Fathomless Females #1 - Regan Claire

Welcome to a new feature here on A Book So Fathomless called Fathomless Females. Throughout 2015, we'll be showcasing a bunch of amazing females authors through interviews, guest posts and lots more exciting things! 

Today for our first post we have Regan Claire with us. Regan is the author of Gathering Water and Tempering Earth (you can look out for my review soon.) Without further ado, let's welcome Regan!

My Muse is a Crazy Drunk Woman… and That’s Okay

I don’t necessarily think that there is a group of mythical women/gods somewhere sending inspiration down to us mere mortals.

That’s just silly, right? Right?!?

But… If there are, mine is most definitely the drunk one. Maybe they are all. Maybe it’s a sorority of “good time” girls, torturing all of us artists for a bit of fun in between expensive bottles of Vino.

Or shots of tequila.

I have toyed with creating an altar for my muse. Even shopped around for the perfect incense once. But, giving favor in return for offerings is far too rational for my muse. My oh-so-very-drunk muse. Once I realized this, I started treating her a little differently. After all, you can’t rationalize with someone so inebriated that they can’t speak in coherent sentences. First, however, I needed to figure out which type of drunk my muse was.

Was she, say, the angry one who gets super offended by absolutely nothing and refuses to speak to you for the rest of the night? Maybe she’s the one dancing on the bar, so overly confident in her own craziness that you can’t help but toss off your stilettos and climb up with her. Was she the weepy one, stuck in bad memories and making everyone in her vicinity relive them with her??

I like to think of her as the “overly friendly” one. Always hopping from bed idea to idea, never settling down on one story. She’s the one that talks you into going to a cock fight, then halfway through gets bored and decides that bungee jumping would be a better way to spend your time. Or fondue. Or a strip club— where she somehow manages to get on stage and do a little dance before getting the two of you banned for life.

Not that you cared about being banned for life from a strip club. But it still stings a little, until you realize how hilarious it is. Which you will never admit to her, of course.

In reality, she’s really a mix of all of them. All the types. And the key to dealing with her is the same way that every designated driver has learned to deal with their group of friends on a particularly successful night out.

You humor them.

You put on your listening ears and nod your head at the appropriate times. Don’t bring up that other story you’re desperately trying to work on. She’ll just keep talking, only louder and more obnoxiously. So, you’re missing sleep? Well, the crazed rambling will be over way faster if you don’t interrupt. These ladies have a way of making even the most sleep-deprived author toss and turn as if the fate of the world were on their shoulders.

I’m not saying ignore your other projects. We’re artists, but we also have a job to do and deadlines to meet. But if your muse is clogging up the creative juices on your “suppose-to” project, take a few days and listen to what the heck she has to tell you. In my experience, after she gets it off her chest (usually a few days of manic writing), she’ll release her hold on you and permit you to finish that other project she gave you a while back. Maybe while you’re writing on the new project, she falls back in love with the old one and you come back from your however-long-break from it with new zest and boat-load of kick-arse ideas.

Maybe I’ll change my mind about this as I continue to grow as an author. I could wake up one day and be capable of the focus and sheer will-power to put my muse in a time-out when she’s being naughty without suffering the ill-effects of it [gasp, writers block!]. But until then, I’m just along for the ride. I’ll go to every nudey-bar and jump off every bridge, because at the very least, I’ll have a fun story to swap with friends one day.

See what I did there? Haha.

Thank you Regan for joining us today! I hope you all enjoyed her post and I'll see next Sunday with another fathomless female!

Next time on Fathomless Females: Eva Pohler, author of The Gatekeeper's Saga.

GUEST POST: Brit's Bookish Habits

So the lovely Ely has asked me to do a guest post here at A Book So Fathomless, which I am very excited about! Today I’m talking about my reading habits and I want to hear about yours too, so don’t forget to leave a comment.

1. Deciding what to read next
One of those questions that comes up every time we turn the last page is what do we read next? I’ve always been a systematic reader – I have stacks of unread books all organised in the order I’m going to read them, usually based on when I bought them. I figure this way, everything gets read (eventually!). The problem of course appears when you buy a book you really want to read but have to wait until you get through the other ones first. So this rule slightly got changed when new books in series came out and those books got bumped up the stack. And now that I accept books for review, these books take precedent over the books I bought for me, but I always make sure that I mix it up a bit and read books that I bought as well as books for review, or else I think I would always be reading review books and would miss out on all the others! I still put a lot of thought into my immediate TBR stacks though and am perhaps even more of a systematic reader than before – but that’s how I like it!

