Guest author Angie Fox: Interview & Giveaway

 Novel Spaces welcomes New York Times bestselling author Angie Fox. She has a new series coming out about a group of paranormal MASH surgeons. She’s stopped by today to give away a signed copy of Immortally Yours and to talk with us about the new book.



To start, how did you come up with the plot for Immortally Yours?

I wanted to do something different. Plus, I love writing books that are not only about the hero and heroine, but also about the community where they live. A quirky, paranormal M*A*S*H unit sounded like a blast to write. Plus, I love books about special ops soldiers. So I made my hero a tough-as-nails wounded warrior and my heroine is the doctor who saves him (in more ways than one).

Immortally Yours definitely has your trademark humor. It’s ironic – and amusing. How natural is it for you to write “funny”? Is it ever a challenge to rein it in for the more serious parts?

One of the challenges – and the great joys – of writing Immortally Yours was balancing the humor with the drama of war.

Petra and her colleagues at the MASH 3063rd have been drafted until the end of the conflict, which is bad for Petra but even worse for people like her vampire roommate, Marius. They’re living in this quirky, ad-hock camp, trying to make the best of it while they work long hours in the OR, putting soldiers back together – knowing that they’re probably going to see these injured heroes again and again – if they’re lucky.

The underlying tragedy brings the oddball personalities in the camp together. They develop ways to keep their sanity and to create the kind of relationships that offer a port in the storm.

What can you tell us about Petra’s otherworldly sidekicks? (Are you an animal lover in general? They always seem to make a lot of appearances in your books.)

I am an animal lover. While there are no actual pets in Immortally Yours, we do have some creatures. I couldn’t resist. And really, it’s not Petra’s fault. Her roommate Rodger just happens to be keeping a few small swamp monsters. And when those babies shock him by having more babies, he has no choice but to adopt them out all over camp. Then we do have some supporting characters who happen to be creatures, like Jeffe the guard sphinx. On a side note, Jeffe is one of my favorite characters to write because he’s so infuriatingly logical, and it comes off in some unexpected ways.

Is there a set number of books for this series? 

It’s a trilogy. At the same time, each book will read as a stand-alone and each book has its own happy ending, because, let’s face it: we need happy endings these days.

Tell us about the creative marketing strategies for your books.

I’m all about creative marketing. It’s fun and my brain just thinks that way. Like for the Accidental Demon Slayer series, I developed the What’s Your Biker Witch Name quiz? It went viral, which has been a blast. You haven’t lived until you get emails from physicists in China telling you that their biker witch names are things like Wino Wally No Brakes and Two Date Tessa Hard Rider. And now for a shameless plug: you can get your biker witch name at: www.angiefox.com.

For Immortally Yours, I’m doing a quirky little viral program that is cracking me up right now because it is getting slightly out of control (which, in my world, means things are going well). I’m offering readers an interactive experience that centers around the news network that is covering the war.

In this new series, PNN is the paranormal version of CNN. So I’m basically setting up the “official” PNN website to be like The Onion, only paranormal. It allows me to have a blast, while giving readers a taste of the series and immersing them in the world of PNN.

The Giveaway
In fact, I’m centering my giveaway today around PNN. Just post your favorite headline from www.PNN-Network.com in the comments section below and you’re entered to win a signed copy of Immortally Yours!

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Angie Fox is the New York Times bestselling author of several books about vampires, werewolves and things that go bump in the night. She is best known for her Accidental Demon Slayer urban fantasy series. She is also writing a series about a group of paranormal M*A*S*H surgeons. The first book in the Monster MASH trilogy, Immortally Yours, is out now. The second book, Immortally Embraced, will be released in February 2013.

Angie's website
Twitter: @AngieFoxauthor
Facebook

Back in the USA

"You have to crawl before you can walk!"

That was the sage advice (at least I thought so) that I offered my son this afternoon as he worked on doing an 'ollie' (a jump) with his new skateboard although he can barely ride it for more than a few meters without having to jump off. He looked at me with that withering look that pre-teens reserve for their mothers when we try to impart out-dated wisdom.

"Nah," he responded, "I can walk first," then proceeded to execute a small jump on the board.

