Saturday, October 24, 2015

INDIE AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: KSENIA ANSKE



Q: Ksenia...what made you become a writer?

A: Oh, it's a very long story. The short version of it is this: I was depressed, I wanted to kill myself, my therapist told me to journal, so I started writing in a journal, by hand, in English, and that unlocked something, and I still can't shut up. 

Q: What is your typical writing day like?

A: It's really very simple: I wake up, I get my coffee, and I start writing. I don't stop until I produce 2K words or spend 4 hours writing. Sometimes it spills to 5 hours or more. Then I stop and do a bit of social media (like bragging about how many words I wrote), study the etymology and meanings of the new words I learned from reading the night before, scan some literary news, then eat a snack, then read for 3 hours or at least 100 pages, then it's dinner and family time, then I might write a blog post, then I meditate and exercise and read what I wrote to my partner Royce. We talk about it, then it's bed time and the next morning everything repeats. I don't break for weekends or holidays until the draft is done. 

Q: Do you outline? If so, how extensive are your outlines?

A: No. I used to, with my first trilogy, only to come to hate the process. I like writing not knowing what happens next. It's like reading a book. I want to turn the page and get all excited. Where is the fun in knowing what will happen ahead of the time? 

Q: How many revisions will you typically do on a novel? 

A: From 4 to 5. So far. Maybe the current novel I'm writing will take more than that. Each revision is a complete rewrite from start to finish. I go through it from beginning to end like I'm reading a book (again). I'd like to slow down and do more revisions, but by draft 4-5 my brain usually is urging me onto the next story and I can't help it. I have to let the current story go or I'll go crazy. 

Q: What is your best tip for editing a manuscript?

A: Read aloud what you write as you're writing it. I wish I knew this earlier, it would've saved me so many hours of revisions. You can't see the sound of your words, can't get the rhythm right unless you actually hear what you write. This is especially true for dialogue. Try it. You'll never go back to your old methods again. 

Q: Which writing habits and/or tricks of the trade have made you a better writer?

A: Reading. When I started writing, I read Stephen King's On Writing and followed his words ever since: "If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that." I have learned so much in the last 3 years of writing full-time, but aside from this I have also been reading full-time, and all my tricks I have picked up are from reading. One, to know that what's unsaid is more important than what is said and that only multiple rewrites will get you to the point where you know exactly what to leave in and what to cut out. Two, that people don't say what they mean most of the time and it takes a long time to get to know your characters so you can understand how they talk. Three, that no book is perfect and it's okay to simply write what comes to your head. Four, that big complicated words don't matter. Five, that grammar rules. Six, that writing every day is what makes your voice sound consistent. Seven, that none of us really know what we do but we do it anyway, and that's okay. Well, I can write a whole book of tricks here, so I better stop. 

Q: Do you ever suffer through writer’s block? If so, how do you fight it?

A: I don't believe in writer's block. I believe it's a convenient myth to hide behind to justify your procrastination. Ever heard of an accountant having an accounting block? Neither have I. Writing is a job and most days it's tedious and exhausting and boring. The glamour around writing is yet another myth concocted by wannabes, I would suspect, or those who believe that the process of birthing a book is like waving a magic wand and having it pop out of thin air complete with a muse carrying it to you on a silver platter. Unfortunately, it's not like that at all. It takes a great deal of discipline and focus to sit alone, day in and day out, with your own inadequacies and deficiencies and flaws staring you in the face from the screen, or from a piece of paper if you write by hand or type. No one you can blame for it but yourself. It's hard to stomach, this truth, so people chicken out and then tell their friends they have writer's block and their friends feel sorry for them and so on. Aside from this little treatise I gave you just now, I do get scared of not knowing what happens next and I end up staring at the screen for too long without producing words, so I get up and get a cup of tea or eat some dried squirrels for a snack (I catch them myself), and by the time I'm back I usually have a good idea what to write next. That's as much as I've been blocked. 

Q: What drew you to write your preferred genre(s)?

A: I get asked this all the time and all the time I scratch my head before answering. You know the simple truth? When I started writing, I had only the vaguest idea about genres. I simply wrote what wanted to get out of me, dark magical horrors that wouldn't let me sleep. It was only after I have published my first trilogy that people told me it’s urban fantasy, and about my later books they told me it’s magical realism with a touch of horror. So I guess that's what it is! I would say, I write Ksenia Anske because that's what Ksenia Anske prefers, damn her. 

Q: Do you utilize beta readers?

A: Oh, yes. Big time. At first I didn't even know that's what they were called. All my drafts I post on my site for anyone who wants to read them. If they give me feedback, great! I read through it and if it rings true, I apply it to the next draft. 

Q: In your most recently published novel, what’s one scene you really enjoyed writing—and why?

