Guest Post: Stacy Lynn Carroll

I am very pleased to welcome the talented Stacy Lynn Carroll to my blog today. She is celebrating the release of her second book, Frogs and Toads. She has agreed to write a guest post on how she came up with her fabulous idea for her book. Check that below:

The Idea behind My Book

 

First I’d like to thank Mikey for having me on his blog today! It’s an honor to be here! Let me introduce myself. I’m Stacy Lynn Carroll. I write Young Adult Contemporary Fiction. I like to add a little romance into my books as well, but not the over-the-top mushy stuff. By day, I am a Mommy to three little munchkins who keep me very busy. Once they’re all safely in dreamland, I slip on my fuzzy slippers, grab some chocolate covered almonds, and the occasional coke (real, not diet, that’s yucky) and I turn into Night Writer! (Insert cool theme music here.) I love movies, dancing shows, and I’m strangely obsessed with the color pink.

My debut novel: The Princess Sisters came out three years ago.  I was pregnant with my first child and we had just found out we were having a little girl. Yay! Someone to pour my pink obsession upon. As new parents do, my husband and I were discussing names one night. We started talking about when we were younger and what names we were sure we’d name our kids when we grew up. Thank goodness we weren’t having a boy or his name would have been Thadeus, according to my husband. Being a typical, young girl, I was in love with the Disney princesses and knew someday I would have a daughter and name her after my favorite princess, Aurora. Then as I got a little older, I also loved the name Belle. But after marrying a man named Carroll, Belle just didn’t sound very good anymore.

As I told him this, the wheels began turning. I started to wonder what would happen if a mom really named all of her daughters after fairy tale princesses? How would that affect those girls in their everyday life?  How would they be treated at school?  And how would they relate to their names? That night, after we got home, I sat down and wrote the prologue. It quickly shifted from one mom with several daughters, to sisters naming all the girl cousins after princesses. Once I started writing the prologue I realized I needed a reason for the sisters to all give their daughters princess names. So that is when I decided that the moms had all struck out with men. And when women are pregnant, extra hormonal, emotional over something, and together in a group, they probably don’t make the best of decisions. The moms decide the only way their daughters will ever meet real life, charming “princes” is if they have names suited for real princesses. And…ta da! A new book was born. 

Once I got further into the book and the ideas started flowing, I realized everything wasn’t going to fit into one novel, unless I wanted it to be like 700 pages. So that is when I knew that Frogs & Toads also needed to be written. The sequel focuses on the girls’ pasts and discovering where they came from. They get to learn about the fathers they’ve never known and some pretty big secrets are revealed. Then the final book in the trilogy: Forever After will be out next year. (Crossing fingers, knocking on wood, and rubbing my lucky rabbits foot that everything goes according to plan and it doesn’t take another three years.)

Blurb:

One kiss can change the future...for better or for worse.

Belle and her cousins have conquered their fears. Now as they navigate their way through the dating world, they start to see a "happily ever after" on the horizon. But when an unexpected school assignment forces them to examine their past, the Princess sisters realize they have a lot of questions about the fathers they've never met. Secrets are revealed, long lost family members are discovered, and now the girls must decide who belongs in their future and who should be kept in the past.

Author Bio:

Stacy Lynn Carroll has always loved telling stories.  She started out at Utah State University where she pursued a degree in English, learned how to western swing, and watched as many of her fellow students became ‘True Aggies’.  She then finished her BA at the University of Utah where she got an emphasis in creative writing.  After college she worked as an administrative assistant, where she continued to write stories for the amusement of her co-workers.  When her first daughter was born, and with the encouragement of a fortune cookie, she quit her job and became a full-time mommy and writer.  She and her husband have three children, two Corgis, and a fish named Don.

Links:

Frogs & Toads: http://www.amazon.com/Frogs-Toads-Princess-Sisters-ebook/dp/B00G47G83Q/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383109118&sr=8-1&keywords=Frogs+%26+Toads+carroll

The Princess Sisters free promotion: http://www.amazon.com/Princess-Sisters-ebook/dp/B005D5J3I2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1383109260&sr=8-1&keywords=the+princess+sisters

Author Interview: Diann Thornley Read

I am pleased to share with you a fantastic interview with an incredible sci-fi author, Diann Thornley Read. I’ve met Diann in my writers group online, the Authors’ Think Tank, and later in person at the LTUE Writers Conference. She has been a great source of information and is truly a good friend.

