Who Knows Best?

Posted on April 5, 2011 by AmyBeth Inverness
Nursall noodling

Nursall noodling, 26 June 2009, Onomatomedia

Have you ever listened to an author in a live interview stumble over details of their own stories?  Does it seem odd that the very creator of the fiction doesn’t know the story nearly as well as the fans?

Sometimes, the answer is simply that fans can be, well, fanatical.  Star Trek in particular spawned such a devoted following, they even come up with elaborate explanations for those picky details that don’t fit into the grand scheme.  Like in the movie Wrath of Khan when the bad guy addresses Chekov saying “I never forget a face…” fans were quick to point out that Chekov was not in the episode where the Enterprise found Khan in the first place.  Walter Koenig (who plays Chekov) likes to explain Chekov was in the Enterprise bathroom for half an hour while Khan was waiting to use it and Khan swore never to forget him!  Fans came up with the theory that Chekov was on the Enterprise, just not part of the bridge crew at the time.  Perfectly reasonable.

Writers had nothing to do with these explanations.

Sometimes, the writer is at a loss because instead of just having the finished story in their head, they have every perturbation and twist and rewrite rattling around.  They know what the characters were going to do before some editor decided it would be better if they did something else.  The writer knows little details of the characters’ back stories that never made it to page or screen.

Last night, I finished the rough draft of Under the Radar. Although I like the story, I can tell right now that the finished product is going to look very different from the mash of words I have recorded right now!  And someday, years from now, I’ll be talking to a fan, and they’ll ask me something like “But didn’t Scharona do ____ first?”

I’ll have to pause for a moment, and think back through the revisions, and more likely than not, my answer will honestly be “I don’t know… you tell me?”

 

P.S.  Yesterday, via someone’s twitter link, I found the most wonderful site for bloggers!  It’s called wikimedia and it is specifically for images and other media that we can use for free!  Yeah!

Posted in Blog Business, Star Trek, Wikimedia, Writing | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Yeah for Preschool!

Posted on April 4, 2011 by AmyBeth Inverness

I accomplished a few things yesterday.  I made some progress on Patty Wright’s interview questions.  I rewrote “Charity’s Ball” from Roger’s POV, which makes it a much different story.  I’m thinking about doing Royal’s POV as well, and maybe even Charity herself.  I’ve made a few notes for my “First” Kingdom Come story.  I know it will begin with the line “He hated these business trips to Earth.”  Those seven words tell the reader 1) it’s science fiction  2) the MMC does not live on Earth  3) Earth is still an important part of civilization.  I’m going to use some minor characters to demonstrate how the political system on Kindom Come differs from Earth and other colonies, and the main characters will demonstrate the social structure, namely the theme of group marriage.  I’m still letting the story simmer…  I have to finish hurrying through the end of “Under the Radar”, and I really want to get into “Script Frenzy“.  I don’t think I’ll meet the page count goal during April; I think I will do my original idea of writing a story treatment.

The other thing I accomplished may affect my writing more than any other task I could accomplish…  I looked up the registration information to send my 3yo to preschool next year!  Imagine, having a couple hours every day where the only interruptions will be the phone (which I can ignore) and the dog (who is harder to ignore, but generally not too demanding).  I might actually be able to concentrate on a real story line, the kind of concentration that produces real words that flow together in an entertaining way, not the hashed out glorified outline that the end of “Under the Radar” will be.

One last note…  I’m still playing with all the options that are built into WordPress.  I see a box that says Format: Standard, Aside, or Gallery.  I’m going to go play with that now, so if you see something weird on the blog, that’s why!

Posted in Kingdom Come, Writing | Leave a comment

Epics of LOTR Proportions

Posted on April 3, 2011 by AmyBeth Inverness

My hubby read Sandra Boynton’s “The Belly Button Book” to my pregnant tummy every night for several months before our youngest was born.  Then we switched to “The Wizard of OZ” and the other books in the OZ series.  Although our newborn daughter wasn’t really comprehending the intricacies of the plot, she loved hearing Mommy and Daddy’s voices.  Now that she’s three and insists on hearing something like “The Magic Tree House” books, I miss the days when we could read something huge and epic, like Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” trilogy.

End Epic it is.  We switched from OZ to LOTR around the time she was beginning to talk.  She would still lie there in her bed at night, listening rapt to the next chapter of the story.  She would even ask for “Gandalf”, pronouncing the “Alf” correctly, instead of rhyming the name with “Golf” like so many do.  We stopped reading LOTR to her somewhere towards the end of “The Two Towers” because she told us it was scary.

I never have been able to get all the way through the books.  I read “The Hobbit” and “Fellowship of the Ring” somewhere around sixth grade, but I was so angry that “Fellowship” ended with, not just a cliffhanger, but a completely unfinished story, that I refused to go on.  Later, when I realized that the author himself intended the story to be one large book, and it was the publisher who insisted on breaking it into three, I wanted to go back and finish it.

Both my husband and I were somewhat relieved when our daughter decided she wanted something lighter for her bedtime chapter book.  But I felt guilty that I still didn’t finish what is undoubtedly one of the most renowned and deservedly celebrated works of fiction from the last century.

I can understand why the publisher insisted on splitting the story into three parts.  It’s huge!  “Fellowship” is 187,o00 words, and the others are almost that long.  But unlike many lesser works, the LOTR tells a story that takes place over many years.  Sometimes, when they stop somewhere, they spend weeks or even months there before moving on.  That’s realistic, and it’s nice to see that in a fantasy!

Many of the paperbacks I enjoy so much these days take place over the span of just a few weeks or months.  Understandable, a writer must present a story that will fit into a convenient 50,000-100,000 word book.  But I feel that romantic story lines suffer for this.  They become unrealistic.  Yes, true love sometimes hits people over the head, and I love those stories.  But more often, you don’t get your “happily ever after” till the people involved have been figuring their own story out for a couple of years.

(On a side note, hubby and I figured it out in six months, were engaged for ten months, and just celebrated our sixteenth wedding anniversary yesterday!)

My WIP is called “Under the Radar”.  I like Scharona’s story, and I want to tell it.  But it’s dragging on too long.  The story opens with about 500 words that take place when she’s a child (important) and then skips to coming of age.  There are a lot of ups and downs, and an important part of her story is the “Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice…” theme.  But although I’ve almost reached what might be the climax of the book, the denoument is where you actually get your happily-ever-you-know-what.  I have faith that I can condense the story when I go back to edit, but the problem is that I don’t want to put my energy into slogging through the writing of it when there’s so much else to do.  It’s April 3, and I haven’t written a single word for Script Frenzy.  I want to re-write my “Someone who annoys you” post for The Red Dress Club.  I let myself take a break from the WIP to begin “Lahla Land”, and I want to finish it.  It’s a short.  It’s funny, and fun.  I’ve also been thinking a lot about what I want to do for a “first” Kingdom Come story, and it’s already cooking in my brain, wanting to get out.  And even with all this, I have a lot of research to do in order to write some interview questions worthy of Patty Wright and Rhiannon Ellis.

