Flash Question Session

Author Scott Prussing

1. Introduce yourself and what it is you do.
I grew up in New Jersey and attended college and graduate school in Connecticut, where I earned degrees in psychology from the University of Connecticut and Yale. After graduate school, I was smart enough to move to beautiful San Diego, California, where I live in a small apartment just four blocks from the ocean. I’m divorced with no children.

Two years ago, I took early retirement from a career in health education and preventive medicine so I could spend time writing (and having fun). In addition to writing, I enjoy escapist reading, going to the movies (not renting!), hiking, riding my bike along the coast and golf. One of the most interesting things about me is that I’m one of the few people in the United States who doesn’t have a cell phone.

2. Your work area: messy or neat? Relatively neat, but somewhat cramped.

3. What are your current and past projects that you have you done? I am the author of the paranormal romance series Blue Fire Saga (3 books so far: Breathless, Deathless and Helpless). I’ve also written two mystery/suspense novels (Unturned Stones and Tangled Webs) as well as a teen romance novel based on the hit songs of Taylor Swift (Mine: A Love Story).

I’m currently finishing up book one of a fantasy/adventure series. It’s called Dreams of the Last Born. I’ve also started a post-apocalyptic novel involving a parallel world. The working title is The Miracles.

My Blue Fire Saga books are available in print and ebook versions. The others are only ebooks for now, but I plan on releasing them in print very soon.

4. If you if could meet any of your own characters, who would it be and why?

Most of my characters are so real to me I feel as if I have already “met” them. Having said that, I guess I’d like to hang out with Cali, the best friend of the lead female in the Blue Fire Saga. She’s fun, cool, outrageous and pretty much totally uninhibited.

5. If you are self-published, tell us about your experiences, pros and cons. Let’s start with the pros. I receive over 95% of all revenue from my print books (PayPal takes a small cut to handle the credit card operation). I also get 65-70% of the revenue from my ebooks (naturally, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Smashwords take their cut.) I also have complete control over all aspects of my work: content, editing, cover art, promotion, etc. In promoting the books myself, I have made many wonderful friends, primarily through Facebook. (Would you believe I didn’t even have a FB account before self-publishing my book? I now have well over 500 friends, as well as more than 750 “likes” on my FB fan page, Breathless Fampires.)

Now for the cons. As a self-published author, I am responsible for 100% of the costs, though I was fortunate to have a friend “invest” in me to help defray the cost of printing Breathless. And believe me, there are many costs (printing, cover art, editing, shipping, etc.). With experience and a growing fan base, I’ve learned to reduce many of these costs. I get volunteer readers to proofread a few chapters each of any new book. I’ve used the same cover art for all 3 books of my Blue Fire Saga, getting a friend with Photoshop to change the color of Leesa’s shirt and using a paint program myself to change the titles and the number of drops of blood.

The other major downside to self-publishing is the promotion. I have to do all the promoting myself. Established publishers have far more contacts and outlets through which to publicize and sell books, so getting the word out as a self-published author is challenging, to say the least. It’s especially challenging because of all the competition out there. As it gets easier and easier to self-publish ebooks (not to mention virtually free), it becomes harder and harder to get noticed amidst the hordes of books flooding the market.

6. Favorite type of drink? Water and beer, not necessarily in that order.    I’m actually pretty boring here—I don’t drink soda, coffee or energy drinks, and I rarely drink juice (I’d rather eat the actual fruit than just drink the juice).

7. What makes your stories different? I think my paranormal romance novels have more mystery and suspense than many books in the genre—an offshoot, I think, of having started my writing career with a couple of mystery/suspense novels. I also try to create a few new things in my books, such as the one-fanged vampires and supernatural vampire hunters called volkaanes I invented for my Blue Fire Saga.

I also like to do some “cross-pollinating” in my books when I can. For instance, in Mine: A Love Story, I have the lead character reading one of my Blue Fire Saga books and thinking wistfully about what a great relationship the lead characters have. I even have a poster of Breathless on the wall on the cover of Mine: A Love Story. Sometimes I even steal a scene from one of my other books. As I told a reviewer, “If you can’t plagiarize yourself, who can you plagiarize?”

