Launch Day Set for The Sandfruit People

The Sandfruit People will be available in both print and ebook editions beginning April 16th, 2014. If you're American, you can look forward to reading it after you've done your taxes.

I'll post pre-order information as the date gets closer.

Tumbling After

Luke Bellmason's NaNo-novel, day three:

Among his other life-threatening injuries, LeVant had lost an arm and eye in the attack. The arm was quickly replaced. They had scanned his existing arm, mirrored the resulting 3D model and fabricated a bio-mechanincal replica within twelve hours. The operation to attach the new arm had taken barely more than two hours, but the eye would take longer.

A Corp doctor, dressed in the light blue robes of the Corporation Medical Division, explained to Taylan that a replacement would have to be grown from live cells extracted from LeVant’s good eye. This would take at least two days, and she shouldn’t expect him to regain consciousness before then anyway.

Taylan had stayed with LeVant in the ward aboard the Corporation’s Medical ship all night and all the next day. She felt sorry for the fact that there had been no one else who had visited him. Apart from a procession of corporate officials and medical staff, there had been no family of friends to come to see him.

In the weeks since they’d arrived in system, she had not had much contact with Kerrin LeVant. He’d been so wrapped up in Corporation business. All the stuff he’d been preparing for over the last eight years on their voyage from Earth had come real. Taylan realised that the time on the ship on the way over here had been like a holiday compared to the work they’d both been thrown into since they’d arrived.

She’d used the excuse of her own injuries to keep herself aboard the hospital ship, but they were not nearly as serious as the ones he’d suffered. He’d lost so much blood before the med team had been able to get to them and on the evac shuttle they’d struggled to stabilise him. It had been touch and go whether he’d make it. Now, he was over the worst, but he still had not woken up.

Eventually Taylan herself fell asleep, though she fought it. She knew what horrors awaited her in her nightmares and didn’t want to have to experience it all again. She had considered asking for the drug the top corp executives used which kept them awake with no ill effects, removing the need for sleep completely and allowing them to work continuously without fatigue, but the medic had advised against it in her condition.

She had been right to fear her nightmares. Each was a more intense rendering of the events of the previous day, but prolonged and unceasing. While the actual explosion and its aftermath had lasted less than half an hour before they’d been lifted out, in her dreams no help came. The explosion continued outward, through the crowd in front of her, splitting alien and human bodies open as she watched helplessly. It split her own body open and continued through the air into the sky and out into the orbit of the Earth fleet and the station. And when it was all over, she would wake up in the hospital chair and the explsion would start again, destroying LeVant as he lay in his medical bed, taking him apart slowly, atom by atom, in a never ending cycle of destruction.

When she finally did wake up, she burst into tears only to discover that LeVant had woken up and was sitting bolt upright in front of her. He leant into her and put his new arm gently around her shoulders. It felt warm and soft, but it was unmistakably mechanical. Even more so when LeVant stretched around to put the other arm around her. She sobbed for several minutes while he comforted her, before realising that he was probably in some considerable discomfort himself.

“I was supposed to be the one doing this,” she said. “I wanted to be here for you when you woke up,” she managed, through tears.

“You are,” said LeVant, unsteadily. “It’s a welcome sight, let me tell you.”

“Do you know what happened?” Taylan asked, suddenly recalling all the things she had rehearsed in the hours she’d waited.

“Last thing I remember was sitting down, next to you,” he said. “Then waking up here about fifteen minutes ago.”

“So you don’t know about the bomb?” He stared at her, open mouthed. Taylan worried that she’d said something wrong and that the shock was probably the last thing his body needed right now. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have told you right out like that…” LeVant shook his head,

“Bomb?”

Taylan was scared to speak, frozen in time just like she was in her dreams. She watched LeVant go through the different reactions to this new information.

“Is that why my arm hurts so much?” He said. Taylan couldn’t stand it any longer. She sprang from her seat and ran from the room, her legs barely able to carry her. She desperately looked around for somewhere to throw up and managed to make it to a sink in a room on the opposite side of the corridor. As the contents of her stomach drained slowly into the sink, she had the thought that she wasn’t supposed to be here.

The thoughts started to come; she wasn’t trained to be talking LeVant in his current condition, she wasn’t supposed to be in his room, she probably wasn’t supposed to be on a Corporation ship without being on official ELIJA business. Then her panic spread wider; she was six light-years from her home planet, she’d nearly died and if she had been killed her parents wouldn’t even have found out about it for another six years. For all she knew, her parents might even be dead!

She started hyperventilating and stood up from the sink, only to be hit by an intense dizzyness. Two medics were there in time to catch her as she went down into a faint.

