A Day in the Life of Author Sue Parritt @OdysseyBooks #AmWriting #AmReading #SannahAndThePilgrim

A day in the life of Sue Parritt

The day begins around 7.15 when my husband, an early riser, brings me a cup of tea in bed and slips back in beside me. I savour each sip; this first cup somehow superior to all those that follow, ponder between brief conversation yesterday’s paragraphs awaiting attention. Out of bed no later than 7.45, lingering, daydreaming or staring into space isn’t an option for this well-organised writer. Breakfast a brief affair: muesli, toast, and another cup of tea. Next item on the agenda is the morning walk along the cliff top. I walk at a reasonable pace for half an hour, one day one direction, next day other direction. Where tangled trees give way to coastal shrubs or grassy banks the view is magnificent and ever-changing. Mirror-smooth or white-capped, I never tire of Port Philip Bay. Then it’s back home to domestic deeds or a quick trip to the shops, cursing long queues in the bank and post office, toddlers running riot in the supermarket, the spiralling cost of household necessities. Like the late Elisabeth Jolley, I can’t settle to writing until these chores have been completed.

Mid-morning I begin the key business of the day, the pursuing of a long-held dream, reward for long years supplying others’needs. In order to focus my mind, particularly if writing a first draft, I return to the previous day’s work, rereading and editing obvious errors. Major edits are generally postponed for the second and subsequent drafts but as a reminder I insert directions such as ‘extend para’ or ‘rewrite whole chapter’ into the text in upper case. When ideas pertinent to a different part of the narrative surface, I scribble them on paper, adding them later to a file of notes on the computer. A cataloguer in my former life, I am meticulous about organising my files in an easily retrievable form. Atypically, my desk is often a mess with pieces of paper scattered around, and by the end of the day, numerous empty teacups, plates and here I confess to a bad habit, crumbs caught in the keyboard!

Writing is a lonely business and occasionally a phone call or knock at the door can be a welcome intrusion (as any writer will attest) when staring at a problem paragraph threatens to cause meltdown or migraine. However, the longer I spend writing, the more I resent intrusions and am considering having a studio built in the garden (no phones, no temptation to run and answer the door) in order to achieve the desired peace and quiet.

Around five or six, depending on whether I’m on a roll or literally stuck for words, I save my document to a USB despite the fact I have a Seagate backup plus drive and venture into the kitchen to prepare the evening meal. Sometimes, in an attempt to ignore my secondary role, I set the oven timer for an hour or so and settle back down in front of the computer. Oh, for a string of servants to perform those boring but essential domestic tasks!

General Information - Sannah and the Pilgrim by Sue Parritt

ISBN: 978-1-922200-14-3

Genre: Speculative Fiction / Sci-fi / Dystopian

Release Date: 26 April 2014 (Paperback and ebook)

Publisher: Odyssey Books (http://www.odysseybooks.com.au/)

Amazon: http://amzn.to/1kBKqan

Kobo: http://store.kobobooks.com/en-US/ebook/sannah-and-the-pilgrim

B&N: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sannah-and-the-pilgrim-sue-parritt/1119209936?ean=9781922200143

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/sannah-and-the-pilgrim/id872478599?ls=1&mt=11

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21883471-sannah-and-the-pilgrim

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sue.parritt

LinkedIn: http://au.linkedin.com/pub/sue-parritt/60/622/301

Description:

When Sannah the Storyteller, a descendant of environmental refugees from drowned Pacific islands, finds a White stranger on her domestep, she presumes he’s a political prisoner on the run seeking safe passage to egalitarian Aotearoa. However, Kaire’s unusual appearance, bizarre behaviour, and insistence he’s a pilgrim suggest otherwise.

Appalled by apartheid Australia, Kaire uses his White privileges to procure vital information for Sannah and her group of activists regarding new desert prisons that are to be built to house all political prisoners. The group plans sabotage but needs help, and Kaire is a willing accomplice. But when Sannah turns Truthteller and threatens to reveal the country’s true history, even Kaire’s White privilege and advanced technology cannot save Sannah and her daughter from retribution.