Here’s the plan.  I’m going to short-hand the rest of Scharona’s story; sort of make it a glorified outline.  When I edit the story, I’ll cut way down on the back story, and expand the part I’m condensing now.  Then I can put my time into these other projects.

When do I get paid again?  Oh yeah… I’m doing this because I love it.  Because if I didn’t, my head would explode.  You other writers know what that’s like… don’t you?

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Interview With Glenn E. Smith

Posted on April 1, 2011 by AmyBeth Inverness

Glenn E. Smith was born in Bar Harbor, Maine and raised in Malvern, Pennsylvania. He joined the United States Army Military Police in 1980 and served on active duty for approximately ten years, then served in the Army Reserve for one year. He served at several posts in the U.S., and at two separate posts in the Republic of South Korea over a total of four years. He served as a Patrolman, an Investigator, and a C.I.D. Special Agent before leaving the Army in 1990 with the rank of Staff Sergeant.

In 1998 Sergeant Smith joined the Pennsylvania Air National Guard and was assigned to the 111th Security Forces Squadron, Willow Grove, just north of Philadelphia. He deployed overseas twice during Operation Enduring Freedom following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, first to the Portuguese islands of the Azores and then to the small nation of Qatar in the Persian Gulf. He transferred to the Delaware Air National Guard in 2003, where he served with the 166th Security Forces Squadron, New Castle, as the Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge of the Combat Arms Training and Maintenance section until he retired from military service in March 2008.

Glenn’s first novel, Solfleet: Call of Duty was published in April 2007.  The second book in the series, Solfleet: Beyond the Call, as well as several other projects are currently in the works.

1) You spent a decade in the Army and then a decade in the Air National Guard.  Had you always wanted to pursue a career in the military?

Actually, no. While growing up I had never really thought about serving in the military. Then one Saturday during the summer after eleventh grade, a friend of mine invited me to go shooting with him. I liked to shoot, so I accepted his invitation. He had recently enlisted in the Army’s delayed entry program and needed to make a stop at the recruiting office on the way to the range. I went inside with him when we got there and got to talking to the head recruiter. Although I hadn’t ever thought about enlisting, I had always honored our country’s soldiers, so I went into that conversation with an open mind. The rest is history.

2) During your military service, did you do any writing?

I started writing stories when I was fourteen years old, so yes, I did a lot of writing. I never tried to get the earlier stuff—the stuff I wrote during the first half of the 1980s—published, though. Looking back, I realize that had I tried, I would not have succeeded. It was not very good, to say the least. I consider that time to have been my last few years of “practicing” to be a writer.

Somewhere along the line I had…I guess I would call it an epiphany. I started thinking about trying to get published while I was stationed at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas in 1986. I decided that I wanted to try to create an epic science-fiction adventure that told a huge story encompassing multiple worlds, while at the same time telling compelling characters stories that readers could relate to. The ideas I started having and the notes I started making at that time eventually became The Call of Duty.

3) What did you do in the years between the Army and the Air National Guard?

For the first five years I worked for a relatively small cable TV company as an installer and then a technician. Then I worked for a voice and data cabling company as an installer, but I got laid off after having been there for nine or ten months. Then it was desktop publishing work for a company that manufactured CD-ROM catalogs for numerous commercial clients—e-commerce over the Internet had not yet taken off at that point in time. I got laid off from that job as well and it was at that time that I decided I had to do something to ensure that I would have some kind of retirement income from somewhere someday. I had been missing being in the service, so I joined the Pennsylvania Air National Guard. But I was only a traditional guardsman serving one weekend per month. I still needed another job.

I quickly found another job working for an appliance store as a home theater, whole-house audio, and home telephone system installer. I helped our clients design what they wanted when their homes were only a set of blueprints, installed all the wiring when the house was framed, and completed the installation of all equipment what the house was finished. I eventually quit that job over disagreements I had with my employer and moved on to another company doing similar work, but without the retail storefront. Things went well for a little while, but then they started assigning me jobs in northern New Jersey and Baltimore, sometimes on the same day. I’m talking north Jersey as in looking over at Manhattan as I continued driving farther north up the turnpike. After a few weeks of that nonsense I left and went to yet another company in that industry. During all those years I never stopped writing.

Then came September 11, 2001. My Guard unit was activated and the deployments began, and I came to realize that still belonged in uniform full time. When my unit’s deployments ended and I returned to my civilian job, that realization quickly became determination to make it happen. I found an opportunity to go full time with the Air National Guard unit in Delaware, so I transferred. I retired from military service while assigned to that unit.

4) How long did it take you to write Solfleet: The Call of Duty?

As I stated earlier, I started making notes that eventually became The Call of Duty back in 1986, but I can’t say that was when I started it. Back then I didn’t know whether I wanted to write it as a Star Trek story or as an original work, and if as an original work, whether I wanted to write it about Earth humans or humans living in some far off place like had been done in Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica in the 1970s. I eventually decided to write it as a Star Trek story and submitted it to Pocket Books. It was only when Pocket Books rejected it unread in 1997 that I finally decided to create Solfleet. From that point in time it took me about five years to develop the world in which the story takes place and to rewrite it. It was during that rewrite that the story I originally set out to tell grew from one book into three.

5) What was your editing process?  How many people were involved?

My editing process was to rewrite every sentence if necessary until I was completely happy with everything. As any author can tell you, that’s a good way to never finish a book. So I got a few friends involved by having them read the manuscript and give me honest feedback. I made sure to stress the importance of being brutally honest. They were, and with their help I was able to bring the manuscript to a point where I could call it finished.

6) What path did you take to publication?  What problems arose?

I did not have an agent, and finding a reputable one has been a near impossible task. I went to a bookstore and wrote down the names of those publishing companies that had science-fiction books on the shelves. Then I went home and looked them up on the Internet. I identified those that would accept submissions without an agent’s involvement and submitted to them. I received two outright rejections and one letter of initial rejection with interest. That company didn’t want it as it was, but made three recommendations for changes—all three were actually  pretty minor and wouldn’t change the story—and invited me to resubmit if I made those changes. Needless to say I did exactly that.