She had no idea for how long she was out, but the ward’s artificial lighting system had been set to night mode. She looked up from her bed to see LeVant sitting there beside her.

“Hey, seemed only fair I should return the favour,” he said. She smiled back at him. It filled her with an enormous sense of relief to see him there. His strength, his familiarity. It was comforting.

“Did they tell you?” she said. “Everything?” 

He nodded and lifted up his artificial arm to show her.

“This was what was bothering you?” Taylan gave him an apologetic sort of look.

“It all seemed like too much to take in at the time.”

LeVant picked up a stack of smart paper and showed it to her. “I’ve been catching up on events, I’ve got to get back to work pretty soon or I’ll never make the time back.”

“You’re going back to work already?” Taylan said.

“I have to, can’t afford to lie around here. The timetable won’t stop just for me. I’ll be in the next room if you need me.” Then he kissed her on the forehead and turned to leave.

“Wait,” she said.

“Please, just a minute longer.” She grabbed a hold of his hand and then couldn’t figure out if it was the real one or not.

“Listen,” he knelt by the bed and leant in closer to her, “when we’re out of here and you’re feeling better I’ve got the most amazing surprise for you.” She looked into his one remaining eye. “I’m going to take you to meet someone, if you can keep a secret.”

“What? Who?” She said, but he just laughed softly. Now, it felt silly to be acting like giddy school children, but the excitement on LeVant’s face made him seem like a nine-year-old at Christmas who knew what presents she was getting.

“You’ll never believe it,” was all he said. Then he left.

-1,190

The Company

From Luke Bellmason:

I’ve fallen way behind with my NaNo this year, so I’ve had to abandon the idea of writing the novel in the month of November. However, I think the story is interesting enough to continue with so I’m going to write the 30 parts I would have written and had roughly planned out. It might take until the end of December or beyond, but who’s counting?

—

2 The Company

The investigation into the bombing began almost immediately. As usual, each of the three sides of the Earth Expedition wanted their own people on the investigation and the local aliens had both a police investigation and a branch from the government. Despite the huge number of people on the job, or maybe because of it, none of them found anything. This was as expected.

Warbur waited a discreet amount of time after Dita had left the scene, then followed him to the Capital city of Tho-Tewr-Turl. ‘Turl was a stark contrast to Tok-Cenb; an industrial hub with factories pumping out smog and manufacturing consumer goods in an early example of an emerging capitalist economy.

The Vonbekians had managed to accomplish all this before the Earthers had arrived and the smog in the atmosphere had allowed astronomers to identify Vonbek as a planet that was not only inhabited, but also in the latter stages of an industrial revolution.

Current estimates placed the most advanced sections of Vonbekian society somewhere around the middle of Earth’s 20th Century. Only later, before the first ships were ready, did the Earth astronmers detect the tell-tale traces of nuclear explosions in the Vonbekian atmosphere. It seemed that Earth history was being followed all too closely. This single fact had thereafter been used to justify every interference made by the Earth Expedition.

The factory on the outskirts of ‘Turl was older than most of the others which had been built around it later. It’s original function had already been outmoded by various engineering advances and several attempts had been made by the owners over the years to update its machinery to keep up with current technology. To Warbur, every building in the whole district was as useless as the other, age made no difference. On the Corporation ships they had fabrication systems which could fit on a desk and manufacture anything.

The owners of the block had been only too happy to rent it out to the newly formed company. ‘The Company’ was how Warbur and Dita referred to it too. It had a nice, anonymous ring to it. Their ‘front’ was the newly formed branch of xeno-linguistics. They ran a language teaching service and provided translations into English. They did not have many customers, but since they were being secretly bankrolled by the Earth Government, this didn’t really matter. The company had recruited many new teachers and linguists who were interested in this new field of study. Invariably these aliens were pro-Earth and among the most intelligent of their species; precisely the kind of people they wanted to recruit.

Warbur drove the car along the newly constructed highway from the airport and turned off into the side road and finally into the factory car park. There were a couple of lights on at the top of the building and only one other vehicle in the parking space next to his.

He found his way inside the factory through a low door and climbed the long shallow stairway up through seven or eight flights to the top floor. There, he saw the tiny offices from where the lights eminated and the single figure crouched over a desk.

Dita was reading from a computer screen and Warbur could see clearly from the images and vid-clips that he was studying the Earth-Encyclopedia entry on ‘Terrorism’.

“It’s all rather depressing, isn’t it?” Said Warbur as he entered. “Remember that everything you read about in there happened over centuries, seeing it all compressed down like that might give you the impression that humans aren’t the kind of people you would want visiting your planet.”