About Sannah and the Pilgrim:

Sannah and the Pilgrim is a tale of courage, defiance and deceit that asks the reader, ‘Would you risk death by telling the truth about your country, or would you play it safe and spend your life as a storyteller?’

Are you concerned about our governments’ (both past and present) failure to act on climate change and the detention and inhumane treatment of refugees? I am, so I have drawn on contemporary conservative attitudes to present a dystopian view of a future Australia in my speculative fiction novel Sannah and the Pilgrim. Read it and discover what could happen to our‘lucky’ country.

About the Author:

Sue Parritt is an Australian writer, originally from England. Her poetry and short stories have been published in magazines and anthologies in Australia, Britain and the USA. After graduating BA University of Queensland 1982 (majors: English Literature, Drama and French), Sue worked in university libraries until taking early retirement in 2008 to pursue her long-held dream of becoming a professional writer.  Since then she has written Sannah and the Pilgrim, numerous short stories and poems and‘Feed Thy Enemy’, a feature film script set in Naples in 1944 and 1974 and based on a true story (Sue is currently seeking a producer). She recently completed a second novel Safety Zone and is now writing a sequel to Sannah and the Pilgrim – the working title is Pia and the Skyman.

Writing by the Seat of Your Pants with @Vanna_Smythe #AmWriting #WriteTip #Dystopian

How to Write by the Seat of Your Pants: Outline or No?

I am a seat-of-the-pants writer by nature and inclination. However, after having written four books, I have found that devising a working outline of a book prior to starting writing helps me stay on track.  I do not plan out each scene or chapter, but I have found the basic story structure formula to be a very good guide for keeping a book on track.

The formula I currently use is the 7-Point Story Structure, which lets you map out the important, pivotal points in your story, namely the hook, first plot point, midpoint, second plot point and resolution, as well as the two pinches where the villains rear their ugly heads.  The author Dan Wells did a great presentation of this formula, and you can watch that on You Tube, so I won’t go into detail here.

These days, I basically plan my characters, setting, main conflicts and the resolution before I start writing. Knowing how a book will end helps me plan the beginning, and weave in the necessary transformation that needs to occur in the main characters.  It also helps me to stay on track with the plot, since knowing the ending helps me target everything I write towards it. That is not to say that my plans don’t sometimes change, but such is the reality and magic of being a seat of the pants writer.

With my latest Progeny of Time YA dystopian series I actually have the first three books all planned out in terms of their endings, which lets me write them so much faster.  I published the first book in the series, The Grower’s Gift in mid-May, and I plan to have the second book ready and available by the end of July.

The future is bleak in the year 2102. The planet is in chaos and the weather patterns have completely shifted, turning most of the world into an uninhabited wasteland.

The rich and powerful of North America have pulled back into the six remaining megacities, erasing all trace of a central government and leaving millions displaced by the environmental crisis to fend for themselves in the dying world.

Sixteen-year-old Maya has a gift, a power she thinks can heal the earth and make it habitable again. A gift that she must learn to harness. The school for the gifted in Neo York is the only place where she can learn to control her power and reach her potential.

Yet the school is not what it seems. Ran by the ruthless head of the city of Neo York, the school’s only objective is to extract the powers of the gifted and then discard them. Only Ty, heir to the city, can keep Maya from being destroyed there. But Ty has a secret, and his loyalty to his family has never wavered.

Will his growing love for Maya be strong enough to save them both?