8. What do you do to help you write? Do you down the energy drinks? Eat junk food? Run around the house to get the inspiration going? Blast the tunes? Do tell.
This is another place where I’m kind of boring, I’m afraid. I just sit down at my computer and start writing. I hate to admit it, but writing is usually (but not always!) pretty easy for me. Sometimes I have the radio playing, sometimes I don’t even remember to turn it on. I don’t eat or drink anything while I’m at my desk. If I get stuck, sometimes I stretch out on my bed with my eyes closed to think (my computer is in my bedroom). Like I said, pretty boring.

9. What would be your advice to aspiring authors?  My number one piece of advice is to remember the Laws of Inertia: A body in motion tends to stay in motion, and a body at rest tends to stay at rest. If you can get yourself to write frequently, you’ll tend to keep writing. If you allow yourself to get sidetracked or stuck, you tend to stay sidetracked or stuck.

What this means in practical terms is try to write as often as you can. Set aside a regular time to write at least several days a week. Also, don’t get bogged down trying to make your book perfect on the first pass—save perfection for the revising and editing. Too many beginning writers (and some experienced ones, too!) allow themselves to get stuck somewhere in their book because they can’t quite get a particular section right. Remember Inertia—keep moving forward!

10. Where can we stalk you online?   On Facebook, either under my name, or Breathless Fampires page, or Breathless Vampire Book page. Also, on my website, www.scottprussing.com Stalk away, readers! I’m one of the most accessible writers out there.

For information and to order print copies:

http://www.scottprussing.com
ebook links for all my books can be found on the ebook tab in this website.

Here are the ebook links for Breathless:
 Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004U6WM7E
Barnes and Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/breathless-scott-prussing/1103450265
Smashwords:
http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/87871


Questions and Blog design by Alexia Purdy and Amy Conley

Flash Question Session

Author Jenna Kay

1. How did you get into writing?  

First of all I'll start by saying that growing up I had a very vivid imagination and was notorious for being a daydreamer. Later in life I found that I'd been given a gift, a gift where I could bring my thoughts and imagination to life. I began my writing career three years ago. One morning I woke up and knew I needed to write. I was 28 years old, wife and mother of three. I felt like something was missing in my life, like there was something else I was supposed to be doing. So I prayed for a year straight in search of answers. In between all this my father passed away. We'd been very close and it hit me (and my family) hard. I like to think my dad helped push me in the right direction.

2. Do you write first in longhand or just tap away at the computer?  

It depends. If I'm at my children's basketball or baseball practices I sit there in my own little world with my notebook and pen. Most of the time, though, I'm in front of my laptop, pounding away a story.

3. What are your current and past projects that you have you done?

"Mark of the Seer", book one in the Seer Society Series, will be out 2/29/12, published by Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing. There will be five books (at least) in this series. Currently I'm working on my newest series, "The Gracen Chronicles". There will be three books in this series, maybe four. My goal for 2012 is to write three books.

4. The worst advice you have ever received?

"Go ahead, cut all your hair off--it'll look good!" It didn't look good.


5. What makes your stories different?

The Seer Society is about Biblical Seers who can not only see angels and demons but fight in the Spiritual Warfare. Their guardian angels are always with them and they can send demons straight to hell by simply touching them or shooting God's light from their palms. The Holy essence, which is God's light, flows within them, rendering the demons powerless. Yes, there are many angel and demon books out...I've most likely read them all, and all of them I've loved. But what I can tell you is this - the angels and demons in my books do not fall in love with humans. Yes, there's temptations, but it's not happening. Also there's plenty of teen angst, in other words, real life situation that teens go through daily. I just put a supernatural twist in it. The Gracen Chronicles is another story...that I will discuss later. ;)

6. What are your favorite books?

That's a hard one. I like mostly paranormal books. I loved the Shiver series, Fallen series, The Mortal Instruments...serious the list is huge. Right now I'm reading "Blood and Light" by Rue Volley, and I'm loving it!

