SHARING OUR VOICES- ROBERT K. LEWIS

A couple of weeks ago, I was extremely fortunate to win an autographed copy of Robert K. Lewis' novel, UNTOLD DAMAGE. Robert is also a member of AgentQuery Connect, so I'd heard about his book prior to its release. I couldn't wait to read it. 

UNTOLD DAMAGE drew me into the story from the very first page. Why? For me it was the flawed hero. The gritty realism of the city. The raw emotions I felt seeing the world through this character's eyes. 

I asked Robert where he found the inspiration for the character of Mark Mallen? His answer is as rich and full of depth as his novel.

 

Angie, let me first say thank you for asking me to be here on your blog to discuss what inspired the creation of Mark Mallen, the ex-undercover cop, recovering junkie protagonist in my debut crime novel, UNTOLD DAMAGE.

Actually, Mallen was inspired by a LOT of different things. His origin lies in a short story I had published in an online literary journal named Cherry Bleeds, way back in December 2007. That story was called Needle Priest and dealt with a junkie, Mallen, shooting up in a church confessional on a dark, snowy night when a woman enters the church. In the dark confessional, she mistakes him for a priest and asks that he come back with her so he can give her dying mother the last rites.  Even though it’s revealed to her that Mallen is NOT a priest, he still ends up going with the woman, telling her:


“There's no priest that you'll be able to find tonight," he said quietly. "I'll go with you, and be with her until... until the end, if that's what it takes. Who cares what title I have, or even if this is my church? I don't know much, lady, but I do know what I was taught as a kid, and that was that God is supposed to live in each person's heart, and my heart right now is telling me to go and be with your mother, even to hear her confession if that's what she wants." He added in a quiet voice, "I'm telling you I want to go, and help you."

I’m a real junkie for redemption tales. I believe they can’t help but strike a chord with everybody. I mean… who doesn’t want a second chance to get their life put back together?

I’d printed out Needle Priest and had it up on the corkboard above my desk, along with a bit of flash fiction I’d written about a child killer called Little Visitor. My previous novel had gone nowhere and I needed something new. I was literally sitting at my desk, wondering what that something new would be when I started looking at the two bits of writing on the corkboard. I was actually mumbling to myself as I looked from one to the other, “Junkie… serial killer… junkie… serial killer… junkie goes after a serial killer. How would he do that?”

The answer came to me right away: because he’d once been a cop.

And that’s how Mallen really began.

Now, if you want to ask me about WHAT went into Mallen, well I’d start by telling you about my love of Noir. It’s a love that runs very, very deep. It begins with Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, and runs to the likes of Frank and Henry Kane, Mickey Spillane, Don Westlake (Richard Stark) and Ed McBain. All those guys wrote about guys who could certainly be considered to be Mallen’s fathers.

But there’s also a LOT of other influences that went into Mallen. I love 1970’s crimes films shot in New York: Death Wish, Taxi Driver, The Seven Ups, The French Connection, Serpico, The Warriors, and also non-crime films shot there like Midnight Cowboy and Panic in Needle Park. Other films, along with TV shows, that influenced Mallen’s creation and stories would be Dirty Harry, The Enforcer, The Streets of San Francisco, and Police Story, to name just a few.

The last influence I’d like to mention is he’s influenced by my sense of right and wrong. Mallen and I share the same moral compass, the same sense of loyalty to friends and family. I just want to add here that I wish I could take a punch as well as he does. He takes a lot of damage but he keeps moving forward. I love that about him.

Thanks again for inviting me, Angie!

 RkL

UNTOLD DAMAGE is now available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and at your local bookstore. Look for the next book in the series, CRITICAL DAMAGE, in April 2014.

Twitter: robertklewis
Website: www.robertklewis.com
Blog: http://needlecity.wordpress.com/

 

 

SHARING OUR VOICES- KELBIAN NOEL

I'm so excited to introduce a very special person to the blog today. I was giddy (still am) when Kelbian Noel accepted my invitation to share why she writes. Her source of inspiration mirrors my own, but she expresses it in a way that touched my heart.

