AFTER RESONANCE with AUTHOR J. SCOTT SHARP

Author Bio:  J. SCOTT SHARP has been writing for much of his considerable life, but only just now, decided to take it seriously at 47.  This makes him a little crazy.  He lives in Arizona with his wife and two dogs, where he splits his time between watching TV on DVD, working,  and writing.  He is the author of short stories, Not Even There, Three Blackbirds, and Cold-Blooded.  The List of Five is his first novella.

1.  How have role-playing games or comic books shaped or inspired your imagination as a kid, and later, the process of story or character-building?

JSS:  I already had an active imagination as a kid, and I loved anything that helped me get that imagination going.  However, role-playing helped me to realize that no one is purely evil and everyone is doing something toward a goal and because of a certain paradigm that has been nourished in them.  This is important in character-building.  Everyone has a reason that they do things. The other thing that role-playing helped me with was that I was severely introverted (and still am).  Role-playing helped me to become less shy.

2.  During the years you wouldn't allow yourself to write, how did the impulse insist on showing up or revealing itself to you? 

JSS:  I have wanted to write since I was 3.  Now I'm 47.  Over the years, I would have a story idea come to me, fully-formed, and think that I should sit down and write it.  Psychologically, I just couldn't because I was afraid that people wouldn't like it.  I am never without story ideas.  They always come to me.  It just took me a long time to decide that I wasn't going to let anyone hijack my life anymore.  I took my life back, and when I did I started doing the one thing that was always in my heart to do.

THE LIST OF FIVE by J. SCOTT SHARP

Author's Creative Brand:  "The List of Five"
Genre:  YA Horror / Fantasy
Length:  125 pages
Self-published

My 9 Reader Hot-Button Considerations:

1.  World's Immersion:

We take a seat at the table of J.Scott Sharp's role-playing game of imaginative youth.  Awkward geek socialization finds safe haven in acceptance and juvenile hierarchy.  This table of clattering dice and characterization, with inference to meaningful quests brought to mundane Life, becomes the preamble bubble about-to-burst.

Arizona is a blazing hot place, both in environment, as well as in the trials of tweens growing up in a harsh world.  Parents can die on you early, cult predators can swoop in to prey on developing minds, and friends can hide intimate wounds one only notices when looking a little closer than expected.

Playing at being heroic shifts with the unraveling of a recurring dream that assaults Richie Lyons' senses, forcing the young protagonist to examine messages bombarding his brain beyond an imagination game. Heroism becomes the shouldering of psychic burdens alone, as in the silence of youth grappling with issues beyond maturing capability; finally, pain transforms into action, heading off one damning prophecy of fire...

AFTER RESONANCE with AUTHOR RACHEL THOMPSON

Author Bio:  RACHEL THOMPSON is the author of the award-winning Broken Pieces as well as two additional humor books, A Walk in the Snark and Mancode: Exposed.  She also owns BadRedheadMedia, creating effective social media and book marketing campaigns for authors.  Her articles appear regularly in the San Francisco Book Review (BadRedhead Says...) 12Most.com, bitrebels.com, BookPromotion.com, and Self Publishing Monthly.  She hates walks in the rain, running out of coffee, and coconut.  She lives in California with her family.

1.  What bands or music have been you Life's blood at various times in your Life?

RT:  I started listening to Poe's HAUNTED when it came out over ten years ago, and have pretty much listened to it at least weekly since.  I'm also a fan of female singer/songwriters like Jonatha Brookes, Fisher, and Imogen Heap.  That said, I adore 70's rock:  Pink Floyd, Eagles, Heart, Moody Blues, ELO, even Foreigner and Styx -- all the really early stuff.

2.  When you consider your books, A WALK IN THE SNARK, and THE MANCODE: EXPOSED, what were those deciding factors that told you how you wished to emerge as an indie author, and how has your creative brand been received out there?

RT:  Relationships have always fascinated me, and writing about them comes naturally to me.  I started as a blogger in 2008 and found my voice and my audience.  Humor and tragedy and structures that I've studied and worked to combine for years.  If you look at classic Greek structure or even Shakespeare, many times these elements are present in a single story.

BROKEN PIECES by RACHEL THOMPSON

Author's Creative Brand:
"Broken Pieces"
Genre:  Expressionist Cathartic Essays
Length: 113 pages
Self-Published

My 9 Reader 'Hot-Button' Considerations:

1.  World's Immersion:

"We bring what we wring."  Many authors will do everything they possibly can to write away from who they are.  Authors will wear the guise of character, subtly playing truths about what they actually know about living...not so, Rachel Thompson, with her courageous BROKEN PIECES.  The author unlatches dead-bolts to her own inner rooms, inviting readers through the door for a guided tour of her emotional dimensions.

