Fresh Voice Heidi Marie!

"we do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit." - E.E. Cummings

Welcome to the latest edition of Fresh Voices. We are delighted to share with you the voice of Heidi Marie!

What is your ultimate writing goal?

My ultimate writing goal is to impact my readers with the passion, emotion, thought provoking wisdom that many great poets and writer's bestowed upon me.

Why do you write?

I write because it permits the passion within me to flow. My poetry is an extension of me, of my thoughts, feelings and experiences. I truly believe each of us has our own unique voice, one that sings with beauty comparable only to the nightingale. If we deny the voice inside us... we rob ourselves and others of passion's song.

Have you worked to achieve your voice or is it just a natural style for you?

My voice is of my own making, it is the naked truth of my experiences.

Who are your favorite authors and why do you like them?

My favorite authors are: W. H. Auden, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Mark Twain because each of these author's mission spells out passion. These four authors works "cry" the study of life. Each possesses a fearless quality about them. The courage, sacrifice, determination, commitment, toughness, heart, and talent they own, shows in every word they've ever written.

What most attracts you to the life of a writer?

"I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can't see from the center." -Kurt Vonnegut

As a writer that is what most attracts me to the life. ;-)

If you couldn't be a writer but knew you were guaranteed success at a different career, what would you choose?

If I were denied my passion to be a writer but knew I was guaranteed success at a different career, that career would be teaching creative writing to children. It would be my mission to inspire them so they may dream big and use words to unleash those dreams.

If you had to describe your writing in one word, what would that word be?

In one word my writing is Real.

What's the best writing advice you've ever gotten?

The best writing advice I have ever received came from a friend, Billy Coffey. The following is the advice he shared: 1) Turn your brain off for the first draft. Just write with your heart. 2) Write every day, no matter if you feel like it or not. 3) Ignore those voices in your head that say you can't. Because you can.

Heidi Marie, who is she you ask? She is a woman of sincerity whom above all wishes to have no secrets. Because she is fearless you see. She wants to give her heartfelt words of joy, trust, fear, surprise, sadness, disgust, and anticipation away for others to connect with. Because for Heidi, A poem is a gift for others to do what they will... relate, dream, imagine. It is a ship on an open sea.

Blooming Author Ty Langston!

“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.” ~ George Sheehan

Ty Langston's novel By Sunset, A Dragon Races Tale, will be published by LazyDayPublishing on December 1, 2010.

Tell us about By Sunset. What is it about and where will it be available?

The book is about two warring Royal Families that have entered a Dragon Race to retrieve a pair of pink and black diamonds.

Of course, this race isn't as simple as it seems.  Without spoiling the story. Let's just say the reasons why both families decide to race makes will things very complicated for all involved.

What were your inspirations for By Sunset? What sorts of thing inspire you as a writer in general?

There's so many from different genres. One is George RR Martin. I just started reading A Song of Fire and Ice, I love Sherrilyn Kenyon, Stephen King, Anne McCaffery. I have some Lara Adrian on my TBR pile also. I've heard a lot of great things about her. I love Kresley Cole, Gena Showalter.

But because I studied Broadcast Journalism, I really do like a lot of tv and movie scribes, actually one of my favorite writers ever is Michael Hirst, creator of the Tudors and the upcoming Camelot and The Borgias series, he just mixes the right amount of history, sex and visual that is a feast for the eyes.  I literally stop and I have to watch anything that he's involved in. Also the late John Hughes influenced me a lot.  He had a way of telling a story that was very relateable on every level. When I write, I try to remember to do that. It's one of the things that I took from reading his scripts and watching his movies.
Michael taught me that history and or fantasy can be fresh and sexy. Anyone that can portray a young King Henry VIII and Charles Brandon like rock stars is ok in my book. :)

Let's talk about your process. How do you approach a story, do you start with outlines or something else? Where did you work when writing By Sunset? Do you think it was the optimal writing environment for you?