A Dose of Reality For a World of Confidence

Thanks for the invitation to Sharing Our Voices, Angie! I'm honored to be here :) When I first read about this series, I was so inspired by the posts of all these amazing authors. It's incredible how different we all are, yet so much alike. We all have a story and I'm happy to share mine!

When people ask me why I write, why I chose this of all things to do for a living, I give them two reasons: motivation and inspiration.

I can literally write for hours. For me, being in my characters' worlds is soothing. I enjoy time spent there. An entire day can melt away and I'll barely notice. If I have a big enough breakfast, I often even forget to eat. Writing makes me happy. Whether it’s fiction, proofreading or grant writing, it never feels like a job. Even in the midst of editing and revising I’m still having a good time. 

When I'm not writing my characters I'm thinking about them. What motivates them?  What inspires them? And when I put the finishing touches on a manuscript, there's usually more of a sense of regret than relief. I don’t schedule my writing. It’s automatic. The biggest part of my day. The very act motivates me, how I know it will fulfill me one day and be there for me the next.

Who I write about and for is my inspiration. 

When I first decided I wanted to be a writer I was eleven. My inspiration came from reading. But it wasn't the characters on the pages of Love Comes Softly and Anne of Avonlea that inspired me. What spurred me was the idea of the characters who could have been. Even as I moved on to more modern fiction from authors like R. L. Stine and Christopher Pike these characters still weren't there. Not prominently anyway. 

But don’t get me wrong. I wasn't offended. Or angry. I thoroughly enjoyed these stories, despite how the characters were described. Despite the fact that they looked nothing like the face staring back at me in the mirror. These writers were talented enough to engage me, and inspire me. 

Back then, I don't think I was socially conscious enough to see the lack of multicultural characters in fiction as a serious issue. In fact, in my eyes, it wasn’t a problem at all. It as an opportunity. 

 I grew up in rural Canada. When I say rural, I mean back-country-small-town-in-the- middle-of-a-place-you’ve-never-heard-of rural. Scot’s Bay, Turtle Creek, Lockeport, Morristown. Right now you’re probably Googling. And if you are, you get where I’m coming from. For many years, our family was the only black family--for miles. So, to be perfectly honest, reading an all white cast, book after book, wasn't all that unusual. It was all I knew the world to be. When I started writing my first novel (on lined paper, with a pen, sitting under that cliche old oak tree) I wrote what I saw, what I knew, with a little bit of color sprinkled in for good measure. That little bit of color, was me. 

Many years have passed since then and what inspires me hasn’t changed. I want my daughter (now eleven) and other children like her--visible minorities--to see themselves in the pages they read. So, when I write, I make a point to include them--front row center. That's why the characters in the Witchbound Series are so eclectic. I believe truly representing the world as it is, is a vital component to the positive development of future society. Our children. Confidence is the key to success and if I can inspire a little confidence in a story read before bedtime or before their days begin then, why not?

L.M. Montgomery wrote what she knew. I’m betting Janette Oke, R.L. Stine and Christopher Pike did as well. I’m going to assume the last three didn’t regularly interact with people of color. So adding them to their imaginary worlds, in a time when a simple online search wasn’t possible, wouldn’t have been easy to do. 

Times have changed. I don’t know everything about every culture. Even though I live in Toronto now, one of the most multicultural cities on the planet, I still have to do my research. And I do. Every kid, not just black like me, should see themselves in the pages. They should expect it, even demand it. And if they don’t get what they ask for, then hopefully they’ll be inspired to create it. 

Roots: Seventeen-year-old Baltimore Land just wants to be normal, but magic has other plans.

Sprung: Since she discovered magic, seventeen-year-old Skye Jackson's life is almost perfect. Almost. Even perfect has its glitches.

To help you find me in those pictures: In the horse picture, I'm the one in the front (my older sister is sitting behind me), in the birthday party picture, my dad is holding me, and in the picture in front of the van, that's me right in the center.