“Hmmm,” said Dita, “seems like there’s plenty of Vonbekians who think that already.”

“We aren’t proud of our past,” said Warbur, “but we always hoped you could learn from our mistakes. That was one of our reasons for coming here.”

Dita closed the display down and pulled out some sheets of paper that had been lying on the desk beneath it.

“Do we know any more about the attack?” He asked.

“Not really, it was a bomb, planted some time before the presentation took place. No word on whether it was a trigger or a timer. There’s not much we can piece together.”

“So what do we do now?” Said Dita, looking up at Warbur.

“We figure out who planted it, and why.”

Dita handed the papers to Warbur. There was a list of names, photos and details, all written in English.
“These are all the people we know about who belong to the Separatist movement. You’ll remember I told you about them before, but until now they’ve been content to merely talk about getting rid of the Visitors from Earth and holding demonstrations.”

“So something must have changed,” Warbur mused.

“What were the motives for terrorist acts?” Asked Dita, “in Earth history, what did they hope to achieve?”

Warbur sat and studied the names while he thought about Dita’s question.

“Terrorists were usually people out of power, marginalised, who felt they were being ignored or persecuted. Minorities usually. Many governments saw them as criminals and refused to even talk to them.”

“We refuse to negotiate with terrorists!” Dita quoted from the encyclopedia entry.

“Despite that, these groups often achieved what they wanted; exposure in the media, and recognition from whoever they were targetting.”

“But their methods?” Said Dita, “civilian targets, indiscriminate bombings.”

“It made them almost impossible to stop, and the methods worked. That’s why they used them. They often achieved what they wanted, though sometimes only after years and at great cost. Would the people on this list fit that profile?”

Dita went to a larger, older computer at the back of the office and turned it on.

“We have a couple of agents in the Seperatist movement, we had them recruited last year at your suggestion.” Warbur nodded.

“What level?”

“Intel mainly, we get updated about what’s happening, but not near the top level. Pretty weak stuff really, but from what we’d been hearing we hadn’t considered this group to be much of a threat. Are you sure they’re responsible for the bombing?” Dita asked, then started opening some of the files which had popped up on the screen.

“I admit, it’s very odd.” The old computer was not a Corporation model. It was at least thirty years old, pre-dating even the formation of the seven companies that eventually created the Corporation.

Non-corp technology was now almost impossible to find, but it was vital they used something which Warbur knew had not been made by the ‘enemy’. That computer Dita used had more processing power than all of the computers on the rest of the planet combined. Almost everything in the office that Warbur had provided them with was a relic from Earth’s twentieth century and the spycraft that went with it was even older than Warbur was, but it had to be this way. Vonbek was at a stage of technology roughly equal to the post-atomic age and there were strict guidelines and agreements about what technologies Earthers could bring down, or even talk about. If ELIJA stumbled onto this office and found computers, a large scale scandal would ensue which could jeopardise the whole expedition and lose favour back home.

“Here we are, the Separatist leader. No Earth name I’m afraid, but we have given her the codename ‘Ysna’.” Alien names were unpronouncable, so the four letters of the postcode for the location they were born in could be used. It made for some interesting combinations. Warbur went to look at the file which Dita had brought up on the screen.

“We should bring her in. I’d like to ask her a few things.” Said Warbur.

“I think we could handle that, but where?”

“Some local office,” said Warbur. “The local police station if there is one, I can arrange the necessary orders, whatever you need.”

-1,329

The Children of Tok-Cenb

Here's Luke Bellmason, sharing the first chapter of his NaNoWriMo novel:

It was easy to tell the first wavers from the second wavers; as the shuttle approached the surface of the planet, the second wavers were all standing at the panoramic forward windows of the upper deck, while the first wavers, like Victor Warbur, remained in their seats.

Warbur had seen Vonbek many times before, and was more interested in watching the passengers. Taylan was the focus of his attention at this moment, and when he glanced around at his fellow passengers he could see that she was the focus of theirs too. It was perfectly understandable.

Firstly, she was young. About twenty-eight years of age and full of health and energy. Secondly she was enthusiastic, a trait that many of the first wavers had long since lost in the decade that they’d all been here, and thirdly she was single.

There was very little chance that she’d be interested in the slightest in any of the boring old men who’d found themselves assigned to this particular excursion down to the planet, but that didn’t seem to bother them Warbur observed. It was more of a case of fixating their playful fantasies on someone who was completely unavailable and yet real, rather than whatever dream woman they had created for themselves over the years to maintain their sanity out here.

