Thumbnail Thursday with Erica Hildebrand

It's Thursday, and that means another interview! Today I'd like to welcome Erica Hildebrand. Not only has she written some of my favorite stories, but she's also an excellent artist. Read on to find out more about her!

What are you working on right now?

I'm trying to revise this convoluted story about a family that gets visited (and subsequently badgered) by their immortal ancestor.  Elsewhere, I'm working on a script for a graphic novel about werewolves and superheroes.  And for the hat trick, I'm writing a new science fiction story.  It's about space rabbits. 

What's your pre-writing ritual?

I'm not sure I have one.  Hydration, maybe?  This answer used to be a resounding "coffee," but I'm off coffee right now.

What is one of the most surprising/interesting things you've discovered while doing research for a story?

I once wrote a story about a female gladiator in ancient Rome.  Part of my research involved digging into the Roman calendar of festivals; I had mentioned the goddess Minerva, and I wanted to make sure I had the correct event so I knew what month to place the story in.  It was a full day's research for maybe five words of prose. 

The part that surprised me was just how many festivals, holidays, and celebrations they had in Rome.  I knew they had a lot, but I didn't think it was that much.  And it drilled the lesson into me that if I ever create a fictional society that is both religious and loves to party, I need to give them a full calendar of holidays. 

Tell me about your favorite story that you've published. What inspired it, and what does it mean to you?

Oh man, tough to choose!  I'd say the ones with protagonists worth rooting for are the ones that tend to stick with me.  I have a story forthcoming from Kaleidotrope called "Jack Magic," which is an adventure fantasy born out of the old superstition that ship's cats are good omens to sailors.  It's about a guy down on his luck who is just trying to make things right.  I'm still rooting for him, and I hope readers will too.

You can have lunch with any writer, living or dead. Who would it be, and why?

Can it be a group date?  I'd love to sit down with Rudyard Kipling and make him tell me anecdotes, and find out which adaptation of The Jungle Book is his favorite (mine is Chuck Jones').  But I'd also like Edna St. Vincent Millay to come too, because she enjoys a good time, and after lunch we could paint the town red.

What's one of the best novels and/or short stories you've read recently?

I just read "Wool - Part One" by Hugh Howey, an introduction to his science fiction series of the same name.  The story begins with a character climbing an iron staircase.  Before you know anything about the guy, you're getting only glimpses of the strange setting that serves as backdrop, very minimalist brush strokes.  But it's pretty compelling!  I see why this series has generated a lot of buzz.

Writing is a sedentary endeavor. What do you do to stay healthy and active?

I'm a fan of resistance training.  It's a great alternative to cardio.  I'd love to try lifting exercises sometime, and my basement is earmarked to become a home gym at some point.  I'm also a fan of taking walks.  As for staying healthy, I'd say switching to a more natural, plant-based diet is one of the best things I've done.

***

Erica Hildebrand works on illustrated projects in addition to her writing. She has a soft spot in her heart for superheroes, dinosaurs, and the conquerors of antiquity. A graduate of the Odyssey Writing Workshop, her fiction has appeared in Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet and a half dozen other places. Her comics have appeared in Space Squid and Kaleidotrope.  She lives with her wife in Pennsylvania, and her tweet handle is @Hildebabble.  Come say hi.

The Big Five Zero

This marks my 50th blog post. Hurrah! It would have taken me quite some time to get here if I hadn't started digging in other people's dirt interviewing people. It's been an interesting endeavor, and I'll continue as long as people are willing to spill their guts I can find people to interview. I decided on sending people the same set of questions (although a couple have changed some around to suit what they're working on, which is fine... I see it as a fluid process, not some rigid thing) because I've got too much going on right now. Otherwise, I'd love to craft questions that are specific to each person.

The answers have made me smile (and sometimes laugh out loud) and made me think, and most of all, they've reiterated what I already know, and that is that the writers I hang out with (in real life and on the  interwebz) are all-around wonderful people--brilliant, witty, and generous--and they're all filled with amazing stories. I feel quite fortunate to belong to such a group.