Thank you so much for inviting me! I hope everyone has a great week :)

Kelbian Noel
Author of The Witchbound Series
http://www.kelbian.com

SHARING OUR VOICES- JW TROEMNER

I'm thrilled to have my smart and talented critique partner, JW Troemner, on the blog as she shares how she finds inspiration for her books. She is one of those rare people who will make the time to help a fellow writer in need, and I'm very fortunate to have her in my life.
 

Thank you, Angie, for having me on your blog! You had wanted to know how culture influenced my writing-- the moment you asked, a recent experience flashed before my eyes like I was in an old sitcom, complete with a wavy screen and the sounds of a twinkling xylophone.
 
There I was, clicking through on Wikipedia.
 
Nobody knows how we get anywhere on Wikipedia. Usually there’s a maze of links involved—you innocently start on a page about the Oxford comma, and next thing you know you're on an article about asteroid mining.
 
Or in my case, about the Tuareg people of the Sahara desert.



Photo of a Tuareg woman by: Alain Elorza

As I read through the page, a couple of details stood out to me. Their historical confrontations with colonial forces, a strong warrior class, a distinctive indigo dye in their traditional clothes that often ends up seeping into the skin—even the sound of the names reminded me a little of the inhabitants of Frank Herbert’s Dune. And then I spotted what the Tuareg people refer to themselves as: Freemen. As in, one letter short of the sandworm-riding Fremen.
 
Suffice to say, it blew my mind like I’d OD’d on Spice. That’s not to say Herbert copied and pasted the Tuareg people into the pages of Dune. He took a few aspects of their culture, transplanted them, and then found legitimate reasons for the Fremen to have those qualities.
 
My best friend often sends me snippets about other cultures whenever she runs across them: a few brief paragraphs and pictures about the facial tattoos of the Ainu people of Japan, a brief introduction to Yoruba Orishas, a link explaining traditional naming conventions in Scandinavian countries, an article about taboos in Celtic lore. None of these completely or accurately portrays their culture. But that’s perfect for a fantasy writer like me.
 
Without context or explanation, we’re free to make up our own reasons behind the traditions—and often that ends up involving religion, social values, politics, geography. One little interesting detail can suddenly become the seed for an entire world, almost entirely different from our own.
 
Even if you’re not into the Spec Fic scene, every culture has its own set of virtues and vices, its own history and drama, its own heroes and villains—and each one of them is packed full of stories.
 
Need some ideas? Sticking with Wikipedia’s take on the Tuareg, take a look at rebel band Tinariwen and the legendary queen Tin Hinan.
 
 @JWDreamkeeper
Blog: Questions and Archetypes

SHARING OUR VOICES- RHIANN WYNN-NOLET

I'd like to welcome Rhiann Wynn-Nolet to the blog today. She recently found her dream agent, Stephanie Lieberman at Janklow & Nesbit Associates. After reading about what inspired her book, I can understand why she was snatched out of the query trenches. Please give her a warm welcome.

First, thank you to Angie for inviting me to participate in Share Our Voices. I’d also like to thank her for being very friendly back when I was floundering in the querying/contest trenches. She had an agent already, so I was immensely flattered that she’d even chat with me.

When asked to speak about how culture and environment inspire my writing, I thought immediately of an instance where truth and my own fiction collided at that very intersection.

New England and I go way back. All the way to the 1630s, when my ancestors arrived from “Old” England. Four years ago I decided to write a book. I knew it would have some connection to the Salem witchcraft trials of 1692, during which my ancestor Mary Estey was hanged.

Here is a photo of the house where Mary’s sister, Rebecca Nurse lived. She was also hanged.

During my research, I learned that land-hungry English settlers spread out from Boston and Salem to southern Maine, then known as The Eastward. This caused conflict with the Abenaki. Bloodshed and tragic losses followed (for both sides). Traumatized Colonial refugees poured into Salem and the surrounding towns, telling horror stories. Who among the God-fearing Puritans had brought God’s wrath down upon them? Witches, of course.

I now live in southern Maine, where the novel is set.

Here’s a photo I took on a walk near my house. This rock is called Tyler’s Back because it formed the rear wall of Mr. Tyler’s home during the early 1700s. One of the Tylers’ neighbors, Mrs. Batson was killed by the Abenaki. Incidentally, a surprising number of the women and children who were captured by native tribes chose not to return to English Colonial life when they were given the chance.