 Caption: My immediate TBR - there are another eight piles like this!

2. What bookmark to use?
Over the years I have become an accidental bookmark collector. I always used bookmarks and hate the idea of using old receipts or ripped pieces of paper, although I am not against the dog-ear (because sometimes its necessary) and have at times been known to use photos to mark pages (I have a lot floating around – also I found that photobooth strips work great!). But I really love bookmarks. Unfortunately I lose them quite often :/ so I make sure I have a lot of replacements. I especially like to buy bookmarks when I’m travelling or if doing something or going somewhere new and exciting. Like most bookworms, I have a number of Book Depository bookmarks, as they just accumulate! My favourite is the one that my boyfriend had made for me for my birthday with a picture of us on it. It’s so cute!

Caption: my favourite bookmarks: on the left is the one my boyfriend had made for me; top right is from Singapore; middle right is from my favourite secondhand store that has since closed down; and bottom right I picked up from Megalong Books when visiting Sydney last month.

3. Organizing your shelves
After finishing a book, once recovered from the book hangover and ready to let go of the book itself, there is always the problem of where to put the book, especially when your shelves are overflowing, and how you organise those shelves. Much like I have a systematic order for my TBR pile, I also have one for my bookshelves. It is simple and not at all original but it does work (and in part stems from the desire to be a librarian when I was younger). I use an alphabetical by author last name system. And the only downfall is when you get a new book, you have to move alllllll the other books to make room for it. But I don’t really mind that much. I just like to be around my books and am lucky to have a whole room in my house devoted to them, so I don’t mind reorganizing and rearranging and shifting all my books around. I also have a couple of shelves of childhood favourites – one of these is dedicated to exclusively horse books and the other has a mixture of books I read when I was younger, like Animorphs and Sweet Valley High, that I just can’t bring myself to get rid of.

Caption: a couple of my mismatched bookshelves

So tell me: What are your reading habits? How do you decide what to read next? What does you use for bookmarks? And how do your organize your bookshelves?

Thank you Ely for having me on your blog! This was a lot of fun and hope the readers have enjoyed it as well :)

You can find the wonderful Brit on her blog, Crash My Book Party. I just want to thank Brit for being so lovely as to write this post for us and I hope you all enjoyed it as much as I did!

GUEST POST: Vanessa Barneveld

Today we have the very lovely Vanessa Barneveld visiting us. Vanessa is the author of a brand new paranormal YA called This Is Your Afterlife which is released October 21st from Bloomsbury Spark (you can check back next week for our review). Thanks to the lovely people at Bloomsbury for organising this and to Vanessa for stopping by!

How to Write by Vanessa Barneveld

Ely and Chami, thank you so much for inviting me to your fabulous blog. Ely, I was really impressed by your recent bookshelf rearrangement, and I was wondering if you do house calls. I need help! 

My debut paranormal YA, This Is Your Afterlife (Bloomsbury Spark), is out just in time for Halloween. Here’s the book trailer:

This Is Your Afterlife book trailer from Vanessa Barneveld on Vimeo.

One thing people always ask me about writing is, “How do you do it?” It’s a jumbo-sized question. Here are my top three answers.

1. I always, always, have chocolate within easy reach. I am particularly inspired by anything that’s filled with caramel, blended with peanut butter, or easy to shovel into my mouth while typing. Other snack varieties are helpful too. I have a writer friend who eats Cheetos (Twistie-like chips in the U.S.) with chopsticks so she doesn’t get her fingers and keyboard dirty. It goes without saying that you must exercise at least half an hour a day and eat more real food than junk food. I actually love snacking on celery, but don’t tell anyone I said that. I’ve a reputation as a chocolate connoisseur to uphold.

2. Coming up with a plot isn’t easy, so that’s why I’m a lifetime member of totallyoriginalplots.com, a top-secret site for authors. For just $19.99, you will get a unique plot that no-one has ever thought of before, a catchy book title, a heroine and a hero. Additional characters and subplots can be purchased for $5 each. Okay, I made all of that up. Wouldn’t it be great if there were such a site? Truth is novel ideas can be found everywhere in plain sight. Another part of writing is not actual writing. It’s observing what’s around you, listening strangers on a train (but trying not to be creepy about it!), tuning in to current events, even movies and music. Take threads from any of these things and ask, “What if...?” then let your imagination weave those threads into the fabric of a book. 

