@ErickGEEE on Developing His Art #AmReading #LitFic #Relationships

What writing are you most proud of?

I’m proud of So Go On and Live because it is my first novel. And I think I nailed what I was going for.   http://www.amazon.com/So-Go-Live-Erick-Galindo/dp/1490451552/

What are you most proud of in your personal life?

I mean, writing is personal to me. But I’m also proud of the fact that my parents are proud of me. I was a smart kid and they had all these expectations. For a long time, I didn’t think I would ever make them proud. So it’s kind of cool.

What books did you love growing up?

I loved everything. Even in elementary school my tastes were eclectic. Judy Blume, Edgar Allan Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle and R L Stine were some of my early favorites.

Who is your favorite author?

This is quite difficult. I like so many authors pretty equally but I think they would mostly all agree that we are chasing Hemingway.

What book genre of books do you adore?

Literary fiction is my favorite. But I love books from all aisles of these last remaining book stores.

What book should everybody read at least once?

Everybody that’s alive now should probably read A Visit from the Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan because it says so much about life as it is currently. But in the history of the world … I don’t know. The Beautiful and The Damned?

Or maybe something with  a lesson about tyranny like The Grapes of Wrath or Bunnicula.

Is there any books you really don’t enjoy?

Oh yeah. There are plenty of books of which I am not the target audience and it’s a good thing I’m not.

What do you hope your obituary will say about you?

I hope it will say that I was successful and love and at life.

Location and life experiences can really influence writing, tell us where you grew up and where you now live?

I spent parts of my childhood in Paramount, Downey, Compton, Long Beach. All in the greater Los Angeles area. I also spent some summers in my grandmother’s ranch down in Sinaloa, Mexico. I’m still in the LA area but I move around so much and I’m on the road as often as a I can.

How did you develop your writing?

Through years of reading and consuming art. And through understanding that the voice in my head was actually on to something.

A winner of the Hollywood Book Festival, So Go On and Live poignantly and bitingly captures the angst and restlessness of modern American youth. Pedro “Pete” Salcedo, a young but worn down journalist, is on a figurative and metaphorical journey through the absurdity of life, America and beautiful women. 

After accepting a prestigious job in Washington, D.C. and subsequently losing the love of his life, Pedro loses himself, first to his work, then to the road and eventually to the apathy, alcohol and cynicism that permeates through youth culture. Pedro struggles, like many of his generation, to get his life in order and hang on to love, sanity and pathos in this modern world, where women, relationships and sexuality are constantly evolving. 

So Go On and Live is a wild and emotional expedition into the existential and farcical perspective of a drunken, Mexican-Irish, would-be poet offering a new breed of optimism that comes with a nihilistic twist.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre - Literary Fiction

Rating – PG-13

More details about the author

Connect with Erick Galindo through Twitter

Website http://www.erickg.com/contact/

Believable Characters with Anna Klay (Broken Wing) #Literary #AmReading #MustRead

To give breath to your characters, you must flush them out, in other words, you have to get to know them – know them better than your own best friend, spouse, or child.

The way I do this is I first start a novel with a story idea.  Some writers start with a character, some a title, some an outline.  It may take me several months working this story idea out in my head until I have a basic story for the first draft along with a basic idea of character personality and what part they play in the novel.

Then I begin researching names for the characters that fit with the basic personality.  In Broken Wing, I began with the name Bonnie.  I knew she was special.  When I started the first draft, I expected that she would be the main character.  I also knew she had a gift for seeing into the future and thought she may be somewhat unstable.  I knew Isaac was determined, strong, and powerful.  I spend a few weeks or more researching names for meaning, history, root, etc.  I use a white board to write down ideas of names, research, character connections to each other, etc.

After I have established the character’s names, I start the interview.  I keep a file of an interview for each character.  I start with the obvious – what is your full name? Where were you born?  What is your favorite color, food, item of clothing, hobby, etc.?  In Broken Wing, Ray told me in the interview that his favorite food was steak with blood dripping off the plate.  He also told me he loved music but didn’t watch much television.  Skye told me she didn’t own any plants because she killed every one she ever tried to grow, usually because she’d forget to water them.  Bonnie told me one time she tore Skye’s doll’s head off because it was mocking her.  Yes, it’s true, not everything makes it into the story.

After the initial interview, the fun begins as the questions become more personal and revealing.  Do you like sex?  How old were you when you experienced your first sexual encounter?  Have you ever wanted to hurt someone?  Have you ever tasted human blood?  Who do you hate?  And etc.  The following occurred while interviewing Ray Long:

Me – Ray, how do you feel about Skye?

Ray – I’ve already answered that.  Are you listening here or are you writing your damn daily grocery list?

Me – Do you confide in her?

Ray – I tell her what she needs to know.

Me – Like what?

Ray – I’m not going to tell you that.

Me – But you are, you must if I am to write the story.

