Why I Wrote Flotsam – Guest Post by R. J. Theodore

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fantasy, guest post, mosquitoes, R J Theodore, Steampunk, trees

Today’s guest is the author of Flotsam.  I would call Flotsam a scifi steampunk fantasy – in other worlds – very cool!

Why I Wrote FLOTSAM
Or, How Stories are Itchy Mosquito Bites and it’s Totally Okay if You Want to Scratch at Them

by R. J. Theodore

I was possessed. Inspired. I was taken in by the fantasy of a world I preferred over my reality. I was lonely. And bored. I was fresh out of college, I had a new job, and I feared my real-life adventures were over.

I believe everyone has books in them. For me, the summer of 2003 planted and nurtured the seed that became the sprout that became the mighty sequoia of my author career. Mind you, neither I nor my career is sequoia-sized.

Me? I’m small. Perhaps birch or dogwood-sized, but this isn’t about the accurate portrayal of me as a woody plant. This is about epic fantasy and swashbuckling and otherworldly magic. I’ve got a book. And I believe you’ve got a book. We’re book-having trees – pick your variety – and we’re bursting at the seams with stories.

Don’t think so? Fight me. I started as an innocent with no idea I was going to write FLOTSAM until I was in the middle of the thing.

I could have laughed off the idea, amused myself with a single illustration of a character who appeared to me while I was watching a flick, and then moved on with my life. If I hadn’t been in the uncomfortable transition between college and corporate life that summer, the vaporous form of a female pirate captain might have been only a passing fancy quickly forgotten.

And I think that’s what happens to sort folks into writers and non-writers. People have ideas and, as if the idea were a mosquito buzzing around their head, they wave it off. Maybe a passing comment, but the very notion of inviting that story mosquito to drink from their veins is unapproachable. Society likes blockbuster movies based on bestselling novels, but I don’t think society really values the moment when the idea happens, unless that idea is a tennis racket which syncs with your smartphone to schedule follow-up meetings with your opponent to gloat about your score. The pieces of stories which come to us from flashes of inspiration are not things we readily want others to know about, especially if we are trying to fit in with the society that we perceive wants an “As Seen on Shark Tank” product promising to make life effortless, instead of a book that demands an investment of time and attention.

I think the reason I write books when other people don’t is I hear that whining buzz and my instinct is to bare my throat to it, rather than shoo it away. This instinct wasn’t always so … instinctive. First, I had to welcome the buzz when I heard it. It helped I was suffering a new, unfamiliar anxiety and I was eager to escape. Talis’s story, daydreaming of it and eventually recording it, provided a welcome distraction.

I’ve recently heard the suggestion that story-creators are addicts. That those who go from idea to finished work are those who give in to the compulsion to create. I know I have an addictive personality, so I’m all for that explanation. No matter what I do, this invented world is on my mind. I nearly destroyed my wrist and back trying to illustrate the story, because coming out of art school, visual expression was all I knew. I worked at my oversized pages whenever I had spare time, driven to get my story into the world. I thought I would be free once it was done. That was never ever going to be an option.

Now I know I will never be free of story ideas. They swarm around me, buzzing so loud I may miss entire conversations. It’s as distracting as the metaphor makes it sound, and as itchy as the mosquito bites are in real life. Except this itchy saliva also wakes you out of dead sleeps and shoves you toward your keyboard.

But once I let the idea of FLOTSAM bite me, I had no other choice. Giving into that first story granted me an extra-sensory perception. Now I see stories in everything. Offhand comments; the warm glow of flame over the ash in a fireplace; the crescent shadows cast by leaves during an eclipse; the texture of a handwoven net preserved from the 1800s; vocabulary; weather; steak knives. Stories are everywhere.

I was compelled to write FLOTSAM and, by writing FLOTSAM, I am now compelled to write more. I didn’t shoo away that mosquito, and I can’t seem to shoo away these next swarms. Life as a storyteller is all about ending up as their pincushion.

