Haven't done a villain interview yet. Introducing Sajur Golu, from Chosen of Azara (boo, hiss): 1. What is your full name? Is there anything significant about your name? I am Sajur Golu. "Golu" is a title signifying that I am a high priest dedicated to the service of a Source in the Madrinan Empire. Ordinary priests are also known as golus, but they are not entitled to bear the title as part of their name. 2. How old are you? Only petty-minded people allow themselves to be limited by such a thing as numbers. 3. Tell us about your family. What do you like and not like about them? I am descended from the Old Madrin nobility, a people superior in courage and intellect who gave rise to the Madrinan Empire. 4. Who was your first kiss, and what did you think of it? I don't see why something like that should be important enough to bother remembering. 5. What is your occupation? I am the High Priest of Source Dar, the Source on which is founded the capital of the Madrinan Empire and the most powerful Source in the Empire. I am also chief advisor to Dansat, the ruler of the Madrinan Empire and, should something happen to him and his older son the Crown Prince, I fully expect to be the Regent in his younger son's place. 6. What are your best and worst qualities? I possess extraordinary intelligence and a bold and fearless vision of the future. I am also gifted with a keen perception of others' thoughts and emotions, and with the ability to persuade others to do my bidding. As well, I have a matchless ability to take in Source-power and to use it, and the courage to go beyond the limitations that are imposed by the small-minded. My worst quality? I would say that I regret not having the ability to actually read minds. I am also not as young as I used to be, and aging is somewhat of an inconvenience to one with my drive and ambition. 7. What quality do you value most in a romantic partner? Golus in the Madrinan Empire are generally expected to remain celibate. A rather petty limitation, adhered to by those who are too conventional to fully explore all the avenues by which power can be gained and experienced. I have rather unique and sophisticated tastes in this area, unconstrained by petty ideas of morality or romance, and I savor the times when I can find a participant for my activities who has the proper attitude towards them. 8. What is your favorite thing to do? There are ways of using Source-power that most workers of magic would not dream of or dare to use if they did know of them. My research in this area is always intriguing and fulfilling. 9. What is your greatest fear? Why should I fear anything? Although, I will admit, it would be a rather annoying inconvenience should those on the Imperial council who are petty-minded enough to not share my grand vision and to object to some of my methods and objectives persuade Dansat that I should be removed from my current positions. 10. What is your most treasured possession? Power - both magical power, and power over the minds and hearts of men - is what gives life meaning. Life can only be experienced to its fullest through the exercise of power.
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And, yay, Chosen of Azara is now live on Amazon and Smashwords! The next step is to do the paperback version; that should be available in a few weeks. In the meantime, the files will go through the approval process on Smashwords for expanded distribution and once that's done the book will become available for sale at Barnes&Noble, Sony, Apple, and Kobo. Watch for buy links as the book goes live on those sites. I finished the proofread on Chosen of Azara yesterday, and the formatting is (so far; knock on wood) going well. Yesterday afternoon and evening and this morning I got done what it took me a week to do last time. It helps that I have my stylesheet and templates already set up - I'm using the same stylesheet for each book so that my books will have a consistent look and feel to them - and that I decided not to try wrestling with constructing the entire ebook by hand (see "command-line programs are not my friend" under this post). Last time, I wrote out a general workflow, which is making this easier, but this time I'm making sure to write down all the tips, tricks, and shortcuts that will make the formatting go even faster on future books. Not making any promises, but I anticipate Chosen of Azara going live on Amazon by early next week, with other stores to follow as I get those formats done. In the meantime, if you're anxious to get a peek at Chosen of Azara, or want to read some before you decide if you want to buy it, you can read a sample here on my site. It consists of the first scene or two from each of the three sections of the book (instead of just the first 10-20% which is what you get when you download the free sample from ebook stores), with spoilery bits removed. Check it out, and meet Juzeva, Sevry and Lucie! I'll make an official announcement when Chosen of Azara becomes available for purchase, and will add buy links as they go live. Stay tuned! Chosen of Azara is on the next-to-last proofreading pass. Hoping to finish that today - I'm starting on p. 120 of 197 pages (of my computer printout). It's going to be kind of a push, which means I need to get off the Interwebs real quick