The interviews for Broken Wing took six months.  Some characters who were interviewed never made it into the novel.  And much of the information from the interviews never made it into the novel.  But writing the characters, knowing how they would react, what they would say and feel was clear and evident because of the time spent getting to know the characters before the writing began.

The Tarot predicts the journey as Ray Long comes to the town of Pettington hoping to leave his rage behind and begin a new life. And when he meets Skye Roosevelt, he begins to believe he can recreate himself and find his future in Pettington. But Pettington is no ordinary town with a metaphysical store that tells its future, a whore house that keeps it financially secure, and secrets long buried just beneath its surface. And soon Ray Long begins to spiral down into the pit of violence he has always known. 

He begins to hear the Devil whisper in his ear, and he soon discovers his old self is more soothing to him than the new life he’s created. And when he tries to murder two of Pettington’s own, Skye Roosevelt must search deep within herself for her own self identity in order to protect her son as Ray Long battles the past in order to separate the passion from the pain. Broken Wing is a story about an abuser who was a victim of abuse as a child. 

This is a story about his family relations, the need for love, the devastation of rejection, and the merry-go-round that keeps turning. And this story is about self-identity, a self-identity the character believes defines him, dark and rigid, until he is pushed to the extreme, only then can he step out and stand naked with this identity at his feet as he lays claim to the past that molded him and the passion that fills his heart.

Buy Now @ Amazon & Smashwords

Genre - Literary

Rating – PG-13

More details about the author

Connect with Anna Klay through Facebook & Twitter

Website http://www.annaklaybooks.com/

Twelve Houses by Olga Soaje #Quotes #Contemporary #Fiction

You promised you would never leave me. Thirty-five years ago, I looked you directly in the eye and heard, “I will never leave you,” as we stood next to the ocean. And now, like a thief in the night, you go. No last words, no promises, no tears.

May you find joy in every day, forgiveness in every thoughtless action on my part, and know my love in every breath.

To this day it amazes me that unbeknown to most people, that secret self-portrait of my own flawed self not only helped me cope but also allowed me to become whole again.

My heart is racing, and I’m thinking the unthinkable. My daughter, my pregnant daughter, might be having an affair.

I’m not sure if your ready for what I’d like to discuss in you natal chart…

If I allow myself to be pulled into your gravitational force I may lose myself completely.

I felt the need to say “Thank you” At first, he asked me what for, and when I said, “For this moment” he understood that every grateful thank you, I might be saying a slow good-bye.

Can anything good follow the best thing that ever happened to you?

Amelia Weiss loved her husband of thirty-five years very much, but now he’s left her a widow. Without him, she is unable to work in her sculpture studio without crying. She no longer has a bridge to her estranged daughter. And she can’t seem to keep her mind in the present.

But when her daughter reaches out asking for her help and her agent threatens a lawsuit if Amelia doesn’t deliver for an upcoming exhibit, she’s forced to make a choice. Will she reengage with her life and the people in it—allowing room for things to be different than they were before? Or, will she remain stuck in the past, choosing her memories over real-life relationships?

Thrust fully into the present, Amelia stumbles into a surprising journey of self-discovery.

Buy @ Amazon

Genre – Contemporary Fiction, Literary Fiction, Women's Fiction

Rating – PG-13

More details about the author

Connect with Olga Soaje on Facebook

Lucien and I by Danny Wynn #excerpt #adventure #bookworm

I was forty-one when Lucien and I were in Istanbul.  He was twenty-six.  We’d met and become friends two years earlier.  Yeah, I know, it’s weird – a guy in his early forties regularly hanging out with a guy in his mid-twenties.

Why did I have such a friendship?  Well, to some extent, for the normal reasons that people are friends – they like each other, have common interests, et cetera – but I also have to admit it had a fair amount to do with the fact that for the first twenty-nine years of my life, I didn’t remotely have the life I wanted.  The palpable wrongness of how those years felt left a gaping hole inside my person, a more or less constant insatiable want.  And when Lucien came along, I was very likely drawn to the chance he gave me to unexpectedly and belatedly have the late twenties I wished I’d had.

- from Lucien and I (being released in autumn 2014)

How far would you go to add excitement to a life you felt was boring and meaningless?

For seventy-three-year-old Jaime, the answer takes him by surprise. Accustomed to a lonely life high up in the mountains on the western coast of Mallorca, his dull routine is suddenly shattered when a man parachutes from a plane and lands nearby. The plane crashes; the man lives.

It’s a drug smuggling operation gone bad. But Stefan, the man from the sky, has escaped with eight kilos of cocaine in a gym bag. Jaime brings Stefan home and is soon entangled in Stefan’s attempts to sell the cocaine and start a new life.

As they dodge Parisian drug dealers and corrupt Mallorcan police, Jaime’s search for excitement and Stefan’s resolve to find stability lead them both down dangerous paths.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre - Literary Fiction, Adventure

Rating – PG-13

More details about the author

Connect with Danny Wynn on Facebook

Website http://www.dannywynn.net/