Meet the Authors of Olivia's Escape

 We were recently asked some questions about our writing and our methods as writers. Here are our responses:

Are you a full-out plotter? Are you a "let's see what happens" pantser? Or do you think you fall somewhere in between? Describe your process in coming up with and executing a story idea.

Adrian says: I'm by nature a pantser. I will plot things out if necessary, like when I'm writing a murder mystery. I don't really have a process in coming up with a story idea. They come to me from out of the ether--in the middle of the night sometimes--and then I write the story idea down.

Cindy says: I have to admit to being a "let's see what happens" pantser. I've tried to be more methodical and plot things out in detail, but somehow the characters always take me by the hand and lead me down another path. They just start "talking" to me as I write the scene, and they tell me they're not going to do as I want them to do. (Very much like children, it seems!) I'm not sure I have a set process for coming up with story ideas, but I read quite widely and expose myself to a lot of different people and subjects as a freelance writer/editor, so I'm constantly being inundated with potential characters and stories. Once I get a feel for "a character who has a story that needs telling" I start to envision the opening scene with my main characters and allow myself to be taken on a ride from there.


**Where is the most interesting place you have ever traveled? If you haven't traveled much, where would you absolutely love to go?

Together we've traveled to several Civil War battlefields and sites, such as

Wilson's Creek in Missouri, Lookout Mountain/Chattanooga in Tennessee and Chickamauga and Kennesaw National Battlefields in Georgia. Recently, we stopped off at both the Gettysburg and Antietam National Battlefields. (Hint: Try not to tour both of these within 48 hours--there's way too much to see at each to do them justice.) We're hoping to return to both of them someday soon and visit other Civil War sites in Virginia and West Virginia as well.

We both used to do French and Indian War re-enactments, so we really enjoy touring historical places and speaking with others about the significance of what happened there and the historical personalities involved. When we were in England visiting Adrian's family, we enjoyed touring castles and other historical sites in County Norfolk.


**What have you never written about, but want to some day?

Adrian: I've had the idea for a SF story knocking around for years, but haven't got around to writing it beyond working up a few notes.

Cindy: I've always wanted to write a more "hard science fiction" novel about a near future that may or may not come about and the consequences of our actions in bringing such a world into existence. I'm not saying it would be Orwellian in tone, but it probably would be much more "serious" than anything I've been able to publish so far (in fiction at least).

**Describe for us how it felt the first time you actually completed a manuscript.

Adrian: Jubilant! There's nothing better for me as a writer than the moment when I type "The End."

Cindy: I think I was shocked the first time I completed a romantic-comedy novel. It had taken some time to write that first draft (as I had two very young daughters underfoot at the time) and my first thought was, "What do I do now?" Luckily, I joined a writer's group not too long after finishing that book, and I learned a lot about rewriting and polishing a manuscript for publication, so much so that I eventually sold the book, The Fixer-Uppers. (And it is still in print/e-print, too. You can read about it at my contemporary/fantasy romance persona's website www.cynthianna.com.) 

**Did you write stories or make up stories as a child? Do you remember what any of them were about? Tell us...

Adrian says: I did write a short story at age 8 or 9. It was about the pilot of a 1930's Grumman Goose seaplane who discovers pirate treasure in the South Seas. I can even remember the title - "Barry Linton's Treasure." I might just revisit the idea as a full YA novel one of these days, although the 80's TV series "Tales of the Gold Monkey" seems to have stolen my idea!

Cindy says: Oh, did I ever make up stories when I was a child! I remember my mother helped me write my first "picture book," which was a story about a dining table full of talking objects who came to life late at night… 

The salt and pepper shakers were characters, as was the butter in the butter dish and the sugar bowl, etc. I drew the pictures in blue ball-point, as I recall, on scrap paper, and my mom wrote the words of my story beside the pictures and bound the pages all together, and I then made proper cover for it. (I was about four or five years old, and we didn't learn to write until first grade way back when. We didn't even have to attend kindergarten!) 