here and get to work. When this is done, I'll load it onto my Kindle for one more quick proofread, and then it's format time! Urdaisunia took me two weeks to format, but I learned a lot in the process about what not to do and what to do to make it go faster. This time I'm hoping it'll only take me a week (or even less, hopefully). At this time, I'm aiming for a June 27 release date. After that, I'll start the final revision rounds on The Lost Book of Anggird. I got some great feedback from my test readers, lots of love for the book plus some great suggestions on what I can do to make it even better. And I've thought of one or two cool things to put it, too. At the same time, I'll also be starting the initial major revision of Sarya's Song. (I've got Design by Katt, who did the cover image for Chosen of Azara, on tap to do a luciously dark and romantic cover for that book too. Yay!) And, since that's not enough to keep me out of trouble, I'll be writing Book 4 of Daughter of the Wildings during July Camp NaNo. We're going on a cattle drive! Finally, I want to give a shout-out to this week's Paranormal, Fantasy, Dystopia, and Romance Writers and Reviewers featured author, R. Rose! And to last week's (I know I got him on the front page, but don't remember if I mentioned him in the blog), W.H. Cann! Introducing Lucie from Chosen of Azara. 1. What is your full name? Is there anything significant about your name? My name is Lucie Barille. I don't think there's anything really special about it, but I like it. 2. How old are you? I just turned 20. 3. Tell us about your family. What do you like and not like about them? My father is Baron Robart Barille. I love him a lot, and he spoils me. My mother, Rinata, died when I was 11. I still miss her every day. Her mother, my Grandmama Lillia, lives with us. She came to help my mother take care of me when I was little, because my mother was sick for a long time, and she stayed with us after my mother died. So I wouldn't be alone in a house full of bullheaded men, she says. I'm very close to her. I also have two older brothers, Pavel and Petir. They're both really annoying, but I do love them. Even though I wish they weren't quite so annoying. My great-grandmother Varena, Grandmama Lillia's mother, had a really interesting story. She was a wandering foreign woman with a baby daughter who took shelter at Meadowlook one winter, and the Baron there, Baron Arnaud Ellande, fell in love with her and married her. I think that's so romantic! He also adopted my grandmama, and raised her as his own. I never knew him, he died about ten years before I was born, but I think every man should be like him. 4. Who was your first kiss, and what did you think of it? My first kiss was with my fiance, Estefan. I liked it, of course. Although... It wasn't quite what I was expecting. It wasn't really even on my mouth, more on my cheek, you know? He tries to be discreet, but I've seen how he kisses other girls, like the maids, and it wasn't anything like that. I suppose it wouldn't really be proper for him to kiss me like that until after we're married. (To be fair, Estefan isn't the only one who kisses the maids and kitchen girls, my brothers do it too. Estefan's mother, Lady Alise, says all men do that sort of thing.) 5. What is your occupation? I'm the daughter of a Baron, and since my mother is no longer living I help my father manage his household. When I'm married I'll be a Baroness, the Lady of Hart's Leap, which means I'll be busy managing Estefan's household and raising our children. I can't wait! :) 6. What are your best and worst qualities? Well, I sing well, and I play the lute and the harpsichord, and I'm very good at gathering herbs for the healer in the village, and I'm kind and cheerful. And my hair - does my hair count as a good quality? On the bad side, I never paid very much attention in my lessons, and my brothers think I'm silly but they're even sillier so what do they know? And Lady Alise, my future mother-in-law, thinks I'm eccentric because I like to be outdoors a lot. And my nose and bosom freckle in the sun. Which I guess wouldn't be a problem if I didn't spend so much time outside. But that's okay, I'd rather be outside. 7. What quality do you value most in a romantic partner? My fiance Estefan is wonderful, of course. He's very handsome, and strong and manly, and has a fine voice, though I do wish he had better taste in songs. And his house, Hart's Leap, is one of the most modern and beautiful houses in the Lower Districts of Ceryria. I'm very lucky that he wanted to marry me. Though, I suppose I do wish he paid more attention to me and less to the housemaids. And I wish he wasn't always telling me what to do and what not to do. Except for those things, though, he's practically almost perfect. Except sometimes I wish he was more like... Well, never mind that. And also a little more like my step-great-grandfather. But really, I'm very lucky to be engaged to him. 8. What is your favorite thing to do? I love to go walking through the woods near my father's house. There's just something magical about them, and I feel like that's where I belong more than anywhere else. I especially like it when -- um, never mind that, too. Estefan doesn't think it's proper for me to go wandering around the