I left the US for just five years, but I feel like a time warp has occurred. So much of what was status quo has changed and I definitely have no time to spend crawling if I am going to catch up. Despite my IT background, I stuck my head in the sand before I left, refusing to acknowledge some developments - Blackberry (why did I need to have my email accessible 24-7?), rewinding live TV (how is that even possible?!) and self-check out (I still refuse to use this unless my groceries will cost less) are a few examples. Now I have kids coming to the house and expecting to find all the gadgets to which they are accustomed. They touch screens and wonder why there is no response and marvel at the fact that there is no Wii, PSP or other similar gadgets in my house (my poor, deprived children, I know.)

Now I have to catch up, I can't give my children definitive proof that they are smarter than I am! I have figured out why there is no one in the stores (except Target and Walmart). It's not the economy. Everyone is shopping online. You can browse, enlarge, order samples, check out competitors prices, read reviews and 'talk to an expert online'. Why leave home? I am sure that someone will soon create a way to send sensations so that will simmulate the item's smell and touch through your computer screen ... oops, did I just give away the idea behind my sci-fi novel?

All that being said, it is good to be back in the USofA and although the settling process has been a long one, I look forward to feeling like one of the natives very soon ... and getting back to a space where I can write.

ttyl :-).

Bye Bye Summer (a poem about the end of summer)

By far the most intimidating literary form, poetry has always been something I feared.  Writing a novel is one thing; page after page can be deftly spent exploring character and nuance.  Even short stories allow some wiggle room, but poetry suffers no literary fools.  Every word must evoke.  Every rhyme must chime.  And every stanza must foretell a bonanza.

But a writer must countenance no fear, so I put my quill to ink, and penned a peerless paean to the premature passing of summer.

Bye Bye, Summer

Bye bye, summer, you’re gone so fast,

But while you lasted, we had a blast.

No more time to sit on ass,

Time’s run out to siphon gas.

Bye bye, scuba

Bye bye, tuba

Empty the pool, it’s gross and murky,

And there’s nothing left we haven’t dried to make jerky.

Hoist the surfboard up onto its rack,

And bring the racehorse back to the track.

Bye bye, coyote

Bye bye, peyote

Stow the sleeping bags, we no longer need them,

Set loose the fighting dogs, we can’t afford to feed them.

Bid farewell to circus kin,

And drain the bathtub of homemade gin.

Bye bye, kippers

Bye bye, strippers

Bye bye, summer,

Bye bye.

For more exciting poems about the end of summer, or to learn more about cannibalistic sixteenth-century conquistador mummies, visit www.themummiesofblogspace9.com.

Perceptions of Beauty

As a romance writer, I have to write about beauty; in particular, the perception of beauty.  I have to transform my characters into people readers can fantasize about, and at the same time, make them human enough that readers can identify with.  In the past I succeeded in getting my readers to perceive a two hundred pound short woman as beautiful enough to deserve a HEA with a Nubian god… no easy task.  Though I am listed on this site as writing contemporary romance, most of my novels are multicultural in nature.  As a multicultural romance writer (and a person transplanted from one culture to another) one thing is obvious to me:  different cultures have different perceptions of beauty.

Let me give you two examples.  I am from the Caribbean island of St. Kitts where a woman with a large derrière is considered sexy irrespective of height. Here in America, being tall and slim is a trademark of beauty especially among some of the more dominant cultures, and a large backside is just "a fat a$$".  My family has a trademark large backside that they proudly tout and a tendency to gain weight on that area.  

Two years ago, after the weight gain of child birth I decided I was a little too plump. Through diet and exercise, I lost a significant amount of weight.  My family was shocked.  They described me as being “dried up” and bemoaned the fact that I lost the family trademark “assets”.  On the flip side, my American co-workers repeatedly complimented me on how wonderful I looked without the excess weight.  Some even were inspired to enter weight loss programs.  Two different reactions, two different cultures, two different perceptions of beauty. 