After having been waiting for more than a year after the second submission, I got impatient and started looking for alternatives. I found one. That company offered me a publishing contract, so I signed with them. Little did I know that they would overprice the book and fail to meet their obligations as outlined in the contract. After three years of that, I started contacting them and requesting to be released from the contract due to their failures. They ignored repeated communications. I finally decided to sue them for breach of contract and was taking steps to do so when they offered to return all rights to me. I now have those rights again and I am looking at various alternatives as I approach having it republished.

7) Is there a big difference between the way you wrote the first Solfleet book and the way you are now writing the second?

Not really, except that the setting has already been created and developed. I don’t have to create from scratch such things as the technology and the history the way I did for the first one. I still sit for hours—fourteen to sixteen hours straight on some Saturdays—and immerse myself in the Solfleet universe when I’m working on it. I suppose the biggest difference this time around is the fact that I am working on multiple projects at the same time. When I wrote The Call of Duty it was the only project I was working on.

8) What will be different in the publishing process between Solflee: The Call of Duty and Solfleet: Beyond the Call?

I will be more patient. Beyond that, I don’t really know at this point. I certainly will not consider returning to the same publishing company that published The Call of Duty, and I would warn anyone trying to get their work published to avoid that company at all costs.

9) For any readers who aren’t familiar with the genre, could you explain what “fan fiction” is?

Fan fiction is any written work of fiction that is based on a property that the writer does not own. For example, many Star Trek fans have original story ideas. They write their stories and then offer them for free to anyone who might want to read them. They do it simply for the fun of doing it and for the love of the original property. In decades past that was pretty much the end of it, but advances in video and film technology combined with the growing power of personal computers and software have made it easier for fans to produce fan films as well as to write fan fiction. That is why you can go online and find programs such as Star Trek: Phase-II.

10) When and how did you get involved with Star Trek: Phase-II?  In what ways have you been involved with Phase II over the years?

Sometime after they released their proof of concept episode Come What May, I stumbled across their website by accident. I watched the episode and thought that some of the writing was a little too fan-boyish for my personal taste, but I was pretty impressed with the episode’s production values—particularly the fact that real sets were used. Later, after watchingIn Harm’s Way and being much more impressed by it, I decided that I wanted to be a part of the production team, if that was even possible. I contacted one of the producers and forwarded my resume to him with an offer to help out in any way that might be of value to them. We communicated back and forth for a little while and at some point in time he invited me to attend the next shoot, which turned out to be for the episode World Enough and Time, starring George Takei. To Serve All My Days, starring Walter Koenig, had recently wrapped.

Unfortunately, real life interfered and I was unable to attend that shoot—a fact that I still regret to this day. My luck changed for the better, however, when the time came to shoot David Gerrold’s Blood and Fire. I joined the crew as a general Production Assistant, but ended up working as a boom mike operator, a set construction worker, a temporary member of the Grip and Electric crew, a one evening temporary fill-in for the set security team, and even a bit player appearing in a few scenes with one line of dialogue delivered on the bridge of the Enterprise—thank you for that, David. Apparently I impressed someone because by the time I returned the following year for the filming of Enemy: Starfleet, I had been selected to serve as the Unit Production Manager and Second Assistant Director for that episode.

Since that time, real life has again temporarily prevented me from returning to Retro Films Studios, but I continue to participate in every production by serving as the Assistant to the Line Producer—a job that I can perform from home since the Line Producer and I live only an hour’s drive away from each other.

Beyond all that I write a comic book version of the show called Star Trek Phase-II: The Illustrated Adventures and have written a live-action episode for the show that may or may not be accepted for production someday. I say that because my episode looks back at Kirk’s first mission as captain of the Enterprise and that is not the kind of story that (Executive Producer and star) James Cawley is looking for right now. He is looking forward toward the new. Nevertheless, it is a very good story—not that I am anything but totally objective, of course—and it remains in his hands for consideration.

11) I’m jealous of your knowledge of Trek canon!  How do you keep facts straight with so many details?  Do you even consider the JJ Abrams version when you’re thinking “canon”?  There’s a great quote from your Star Trek Soldiers of Pawns partner in writing, Geoffrey Alan Holliday, on your blog comments.  “Inspired by a TV program in the 1960′s, Star Trek is now no longer just a pop culture phenomenon. Our beloved characters are now mythic heroes that belong to the ages.”  So, who decides what is canon and what is not?

Repetition. I grew up on the original Star Trek series. Like millions of other fans, I have seen each of the episodes dozens of times over the years. I probably know those characters and their lives as well as I know those of my own family.

As for Abrams’ reboot, I do consider everything prior to the Romulans’ arrival in the past to be part of canon, with the exception of the look. That said, if Abrams and his people had taken the look of the 1960s TV show and put it up on the big screen in 2009, the film likely would have been laughed right out of theaters. I personally do not like everything they did—changing the look of the Enterprise so drastically, using a brewery for the ship’s engineering section, and hanging meat locker plastic in the shuttlecraft, for example—but they had to change the look to appeal to a modern audience. So I choose to ignore those relatively minor details and concentrate on the story. Original series canon never stated that George and Winona Kirk were not stationed aboard the U.S.S. Kelvin together, or that Winona was not pregnant with James at the time, so why not? That ship and her crew’s uniforms might not look right from an original series point of view, but that look was changed for good reason. I choose to look past it.

Who decides what is canon and what is not? Every fan can decide for him- or herself. Officially, it is only canon if it has been presented in the TV shows or the movies. For Star Trek Soldiers of Pawns, Geoff and I have decided together what is canon to suit our storytelling needs. In our case, the Kelvin encountered the temporal rift presented in the 2009 film, but neither the Romulans nor older Spock came through it, so our universe is much more like that of the original series. Many fans of Star Trek: Phase-II chose to accept our episodes as canon. I believe that is what Geoff meant. The Abrams film opened a world of possibilities and freed those who write Star Trek to do so anywhere in the multiverse that they choose.

12) You are writing the Solfleet books alone, but Soldiers of Pawns with a partner, Geoffrey Alan Holliday.  What are the benefits and troubles of each method?