forest, especially by myself, and I promised him I'd give it up after we're married, but until then, as long as my father doesn't forbid it - and he almost always lets me have my own way - I'll keep doing it for as long as I can. 9. What is your greatest fear? My greatest fear? I don't know. Maybe that my Grandmama will die? She's old and in poor health, but I don't want to lose her. Also that Estefan might decide he doesn't want to marry me after all. 10. What is your most treasured possession? I have this crystal pendant on a silver chain that my mother gave me when I turned 5. I guess that's awfully young for a gift like that, but my mother told me that it was a treasure that belonged to my great-grandmother Varena and that I must take the very best care of it, so I've always been very careful with it. I don't know what's special about it besides the fact that it belonged to my great-grandmother, but my mother gave it to me and it's one of the things that remind me of her the most. Meet Sevry, from Chosen of Azara (sorry, this one's kind of depressing) (remember, these are of the character as they are at the beginning of the book, or, in this case, their story arc) (enough asides; on with the interview): 1. What is your full name? Is there anything significant about your name? My name is Sevros, but when I was little my parents nicknamed me Sevry, and it stuck. That's what I've been called ever since. 2. How old are you? I am 23 years old. 3. Tell us about your family. What do you like and not like about them? My grandmother was Queen Ilvana, queen of Savaru. My aunt Juzeva was married off to the Crown Prince of the Madrinan Empire. I also had a grandfather, mother and father, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles and cousins; we were a large and loving family, and I was fortunate to have that for a few short years. They're all dead now. I'm the only one left. I definitely do not like that. 4. Who was your first kiss, and what did you think of it? I've been too busy trying to stay alive and fighting a war for the last twenty years to kiss anyone. 5. What is your occupation? Nominally, I'm the king of Savaru, but my country is completely overrun by the enemy and all my people are dead except for me. So my list of responsibilities is pretty short - mainly, kill as many Madrinans as I can before they kill me. 6. What are your best and worst qualities? I had a talent for music when I was a boy. I don't know what's happened to that - I haven't felt much like making music in a long time. My worst quality is that I was too weak to save what was left of my people. 7. What quality do you value most in a romantic partner? Alive would be good. But it seems I'm out of luck there. If things were different... I'd like a woman who loved music, who could sing to me and with me. 8. What is your favorite thing to do? Like I said, I used to love to sing and make up songs and stories. Now, life is just a matter of trying to stay alive even though death would be preferable to what passes for life now. 9. What is your greatest fear? My country has been conquered by the Madrinan Empire, all my people are dead except for me - the last few insisted on dying to protect me, their king, which was pointless because I'm also going to be dead within the hour. So there isn't really anything left to be afraid of except that I'll die without taking a handful of Madrinans into death with me. 10. What is your most treasured possession? The song that used to be my mother's favorite. I still remember it. If I knew that that one song would survive my death and the destruction of my people, then I would die a little more content. Another character interview: introducing Juzeva from Chosen of Azara. (no, she isn't the young lady on the book cover.) 1. What is your full name? Is there anything significant about your name? My name is Juzeva. It's a Savarunan name meaning "promise." 2. How old are you? I am 20 years old. 3. Tell us about your family. What do you like and not like about them? My mother, Ilvana, is the Queen of Savaru. My father, Ezdar, her consort, is also the High Priest of the Source Yizu. I have four elder brothers, who all have wives and children. Though I love my family, of course, and I honor my parents for giving me birth, the person - or being, I suppose, since a Source is not a person - I am closest to, who is my true family, is Source Azara. I was born Chosen - that is, perfectly attuned to Azara's power. I need her power in order to live, and I am closer to her than I could ever be to anyone or anything else. I do have a good friend, though. My dear servant Ysa stood very much in the place of a mother to me when I first came to the Convent, when I was eight, and she remains my closest human friend and confidante. 4. Who was your first kiss, and what did you think of it? As a Daughter of Azara, vowed to the service of Azara, I am sworn to celibacy. (Not all Sources require those in their service to remain celibate; my father, for example, is High Priest of a Source and is also consort to my mother.) I entered Azara's service when I was eight years old; therefore I have never kissed a man, other than, of course, my father and brothers in the manner of family members. I don't mind the requirement of celibacy. Azara is my life; her service, her magic, the love I feel from her, are all I need. I do not feel that I am missing out on anything by not marrying or having children. 