World Building Guest Post by Samantha Warren KindleObsessed: A big part of fantasy or paranormal fiction is the detail in world building. Can you tell me a little about how you created the world inside “The Iron Locket?” World building is a very tricky topic for me. Unlike a lot of authors, I’m a pantser to the core, so while I usually create a very skeletal outline, most of my writing takes place on the fly, by the seat of my pants. Plotters will sit down beforehand and create their worlds, figuring out the whole thing before they
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A few years ago (when I still had a 9-5 job in the city) I used to spend my lunch hour (almost everyday) outside on the patio of a little French cafe called La Madeleine. I didn’t necessarily go there everyday for the food (although it’s mouth-watering.) What I went for was the atmosphere. At any given moment you could find a group of high school kids, men in suits, mothers scurrying around with strollers. Artists, hipsters, wealthy arm candy wives. It was eclectic to say the least, AND it was incredibly fascinating…in an eavesdropping sense of the word.
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For those of you that don’t know, my husband is a bit of a computer genius. He can spend hours staring at random dots and slashes (that to any “normal person” (like myself) looks like nothing more than gibber jabber) and definitively determine who/what/when/and where something may or may not be occurring. He speaks a language that I fail to understand (usually including words like: bit, ram, server, cache, appatach…I could keep going.) and can usually fix anything (in 5 minutes or less) that my computer illiterate ass can screw up. Because of this deep understanding of the digital world, he is Captain Paranoid
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There is this quote by Andre Gide that says: “A straight path never leads anywhere except to the objective.” Now, I know that this particular quote is a big ball of hidden meanings and Yoda-esq wisdom, but it is literally the only thing I could think about when reading “The Gleaning.” Let me take a step back and explain (for those of you that find my train of thought irritatingly abstract.) Every journey/story has a point A and a point B (aka beginning and end.) You can choose to walk a straight line between the two. Remain comfortable in
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You know that feeling you get when you plop down on the coach, snuggle up with whatever random blanket you found on the floor, and prepare to watch your favorite show? You are happy. This is your time. Time to let your hair down, pretend that you’re not drinking an entire bottle of wine by yourself and let the beautiful world of television drama drag you away into a world that is quite possibly the most ridiculous thing you have ever seen. Which of course is why you love it so much. And then it happens. The opening credits
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I absolutely adore J. Meyers. Besides being a fantastic author (you can read my thoughts on her first book Intangible HERE) she is one of the most genuine people I have (over the past 4 years of blogging) had the pleasure to connect with. So when she asked me if I would do the cover reveal for her newest novel Imaginable (which is due out in April) there was no way in H-E-Double Hockey Sticks I was turning the opportunity down. And…since I have been looking forward to this book for a while, I figured a few of you are as well. And what
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A Zombie and Vampire and an Angel walk into a bar. The Zombie says to the bartender…. Oh, forget it. There is no way in hell I can think of a funny way to finish that sentence so just do me a favor and pretend like I said something wildly hilarious. Go on…I’ll wait. About two times a month I run across a book that I find almost impossible to review. It’s not because they are bad, or even great. It’s usually because they are so chalked full of “entities” (in this case: paranormal) that I find it difficult to
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You know that old saying, “put yourself in their shoes?” Well, I hate that saying. I understand the point of it, (I’m not a complete moron.) *Don’t judge others unless you’ve been where they’ve been, done what they’ve done, and seen what they’ve seen* But the fact of the matter is…I am really good at being judgmental (and I’m a shoe snob.) Two birds – 1 stone. Ya feel me? Oh…that wasn’t the point? (my bad.) My point is that Jill Hathaway discovered the core of this saying, added a dash of whoop ass to it and called it Slide.
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I’ve always been fascinated by inspiration. Where does it come from? How do you find it? And once you find it… what in God’s name do you do with it? For authors… this is especially meaningful. We’ve all heard the stories. “I had a dream and I just couldn’t forget it.” “I had a conversation with a little girl at a park, and I KNEW I had to write it down.” But when it’s all said and done, when the girl has stop talking, or you are risen by the sun, the “how” and the “where” are seemingly insignificant, it’s
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If you have ever had the pleasure of spending time with someone who has post traumatic stress disorder, you understand that there is a very thin line between crazy and crazy beautiful. In one hand, you have someone that can’t make sense of their reality, they see things that you and I don’t see, and they think in abstract patterns of the past and the present. In the other…you have someone that understands reality, but due to trauma, (in whatever form) stress, or even just plain “pain” has a hard time dealing with it. In “The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer”
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