I hope I can find the remnants of my first "book" someday in all the boxes of nostalgia I've inherited from my late mother, but I fear it's long been lost. Still, I am ever so proud to say I "wrote and illustrated" my own book before I even attended school.


**Consider the main character in the last book you had published with DBP. What was different or special about him or her?

Olivia is different from a lot of our other heroines because she's 1) a young adult (age 17 in the first book) and not a mature adult (as we both usually are drawn to write), and 2) she's a strong person who acts on the courage of her convictions. 

That's not say Olivia is a person without self-doubts--because all of us question our own motives from time to time--but Olivia is special in that she has the innocence of her childhood and the love of her family fresh in her mind when she faces the challenges of being abducted and taken to an alien world. Her bravery is genuine and not jaded by a long past that many older characters have. In other words, she hasn't grown overly cynical. 

Olivia feels free to take a moral stand and to do whatever is necessary to bring about change on BloodDark to help her new friends and her new love, Hernando, survive and thrive there. It's quite refreshing to write from the perspective of a young and positive heroine who has the energy and guts to tackle challenges without shying away from them.

**Do you have a favorite inspirational quote/scripture/poem that you feel motivates you?

Adrian:
I like this quote:
"We are all of us lying in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars." --Oscar Wilde

Cindy: My favorite poem is "Success" by Ralph Waldo Emerson. Its last stanza is particularly motivating:

"To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded."

Be sure to check out our latest release, Olivia's Escape, from Desert Breeze Publishing!

Book Review--The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder

The Selected Letters of Laura Ingalls Wilder by William Anderson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A book of letters? Why would I want to read someone's mail? Hey, it's much more fascinating and revealing that you'd first believe. As a big Laura Ingalls Wilder fan (since childhood), I was enthralled to learn details of her life "behind the fiction" and how her daughter, journalist Rose Wilder Lane, was perhaps the undisclosed ghostwriter of her classic children's literature. Recommended for all Laura fans and others who are interested in seeing the process behind a writer's goal of creating a book series to preserve American history.

View all my reviews

I Pirated a Book

 

Sponsored by 50 Shades of Great(ness)

I Pirated a Book

Lyrics by Cindy A. Matthews (Sung to the tune of I Started a Joke by the Bee Gees)

I pirated a book

Which started the author crying

But I didn't see

That the joke was on me, oh no

Downloaded the book

Which started the hackers laughing

Oh, if I'd only seen

That the pirates had me

I looked at my files

Running my hands over my eyes

I fell out of my chair

Hitting the screen from things that I'd seen

‘Til my machine was fried

Which started the hackers laughing

Oh, if I'd only seen

That the pirates had me

I looked at my files

Running my hands over my eyes

And I started to cry

Hitting the screen from things that I'd seen

My device’s totally fried

Which started the authors writing

Oh, if I'd only seen, oh yeah

That the pirates had me, oh no

That the pirates had me, oh…

(Copyright 2015 by Cindy A. Matthews. Please do not re-post without my permission. With apologies to the incomparable Robin Gibb. Can’t you just hear him singing this in his emotion-filled falsetto?)

Why this filk of a classic Bee Gees’ song? The idea came to me one evening after a fellow author shared a link to a book pirate site where thousands of books (ebooks and print)  were being pirated. Guess what? Every single title that I had ever published (fiction, non-fiction, and children’s) was being pirated there. From my dwindling sales, I never realized how popular I was!

If you don’t know what “pirating books” (or ebooks, films, songs, etc.) means, it means that someone or some group of persons has stolen the electronic files of my books and were posting them without my permission or my publishers’ permission. Stolen books given away for free don’t make the author any royalties. This means the writer/publisher isn’t getting paid for the stolen copies. This is lost revenue that the government never gets to tax.

