I’m really excited about the guest I have at Dag-Lit Central today. Karen Victoria Smith was one of the very first friends I made when I began my writing and publishing adventure, back in the days when the talk on Twitter was all about writing and drinking and the #pubwrite tag hadn’t been overtaken by spammers.

Today Karen is here, talking about her writing and publishing journey, and her new release, Dark Dealings.

And as an added bonus, Karen is offering 1 free paperback or 2 free ecopies of Dark Dealings. Just go to the Indie Exchange in order to enter the draw.

 

Druids, Vampires, Shapeshifters and International Finance

Jonathan Gould has asked me to talk about how my novel, Dark Dealings, differs from others on the genre.

Let’s get the easy ones out of the way:

• My vampires do not sparkle or walk around in the daylight.
• The world does not recognize their existence or the existence of shapeshifters and Druids with real power.
• No one lives in a remote swamp, where I think the food supply is more limited than in cities.

I write urban fantasy based in a somewhat more traditional post-Nosferatu vein. Don’t get me wrong there is a strong romance element, but because my main character, Micaela, doesn’t get a Happily-Ever-After (HEA) it is not technically a paranormal romance. I had a small press publisher ask me to re-write the ending to make it a HEA, but this is just the beginning of Micaela’s journey and she is just not there yet.

I also bring to Dark Dealings my own personal experiences.  I was raised in an urban environment in an Irish Catholic family. We lived in a four-family apartment building where all four apartments were occupied by a family member or in-laws relative.  My grandfather died when I was three leaving the building to my grandmother. She had been born in Athlone, Ireland and came to the United States just in time for the Great Depression. She was a great storyteller with a wicked sense of humor, and would tell me stories of her life in Ireland of family and fairy rings. She tried to teach me Irish, a skill I am still trying to master.

And so I took my Irish city kid self to an Ivy League school and then to Wall Street.  I spent 10 years there and then moved on to a major national bank when jumping on planes four days a week got very old.  I learned a lot in those years about people, finance and, in writing and editing legal documents and board presentations about the power of choosing the right words.

During that time the world went digital and 24-hour.

One night, I sat with a glass of wine under a moonlit sky and it all came together.  How easy it would be for the good old-fashioned vampire to hide and flourish in plain sight.  As a Wall Street refugee, I realized that for much of the globe everywhere it was night it was day for a trading desk somewhere else. And while rich, powerful vampires lend themselves to more plot opportunities, the next time you stop in an all night deli or highway gas station wonder why some of these folks LIKE to work nights. 

Then Micaela started to speak to me. She was highly logical, analytical and rational. The classic Wall Street type. Too analytical, she was hiding something.  She had a past and a history and demanded I tell it.  What is it? Well you’ll have to read Dark Dealings to learn more.

In writing Dark Dealings, I studied for years the craft of writing and for much of that time this novel was my homework project. Along the way, I discovered Joseph Campbell and The Hero with a Thousand Faces and his thematic progeny, Christopher Vogler, the man who changed Disney’s approach to films and has applied it to the novel. 

Perhaps one of the ways I am different from some of the fellow indie writers is that we are also the same. We are the sum and substance of our knowledge and experience.  My experience has been a bit more eclectic than most and so I find is easier to meld Druids, vampires, shapeshifters and Wall Street into a great ride.  I understand and cherish the power of the word and thanks to my Irish grandmother the power of a well-told story.

About Karen Victoria Smith

Karen Victoria Smith grew up with an Irish grandmother who tried to teach her the old ways and watched horror movies with her in the dark.  From there she moved on the wider world of college and career. After 25 years in financial services working on Wall Street and for major national banks, she discovered her passion in writing.  In Dark Dealings, she has found a way to bring the old ways together with the modern world.

Karen lives in New Jersey with her family who patiently allow her to believe that in a 24-hour world the monsters are real.

Her blog:  Storyteller’s Grove   http://kvictoriasmith.blogspot.com/

Goodreads:  http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/5830445.Karen_Victoria_Smith

Twitter: https://twitter.com/#!/KVictoriaSmith

Google+: https://plus.google.com/u/0/116156670429771791626/posts

Facebook:  http://www.facebook.com/karen.k.smith.37

Pinterest:  http://pinterest.com/kvictoriasmith/ 

Links for Dark Dealings

Amazon page:  http://www.amazon.com/Dark-Dealings-ebook/dp/B007Z9DEEI/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie;=UTF8&qid;=1339463063&sr;=1-1

Barnes and Noble page:   http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/dark-dealings-karen-victoria-smith/1110689732?ean=2940014403795

Smashwords (for other formats) http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/157380

Available in print through Amazon.

Also in print at CreateSpace eStore: https://www.createspace.com/3868445

And don’t forget – got to The Indie Exchange to enter the draw for a free copy.

Today I’m delighted to have a visit from my friend, Tahlia Newland author of You Can’t Shatter Me, a new young adult novella with an inspiring and empowering message for solving bullying. Tahlia writes magical realism and contemporary fantasy for young adults & adults. She has two short stories available free on kindle for a limited period, Not Me, It Can’t Be from 28th June to the 2nd July and A Hole in the Pavement from 3rd to 7th July.

Magical Realism is a genre of fiction in which magical elements blend with the real world. They’re written as real occurrences, presented in a straightforward manner that places the “real” and the “fantastic” in the same stream of thought. In my writing, the magical elements take the form of analogies or extended metaphors for character’s inner experiences.

Sometimes the lines between magical realism and fantasy can become blurred, but the writing is more powerful if the genre stays within its boundaries.  The difference between the two genres is that fantasy uses ordinary metaphors in a magical or fantasy world, whereas magical realism uses magical or fantastic metaphors in a real world. The magical aspect is a way of illuminating reality, rather than taking us into an unreal world.