I let my character tell me about herself, about her world, the people in her life, the ship she dreamed of, and the things that got her out of bed in the morning. And through chronicling it all, I discovered what I wanted out of life as well.

FLOTSAM is her story tangled with mine. As Talis comes to grips with her desires and what she’s willing to do to obtain them, it mirrors my own journey to learn what I wanted and what it’s worth to me.

It wasn’t what either of us expected.

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About Flotsam

Captain Talis just wants to keep her airship crew from starving, and maybe scrape up enough cash for some badly needed repairs. When an anonymous client offers a small fortune to root through a pile of atmospheric wreckage, it seems like an easy payday. The job yields an ancient ring, a forbidden secret, and a host of deadly enemies.

Now on the run from cultists with powerful allies, Talis needs to unload the ring as quickly as possible. Her desperate search for a buyer and the fallout from her discovery leads to a planetary battle between a secret society, alien forces, and even the gods themselves.

Talis and her crew have just one desperate chance to make things right before their potential big score destroys them all.

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Links

Add Flotsam to your Goodreads shelf:

Purchase Flotsam:

Amazon (US)          Barnes & Noble          IndieBound 
Powell’s          Other retailers

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About the Author

R J THEODORE is hellbent on keeping herself busy. Seriously folks, if she has two spare minutes to rub together at the end of the day, she invents a new project with which to occupy them.

She lives in New England with her family, enjoys design, illustration, podcasting, binging on many forms of visual and written media, napping with her cats, and cooking. She is passionate about art and coffee.

FLOTSAM, Theodore’s debut novel, is available in print, digital, and audio from Parvus Press.

Connect with the author:
Author Web site: https://www.rjtheodore.com
Publisher’s Web site: https://parvuspress.com/flotsam/
Twitter account: https://twitter.com/bittybittyzap

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See my review of Flotsam here.

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Veronica Scott, Author of Aydarr – Guest Post With Excerpt

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excerpt, guest post, scifi romance, series, Veronica Scott

If you didn’t know, let me be the first to tell Veronica Scott has a new series. Aydarr: A Badari Warriors SciFi Romance Novel (Sectors New Allies Series, #1) is the first book in a new Scifi Romance series, and I am very excited that she is here today to introduce us to it. Please welcome Veronica Scott!

It’s such a pleasure to start my New Year with a visit to your blog! Thanks for inviting me to come and talk about my latest release, Aydarr, which is also the first book in a brand new series for me. I’d wanted to write a formal series for quite some time, versus my loosely connected scifi romance books set in the interstellar Sectors. Although I do have some recurring characters that appear in various Sectors novels, and I’ve set a number of books on the luxury star cruiser Nebula Zephyr, I haven’t been writing those books under a single, overarching plot arc that would take my characters a number of novels to resolve. (Although there is a larger timeline and plot for the Sectors as a whole in my head, never fear.) I used to say I’d never write an actual series LOL – never say never – because I’m such a pantster when it comes to writing that I couldn’t imagine even loosely plotting 3 to 5 books in advance. I like telling one story at a time and maybe doing a sequel or a spinoff later, as has happened with my alien empath books.

My Muse doesn’t like too much plotting in detail or ahead of time!

But last year I decided to take on the challenge of a ‘real’ series. Must stretch those creative muscles and I’d gotten to the point where I was intrigued rather than daunted. I’ll still be writing the individual Sectors novels, never fear. I love telling those stories too much to ever stop! And I have a ton of plot ideas and other sequels, especially for the Nebula Zephyr.

I’ve always loved the Lora Leigh Breeds series and the Laurann Dohner New Species books – those genetically engineered warriors really appeal to me. I came up with my own concept for a race of captive, created soldiers, and a pretty solid way to connect the story to the Sectors’ larger themes of war with a deadly alien race. I asked myself what if a small Sectors colony full of people were abducted to serve as subjects in more experiments, and met as their fellow prisoners my genetically engineered Badari. And then….what? How do the humans get home? How do the Badari become free? How does all the romance and adventure happen?