The most obvious benefit of writing alone is that I get to do whatever I want to do without having to listen to any argument or get someone else to agree with my decision. There is a downside to that, however. As the creator and sole writer of the Solfleet series, I am obviously very close to every word that goes into it. Have you ever held an object directly in front of your eyes, closer than your nose, and then tried to focus on it? You can’t. No matter how hard you try it remains blurry. Being that close to a project is the same. A writer can miss things that jump right out to others. That is how working with Geoff has been and continues to be. He will write something and I will tell him that it doesn’t work because…or I will write something and he will tell me that cannot happen because… We work as each others’ checks and balances. In addition, collaboration between two writers doubles the amount of creativity being applied to the project. In our case, that collaboration has led to some really good stuff.

13) In your blog you talk about pacing issues while writing chapter 10 of Soldiers of Pawns: War and Peace.  How does a writer know when more words are adding depth, and when more words are just making it longer than it needs to be?

I’m not sure I can answer that question for anyone other than myself. In my case I see the action part of the work as a film in my head. If that “plays” well in my head when a read back what I wrote, then I’m happy with it. If it starts to drag, then I have probably gotten too wordy. The exception to that rule is when I get into the characters’ heads. Depending on what is on his or her mind, it can take one of my characters two or three pages just to wake up and roll out of bed. I like deep, multi-faceted plots, but I always try to make my characters real and let them drive the story.

14) Many writers admit to going through a phase when they hate their Work In Progress.  Have you experienced that?  If so, how did you get past it?

In that sense I think writers are just like every other kind of artist. They are never completely satisfied with their own work. I have never actually hated anything I was writing, but I have dealt with moments of extreme dissatisfaction. Whenever that happens I step away from the project for a little while and work on something else. Then I go back and reread whatever I didn’t like and usually find that it was okay after all, or I find a way to make it better without too much effort, relatively speaking. If I go back to it and find that I still don’t like it and can’t figure out how to improve it…well, that hasn’t happened yet, so I don’t know.

15) You began Omniverse Productions, LCC in February with another partner, William Lutz.  How did that come about, and where is it headed?

Bill is illustrator and inker for Star Trek Phase-II: The Illustrated Adventures. We have both found that we enjoy working on that project together very much. I have to write. I can’t not write or my head will explode, as I have a lot of stories floating around in there. In addition, I am currently working on earning a bachelor’s degree in Business Management. Bill has told me that he would love to do nothing but draw for the rest of his life if that opportunity ever presented itself. The combination made forming a production company together seem like a no-brainer.

We are going to start by offering several digital comic book serials and graphic novels for sale over the Internet from our website, which is not yet online. Once we have a number of issues completed, we are going to look at moving into printing and hardcopy sales. Eventually, if things go well, we will look into novel publishing as well.

Obviously, we are not going to be able to do everything ourselves. I will write what I can and look at bringing in other writers when needed. Bill will illustrate one or two titles—maybe three—but more than that is just plain unrealistic. The artwork takes a lot of time. As art director, Bill takes the lead in looking for and contracting with other illustrators, inkers, and colorists to work with us.

16) How is Starship Endeavour related to Solfleet?  Is it related to Trek in any way?

Starship Endeavour is not related to Solfleet in any way. Nor is Solfleet related to Star Trek in any way. Solfleet is much darker and more realistic than Star Trek ever was. Starship Endeavour is one of those fan-fiction projects we talked about earlier. It is a Star Trek comic book series that I am developing and will eventually offer to readers for free. No profit will be made by anyone involved in its creation or distribution. As the title indicates, it will follow the adventures of the crew of the starship Endeavour, beginning at some point during the fourth year of the original series Enterprise’s famous five-year mission.

17) What can you tell us about Recon 7?  When and where will fans get a taste?

Recon 7 is another prospective property of Omniverse Productions, LLC—one that at this point has barely entered the development phase. In short, it is far too early to talk about it.

18) The Legend of Khi-Mara represents a shift from Science Fiction to Fantasy.  What inspired this?

A desire to expand my horizons. Most of what I read and nearly all that I write is science fiction, but there is a whole world of possibilities out there. Worlds of fantasy and magic, the paranormal, superheroes, the present day real world that we live in—all of those areas offer great storytelling potential. I don’t want to limit myself to just one of them, and with Omniverse Productions, LLC I will have ample opportunity to explore them all.

19) What motivated you to return to school?  What are your educational goals?

A little thing called the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill. About seven years after I served in the Persian Gulf under Operation Enduring Freedom, Uncle Sam told me that he wanted to help me pay for my continuing education. When I originally joined the service there was no G.I. Bill being offered. Instead, there was something called the Veterans’ Education Assistance Program that soldiers had to pay into in order to benefit from. Having just graduated high school and sworn never to go to school again, I declined to participate in that. When the Post-9/11 G.I. Bill became available, I determined not to repeat that mistake.

Right now I am about a year shy of completing the requirements for my bachelor’s degree in Business Management. I am still attending classes and I will earn that degree. I am tentatively planning to transition directly into the MBA program upon completion.

20) You have a lot on your plate!  How do you juggle all your projects with the demands of school and life in general?  In what ways does your family support all that you do?

When it gets to be too much, I go get a bigger plate.

Actually, I am extremely blessed to have a job that allows for a substantial amount of time to work on homework while on the job and to be working for a company that permits me to do that. The fact that the company reimburses me for a portion of the tuition might have something to do with that, but whatever the reason it is a huge help. As for family, my son is grown and out on his own. My wife and I have no children in the home. She works full time as well and has always been supportive of my need and desire to write. In fact, like some of my readers, she has started asking me why certain projects are taking so long. Apparently she thinks I need to spend more time writing than I already do.

The shortlink for this post is http://wp.me/p1qnT4-3B

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Throw it Away

Posted on March 30, 2011 by AmyBeth Inverness

Hemi and girls in the snow in front of the houseTwo years ago we moved into the house my parents lived in from 1990 (a year after I graduated High School) till 2008 (right before my youngest’s first birthday.)  Although it’s not my childhood home, it holds many memories for me.

It also holds a lot of junk.  My parents cleaned out a lot of their stuff before they retired to warmer climes, but not everything.  Also, since this is the place I came “home” to as an adult, there were lots of my things here even before we moved in full time.

Today I came across a treasure from my return to college as a non-traditional student.  My husband and I attended Chittenden County Community College, where I got my first degree in Liberal Arts.  My favorite class was ceramics, and a friend of mine gave me a bunch of old molds.  I just came across one that looks like Bigfoot’s footprint.

Keep in mind, I was not a kid when I acquired this; I was in my late twenties, and married.  Still, I thought it was awesome!  (Yes, I can use that word.  I was a teenager in the eighties.)  But today, finding it in a room we’re cleaning out, there was no question that I really don’t want it anymore.  Maybe someone else out there will appreciate it; maybe it will end up in the trash.