3. Stay unconnected. From the internet. While you’re writing anyway. I need to be physically restrained from emailing, googling and pinning when #Iamwriting. This can only be achieved with the help of an internet-blocking app called Freedom. It allows me to write with absolutely no possibility of connecting for up to eight hours. Scary, but it works. I don’t know how to block everything but abooksofathomless.blogspot.com.au, though. When I find out, I’ll share it with you.

So those are my jumbo-sized answers to that question of how I write. Once again, thanks very much for having me here today, Chami and Ely! It’s been a real pleasure. 

http://www.vanessabarneveld.com
http://www.twitter.com/vanessab73 
http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/this-is-your-afterlife-9781619637771/

GUEST POST + GIVEAWAY: Melissa Wray

What sparked the idea to write Destiny Road?

Recently Melissa Wray was asked this question by Uncommon YA. Here is her very personal response.

We moved to North Queensland when I was 14. After a year or so Mum could see that something about Townsville and I did not mix. Strangely enough it was her suggestion to ring my dad and ask if I could move back south.

So I did. Then I packed my bags and moved 3,000km away to live with him. This decision is what sparked the idea for Destiny Road.

Now I never set out to write this story, let alone have it published. It just kind of happened. It came about because one night I was lying in bed and couldn’t sleep. There was an unspoken conversation going on in my mind. It was a conversation that I regret not having and has played on my mind over the years. This particular night it got the better of me so I got up and began to write. It wasn’t until after I read through those mad ramblings a couple of weeks later that I thought hmmm … I could create a story from this. So I began writing. I passed my 10,000 word milestone. Then 20 then 30 then before I knew it 50,000 words had been typed.

You see I think about that one phone call I made all those years ago sometimes. I have often thought about how that decision, that one pivotal moment that is talked about in Destiny Road, really did change the course of my life. I’m sure as you're reading this you can look back over your life, and pinpoint one moment that has shaped it in a big way. I truly believe that Dad saying yes when I asked was a determining factor in how things have turned out for me.

One afternoon I was sitting with him. He got to talking about his philosophy on life and death. Dad had been fighting a battle against cancer for a while at this point and I was kneeling next to him as he sat on his reclining chair. He was holding my hand as he shared these ideas on life and death. He said to me "It’s cool. Whatever happens, it’s cool." My dad used cool a lot when he spoke. He was pretty cool. He was also a big believer in God. So that afternoon he said "It’s cool if I die because I get to meet my maker." ‘Then he said "But it’s cool if I live because I get to be with the ones I love." This was his philosophy. Either way was cool with him.

I remember kneeling there, holding his hand and wishing I could say thankyou to him. Thanks for saying yes all those years ago. Thanks for that pivotal moment in my life. I wanted him to know how much that meant. But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t get those words out.

That night he passed away.

I never did get to tell him and have regretted that for the past 10 years. So you see once the spark to write Destiny Road was lit, it had to finished. It was my tribute, my thankyou and I am beyond thrilled it was published.

Now I’m not going to bore you with my views on life and death but I can’t help but wonder something, because anyone who knew my dad, Rod Morris, and anyone who knew his sense of humour ... well I can’t help but wonder if there wasn’t a helping hand when Morris Publishing (no relation) chose to publish Destiny Road. I like to think so.

It's hard to believe two years has passed since the launch of Destiny Road. To celebrate there is a chance to win 2 x $20 Gift Cards, ENTER NOW!

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To connect with Melissa;

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Read the 1st chapter of Destiny Road FREE.

GUEST POST: Cathi Shaw

Writers Everywhere by Cathi Shaw

At the end of my Business Communication class yesterday there was one student hanging around. As we both finished packing up our things, he asked me about Five Corners and so I gave him a little synopsis of the book.

He was very interested and as we chatted about the book, he revealed to me that he also had written a fantasy novel but that he lost most of when his hard drive AND his computer crashed (every writer’s worse nightmare!). After talking about the importance of multiple back ups and using some kind of cloud storage we got back to talking about his book and I told him he should rewrite it. He agreed. I drove home with a big smile on my face as I reflected on the fact that so many of us are writers!

Since Five Corners was published, I’ve been approached by the most unlikely people who have told me they are writing their own books. People I would have never have imagined would be writing a story! And I never get tired of hearing about their ideas and their work.

It never fails when I’m at an author event someone will come up and start talking to me about their book, looking for advice and, most of all, encouragement. And I just love hearing all the different ideas people have for their books and stories. I’ve yet to hear a truly bad idea.

Now not all these books will be written. As anyone who has finished a novel knows, it takes a lot more than a good idea to write a book. And even if you’re able to write out a first complete draft (which is a huge accomplishment) then editing it takes more work that the actual drafting.

