’s Inhabited Island. Nothing I’d ever want to show anyone.

I did publish a couple of stories in my college’s annual magazine, one of them acquired by Gordon van Gelder [editor of The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction] back when he himself was an undergraduate. Nothing I’d want to show anyone these days, either.

P.S.: What genres have you written in?

A.B.: Alternate history is probably my favorite. When I write SF and fantasy, they tend to skirt very close to mainstream/literary. In humor, I prefer character-driven comedy to situational comedy — a mathematician who can only think of mathematics in terms of Russian swear words seems to have had the greatest impact so far, though an epidemic of otaku based on Russian cartoon characters, and Wagner leading a musical invasion of France in 1870, both got a few chuckles here and there.

P.S.: In what way is your fiction different from that of other authors in your genre?

A.B.: I doubt I am the only one who acknowledges a debt to Gogol, Chekhov, Nabokov, and Poe as their major influences. It isn’t as common as Delany and Le Guin, but certainly not unique. There are several excellent bilingual writers, several physician writers I am proud to call twice-colleagues, several of anything I can ever be labeled as. I guess this is a question best asked of my fans. Shouldn’t take too long to interview both of them.

P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?

A.B.: Characterization is easiest: I seem to have a good handle on subtext which is what characterization is all about.

Plotting is the hardest. If I do my characterization right, the characters will pick proper fights with each other, the Universe, and the absurdity of existence. If not, they go through the motions, listlessly.

P.S.: You’ve had many short stories published. Have you written any novels or do you intend to?

A.B.: I have not so far been chosen by a novel to be the instrument of its creation. Also, plotting: novels seem to depend on it more than short stories do.

P.S.: In describing yourself, you cite your Russian childhood, Star Trek, chemistry, and pediatrics. How do you weave each of those threads of your life into your stories?

A.B.: Well, I learned English from Star Trek, so that’s huge. The chemical principles of self-assembly and tertiary structure — if you think about it, that’s how the best stories work, the characters and their worlds interacting organically, friendships and conflicts never feeling forced or synthetic. Pediatrics — after 30 years, subtext is second nature, you get to read whatever is left unsaid, tease out the meaning behind the exact phraseology used. And growing up speaking a highly inflected language I think gave me a heightened understanding of structure and mechanics of English.

Also, seriously, when everything you say can be used by Big Brother against you, subtext becomes a way of life. I was beta reading a story once that had this exchange:

A: “We hunt dragons.”

B: “There are no dragons.”

A: “That’s because we killed them all!”

My suggestion was to change it to:

A: “We hunt dragons.”

B: “Dragons are extinct.”

A: “You are welcome!”

Same idea, but I think communicating it through subtext made the speaker more matter-of-fact and therefore more believable.

P.S.: Your stories often contain literary references, some perhaps unfamiliar to American readers. Are your tales intended to be enjoyed on several levels by the casual reader, the well-read bibliophile, and the researching puzzle-solver?

A.B.: Yes. In fact, this is exactly what several reviewers and a number of beta readers said. “Because of your story I googled [X] and wow [X] is now my new favorite thing and likely the name of my firstborn and my next band” — this is what writers live for!

Examples: I wrote a story about Night Witches, a women’s night bomber unit in the Soviet Army in WWII. Got an email from a reader who happily discovered the unit actually existed! Another reader now peppers conversations with Russian swear words. Mea maxima culpa! And Chrestomathy, the patchwork alternate literature story, got a whole bunch of conversations going about Pushkin and Gogol and the nature of ethics.

P.S.: Your Twitter stream abounds in puns. What is it about that form of humor that intrigues you?

A.B.: I immigrated to US with my parents in 1976, and by end of high school and start of college in ’78 my English was fully functional, but no more. It was on a winter day in 1979 that I felt an almost audible *click* as English became *my* language, and the first manifestation of that was that I started making puns. I scribbled in the margins of my notebooks, Q and A jokes, knock knock jokes, shaggy dog stories ending in a terrible pun —

Also, I always liked math. And math teaches us that the shortest distance between two puns is a straight line.

One of my multilingual idols, Vladimir Nabokov, excelled at puns. Pale Fire has to be one of my favorite books of all time.

P.S.: Your story in Hides the Dark Tower is “Deep Into That Darkness Peering.” Can you tell us what inspired that homage to Poe (with a nod to Chekhov)?

A.B.: Well, Poe is… Poe! I mean, who else can write such purple prose and get away with it? “Deep Into That Darkness Peering” is actually one of three Poe’s purple prose pastiches I perpetrated, the other two published in Stupefying Stories Showcase. Melodrama, bathos, run-on sentences from hell (in my son’s estimation) — and I’m getting paid for it! MWAHAHA! [clears throat] Umm, where was I?

I also admire Poe for what has to be the biggest Deus Ex ending ever. Remember how “The Pit and the Pendulum” ends? The French enter the city and save the protagonist! Agency? Who needs agency when you have the French army! Now I don’t have to feel guilty for how I ended “Deep Into That Darkness Peering.”

Chekhov, by the way, is the author of the best bit of subtext ever written. In “The Lady with the Dog,” a man approaches the lady and the dog. The dog bristles. Quote follows:

“He does not bite,” she said and blushed.

Think about it.

P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

A.B.: An alternate history in which Tsar Nicholas II caught the bullet meant for Prime Minister Stolypin in 1911. No WWI, no Revolution. Murder mystery involving several characters born before the point of departure and famous in our timeline for — blimey, I better go and write this, what?

Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?

Anatoly Belilovsky: Don’t only take writing advice from writers who wrote stuff you wish you’d written. Even people whose writing you don’t find appealing can help you develop your own voice. And if then you develop taste for their work — well, growth happens.

Readers aching to find out more about Anatoly Belilovsky (you know you’re one of them) can visit his website and follow him on Twitter.

Poseidon’s Scribe

November 4, 2015Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Author Interview— Peter Schranz

Today I’m pleased to interview another author from the anthology Hides the Dark Tower, namely Peter Schranz.

Peter maintains a quirky website and has two published short story collections, Astonishing Tales of the Sea and It Spits You Out. Three of his stories were published in Breadcrumbs magazine here, here, and here. Mirror Dance published his story “Pond Wife,” and Deimos published his story “Elizabeth.”

Here’s the interview:

Poseidon’s Scribe: How did you get started writing? What prompted you?

Peter Schranz: I remember considering the various options and deciding that writing required the fewest resources. If I wanted to paint, I’d have to buy paint, and if I wanted to play the drums I’d have to buy drums, but I already had a computer with a word processor, and I was already literate, so writing felt like the path of least resistance. I was twelve or so when I realized that, but now I think there was probably more going on; my mother is a linguist and she convinced me of language’s significance pretty early on. It would surprise me if that played no part at all in my decision to start writing.