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre - YA Dystopian

Rating – PG-13

More details about the author

Connect with Vanna Smythe through Facebook & Twitter

Website www.vannasmythe.com

10 Things You Did Not Know About #SagaoftheNine by Mikey DB @mikeydbii #Thriller #Dystopian

Ten things you didn’t know about Saga of the Nine: Area 38

1) It was originally going to be a musical.  The album that inspired it, This is War by 30 Seconds to Mars, was intended not only as the frame work of the story, but the bulk of the songs as well.  I thought about seeking out Jared Leto’s help/permission to use his music and possibly add more, but things ended up turning a different direction.  It really came down to the fact that I didn’t think a musical would do the story justice.  I still listened to the album probably a couple hundred times while writing it, but the story is much different now than the original musical.

2) Mica and the USA Division were inspired by a date I took a girl on.  My date and I doubled with my roommate and his date, each got some masquerade masks, and then went to dinner at a fancy restaurant while we wore them.  Like I said, bizarre, but hey, something worked because my date that night is now my wife.

3) Area 38 is actually a reference to the 38^th state of the United States of America.

4) The opening setting was inspired by the cold winter mornings in Utah.  I’ve been working the six am shift for as long as I can remember, and one of the joys about having to wake up so early in order to get to work on time, is it’s around the time that the sun rises.  The fog that covered the fields outside the industrial park were some of the most beautiful mornings I’ve seen.

5) Benedict Cumberbatch, the actor who played Sherlock Holmes in BBC’s Sherlock, is the person I pictured as I wrote and fine tuned Christopher Stone, the sadistic Area Leader of Area 38.  If he reads this, I hope he doesn’t get offended.  The way he talks in Star Trek: Into Darkness as Kahn is exactly how I imagine Christopher saying his lines.

6) I wrote the entire novel on the floor of my 500 square foot apartment--right at the foot of my bed.  I could only right for a few hours at a time though.  Any longer than three and my butt and legs would begin to go numb.

7) Saga of the Nine: Area 38 is actually a hybrid.  The entire plot began as two different stories.  Both of them were going nowhere, and one day I had the epiphany to combine the two.

8) Most, if not all, of my research for Area 38 came from listening to history podcasts I would listen to at my day job in the warehouse.

9) The flag on the cover was the brain child of my cousin, the cover designer.  The entire premise is that anything that is evil and corrupt usually isn’t original.  Evil simply takes originality and tweaks it.  That’s what the Nine did with the U.S. flag.

10) The foreign language in the novel is based off of Tahitian, which I picked up on my LDS mission in French Polynesia.

Change affects everyone and it is no different for Jackson. Living in Area 38 for as long as he can remember, he knows of no better way to exist than under the tyrannical rule of Christopher Stone, son of Stewart Stone from The Nine of The United Governmental Areas, aka The UGA. This all takes a dramatic turn when Jackson finds a red, metal box buried in his yard, filled with illegal artifacts—journals, a Bible, CDs, etc.—that are from a man of whom he has no recollection of: Mica Rouge.

 The year is 2036 and Mica, unlike Jackson, does know of a better way of life but is torn apart as he sees his country, The United States of America, crumbling from within by group known as The Political Mafia. The Mafia has infiltrated levels upon levels of governmental resources and it is up to Mica and a vigilante group known as The USA Division to stop them and their dark Utopian vision. To their demise, and at the country's expense, The Division fails and has no choice but to watch The Constitution dissolve and transform into The UGA.

In a final stand, having not given up hope, Mica and what is left of The Division, give one final fight in Colorado, or better known as Area 38. However, all is lost as The Division is betrayed by one of their own, Stewart Stone. Mica is left with no choice but to hide in exile, leaving what little history he can of himself and the great United States of America, with his wife, long time friends, and newly born son in hopes that they will one day finish what he could not.

Jackson, having found this legacy twenty-seven years later, decides to start the war that will end The Nine, and he with an outcast group known as The Raiders, begins his fight with Christopher Stone in Area 38. Filled with betrayal, unity, despair, hope, hate and love Area 38 follows both Mica and Jackson in their attempts to restore what they believe to be true freedom, and where one fails, the other rises to the seemingly impossible challenge.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre – Dystopian Thriller

Rating – PG13

More details about the author

Connect with Mikey D. B. on Facebook & Twitter

Website www.mikeydb.com

John Smith Discusses Earth's 12 Continents #Excerpt by Roland Hughes #Dystopian #Fiction

SK: That still doesn’t explain Earth That Was.