My most popular interview to date was from Alex Shvartsman. He also had the dubious honor of being my first victim. I think his wit and charm come through in the interview. My most popular non-interview post was the one in which I talked about the Shards of History launch party where I learned you should always bribe your readers with food.

Moving towards the 100th post, I'll continue to post about my writing process and whatever else piques my interest that particular week. I just finished putting together the major scenes from the novel I'm about to start writing. The blue cards belong to the main character. The yellow are scenes from the antagonist's POV. The pink cards belong to the love story. I can glance at the board and see where I might need to add more pink or yellow (or less), and I can rearrange the scenes before I even start writing. I've dabbled with them enough, and now I'm ready to start writing. Heck, I might get to the end of the first row and throw out all the rest because I discovered some really cool storyline that will work better.

At any rate, I used it as an excuse to procrastinate a bit while preparing myself mentally to write this particular story. Plus, any excuse to shop at the office supply store and bring home cute things.

Thumbnail Thursday with Anaea Lay

Welcome to another edition of Thumbnail Thursday! Today I'd like to welcome Anaea Lay, who is quite charming and pleasant, unless you're her enemy. Or a baby.

What are you working on right now?

Right now I'm revising a semi-post-apocalyptic urban fantasy examination of Romeo and Juliet where a modern plague has forced previously secret societies into the open.  It's full of all kinds of fun mayhem.

What's your pre-writing ritual?

I don't have much of a pre-writing ritual.  I write whenever I feel like it and have the time, so as long as I've got a computer with a keyboard, I dive right in and go.  Usually I've got some sort of music blaring, too. 

Tell me about your favorite story that you've published. What inspired it, and what does it mean to you?

My favorite story I've ever written, even, is one coming out from Nightmare later this year: They Called Him Monster.  The story mugged me while I was wandering around Parc Guëll in Barcelona.  I couldn't actually sit down to write it until several days later, and it was very cross with me about that.  But it came out beautifully and I've loved it unconditionally ever since.

You can have lunch with any writer, living or dead. Who would it be, and why?

Robert Heinlein.  I found him at just the right time, and read just about everything he wrote.  I'd really love the chance to talk to him about the post-internet world.  But I'd want a late-50's Heinlein, before Stranger In a Strange Land became a big thing.  I suspect he became less interesting later.

What's one of the best novels and/or short stories you've read recently?

I've been recommending N. K. Jemison's The Killing Moon to everybody everywhere.  I've been a big fan of hers since The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and was really worried about a sophomore slump when she went to a new series.  Instead I wound up loving the new duology to bits.  She does character and world building fantastically, with a healthy topping of mood and luciously crafted prose, which is pretty much everything I ask for from my fiction.

Writing is a sedentary endeavor. What do you do to stay healthy and active?

I eat babies for their health benefits and spend evenings flogging my enemies in my basement.  It's great stress relief.

***

Anaea Lay lives in Madison, Wisconsin where she sells Real Estate under a different name, writes, cooks, plays board games, spoils her cat, runs the Strange Horizons podcast, and plots to take over the world. Her work has appeared or is forthcoming in Apex, Penumbra, Lightspeed, Strange Horizons and Nightmare. She makes her internet home at anaealay.com where you can find her blogging about most anything.

The Plague is Upon Us

This has been a rough week. All of the humans living in my house have come down with the flu and various other complications associated with it, but it seems we're all finally on the mend. Hooray for drugs, fluids, and rest! So rather than come up with something coherent for the blog today, I'm just going to post random things that have either made my life easier or made me smile.

First, for my writer friends, most of you know that Duotrope went paid at the beginning of this year. If you're less than impressed with how they made the switch, you might want to check out the Submission Grinder. The Submission Grinder not only has submission information and a way to track data, but they've added some cool features recently that take obsessing over one's subs to a whole new level.

For all my knitting friends trapped in blizzards, you can knit yourself a chair, a toilet, or even a Ferrari. I've only crocheted blankets and snowflakes. Well, there was that sweater that one time, but when I tried it on, it was so tight that my arms stuck straight out at my sides and I couldn't bring them down. No, there are no pictures.