Another perception of beauty that is quite different is the existence of a gap in the front teeth.  I have a large gap between my front teeth.  In St. Kitts, and several other Caribbean Islands it is considered sexy.   But in the US, it is just ugly teeth.  No dentist that I had been to in St. Kitts ever offered to fix my gap.  Since coming to the US, every dentist has suggested that I get retainers to close my gap. I’ve responded to each in the same way, “In my culture, it’s a sign of beauty.”  An associate of mine, a migrant from the Caribbean with a pronounced gap between her front teeth recently succumbed to the pressure of her dentists.  She got retainers and after a year her gap was successfully closed.  I spoke about it with her and she had mixed feelings.  Her Caribbean friends were not as excited to see her gap removed as were her American friends.  Two different reactions, two different cultures, two different perceptions of beauty.

As a writer of multicultural romance, I have to ensure that I capture beauty in relation to the cultures that I am writing about, and the individuals I am writing about.  While a six foot tall woman with a 0 dress size, Double D cups and slim hips may be considered beautiful among some US cultures, in many Caribbean and some African cultures that woman is just top-heavy.  Some European cultures favor the blond hair, blue-eyed alabaster skin look and others, the raven black hair with the olive skin tone. In the photo above the wearing of a disc in the lip by women is a sign of beauty in the Suri culture (Ethiopia).  The bigger the lip disc, the more cattle she receives as a dowry in marriage.

 

In writing, we have to be cognizant of the different perceptions of beauty, especially when it is germane to the story.  How do I get around the different perceptions of beauty in my multicultural romances?  I emphasize the commonalities:  the internal beauty that manifests itself in things my characters do and say.  I make my readers fall in love with the personality of the character, not the physical attributes.  After a while, that person could be a bald headed sumo wrestler or a double amputee with scar tissue for a face, the reader feels the beauty emanating from that person.

How do you deal with different perceptions of beauty in your writing?

Working Exercise Into Your Writing Life

In 2010, I took a break from the 9 to 5 to write.  I figured it was now or never and, with careful planning, I could make it work.  So far, it's going well.  I've put out one novel, I have another on the way and I should soon finish a non-fiction work which has truly been a labour of love.  I've been quite the busy bee.  Whereas before I used to put a book out every three or four years, I've whittled that down significantly but I've noticed that the whittling down in one area has contributed to an expansion in another.  What on earth am I on about?  Well, to be blunt, my waistline is not now what it was three years ago.  It takes more of the measuring tape to go around me.  Yep, the hours of sitting before my computer pounding out stories or editing stories have taken a toll on my weight.

Now, you might think that this has really nothing to do with writing but I'd beg to differ and this is an interesting take on the connection between fitness and creativity.  The fact that as writers we often sit hunched over our computers, tapping away, can also take a toll on bodies.

Writing is a sedentary profession.  Perhaps the most sedentary.  At five a.m. I get up and go jogging for about twenty minutes then walk for a further twenty-five or thirty.  I have breakfast at seven and by eight I'm responding to mail, checking Facebook, etc..  By nine I've begun to work on whichever manuscript is taking my attention.  I stop for lunch at about twelve and then I'm back at the computer a half-hour or so later.  I continue working until about five or six.  (This is the summer schedule - from September I'll be stopping at around mid-day to home-school my daughter.  There isn't much activity involved in home-schooling either.)  This means that I've gained a few pounds, I won't say how many but it does mean that I'm not quite the same dress size I was just a few, short years ago.

So far, I've managed to avoid some of the health issues like diabetes and hypertension that have affected certain family members but I can't count on luck to keep on dodging the bullet of ill health.  Clearly, a burst of activity once a day isn't enough to keep the weight down so now I'm trying to incorporate brief periods of activity into my whole writing day.  Two or three times a day I log on to YouTube and dance along to a few zumba clips.  I've also bought a stepper and use it whenever I'm on the phone.  Twice a week or so, I skip for about ten minutes.  These are all in addition to the morning exercise. 

I don't have to walk to my car or walk from my car to my office building to reach my work.  Neither do I live in a mansion; it takes me less than a minute to walk from my bed to my computer.  Working at home has meant that I've got to work harder and more consciously at building exercise into my my daily life but I'm trying.  Any tips would be appreciated!