7. Ice cream, gelato, sherbet or sorbet?

All of the above. ;)

8. What do you do to help you write? Do you down the energy drinks? Eat junk food? Run around the house to get the inspiration going? Blast the tunes? Do tell.

Coffee's a must have when I write. Music blasting helps as well. If I'm stumped I take a walk and listening to my headphones...That's about it.

9. What was the hardest part you had to write in your book?

"Mark of the Seer" is the first book I completed, and the hardest part was killing off a certain character...touchy stuff.

10. Where can we stalk you online?

Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Jenna-Kay/156741071050573

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Mark-of-the-Seer-by-Jenna-Kay/214832985267959

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Seer-Society/112358532173215

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Gracen-Chronicles-by-Jenna-Kay/219368591486299

Twitter:

https://twitter.com/#!/ClarityJennaKay

Goodreads
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10714886-mark-of-the-seer

Website (under construction at the moment)

www.seersociety.com

Blog (also under construction)

http://blog.seersociety.com/?ci=22763

Mark of the Seer will be available to buy February 29th, 2012

Click here for more information about Jenna and her books at Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing




All photography and artwork used by permission of the author. 
Questions and blog design done by Alexia Purdy and Amy Conley

Flash Question Session

Author Michael K. Rose

1. Introduce yourself and what it is you do.
My name is Michael K. Rose and I am a science fiction writer. I do, however, dabble in general speculative fiction as well as literary fiction. I believe that defining oneself as a "genre" writer is handy for readers but one must be careful that that definition does not prevent a writer from writing what he likes.

2. Your work area: messy or neat?
Sometimes one, usually the other.

3. What are your current and past projects that you have you done?
I am currently working on a series called Sullivan's War. I have just released Book I, entitled All Good Men Serve the Devil. This is the story of Rick Sullivan, a man from the planet Edaline who is on a mission to bring down that planet's corrupt government. To do this he has come to Earth and intends to--by whatever means necessary--prevent Edaline from joining the Stellar Assembly, a UN-like body that governs many of the inhabited planets. I have recently written a blog post that details the creative process behind this series: http://myriadspheres.blogspot.com/2012/01/story-behind-sullivans-war.html

Also available is a prologue to the series entitled Sergeant Riley's Account. This is a stand-alone novelette that does not directly impact the main story of Sullivan's War but will inform it and help readers flesh out the universe in which Sullivan's War takes place.

4.What’s the best advice you have ever received regarding your writing?
One of the most useful bits of advice that I've read is to always keep the reader asking questions. If they have a question about what's happening, they will keep turning the pages. The other is, of course, to actually sit down and write. This is a bit of advice I ignored for a long time but once I was committed to actually becoming a published author I buckled down and have, in less than three months, published a short story, a short story collection, a novelette and a novella. In 2012 I plan to write at least two more novellas (Books II and III of Sullivan's War) and publish a novel I have been working on for some time called Chrysopteron. The best way to keep on track and keep writing is to set goals AND MEET THEM. Force yourself to write, say, 10,000 words a week and you'll have your book finished in no time.

5. If you are self-published, tell us about your experiences, pros and cons.
I generally like the self-publishing process but there are, of course, difficulties. The main problem is that of exposure. It is very difficult to get one's work to stand out in the crowd. For that, one mainly has to rely on good reviews and hope that there are enough sales to get the book on the best-seller list in a certain category.

Another problem I have is that the distribution channels have a lot of catching up to do. For example, I refuse to use Smashwords because they require one to use their "meatgrinder," which produces poorly-formatted ebooks, instead of just submitting beautifully and carefully created ebooks in a mobi or epub format. There is simply no reason to disallow that. I put a lot of work into perfectly formatting my ebooks. So, because of that, I am only publishing on Amazon and Barnes & Noble for the time being.

6. Favorite type of food?
I generally like the spectrum of Mediterranean food, from Spanish, all the way around the European coast to Italy, into the Greek Isles, down the Levant and across Northern Africa.