Despite all these facts, I’m always thrilled when I talk to budding writers about their story ideas. We are storytelling creatures. It’s how we make sense of this crazy world we live in. And I, for one, hope the stories just keep coming!

              FIVE CORNERS: THE MARKED ONES by Cathi Shaw

Growing up in a sleepy village untouched by distant wars and political conflicts, it was easy for Thia, Mina and Kiara to forget such horrors existed in the Five Corners. That is until the dead child is found; a child that bears the same strange birthmark that all three sisters possess. A Mark their mother had always told them was unique to the girls. Kiara's suspicions grow as their Inn is soon overrun with outsiders from all walks of life. Strangers, soldiers and Elders who all seem to know more about what is happening than the girls do. After Mina barely survives an attack in the forest, the sisters are faced with a shattering secret their mother has kept from them for years. As danger closes in around them, the sisters are forced from their home and must put their trust in the hands of strangers. With more questions than answers, Kiara finds herself separated from everyone she loves and reliant on an Outlander who has spent too much time in army. She doesn't trust Caedmon but she needs him if she has any hope of being reunited with her sisters and learning what the Mark might mean.

BUY Five Corners: The Marked Ones HERE:
PUBLISHER AMAZON BARNES AND NOBLE

Cathi Shaw lives in Summerland, BC with her husband and three children.  She is often found wandering around her home, muttering in a seemingly incoherent manner, particularly when her characters have embarked on new adventure. In addition to writing fiction, she teaches rhetoric and professional writing in the Department of Communications at Okanagan College and is the co-author of the textbook Writing Today.

Twitter: @CathiShaw
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GUEST POST: Kimberly Castillo

The Line Between Reality and Fiction

by Kimberly Castillo

The Convenience of Lies is based on my own experiences, so much so that during one of the  drafts I was even questioning if I should call it fiction or nonfiction.

I started writing this book with wanting to depict what really happened as closely as possible. And so, the AIM conversations the characters have throughout the story are virtually copy pasted from real conversations that actually happened. Some of the other pieces of dialogue are verbatim what the characters actually said in real life. For example, Tyler’s response to Mackenzie’s query for more poker chips in first chapter, “No! You’ve already lost all of your money, AND lost all of the money I gave you, to me.” Additionally, I drew largely from my diary in order to remember as many details as exactly as possible.

The problem with my approach was that reality does not make good stories. Reading transcriptions of a court proceeding are only so interesting. And so, at a certain point I had to break from trying to write EXACTLY what happened in order to create a story people wanted to read. Making this transition was a bit of a process in itself for me.

The first break from reality started with changing the character’s names, and I did that so that nobody could sue me for libel. With that being said, it may come as a surprise that I did not change the names in the first draft of this book because I didn’t want to confuse which character was who as I was writing it. And this alludes to my second break from reality. There were too many people in real life such that it provided too many characters and was an unnecessary distractor. And so I condensed some characters into one person. Most of the main characters were not condensed, except for Shane. He represents two people from real life. I have to admit, I mostly just used the house of one person and the personality of another. Every time I think about this I feel a little guilty. I found all the way through the last edit of the book I was discovering different ways I could condense characters, and each time I did, the story was better for it.

After a while I realized part of my fixation with writing about reality was because I didn’t have the confidence to write something that was completely fictional. And this was a fear I had to face when it came to writing the chapter inserts. There are four chapter inserts throughout the novel that are told through the perspective of our antagonist, The King. Initially I tried to take what is now the fourth chapter insert and break it into four parts. And so, the chapter inserts were only a few sentences long each, at most. When I handed the novel to my first pass reader, Jenica Wallman, she HATED the chapter inserts and vehemently told me I must remove them. This was when I realized I needed to overcome my fear of writing what I didn’t experience. Of course, I started this quest with what I knew best – reality. I researched the traits typically found in people who have antisocial personality to help me get inside the head of The King. Then I had to decide which crime to describe in each chapter and how to tie them all together. Now that I was armed, I felt comfortable with writing some true fiction.

The power of fiction is that it allows writers to draw connections within reality that could not be forged otherwise. And so, I found that once I embraced the fact that my book was fiction, I was free to craft a meaningful story worth telling.

GUEST POST + GIVEAWAY: Cecilia Robert

As part of our blogoversary celebrations, today we have the absolutely wonderful Cecilia Robert featuring on our blog! She's also been nicer enough to allow us to do a giveaway of her book, Reaper's Novice. Thank you so much to Cecilia- not only for this post but for supporting us for the last six months or so.