I decided my MC would be descended from accused witch Margaret Jacobs, whose letters to the court and to her father during her imprisonment survived. They’re both inspirational and heartbreaking. The boy my MC falls for has both Abenaki heritage and an ancestor who was a prominent witch persecutor. Here’s the premise of UNQUIET SOULS—restless spirits may inhabit the bodies of the living, attempting to satisfy thwarted desires for love or vengeance.

To learn more about modern day Abenaki, my family and I went to a pow wow. We were admiring the crafts when the music started. It was a vocal performance with drum accompaniment. After the song ended, my husband said he didn’t understand why he’d gotten all teary, but the song had filled his heart with sadness and longing. I should mention that my husband’s surname was always assumed to be French (his father was born in Quebec).

I don’t know what the name of the song was, but it sounded much like this

Flash forward to a recent family wedding. I was seated by my father-in-law and we began talking genealogy. He told me his father had claimed to have Native American blood. Interesting. Once I got home I hit the internet. Lo and behold, Nolet is a shortened version of Wawanolet, a surname frequently found on reservations around Quebec, where most of the Abenaki ended up.

This is a passage from my book, written two years before the wedding.

As we rumbled over a patch of cobblestones revealed by balding asphalt, she said, “Sometimes I can’t help but think of all the people who’ve passed along these twisting roads before us. I feel their presence, those travelers throughout time. Imagine all the cars, and before them all the horses and wagons, and before them the native tribes. Underneath the pavement lies cobblestone, below that the dirt roads of the original colonial settlement, and buried deeper still are the trails made by moccasins. Each generation adds a new layer, obscuring the past and altering the road slightly—yet we follow the paths made by our predecessors, repeating their journeys without conscious thought.”

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SHARING OUR VOICES- JEAN ORAM

The amazing author of CHAMPAGNE AND LEMON DROPS, @JeanOram is our special guest today on Sharing Our Voices. Her book kept me awake until the wee hours of the morning because I simply couldn't stop reading until I reached the end.

 

Please welcome her as she shares what inspired the wonderful town of Blueberry Springs.

Thanks for having me on the blog, Angie. You had asked, "The environment and culture of Blueberry Springs was so rich in detail that it felt real. What was your inspiration for this town?"

 

The inspiration for Blueberry Springs, the setting for my romance Champagne and Lemon Drops (book one in the Blueberry Springs series), is an accumulation of experiences from small town Alberta, Canada--even though I am very careful not to say in the book whether the town is in the United States or Canada.

 

 

Some of the happenings in Blueberry Springs are things I have plucked from my own life. I grew up in a hamlet of a hundred people in Alberta, Canada. I knew everyone and they knew me. That old saying where it takes a community to raise a child? That's how I grew up. We gaggle of girls ate at whomever's house were playing at. Bathed at whomever's house. We were a pack of 'ragamuffins' that stuck together and were offered many parenting choices in any given day!

 

 

Like in the book, the nearest big city was called The City. Going to Town was the next town over which had a gas station and grocery store. And like in Champagne and Lemon Drops, the parts man really did take ordered parts by phone and place them in your vehicle when he saw it on Main Street--he'd simply charge it to your account. (Although I don't think anyone ever blew up at him like one of the heroes, Nash, did in the book!)

 

City people, like Nash, were suspect and warranted caution which was a great ounce of conflict in Champagne and Lemon Drops. In real life, my parents have lived in their hamlet for over forty years now, but in all that time, they have been 'the new people.' They were hippies (they aren't any longer). Easterners. City folk. They aren't related to everyone and don't have generations of history in that area. But they shared a lot of the same values as our community and the community was always there to help out.

 

 

Growing up in this area I saw both worlds. I saw the connection and deep bond that Beth (the heroine) wanted in Blueberry Springs as well as that deep confusion and lack of understanding for the social nuances that city man Nash experienced.