7. What do you do to relax?
I like to read a great deal. I read science fiction, of course, and I particularly like to read other self-published authors. I think that a lot of people who aren't in the self-publishing "business" don't really know about the wonderful work that is being produced on that front. My other love is late 19th century literature. I am fond of Henry James, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Jerome K. Jerome, among many others.

In the evening or afternoons I enjoy relaxing with a pipe or cigar and a glass of wine or Scotch. I love music as well, and often attend the symphony or the opera.

8. What do you do to help you write? Do you down the energy drinks? Eat junk food? Run around the house to get the inspiration going? Blast the tunes? Do tell.
When I write, I either write in silence of with classical music playing softly in the background. I generally drink tea, black tea with milk and sugar in the morning, Earl Grey in the afternoon.

9. What would be your advice to aspiring authors?
Write what you want to write. Some best-selling authors have said that you should think about who your audience will be and write to them. I feel that makes for a disingenuous book, a book that panders to the lowest common denominator. There may be some truth that writing in a "mold" that many of the best-sellers fit into is a good idea if you are only concerned about sales but if your goal is to write well, to write fiction that lives and breathes, fiction that inspires, both the reader and you as the writer, then write what, and how, you want to write. If there is no audience for it, create one, convince people, through the strength of your writing, that your work is worth reading. This, of course, does not mean that you can't write in a "popular" genre. My current series is a planet-hopping, action-filled science fiction romp, hardly the stuff that Pulitzers are made of. But I am writing it because I believe that it is a good story and, as the series continues, one that I hope I will be able to instill with meaning and artistic merit.

10. Where can we stalk you online?
This is my blog: http://myriadspheres.blogspot.com/ Links to individual pages about my books can be found down the right side of the page and I often post updates about my writing process and write reviews of classic science fiction stories or new stories that I've particularly enjoyed. Sometimes I blog about things completely unrelated to writing or science fiction. My interests are many. You can friend me on Facebook here: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100000670152582 and follow me on Twitter here: https://twitter.com/#!/MichaelKRose

Buy Michael's Books Here: Click to go to Michael's Amazon page

My review of Sullivan's War Book 1: 

All Good Men Serve the Devil

I enjoyed this novella length story immensely, it pulls you into a new futuristic and believable world where technology is advanced and the chase is on.  Frank Allen is an agent to the bureau on earth and is now involved in finding the perpetrator of the murders of some very important political members.  The pursuit takes you out into a space adventure with true grit and action as Agent Allen tracks down the killer- Rick Sullivan, a highly trained assassin who has his own agenda in mind.  A world where space travel and the harsh reality of slums on other worlds exist side by side, this murder mystery gives just the right amount of flavors to keep you intrigued and wanting for more at the last turn of the page.  Book 1 of an amazing series.  Highly recommended! 5 stars out of 5

Review of My Remembrance by Maxine L. Owen

Written in memoir style, this book follows the life of Lois, whose tumultuous childhood molded her in many ways. You will cry, your heart will race and you yourself will experience the events that happen to this strong heroinne as it follows her through to adulthood and absolution in the end. The abuse she suffers at the hands of her parents and then her first husband show how one soul can persevere through any storm.

I loved the honest story telling voice throughout this novel. The emotions that play through it and the anger you feel at all the things Lois must endure will stay with you forever. Highly recommended read.

5 out of 5 stars!!!

I got the pleasure to read this amazing book by my fellow author and friend Madison Daniel.  Here is my review of his phenominal book.  It will be released March 16th 2012 with Crushing Hearts & Black Butterfly Publishing!!!! Check out this amazing cover too!   It's gonna be epic!!

     A most intriguing book, the story of Max Valentine, a supernatural fire-wielding healer who has arrived in Maui Hawaii to start his life anew after tragedy has torn his family apart.  After his father dies, he now is sent to live with his uncle Frank in the beautiful island of Maui.  What an awesome backdrop for this mystical and fiery read.  The author Madison Daniel describes it with amazing detail and vibrance.