I do start with outlines. Since By Sunset is the first of a series, I did a broad outline of where I wanted to go with each book followed by smaller ones for each book. Do I  follow it verbatim? No. I do change it as I go, but I do keep the main plot points so that the next book can pickup literally where the previous book ends. 

I tend to work either in my family room (where I am now writing) or in my bedroom. Mostly I write in my bedroom. It's peaceful, serene, I have my stereo in there and just tune out everything.  I'm one of these people that writes my stories out longhand before I type it into my laptop. I can write straight from my laptop, but because I write a lot in the evening. I always keep a notebook and pen on my nightstand along with something to drink and write until I go to bed.

Tell us about your "story of getting published."

I thank Twitter (@bedofroses2001) for that.  I had seen an interview that Staci from Lazy Day (@LazyDayPub) had done and I told her that I liked it. We got to talking and she had been encouraging me to send something in.

I didn't really think that I had anything really ready for her at the time so I went back to this story that I had been sitting on and literally went through and changed 3/4 of it. I kept on writing, editing, polishing and then sent it to my Critique Partners, Jill and Carole.  Who had already loved it. 
But for some reason I just sat on it for over a month. I didn't submit it. I had everything done including a query letter, blurb, synopsis.  I think i was too nervous. And all of sudden one day, I decided to do just one more read-through and sent it in. I had just gotten done from my day job when i got the 'call' and I had to do a double take at the e-mail.  I really thought it was a rejection letter until I saw it said welcome to the Lazy Day Publishing Team. I was beyond thrilled.

Ty Langston

What are the publicity plans you have coming up?

I plan to do a lot of blog interviews, and go on a blog tour. Currently setting that up now along with doing some readings shortly.

Fresh Voice Sarah Scharnweber!

"we do not believe in ourselves until someone reveals that deep inside us is valuable, worth listening to, worthy of our trust, sacred to our touch. once we believe in ourselves we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight or any experience that reveals the human spirit."- E.E. Cummings

Welcome to the latest edition of Fresh Voices. We are delighted to share with you the voice of Sarah Scharnweber!

What is your ultimate writing goal?

I would like to write for a living. I guess that's a goal that most people have and it's pretty general, but that's about as true and realistic as I can be.

Why do you write?

I write because I have to. It's not one of those things I've ever really looked at as an option. I write because there are stories and they want to come out.

Have you worked to achieve your voice or is it just a natural style for you?

A little bit of both. My natural style combines with my inner editor and comes out with a voice.

Who are your favorite authors and why do you like them?

Oh goodness, I like so many writers. I enjoy Stephen King a great deal, he was the first modern writer that I fell in love with and my adoration continues today.

Neil Gaiman is amazing. His voice is strong and he has a great will to interact with his fans.

Chuck Palahnuik has an awesome sense of story that grips a reader and keeps them from putting a book down.

I recently read my first Joe Hill novel and I am pretty impressed with him as well. I think I learned a great deal from reading his work and that's a great pay off.

What most attracts you to the life of a writer?

Number one would be not having to punch a time clock. I have a regular day job and the stress really takes away from the energy that I have to write. Some days I come home and I just can't deal with writing; it also doesn't help that I'm in a high stress field with a high burn out rate.

If you couldn't be a writer but knew you were guaranteed success at a different career, what would you choose?

I suppose I would want to be in the field. Maybe an editor or an agent. Anything that would put me in contact with people who could accomplish their dreams. As it stands now, I work in the mental health field and helping people in any capacity seems to be the thing that fuels me, so I think that would help keep me feeling like I was doing something positive.

If you had to describe your writing in one word, what would that word be?

enticing

What's the best writing advice you've ever gotten?

In Stephen King's on writing, he said that the road to hell is paved with adverbs. I agree and found that information invaluable.

Sarah Scharnweber lives in Rockford, Illinois with her husband. She primarily writes horror, but often strays from that. She has a twitter page, and a facebook page, and is participating in this year's NaNoWriMo. One of her stories can be found here and another can be found here.