As a writer, we have to throw away precious things all the time.  Or, if not actually discarding them, we shut them away in the files of our computers and desks, never to see the light of day.

It is the kind of thing you do not want to tell someone who is just starting out in becoming a serious writer.  “That first novel you’re so proud of?  It will probably never see the light of day.”  Even if you add the caveat “…but that’s all right, because it will strengthen your writing, and your second or third full length novel might just be good enough to catch an agent’s interest…” this is still of little comfort.  Personally, I like to add “And a hundred years from now, when you’re long dead, the world will finally appreciate all of your creations and your descendants will publish those first, unappreciated works posthumously.”

I also practice answering interview questions for Barbara Walters.

Just in case.

Last week, I sent my query letter for Dogs, Cats, and Allergies to my twitter and blogging friend AB Keuser to be critiqued.  And oh, I am so glad I did.  I’ve been immersed in the world of Kingdom Come for five months now, writing three full length novels.  The world was clearly formed in my head long before that, with several unfinished novels and short stories set in the world.  I can’t see it from the outside, and I find myself getting almost flustered when someone asks me “So, what’s it about?”

Now, that is a question that all writers need to have a clear and ready answer for.  (Writers should also not end a sentence in a preposition, but I’m doing that a lot lately.)  Even if you are published, you can’t assume that everyone knows your basic premise.  Sitting at a table autographing books for fans, an author has to be gracious when someone drops by and says “This looks interesting, what’s it about?”  Right now, I still don’t have a concise way to briefly introduce people to my world.

AB (The query-critiquing AB, not me) sent back my query with a very encouraging note, and a lot of red.  As in, almost every single word I’d written, red.  Now, I did not send her a sloppy rough draft.  I read through all the query critiques on her website, and tried to apply all her advice to my own query.  I carefully wrote a “back cover blurb” to begin the query, and ended with a “This will appeal to…”

There are a couple of big problems, not to mention a host of small ones.  First, since my stories have a theme of group marriage, the novel has eight main characters.  Dogs, Cats, and Allergies is divided into three parts.  Dogs is about three characters.  Cats is about four characters.  Allergies is about the eighth character, and how they all come together.  Having too many characters is a problem, as is dividing the story up.  It reads well as three stories, but that’s a bit overwhelming for a first novel.

The second big problem is that, although the book is Science Fiction Romance, there was absolutely nothing in my blurb that gave the reader any hint about my Science Fiction setting.  Come to think about it, in the stories themselves, the futuristic science is hardly more than flavor for the setting.  Something else to think about.

AB Keuser suggested I revise the query and send it back.  There was just too much wrong with it to put it up as a sample critique.  I briefly felt like going Jacqueline on her (the writer’s form of going postal) but it didn’t take me a day to realize how right she was.  It took about five seconds.

Over the next couple of days, I started trying to think of how I would rewrite my query.  I could neglect to mention some of the characters who end up in the requisite “happily ever after”, but that doesn’t seem right.  I could add more about my Sci-Fi setting.

Or, I could decide that this “first” novel (even though it is not the first one I’ve written) should not be the first novel at all.  Fortunately, my stories are not about saving the galaxy!  Each stands alone, although there are a few continuity points that make more sense if you read them in order.  I could simply write another full novel, set it slightly before the others, and keep in mind all the things that a first novel, and its query, should include.

I have a lovely collection of erotic bedtime stories by Jean Johnson.  Her story Snow White and the Seven Dwarves is about a woman in a group marriage.  But instead of focusing on all eight spouses, Jean tells one woman’s story.  I did that in my own short story Undone Fantasy, concentrating on just two of the five spouses.  It doesn’t mean the other spouses are unimportant, it simply means the writer is focusing on that part of the story.

So, maybe I won’t be querying in May as planned.  Maybe I’ll be writing a fresh Kingdom Come story that makes a better introduction to the series.  And those other three stories?  Well, I’m not giving up on them.  I still think readers will enjoy those stories.

And there’s always the fall-back of waiting for my grandchildren to publish them posthumously.

Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged , | 2 Comments

I’m Not Her

Posted on March 29, 2011 by AmyBeth Inverness

I stayed up way too late last night.  Yes, I was writing… mostly.  Normally it wouldn’t be too much of a problem, but this morning my 3yo woke up two whole hours earlier than usual.  Worse than that, instead of either snuggling with me or playing quietly (our bedrooms connect) she climbed up to get a toy that was too difficult to play with alone, then cried loudly and dramatically when she couldn’t figure out how to put it together.

Normally, I am snuggly Mommy in the morning.

This morning, I wasn’t her.  I was grumpy Mommy, and I told my daughter this in so many words.  I didn’t use a cutesy voice either; I used a normal, grumpy tone that let her know that being woken early to a display of her own crankiness over a toy she knew she wasn’t supposed to get out had the consequence of a grumpy Mommy!

All right, I wasn’t just writing last night (my word count for the day was pathetic) I was chatting on twitter.  But connecting with other writers is important, isn’t it?  In particular, I was talking with whiteminolta about the importance of communication and trust versus the importance of sex in a relationship.  It wasn’t much of an argument, as we found we pretty much agreed.  But later in the night, I saw a link on my feed that initially alarmed and offended me.  It said The Most Dangerous Place For An African-American To Be Is In The Womb of Their African-American Mother.  Isn’t that insulting?  Or racist or something?  Then I noticed that the link was posted by whiteminolta.  She is an African-American woman.  Suddenly, my perspective changed.  Should I still be offended?  Certainly the phrase can’t be racist, because it was posted by an African-American.  I didn’t know what to feel!

Clicking on the link, the first thing I noticed was that the author himself brought up the word “racism”, as well as the political differences between the left and the right.  I admit that my twitter feed, like the rest of my life, is very white.  But that’s not by design, it’s that as my connections have naturally grown, almost everyone I’ve felt a desire to connect to is white.  In fact, when I saw whiteminolta on my feed via some mutual friend or connection, part of the reason I started following her was the fact that she is not white.  Does that make me racist?  I hope not!  I enjoyed our brief exchange about sex and communication, but the language she uses sometimes confuses me a little.  I can understand her meaning readily enough, though the words are not familiar to me, and in the very (embarrassingly so) white state of Vermont, I’m not likely to ever hear them spoken aloud.

This morning, I started reading links with the other members of The Red Dress Club.  I was halfway through Erica M’s post when I realized that she must be African American.  It wasn’t vital to the story, but suddenly I started questioning myself and how I was reacting to it.  I actually hesitated posting con-crit (as is one of the main goals of sharing via The Red Dress Club) because I suddenly wondered if my very sheltered, white life experience was preventing me from understanding some key element in her post.