     The characters were enticing!  Madison writes his characters with all senses in mind.  You feel, taste and see them as you read his flowing words.  Max is a typical teenage boy, filled with angst and a darkness that he carries so deep inside–it affects his days in many ways.  He meets two girls on the island that he immediately feels intense feelings for.  Your everyday sweet girl-next-door Samantha and the reclusive hauntingly beautiful Asia–a water wielding girl who’s moods control the weather.  Max finds himself in major trouble as he is torn between the two beauties.  Others aren’t so happy with his choice in women and the dangers that swirl and grow around him intensify as he tries to make a decision between the two and risks his own life in the meantime because of it.

     I thoroughly enjoyed this book; it was intense, dramatic, enticing and sucked you in with every word.  Magical storytelling that will keep you up reading to the last drop.

     Madison also has a soundtrack to this book and highly encourages one to listen and read at the same time.  This is something I do not do, but I did listen to each track, which are listed in front of each chapter, before reading the chapters themselves to capture the mood that was meant for them.  An amazing musical ride, don’t miss this. 

     I read an originally self-published version of Ember.  Ember will be re-released in March of 2012 with Crushing Hearts and Black Butterfly Publishing. 

5 out of 5 Stars!!!!

So I've been asked: Where do you get your ideas from? Haha, so you really want to know? Ok, I dream vividly, and most are quite wacked out. Example one and this is so rough and unedited, just the way I jotted it down. Enjoy a slice of the madness within:

The school was a prison. Everyone knew that but no one ever did anything about it. The high fences were foreboding and an ever present sign of this perpetual imprisonment.

One day, we were eating in the cafeteria, nothing much going on. Just outside the windows, one of the students got into major trouble. The teachers decided it warranted severe punishment of death. They released the enforcer dragons which oddly enough were hot pink in color. It proceeded to smash the student to smithereens. The assistant principle then decided to tie up the principle and take over the school. She let the enforcers, guards who guarded the school, run amuck and kill any student in sight. We ran, we hid behind supplies and in the dark, hoping to not be discovered. Two warriors, a guy and girl who were dressed like punk rockers, thigh highs, bandanas tied to their arms and legs, had bunches of balloons in their hands which I thought was very strange. They had to hide in a nook above the cafeteria but one of the enforcers saw them. Two came towards us but the guy student used his machete to chop at their feet and the girl had a sword that she used to behead the enforcers. We ran away, towards the kitchen. We can hear screams and yelling in the background. The girl leads us to the deep freezer, which she opens and presses a hidden button. The freezer then moves back a bit to let us into a secret hidden hallway. Once in, the freezer resumes its regular position, therefore hiding our escape route.

The hall is lit and is made of cinderblock and cement. We walk down it, lighting the lights as we continue down, underground, towards our escape.

A Lonesome Place

I find your heart a lonesome place

Engulfed within a fruitless waste

The pulse of a thousand cells

Left loneliness inside your hell

Dark, dank and rancid sick

Lost a heartbeat silver quick

Danced once more in turbulence

Fractured love’s impetulance

Escape’s my only thought of late

Fear and hope initiates

Down the hall of loathsome doom

Out the door to shining moon

To breathe again the air and light

Shaking off this cloak of night

©2012 Alexia Purdy

Reign of Blood- An interview of the upcoming novel from Alexia Purdy by Horrordaily.com gets Headlines at HorrorBid.com !!!! Check out the buzzz......

Read the Reign of Blood Interview of Alexia Purdy by Horrordaily.com for HorrorBid.com here!

So excited to introduce my new novel project:

Reign of Blood

A new paranormal horror thriller about April, a vampire hunter and killer in a post-apocalyptic world infested with, you guessed it, Vampires!!! But all is not what you would think, In the city of Las Vegas, which never sleeps, the world is changed, and the creatures of night are not all what you would think and humans are all but extinct.....

Keep an eye out for the cover reveal in February!!!

Will be available end of March 2012 via Amazon.com ebook version, paperback version available in April date TBA.