Blooming Author Daisy Harris!

“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.” ~ George Sheehan

Daisy Harris has an upcoming "Ocean Shifters" series of erotic books being released in late 2010 through early 2011: Mere Temptations, Mere Passion, and Shark Bait.

Tell us about your Ocean Shifters series. What is it about and where will it be available?

The Ocean Shifters world is concept I came up with when I first started writing fiction. Mere Temptation was my first ever stab at fiction writing, though it began as a very different story and got re-working a thousand times.

First and foremost, the Ocean Shifters world is post-colonial. The sea dragons are the oceans' superpower and used to have colonies in almost every mere (mer-people) colony on the planet. Dragons can live among humans, and mere must live close to water. Dragons, in general, are wealthy and priviledged whereas mere lived under semi-slavery and in many cases still do.

Shark-shifters cannot live on land at all and historically survived as scavengers or smugglers. They often terrorized mere colonies, stealing from impoverished and unprotected mere.

A central focus of all the Ocean Shifter books is power dynamics in a changing world and how that effects inter-species relationships.

Much as the dragons are in some ways my "bad guys" they play a big role in every book. They are the species changing the fastest, and able to learn and grow the most.

But enough about my world!

The first book, Mere Temptation, is available as an e-book through the Bookstrand storefront (http://www.bookstrand.com/) as of November 3rd, 2010. Mere Passion will be available in December 2010, and Shark Bait will be available in January 2011. Each book will available a few months after its Siren/Bookstrand release through a wide range of storefronts including Amazon and Barnes and Noble. If sales go well, they'll all be available in print-on-demand approximately six months after their e-release.

What were your inspirations for Ocean Shifters? What sorts of thing inspire you as a writer in general?

My inspiration for the world came from several places, but mostly from my own background. Mere Temptation is a coming home story in which a mermaid named Isa, who's been living among humans, flees back to her home habitat. There she runs into to ex-boyfriend, a sea dragon, and temptation ensues.

Isa's journey was a homecoming of sorts for me because although I grew up in New York, and my family lives in Long Island (where the story begins), I was born in Florida, where the story ends. I've lived the majority of my life within a mile of the water, co-incidentally the maximum distance from the ocean a mere can survive. Sea-side towns are often rife with power dynamics between townies and tourists, colonists and colonized.

Although I write erotic romance, a lot of what inspires me is social  and interpersonal dynamics. Sometimes I worry that my stories have a "come for the sex, stay for the social commentary" vibe. Mostly I aim to entertain, but I like my conflicts to reflect real-world conflicts and issues people face everyday.

Let's talk about your process. How do you approach a story, do you start with outlines or something else? Where did you work when writing Ocean Shifters? Do you think is the optimal writing environment for you?

There's no question that the optimal writing environment is Ohmwriter for Mac! Baring that, there's a French restaurant a couple blocks from my house that's a great place to work so long as I get there at five, before the dinner crowd. I love writing first thing in the morning too, but I'm usually busy making my kids breakfast and packing lunches at that time of day.

How I approach a story depends largely on whether it's the first or a continuation of a series. If it's the start of a new world, I spend a lot of time figuring out the different groups, the stakes, and the power dynamics. There's always a kernal of boy-meets-girl, but in order to understand the hero and heroine, I need to know about the context and circumstances they're in.

Once I know the world, the characters bubble to life. I do a thin sketch of an outline, including end of first, second, and third acts, black moment, etc. Then I pants my way through. After I fast draft I have a very involved revision method in which I dissect and analyze the whole thing within an inch of its life before essentially pansting a one (or two) pass revision.

I'm a big fan of the plan-then-pants method.

Tell us about your "story of getting published."