Reading into these pages will sift deeply into the terrains of a damaging, addictive love.  The throes of heated passion spill over into shards of hurtful confusion.  A quirky fragility blossoms into womanhood, plucked at by the stalking, and untrustworthy.  An examination of ignorance or psychological terrorism...also finds those moments of transformation when trust renews, and hidden strengths stand up and over the shadows.

We will recognize these interconnected places of the heart.  When we admit to ourselves that we have walked in our own darkness...how we have tripped and fallen in awkward uncertainty of ourselves...and why, when the pain hurts in that strangely exquisite way, do we go back for the ecstatic bruising of a dangerous allure...these are the intersects where we meet Author Rachel Thompson in her brazen honesty.

SELF-PUBLISHING CHALLENGES "LITERATURE"

There has been a firestorm of reaction sparked over the viewpoint expressed by Good E-Reader's Editor in Chief, that "Self-Published Authors are Destroying Literature."  An outrage from independent authors weighed in on the inconsistencies of the editor's incendiary opinion.  What followed has been expression in a wide range of indie validating angles and inspired observations.

In fact, despite a condescending gauntlet cast by the Good E-Reader editor, inspiration may be found in this re-examination of what the e-book revolution means to traditional Literature. What lasting effect will this self-publishing paradigm swing have, to the overall quality or literary lifespan of The Book?

Taste is highly subjective, and in publishing, more a reflection of individual editor or company parameters, than being emblematic of public consciousness. Even with 'educated taste,' classic rejections from the gate-keepers of traditional publishing, have at times, nearly blocked some of the most worthy novels from ever reaching appreciative eyes of the reading public...

CEPHRAEL'S HAND by MELISSA MCPHAIL

AUTHOR’S CREATIVE BRAND

Title:  CEPHRAEL’S HAND

Genre:  Epic Romantic Fantasy 

Pages:  634

Outskirts Press

MY 9 READER “HOT-BUTTON” CONSIDERATIONS

WORLD’S IMMERSION:

We are directed by author Melissa McPhail, to enter this fifth Age in the Realm of Alorin.  As in all competent high-fantasy writing, rules exist and delineate the nature of this world; in Ms. McPhail’s weaving hands, illuminating designs are woven together as puzzling, intersecting strands of mystery.  Alorin is drenched in magic but only revealed, in lifting veils of revelation as to these components.  I could clarify what those five strands are for you, but from what I know of discerning fantasy Readers, such key details are best left to be discovered “going in…”

A geography of politics and myth combine to comprise a multilevel, world-at-war, at once tactile and energetic in Nature.  On ground level, the kingdom of M’Nador, supported by allied kingdoms, Dannym and Veneisia, are in conflict with the Akkad; a battle at The Cry is where we are initially thrust into the action. This war is not simply a clash of forces, but one of beliefs, as M’Nador is also at war to push back the teachings of Akkad’s Prophet.  On a higher plane of awareness, beyond the bleeding grunts of the desert, drapes the tragedy of The Adept Wars; this historic clash, of high magic and blood-shed, all leads back to an ancient citadel, and the current awakening of what is dying in Alorin.

Whether one is in search with Trell of the Tides, dipping down into elemental uncertainty of a node with Franco Rohre, happening upon mystical retreat of powerful beings in a sa’reyth, contemplating incandescent Illume Belliel, or simply following the ethereal passage of a fire princess… Readers are stepping inside the totality of CEPHRAEL’S HAND: A Pattern of Shadow & Light, Book 1.  This conception captivates the imagination with story-telling of impressive scope and invention...

"THE NEXT BIG THING"

Writing my meta-novel tends to be a solitary process.  So when Melissa McPhail, author of "A Pattern of Shadow & Light," series invited me to "The Next Big Thing," it was an honor and a pleasure.

The first novel in the series by Melissa McPhail, Cephrael's Hand, is a monumental achievement of epic fantasy world-building, which recently evolved into book 2: The Dagger of Adendigaeth.

Ms. McPhail, who lives in Oregon, was tagged by Clive Eaton of Norfolk, England ~ sci-fi based, mystery-thriller author of The Pyramid Legacy, which has attained a #1 ranking on GoodReads.

These invitations beyond borders, link international writers with a common passion for their works-in-progress.  All are considering this same 10 question interview. Here are my own 10 questions answered:

1. What is the working title of your next book?  

A DISTANCE TRAVELED

2.  Where did the idea come from for the book?

I was tapped on the shoulder by a searching character with something crucial to consider; I listened to his energetic ranting for a good long time, trying to understand his potential.  He led me through an underground of fringe eccentrics much like himself.  I thought this was "his thing."  Once I thought I knew what he wanted, I created the matrix for his world to express themes he felt I'd be compelled by as a novelist...until he made an unexpected choice.