 

 

In a small town, everyone knows everyone as well as their most personal business. And if they don't know it, they make it up. Small town folks aren't afraid to snoop, ask, or interfere. They mean well, but sometimes it is difficult. In a lot of ways, I tried to make Blueberry Springs a character in the story. The town was both a source of conflict for my characters as well as a source of resolution. Blueberry Springs, however, is unlike most small towns in that its identity was always in limbo. The town is set in the mountains and is a bit isolated. There are meadows which have been farmed and ranched. Natural resources that have been mined and now tourism is starting. But, like any small town, it's a town on the cusp of becoming nothing. The threat of disappearance is very real.

 

 

Beth, like anyone from a small town, has to make a choice. To stay or to go. To leave home and become a nobody in a big city, or to remain in a small town and possibly be suffocated. I chose to leave. I won't tell you what Beth chooses. And Mandy, who shows up in book one, is the main character for book two and will also have to deal with this issue. But her question is: Can she be a big fish in a small pond (town)? (You can sign up for free book updates on my website: http://www.jeanoram.com/signup )

 

For those interested in seeing Blueberry Springs in all its interfering, supportive glory it is currently free in all ebook formats (read it on your ereader, tablet, phone, or computer!):

 

One woman. Two men. One meddling small town. Raised by her older sister in the small town of Blueberry Springs, all Beth Wilkinson wants is to create a family so big she’ll never be alone. Things are going great until her accountant fiancé, Oz, throws their life in the air, sending her on a journey of discovery paved with choices--including whether to return to her old life.

Jean Oram

Chick Lit Author With SNAP!

Read Book 1 in the Blueberry Springs Series is now FREE! Champagne and Lemon Drops ~ All formats on Smashwords, Barnes and Noble as well as on Amazon.com.

 

jean@jeanoram.com

www.JeanOram.com

www.Facebook.com/JeanOramAuthor

www.Twitter.com/JeanOram

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NEW NAVIGATION PAGE

The Awesome Posts page is up. Click on it to find the posts you're interested in reading. 

Since I have a diverse audience, I thought it was about time to organize this blog. All of the posts have labels, but the cloud is a bit difficult to navigate. So, if you want to read reviews on my favorite K-drama and Anime series, all of the posts are linked. The same with Sharing Our Voices, 40 Weeks Of Me, and the ever thrilling, Cover Reveals posts. 

Want to follow my wonderful journey as an aspiring writer. Links are there for each and every step as I learn about writing and editing. 

Hope it helps. And thanks for stopping by. 

SHARING OUR VOICES- PETER BURTON

Hi, Gang.

I'd like to thank Angie for giving me this chance to drool like the village idiot all over her blog. But, she assured me that I'd spend the rest of my misbegotten days sounding like Mickey Mouse in a room full of helium if I tried it. The sawed-off, pump action, 12 gauge shotgun aimed two feet below heart level definitely made her point. So, I'll do the next best thing, instead.

Blather on about writing.

Besides, I never argue with a lovely lady pointing a projectile weapon at the family jewels.

Now, we all know about the many, and often changing, rules of good writing. We ought to, there have been almost as many books published about writing fiction as there are actual stories. Have no fear, brothers and sisters, I'm not about to go off on an ignore-the-rules tangent… much. Without those rules you're in the same position as the folks on the Titanic who couldn't get on a lifeboat. You're going down with the ship.

Instead, I'll attempt to point out where those very same lifesaver rules might turn your blood, sweat, and tears into a pile of parts as lifeless as the Frankenstein Monster before the good doctor threw the switch.

In short, gang, the heart and soul of any good story is its entertainment value. Now before you go logging off the article, shouting, "Eureka," with the intent of turning your long suffering keyboard into a molten slag of melted plastic and circuits; I should warn you. You'll still have to deal with the foulest four letter word in existence. You will still have to put in the w-o-r-k.

The reason for this is; entertaining someone is probably the most ethereal subject in writing. It's not something that can be easily taught, or acquired. But, I may be able to point the way for a few of you. After that, kiddies, you is on your own and must find your own way through the woods.