For the cooks and bakers out there, you might want to try this recipe for breakfast balls. I ended up making bars out of the mix rather than balls, and I didn't use coconut. Instead, I chopped up walnuts and added them to the mix. The mix was sweet and delicious. I think I've already eaten half of it. Darn sweet tooth....

And finally, for those with little ones, I stumbled upon a great way to get your rest when you're sick and your small, energetic child is home with you. I built a tent in the toddler's room using one of our spare king-sized sheets. He usually doesn't let me lie down, but in the tent I could. I curled up with a stuffed polar bear as a pillow and murmured encouragement from time to time as the toddler played in the 'tent.' I got to lie down for an hour. That's decades in toddler time. It also reminded me of nights spent reading with a flashlight under my bed's comforter. There's something secure and just plain nice about being in a little cave of one's own making. And the cat seemed to like it, too.

Thumbnail Thursday with Matt Mikalatos

It's Thursday again, and that means I get to welcome Matt Mikalatos to the blog! Read on to find out more about Matt and his middle grade fantasy novel The Sword of Six Worlds, just released this past December.

What are you working on right now?

I'm in the middle of a YA novel about super hero kids, which I wrote as a Christmas present for my daughters. Now it's getting the first draft clean up, and then we'll get to work on structural issues, a lot of which have to do with themes that didn't come out clearly enough (or that I didn't know about when I was writing the first draft). Basically, this is me wishing I wrote comic books.

What's your pre-writing ritual?

Hiding. I usually need to hide somewhere to get some writing time, unless I make the big pronouncement to the family, "Dad is now working on a novel and even though the laptop is open and his eyes are open, let's all pretend that he is somewhere far away." Sometimes I turn of the Internet on my computer, or my "research" takes me on strange rabbit trails that prevent writing.

What is one of the most surprising/interesting things you've discovered while doing research for a story?

I was doing some research into omega point cosmology (essentially the exact point/moment/place where the universe can no longer become more complex or evolve further… depending on who you talk to about it), and was surprised to discover that the concept originated with a Jesuit priest. It's pretty amazing, because the concept has since been picked up, transformed, altered and used by everyone from pot heads to transhumanists to science fiction authors. It's fascinating to me that it was originally part of a system designed to be part of Christian apologetics.

You can have lunch with any writer, living or dead. Who would it be, and why?

Probably John Steinbeck. His novel, "East of Eden" is my favorite novel of all time, and I admire the way he talked about justice and doing the right thing in the context of every day life, and in the middle of hugely entertaining novels. Word is, however, that he was a bit cranky, so my second choice would Endo Shusaku, the famous Japanese novelist, whose work is staggeringly good. Or Gene Wolfe. Or Michael Connelly. Maybe we could have lunch at one of those big buffet tables.

What's one of the best novels and/or short stories you've read recently?

I'm in the middle of "The Passage" by Justin Cronin right now, which I'm enjoying a lot. Not too long ago my kids and I read "Super" and "Powerless" by Matthew Cody. We all enjoyed those and assume/hope another book is coming in that series.

Writing is a sedentary endeavor. What do you do to stay healthy and active?

I'll run a few times a week when I'm doing well on this topic, or, when I'm doing poorly, I'll run once every few weeks. I strongly suggest the former if you can stay disciplined. Once you get out of the habit it's increasingly difficult to get back in. I find that the quiet and space often give me a chance to work through things in my stories and novels when I run, actually, so it's helpful on the artistic front as well.

 What other writing projects have you been involved in this year?

I have a story in the UFO (Unidentified Funny Objects) anthology, about a vampire who hunts vampire hunters (or, as he calls himself, a vampire "vampire hunter" hunter). My middle grade fantasy novel, The Sword of Six Worlds, released in December, which has been an enormous amount of fun. I really like the tag line for that book: Validus Smith has three goals. Stay alive. Save the World. Finish her homework.

***

Matt Mikalatos lives near Portland, Oregon with his wife and three daughters. You can find more about his books on his blog at http://www.mikalatos.com, or follow him on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/mattmikalatos .

Books on the Craft of Writing

I'm one of those people who loves books on writing. I have tons on my shelves, I've checked out plenty from the library, and I have quite a few on my e-reader. I enjoy hearing the books that others found useful, so I decided to share some of my favorites here, and if you have any that you've read and loved but don't see on the list, please share them!