And before you make the argument that libraries “give away free ebooks all the time,” remember that libraries pay for their ebook copies. The library has purchased the rights to have the ebook on their electronic shelves for check out for certain number of downloads, and then they have to repurchase the ebook—like a worn out print book would need to be replaced. You can see that pirate web sites and libraries aren’t the same thing.

 To put it bluntly, pirate web sites aren’t legal and pirating books is outright theft. You wouldn’t walk into a Wal-Mart, Penney’s or a Target store and start jamming things into your coat pockets and walk out without paying for these items, would you? That sort of activity is called shoplifting, and when they catch you doing it they arrest you. The same goes with ebooks…They should be bought and paid for via legal channels, not stolen or pirated and given away without the expressed permission of the authors/publishers. (If you don’t get caught with the pirated materials, they can’t prosecute you, right? Read on and find out how you'll be punished. It’s worse.)

So, what does ebook piracy mean to me as an author? It means that people feel they can steal from me and other authors with impunity. Pirated books aren't counted as sales by my publishers, so I don't get paid for these lost copies. Authors are being robbed every minute of every day, and it's almost impossible to stop. Once you tell the pirate site to stop listing your books illegally and to remove them immediately, two more will pop up in its place and do the same. It's never ending. The only way it will stop is if readers will voluntarily stop pirating books and sharing pirated books.

Now you know why I don't write more books—I can’t afford to do so. I have to work several jobs to keep the heat on in the winter and food in the pantry. I hope you realize how hard things like this hit home to a struggling author. My books are obviously good enough to steal, but you don't want to support me in my career, huh? How would you feel if you were a carpenter or a hair stylist or painter and people came to you and wanted free products and services? You'd be upset. You wouldn't be able to support your family if people expected free things from you constantly and refused to pay you for your time. It’s no joke when people rob you, is it? 

Same here. 

Think before you pirate. Support your favorite authors—and your starving friends who are authors. Buy our books! I promise it will be worth your while. How so?

Recall what I mentioned earlier about shoplifting and punishment… When you think about it, you pay on average a couple of dollars (usually less than ten bucks) for an ebook file purchased from a legitimate web site, right? If you think that’s too expensive, think about all the wonderful viruses/trojans/and phishing scams that will be downloaded directly to your computer or computing device whenever you download an ebook from a pirate web site. 

Yes, you can receive a lot more than just a “free” stolen ebook installed onto your device! For example, the pirate site where I found my books listed recently was riddled with malicious viruses according to several knowledgeable sources. It was riddled with things that can hack into your computer and steal personal information such as your credit card numbers, address, social security numbers… Identity theft, anyone?

Pirated ebook files are far from clean or safe, and your computing device will pay the ultimately penalty when it seizes up and fries as my song says. It’s only a matter of time. “There’s no honor among thieves,” as the old saying goes. Every pirated download is like engaging in unprotected sex with a stranger, and the next virus could prove deadly. How much money will it cost you to fix your virus-riddled computing device? Hundreds of dollars or more, and in the end, you might simply have to throw it out and replace it. Talk about expensive!

And all because you wanted to steal a two dollar book instead of purchasing it through a legitimate site… The joke is on you, and the malware hackers are laughing their butts off all the way back to China, Russia, North Korea or wherever their thieves’ den may be located. You fell for their bait!

Feeling smart now?

Remember: Friends don’t let friends download or share pirated books. Not if they want to remain friends, that is. Don’t let your song become a sad one—resist ebook piracy.

You can legally pirate this book. I'm giving it away FREE.

 

 

 

 Click on this link to download.

Please join my new e-newsletter mailing list

 Because I miss creating and sending out my monthly e-newsletter full of  my latest book release news, excerpts, contest events, Q & A for writers and other fun stuff, I've started a new mailing list with the very cool MailChimp program. SORMAG publisher and all-around promo-diva, LaShaunda Hoffman, informs me this is the way to go nowadays to connect with readers. And if the smart and savvy LaShaunda says it works, I believe her! ;-) So, please sign up below and feel free to tell your friends, too. Thank you.

