When KG Stutts tagged me, I had no idea what character to choose. My concentration is currently on The Cities of Luna, which is coming out this autumn from Distinguished Press. (KG is also a Distinguished Press author.) Because The Cities of Luna is a collection of shorts, there are many different characters, and most of them will only appear in one story.

Dwayne Johnson is the inspiration for Mr. Barrett’s look.

I decided to use a secondary character, Mr. Barrett, because he pops up in different stories, and he’s rather entertaining. He’s a wealthy entrepreneur, similar to Richard Branson but I picture him looking like Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.

1) What is the name of your character?  Is he/she fictional or a historic person?

Toka Barrett is entirely fictional. I imagine he looks like Dwayne Johnson, with a huge pearly white grin and commanding presence. For his name, I picked Majel Barrett‘s last name, and I used the Maori translation of ‘rock’ for his first name.

2) When and where is the story set?

The stories are set on the moon, a couple of centuries in he future. In particular, he’s the main financial backer of a new, luxurious city called Sparta. He wanted to wake up every morning and be able to yell “This…is…Sparta!” and really mean it.

3) What should we know about him/her?

Mr. Barrett is rather eccentric and extremely charismatic. He loves sports, and part of his grand plan is to create major league venues on the moon. That’s quite a challenge considering that the moon’s low gravity changes everything about how physical games are played.

4) What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?

Mr. Barrett truly lives a charmed life. As a wealthy, highly successful businessman, he has the money and clout to do just about anything he sets his mind to.

However, even though the lunar colonies have been around for almost a hundred years, the only major sport is g-ball and there are very few venues dedicated to tourism. He’s using his business acumen, wealth, and charisma to change all that.

5) What is the personal goal of the character?

Mr. Barret wants to build a city on the moon that is completely planned, incorporating multiple sporting venues, stadiums, resorts, and luxury accommodations.

6) Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?

The Cities of Luna is coming out this autumn. The story Backbone includes a major appearance from Mr. Barrett. More stories will be coming out every full moon, so you can be sure you’ll see him again.

7) When can we expect the book to be published?

This weekend I’m getting the last few initial revisions of the stories to my editor. It’s hard to tell how long the editing process will take, since of course we want the stories to be the best they can be. Since this is the beginning of a (hopefully) long-running series, we also want to make sure the world-building is consistent and will work for the future stories as well as this initial volume. We’re on target for releasing this autumn.

I was tagged by KG Stutts…

I was tagged by KG Stutts

Growing up in Texas and later South Carolina as the youngest in a house full of science-fiction fans, K.G. Stutts had her natural curiosity and imagination nurtured since birth by family movie nights where they would watch Star Wars, Indiana Jones and even timeless Disney favorites.

A prolific writer of sci-fi, romance and mystery, K.G. draws much of her inspiration from those amazing works that gave her an appreciation for telling rich, compelling, character-driven stories for all audiences.

Book one in her science-fiction writings are out now by the wonderful group athttp://distinguishedpress.com and a romance ebook launched at the beginning of June fromhttp://lazydaypub.com. She is also a contributor to http://iwassociation.com andhttp://thewritingnetwork.com.

Keep up with her on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/KGStutts or follow her on Twitter at http://twitter.com/KGStutts. She also is on Tumblr at kgstutts.tumblr.com. She lives in North Carolina with her husband, Brad and works for a customer service call center full time. She’s a lover of Star Wars, Star Trek (original, TNG, and Voyager), Stargate SG-1 and Atlantis, Muppets, Garfield, Disney, Indiana Jones and is a big football, wrestling, and hockey fan.

I’m tagging:

Matthew Graybosch  author of Without Bloodshed

Samantha Dunaway Bryant author of Going Through the Change

Ryan Toxopeus  author of A Noble’s Quest