A: The boys fight in Castle Dracula, the scene from The Badlings. There are three of them, the boys, and Dracula locked them in a room while he had a mind of sinking his teeth into their friend Bells, and they want to save her, naturally, but Peacock was acting as a coward the whole time and so Rusty wants to give him his piece of mind only it turns into a scuffle where Peacock is acting a sissy and Rusty beats him up. Grand, the bigger of the three, instead of stopping the fight allows himself to revel in what Peacock had coming to him. I laughed so hard writing this, I would have tears in my eyes. I was itching for this to happen and it gave me an immense satisfaction to write it, waving my arms about and grunting like I was fighting myself. 

Q: What makes the main character(s) of your most recent novel so special?

A: Bells? She is a very strong-willed girl who doesn't take no for an answer and is not afraid of taking risks. It's one of my own traits and I delighted in writing a character where I could magnify it and make it her core. She's bossy, she wants to be a scientist when she grows up and because her mother disapproves of that decision, she runs away from home "to show her." A rebel! I love rebels.

Q: What is your best advice for author self-promotion?

A: Be yourself. Share yourself and make friends instead of trying to sell your book to anyone who happens to talk to you. It's off-putting. But if someone happens to know more about you, they will be willing to spend time to find out more about you, and that time is precious. It's worth more than money, more than the sale of your book. Cherish it. Thank for it. And you will convert a passerby into a guest, a guest into a friend, a friend into a reader, a reader into a fan. 

Q: How do you deal with negative reviews?

A: They don't bother me. I have only a few and they're not that negative, really, just people misunderstanding why I wrote the book or misunderstanding the story. It's an opinion. There are millions of opinions. Let them have it. It doesn't mean that I should stop writing or should change my writing. I write for myself. What does it matter what people think? If they love it, great! I'm elated! If not, then they should read something they love, not my books, and feel happy. Life is too short to read books you don't like.  

Q: What is your favorite aspect of being an indie author?

A: Control. I have control over my story, my covers, my marketing methods, my publishing decisions. I own my books and I can do whatever I want with them. It's a heady feeling, really. Makes you dizzy at first, then happy, very happy. 

Q: What is your least favorite aspect of being an indie author?

A: I can't just thrown up my arms and take time off and not do work for a day. If I don't talk about my work daily, if I don't produce work every day, people will forget about me and then I'm screwed, so sometimes I wish I could hand it over to someone and take a break. But I can't. 

Q: What is your current writing project?

A: I'm writing the second draft of TUBE: Trans-Urban Blitz-Express, a novel about a train that is killing its passengers one by one, those passengers being Russian ballerinas on tour across the United States. A nice sweet story, right? Not bloody at all. I have started writing it while on the train during my Amtrak residency. I was lucky enough to be selected as one of the 24 winners and I will remember that trip for the rest of my life. It was fantastic. 

Q: What are three of your favorite novels?

A: Oh, that is a cruel cruel question. It's impossible to pick only three as time goes by and I read so many books that every year I have different favorites. Let's say that so far this year the three novels that I fell in love with are The Slynx by Tatyana Tolstaya, The Road by Cormac McCarthy, and Matilda by Roald Dahl. 

Q: If you could have lunch with any novelist, living or dead, who would it be? What would talk to them about? 

A: It used to be Neil Gaiman, but I already talked to him. So now it’s Stephen King. We'd probably talk about dead bodies. I'd tell him spooky Russian stories and he'd tell me spooky American stories and maybe I will learn from him how to stop being afraid of my writing and just write. 

Q: What is your best piece of advice for budding authors?

A: Write and read every day, that's all there is to it. If you do enough of it, and if you do it continuously and won't give up, one day you will get so good, people won't be able to ignore you. 

Q: What is your favorite inspirational quote? 

A: The quote that my daughter sent me once when I was feeling down and hated my writing. I reread it every time I start doubting myself and feel better again. It's the quote by Ira Glass: "Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me. All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste. But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good. It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer. And your taste is why your work disappoints you. A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit. Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this. We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this. And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know it's normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story. It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions. And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met. It’s gonna take awhile. It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.”

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Tuesday, October 6, 2015

INDIE AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: BIANCA SCARDONI




Q: Bianca...what made you become a writer?

A. I've always been fascinated with words and how powerful they could be when put together the right way. Since as far back as I can remember, I loved writing. I loved telling stories. I loved creating worlds. I loved everything about it, really. And I wrote all the timepoems, short-stories, screenplays, you name it... I even built an online community for writers and started sharing my writing there. Oddly enough, as much as I immersed myself in it, and surrounded myself with it, it never occurred to me that it was something I could actually do for a living until many years later. 

Q: What is your typical writing day like?

A. Scattered and messy. My days are filled with dirty diapers and spit-up so I usually spend most of the day thinking about writing but not actually getting anything done. Evenings are my favorite time to write. Everyone is asleep and the house is finally quiet enough to let my characters come out and play. 