From the very beginning the art of storytelling has had only one purpose: Entertain the audience listening to the story. Yes, there could be moral or practical instruction hidden within, but if our spear throwing ancestor couldn't keep the rest of the tribe entertained, the tribe soon stopped listening to him drone away. Heck, for all I know they started using him for target practice.

The same holds true for our own work today. You can follow every rule of writing and grammar, use every rule of English, weed out every adverb, and wind up with a story that's about as entertaining as a treatise on the mating habits of amoeba on the ocean floor. To the average reader this equals one thing… Boooooring.

May the writing gods have mercy on your word processor and career if you ever get that reaction to your story. Because, no one else will.

Fortunately, there are a few guidelines to save you from such a miserable fate. On the surface they sound as easy as blowing your nose. In reality they are enough to make you want to blow your brains out instead. And, honestly, the rules of grammar and writing must always take a back seat to them.

The first, hardest, and slipperiest of the bunch is: An engaging storyteller's voice.

A good story teller must have a style of telling a tale that borders on the hypnotic. Regardless of medium, a good storyteller must be able to draw the reader so far into the story that they completely forget about the outside world. They become entranced and mesmerized by the 'voice' of the storyteller, and become lost to everything but the story.

To understand this, just think of the number of times you vanished into a story, no matter what media presented it. Movie, television program, book, whatever, you were lost in the story. The phone rings, and you're actually pissed that someone jerked you out of the tale. That is the storyteller's true voice. And it ain't easy to come by, or hold on to. But I promise, you must have or develop it for yourself.

A good storyteller can make the most mundane piece of drivel sound like the Iliad.

Next we have our characters. The persons who will act out our earthshattering best seller. The problem there is; they better not be acting.

What I mean by this is, your characters need to be as close to a living, breathing being as you can possibly make them. How you do this will vary from writer to writer, but one thing all the greats admit to: for them their characters were alive. They were not just puppets having their strings pulled by the master, but entities that had a say in what they would, or would not do.

Readers, whether they are agents, editors, or the public will recognize a puppet when they see one, and at that point we are sunk. No life preserver, no Coast Guard rescue. Grab your nose and take a deep breath, chuckles. We're going down.

Last but not least, in the limited space we have for blogging, we have the plot.

This is not just the great story idea we came up with. Ideas pop up like dandelions on an ill kept lawn. Just about every person you know will have a great idea. The plot is how we get from the opening of the story to the mindblowing conclusion. And it darn well better be mind-blowing, or we're going to wind up right back in the middle of the Atlantic praying for a boat.

What the plot actually involves is every scene that comes between point A and The End. Each and every chapter must be engaging, move the story forward, and most of all be entertaining. Let that lapse and odds are our reader just fell asleep, or decided it would be more interesting to watch the cracks in the mud dry up.

To accomplish this, each and everything you have happen in your tale has to grow naturally out of the circumstances of the story, not… and I repeat, not out of the clever and contrived vaults of our little scheming minds.

For example: If your vegetarian detective main character suddenly solves the mystery because of the note one of the bad guys left in the all-beef hotdog he was eating to taunt him. The best you've done is made certain almost no one is going to read another book by you.

This is a rather extreme example of contrived plotting, but I can honestly say I've seen a few that were almost as bad. The best we do with this kind of lazy writing is make ourselves look like idiots. The worst we do is make the reader feel like we are trying to make an idiot out of them. And that is the last feeling you want the reader to experience. Ignore this advice at your own peril.

That's about all I can go into in such a limited space, but if you would like a more in-depth treatment of these subjects, as well as a few things I couldn't go into. Then let me suggest you Google Alice Orr's No More Rejections, and get your greedy little hands on it any way you can. In my honest opinion, it should be one of the first books an aspiring author reads. And you'll be glad you did.

Thanks again for having me Angie. And if you happen to get any death threats for having the ovaries to post my BS… For the god's sake, don't send 'em my way! I have enough from my own blog to hide from.

Later, Gang.

My thanks for coming on the blog, Pete. As always when in your company, visions of fire ants and peanut butter run through my mind, but I can't deny you know your writerly stuff. Plus, it's a little hard to aim a shotgun when I'm laughing hard enough to speckle bystanders with buckshot. You're welcome back any time.