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Depression and the Writer

I received an email (seemingly out of the blue) telling me that I needed to write a blog entry on a topic concerning writers, and I couldn't recall when I signed up to do one. Sigh! Never mind, I trust that I did indeed agree to write a piece, but that my recent state of mind made me forget when I did agree to it. Since this is a problem shared by many creative folks (dare I put myself in that category?), I thought I'd share my experience with you all in hopes that I could help others facing a similar challenge. There are three points I'd like to touch upon briefly.

The first thing we have to come to agreement upon is this: Writers aren't always happy people.

Oh, sure we see writers portrayed as rich, highly successful, beautiful, and vivacious people in movies and on TV all the time. Consider the handsome and talented Nathan Fillion's portrayal of a best-selling crime novelist on TV's "Castle". He lives in a penthouse and gets to hang around crime scenes with a gorgeous detective solving mysteries. Fun, fun, fun! No wonder everyone wants to pen the next New York Times best-seller! But you'll have to forgive folks for believing that this is the actual lifestyle of writers. After all, why would anyone choose a career path that would lead to poverty, financial ruin, depression, and rejection? Really, why would anyone do such a ridiculous thing?

The second thing we'll have to agree to is this: Writers don't choose their profession--it chooses them.

Sure, there are some who decide after a successful career in politics, medicine, sports, or celebrity-ness that they'll sit down and pen their memoirs or a seminal book on the subject that made them a household name. While they may be thought of as "authors" I don't consider them "writers". Writers write out of compulsiveness, out of a need to get their ideas and words across to others. Writers often forget things such as "readers" and "editors" and "paychecks", and instead, write the book of their hearts and hope that others might agree it's the book of their hearts, too. Unfortunately, most of the time it is not.

The third thing is obvious: Writers are inherently crazy people.

Writers are artists who create images and worlds with words instead of paint. If Vincent Van Gogh had been a writer instead of a painter, his writings probably would have been ignored during his lifetime, he would have suffered depression, and his family would have thought him totally lacking in commonsense all the same. Poor Vincent never lived to see his creative genius praised in art textbooks, his paintings hanging in the Louvre, or being auctioned off for millions--hundreds of millions--of dollars. In spite of the rejection, he continued to create art all the same.

Yeah, that's the definition of crazy all right.

Which comes to the gist of this piece: Writers are special and unique people. They suffer for their art because they can't help themselves. They must write. They were born to do it. When you tell them things like, "Stop it and go out and get a real job!" you are essentially killing their souls. Because writers have to write like others have to breathe. It is life itself.

Whether you are wired or born to be a writer, you seem more prone to suffer from the ups and downs of life compared to non-writers. This sensitivity is a two-edged sword. It allows the writer to experience the world around her and describe it to others in a way that brings it to life in the reader's mind without having to be there. But the sensitive person is a vulnerable soul. Hard times and harsh words hurt ten times as much and sometimes take ten times longer to heal.

All this doesn't mean writers are doomed to always be depressed or coming out of a blue funk. But it does mean that their journey in healing the soul will take a different path than other personalities. One size does not fit all. Patience and understanding is needed. But how can we help the writers in our lives who may be going through a bad time?

The best thing about writers is that they can verbalize when they are feeling down and when they are feeling better. Listen to them. If they tell you they are feeling a certain way, then it is probably the most accurate assessment of the feeling state of a human being you'll ever obtain. Writers are detail people and observers. We'll share the details and observations of our hearts. Don't ever tell writers that they're out of touch with themselves or reality--because writers experience and record reality at a level beyond what most folks could ever dream of doing. Accept that what the writer says is reality is her reality. Because it is.