I started out writing fantasy then realised that because my fantasy elements were often analogies for real things, it bordered on magical realism. I wrote a couple of magical realism stories for my short story collection A Matter of Perception and after readers raved about A Hole in the Pavement, (available now as a separate ebook on kindle) I thought I’d try my hand at more in the genre.

The beauty of magical realism is that it allows you to highlight and emphasise aspects of ordinary life in a highly imaginative and evocative way. I’ve always been fascinated by the mind and how it shapes our perception, but in a normal novel, if you spend too long on a characters thoughts and feelings, it can get boring.

With magical realism, I can express the character’s inner experience in a more interesting and powerful way by providing a visual image. For example when Dylan, the main male character tries to decide what subjects to choose for school the following year, words fly around the room and attack him, and when Carly, the female lead, battles doubt in herself, she uses laser light from her heart to destroys a huge purple doubt dragon.

The subject matter for You Can’t Shatter Me is bullying, which could be too real for some, but if you turn it into fantasy, it becomes too unreal to relate to people’s lives. Writing about real kids in a very real situation but with magical elements to illuminate the character’s inner development was the perfect choice for You Can’t Shatter Me.

Synopsis: You Can’t Shatter Me

Sixteen year old Carly wants to write her own life and cast herself as a superhero, but when she stands up to a bully, the story gets out of her control. Dylan, a karate-trained nerd who supports her stand, turns out to be a secret admirer, and Justin, the bully, makes Carly his next victim. While romance blossoms, Dylan faces attacking words, an unreliable movie director, a concrete habit that requires smashing, and an unruly Neanderthal. Meanwhile, the bully’s increasing harassment forces Carly to deal with flying hooks, unflushable cowpats, and deadly dragons. An old hippie shows her an inner magic that’s supposed to make her invincible, but will Carly learn to use it before the bully strikes again and Dylan resorts to violence?

Book Links for You Can’t Shatter Me

 

Book trailer

http://youtu.be/ysXMYoJUsO0 

 

Purchase links

 

Ebook

Kindle: http://www.amazon.com/You-Cant-Shatter-Me-ebook/dp/B008DME8PA

Files for all devices: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/174488

 

Paperback

If you’d like to be notified when the paperback is released please fill in the form here.

 

Author bio & links

Tahlia is an avid reader, an extremely casual high school teacher, an occasional mask-maker and has studied philosophy & meditation for many years. After scripting and performing in Visual Theatre shows for 20 years, she is now a bone-fide expatriate of the performing arts. She lives in an Australian rainforest, is married with a teenage daughter and loves cats, but she doesn’t have one because they eat native birds.

Weblog 

Happy Honkers Blog

Facebook

Twitter

Goodreads Author page

Amazon Author page

Smashwords author page

Don’t forget to pick up one of Tahlia’s free short stories for your kindle, Not Me, It Can’t Be from 28th June to the 2nd July and A Hole in the Pavement  from 3rd to 7th July.

I discovered something interesting this week.

Today I’m going to have a lot of fun.

Today is going to be a really awesome, oops, I mean argggh-some post. Because today my friend, David Brown is launching his argggh-some new book, A World Apart, and to celebrate, there are some great prizes on offer at the Book Bloggers Collective. But the best part is that I get to be a pirate for a day.

And believe me, I need no convincing to be a pirate. Pirates are way cool. At least the kind I’d like to be. I’m sure that in real life I wouldn’t like to meet an actual pirate at all. But, in my imagination, there would be nothing better to be than a blow-me-down, shiver-me-timbers, avast-me-hearties sort of pirate, sailing over the seven seas in search of adventure.

So that’s exactly what I’m going to be. Ok, so maybe I’d be a quiet kind of pirate. I’d probably sit at the back and ask politely for the bottle of rum, and then take a very measured and polite little swig before wiping the top of the bottle with my hankie (in order to prevent germs) and passing it on.

Come to think of it, I would probably be the sort of pirate who would stay on dry land as I tend to get seasick. But in my imagination, I’d be off on all sorts of adventures. I’d be sailing the seven seas, searching for new ideas to turn into stories. Sure, I suspect I’d be stealing and plundering some of those ideas from others, but lets face it, which of us doesn’t do that?

And at least this way, I don’t get to walk the plank. Although, come to think of it, there are times when I feel like I’m hovering over the edge of the oceans. And what are those shark-like creatures darting around just below the surface? Surely not a bunch of reviewers waiting to stick their fangs into me. Yikes, now I definitely want to stay nice and safe and dry.

All right, so maybe I wouldn’t ever make the most convincing pirate.But if you want to be off on a real pirate adventure, you could do a lot worse than take the journey to A World Apart. It’s sure to be argggh-some, and I’m not just saying that because I like how it sounds.

Blurb for A World Apart

Demetrius makes his first mistake when he lets his best friend Halcyon marry Eleyna, the love of his life, without saying a word. On the day of the wedding, he walks away from the Elencheran town of Dove’s Meadow and joins the army.

He makes his second mistake when the pirate Black Iris tricks him into letting dozens of men, women and children die in a fire. Demetrius is imprisoned in grief and disgrace.

But he can atone. The Black Iris is dead. The Ivory Rose has risen to the top of the pirates and is leading brutal raids on the coast. If Demetrius can capture and kill her, he’ll win his pardon.

And then Demetrius discovers the Ivory Rose is Eleyna. He must decide which will be his third mistake: losing his last chance at a pardon, or destroying the one woman he’s ever loved.