JS:       The seven continents.

SK: What are you talking about? There are twelve continents!

JS:       Today, yes.  Back in the day of Earth That Was, there were only seven continents and that is a map of them.  The picture hanging beside it is a picture of Earth That Was taken from outer space on a clear day.  As you can deduce from the map, it shows much of the North and South American continents.

SK: American?

JS:       <sigh> What is the first continent you encounter today when heading in the direction of where our sun sets?

SK: Dians.

JS:       What is the country we are in right now?

SK: Rica, but shouldn’t you already…

JS:       Back in the day of Earth That Was, Canada was a country occupying the northern portion of the North American continent and the United States of America occupied the lower portion of it before you got to this skinny connecting piece.  The sun traveled from this edge to that edge of the continent each day.

After the events of 2013, or during, depending upon how you look at it, part of Canada became the land mass you now call the Dians continent.  The rest of the North American continent also turned and split up.  Some say it simply had an ocean form over part of it.  The difference between split or sink doesn’t really matter.  Today, you cannot walk from one chunk to the other, so they are considered separate continents.

The country we live in now was once called America.  Several other chunks floating around the globe were also part of America. You are having trouble believing what you have been told because some big pieces that are at the root of the story are under the ocean now.  As a country, we no longer have any means of getting to them or taking pictures for others to see.  At some point, perhaps we will regain that but not at this point.

SK: Do you really expect me to believe that you have hanging on your wall a picture taken from outer space?  A beautiful picture in full color that was somehow taken while someone or something was in outer space and then given to you?

JS:       It wasn’t given, it was downloaded by my grandfather. Many people had them back at that time.

SK: Downloaded?

JS:       Yes.  With a thing called a computer over something called the Internet.  America had some kind of organization known as NASA, which sent ships, satellites and people into outer space.

SK: Internet?  People in outer space?  I don’t know what you’ve been drinking but it would have been polite to share!

JS:       <chuckle> Do you see that black rectangle resembling a book sitting over there?

SK: Yes.

JS:       On the front of it is a little ridge, which you can push to the right, then lift the top portion of it to open it.  Good.  Now near the bend where the two pieces come together is a button with a circle and a line sticking out of the circle.

SK:      I see it.

JS:       Press it.

SK: It is making noises.  There are lights flashing.  Things are appearing and disappearing on the top piece that feels like glass. What is OpenVMS?

JS:       It is the most robust computer operating system ever created by man.  Here, let me log in.

SK: Log in? Computer operating system?

“John Smith: Last Known Survivor of the Microsoft Wars” is one big interview. It is a transcript of a dialogue between “John Smith” (who, as the title of the book implies is the last known survivor of the Microsoft wars) and the interviewer for a prominent news organization.

Buy Now @ Amazon & B&N

Genre – Dystopian Fiction

Rating – PG

More details about the author

Website http://johnsmith-book.com/

S.M. McEachern on Writing by the Seat of Your Pants @smmceachern #SciFi #BookClub #WriteTip

I knew absolutely nothing about being an author until after I published.  Yes, I realize that’s a bit like tying my shoes before I put them on, but that’s the point. If I have hard time putting on my shoes, odds are I’ll go looking for a different pair, which will probably put a different spin on what I’m wearing.

For me, writing by the seat of my pants gives me flexibility.  Don’t get me wrong. I’m not sitting down at my computer banging out whatever pops into my head (okay, that’s not entirely true…). I do have a plot in mind. But it’s the journey from the beginning of the story to the end that holds twists and turns even for me. How is that possible, you ask? It’s the characters that lead me.