So here we go with the first book, Aydarr. The second book, Mateer, is with my editor and should be released in late January. I’m about to start writing book three…

Here’s the synopsis for Aydarr:

Jill Garrison, a maintenance tech at the Sectors Amarcae 7 colony, goes to sleep one night as usual only to wake up in her nightgown stranded in the middle of a forest on an unknown world. There’s no time to think as she’s stalked by carnivorous predators and rescued by genetically engineered warriors calling themselves the Badari. Turns out they and she, along with her whole colony, are now prisoners of the Khagrish, a ruthless race of alien scientists. Working for enemies of the Sectors, the Khagrish have created the Badari to be super soldiers.

Aydarr, the Badari alpha, isn’t sure he can trust Jill but his attraction to her is undeniable. He impulsively claims her as his mate to prevent her death at the hands of the Khagrish.

Can he continue to protect her from the experiments already underway? Will his claiming her put his pack in jeopardy from their alien masters?

As Jill searches for a way to rescue her fellow humans and get them all to safety, she finds herself falling for Aydarr, despite the secrets he’s keeping. She has a few of her own.

The situation becomes dire when Aydarr and his pack are sent offplanet on a mission, leaving Jill unprotected, prey for the senior scientist. Can she escape the experiments he has in mind for her? Will she be able to thwart the Khagrish plans and liberate humans and Badari alike? How will she and Aydarr reunite?

And the excerpt – Jill has been traveling through the nature preserve with Aydarr and his pack and now she meets the alien scientists in charge:

Next morning, the pack was up and marching early, with no breaks. After several hours of this, Jill toiled up one more in an endless series of rolling hills to join the silent line of Badari. A complex of buildings had appeared in the distance. Gleaming in the sun, the facility appeared high tech . As she shielded her eyes with her hand, a flitter spiraled in for a landing on the other side of the building.

“The labs,” Aydarr said to her. “Our true prison.”

Sure he wouldn’t answer any question, she nodded and trudged down the side of the hill. As the pack drew closer, sirens blared, and seven sentients emerged from the building to wait for their arrival. The first three didn’t look too imposing—humanoid in form, as were so many of the races to be found in the galaxy. They had pale skin, pink-yellow-white hair gathered into peaks on their heads and cascading over their backs in tightly controlled braids. Two were male and one was female. Four guards in full body armor, visors closed, carrying serious weapons, stood flanking the trio.

“Are those the Khagrish?” she asked Aydarr as she walked next to him, away from the hill and toward the waiting group.

“Yes. Don’t be fooled by their pretty appearance,” he said. “A more cruel and unprincipled race of beings never existed, as my people know to their cost. Stay close to me.”

“I consider myself duly warned.” Heart beating faster, she walked next to Aydarr.

The Badari came to a stop ten feet away from the waiting Khagrish, taking a position on a black line painted on the surface of the patio extending from the building. Aydarr took his place at the head of the formation, drawing Jill to stand between him and Mateer.

The woman appeared to be in charge. “You idiots,” she said to her two underlings, while the guards stood unmoving, their weapons now aimed at the line of Badari.

Jill blinked. The Khagrish scientist wasn’t speaking Basic, but her language was apparently close enough to something Jill had been hypno implanted with during her military days that the translator implant was able to make sense of the words. Lots of weird things rattling around in my brain, thanks to the Special Forces. The Sectors military liked to implant enhancements into their soldiers and nothing ever got removed. She wondered if Aydarr and his men understood Khagrish, but now wasn’t the time to ask.

Gesturing at Jill, the woman said, “The Sectors humans are not for this experiment. They weren’t brought here to be mixed into other, already established protocols. What the untranslatable is she doing in the Preserve? Mingling with the animals?”

One of the two men fidgeted. “We were bored. The animals don’t do anything new. We thought it would be amusing… um, scientifically enlightening to introduce a new factor into their playtime.”