Cyberbullying & the ugly side of book reviews - Part 1

The craziness quotient on the Internet, and on book review sites in particular, is getting out of hand. 

Back in early 2006 I discovered a popular blog written by a literary agent, and for almost half a year I was addicted to its mix of snark, practical advice, humour and cameraderie. It wasn't long, however, before I discovered a disquieting underside to the blog. I'd never heard of cyberbullying then, but it was there that I first saw the phenomenon at work.

Some of the fans on the site were rabid in their attacks on anyone who challenged or dared to disagree with anything their idol, the literary agent, wrote. In her defence, the agent handled herself admirably even under dire provocation, and the time or two that she snapped it was both entertaining and understandable. It was some of her hardcore followers who were the problem.

The agent seemed particularly antagonistic to vanity presses and at one point she called for what amounted to a cyber attack against those she listed as the worst offenders. I think she herself must have been taken aback by what ensued: her loyal hordes ran off baying to do her bidding and bombard search engines with targeted blog posts and comments about the companies and personnel, linking back, I assume (I'm not too clear on the actual mechanics of cyber warfare), to the websites under scrutiny. 

If the exercise was meant to be an experiment in social engineering, it was successful beyond belief. Soon, the gleeful reports from the faithful started coming in: the articles, with their guided accusations, allegations and agreed-upon subject headings, soared to the top of the search rankings with an efficiency that had to be seen to be believed as page after page of the items posted by the bloggers pushed the normal results for the targeted presses further and further down the search rankings.

I was horrified. The agent had said that these presses preyed on clueless aspiring authors, but I wondered how much research her followers actually did for themselves before going on the attack. It seemed to me that they took the agent's evaluation of these companies and individuals at face value and ran with that. The 
entities may or may not have deserved the take-down, but that was not the main issue. What I found profoundly disturbing was that a mob blindly followed the instructions of someone they revered to inflict harm on other people without a second thought. History is soaked with the blood of those who were victims of blind obeisance such as this.

Fast forward to 2012 and the problem of cyberbullying on book review sites and blogs. A year or so ago a self-published writer made the rookie mistake of publicly taking a blog reviewer to task for a less than stellar review. News of the ensuing kerfuffle whizzed around the Internet and the writer was roundly castigated by hundreds of commenters on the blog. The frenzy snowballed as she kept popping up in the comment trail practically begging for more abuse, even descending to the use of profane language at times. 

That writer learned a hard lesson (at least, one hopes she did) about taking reviewers to task for their opinions of her work. Did it stop there? No. The truly disturbing part is what came after: many of those commenters sought out her book on Amazon and bombarded it with egregious, one-star reviews. The book may or may not have merited the reviews, but many of the reviewers never read it, and said as much. It was nothing short of a lynching, a gang-bang, a malicious and hysterical attack by a mob bent on destroying a writer because of her error in judgement on a blog. 

I've since learned that the reviewer gang-bang has become common on Amazon, Goodreads and other book sites. There are authors who live in terror of being targeted, and there are authors who have been targeted in the manner described, whose personal lives have been mined and disrupted, and who have been victims of death wishes, and even death threats. 

There are readers and reviewers who do and say stupid things. There are authors who do the same. While I support readers' rights to find a book - any book - not to their taste and rate it however they desire, forming gangs to 'take down' authors against whom they hold some grudge, or even random authors, is despicable and cowardly. 

There's another side to this. There are authors who don't play fair on the review sites and whose manipulation of the ratings may be contributing to the hostility of many readers/reviewers. In Part 2 we'll take a look at some of the abuses being perpetrated by authors.


I have a brand new Facebook page! All 'likes' appreciated. :) —Liane Spicer

How creative can creative nonfiction be?

I'm currently taking a course in creative nonfiction as I work toward my master of fine arts degree in creative writing. For me the mixing of 'creative' with 'nonfiction' is fraught with dangers – how creative can one be with the facts and still be telling the truth?