Another more worldly, experienced woman wouldn’t be confused or intimidated by the differences our skin color makes in our perceptions and communications.  But I’m not her.

Another friend, or rather group of friends, I sometimes have trouble understanding are the many erotica writers I’ve befriended on twitter.  I love them to pieces, but I have had to bookmark the Urban Dictionary because words frequently appear that I just don’t understand!  Call me naive.  I won’t argue!  I’m learning a lot from these friends, and the language and the sexual innuendos (or lack of innuendo!) fuel my sexy romance-writing skills.  I’m not about to embark on a series of sexual escapades for the sake of research; but reading their tweets and blogs and fiction and (gasp!) photos and videos is helping me open up as a writer.  I sometimes watch their banter on my newsfeed, fascinated by the shocking bluntness and sexuality of their language.  If we were sitting together in a coffee shop somewhere, I would be terribly uncomfortable with some of their sexual comments, and I’d be embarrassed by the foul language; yet on twitter, I find it perfectly acceptable.  The only people who can “hear” are those who have chosen to do so.  But although I frequently jump into the conversations (including my own sexual innuendo or two) I don’t usually cuss.  Even in my novels, when a character swears, they usually do so in the usual Sci-Fi convention of “frak!” or some combination of Chinese, like in the TV series Firefly.  I am also fond of the word “Shostakovitch” as a mild curse.  I don’t need or want to use profanity.  That’s not me.

Last week a friend of mine deleted one of my comments on her facebook status.  She sent me a messaging apologizing, saying that some of her friends would be offended by my words.  Huh?  Me?  Offensive?  Even after reading her message, I still wasn’t sure what I’d done.  It wasn’t till my husband came home and explained that I had referred to monkeys as “animals” instead of “primates” or “furry children” that I understood what I’d done wrong.  Open mouth, insert foot, in spite of all intentions.  I didn’t think I was that person.

My novels feature a theme of group marriages.  These are not “sister wives”, these are nice, normal, traditional marriages that consist of several men and several women.  I expect that many of my readers may be part of the Gay/Les/Bi/Trans community.  But I’m not gay, or lesbian, or transsexual.  I do believe that Kinsey was onto something with the theory that all people fall somewhere along a scale, instead of being strictly heterosexual or homosexual.  I don’t know if the graph would be a true straight line (More on that later…  I have a poll going on facebook.)  or if perhaps it would be better to assign a percentage.  Any way, no matter where I am on the scale, I am not everywhere on the scale.  I’m just one person, with one point of view.

I’m worried about sticking my foot in my mouth.  My rough draft reader is a lovely woman I’ve known for many years, though we’re not very close.  She has been happily married to another woman for several years, which gives her a very different perspective from mine.  I’m hoping she can point out any places I may have inadvertently written something that might offend.  (Although I don’t care if I offend people who find anything but strict heterosexuality offensive.)  Although many Gay/Les/Bi/Trans stories feature a theme of a taboo relationship or defiance of social norms, the main reason I set my stories on a fictional planet is that I wanted to write sweet, endearing romances where the only gender issue was the individual’s personal preference.

In fiction, I can explore multiple points of view.  In real life, I have only me.  But even though I’m not “her”, I can try to understand her, and not only respect her opinions and point of view, but realize how she came to have them in the first place.

Posted in Writing | 4 Comments

Bloggedy Blog Blog Blah

Posted on March 28, 2011 by AmyBeth Inverness

MirandaKennealy tweeted something the other day about how she spends more time getting ready to write than she does actually writing. I know exactly what she means.  Today is supposed to be “my day”, the day my husband has off work, and has promised that he will chase our 3yo around the house, fix meals, and take care of whatever else comes up so I can hide away at my upstairs desk and write!

So what have I done?  Well, I did talk and share hugs and kisses with the 3yo before sending her downstairs to Daddy.  I played fetch with the cat.  I brushed my teeth and got dressed.  I added water to the crock pot I’m using as a humidifier, which helps this lingering cough from the nasty cold I’m getting over.  I moved all the toys and stuff from the desk corner of my bedroom.  I took out the trash.  I cleaned said desk, although I left all those pink sticky notes over on one side.  One of them is an old shopping list I am now using as a coaster.  Another is a scribble reminding me of something funny Tiffany Reisz said to me on twitter after I told her she scares me. I set up both laptops “dueling style” on my desk so that I can do internet stuff (oh, so distracting) while supposedly finishing my WIP, Under the Radar.  The old laptop, which is great for word processing but not much more, is set up in the “primary” position where I can comfortably write.  The not-so-old laptop is set off to the side, and I am popping back and forth between this blog entry and twitter while eating the biscuits my wonderful hubby made for breakfast topped with apple butter my 12yo brought home from her school’s bake sale to benefit Japan.  I light a couple of candles, which are as much of a distraction as they are a calming influence.  I start my “AB Writing” playlist on the ipod hooked up to speakers by the bed, and briefly think how I’ve been meaning to re-do that list.  The order is all screwed up.  I need a service who will take my playlist and organize it so I don’t end up mellowing out to Stevie Nicks just to hear Trace Adkins growl and shout the next moment.  I look up Miranda on twitter so I know how many n’s and l’s are in Kenneally, and then I go to her website and copy the address so I can link it here.  I attempt to twitter-stalk Sara Megibow, but it looks like she hasn’t tweeted lately.

What’s going on in the twittersphere at this moment?  Dr. Ruth just tweeted “I tell people to be very careful about allowing others into your bed because you never know what the result might be.”  Ah.  Good advice, even though Dr. Ruth does not have the little “check” next to name that means twitter has verified it really is her.  It could be anybody claiming to be the bold and dimunative sex therapist.  Kirstie Alley and Maksim Chmerkovskiy are bantering, and many other Dancing With the Stars pairs are tweeting to promote tonight’s show.  Astro Paolo (AKA Paolo Nespoli) is tweeting in both Italian and English as he shares photos from the International Space Station. Simon Le Bon and Duran Duran are promoting their current tour.  A bunch of writers are sharing various links they think will be interesting to other writers.  For now, I’m not clicking.  I want to publish this blog entry, announce it on twitter and facebook, then get working on Under the Radar.

