Tardy with an Award

A few weeks ago, (almost a month ago actually), my blog had another award bestowed upon it, the Liebster Blog Award given by the talented Angela Yuriko Smith and her wonderful blog Dandilyon Fluff.  Between writing, reviewing and general forgetfulness, I neglected to post about it until now. But better late than never I suppose.

So here it is:

“The Liebster Blog Award started in Germany and was intended to drive traffic to hidden gems.” Liebster is German for “friend”. The rules are simple:

1. Thank the giver and link back to the blogger who gave it to you.
2. Reveal your top blogger friends and let them know by leaving a comment on their blog.
3. Copy and paste the award on your blog.

My top blogger friends (besides Angela) are:

Pat Bertram (who has so many blogs I’ve lost count). Check out her main one at: http://ptbertram.wordpress.com/

Joylene Nowell Butler, a wonderful writer with an insightful and helpful blog: http://cluculzwriter.blogspot.com/

Sheila Deeth, an exquisite writer who also does great book reviews: http://sheiladeeth.blogspot.com/

Rhetta Akamatsu, who writes about blues music, ghosts and the paranormal and steampunk: http://rhetta.wordpress.com/

And all the bloggers over at Murder by 4. There is always something interesting brewing at that blog: http://murderby4.blogspot.com/

Check them out, you won’t be sorry.

Confessions of a Newbie Sci-fi Writer

We have a guest today, the talented author Pat Bertram, discussing her newest book, Light Bringer, and first foray into the world of science fiction:

Confessions of a Newbie Sci-fi Writer:

Once a long time ago, I crashed a Halloween party. Sounds very bold, doesn’t it? But truly, it was out of character for me, and besides, I was in costume. I remember that the party was given by a friend of a friend, but I have no idea how or why I decided to go -- perhaps as a joke to see how long it would take for people to realize they didn’t know me.

I dressed as a witch -- the whole bit: long black scraggly hair, puttied nose and chin almost meeting, heavy black brows, green-tinged skin, cackling voice. I walked into the party as if I belonged there, and for a while I was the belle of the ball as people tried to guess who I was. It finally occurred to one guy that I was a total stranger. So I left. Rather hurriedly.

That’s how I feel now as a new science fiction writer -- as if I’ve crashed a party, and no one has yet discovered that I don’t belong.

Am I a science fiction writer? Light Bringer takes place in the present day, not in some fantastic future or otherworldly setting. The characters are recognizably human. Most of the science is based either on what is known today or gleaned from ancient religious documents and mythology. There is more history than science. And yet, a couple of my characters are not quite human, there is talk of UFOs and of another planet in our solar system that might return to wreak havoc upon earth. And, more importantly, Light Bringer is about ideas, showing us humans in a different light. Do those few science fiction elements make my thriller science fiction? Will calling it science fiction give people the wrong idea about the book?

People like what they recognize. There are certain conventions that readers expect in their favorite genre, and they are unforgiving if their expectations are not met. What if they decide I’m only masquerading as a science fiction author?

And so here I boldly stand, acting as if I belong, but secretly wondering if anyone will guess that I am a stranger in a strange land.


Pat Bertram is a native of Colorado. When the traditional publishers stopped publishing her favorite type of book — character and story driven novels that can’t easily be slotted into a genre — she decided to write her own. Second Wind Publishing liked her style and published four of Bertram’s books: Light Bringer, Daughter Am I, More Deaths Than One, and A Spark of Heavenly Fire. Bertram blogs about life, writing and the writing life at http://ptbertram.wordpress.com and is the moderator of two online discussion groups that help both new and experienced authors further develop their craft: No Whine, Just Champagne on Gather.com and Suspense/ThrillerWriters on Facebook.

An Excerpt from Light Bringer:

The silence dragged on for a minute, then he blew out a breath. “I saw a flying disc. A crescent, actually, the shape of a cookie with a bite taken out of it.”