“And there were so many humans delivered, we figured no one would miss one.” The other glared at Jill. She fought off the desire to take a defensive stand, keeping herself loosely at attention the way her companions stood. Was the entire population of my colony kidnapped? Her heart beat faster with dread, realizing her sisters, her friends and colleagues were held captive in the massive building, maybe already being experimented on.

“And you expected the Badari to do…what with her?” The female was contemptuous.

And pissed, Jill concluded. “Fight over her? Tear her to bits? Assault her?”

The man evidently didn’t read emotions as well as Jill did. He nodded eagerly as if expecting praise for his enterprise, his ridiculous crest of hair bobbing. “Exactly. Any or all of those possibilities.”

“We were ready to take notes,” the other added. “We had the recorders running.”

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Links

Add Aydarr to your Goodread shelf:

Purchase Aydarr:

Amazon          B&N          Google

Kobo           iBooks

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About the Author

USA Today Best Selling Author

“SciFi Encounters” columnist for the USA Today Happy Ever After blog

Veronica Scott grew up in a house with a library as its heart. Dad loved science fiction, Mom loved ancient history and Veronica thought there needed to be more romance in everything. When she ran out of books to read, she started writing her own stories.

Seven time winner of the SFR Galaxy Award, as well as a National Excellence in Romance Fiction Award, Veronica is also the proud recipient of a NASA Exceptional Service Medal relating to her former day job, not her romances!

She was honored to read the part of Star Trek Crew Member in the audiobook production of Harlan Ellison’s “The City On the Edge of Forever.”

Blog: https://veronicascott.wordpress.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/vscotttheauthor
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Veronica-Scott/177217415659637?ref=hl

Tiffany Roberts, Author of Treasure of the Abyss – Guest Post

Tags

fantasy, guest post, paranormal romance, scifi romance, Tiffany Roberts

Today, I have a special treat. Please welcome Tiffany Roberts who has a new book this week, Treasure of the Abyss.  Today, a bit about the creative process of an author….

It’s not easy choosing topics for blog posts (which is why we never keep up on our own blog), so we decided to pull back the curtain and give you a glimpse of our creative process! Don’t worry, it’s probably just a coincidence that this special peek into our world is about our latest book, Treasure of the Abyss.

Firstly, if you’re confused about the ‘we’, Tiffany Roberts is actually two people — a husband and wife duo, Robert and Tiffany. One of the benefits to this arrangement is that we get to refer to ourselves in the third person while also using ‘we’ throughout this post! Bonus points if you don’t get confused.

Moving on, then…

We’d planned to finish our fantasy series — The Isle of the Forgotten — this past fall. Our outline of the final book, Make Me Surrender, was complete, we’d been through our preliminary arguments and creative differences, and had even jumped in to begin writing it. But it was a struggle. The hardest start we’ve had since we began our self-publishing journey two years ago.

Now, this next part may not seem related, but just stick with us…

Around the same time, Tiffany had been experimenting with monster erotica shorts under a penname that shall remain super-secret. She’d work on these stories while Rob was at his day job, and focused on the duo books in the evenings and on the weekends. As we continued to battle Make Me Surrender, Tiffany was a couple of chapters into her latest erotica…featuring an octopus man.

She decided — quite suddenly, Rob would say — that she wanted the story to become a full-length Tiffany Roberts novel.

Picking up her phone, she called Rob at work to propose the idea (which meant it was definitely happening).

“Let’s do lunch!” she said. “Good? Good! We can brainstorm over soup and salad!”

“What about Make Me Surrender?” Rob asked.

“Neither of us is feeling it right now, and the last thing we want to do is rush it.”

So, over lunch at Olive Garden, we collaborated on the setting for Treasure of the Abyss, including the backstory for the kraken, our race of octopus-men (and women). With our last book having come out in July, we wanted to get something out as quickly as we could, so we set a goal to release before February. Our fruitless struggles with Make Me Surrender had left us behind schedule, but National Novel Writing Month — NaNoWriMo to those in the know — was right around the corner. We figured it was a perfect time to push ourselves.