OK, I am clicking.  Marie Sexton just posted something labeled NSFW and… Great Googly Mooglies!  That’s explicit!  I never know what I’ll get from Marie, but the NSFW label should have given me a clue.  And more distractions…  several cats (I have five, and most of them like to be nearby while I’m writing) and the dog now too.  Our 3yo keeps bouncing upstairs to check on me, even though she’s supposed to stay downstairs with Daddy today.  Apparently Mommy must be the one to fix her party hat, even though Daddy has the tape and is offering to do it.

It’s noon.  The cats have found comfortable perches close by.  The dog and the 3yo have gone back downstairs.  Under the Radar sits open on the old laptop, currently at 83,693 words, and I’m guessing it will end up over 100.000 when it’s done.  I am now taking bets on how many words I’ll get done before midnight tonight.  I’ll keep you posted.

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Oh No, My Mother’s Going to Read This…

Posted on March 26, 2011 by AmyBeth Inverness

Over the past two weeks I’ve agonized over how (and if!) to include a little of my fiction online.  Someone warned me that I might have copyright issues if I don’t own the domain; I paid to register AmyBethInverness.com, and I mapped UnderLochandKey to that domain.  I’m moving forward with the idea that anything I put online whether it’s a blog entry or facebook note or whatever, might be stolen.  Hopefully not.  I’ll try to remain positive, but not naive!

I was extremely naive as a teenager, and even a young adult, especially about sex.  Some of my high school classmates reminisce and say “Oh, everyone was doing it…” but, no, really not everyone was.  Nor were we all drinking.  The closest I got to a real kiss was in the ninth grade when I was “going with” Greg, and after school at his house I put on some lip gloss and playfully gave him a peck on the lips.  An insane amount of awkward giggling followed, and we broke up not too long after.  He’s quite happy living out west with his boyfriend now, and I was glad to see him briefly at our twenty year reunion.

So now, why am I afraid my mother will read this?  Even though I just turned 40, with two kids, and about to celebrate my sixteenth wedding anniversary, a part of me still pales at the very thought of mentioning the word “sex” in her presence!

My mother is a very sweet lady who led a very sheltered life.  But that was quite normal for her generation.  She has always enjoyed romance novels, although I have to say I didn’t get my love of the genre from her.  I was always a science fiction fan, like my father.  It wasn’t till years later, hopped up on fertility drugs and shedding brain cells left and right, that I read my first romance novel.  It was candy.  It was good.  I knew that the characters were ensured a happily ever after, and there was just the right amount of spice to help me through the hormonal tirades my body and brain were enduring.

I also started writing more.  A science fiction story I’d begun as a “coming of age” book found a new life as a short story based on the song “Whiter Shade of Pale” by Procol Harum.  (I like Sarah Brightman’s version even better.)  It was about an AI who had a brief brush with love, and my English teacher (I was attending VTC at the time) included it in an anthology of stories from various people at the college.  Hmm…  I should find that story and put it Under Loch and Key…

Later, I took Whiter Shade of Pale and continued it on by having my FMC (That’s “Female Main Character in twitterspeak) feeling the effects of fertility drugs.  It was no longer a coming of age story.  It took a brief turn into adventure, then romance, then erotic romance, and back to romance before I lost any sense of plot and had no place to end the story.  The characters had lives, and those lives continued on in interesting ways, but as a marketable work Big Country was a mess.  It may never see the light of day, but it was a great exercise in writing, and an appropriate outlet for me.

Fertility treatments worked after ten and a half years of trying, and we welcomed one child via adoption and another child via birth in 2007.  Pregnancy, birth, and breastfeeding brought a whole new host of hormones and emotional swings, and I started writing the first Kingdom Come story.  I’m not exactly sure why I chose at that time to write about a group marriage; I have a list of inspirations and influences.  The first Kingdom Come story centered on Charity, the Violet Duchess of Drakeshead.  I began the story just after the wedding of eight people who hardly knew each other till they received the offer to become the Dukes and Duchesses of Drakeshead, which meant that the first few chapters described her honeymoon week, where she was paired with each of her seven spouses in turn for seven days and seven nights before they all finally came together on the eighth night.  Now, reading and writing sex scenes might be fun (and embarrassing if you know your mother is going to read it) but eight in a row becomes simply ridiculous.  If Charity’s story ever sees the light of day, it will have to be reorganized, perhaps not told in a linear format.  For now, she makes brief appearances in the background of the other stories.

Before NaNoWriMo last November, I had written quite a bit about Charity.  I also wrote Undone Fantasy, and I had several unfinished novels set on Kingdom Come.  When I took up the NaNoWriMo challenge, I began a brand new story set on Kingdom Come, and for the first time, I finished it!  I dove directly into a second novel, and am now almost done with a third.  I have several other novels and shorts outlined, and I can’t find the time to get the words out fast enough.

I’m going to take April to do Script Frenzy, as I promised friends at both Star Trek: Excalibur and Star Trek: Phase II that I would try my writing hand at a Trek script, or at least a story treatment.  Hopefully in that time, my reader will be done looking at the first draft of the first book, and I can spend May editing the book, and then send a query letter to an agent, and then…  maybe eventually I’ll be published!

And then my mother can read it.

Posted in Kingdom Come, Writing | 2 Comments

Interview with Tiffany Reisz

Posted on March 25, 2011 by AmyBeth Inverness

Slightly shameless and mostly fameless, Tiffany Reisz dropped out of a conservative southern seminary in order to pursue a career as an erotica writer. This move, while possibly putting her eternal salvation in peril, has worked out better than she anticipated. She has five piercings, one tattoo, and has only been arrested twice.  When not under arrest, Tiffany writes erotica and erotic romance and is diligent in doing all her own research. Her novel The Siren will be published by Harlequin SPICE in November 2011 and the sequel The Angel in 2012.  Her debut novel Seven Day Loan is currently available from eHarlequin.com

Seven Day Loan

Visit Tiffany’s website at TiffanyReisz.com

Read a review of The Siren by Scarlett Parrish.

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1)          Googling you was enlightening!  What is your tattoo?  Does it have personal significance?

My tattoo is of the White Rabbit from Alice in Wonderland. We went with the original White Rabbit illustration by Sir John Tenniel. Alice sees the White Rabbit and follows him not knowing she’ll end up in Wonderland. To me he represents being willing to follow adventure without asking too many questions first.

2)          If I ask about your piercings, can you answer without requiring me to flag the interview “For mature audiences only”?

I have my ears pierced, my ear cartilage pierced, an eyebrow ring, and a downstairs piercing. The eyebrow ring was my reward to myself for getting my agent, the great and powerful Sara Megibow of The Nelson Literary Agency. Got off the phone with Sara, did the happy dance, grabbed my friend Sparky and half an hour later, I had a ring in my eyebrow.