P. Scribe: Who are some of your influences? What are a few of your favorite books?

P. Schranz: I like the German-writers, such as Heinrich von Kleist and his admirer Kafka, though I’ve only read them in translation. Baudelaire, Plath, and Katherine Ciel are my favorite poets. I think Plath’s prose is underappreciated; last year I discovered a copy of her journals and read it twice in a row. I learned from the writing of David Wallace and von Kleist to delight in complicated, subordinate clause-bedecked sentences, though I’ll stop short of commenting one way or the other on those I write myself. I thought that The Broom of the System was great and I seek to copy off of it.

It’s not narrative, but I liked the Compendium on Reality by the Buddhist monk Santaraksita, where I saw higher degrees of abstraction than ever before or since.

Recently I’ve become a fan of Kristine Ong Muslim, who wrote a series of very scary poems called “the Strangers,” which, if you dare, you can easily find online.

P. Scribe: What is your primary genre, and how did you become interested in it?

P. Schranz: I like to write speculative fiction that cleaves as closely to realism as possible. Realism seems like fiction’s default to me, and for every speculative flight of fancy I pile onto a story, I like to pile on a tempering, realistic element, too. My story “Pond-Wife” in Mirror Dance Magazine is about a woman who hunts monsters, and she has to see a psychiatrist because constant violent confrontations with monsters give people brain-problems.

P. Scribe: You’ve had a couple of collections of your stories published: It Spits You Out, And Twelve More Stories To Rub Your Chin To and Astonishing Tales Of The Sea. The common feature of the second collection is obvious, but what is the shared attribute (if any) in the stories within It Spits You Out?

P. Schranz: If it’s honesty you’re after, Steve, then I should say that I decided, since Astonishing Tales of the Sea was so obviously thematic, that the stories in It Spits You Out could get away with total themelessness. Afterwards, though, it seemed like all the stories were about either surprisingly alive things or things that are neither alive nor dead. “Eel-Thing” and “Public Napkin” for example are about diseases, which I suppose are alive for all the same reasons that, say, weiner dogs are alive, not that I’m a biologist or anything. Then there’s “The House That Fed On Blood,” a story with a spoiler in its title, and “Eve and Erling,” which is about ghouls. So the theme is loose, retrospectively forced, and accidental, but still present, sort of. Also the stories in It Spits You Out are all kind of silly.

P. Scribe: Please tell us a little about your story within Hides the Dark Tower, “Tower of the Sea Witch.”

P. Schranz: It was in Astonishing Tales of the Sea first, but the version that appears in Hides the Dark Tower has its hair combed a little bit thanks to its thoughtful editors. The story is about a woman who wants closure so badly that she would rather it be guaranteed than satisfying.

P. Scribe: Where do you get the ideas for your stories?

P. Schranz: Overall I just get my ideas from what I read, but often there’s some other less straightforward element involved. “Tower of the Sea Witch” started when I went to the beach and saw an oil rig or something on the horizon. I wondered if anyone was on it and how they got there.

I like to keep something to write on by my bed, and if I wake up after a dream, to tell myself that it will escape from all human consciousness forever unless I turn the light on and write it down that very second. If I hadn’t done so last night, for example, humanity could never answer this very important question that I found in my journal when I awoke: “What if, when they see him in the sixties, they see a bird, or a bird unto glory?” My brain always whispers ‘go to sleep, you oaf; you’ll remember,’ or ‘you’ll be wasting both ink and sack-time if you write that down,’ but my brain is lying to me about at least one of those assertions.

P. Scribe: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?

P. Schranz: The easiest aspect is coming up with the general phantom of a story’s plot. Making the plot intricate and precise is difficult, as is determining whether a part of the story ought to be excised or not; whether a draft is the last draft or the second-to-last; giving the characters distinct voices; making their goals, hopes, and habits realistic and 3D; actually improving the story through subsequent drafts and not just indulging in pencilwork, like changing ‘she mumbled’ to ‘she murmured,’ which covers about ninety eight percent of my revising decisions; and determining whether I need to spell something out and run the risk of making the story too obvious, or trust the subtext and run the risk of making the story a complete bafflement. It’s no walk in the park to pace a story well, either.

P. Scribe: In what way is your fiction different from that of other authors in your genre?

P. Schranz: I’m not sure it is any different, except very vacuously: I don’t write a lot of stories about dragons or robots or dwarves or spaceships (except for my silly game, “A Spaceship You Go On!”), but I do write a lot of stories about alien corpses. My plan is to take every single corpse ever featured in the horror genre, remove it, and replace it with the corpse of an alien.

P. Scribe: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

P. Schranz: I’m revising a story about all these pill-sized coffins full of little tiny alien skeletons, and mulling over a sequel where people think the coffins are the grains of some kind of food.

Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?

Peter Schranz: Memorize twenty poems.

Thank you, Peter! Readers of my blog can find out more about Peter Schranz at his website, and on Facebook.

Poseidon’s Scribe

October 31, 2015Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Author Interview — Stephen Blake

You may have noticed I have not yet interviewed all the authors who have stories in the newly famous anthology Avast, Ye Airships! Today I’m pleased to bring you one more; I’m interviewing Stephen Blake.

On his website, Stephen describes himself as just an ordinary bloke (he’s English), and a fantasy and science fiction loving geek. His Twitter page describes him as “Writer & exaggerator. Cat, Dog & Guinea Pig Wrangler. Tai Chi Enthusiast. Cornish and Proud.”

Now, the interview (British spelling and all!):

Poseidon’s Scribe: When and why did you begin writing fiction?

Stephen Blake: I’d always spoken about writing, always dreamed that I might be able to do something. It took a redundancy, illness and a lot of encouragement from my wife to actually go for it. I should say that a trip to a convention (BristolCon 2012) also made a difference. I’d always had ideas for stories but never did anything about it. Finally meeting authors who were real people, who sometimes held down jobs and seeing that they were not that different from me – it got me thinking. I realised the only difference between us were my own excuses – so I got rid of them (the excuses that is; all the authors I met are fine and did not meet their demise).

P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?

S.B.: Ideas seem the easiest. In fact I probably have too many. Having free flowing ideas is great until you can’t decide which one to work on next.

The most difficult aspect for me is that of personal discipline. I’ll procrastinate and dance around getting on with a job but once I start I am usually very productive. It’s just the getting going part.

I should say I also struggle with the reading in public. Unless you write so well as to not need to promote your work, it seems that giving a reading is an important part of being an author. I get nervous but I read in public at least once a month now and I’m dealing with it better all the time.

P.S.: How did you become interested in writing steampunk?

S.B.: I find the whole idea fascinating. I grew up watching things like “Island at the Top of the World,” “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” and “Warlords of Atlantis.” Steampunk, for me, encapsulates adventure and excitement. The possibilities are huge. You can go fantasy and discover lost races, you can go sci-fi and have clockwork automatons. The setting, usually the Victorian age, is so interesting. Remember how interested they were in the supernatural, the thing to do back then was to have a séance. Someone will say you can do all these things in any setting or time period. All I’ll say is ‘steampunk’ lets you do it with style.

P.S.: What other authors influenced your writing?

S.B.: I’ve always been a voracious reader. Childhood favourites stay with me now, such as Enid Blyton, C.S.Lewis, and Roald Dahl.

At school I always had one book out of the library over and over and that was a collection of Greek myths. Even now, I enjoy reading them.