5. What is your occupation? As Chosen of Source Azara, I am the High Priestess of Azara. My primary responsibilities are to lead the rituals of worship, assist those who wish to draw upon Azara's power in order to work magic, and convey Azara's word to those who worship or are dedicated to her or who desire guidance from her. I hesitate to use the word "responsibilities;" that makes what I do sound like a chore or an obligation. Serving Azara is my greatest joy; I cannot think of anything I would rather do. 6. What are your best and worst qualities? My best quality? I have no wish to sound vain, but I believe my best quality is my desire to serve Azara and, through her, to help the people of Savaru. I am, after all, the daughter of their Queen, and they are my people. My worst quality... Again I do not wish to boast, but Azara has never given me reason to feel that my character is lacking in any way. 7. What quality do you value most in a romantic partner? As I said before, I am sworn to celibacy in Azara's service, and I have no regrets about living my life in that manner. If for some reason I were to marry, though, I would like a husband who is kind. 8. What is your favorite thing to do? I love to climb down the path and walk out onto the rocks in the cove where Azara dwells, and stand among the waves and speak with her. 9. What is your greatest fear? That someday, for some reason, I will be forced to leave Azara. 10. What is your most treasured possession? That is easy - my connection to Azara as her Chosen. And now the moment you've all been waiting for, or at least that I've been so excited for: presenting the new cover for Chosen of Azara! Many thanks to Designbykatt for this beautiful cover. It's based on the stock photos I used in the original cover. I feel that Katt's work here really brings Lucie to life as well as the magic in the story. You can see more of Designbykatt's beautiful fantasy art (digital painting and photomanipulation) on her Facebook and deviantArt pages. And to any writers looking for a cover artist, she was delightful to work with and I highly recommend her. Cover credits: Digital painting and photomanipulation: Designbykatt Stock photos: Chesterf (woman); Grondin Franck Olivier (ocean) And now, the fabulous Donna Hawk has nominated me for the Beautiful Blogger award! If you haven't checked out the spotlight on her a few posts down, please be sure to do so. Thanks, Donna!
Here's how the award works: The Rules:
So, here are seven things about me: 1. When I was 8, and then again when I was 16, we lived in Germany for a year (Karlsruhe the first time, Kaiserslautern the second time) while my Dad was on sabbatical from the university where he taught and acting as a visiting professor in Universities there. It was an amazing experience, and I have lots of great memories - especially of landscapes and castles and medieval towns, which serve me well as a fantasy writer. 2. I have two cats, and I love making up silly nicknames for them. The big fluffy one is The Floofinator and Mr. Piggypants, the Cat Who Likes Food. The other one is Mr. Twitchytail and Sawyer the Mighty, the Scourge of the Backyard. 3. My favorite musical artist when I was in junior high was John Denver. 4. I hate grocery shopping. When I go, I take my mp3 player and turn the music up loud. (I don't listen to John Denver any more; my tastes now run more to European femme-metal bands.) 5. My older son is a physics major (though he works as a web designer) and my younger son is showing an aptitude for chemistry. My husband's a lawyer; the only non-lawyer is his family is his sister, a chemist. I am neither a scientist nor a lawyer. 6. For several years in the late 90s I was in a writing slump, then I discovered anime and fanfiction and that got me writing again. Since then, I've written about 20 complete novels/novellas (fanfiction and original) and completed the NaNoWriMo challenge 4 years in a row. 7. Chocolate. That's all. And here are my seven fabulous nominees: 1. Robin Leigh Morgan 2. Jennifer Howard 3. Kristen DaRay 4. Alexandra Butcher 5. Sharon Stevenson 6. Norma A. Roy 7. Katie Hayoz Here's another Book Extra for Chosen of Azara: the cast of characters. It's a little tricky to do a character list for this book in a non-spoilery fashion. The novel covers three distinct story arcs, over separate periods of time. Some characters appear in all three arcs, sometimes under different names, and other characters come and go. There are also some family relationships that might constitute spoilers. So instead of listing the characters by story arc, I've just put them by nationality, without spoilery family trees and alternate names. Also, here's a shout-out to the Paranormal, Fantasy, Dystopia, and Romance Writers and Reviewers group featured author of the week, Alexandra Butcher! The feedback from the test readers on The Lost Book of Anggird is in, and it's awesome. Lots of love for the book, and also some good suggestions for making it even better. So I'm mulling all that over, and in the meantime I'm going full-in on finishing up revisions on Chosen of Azara and getting it ready for release in June.