She barely refrained from rolling her eyes. Having read Georgy’s books, she knew there were no flying saucers. Except in a few rare cases where they didn’t have enough information, every single sighting had a plausible, prosaic explanation.

Realizing Mac was waiting for her reaction, she said in a noncommittal voice, “You saw a UFO.”

He winced. “UFO? No. An FO. There was nothing unidentified about it. I knew exactly what I saw.”

“An extraterrestrial space ship,” she said flatly.

“Of course not, and aliens didn’t abduct me, either. It happened right after I closed on this property. Unable to sleep, I drove out here and was leaning against my rental car looking at the stars when the crescent flew directly overhead. I could see it as plainly as I’m seeing you right now. 
The craft was about fifteen feet in diameter, made of a composite ceramic. A remarkably conductive amalgam of the most refined copper and the purest silver coated its underside, turning it into an electrical circuit offering no resistance to the wave of electromagnetic energy it floated on. It was absolutely silent, sweeping in ions from its flight path, like a whale feeding on plankton. The ionized air around it glowed, giving it an unearthly look, but it was very much terrestrial in origin.”

Jane lifted her hands and let them drop. “How could you learn all that from one brief sighting?”

“I was part of a team working on a craft exactly like it, only we hadn’t been able to get ours off the ground, at least not then.”

She regarded him warily.

“I’m not insane,” he said, answering her unvoiced question. “I’m an aerospace engineer, retired from the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena.”


You can check out my spotlight on Light Bringer:
http://afstewartpromotion.blogspot.com/2011/04/book-spotlight-light-bringer.html





Light Bringer is also available on Smashwords

I've been "Mr. Linky"ed

Somehow, when I wasn't looking, friend and fellow blogger Marta Stephens (of Marta Stephens's Prose & Musings and other swell blogs) named me as a "prolific blogger" (see her post:  http://mstephens-musings.blogspot.com/2010/01/2010-day-27-prose-musings-got-mr-linky.html) and I'm now the recipient of the Prolific Blogger Award.  I have the honour of a "Mr Linky" badge and get to pass the award on to other bloggers.

Here's the scoop and the official award rules:

1.   Pass this award to at least seven other deserving prolific bloggers.
2.   Link to the blog from which you received the award.
3.   Link back to this Prolific Blogger post, which explains the origins and motivation for the award.
4.   Add your name to the Mr. Linky.

So here are my lucky recipients, a motley bunch of writers who chat about everything from recipes to werewolves:

Pat Bertram:  http://ptbertram.wordpress.com/
Sheila Deeth:  http://sheiladeeth.blogspot.com/
Eva Gordon:  http://evagordon.blogspot.com/
Martha Cheves:  http://marthaskitchenkorner.blogspot.com/
April Robins: http://redriverwriters.typepad.com/red_river_writers/
Christine Bode: http://scullylovepromo.wordpress.com/
Margay Leah Justice:  http://moonlightlacemayhem.blogspot.com/
 

What Are You Afraid Of?

Happy Halloween!

To go with all the frights and chills today, I am pleased to present guest blogger Pat Bertram. She stops by as part of her ongoing blog tour for her new book Daughter Am I, and she offers a spooky discussion on that primal emotion...

Fear!

Through stories, we learn how to deal with our fears, especially if we are the ones writing the story. If you novelize your fear of being eaten alive by monsters from outer space, then the terrestrial ones eating you alive don’t seem so monstrous. If you watch a movie about aliens taking over your body, then the terrestrial one that’s taking over your mind might not seem quite so alien. You don’t think you are being eaten alive or that your mind is being taken over? Well, you are and it is -- it’s called aging. Little by little, the you that you know is being supplanted by a creature you could never fathom being. Some people turn into querulous beings totally unrecognizable from the daring-dos of their youthful selves. Some turn into their mothers. Some . . . Well, I’ve scared myself enough.