And all is not lost because of this important truth: Words can heal. Why else would many counselors recommend keeping and writing journals during a course of therapy if words didn't heal? So allow the depressed writer in your life to vent on paper, to write or not write, to try creating art in another medium, to express themselves in new or different ways as an alternative to writing. Because the creative process in any form is a positive process and a healing process. Eventually the writer's breathing will become calm and not ragged, and she'll feel more grounded in the reality the rest of the world sees as "normal", although the writer deep down senses there is no such thing as normality.

Wherever you are in your journey as a writer, keep this happy thought in mind: You are not alone. Many writers have come before you and will come after you, and all will experience similar feelings at one point in their writing journeys. Give them emotional support when you are able and accept theirs in return with graciousness when it is offered. Because only by sharing each others' burdens can we help use our words to create a better reality for all.

The eX/Devine Destines Books Xmas Parties are coming!

We'll be traveling this week, but handsome hubby and I will do our best to show up at the first party. We'll attend the second party for certain. So drop by the chat room and chat with some wild and crazy authors. Your name will be included in the drawing to win some fantastic prizes--including a Kindle e-reader. The parties will be held at http://www.extasychat.com

Ho, ho, ho! Santa's little helpers are certainly alive and well at eX/Devine Destinies Books. :)

50 More Shades of Great(ness)

Since I have two scheduled book releases within the next two months, I thought I'd share a little secret with my readers. I could really use your help. I could really use your expertise with social media and the web. I need to sell books (not have them pirated) and I need to sell them today. 

Why? Because the rent  has to be paid in cash. I can't talk my landlord into taking a book manuscript in lieu of rent payment for some reason. He likes money--don't ask me why! So does the grocery store, the gas station, and the utilities. (I gave up buying non-essentials like medicine, make-up and clothing a long while back.) If the world ever went back to bartering, it might be feasible to get some creditors off your back with trading writing services, but at this time, they just look at you funny and start thinking about things like eviction notices.

As a reader, you can help me (and many other struggling authors out there--I know I'm not alone) by buying and reading our books. After you've read one of our books, you can post a short and honest book review on Amazon, Goodreads, our publisher's web site, or even your own blog. You can tweet a buy link to your contacts and pin the cover art on your Pinterest boards. Let us know that you've done so, and we'll gladly quote you on our blogs, book jackets, web sites, Google Plus, etc., and tweet and pin in return. By sharing your thoughts with other potential readers across the web, you are giving our work some much needed publicity that we can't otherwise afford.

Most of the book review places these days are asking for money upfront (there's that cash fixation again!) to review books. Okay, if I can't afford to replace my sandals (after I accidentally ripped a strap off my ten-year-old pair), then I'm not able to pay hundreds of dollars to a book reviewer to read my book. I can't afford to pay for advertising online, either, since few sites give those away for free. So when readers freely share their book reviews and use their blogs, Twitter and Pinterest accounts to help advertise our books, they are truly helping out the little guys and gals. We appreciate it, too.

There's lots of talk about helping  "little people" survive these days, but there's little being done to actually do it or so it seems. If you want to make a difference in the life of a struggling writer, please buy--and encourage your friends to buy--his/her books and tell others how much you enjoyed them. 

We as authors don't expect that all of us will become the next J.K. Rowling or have a mega-bestseller like Fifty Shades of Grey (and why would we want to be copycats anyway?), but if we're given a fair chance, perhaps more of us will be able to support our families.

To put it simply, when writers can eat, they can live long enough to spin more tales of fun and fantasy for your enjoyment. It's a win-win situation.

My latest release, Blood Bond, a vampire erotic-romance from eXtasy Books: http://www.extasybooks.com/blood-bond
 (You can read an excerpt from it at my Celine's Dreams blog.)

Feel free to share the buy link and reviews of it wherever you're inspired to do so. Also, you can share ideas of how and where to promote our books in the comment section below. Thank you.

Fifty Shades of Great(ness)

This is the logo for my new campaign to promote e-authors.