It was pretty simple, really. I submitted Mere Temptation to a handful of publishing houses, and got a full request, but also several rejections. So, pessimist that I am, I figured it would be rejected completely and when I was done writing Mere Passion I sent it out to a few more publishing houses. I got full requests everywhere I sent Mere Passion, and Siren offerred to publish it before I heard back on Mere Temptation.

So I submitted Mere Temptation to Siren after I'd already agreed to give them Mere Passion.

Siren was really great about my newby mistake of submitting the second book in the series before the first. In all honesty, I think I just hadn't heard of Siren at the time I submitted Mere Temptation! When they accepted it, they gave me a release date ahead of Mere Passion, which was great.


What are the publicity plans you have coming up?

You're looking at it! (Just kidding.)

Honestly, I don't have a whole lot of plans. I have a few blogs that want to interview me. Siren sends every book to a variety of review sites. I'll probably send it to two or three more reviewers as well.

I've signed on with an agent, Saritza Hernandez of the L. Perkins Agency, and she'll probably have more ideas for me, but I'm going to spread out my publicity over time since the books will be released through third party distribution at a later date. I want to be sure that when I promo books readers can actually access them!

Another big part of my promotion plan is to continue writing in the Ocean Shifters and other worlds. I've started on a new world filled with Steins, zombie-robot hybrids. I hope that each new story I write draws in more readers and encourages folks who buy my newer books to try out the earlier ones.

After all, writing great stories is the best advertising I can think of!

Blooming Author Liz Borino!

“Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be.” ~ George Sheehan

Liz Borino's book EXPECTATIONS will be published by Lazy Day Publishing 12/1. Liz is the first Fresh Voice to be published and featured as a Blooming Author!

Tell us about Expectations. What is it about and where will it be available?

EXPECTATIONS, depicts the struggle between what we desire for ourselves and our familial obligations. This is personified by Chris and Matt Taylor, identical twins, who are trying to win their overbearing father’s approval and acquire their trust funds. Their best friend and roommate, Aiden O’Boyle, left his family behind in Ireland to pursue a career in dance.

Robert Taylor, Matt and Chris’s father has set certain conditions that must be met in order for them to receive their trust funds. Matt must work at a job he hates, while struggling with alcoholism. Chris has to deny his own desires and deep love for Aiden, to get married to Matt’s girlfriend. All the while, their father continues to use extreme measures to ensure his sons’ compliance.  The story takes place against the backdrop of preparation for Aiden’s upcoming performance.

It will be available on my publishers website lazyday.com, amazon, Barnes &Noble. In addition it'll be on all e-reading devices.

What were your inspirations for Expectations? What sorts of thing inspire you as a writer in general?

For this book I was actually inspired by The Secret. I wanted to write about people choosing their own life's path. I wanted to depict both the obstacles and joys that come with that process.
I'm inspired by relationships. My books are always character driven. I'd say life in general inspires me.
You know what else? Fish. :)

Let's talk about your process. How do you approach a story, do you start with outlines or something else? Where did you work when writing Expectations? Do you think it was the optimal writing environment for you?

I wish I could do an outline. I try every single time. I start an outline and my characters stop talking to me. I don't think they like to be boxed in.

I worked everywhere I possibly could, school, home, work. When I wasn't writing, I was thinking about writing. Inspiration struck at the most inconvenient times. If you can have inconvenient inspiration.

Tell us about your "story of getting published."

I started off with a manuscript that was WAY too long and had lots of plot holes, but as an author I thought "It's perfect! Everyone will love it." No, not the way it works. So, I got smarter. I let it sit and then looked at it objectively. Cut a character, sorry Nonna, and about 40,000 words. Then I started querying agents. After a few rejections (I don't count), I started looking at smaller presses. I found my match with Lazy Day. They're a new digital publisher and I'm with a wonderful group of authors debuting with our publisher. We've been honored with the title of Founding Authors!

What are the publicity plans you have coming up?

I'm trying to do any interviews I can and I've got some great ones already. In addition I'm building a Twitter and Facebook following. I know Social Media is one of the best tools we have as authors.