More recently I’ve enjoyed R. A. Salvatore, Gareth Powell, Kim Lakin-Smith, and Joanne Hall. I read all kinds of things. I’ve not long finished some Agatha Christie and Robert Louis Stevenson. I like reading all sorts, I even believe Stan Lee has had an influence on me, hence my characters always seem to have a disability of some sort or they are a social outcast. I think as writers we can learn from one another. I’m like a sponge trying to take in every lesson I can.

P.S.: You wrote “Beneath the Brass” for Avast, Ye Airships! Can you tell us a bit about the story?

S.B.: It’s a journal, kept by a young woman who has been put into an asylum. There’s nothing wrong with her but she accused her brother of attacking her and he’s made it seem like she is mad. Pirates rescue her and it is her account of all that befalls her during that time. It’s love, peril, airships and automatons but not necessarily in that order.

P.S.: In your website, you mentioned having joined a critique group. How has that group affected your writing?

S.B.: Well hopefully I’m reducing the vast amount of commas I apparently use. Mostly it is just very supportive, knowing that people are going to be honest with you and give you constructive criticism. I struggle sometimes with confidence – believing myself to be more lucky than talented. I know that these people (Victoria and Inez) will be brutally honest, so that when they say “it’s good”, it really means a lot.

P.S.: Your story “Lord Craddock: Ascension” appears in the anthology Airship Shape and Bristol Fashion. What is that story about?

S.B.: It’s about fighting slavery, fighting stereotypes and preconceptions and using those preconceptions to your advantage when trying to take down slave traders. It also involves automatic carriages and jumping automatons.

Bristol has history of being part of the ‘triangular’ slave trade route and I liked the idea of someone fighting racism and slavery in a steampunk vigilante kind of way.

P.S.: Before writing your stories, do you imagine a scene, a character, or a plot outline?

S.B.: I get an idea. Usually it’s a ‘what if?’ scenario. After that I just think about it and see how it plays out. It’s usually no more than the beginning and end. I normally take a while to figure out what happens in the middle. I can just think and scribble notes for months before I actually start typing a story.

Recently I had a story accepted for an anthology typed out and submitted within ninety minutes. I don’t see that happening often though, if ever again.

For “Beneath the Brass,” my first thought was, what if Stephen Hawkins was alive in that time period? What if he became a pirate? In the end the story is not about the pirates but about Miss Alice Reynolds, the lady stuck in an asylum. Until you start typing away on your keyboard you can never be entirely sure how it will unfold.

P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

S.B.: I’ve a few things on the go. My big work in progress is tentatively called “Blood Key” and is a YA fantasy with elements of steampunk. It’s the tale of a young girl who ends up in a world not seen by us since the days when the Celtic druids travelled there. It’s the story of her trying to get home and those who want to use her to get the magic flowing again and seize power.

I’m also working on a really interesting project called “The Adventures of Dayton Barnes.” It’s an anthology of children’s stories designed to encourage young boys to read. It’s very fascinating because each story will actually be chapters. I’ve written three stories for it but that is not the end. I now have to work with the other authors to make all our stories fit seamlessly together as if it were a single book. I’ve got to say this has tested my imagination no end. I can dream up tales of Victorian steampunk, demons and zombies quite easily – trying to put myself in the shoes of a mid west American twelve year old has been one of the hardest things I’ve ever written.

Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?

Stephen Blake: Go for it – that is the best advice. You’ve got to give it a go. The more you write the better you’ll get. Lord Craddock was my first attempt and it got published (after an awful lot of editing mind you). For some time I believed that was a fluke and yet here I am with a story in Avast, Ye Airships!, and soon I’ll have another three stories in a children’s anthology, “The Adventures of Dayton Barnes.” All because I just stopped talking about how I’d like to write and did it.

One other thing I realised early on is that writing is like music. One person hears a song and it evokes an intense feeling of dislike within them. Another hears the same tune and they feel it touches their very soul and fills them with happiness. Write the stories you want to write and they’ll find an audience, even if it’s only you (but that is highly unlikely!).

I could go on and on. Join a local group of writers. Read lots. If possible meet authors and compare notes. Keep trying for anthologies because you’ll meet great editors who will take your writing by the scruff and knock it into shape.

Thanks, Steve! All my readers will soon be regular followers of you on Twitter, Facebook, and Goodreads, and will become avid readers of your blog.

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 21, 2015Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Author Interview — Steve Cook

Once again Poseidon’s Scribe has landed a fascinating interview with a fellow author, who has a story appearing in the anthology Avast, Ye Airships! Today’s interview is with Steve Cook.

Steve Cook is a part-time writer, part-time teacher, currently dialing down on the latter so he can focus on the former. He’s married and lives with his wife and cat in London, England.

At last, the interview:

Poseidon’s Scribe: When and why did you begin writing fiction?

Steve Cook: I began writing fiction in 2010. It was my first year working as a primary school teacher and I had prepared as much as I possibly could during the Christmas holiday. Then, the first week back in January, we had a record snowfall for the area and the school was closed. We happened to live opposite a Starbucks, which meant we were basically in there every evening. I just grabbed my netbook and took it over there and started to write, funneling all the readiness and energy into that instead. I rattled along writing chapters of a pretty terrible book idea, and then got into NaNoWriMo in a big way. That’s been responsible for most of my output over the last six years.

P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?

S.C.: The easiest aspect of writing for me is world-building. I probably spend too long on it, but it pays off when you can write something in that suggests a deeper, richer world beyond it. Short stories and flash fiction that flesh out the world are something I really enjoy doing. The most difficult aspect of writing is editing, without a doubt, and I get round it by showing my stuff to different people. Everyone has a different thing they look for: my wife is a designer and illustrator, for example, and she really focuses on the visual design of what I write.

P.S.: What genres have you written in, and do you have a favorite?

S.C.: I’ve written mainly fantasy and science fiction. I enjoy both of them! Most of my fantasy writing in the last year or so has been for the Dungeons and Dragons group I run; they’ve been playing for the best part of three years now. I’ve been doing a lot of writing for Noctis Point, which is the book I’m working on right now. It’s set a couple of hundred years into the future, and it’s really fun to take technology from today, or even theoretical technology, and apply it to that setting.

P.S.: You wrote “The Clockwork Dragon” for the Avast, Ye Airships! anthology. Can you tell us a little about that story?

S.C.: “The Clockwork Dragon” is a story about some privateers working under contract to retrieve an artifact; they’re ex-pirates, so it’s not long before treachery and greed overcome the captain, who teams up with the cook and absconds with the loot. It’s up to the first mate to track them down in a chase in the skies of Ireland and Scotland. Like most of the fiction I write, it grew organically from one image, one scene: a giant clockwork dragon, bellows for lungs, canvas wings and so on, hovering over an airship in lashing rain. I actually own a clockwork dragon miniature, and it has made an appearance in our D&D game!

P.S.: You participated in Nanowrimo last November. Was that your first nano? What was that experience like?