Diann wrote her first story at the age of five and never stopped writing. She taught herself to type on her father's ancient manual typewriter at the age of six because that was faster than pushing a pencil. After winning a statewide writing contest, junior high division, at the age of fourteen, she began her first novel, which was based on the Arthurian legends. This endeavor filled most of her high school years and freshman year of college--until a handful of friends introduced her to science fiction. There she stayed writing numerous books. And here is the interview:

The Sergey Chronicles were originally published by Tor in the late 1990’s but it was then called The Unified Worlds Saga. How do you feel about the name change?

Diann Read: I made the name change myself. The books are, after all, about the Sergey family, not about the interplanetary alliance called the Unified Worlds (which is similar to our NATO). Admiral Lujan Sergey (Commander-in-Chief of the special forces group called the Spherzah), his combat surgeon wife, Captain Darcie Dartmuth, and their teenage son, Tristan Sergey, get caught in the political/military intrigue leftover from an old war, and discover it's up to them to stop an impending new threat.    

There are currently four titles in The Sergey Chronicles, do you plan on continuing the saga now that you have the books available as an eBook?

Diann Read: Actually, there are three books--Ganwold's Child, Echoes of Issel, and Dominion's Reach--but for the Kindle (and soon-to-be Nook) editions I also created an omnibus version: All three books in one download--and there are two covers for the omnibus! But back to your question. I've had a few requests from readers about my age for more stories about Lujan and Darcie and what they do after Dominion's Reach. I'd had no idea there was a market for middle-aged action heroes! I have loads of ideas filed away, so I may eventually go back and write some of those stories, but they'll likely be novelettes or novels rather than full-fledged books. (I'm currently working on a new YA series that's got my full attention.)

Orson Scott Card has said about book one, Ganwold's Child, “This novel is exemplary for showing how the effective military mind really works—you’ll find no romantic military nonsense here.” Can you share tips on how you created such a fantastic space military? Was there anything you used as a reference guide?

Diann Read: Well, I spent 23 years in the USAF, both on the active duty and reservist sides, and did a few deployments to "interesting" parts of the world, so a lot of the military stuff was drawn from personal experience. I wasn't a pilot but I did work around some, so I picked their brains for the pilot-specific details. When I brought back the first draft of Tristan's pilot training to one of my fellow officers, he went off into a corner to read it and next thing I knew he was laughing out loud. I thought, "Oh no, I'm never going to live this down!" but I gritted my teeth and asked him, "Okay, what did I do wrong?" He said, "Nothing! It's exactly right. I just can't believe you went into so much detail." Well, he'd given me all that detail!

What do you like most about writing Sci-Fi?

Diann Read: World-building, including climates different than ours, and coming up with strange (and sometimes violent) plants and unusual animals. I enjoy anthropology, so I really enjoy creating new cultures. I'm especially having fun with that in my Seventh Shaman series.

If you could be any planet in our solar system, besides Earth, which you be and why?

Hmmm, I've never thought about that. Saturn, probably. If you've ever seen NASA photos of Saturn (my husband, Jon, is a rocket scientist at NASA), those rings are breathtaking!

Do you have a favorite character that you’ve created? What about them do you like best?

Diann Read: That's like asking which is your favorite child! And by the time you've written a book or three about your characters, you do feel like you've brought them up! I was madly in love with Lujan while writing the Sergey books--that was before Jon came into my life--but Tristan and Akuleh (protagonist of the Seventh Shaman series) are my boys. They have enough in common that they'd probably become buds if they met--after some initial mutual misgivings--but there are some distinct difference between them, too.

What have you learned the most as a published author?