Of all the advice we’ve heard about writing, there’s one tidbit we value over everything — B.I.C., or BUTT IN CHAIR. Over the last two years, we have made B.I.C. our routine. When we’re working on a book, we’re working on it every day. For Tiffany, who is very self-motivated and goal-driven, this makes NaNoWriMo a great incentive. For Rob, who is…not self-motivated or goal-driven, it’s a bit more difficult.

Either way, we knew 50k words in a month was no problem. We’ve done it before. That’s all Treasure was supposed to be — a relatively quick, fun, 50k word read. But, as we reached that 50k mark in our manuscript, we realized there were a lot of bullet points left on the outline…

We pushed hard, putting in five or six hours a night on weekdays (after the aforementioned day job), and twice that each day on the weekends. Four weeks after starting, our finished first draft of Treasure was just under 100k words. Our second longest book to date.

“We’re so writing about Arkon next,” Tiffany said.

“Umm…what? What about Make Me Surrender?” Rob inquired.

“Eventually. For now, I needs mah tentacles!” Tiffany replied with a grin (a grin that still haunts Rob to this day). She gestured to the comments from our readers on Facebook. “And so do they! Much tentacle love!”

(Speaking of tentacles, we had a…disagreement when it came to a *ahem* certain part of our kraken’s anatomy. Ultimately, Tiffany won. She always wins…or at least that’s what Rob lets her think.)

So what was meant to be a relatively short book turned into a planned three-book series, just like that.

You may be wondering where we’re going with all of this. What’s the point? Why did I bother reading? Well, we told you it was just a glimpse into the life of an indie-author duo…but if you want a takeaway, let it be B.I.C.

If there’s something creative you’ve always wanted to do, the most important thing is that you do it. We live in exciting times; anyone can create and share their vision with the world. Whether you want to write, paint, make music, dance, carve wood, produce video content, or whatever, just do it. You’ll feel better for it, and wherever your creation goes, the accomplishment for having done it can’t be obtained anywhere else.

Also, you should totally check out Treasure of the Abyss and all of our other books. *Wink*

About Treasure of the Abyss

HIS TREASURE AND HIS OBSESSION…

Despite her longing for the sea, Macy has clung to the safety of land for half her life, devoting herself to her daily routine — until she agrees to go sailing with a childhood friend. Her fears come to fruition when a sudden storm capsizes their boat, rekindling her old terror. She awakens to a rescuer who is anything but human — and he refuses to let her go. Treated like a curiosity and a possession, she’s desperate to go home. Yet Macy is undeniably drawn to this strange creature. Can she give up her old life, her family and friends, to embrace this adventure…and Jax?

HER SAVIOR AND HER CAPTOR…

Jax the Wanderer is a hunter, an explorer, and an oddity among his kind. While other kraken are content near their dens, Jax is driven by a deep need to journey far and wide, discovering the unknown corners of the sea. Macy challenges everything he’s known; she is the most alluring creature he’s ever seen on his travels. He must possess her, though he knows it can only end in disaster. How much is he willing to forsake for the female he desires?

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Links

Add Treasure of the Abyss to your Goodreads shelf:

Purchase Treasure of the Abyss:

 

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About the Authors

Tiffany Roberts is the pseudonym for Tiffany and Robert Freund, a husband and wife writing duo. Tiffany was born and bred in Idaho, and Robert was a native of New York City before moving across the country to be with her. The two have always shared a passion for reading and writing, and it is their dream to combine their mighty powers to create the sorts of books they want to read. They live in southwestern Idaho with their three children, where they are now actively pursuing their dream.

Find Tiffany Roberts at:
FB page: https://www.facebook.com/AuthorTiffanyRoberts/
Goodreads Page: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/14737283.Tiffany_Roberts
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/authortiffanyroberts/