S.C.: I’ve been taking part in NaNo since 2010. I honestly can’t remember how I came across it, but it’s brilliant. It breaks up the writing into bitesize chunks and even gives me a little chart to let me know how much I’ve written, what my average is, that sort of thing. It also helped me to come across other local authors in the Milton Keynes area; several of us met up towards the end of the 2010 NaNo to write together. I didn’t make it the following year, sadly; a combination of a lack of enthusiasm in my story idea and a crazy work schedule meant that I fell short by a considerable distance. In 2012, I wrote Poisonroot, and built the world that my D&D group plays in, so that’s constantly being worked on. In 2013 I cheated slightly and wrote ten short stories set in the world of Poisonroot; that was even more fun because I got to play with different styles and techniques within the same body of work. I actually completed two NaNo projects in 2014, because I did Camp NaNoWriMo earlier in the year. That was the first version of what would eventually become Noctis Point, the bulk of which I wrote in November 2014. Finishing my most recent NaNo was a close run thing; I was working as a teacher still, and we had the inspectors come in. We had four days of twenty-hour work days, and writing just wasn’t a priority any more. I had to write 12,000 words in two days to finish. My NaNo author page is here.

P.S.: From your website, it appears you are into Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs.) Do you find that helps your fiction writing, or takes time away from it?

S.C.: Definitely it takes time away from it! I’ve played a lot of MMOs, but for the last eighteen months I’ve been playing a lot of Final Fantasy XIV. It’s a real timesink, but it’s also a way to talk with my friends and be social. My wife and flatmate both play it as well, so there’s always something going on. There are some wonderful little bits of writing that are inspirational, but mainly I’m in it for the music, which I listen to when I’m writing.

P.S.: You recently collaborated on a product called Murder Matches. It looks like a murder story told from eight different points of view. Can you tell us more about that?

S.C.: Nana Li is a good friend of mine, and incredibly talented. She had been working on an idea inspired by designer matchboxes, and wanted it to be a murder mystery where each matchbox contained a character profile or statement which, when put together, would help a reader solve the mystery. I love things that twist and I’m a real fiend for puzzles, so it was awesome to work with her on this. I can’t give away too much for fear of spoiling the mystery! Writing the characters was fun, as each one had a different voice. It was a real challenge, giving away a couple of clues in each one while at the same time trying to suggest a motive for everyone. We’re working on a sequel for release this year.

P.S.: What other authors influenced your writing?

S.C.: I’ve read a lot of fantasy and science fiction, which is pretty much all I write. For fantasy, authors such as Trudi Canavan, Stephen R. Donaldson, Tolkien, Tom Holt, Terry Pratchett, Raymond E. Feist and Peter V. Brett have really inspired me. On the science fiction side, Arthur C Clarke, Isaac Asimov, Stephen Baxter, Stel Pavlou, Iain M. Banks and Dan Simmons are really high up on the list. I’ve read quite a lot of John Courtenay Grimwood’s cyberpunk books as well. The truth is I’ll read pretty much anything going! I can see little things that have inspired me from all of those authors, flairs or personal touches that strike me as being from that particular style of writing, but I try wherever possible to have my own style.

P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

S.C.: Noctis Point is a science fiction story set a couple of hundred years in the future. Through war and economic collapse, the Earth has eventually been united into an Empire, which has begun to reach out to the stars for colonization. In the process, it has encountered an alien race living on the moons of Jupiter; imagine spider-centaurs and you’re halfway there. These ‘Spiders’ are initially peaceful, but things quickly turn bad when they ambush a delegation from Earth during peace talks, and battle lines are drawn. Another faction involved in all this is the psychs, living on Mars. They are humans who have evolved psychic powers when they turn sixteen, and more of them are beginning to appear every year. Partly in fear of them, the Empire has ordained that they should live on Mars, in a base known as Noctis Point, where they will be trained in preparation for joining the Empire’s armies as elite soldiers. The story follows two main characters: Alex, a boy who manifests the power and is sent to Noctis Point to train; and Imperial Princess Ariadne Cutter, the daughter of the Emperor, whose role as her father’s spymistress leads her into a terrorist plot that could have grave consequences on the war.

P.S.: Please tell us about your podcasting activities.

S.C.: I run a once-weekly podcast, Pocket Fiction, where I read either a short story or part of a longer piece. Up until just recently it’s been my own work, which has been really useful for me, but I’m looking forward to working with some of my fellow pirates in the anthology. I’m always looking for people to collaborate with, and producing Pocket Fiction is genuinely fun. Having more time recently has allowed me to go for better production values as well. I built a little recording booth and I’ve begun to add sound and vocal effects to deepen the immersion even further. Pocket Fiction is available on the iTunes store, but I also upload each week to Tumblr and to YouTube, where each video is played over a roaring fire. That was one of the initial ideas I had for the podcast; that it was tales told around a campfire, something to make you feel warm and relaxed.

Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?

Steve Cook: Tell people who you trust to give you honest feedback that you’re writing; they’ll help you and support you, and hopefully you can persuade them to read your work. Sometimes it’s good to plan stories out, but more often than not I find the characters somehow wrest control of the story away from me halfway through and we diverge. It’s ok for characters to be different on paper than how you initially imagined them. Probably the most useful thing I do is read my stuff out loud; having to read each word finds every mistake, every awkward phrasing, and sometimes you pick up on things that you would otherwise have missed.

Thanks, Steve! I’m sure you’ve enticed my readers to visit your blog, follow you on Twitter, and visit you on Tumblr.

Poseidon’s Scribe

March 10, 2015Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Author Interview — Amy Braun

North to Canada we go today for the next interview in this series. I’m on a quest to interview as many contributing authors to the anthology Avast, Ye Airships! as I can, and this time, it’s Amy Braun.

Amy Braun is an aspiring urban fantasy and horror author addicted to monsters and mythology. When she isn’t writing, she’s reading, watching movies, taking photos, or gaming. She’s a recipient, in 2014, of April Moon Books Editor Award for “author voice, world-building and general bad-assery.”

On a side note (or two), that may be the world’s only award that contains “bad-assery” in its title, and I think General Bad-Assery would be a great name for both a rock band and a senior Army officer.

After that irrelevant tangent, here’s the interview:

Poseidon’s Scribe: When and why did you begin writing fiction?

Amy Braun: One of my friends once told me I had an overactive imagination. He was more right than he knew. I’m constantly daydreaming, thinking of crazy worlds, What-If scenarios, wicked action scenes with wickeder monsters. I’ve been that way since my pre-teens, when writing was just a hobby for me. I can’t picture myself writing anything but fiction. I love letting my imagination run wild, and just seeing what it can do makes it worth the effort. I once read a quote saying that “creating something that didn’t exist before is as close to magic as I’ll ever get.” That couldn’t be more true for me.

P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?