According to author Lee Child, we don’t write what we know -- we write what we fear. Perhaps this is true. My books are filled with fears -- fear of being at the mercy of mindless governments and corrupt corporations, fear of deadly and unstoppable diseases, fear of the loss of self, fear that our memories lie. Since all of these fears can be lumped into one group -- fear of powerlessness -- I wonder if all fears came down to that same thing. Mine do, anyway.

I checked out Phobias A-Z, to see what sort of things people are afraid of, and now I’m in danger of becoming a phobiaphobe. Or a phobiaphile. Although I am sympathetic to anyone caught in the horror of a phobia, I do enjoy the names. Names such as levophobia, kainophobia, lachanophobia, mageirocophobia, melophobia, nomatophobia, nyctohylophobia, paraskavedekatriaphobia. Great names for dreadful conditions.

Aha! Here’s the one I was looking for: shamhainophobia -- fear of Halloween. I knew there had to be such a thing! There is a name for every other fear.

Okay, I’ll let you off the hook so you don’t turn into a Sesquipedalophobe (someone who fears long words). Here’s what the above-mentioned words mean:

• Levophobia -- Fear of things to the left side of the body
• Kainophobia -- Fear of anything new
• Lachanophobia -- Fear of vegetables
• Mageirocophobia -- Fear of cooking
• Melophobia -- Fear of music
• Nomatophobia -- Fear of names
• Nyctohylophobia -- Fear of dark wooded areas
• Paraskavedekatriaphobia -- Fear of Friday the 13th

The one fear I hope no one ever gets is patbertramophobia. So not good for me as a writer!

Pat Bertram is a native of Colorado and a lifelong resident. When the traditional publishers stopped publishing her favorite type of book — character and story driven novels that can’t easily be slotted into a genre — she decided to write her own. Daughter Am I is Bertram’s third novel to be published by Second Wind Publishing, LLC. Also available are More Deaths Than One and A Spark of Heavenly Fire.

Daughter Am I:

When twenty-five-year-old Mary Stuart learns she inherited a farm from her recently murdered grandparents-grandparents her father claimed had died before she was born-she becomes obsessed with finding out who they were and why someone wanted them dead. Along the way she accumulates a crew of feisty octogenarians-former gangsters and friends of her grandfather. She meets and falls in love Tim Olson, whose grandfather shared a deadly secret with her great-grandfather. Now Mary and Tim need to stay one step ahead of the killer who is desperate to dig up that secret.

Book News

Just some updates today about my latest activities:


- I'm putting the finishing touches on my newest books, Shadows of Poetry and Passing Fancies.

Shadows of Poetry is my second volume of poetry, a book of dark verse. It has been uploaded to Lulu.com and I'm just awaiting the proof copy to check for errors and those sneaky typos. After it has been approved (hopefully that will happened within the next week or so) it officially goes on sale. Also, the download version (available at Lulu.com) will be only $1 until January.

Wanted: Readers of the grim, the sorrowful, and unhappy endings.

Poetry written for the blackness in your soul.
Wrenching, dismal, bleak verse for those who want to walk on the dark side.
No sappy, cheerful love poems allowed.

Passing Fancies is a book of short fiction, mostly fantasy tales with a few bits of other fiction; the book will have three types of fiction, Micro Fiction, Flash Fiction, and Short Stories.
I'm writing the last few stories for the book and working on the editing and I should be finished by the end of the week. Then it is off to Lulu.com and glory. I will be posting a excerpt or two from this book here at my blog.

Note: For anyone not familiar with the terms, Micro Fiction are stories 100 words or less, Flash Fiction, stories around 1000 words and Short Stories are usually between 1000 and 7500 words.


-I have a special Halloween treat coming with guest blogger Pat Bertram stopping by as part of her blog tour. Anyone not familiar with her books should check them out. You can find More Deaths Than One, A Spark of Heavenly Fire and her newest Daughter Am I at Amazon.com and Second Wind Publishing.


-Shameless Plug: Looking for a horror book in time for Halloween? Chronicles of the Undead is available at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Barnes and Noble and Lulu.com (also on Lulu.com, a more budget friendly download version).