In no particular order:

(1) The 90 Day Novel by Alan Watt. I've talked about this one before. This book takes you through a month of writing exercises so that you get to know your character, and then guides you through the next two months in order to write a rough draft. There are over two hundred questions in the book that allow you to explore your protagonist and antagonist as thoroughly as you want (and really, you can apply them to secondary characters as well). I didn't use all 200-plus questions, but at one point while working on these, things clicked, and I suddenly felt like I knew my characters very well. I will definitely use these questions as guidelines in the future.

(2) To Each Their Darkness by Gary A. Braunbeck. Braunbeck has taken some of the most horrific things that ever happened to him (and trust me, they're pretty awful) and turned them into fiction that just takes your breath away. I recommend this for finding the courage to write about your own darkness and fears.

(3) Save The Cat! by Blake Snyder. It's a book on screenwriting, but it's also applicable to writing fiction. I'm going to try the techniques to help outline my next novel.

(4) The 10% Solution by Ken Rand. When it's time to edit, this book can help with whittling down words and strengthening your prose.

(5) The Power of Myth by Joseph Campbell. Not a writing book, per se, but many writers have been influenced by him. Star Wars (episode IV, not those crappy prequels) was heavily influenced by Campbell, for example.

(6) The Fire in Fiction by Donald Maass. This is just a great overall guide for breathing life into your characters and your world.

(7) Bullies, Bastards, and Bitches by Jessica Page Morrell. First of all, I've never had so many people interested in what I was reading until I toted this around and pulled it out in public. The title grabs you, that's for sure. Also, it helps with making complicated, nuanced villains and not just the two-dimensional, mustache-twirly kind.

(8) Dynamic Characters by Nancy Kress. A good introduction to writing characters.

(9) Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury. A collection of essays on writing. I considered highlighting to most important passages, but then realized I would've highlighted every word.

(10) Steering the Craft by Ursula K. Le Guin. Writing exercises that can be done by yourself or in a group. What you write may surprise you, and will definitely delight you.

Which ones would you recommend?

Thumbnail Thursday with Abby Goldsmith

Today I'd like to welcome Abby Goldsmith to the blog. Read on to find out why you might want to take her up an offer to go to lunch, particularly if you're in Maine.

What are you working on right now?

The fifth novel in my epic science fantasy series (visit http://abbygoldsmith.com/torth/ for information). Is it foolish to write an entire linear series before getting the first book published? Many people tell me so.

What's your pre-writing ritual?

Turn on the fireplace. Make sure the dog is fed. Sit down in recliner with netbook, and write.

Tell me about your favorite story that you've published. What inspired it, and what does it mean to you?

My favorite is the first story I ever got published, in 2002. Unfortunately, the magazine went defunct and I've been unable to get the story reprinted. I might sell it in an ebook anthology or put it on my website for free. Anyway, the story is a modified excerpt from a half-completed novel that takes place in a far-future spinoff of my epic series. I may never complete that old trunk novel, but the story stands on its own, and I think it showcases my skill with characters.  I've seen it copied on a couple of random blogs, which is a form of flattery, although it never got officially reviewed.

You can have lunch with any writer, living or dead. Who would it be, and why?

Let's see. I've already had lunch with Robert Jordan and George R.R. Martin, two of my biggest influences. I'd love to do that again with either of them. Stephen King is my earliest major influence, and I haven't had lunch with him yet. That would be grand.

What's one of the best novels and/or short stories you've read recently?

I've enjoyed some nonfiction books recently, including Stealing God's Thunder (about Benjamin Franklin), Over the Edge of the World (about Magellan), and Catherine the Great.  I also just read the final book in Robert Jordan's epic Wheel of time series, which was satisfying.

Writing is a sedentary endeavor. What do you do to stay healthy and active?

My dog helps me by requiring a 30 – 60 minute walk every day. I live in a neighborhood with steep hills.

***

Visit http://abbygoldsmith.com/online.html for links to Abby's published fiction and articles. She's a freelance animator, and her extensive website includes her art gallery and an FAQ.