 Readers are talking everywhere online about it. The recent buzz over Fifty Shades of Grey has brought a lot of attention to e-books, erotica/erotic-romance e-books in particular. While I’m glad to see the general reading public discovering the wide world of electronic books it does make me wonder: Do readers realize the e-book has been with us for more than two decades? Do they realize there are many thousands of unsung authors of e-literature that can write just as tantalizing—if not more so—a story than this relative newcomer on the scene?

 

Science fiction and romantic elements minus the handcuffs. 

If I were to list all the talented e-book authors I know personally, the list would be miles long. I’m not kidding! In deference to time and space, I’ll just mention that I’m associated with some terrific e-book authors via my publishers eXtasy Books/Devine Destinies Books and Mojocastle Press.

 (www.extasybooks.com / www.devinedestinies.com and www.mojocastle.com ) Yes, I’ll admit to being biased, but generally the quality of fiction of my publishers’ releases is many, many more than fifty shades above the average fluff that receives the majority of the new e-reading public’s attention. It does make me despair that these e-fiction creative geniuses don’t receive the consideration they so rightly deserve. And I want to do more to help sing their praises and raise awareness of their greatness.

A romantic-comedy that doesn't feature whips and chains. They do exist!

So my challenge to the e-reading public is this: Stop and check out the web sites of smaller e-presses like eXtasy Books and Mojocastle. Buy (don’t pirate) an e-book or two and give them a read. I know you’ll be pleasantly surprised. There is endless variety in e-books waiting for smart readers to discover and many are great reads. So, stop following the crowd and automatically buying whatever Amazon tells you to! Explore, browse, read and learn for yourself that your heart’s desire in fiction is available at the merest click of your mouse.

My Books are Worth It!

After my last posting, I realized maybe I should have explained some of my frustrations with the recent deluge of free ebooks on the market, freely given away by their authors for promotional purposes. Frankly, they're robbing authors like me blind. 


When readers are getting free books everyday of the week, why would they purchase my inexpensive tomes?


I've been on book forums where readers openly state, "I have hundreds of free ebooks downloaded on my Kindle. By the time I've read those books, I'll have downloaded hundreds more. I'll never have to buy a book again!"

As a writer, my heart bleeds when I hear/read such statements. Sure, I'm glad readers are enjoying reading a wide variety of fiction. I, too, go to the library and check out books (the paper kind since I can't afford a Kindle or Nook), and I do like reading a book or two from a new author to see if there's a "good fit" there between us. What I don't like to hear is that after reading one or two freebies readers don't care if they read another book by that author again--not if they have to purchase it. (And why would these readers buy if they're sure these authors will give away their next books free "for promotional purposes" in a few months?)


The consequence of all these free ebooks being dumped on the market is that no one is rushing to buy ebooks by midlist authors at all. (Midlist = Writers who aren't J.K. Rowling, Nora Roberts, John Grisham and the like.) Midlist author sales are dropping or levelling off. No book sales equals no book royalties. No royalties equals no income for authors. To put this simpler yet, no income equals no eating for some of us who depend on our writing income to purchase groceries.

A book in need of a good e-reader!

So why don't I give away some (or all) of my ebooks for free for promotional purposes? The price of my books are out of my control. My books are published through legitimate publishers as opposed to being self-published as so many of these free ebooks seem to be. I suppose I could twist my publisher's arm and ask if I can, too, list one of my books for free on Amazon for a day or a week, but why should I? I sweated and toiled to write that book--don't I deserve the meager royalty I can make for a sale?


Face it--if a book is given away for free, is it really worth anything in the mind of the person receiving the freebie?

To protest the outrage I feel about this glut of free ebooks flooding the market (and destroying it at the same time) I'm starting my own campaign called "My books are worth it!" Feel free to borrow the banner above, link to this blog and spread the news. 


Our books ARE worth it! Because you get what you pay for!

You can find purchase links to my fiction books at

www.cynthianna.com

and

www.celinechatillon.com