Chronicles of the Undead:

Family Secrets.
Three generations of one family share their intimacies with the world of the vampire.

Inside the personal journals of the Harrington family, a dark and dangerous odyssey unfolds.
Three members of this tormented family, Samuel, his son Edmund, and Edmund’s daughter Charlotte, struggle during the 18th and 19th century in London, England, as the lives of this family intersects with supernatural forces. Two intriguing vampires befriend, manipulate and play with all three souls, altering their lives forever.
Their fears, private confidences and weaknesses are revealed as one selfish act ends in horrific tragedy, with far-reaching consequences.

Who succumbs to the seduction and danger of the vampire? Who grapples to combat the evil influence that permeates their lives?

Guest Blogger Pat Bertram: The New Era in Publishing

The New Era in Publishing.


When I was studying the publishing industry, trying to figure out how to get published, one thing bothered me. There you are, a debut author, and because the publisher does not promote you -- spending their promotion dollars instead on the big names -- your books sit on bookstore shelves or in warehouses until finally the publisher gives up on you and remainders your book. That is the best scenario, because if it is remaindered, at least it will still be available for a time. Generally what happens is that it is pulped. 25% of a publisher’s total output (including your beloved book) is destroyed. This after shipping costs incurred to and from the publisher’s warehouse.
My books, More Deaths Than One and A Spark of Heavenly Fire are being published Second Wind Publishing, which uses digital printing technology, and because of it, I do not have to fear my novels succumbing to such a fate. Nor do I have to fear an inadvertent error showing up in thousands of volumes. As soon as an error is found, it can be corrected. Because of this new technology, there is no reason to destroy unsold merchandise. And there is no reason to stop publishing a novel because it does not live up to the bottom-line demands of the traditional publishing houses.
Small presses today are where independent movie producers were in the late eighties and early nineties. They have the ability to publish books that need time to reach an audience, books that might not appeal to the masses but could still be loved by many (and turn a tidy profit in the process.)
Although I have nothing but admiration for self-publishers, I like knowing that my books went through a submission process, and I like knowing I was chosen. I also like having a say in the editing, the cover choice, the arduous copy-editing. I even like promotion -- what I’ve done of it, anyway.
So, new era in publishing? Good for us all. And I am pleased to be a part of it.
I’m also pleased to be here on A.F. Stewart’s blog today. To celebrate the release of my novels, I am doing a reverse sort of blog tour -- instead of promoting myself, I’d like to promote a few of the people who helped me with my promotion efforts. A.F. has written a wonderful Squidoo Lens -- How to Become an Independently Published Author -- which gave me many suggestions on how to promote. So, thank you, A.F. Best of luck with your book.

Pat Bertram is a native of Colorado and a lifelong resident. When the traditional publishers stopped publishing her favorite type of book — character and story driven novels that can’t easily be slotted into a genre — she decided to write her own. More Deaths Than One and A Spark of Heavenly Fire, available at Amazon and from Second Wind Publishing, are Bertram’s first novels.







Book Links:

Amazon:
A Spark of Heavenly Fire
More Deaths Than One

Second Wind Publishing:
A Spark of Heavenly Fire
More Deaths Than One

Two Stops on the Tour

There are two blog stops today, Friday Feb 27:

First, over at Pat Bertram Introduces... my vampire character, Eleanor de Burgh, will be interviewed. If you ever wondered what makes a vampire tick, pop over and read the post.

And later, at 8:30 pm EST, I'll be a guest on the blogtalk radio show Introducing WRITERS!, hosted by Kim Smith, author of Avenging Angel: A Shannon Wallace Mystery.

Vote in More Death's Than One contest

I recently entered Pat Bertram's More Death's Than One contest over at Second Wind Publishing. The idea was to write a scenario or synopsis based on what would happen if you saw your living mother's obit in the paper (a variation on the key plot point in More Death's Than One).

Somehow my entry has made to into the finals (along with two other marvelous entries), so please pop over and vote for your favorite:

Contest Vote