A.B.: Most days, writing the words is easy. If I have an ironclad view on how I want a scene to be, the words just flow. The same can be said for action scenes. If I have the right music going, I can dive into the fight scene and make it absolutely insane. The faster paced or more dramatic the story, the better I do. In contrast, I have some difficulty when it comes to research. The Internet is great, but it can be a hindrance when certain “experts” disagree on certain things. For some stories I cheat and use magic, but that doesn’t always work. For example, in Crimson Sky, the novel inspired by “Lost Sky,” my main character Claire is an engineer. Since I know as much about engineering as I do about brain surgery, I had to do some research and find out her limits. Not an easy, or thrilling thing to do. The same can be said with some of the devices Claire uses. You can’t always skim over the truth, and even though this is a fantasy series, I had to at least give some kind of explanation to how her tools worked.

P.S.: What other authors influenced your writing?

A.B.: More than I can name, and each for their own reasons. The biggest influences are Rob Thurman for her sharp dialogue and in depth characters. Jennifer Estep for her amazing action scenes, easy flow, and ability to keep ever her longest running series fresh and exciting. Kevin Hearne for the detail he puts into his mythology and lore. Alexander Gordon Smith and Scott Sigler for their skills at writing fast-paced, truly engaging horror. And most recently, Michael J. Sullivan for his ability to show rather than tell, and involve the reader so deeply that they can bring you to tears without trying. Not that that’s happened to me. Ahem.

P.S.: I see you have been participating in the Weekend Writing Warriors‘ 8Sunday promotions, and that they are some of your most popular blog posts. How do you choose the 8 sentences to share?

A.B.: Usually I go with the novel or shot story I’m currently working on. A lot of the authors I read from WeWriWa tend to choose a chapter and have consistency for their posts. That’s a great idea for obvious reasons, but I’m the kind of writer who works too fast to want to do that. I like choosing snippets that I think are engaging and fun, something to draw the reader in without giving too much away. I also like sharing various work to tease at future projects and hopefully draw a more interested audience. 8Sunday has been a huge help for me, and I hope to build a larger following through it.

P.S.: You mentioned in one post that you’re a fast writer and cranked out 78,000 words in one month, even though you have what you call a Real Job. That output is very impressive. How do you manage to write so fast?

A.B.: Honestly, I do nothing else with my free time. My days off are Mondays and Tuesdays, and I take full advantage of the time that I have to accomplish as much as I can. If I’m having a good day, I can write over 10,000 words. Even on a bad day where my focus isn’t 100% there, I can still get out at least 6,000. Literally, all I do is sit at my computer, listen to music and write. If I think of wanting to do something else, that thought strain usually goes, “Well I could be catching up on The Walking Dead… or I could be writing.” It’s become an addiction I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. Even when I’m at work, I’m thinking about a story and what to do next in a scene. On my breaks or when I’m caught up on my projects, I use my phone to write. Not as effective as a laptop, but I’ll use what I have available. I love and need writing like a flower loves and needs the sun.

P.S.: Your short story, “Lost Sky” will appear in the Avast, Ye Airships! anthology. Please tell us a little about the story.

A.B.: “Lost Sky” is sort of a guinea pig. It was a crazy idea I wanted to try since I was in my pre-teens, that I finally took a chance with. The story is about a young engineer named Claire living in a post-apocalyptic fantasy world that has been overrun with bloodthirsty vampire like creatures called Hellions. Claire’s younger sister Abby is kidnapped and taken to the Behemoth, the large Hellion ship that oversees the entire city. To rescue her, Claire is forced to join sides with three Marauders, roguish pirates who are looking for their own revenge against the Hellions. It’s a fun story and I have a lot of pride for it. Hopefully other readers will enjoy it as much as I did writing it.

P.S.: Is it true that “Lost Sky” inspired a trilogy of novels, called the Dark Sky collection? When will those novels be available? What ties them together?

A.B.: Yes, it’s definitely true. Dark Sky dives into the world created in “Lost Sky,” and follows Claire and the Marauders as they search for a machine her parents made that is supposed to close the Breach, the tear in the sky that allowed the Hellions to invade. The novels follow Claire’s adventures as she learns her family’s secrets, begins to take up the work they left behind, and tests it against the horrible might of the Hellions. The first novel, Crimson Sky, is completed its rough draft, though I’m looking at several different publishing options at the moment. I could have a couple publishers lined up should they take to the idea and be willing to publish a full-length novel, though if that fails I will likely self-publish. I know what a long and strenuous process it is to submit to companies and hope they say yes. So right now, the release date is up in the air, though I think I’ll be shooting for late summer/early fall.

P.S.: Recently your short story, “Death’s Cafe: Hotel Hell,” was published. Sounds creepy… What is it about?

A.B.: “Hotel Hell” is one of my favorite short stories ever written. It’s about a man named Milo whose fiancée went missing. Unable to wait any longer, he sets out to find her and encounters a mysterious hotel. As he asks the staff about her disappearance, he begins to feel unnerved by them. He senses something strange about the hotel, and its secrets could cost him dearly. It’s a subtle, more environmental horror story in contrast to my last Mocha Memoirs horror short, “Call from the Grave.” But I loved writing it. Creating atmospheric horror is just as fun as writing splatterfest gore, and I had a great time coming up with the visuals for it.

P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

A.B.: Currently, I’m working on the second book in the Dark Sky trilogy, Midnight Sky. I’m about halfway through it now, and hope to have it done soon. Once it’s finished, I’ll be looking into a few open submission calls that have caught my eye, and beginning a project called Bond Unknown, a series of novellas being put together by Canadian publisher April Moon Books, now that the rights regarding Ian Fleming’s famous super spy have been released to Canada.

Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?

Amy Braun: The same advice that’s been given to me countless times, the same advice hundreds of famous authors give whenever someone asks. Write. Simply write. The more you write, the better you will do. That isn’t to say that your bestseller will be the first book you create. In all likelihood, it won’t be. Every author I’ve ever respected and read has been rejected by everyone in the universe. Despite my successes last year, I know that it’s a long road ahead and I’ll get a million more doors slammed in my face. But I write every day for as long as I can. I get the words out, and don’t think about editing until I’m done. I make little notes, but I don’t edit halfway through. And never be afraid to take chances. If you have a crazy idea you want to write, then write it. Publishers and editors are always looking for something new, something exciting and engaging. Even if the idea you adore with every ounce of your soul has been rejected (and mine have been), don’t give up. This is not an easy a career, and even though I work by the “if you write it, they will come” theory, that doesn’t mean I’ll be signed by a professional, major label. And honestly, I’m okay with that. If you truly, deeply, love writing with the very core of your soul, if you live and breathe it, find peace in it, you will find a way to get your story out there. If I have to self-publish for the rest of my career, I will. I have too much creativity to be restrained by a label’s nitpickiness. Continue to learn, take critiques as advice, and again, never stop writing.

Thanks, Amy! After that interview, my readers will want to know more, and they can visit Amy’s author page on Amazon, on Goodreads, on Twitter, and at her website.

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 16, 2015Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Author Interview — Diana Parparita

Poseidon’s Scribe has done it again and now presents another interview with a captivating author whose story appears in the anthology Avast, Ye Airships! Today I welcome Diana Parparita, a Romanian author living in Bucharest who writes fantasy and steampunk.

Read on for the interview:

Poseidon’s Scribe: When and why did you begin writing fiction?