For more more sage words of wisdom from Mr. Burton, please see his blog, A Storyteller's Musings. 

SHARING OUR VOICES- PAULA SANGARE

First let me say a big hearty thank you to Angie for allowing me to partake in SOV on her blog.

What inspired me to become a writer? One thing I have noticed about myself is the things I loved as a child or teenager seem to have gotten lost because life happens.  Let me clarify by giving a little of my back story.

I attended Cosmetology school at  age 18, I obtained a license to be a Nail Technician before I completed because school didn't pay and I already had a son to provide for. Once in the field I was very good at it and made a very good living, needless to say cosmetology school would sit on the back burner for 5 years before I returned because the industry was changing and I knew I had to change with it. I completed Cosmetology school and this has been my profession now for more than 20 years.

I now own The Lotus Salon Boutique. I sell upscale women clothes on one side and perform hair services on the other side. I also sell my own label of an all Natural Bath and Body line, The Natural You.

Is this a plug for my business or does this have something to do with my inspiration as a writer.....YESSSS!

My reason for sharing that story is when Life happens we tend to forget those things we are passionate about  and do what we must do to provide for those we love. By the time I was 19, I was a single mother of 2 and a caregiver to my mother, as well as working 16 hour days.  The things I loved to do and were passionate about were soon  forgotten.

I was good at doing hair and nails (really good) then someone would ask me how did I learn(everyone knows cosmo school teaches the book work not the actual technique) or they might ask if I always wanted to be a hairstylist. These questions made me think back to when I was eight years old and all of my barbie dolls and doll heads (you know the ones without a body) were line up along a wall in my bedroom. Each with their hair completely styled and on display. So my answer became yes I did; although, I forgot. Somehow, God made a way for me to end up here in spite of.

The same was true for my passion of nail artistry. After being asked the same question, I would think back to a time I would sit on my back porch making nail extension out of clay. I would walk around with my fingers spread out before me until my sister slammed a door in my face, causing them to bend back, like the wicked witch of OZ's feet curled up after the house landed on her (my sister was a mean child).

I stumbled on another passion of mine about 2 years ago- writing. After I joined a local writing group someone asked those questions again. I thought back to a time when I had a poetry book I wrote in daily, or when I would sit outside looking at the sky wondering if there were other worlds out there, or what it would be like if I had magic powers. I would make up stories of make believe people and places. I didn't write them all down. Some were just the friends in my head.

The point I'm trying to make is when you can't see the forest for the trees, and you are truly passionate about something, yeah, life may happen.  It may alter your  path, but I believe inevitably we all find our way back to what's in our hearts. Writing is in my heart, a passion that has come back to me. I am inspired to write because it's who I've always been. It's who I am, and who I will continue to be.

Staying true to myself and my passion!
Paula
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SHARING OUR VOICES- IAN ISARO

"What is snow like?"

I didn't expect that question, though maybe I should have. I'd just been in the United States, and people who had never left Tanzania were naturally curious. So I did my best. "Cold and wet."

"That sounds great. If you got hot, you could rub some on yourself to get cool!"



That conversation (very loosely translated from Swahili) is one of my favorite demonstrations of worldview. It's the assumptions we don't consider that get to us, limiting what we can imagine of the world. Even though our ability to travel or get information is unparalleled in human history, all too often we don't venture very far beyond what we know and understand.

Books are the antidote for that. They tell us that reality is stranger, more terrible, and more wonderful than we know.

That's why I write fiction. Fiction exercises our ability to consider things that are new and unfamiliar, to reconsider our beliefs, to listen instead of judge. Non-fiction prepares us for specific things that exist, but fiction prepares us for anything that could exist.
 

So when I write, I try to show the diversity of the world. That means I end up writing a wide variety. You can see many different points of inspiration in Sorcery and Scholarships, which is packed with different things. Arguably too many.

One is globalization. The world is increasingly interconnected and I wanted my story to reflect that. All too often, stories about supposedly global conflicts center on one country and the rest of the world just sort of floats in undefined space. It's fine for fey/wizards/vampires/whatever to be based in Europe, but are we supposed to believe that they just ignore rising powers in South America and Southeast Asia? Is it too much to ask for Africa to... well, exist?