When I start to write my characters they almost jump up off the page and introduce themselves. Even the minor characters, like a guard who just needs to be in the hallway, has to have a story. I’m thinking of my character in Sunset Rising, Bron Llewellyn.  Honestly, she was just a guard in the first chapter. Why? Because the Pit is guarded and I had to have guards. I made her one of the “good” guards because even in a dystopic world, not every single guard is going to be mean, right? Then I asked myself, why is she a good guard?  Why is she sympathetic to the Pit?  By answering those questions, I hatched a subplot that wove seamlessly into the main plot and spilled into the second book of the series, Worlds Collide.

I’m a member of local writer’s group and I’ve talked to authors who create an outline first and then write to the outline. I’m amazed at this kind of organization. I wish I could apply it to my Tupperware drawer because I’d save myself at least 15 minutes every morning trying to find containers with lids that fit for my kids’ lunches. Then again, if I could readily match lids with containers, I’d probably make chocolate pudding more often for lunch.  Chocolate pudding isn’t really that good for them.  An apple is better.  And an apple doesn’t require a container.

You see the logic?

The point is, if the story is already laid out for me, I’ll write to the storyline. I’ll stop asking myself questions—and if I do that, I’ll stop coming up with answers I didn’t expect.  For me, writing by the seat of my pants gives me the freedom to be creative.

February 2024: Desperate to find refuge from the nuclear storm, a group of civilians discover a secret government bio-dome. Greeted by a hail of bullets and told to turn back, the frantic refugees stand their ground and are eventually permitted entry.  But the price of admission is high.

283 years later...  Sunny O'Donnell is a seventeen-year-old slave who has never seen the sun.  She was born in the Pit, a subterranean extension of the bio-dome. Though life had never been easy, the last couple of months had become a nightmare. Her mom was killed in the annual Cull, and her dad thought it was a good time to give up on life.  Reyes Crowe, her long-time boyfriend, was pressuring her to get married, even though it would mean abandoning her father.

She didn't think things could get any worse until she was forced upstairs to the Dome to be a servant-girl at a bachelor party.  That's when she met Leisel Holt, the president's daughter, and her fiancé, Jack Kenner.

Now Sunny is wanted for treason.  If they catch her, she'll be executed.

She thought Leisel's betrayal was the end.  But it was just the beginning.

"Sunset Rising" is Book One of a series.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre - YA Science Fiction, Dystopian

Rating – PG-16

More details about the author

Connect with S.M. McEachern through Facebook & Twitter

Website http://smmceachern.wordpress.com

#Author C.D. Verhoff's Thoughts on Common Newbie Mistake @CDVerhoff #WriteTip #AmWriting