Diana Parparita: I started writing fiction when I was four or five years old. I hadn’t learned to write yet, back then, so I dictated my stories to my grandmother, but the intent to write speculative fiction was there, even at that age. The reason why I began writing, or, rather, dictating, was that I kept making stories in my head to entertain myself, and I liked them enough that I wanted to share them with others. And I kept forgetting them, so a big incentive for writing was to have a way to remember the best stories that I’d come up with.

P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?

D.P.: The easiest part of writing for me is writing dialogues. My characters feel very much alive to me, and tend to act as if they had a mind of their own, so they talk naturally and I can always picture what they’d say and how they’d say it. The most difficult part for me is writing action scenes. I still haven’t been able to figure out a good pacing for writing action. When I read, I tend to skip through most of the fight scenes because I just want to know how it ends, and I haven’t been able to find a way to keep the reader’s attention on the action itself, at least not my attention.

P.S.: What is your favorite genre to write in?

D.P.: My favorite genre is fantasy, because it offers me complete freedom to create any type of world and society I choose. But I’m also fond of sci-fi, for the same reason, although I find it colder than fantasy.

P.S.: You live in Romania, right? Have you used Romania as a setting in any of your stories? If not, are there other ways that living in that country has influenced your fiction?

D.P.: Yes, I live in Romania. I haven’t used Romania per se as a setting, but the setting for the stories in my Huntsfee series is loosely based on Romania. There are, however, other ways I which living in Romania and being Romanian has influenced my writing. Romania is at the border between several cultures, and has seen a good number of invaders over the centuries, and as a result, Romanian writers tend to incorporate elements from different cultures into their writing. In that respect, my writing stories set in a fictional version of the Victorian age, as well as mixing that with elements from other cultures, is in perfect agreement with my Romanian heritage. To give an example, the story I wrote for Avast, Ye Airships! is influenced by the steampunk stories I’ve read and by Victorian England, but also by Jules Verne and an Italian 19th century writer of adventure novels, whose pirates have played an important part in my adolescence. This mixture of elements from three different cultures is all very natural to a Romanian writer and to Romanian culture.

P.S.: Your story “Miss Warlyss Meets the Black Buzzard” will appear in the anthology Avast, Ye Airships! Please tell us a little about Miss Warlyss.

D.P.: Miss Warlyss is the daughter of a governor, who grew up in a pensionnat, and she’s now being sent home to become the bride of one of her father’s political allies. Which, of course, is something she doesn’t quite fancy doing in the near future. But you’ll have to read the story to see just how she manages to avoid getting married.

P.S.: In your website and in social media, your sense of humor is evident. Do you include humor in all your stories, or are there some purely serious ones?

D.P.: I’ve written some stories that are meant to be purely serious, but I’m afraid my sense of humor does show even in those, though to a lesser degree. I tend to make fun of the worst parts of life, as a form of self-preservation, so the darker the story, the harder it is not to add a touch of humor to it.

P.S.: From your Facebook page, I gather that a cat figures prominently in your home life. Does the cat inspire any characteristics or features of any of the animals in your stories?

D.P.: Actually, the cat in question is a rather new addition to the household. We’ve only had her for a few months. I used to have a cat before her, but she never inspired any characters either. But whenever I write animals, they are indeed based on nature. I always pay close attention to animals when I have a chance, and I try to study them before I use any animals as characters. Except for the horse in the first story I’ve ever published, “Sir Joseph’s Choice,” which was heavily anthropomorphized from a psychological point of view.

P.S.: One of your published books is Doctor Edmund Huntsfee’s Perilous Expedition into the Heart of the Flood Plains. It appears this has inspired a series, with a second story published and a third being written. What do you find fascinating about the world or characters in this series?

D.P.: What I find most fascinating about the series is the continuous study of new and original species. Dr. Huntsfee is a sort of natural historian who specializes in the study of fantasy creatures, so each story enables me to create and present in detail a new personal species. But there’s one more thing that fascinates me about this series, and that’s the relationship between two of the characters in it, Miss Ophelia Dalton and Captain Joseph Marlin. They were both created to serve very specific roles within the story: Miss Ophelia is the chaperon of Dr. Huntsfee’s friend and love interest, while the captain was meant to be in charge of the boat the expedition is sailing on. They were never meant to be a couple, and that shows even in the age difference between them, with him being about ten years younger than her, but from their first scene together, they’ve developed a special chemistry that I hadn’t planned for them to have. So now I’m very curious to see where that’s going and I want to explore that budding relationship through many other stories.

P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

D.P.: I’m always working on several things at the same time, so right now I’m working on the third installment in the Huntsfee series, a steampunk retelling of The Little Mermaid, and a young adult novel about a girl who finds out she’s part dryad and gathers an army to free her country of an evil dictator and the dragons under his command.

Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?

Diana Parparita: I think the best advice I can offer is to read the best stories and novels in the genre they want to specialize in, as well as the very best that other genres have to offer. I’ve noticed that quality is something that tends to rub off, so the more good books you read the better. Also, there’s one piece of advice that I haven’t heard enough: live! Get as much life experience as you possibly can. I have a bad record of never staying in a job for longer than a year and a half, but, apart from it looking dreadful on my résumé, this has helped me meet all sorts of people and has placed me in all sorts of environments. The pirates in “Miss Warlyss Meets the Black Buzzard,” for instance, are based on some of my co-workers from a male-dominated workplace I landed in a couple of years ago. Having lived my entire life in a female-dominated environment, it was just as much of a shock to me as it was to Miss Warlyss, and that provided me both with an understanding of her experience and with a good reference for my pirates and for male-dominated environments in general. My pirates would have never seemed authentic if I’d found a comfortable job and stayed in it all my life. So I definitely advise experiencing things outside of your comfort zone.

Thank you, Diana! My many readers are urged to learn more about Diana Parparita on Facebook, on DeviantArt, and at her website.

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 12, 2015Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Author Interview — Lauren Marrero

We’ve been meeting fascinating authors recently through my interviews, and that streak continues today with my interview of Lauren Marrero.

On her website, Lauren describes herself as a sapiosexual romance novelist, cat lady, and adventuress. She’s the author of the novel Seducing the Laird.

Here’s the interview:

Poseidon’s Scribe: When and why did you begin writing fiction?

Lauren Marrero: I was a writer long before I was consciously aware of it. Back in school, I became so excited about writing essays—my friends definitely thought I was weird. It wasn’t until college, while choosing a major, that I realized writing was my passion.

P.S.: You have a short story, “Her Majesty’s Service,” appearing in the anthology Avast, Ye Airships! What is your story about?

L.M.: After a passionate one night stand, a young woman discovers the man she slept with is caught up in a dangerous world of intrigue.

P.S.: You’ve written a historical novel, Seducing the Laird. Please introduce us to the main character, Verena.

L.M.: Set during the late middle ages, Verena is the perfect spy, working for the ruthlessly-ambitious Lord Gundy. Her mission is to recover a fabled cache of Roman silver, lost for hundreds of years beneath the stronghold of the Scottish laird Cairn McPherson. She must use all of her powers of seduction and intelligence to infiltrate Cairn’s household, but this mission may be her undoing.