Not that stories shouldn't have focus. Two countries in particular fueled mine. One is Japan, which exported many elements of anime and manga to me. The ability to have action without the limitations of a special effects budget is something that it does well, and there's no reason fiction can't do the same.

Another is the cultural perspective of the US. There's something very valuable in the irreverence toward tradition that you find there. Since I assume most of you are Americans, you may take this for granted. In all too many parts of the world, "Why?" is a question that simply isn't asked, and "Because it's always been this way" is considered an adequate explanation for anything. Tradition has much to offer as well, but I find attitudes that question far more fascinating.

One last thing that inspires my writing is the breadth of human morality. We tend to assume that everyone believes what we believe, which makes discussion difficult even within one country, much less between them.

For example, I've commonly heard people say that all human societies believe that murder is wrong. That would be nice, but it isn't exactly true because "murder" has slippery definitions. This can get ethically tricky, so let me skip to one end of the continuum: I know cultures that believe murder is only killing a member of your nuclear family - killing anyone else is fine or even expected. That's not hypothetical, either. Less than half an hour's drive from where I'm typing this, there's an ugly conflict over water rights that has left dozens dead, with no moral judgment from anyone in either community.

That exists. So do hundreds of other things that are important, and in-depth discussion of them would probably make everyone angry eventually. Justifiably so, because our beliefs about the world matter.

Therefore fiction matters. Especially with fantasy, where we can encounter things even more radically alien than anything on Earth. I may have waxed philosophic above, but there's another part of me that just loves writing about crazy new things. You can have everything from fey with slightly different moral codes to creatures that exist in completely different modes from humans and fail to comprehend the difference between a living and dead body.

So for me, the same thing that makes fiction fun makes it important. We spend most of the day within our own homes, cultures, and understandings. But eventually, you'll run into your equivalent of snow, and what you've read will determine how likely you are to understand.

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SHARING OUR VOICES- E.B. BLACK

I'd like to welcome a special guest who is not afraid to share her inspiration with you today. I appreciate that she agreed to come on.

Welcome to the blog, E.B.

Thank you, Angie, for having me on your blog!

The thing that inspires me the most as an author is fear. I’m not an adrenaline junkie. I have enough fears without having to chase them and those are always at the forefront of my mind when I write.

When I created my blog, the url name “ebblack” was already taken, so I had to create something else. I’ve been afraid of death since I was a young child. It’s typical of me to wonder on a daily basis where people will go when they die and what happened to those I loved who are gone. I used to have nightmares about it every night as a little girl.

So of course, I thought it would be a good idea to pick “Death Author.” In fact, it has become a nickname of mine among people who know about my blog.

I also thought it would be fun to write about necromancers, which is something I regularly do. Why? Because what sounds more amazing than people who have power over death? The thing that scares me most is the thing they’ve learned to master.

When I wrote my novel, Medusa’s Desire, I was struggling with body image issues. This is not unusual for many women, but it can be crippling. I fear that I’m too ugly to be loved sometimes or refuse to look in the mirror because I’ll start criticizing my reflection.

I thought about Medusa. She’s so repulsive that people literally die when they look at her, yet as a human, she was once beautiful. How would it feel as a woman to go from being one of the most beautiful women in the world to the very ugliest? I had to write her story.

When I write, I can take every bad thing about the world, everything that has hurt me or others I’ve cared about, and gain control over it. I can struggle to make sense of an issue or just find a character who is sympathetic to something I or a loved one has gone through.

Writing is an escape for me, but also a coping mechanism. It’s no wonder that many writers become addicted to their craft.

-E.B. Black

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It all started the day her god raped her.

She transformed into an abomination through his touch. Her skin grew scales. Her eyes turned red. She screamed for help, but all who saw her became stone.

Medusa thought she would be alone forever, until the day a man came to kill her and fell in love instead. Now Perseus is running from those who hired him as he continues to love a girl who could kill him with a glance.