Q: Do you outline? If so, how extensive are your outlines?

A. I usually do a quick and dirty outline so that I have a basic overview of where my story is going. Of course, it rarely ever stays on track but that's all part of the fun. 

Q: How many revisions will you typically do on a novel?

A. I'm a compulsive editor; almost to the point where it's crippling. I can stay fixated on a scene or even a paragraph for days. I try to set rules for myself (just keep writing, edit later) but I rarely ever follow them. 

Q: What is your best tip for editing a manuscript?

A. Pay someone to do it. 

Q: Which writing habits and/or tricks of the trade have made you a better writer?

A. Shutting everything off. Distractions are procrastination's best friend. When it's time to write, I unplug all my devices and turn off all my electronics so that I have no other option but to write. 

Q: Do you ever suffer through writer’s block? If so, how do you fight it?

A. Definitely. I think mine usually stems from the pressure I put on myself to get it just right—make it perfect. When I'm in that space, I try to step away from my work and find ways to decompress. Music, reading, going for long drives...whatever helps me lessen the tension.

Q: What drew you to write your preferred genre(s)?

A. YA fiction and paranormal romances have always been my favorite genres to read so I think it was only natural that I would gravitate towards those genres in my own writing. 

Q: Do you utilize beta readers?

A. Yes. They're hard to find but definitely worth the effort. They help spot any inconsistencies early on, and also give me the motivation I need to make that final push through the painstaking editing phase.

Q: In your most recently published novel, what’s one scene you really enjoyed writing—and why?

A. In Inception, probably the kissing scene between the two main characters, Jemma and Trace. There was so much build-up and tension between the two that it was almost a release to finally let them have their moment. However short-lived it was. 

Q: What makes the main character(s) of your most recent novel so special?

A. I think she's a down-to-earth girl with a good head on her shoulders. She doesn't sit back and watch things happen to her. She fights for what she wants, but doesn't go after it blindly or at the expense of others. 

Q: What is your best advice for author self-promotion?

A. Get it in as many hands as you can. Give it away for free. Get bloggers to review it. Promote it on social networking sites like Facebook or Goodreads. Do whatever you have to do to get people to read it. And then pray like hell that it spreads like wildfire. 

Q: How do you deal with negative reviews?

A. I remind myself that negative reviews are inevitable. Not everyone will like my book (or the writing style, or cover, or main character, etc....) and that's okay. It doesn't mean it isn't good or that the next person won't enjoy it. It just wasn't for that particular person. 

Q: What is your favorite aspect of being an indie author?

A. I like having control over my writing. 

Q: What is your least favorite aspect of being an indie author?

A. Promoting myself. It isn't very fun and I'm not very good at it. 

Q: What is your current writing project?

A. I'm currently working on the second book in my series, The Marked.

Q: What are three of your favorite novels?

A. Pride and Prejudice has always been my top. My contemporary favorites change quite often, but right now I'd say Angelfall by Susan Ee, and Easy by Tammara Webber.

Q: If you could have lunch with any novelist, living or dead, who would it be? What would talk to them about?

A. Although technically a playwright, I would choose William Shakespeare. I'd love to hear the real story behind his work and personal life. If I had to choose an actual novelist, Stephen King would definitely be at the top of my list. 

Q: What is your best piece of advice for budding authors?

A. Don't let anyone get in your way. We all face roadblocks at one point or another. Just remember that those roadblocks are there to stop the other guys from getting throughthe ones who didn't want it bad enough. The ones who didn't have what it took to persevere. They're not there for you so just push them aside and keep on going. 

Q: What is your favorite inspirational quote?

A. "You fail only if you stop writing." -Ray Bradbury

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Thursday, October 1, 2015

INDIE AUTHOR SPOTLIGHT: MYLO CARBIA



MYLO CARBIA (also known as “The Queen of Horror”) is an American screenwriter turned #1 bestselling author widely known for her work in the horror, thriller and science fiction genres. Born and raised in Jackson, New Jersey, Carbia spent her childhood years writing to escape the horrors of growing up in a haunted house. Her very first screenplay was optioned 28 days after completion, earning Carbia a "three picture deal" and the cover of Hollywood Scriptwriter in 2003. After that time, she quietly penned numerous film projects under her production company Zohar Films, earning the reputation of being Hollywood’s Number One Horror Film Ghostwriter. In September (2015), her debut novel The Raping of Ava DeSantis hit #1 Bestseller in New Releases and #1 Bestseller in American Horror weeks before its official release date, and continues to receive critical acclaim from both avid readers and critics worldwide.

Q: Mylo...what made you become a writer?