Diann Read: To take the bad with the good, accept it, and move on. In other words: Keep Writing!!! Not everyone is going to love everything you produce. After Ganwold's Child first came out from Tor Books in 1995, one critic said it was only good as a script for a video game. But all three Sergey books were out by the time I deployed to Bosnia in late 1997, and a handful of SpecOps guys liked them so much they made me an honorary member of their support team and took me along on one of their weekly runs up a local mountain. (Only time I've ever seen human bodies steam the way a horse does when you take off the saddle after a hard ride in winter! Watch for that in a future book.) 

What advice can you give to a writer just starting out? Are there any mistakes to avoid?

Diann Read: Do your homework (research) on your subject so you really know what you're talking about. That's a lot easier now with the Internet than when I was researching all the medical stuff for Dominion's Reach. Don't be afraid to try new things--within reason, of course!--just for the experience. Wherever you go, always have some way to take notes--you never know when you're going to get that blockbuster idea! Most important, write SOMETHING every day, even if it's just a few sentences. You're not really a writer if you don't really write. 

What book, besides your own, do you recommend every writer have on their bookshelf? This can be anything from crafting tips to a novel you just love to pieces.

Diann Read: Here are two must-haves for my professional library: Hooked, by Les Edgerton. He focuses on gripping openings but also talks about story structure, and ratcheting up the tension and conflict. Hands down the most useful how-to book I've ever read! And Painless Grammar, by Rebecca Elliott. A very clear, concise, and even slightly comical approach to all those pesky issues like lay/lie, was/were, and who/whom.

Is there anything else about your books that you’d like to share, or anything you’d like to shout out?

Diann Read: We haven't talked much about my current project. The Seventh Shaman series is similar to the Sergey books, except aimed at the YA audience. My protagonist, Akuleh (the name means "Looks Up," which he has to learn to do on a few levels, but he goes by Ku), would be American Indian if the books were set on Earth. Having a non-Anglo protagonist was a very deliberate choice; I see far too few non-Anglo, especially American Indian, kids in YA fiction.

Ku is an orphan being brought up by an abusive stepmother. He knows a prophecy was made about him at his birth but he doesn't know what it said, so when his stepmother starts calling him Death Bringer he believes the worst. Time to leave before anyone else he cares about is killed! So he runs away from home, lies about his age, and joins the military. Ku also has a snarky streak, which is a lot of fun to write.

Like Lujan, Ku is a natural combat pilot, but that's as much curse as blessing during pilot training. He also has to deal with cultural issues--his latent shaman capabilities, which adds a fantasy element, his clan's traditions, and that prophecy--on top of facing prejudice and the usual teen challenges of boy-girl relationships and heartbreak. In the end Ku will hear the contents of the prophecy and learn that his life does have worth and purpose--a great purpose. And that's the message I want to get across to kids, especially at-risk kids. 

Where can we find more about you and your books?

Diann Read: My website is at www.diannthornleyread.com, my Amazon author page is www.Amazon.com/author/diann.t.read, and my blog, Hero Journeys, is at www.diannread.wordpress.com. Please Like my Facebook page at www.facebook.com/pages/Diann-T-Read/291193624316145?ref=hl, and follow me on Twitter @DiannTRead. I'm also on LinkedIn and Goodreads. 

Thank you so much for letting me interview you for the blog.

Diann Read: You're very welcome, Mikey. Thanks for letting me interview you, too!

Author Interview: Ryan Hunter

I am happy to introduce you to Ryan Hunter author of the new dystopian thriller inDIVISIBLE.  I met Ryan in our writer’s group The Authors’ Think Tank. When she asked if anyone was interested in sharing her new book I jumped at the opportunity. Ryan Hunter is a published author, journalist and freelance writer. She enjoys the outdoors, hiking, running, baking and chocolate. Her passion in writing is suspense. Her passion in life is her family - oh and adrenaline.

I love the underlining theme of your novel that we as people take our freedoms for granted. Is there something that inspired you to write this book?

Ryan Hunter: inDIVISIBLE started as a dream, a dream that left me with a disturbed feeling that I couldn’t shake. I had this crazy desire to write this story, and I couldn’t put it off. Once I started plotting, I had a trilogy outlined in a single day, and the words just flowed when I began to write. It was beautiful.