3)          …and the arrests?

Both arrests were paperwork errors due to paying off minor fines and the rather incompetent beauracracy that misplaced the paperwork. When I told people I’d gotten arrested, they assumed it was either DUI or Indecent Exposure. One of these days I’m going to get arrested for a really interesting reason. The first arrest was pretty funny, however. The sweet cop, learning it was a paperwork error apologized for having to put me in handcuffs. Being me, I answered, “No worries. Not my first time in handcuffs.” Poor thing blushed ear to ear.

4)          Did you ever consider using a pseudonym?  How do your parents feel about you writing erotica?

My parents are proud of me for following my dreams. They’d prefer I followed my dreams into a different genre but to quote the miraculous Kathy Griffin, if anybody has a problem with me, they can “suck it.”

5)          What prompted the transition from Seminary to Erotica?  Did you bring your Christianity with you or leave it behind?

Loving God and loving sex are not mutually exclusive. I felt rather out of place at the conservative seminary I attended and started writing as a coping mechanism. When my goofy stories started gaining a wide audience and even being translated, I decided, “Um, maybe THIS is what God had in mind for me.” I quit seminary, got a job at a bookstore, and started writing. I followed the White Rabbit and ended up in Wonderland.

6)          What was your path to publication?

I wrote a book a long time ago and played with it for years never really taking it seriously but still daydreaming about getting it published. Then, on a whim, I wrote and submitted an erotic short story to Harlequin Spice Briefs. A year later they called out of the blue and offered to buy and publish it. I couldn’t believe how much they were going to pay me for those forty-five pages I wrote in three days. That when I went, “Damn! People will pay me for this?” So I dusted off the novel, fixed a few things, and started agent hunting. Sara was the first agent who wrote me back and asked for the full manuscript. She turned it down initially because of plot issues (a weak middle). So I rewrote the book from cover to cover, resubmitted it to her, and then…agent! And eyebrow piercing! Was worth all the work. We made some more changes to the book and sold it eventually to the amazing Susan Swinwood at Harlequin SPICE. THE SIREN, the book which was sitting in a drawer for years, comes out September 26, 2011.

7)          Has an agent, editor, or publisher ever asked you to change something you were reluctant to change?

I had a hot girl on girl scene in THE SIREN which we had to cut because I was over the word count. That hurt. But that’s okay. Something to save for the sequel.

8)          Many writers go through a stage when they hate the words they are writing.  Is this true for you?

Oh yeah. Sometimes I love what I write. Sometimes I’m like, “I want this paragraph to become a person so I can have the pleasure of stabbing it to death.”

9)          What is your favorite electronic or digital tool to use for writing?

I love OmmWriter. It’s this little Zen writing program that uses very soothing music and a full screen with a winterscape background. Helps me block out all the distractions and just focus on the page.

10)       What is your favorite non-electronic writing aide?

Pen and paper—not exciting but true. I’m constantly writing notes to myself about my books.

11)       What is the most persistent distraction from writing?

Twitter. I have WAY too much fun on Twitter. People need to stop being so funny and sexy on Twitter. So rude. 😉

12)       What is your ideal writing environment?  Have you been able to create it?

All I need to write is a Mac and a cat. I have both. It’s all good.

13)       I admit I cringed during certain scenes in Seven Day Loan; it’s much kinkier than my usual fare!  Were your friends surprised to discover you wrote erotica?

I’m a vegetarian. When people ask me how I get enough protein, I tell them I just give head all the time. Trust me, if I wrote anything BUT erotica, that would surprise them.

14)       I’ve read both prequels to The Siren now.  Do you plan to continue Eleanor’s story even further?

THE SIREN is the middle book of an eight book series—The Cantos of the 8th Circle. There are three sequels and four prequels. If THE SIREN and the sequel THE ANGEL (coming out November 2012) so well enough, hopefully I’ll get to write them all.

15)       On your website, you have some images of actors who resemble your characters.  Do you ever begin with an actor or other real person and then create a character from that inspiration?  Or do you create a character and then afterwards find images that seem to fit?

Zach Easton, the main character of THE SIREN, was inspired by Jason Isaacs. Zach and Jason have a lot in common—they’re both sexy Jewish Liverpudlians. So my crush on him inspired THE SIREN. Every other character is pure imagination and then later I find someone who I would “cast” in the part.

16)       Is there a reason why you always tweet “Writing Goat” instead of “Writing Goal”?  And why did you name your cat “Honeytoast”?

Honeytoast reading Marcus Aurelius

Goals are intimidating. They scare the hell out of me. Goats are cute and fuzzy. So I have daily writing goats instead of writing goals. And when I achieve my word count, I can tweet that I “got my goat!”

Oh…Honeytoast…the saddest cat on earth. My sister named Honeytoast after a character in the tv show Even Stevens. She and I very mature people obviously.

17)       So, were you able to integrate the phrase “Has anyone seen Simone’s clam?” into any of your recent works?  What about bees?  Lingering tingles?

Not yet…but the night is still young…

18)       You scare me sometimes!  Is it just me?  Or do you get that a lot?

I’m five foot zero, I wear my hair in pigtails, I sleep in sock monkey pajamas, and I have a cat named Honeytoast. I’m the least scary person alive. Oh, and I’m a pacifist. I don’t scare anybody. And you aren’t actually scared of me. You’re just scared of my books. Big difference. 😉

19)       What’s this I hear about wanting to get a book banned?  Is that a goal or a goat?

Some of the greatest books ever written have been banned at one point or anything. Getting a book banned is a compliment, a sign that you’ve gotten famous enough to get positive and negative attention. A million rappers say the same things Eminen does, but as he’s more famous than them, he’s the one censors go after.  A million writers created worlds of magic just like JK Rowling, but as she was the most successful of them, it was her books that got banned while less fantasy writers flew quietly under the radar. I don’t want to fly under the radar.

20)       When the day comes that you are presented with a prestigious award, who are you most likely to forget to thank?

I’ll forget to thank my mother, and I will never, ever hear the end of it.

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Posted in Interviews | 12 Comments

The Inverness Press

Posted on March 25, 2011 by AmyBeth Inverness

Welcome!  I hope you enjoy my blog, and please do leave a comment or two.  I love getting feedback.  For my regular blog, please simply scroll down.  To read some of my short stories and excerpts from my novels, please visit my other blog  Under Loch and Key.

Posted in Blog Business, Kingdom Come, Short Stories and Samples, Writing | 3 Comments