Verena is an anti-hero, a woman forced to do whatever she must to survive. She is deeply disturbed by her assignment, knowing that her actions may cause the destruction of a clan she has grown to love. This is a story about redemption and realizing that it is never too late to be a better person.

P.S.: Reviewers keep saying they couldn’t put your novel down, that you had them from page one. Would you care to share your secret for how you achieve that?

L.M.: Honestly, I was a little surprised to see such positive reviews for a first novel. Sure, I loved it, but I wasn’t sure my audience would love the same characters and laugh at the same jokes.

I tried to bring my enthusiasm for the characters onto each page. I constantly asked the opinions of my friends and family while writing. Did they think a scene was realistic? How would they feel if a character behaved a certain way? That feedback helped to make the story much better.

P.S.: I see you enjoy traveling. Are all your stories set in places you’ve been?

L.M.: Unfortunately, no. Unlike Nandi from “Her Majesty’s Service,” I have never been to Cairo, but that is definitely on my list!

P.S.: The topic of food keeps coming up on your website. How do you use food in your fiction writing–just to show the characters being real, or to give credibility to the historical time and place setting, or to advance the plot?

L.M.: People say to write what you love. I am a foodie. I believe knowing people’s tastes gives insight into their character. Laird Cairn McPherson is a tough and capable leader, but has an incurable sweet tooth. Verena cleverly uses that knowledge during her seduction. When he is at his lowest moment, not knowing if he will live or die, Verena appears before him like an angel of mercy, offering all the comforts of home. It is no wonder he falls for her!

P.S.: If you could bring back a dead author to talk to over dinner, whom would it be, and what would you be anxious to ask?

L.M.: I consider Oscar Wilde to be one of the greatest writers. Few authors are so skillful at combining emotions. While reading his work, I want to laugh, cry, beat up some characters, and hug others. I wouldn’t presume to ask Oscar Wilde anything. I would just let him talk.

P.S.: In what way is your fiction different from that of other authors of historical romance?

L.M.: I wanted my novel to be a more evolved story. There is intrigue, espionage, ghosts, malicious fairies, and the threat of war. Yes, the characters fall in love, but there is much more to the book.

P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

L.M.: I am currently working on the sequel to Seducing the Laird. In the first book, I introduced an entire family of spies, each with complex stories and diverse backgrounds. I believe each of them deserve to fall in love.

The next novel takes place in France during the Italian Wars. Italy, France, and Spain are pitted against each other. It is up to the spies to resolve it –and break a few hearts in the process.

Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers? In particular, what do you wish someone had told you about writing or getting published that you had to learn the hard way?

Lauren Marrero: Make friends. I found that the best way to stay motivated is to be around like-minded people. Join writing groups and attend readings by local authors. It may take years before you see your work on a bookshelf, but if you can keep your attention on writing, it will keep you focused on your goal.

Thanks, Lauren! Luckily for readers of my blog, I know where you can find out more about Lauren Marrero. She’s on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and Amazon. Her website is here.

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 9, 2015Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Author Interview — K.C. Shaw

The piratical fun continues! Today I’m interviewing Kate Shaw, who writes as K.C. Shaw, another fascinating author with a story in the anthology Avast, Ye Airships!

Kate writes fantasy and likes to swashbuckle occasionally. I love this quote from her website: “Weredeer, liches, and fairies vs. unicorns. All in a day’s work.”

Here’s the interview:

Poseidon’s Scribe: When and why did you begin writing fiction?
K.C. Shaw: I’ve been writing fiction as long as I can remember, but I didn’t get serious about it until 2007. I was working in a sales office at the time and was impressed at how persistent the salespeople were. I started treating my writing the same way: writing almost every day, submitting stories to magazines until they sold, striving hard to improve my writing.

P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?

K.C.S.: The hardest part for me is getting pacing correct. It’s difficult to see a novel as a whole and know where tension needs to be increased, where the main character needs to stop for a moment of reflection, where plot points need to be worked in earlier. The easiest part is writing dialogue!

P.S.: How did you become interested in writing fantasy?

K.C.S.: Most of my favorite books were fantasy and SF when I was a kid, and that’s still the case. I loved Diane Wynne Jones, Anne McCaffrey, Andre Norton, Joan Aiken, Jane Louise Curry, and a thousand other writers. It was natural that I wrote what I loved to read.

P.S.: You write both novels and short stories. How do you decide whether an idea is big enough for a novel?

K.C.S.: A lot of times I think I’ve got a short story idea, and it turns into a novel! I actually prefer writing novels so I often find it difficult to write short.

P.S.: In Avast, Ye Airships! your story is “And a Bottle of Rum…” Please tell us a little about it.

K.C.S.: In the story, main character Jo has just acquired a new airship and wants to see what it can do. She and her friend and colleague Lizzy move in to take what they think is a helpless blimp only to discover it’s got a heavily armed escort.

P.S.: You’ve written several short stories about your steampunk air pirates, Lizzy and Jo, and they even have their own website. Any plans for a novel with those two?

K.C.S.: Yes! In fact, “And a Bottle of Rum…” is an excerpt from a Lizzy and Jo book. It’s not under contract yet so the title, Skytown, is only tentative, but I hope it will be released some time next year.

P.S.: Your latest novel is Wharf Rat. Please introduce us to Rone, the protagonist.

K.C.S.: Rone is an elf, but not the kind Peter Jackson would want to film. He’s a dock whore, a small-time thief, and he can’t even read. I had fun writing about someone so different from the usual elf, while still making him sympathetic.

P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

K.C.S.: I’ve got two projects going right now. The first I can’t really talk about yet except to say it’s the text of a game that’s going to be fantastic! The latest release date I’ve heard is early 2016. I’ve just started world-building for my other project, a novel where all the characters are dragons and humans don’t even exist. It should be a lot of fun.

Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?

K.C. Shaw: When you finish a project, especially a longer one like a novel or series of short stories, don’t be afraid to give yourself some time off. Writing every day is important, but your brain needs downtime to recharge too. Schedule a few weeks to read other people’s books instead of writing. Before you know it you’ll be getting new ideas and will want to start a new project

Thank you, Kate! Readers of my blog can find out more about Kate on her websites here and here, and on Twitter and Goodreads.

Poseidon’s Scribe

February 3, 2015Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Author Interview — Ross Baxter

The hits just keep on coming! Today I go to England to continue my series of interviews of authors whose stories appear in the upcoming anthology Avast, Ye Airships!

I interviewed Ross Baxter, who completed a career in the Royal Navy and now concentrates on writing sci-fi and horror fiction. His varied work has been published in print and Kindle by a number of publishing houses in the US and the UK. He’s married to a Norwegian and with two Anglo-Viking kids, he now lives in Derby, England.

Let’s weigh anchor and get the interview underway:

Poseidon’s Scribe: When and why did you begin writing fiction?

Ross Baxter: I began writing fiction to relieve the boredom of long night watches when serving with the British Royal Navy Reserve. Not that I didn’t enjoy my time, but it did drag on occasion. That was about twelve years ago. I left the Royal Navy Reserve after 30 years service in October 2011, and finding more time on my hands increased my writing rate accordingly.