A: As a child I grew up in a haunted house and found writing to be my only escape. Writing was my therapy. It was a cry for help. It was the only way I could communicate with others as to what was going on without telling people the truth. In 1979, you could not tell people that your house was severely haunted. Movies like The Exorcist and Amityville Horror had everyone talking about how horrible it would be to know someone like that. So anyone who had paranormal experiences like me did not speak about it, except to a few of my closest friends and immediate family.

Q: What is your typical writing day like?

A: My daily routine changes based on family obligations, but now I mainly write from 5:00 am - 3:00 pm and 6:00 pm - 9:00 pm. I can write very late at night but I only edit very early in the morning.

Q: Do you outline? If so, how extensive are your outlines?

A: I started out as a screenwriter so I prefer to write a screenplay first and use it as my outline before tackling the novel.

Q: How many revisions will you typically do on a novel?

A: I am a Dean Koontz sort of perfectionist who rewrites the same page a million times before moving on to the next one, which isn't always a good practice. It can slow down the editing process to a snail dance. I am training myself to change this habit in order to meet my deadline of seven more books over the next three years.

Q: What is your best tip for editing a manuscript?

A: Always go with your first instinct. It's always the right choice.

Q: Which writing habits and/or tricks of the trade have made you a better writer?

A: Hollywood demands a certain type of story and I use that mindset when writing novels as well. Something must happen within the first ten pages. The story needs to bend, twist and turn many times before its unexpected conclusion. These are all strategies I used in screenwriting, and now I use them in writing novels as well.

Q: Do you ever suffer through writer’s block? If so, how do you fight it?

A: Writer's block is just your intuition telling you: Hey, you're on the wrong track. Make a change in direction and move forward.

Q: What drew you to write your preferred genre(s)?

A: Growing up in a haunted house definitely made me a horror writer. No doubt about it.

Q: Do you utilize beta readers?

A: No way. I don't want any outsider to influence my story. That's the main reason I left screenwriting — producers, directors, studio executives, actors — everyone changes your story before the audience gets to experience it. People who paint for a living don't ask others if the leaves should be green or purple, they simply make the choice. The only exception to this rule is that my editor and publisher read the early versions of my work and make recommendations. Luckily, they "get me" so we don't have any major issues.

Q: In your most recently published novel, what’s one scene you really enjoyed writing—and why?

A: With The Raping of Ava DeSantis I loved writing the whole damn thing! I just love writing revenge stories, probably because I am a triple Scorpio. But if I had to pick one scene it would definitely be the one where the three fraternity brothers wake up the next morning and realize what they did to Ava the night before. What they do in attempt to clean up the evidence will stay in people's minds forever.

Q: What makes the main character(s) of your most recent novel so special?

A: Ava DeSantis will probably be my favorite character for a long time in that she's my first baby in the literary world. She transforms from a shy, unattractive, nerdy college student to a gorgeous, badass, wealthy serial killer. Doesn't get any better than that.

Q: What is your best advice for author self-promotion?

A: Hire a publicist if you can afford it. They come in all shapes and sizes, so even a hungry marketing major in college will do an amazing job on social media for just a hundred bucks a week.

Q: How do you deal with negative reviews?

A: I'm pretty thick skinned when it comes to reviews. I know my writing is not for everyone, so a person who only loves Disney movies probably won't like my books. I hope the subject matter of my novels make it clear up front that we're in for a wild ride, folks.
  
Q: What is your current writing project?

A: My next horror novel is called "Violets Are Red" and tells the story of a middle-aged housewife who kidnaps her husband's young mistress and quietly keeps her prisoner in the basement. I am in the process of writing it now and can't wait to release it next summer. It's a shocker, even to me!

Q: What are three of your favorite novels?

A: Harry Potter And The Deathly Hallows (JK Rowling), The Shining (Stephen King) and Ghost Story (Peter Straub).

Q: If you could have lunch with any novelist, living or dead, who would it be? What would talk to them about?

A: I would have lunch with Stephen King, of course. My writing is often compared to his so I would ask him how the hell he gets so many books out each year. I am fascinated with his super-human ability to produce such a volume of good prose. I want some of that mental mojo to rub off on me over brisket.

Q: What is your best piece of advice for budding authors?

A: First study the "Law of Attraction" to understand how you can achieve any goal in life with the power of positive thinking coupled with hard work. This is a non-negotiable. As a writer, you will face many odds against you and the only people who will make it are those that believe they will without a doubt. My favorite Law of Attraction books are Ask and It Is Given by Esther & Jerry Hicks, The Secret by Rhonda Byrne and Think And Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill. I have read about thirty books on the subject, but those three are by far the most straightforward and easiest to understand.

Q: Why do they call you "The Queen of Horror"?

A: The nickname came from a paparazzo who yelled it to me while I was on the red carpet of an Academy Awards party a few years back. The Examiner printed it and it stuck. I have always loved the idea of being a princess, so what the hell. Queen is even better. 

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