Common Newbie Mistakes & How to Avoid Them 

1. Starting with a prologue.  General rule of thumb, ask yourself if the story makes sense without the prologue. If it does, get rid of it.. When your book contains a prologue, in essence, you’re starting the story twice. It’s difficult enough to hook the reader once, so don’t risk having to do it twice.
2. Opening with a dream scene. This is equivalent to playing a trick on your readers. “Ha, ha, reader. I made you think these first five pages were really happening, but they were just a dream. Fooled ya!” Your readers will not be amused.
3. Overusing exclamation points. I’ve seen veteran writers recommend no more than one exclamation point per 100,000 words. I don’t live by that guideline, but I try to use them sparingly.
4. Failing to embrace the word “said”. It’s the dialogue word of choice, so apply liberally. Professional fiction writers refer to it as an invisible word. The mind overlooks it, which keeps the reader’s attention on the story, not the prose. That’s a good thing. He replied, he growled, he sighed, she retorted, she quipped and so on—reserve them for rare occasions.
5. Opening the story with the main character waking up. But it’s the most natural place in the world to begin, some will say. I won’t argue the point and neither will a million other new writers who have started their stories exactly the same way. Having the main character wake up and throw the alarm clock is also cliché. So is waking up and shuffling to the mirror to give a character’s description (see #6 below).
6. Having the main character look in the mirror or some other reflective surface in order to give physical description. I have seen lots of beginner writers, including myself back in the day, start their novel something like this. The main character wakes up, stretches, shuffles over to the basin to splash water on his or her face. The character gazes in the mirror to contemplate his or her emerald eyes, curly disheveled raven locks, or chiseled jaw and six-pack abs. New writers think this is a clever way to sneak in description. but no. It’s usually the mark of an amateur.
7. Waiting too long to introduce the conflict. Paragraph one of the first chapter should deliver the conflict or at least hint at it. It will be difficult to convince your reader to turn the page without it.
8. Bad guy clichés. They are easy to pick out because they are they characters dressed in black—usually black leather. They often don dark sunglasses, have pock marked skin, scars and are in serious need of plastic surgery. For some reason, bad guys frequently smell like garlic and onions. For once, I’d like to meet a bad guy in plaid who smells like wintergreen mouthwash.
9. Adverb addiction. Whenever you spot one, kill it. You can usually spot them by the –ly ending. If you can’t go cold turkey, try limiting yourself to one per chapter. If I haven’t convinced you to let go of this manuscript disfiguring addiction, I suggest reading Stephen King’s book, On Writing.
10. Average Joe and Jane characters. I can hear the protests now. Are you crazy? It’s Joe’s ordinariness that makes him so gosh darn relatable. I agree to a certain point, but on some level a character must be larger than life. Part of the draw of fiction is that it draws readers into a different kind of life. They are seeking new experiences, the unusual, the dramatic, the inspiring, disturbing and memorable. Hanging with Plain Jane for three hundred pages isn’t very inspiring. Jane needs to possess extraordinary inner strength, wit, self awareness, deep inner conflict or something that makes her not so average.
11. Inattention to micro-tension.  This is the moment-by-moment conflict that keeps a reader in a continuous state of suspense. Micro-tension is separate from the main conflict, it is not the same as plot. This kind of tension comes from the inside of the your characters, their emotions in conflict, ideas at war with one another, their inner turmoil. Bring it out in your character’s thoughts, his dialogue, and his reaction to the world around him.
12. Going it on your own.  Four eyes are better than two. Two brains are better than one. I suggest growing a thick skin and seeking honest feedback from a critique buddy. And don’t be snobby about it. Finding an experienced writer to exchange chapters with is like finding gold and a beginner is silver. Both are valuable commodities. If you don’t know any writers who might want to exchange critique with you, a good place to find one is an online site called Critique Circle. I found a great critique buddy on Goodreads by combing through the various writing groups. Hatrack is another possible avenue.

Good luck and happy writing.

C. D. Verhoff

The last survivors of the human race are riding out nuclear winter in an underground bunker when disaster strikes. Forced to the surface centuries ahead of schedule, what they find blows their minds. Who can explain it? Two social misfits work together to unravel the mystery.

After living in a posh underground shelter his entire life, Lars Steelsun is plunged headfirst into a mind-blowing adventure on the surface of the Earth. As Lars and his displaced bunker mates are led across the grasslands by Mayor Wakeland, a man of questionable sanity who claims to talk with God, they discover a primitive world where human beings are no longer welcome. 

Even more mystifying is the emergence of new senses and abilities from within. Learning to use them has become a priority, but his biggest challenge comes from the vivacious Josie Albright. Her lust for glory is going to get them both into trouble. Sparks fly when her gung ho ways clash with his cautious personality. Can they overcome their differences to find love and a homeland for their people?

May not be suitable for younger readers. Contains mild profanity, sexual situations (infrequent), and violence.

Buy Now @ Amazon

Genre - Epic Fantasy

Rating – R

More details about the author

Connect with C. D. Verhoff on Facebook & Twitter

Blog http://cdverhoff.blogspot.com/