P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?

R.B.: Ideas are the easiest things, but committing them to paper is the hardest. I’m not the most academic person, and I’m afraid never listened much in English classes at school. As a result I really have to work hard on grammar and style, both which are a challenge.

P.S.: Your website states you’re an author of horror, sci-fi, and westerns. What about those genres intrigues you?

R.B.: Many will disagree, but I feel westerns and sci-fi are very close bedfellows. Both share an expansive landscape, both are unimpeded by the “norms” of society, and in both anything can happen (literally). Which is why I love both genres. Horror is also a favourite as it can span many genres, which gives a horror yarn a huge scope.

P.S.: Is the Western genre still retaining some popularity?

R.B.: Unfortunately, I think that the Western genre is effectively dead. Yes, from time to time someone tries to resurrect it, yet despite some brave attempts it now remains virtually a small niche. It is a shame that it no longer captures the imagination of the vast majority, and I’m not sure why this is the case. Take the relatively recent TV series Deadwood; to me it was superb in every way and perfectly shows the depth and width of the canvas that Westerns can provide, yet it was well down in the popularity charts. (I should take this opportunity to recommend the novel Deadwood by Pete Dexter; an excellent read).

P.S.: How did your career in the Royal Navy influence your writing?

R.B.: It certainly imparted an understanding of the military, and what it means to live and serve in close confines with others. It also spawned a whole legion of ideas, many based on actual events.

P.S.: Your novel Corporate Alien was recently published. Please tell us about it.

R.B.: It is my first novel, a science fiction space opera heavily influenced by authors such as Iain M. Banks and Alan Dean Foster. Although sci-fi, anyone who has suffered in the recent economic downturn should be able to easily relate to it. It’s all about corporate greed, corporate (ir)responsibility, and how easy the downtrodden become even more downtrodden. I’m hoping it will sell well in Detroit!

P.S.: What are the common themes of your short stories and novels?

R.B.: I have to say that most are relatively dark, although I do strive to inject some humour. I do enjoy trying different things though, and this has worked well in the past few years with my biggest selling stories actually being an erotic romance novella, and a story for kids!

P.S.: Your short story, “Go Green,” will appear in the anthology Avast, Ye Airships! Can you tell us a bit about the protagonist and his or her main conflict?

R.B.: This is my third published steampunk story, and the characters are the same as in the first two. All the stories are set in an airship converted into a floating brothel, and “Go Green” continues the series based on a flashy, leather-clad ex-Colonel and his level-headed female engineer.

P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

R.B.: I’m finishing my second novel; a nautical thriller set in South-East Asia in present times, regarding increasing tensions amongst Pacific-rim countries following the sinking of a research vessel by the Chinese off the Spratly Islands. It’s full of murdering Russians, trigger-happy Chinese and the US Seventh Fleet: it’s a scenario that could happen at any time!

Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?

Ross Baxter: Practice, practice, practice…and keep at it. It took me seven years before I got anything published, but the practice and hard work did finally pay off.

Thanks, Ross! You’ve reminded me that despite the close alliance between the US and the UK, we may never agree on the spelling of certain words. I certainly wish you great success. My readers can find more about Ross Baxter on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, Amazon, LinkedIn and his website.

Poseidon’s Scribe

January 27, 2015Poseidon's ScribePermalink

Author Interview — Wynelda Ann Deaver

…And my series of interviews continues. I’ve come to the conclusion that the nearly-published anthology Avast, Ye Airships! contains stories by some of the most enthralling authors writing steampunk today.

Today I’d like you to meet Wynelda Ann Deaver. Her website, Wynword’s Weblog, is subtitled “Life, Love, Kids, and Being a Little Nuts.” I didn’t find much evidence of her being nuts, but the other three topics really define her site. They also permeate the answers to my interview questions, which she answered with clarity and brevity:

Poseidon’s Scribe: When and why did you begin writing fiction?

Wynelda Ann Deaver: I started writing fiction in the fifth grade. I think it was mostly me wanting to be someone else—be the heroine for once.

P.S.: What are the easiest, and the most difficult, aspects of writing for you?

W.D.: Ideas are easy. But computers come with internet now, and there’s Facebook, and blogs, and email… Not to mention being a single parent. It’s not that I don’t have the time. It’s that time management is very hard for me.

P.S.: How did you become interested in writing in your primary genre?

W.D.: Piers Anthony’s Xanth series. I read my first one in the fourth grade. My mom read romance, so she flipped through it, saw the “Adult Conspiracy” and knew it would be ok for me. I was hooked.

P.S.: Where do you get the ideas for your stories?

W.D.: Everywhere. Sometimes you just have to take your view and twist it.

P.S.: Your short story, “Steampunk Garden,” is set to appear in the upcoming anthology Avast, Ye Airships! What was the inspiration for it?

W.D.: The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett was one of the books that I adored growing up. I still do. So I took it and… twisted it. Made it into a new story.

P.S.: What other authors influenced your writing?

W.D.: Mercedes Lackey, Eloisa James, Julia Quinn, Anne Bishop, Elizabeth Haydon.

P.S.: Recently your book The Golden Apple and Other Stories was published. Please tell us a little about it.

W.D.: The Golden Apple and Other Stories golden_apple_72dpi1 is something I’m really proud of. There are three retellings of fairytales and two personal myths in it. One of the fairytales, “The Golden Apple,” is one my sister used to tell her daughters and me while we were in the car.

P.S.: From your website it’s clear your son has been diagnosed with Dyspraxia. My heart goes out to you. How have your efforts to cope with his condition influenced your writing?

W.D.: My son is a huge part of my life, and in his first five or six years so was his dyspraxia. Dyspraxia is a neurological condition that affects motor skills, memory, speech, balance, emotional health… a lot. When he was younger, I didn’t write very much— too busy with him and getting him up to at least near where he needs to be. Now that he’s older, it’s easier to write. He has friends. He can ride a bike with no training wheels (it took five months, but he stuck with it!). He doesn’t need me quite as much. But I’m finding him popping up in my fiction now: in the urban fantasy, there’s a wee little toddler who has dyspraxic symptoms. In The Golden Apple, there’s a personal myth with a mother and son in a candy garden. This started with a story between my son and I… I just twisted it really hard!

P.S.: What is your current work in progress? Would you mind telling us a little about it?

W.D.: I am currently working on an urban fantasy. A witch, a vampire and a siren are best friends…

Poseidon’s Scribe: What advice can you offer aspiring writers?

Wynelda Ann Deaver: Just write. And read. Read a lot, but write more. You also have to make the decision— are you writing for love or money? Personally, I have to write the stories I do, whether or not they find a home. My hard drive is full of stories that haven’t found a home yet. I might send them out again. Or self-publish since that’s now readily available in the e-book market. I wrote them for me, the original audience. And sometimes that’s enough.

Thank you, Wynelda, for captivating my readers with your answers today. I wish you many sales. Follow her on Twitter and like her on Facebook.

Poseidon’s Scribe