I put a lot of myself into this story … ideas, feelings and thoughts like anger at my daughter’s old school for telling me, “Children at E**** Elementary are not allowed to excel” and the horror of the idea that the original draft of Obamacare actually included the option to allow devices to be inserted into us to keep files on us. It all just merged to create this world of One United that amazed me even as the words spilled onto the page.


InDIVISIBLE is a dystopian thriller. Can you give tips on how to create a fractured world that mirrors our own?


Ryan Hunter: I actually hadn’t read much dystopian before writing inDIVISIBLE, mostly because I didn’t want it to feel too much like the other novels out there. I wanted it to be its own story because of how intense the initial idea felt to me. So, I think that’s my first bit of advice: find your own voice in dystopia.

Find an issue or set of issues that you think could be exploited by the government or blown out of proportion … what happens next? How would that affect the general population and how could that continue to multiply? As the government moves to enforce actions or counter plagues, does it make them more powerful or weak?

I think I like to take issues or fears I see every day and blow them up, make them a little excessive and just go with it.

If you were a utensil would you rather be a fork or a spoon. Please share why.

Ryan Hunter: I’ve absolutely never even considered this before this moment … but I’m going to have to go for it all. We have this super cool fork spoon knife thingy. I’d have to be that. Seriously, fork on one end with a knife on the side of the last prong, spoon on the other end. Entirely useful. Strange but useful and fun.

What have you learned most about yourself while writing this book?

Ryan Hunter: I went through a long period of depression prior to writing inDIVISIBLE and when I sat down to start I was scared. I still lacked confidence but I knew I had to write the story of One United. I grew a lot, gained confidence and felt fulfilled again by the end. Then when I sat down to write a short dedication at the beginning, I realized what the biggest message in the book was, and it was for me more than anyone.

inDIVISIBLE begins with Brynn, a girl whose life is turned upside down, who’s scared and yet determined to see changes in her life. She pursues her dreams despite the fear, and I realized that it’s a message of determination. Sometimes we have to go through hard experiences to become our best and sometimes accomplishments only come about after pushing ourselves further than we ever imagined possible. Life can be hard, but we determine how we handle it.

Can you share your experience getting your book published? What made you decide to go indie?


Ryan Hunter: I went the traditional publishing route while writing under my other name, Robyn Heirtzler, but I decided the market’s changing enough that I wanted to play with it and see what I could do on my own. It’s been a great experience and I’ve learned a lot.

What is your writing technique? Are you an outliner? Keyboard or pen?

Ryan Hunter: When writing, I know the beginning, the major hurdles and an approximate ending before I begin, but I don’t plot it all in detail right away. I plot a few chapters and being writing. As the story takes form, I plot a little further and a little further, writing as I go. I find I’m more creative and the story stays fresh when I plot as I go. If I plot the entire novel, it restricts me too much and I get really bored with the storyline before I get halfway through. But if I experience it for the first time just ahead of each chapter, I keep momentum and excitement!  

Occasionally I sketch my characters in my notebook but otherwise, I do everything on my laptop. I’m not fast enough writing by hand to keep up with my own thoughts.

I’ve read reviews that share you leave the book open for a sequel. Is there a sequel planned? When do you hope to have it available?


Ryan Hunter: I’m working on the sequel now and I’m excited about it. There are some new characters, some twists and definitely more adventure. I’d say more, but I think I’ll let you read it when it comes out this spring.

Is there anything else you’d like to share about the book or shout out to readers?


Ryan Hunter: Funny you should ask … I’ve had some feedback recently that made me reconsider the cover for inDIVISIBLE and so I decided, why not try something a little different and see if it gets a better response. I think the new cover captures the feel of the novel better and better portrays a YA novel. In fact, you’re the first blog, aside from my own, to show off the new cover. What do you think?

I think the new cover is amazing. Much more thrilling. I am privileged to be the first blogger to show it off. Thanks for allowing me to do this interview with you and good luck writing the sequel!

You can find more about Ryan Hunter and her novel inDIVISIBLE by going to: http://authorryanhunter.blogspot.com/ or visiting her Amazon author page at http://www.amazon.com/Ryan-Hunter/e/B009HX2HR0/ref=ntt_athr_dp_pel_1.Book Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGbjp8YmcGg&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1