This past week I found myself among the minority in a debate over whether David Sedaris writes nonfiction. (For those who don't know Sedaris's work, I recommend starting with "Me Talk Pretty One Day," an anthology of his essays.) In his piece "Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa." Sedaris wrote that his life growing up in North Carolina had been so dull compared to his partner Hugh's upbringing as a child of the diplomatic corps stationed in various African nations that he coopted Hugh's childhood. Not out of a sense of wanting to be closer to his partner or out of any empathy for his partner's experiences; he deliberately presented events from Hugh's life as his own memories for no other reason that he found them more interesting than the truth – and by extension made him more interesting. Sedaris revealed that he routinely picks up other people's life experiences "like swiping change from on top of the dresser" and uses them as his own. To my mind this was an admission to breaking a rule, perhaps the rule for a journalist or essayist – that whenever reality is not what he'd like, he makes things up.

Strictly speaking, reality isn't always necessary for truth. There is a kind of truth that can be revealed through exaggeration or parody. In this regard stand-up comedy comes to mind. Mostly because I like stand-up – but the stand-up I like is that which holds up a mirror. One of my favorite devices for explaining our peculiar brand of racism here in the USofA is Christopher Titus's "I'm whitey and I apologize" routine. (Legally available in two parts here: part one and part two.) Most folks get it. As I'm sure most folks can think of at least one comedian whose humor illuminates truths that might not otherwise be seen. Or at least talked about.

There's also a breed of truth revealed in fiction. I suspect everyone has had the experience of being moved or enlightened by something in a novel or story that perhaps would not have affect them to the same degree if it had been prosaically stated. The same is true of song and poetry. As Chief Bromden so eloquently avers in Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: "It's true even if it didn't happen."

There are a lot of essayist whose work I enjoy who may address truth but make no claim to writing nonfiction. I'm a big believer in truth through humor. Garrison Keiller - taken in small, carefully monitored doses - comes to mind. His 'memories' of Lake Woebegone probably contain elements of truth – the bones beneath his stories, as it were. But his insights into human nature are conveyed and illustrated through the fiction he builds around what truth there is. Jon Stewart wouldn't be able to bare the heart of American politics as effectively as he does if The Daily Show was a nonfiction news program.

Even in nonfiction, reality and truth are not always linked. Journalists often create composite characters – particularly when the identifying individuals might put them in danger. For the most part we accept accounts in which time is telescoped, the pace of the narrative flow skipping over gaps of time where nothing relevant happened, creating the impression events were closer together than they were, as nonfiction.

In the 1970s Hunter S. Thompson's "gonzo journalism" introduced us all to a subjective, first person reporting told from so deep in the narrator's mind that his fantasies, fears, prejudices, and hopes were injected into the factual account – a stream of consciousness in a blender approach that nonetheless conveyed a true and trustworthy presentation of events as the reporter perceived them. We knew – and hopefully he did, too – that he never conversed with spokes-lizards for the administration or witnessed sequined weasels devour each other at a cocktail party. He was using metaphor to characterize and editorialize. But underlying his surreal imagery was a foundation, a soul, of truth as he understood it; he was being honest. As he said somewhere, and I'm paraphrasing: "None of the great journalists in history were objective. Thomas Payne, Mark Twain, H.L. Mencken, all knew journalism was a means of affecting their environment. I have never understood the worship of objectivity in journalism. Of course, flat-out lying is different from being subjective."

In each of these arenas of creative nonfiction – gonzo journalism, memoir, first-person accounts, remembrances, investigative reports, biographies - we as readers can accept that the writer sometimes uses composite characters and/or events to illustrate while protecting the privacy and perhaps safety of others and we (usually) have no problem with humor and/or exaggeration employed to make a point. We as readers take as a given that the writer is presenting truth is being honestly presented. (Note that opinion - from movie reviews to political 'analyses' - are not, strictly speaking, nonfiction. Those presentations of subjective impressions have their own rules.)

A creative nonfiction writer - or a creative writer of nonfiction - can use humor, exaggeration, parody, composite characters, telescoped timelines or even reordered events and still give her readers an honest and insightful experience. A writer cannot pass off things she has made up when the truth does not suit her purposes and still call what she writes nonfiction.

What about you? What admixture of 'creative' do you think is acceptable in nonfiction. At what point and under what conditions does creative nonfiction go over the line into fiction?