Chosen of Azara is set in a world that I started making up years ago. I don't remember how long ago, and I don't think Chosen is even the first story I set in that world. "A Cure for Nel," one of the stories in the collection of the same name, is set in the same world, as are the two longer short stories I wrote in March and some other unfinished novels/story fragments. I do remember how I started developing this world. I was bored one day, so I bought a box of crayons, the box with 64 different colors and a built-in sharpener. You can buy boxes with even more colors than that now, but at the time that was the deluxe box. Then I got out a big piece of cheap kid's drawing paper and started drawing this landmass. I wanted it to have deserts and hills and mountains and rivers and swampy areas and a large inland sea and all kinds of cool stuff. Mostly, I designed it around Sources, which I imagined as natural features that served as sources of magical power. A Source can be a hill or mountain, a cave, a place where two rivers flow together, a water spout or rocky ocean cove, an ancient tree, a spring or lake, a fjord, or any other kind of distinctive natural feature. And I named it SourceWorld. Which is descriptive, but not very organic - that is, it doesn't sound like something that the people living there would naturally call it. It's an externally-imposed name. So I got out my word-making-up-fu (checked the word-origins section of my huge old American Heritage dictionary and mixed some stuff from that together with some names I came up with on a fantasy name generator) and ta-daa, Estelend was born. The idea with magic in Estelend is that naturally-occuring heavenly and earthly magical powers are combined and flow through the Sources. Where the Source is, what kind of natural feature it's located in, and what sort of people gravitate to that Source all affect the kind of power it is, good, not so good, useful for healing or prophecy or other stuff, and so on. Certain people are born with an ability to take in Source-power and use it. Other people who aren't born with the ability can have it forced into them. A very few people are born perfectly attuned to the power of a certain Source, and their lives depend on having constant access to power from that Source. Bringing together a person and a Source that are incompatible, or committing certain acts within a Source (such as bloodshed) can taint or even destroy the Source. So I started marking in the Sources, and the countries, and figuring out allies and enemies and the different characteristics of the people and places on this huge continent, and how the magic works, and stories started to grow. I don't know if you can really call them a series, since they are all stand-alone, with different characters in different places, but they definitely go together. Chosen of Azara was posted on an old website I had for many years, and now I'm excited to be able to write and share more of the stories that my world of Estelend has given birth to. (Kanyev the Source-Fixer has been waiting impatiently for his day in the sun for a long time now. I promise, buddy, your time is coming.) There's a quick introduction to the world of Chosen of Azara, "A Cure for Nel," the tales of Haveshi Yellowcrow and Latan the Scholar, and more. Oh, and if you have a fantasy world, you have to have a map, and here it is. This is an improved drawing I did based on the original, and doctored up in the image editing program I had two computers ago. I don't seem to have the dingbat any more that I was using to mark cities, so as I add more cities I guess I'll have to find something else to mark them with. But that's ok. Better to have a world that continues to grow and develop than to have it become static for lack of a dingbat. |
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