10 Random facts about me by Cecilia Robert.

- I love reading  Zodiac signs –not in an obsessive way—just to learn about character traits. This is much more fun when I am creating two characters whose signs are incompatible s and have to compromise so they can get along without killing each other.
- I'm a huge fan of Avatar: The Last Airbender --The animated series.
- I tend to think I wasn’t born to drive anything on wheels (Other than a bicycle). The Last time I took driving classes, I lasted a week. By the end of it, I almost suffered a nervous breakdown. Every time I drove too close to the pedestrian walk, or edged closer to the Zebra crossing. I’d clutch the wheel so hard my knuckles hurt.
- I can knit/crochet while watching the TV.
- I'm a slow reader. It takes me approximately one week to finish a book.
- I'd rather use the escalators than climb the stairs
- I prefer spicy foods over chocolate
- I'm 5'3, and somehow most of my characters end up having the same height or shorter, in my stories.
- I speak German and Swahili fluently.
- When I was young, I wanted to work as a flight attendant. Now I’m Acrophobic and can’t stand the thought of  having more than five feet between the ground and my feet.

About the author
Cecilia Robert lives in Vienna with her two children, has an incurable obsession with books, anything romantic, and medieval architecture. When not working in her full time job, catching up with her two children, writing or reading, she can be found, daydreaming about her next hero in a story who'll make her swoon with just a look (or a word).
Links:
Blog: http://cecereadandwrite.blogspot.com

About the book: Reaper's Novice (Soul Collector #1)

17- year- old Ana Maria Tei’s life has always been perfect: loving parents, good grades, and a future so bright it outshone the sun. But now words like “separation” and “divorce” are sending her world plummeting to hell. Determined to keep her family intact, Ana plans a family-bonding trip from Vienna to Tuscany. Except fate has other plans. Ana’s parents and siblings are killed in a car accident on their way to pick Ana up from school.

Enter Grim, aka Ernest. He promises to relinquish the four souls if Ana agrees to trade her soul for theirs and serve a lifetime as his novice. In order for Ana to graduate from her Reaper’s Novice station to a Soul Collector graduate, Grim puts her to test. To her horror, she finds out becoming a Reaper’s Novice didn’t happen by chance. It was preordained, and she is forced to make a choice: save her family’s souls or come to terms with who she really is and complete the task set for her.

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GUEST POST: Leti Del Mar

As part of our one year blogovearsary celebrations, today we have a guest post from the lovely Leti Del Mar. Leti has been featured a few times on ABookSoFathomless previously, especially within the last month due to the release of her new YA novel Land of the Unaltered. We hope you enjoy Leti's guest post and that you make sure to check out her contact details at the bottom of this post! Now, over to Leti...

Are you a Blogger or an Author?
 

If someone had asked me that question two years ago, I would have said “Author” without any hesitation.  Today, well I’m not so sure.  When I began self-publishing my work, everyone said I needed a blog.  So I dove right on in and started blogging.  I had a loose idea that I wanted to blog about writing, but that was pretty much it.  

Over the last year my blog has evolved and my passion for blogging has grown.  I look forward to sitting down to write a blog post just as much as I enjoy working on my novels.  Why the shift?

1.  I refocused the purpose of my blog.  Instead of my blog being just about writing, I have transformed it into a site to help and promote other Indie Authors.  This has shaped the kinds of posts I write and I now spend a significant amount of time researching the topics I write about to make sure that I present worthwhile content.

2. I have made meaningful connections with other bloggers.  Through blog hops I’ve gained quite a following, but I try to visit and comment on the blogs I follow.  This helps me to feel like I’m doing more than shouting on a soap box.  I’m exchanging ideas with friends.

3. I try to give even more than I get.  I am always surprised by how generous the blogging community has been toward me and I try to pay it forward.  Last April, I started an Indie Author Interview feature on my blog and within a few weeks, I was booked solid for a year.  I love that I can help promote others and I have made a point of having helpful resources for writers on my blog.

4.  I added book reviews to my blog.  As an author, I know just how important reviews can be.  So when I read a book for pleasure, I always make sure to write a review.  Then I started posting these reviews on my blog.  I changed up how my blog handles these reviews and this feature has become quite popular.  Lately most of the books I read are ARCs given to me by authors or free copies from Net Galley.  It has been great.  I mean who doesn’t love a free book?

So am I an author or a blogger?   I wouldn’t have been a blogger if I wasn’t an author first, but I can proudly claim, “I am a blogger!”

Leti's Contact Links:

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You can find Leti's brand new YA novel, Land of the Unaltered, at:

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