Most of them had families of course, but they were either back home in the Earth system, or were living here and so were part of the everyday mundanity that had become the dull background to their existence.

Taylan’s attention was not on them. She was standing next to the man who was only a little older than her, but who was already in one of the most senior positions within the Corporation.

Between the three of them, Warbur, Taylan and ‘corporation boy’, they represented the three main factions of the Earth Expiditionary Force, which was the whole point of having them attend the presentation on the planet. It was yet another official engagement that some senior executives at the top of the chain of command had decided would make good press for the propoganda machine which even now, almost ten years after they’d arrived at Vonbek, was still trying to persuade the alien population that this was a great, bold new era for them.

Since the ‘couple’ had arrived on the shuttle, at the station in orbit, the girl and the corporation representitive had been inseparable. They hadn’t said more than three words to anyone else, yet had talked constantly to each other all the way down. Corporation boy was quite knowledgeable about every aspect of the alien economy, politics and social make-up as any high-climber in the corp would have to be, but Warbur knew he’d studied it all from books and reports. There was a huge difference between knowing something and experiencing it, as Warbur had. Many of the early reports had been proved wrong and assumptions made about the alien society and the way it functioned had been shown to be far too simplistic.

There were many facets to the society they had encountered. contact with one group or local authority did not guarantee that another would want to have anything to do with them. There was no central leadership as such, everything was local. That was what was so brilliant about the ‘children’. It had been a very useful ploy, to get at least one small group of aliens on their side, though at the time it had been nothing more than a solution to the language barrier. As Warbur listened, he heard the corporation’s representative recite the standard version of the events to his companion.

“You see, they had this problem with communicating with the Aliens when they first arrived,” he began. “It seemed like an intractable problem. How do you understand a language that you have no basic understanding of? It’s totally alien, in an alien culture where you can’t even figure out context. What you do is you find a bunch of children and you teach them English.”

“Why English?” Said Taylan, showing her true colours as the ‘independant observer’.

“It had to be something, I guess they could have picked Spanish or Chinese. In a way, it didn’t matter. Once we’d taught them one Earth language, we could translate it into any other. English is universal enough that most of the who countries who contributed to the Expedition would agree to it being the lingua-franca.”

Taylan extended her left arm and tapped something out on her wrist, notes to be reviewed later. Then she looked back out at the approaching planet. It was close enough now that Warbur could see the greenish tint of the sky starting to illuminate the upper part of the troposphere.

“So they picked a group of children on the planet and taught them English,” prompted Taylan, who knew the story anyway.

“Yes, but they didn’t bargain on how successful they would be. I mean, all they did was leave a few tablet computers lying around in a village where they knew they’d be found and load them up with language apps. You know what happens when you give technology to children. The adults largely ignored it, I mean they knew where it had come from, but the children, oh they figured it out.”

At this point in the story, Warbur decided to make his introduction. He could not bear to hear this story, his story, being told by someone else.

“After one week they’d mastered the alphabet,” he said from his seat, “after two they could match words with images. After three weeks they knew most of the rules of pronunciation, syntax and grammar. By the end of the first month, they could read, write and speak fluent English.” Warbur stood up and walked to the window, next to Taylan and the Corporation Representitive.

“And after two months they had hacked into the Earth Government communications network,” Corporation Boy said, no doubt trying to embarrass Warbur. It had the opposite effect.

“The alien children who were selected were nothing special, but there are gifted children in every group. Once we began to educate them, we discovered that their minds were easily as advanced as our own.

“But you can’t educate someone to a higher level than yourself,” said Taylan, “they might be even smarter than us given the proper training.”

“Ah well, that would be the Corporation’s department,” said Warbur, “I believe their AI programme is going to do all this and more.” He said this knowing full well that the Corporation’s AI programme had been five years away from fruition for the last twenty years, and was an intense source of embarrassment to them.

It suddenly occurred to Taylan to introduce her friend to the Government Offial and she turned to Warbur and said, “this is John LeVant of Corporation Operations,” they shook hands.

“Victor Warbur of the Earth Government,” said Warbur, keeping things deliberately vague. “And you must be ELIJA,” Warbur chuckled at the girl, noting the insignia on her suit.

“Yes, Selina Taylan of Earth League Interplanetary Joint Alliance,” she shook Warbur’s hand. “So, you’ve actually met these children?” She asked. Warbur smiled, wryly.

“I helped to create them. I set up the project after initial contact with the aliens, that was over ten years ago. They’re all grown up now. The boy your friend mentioned, the one who hacked into the comms network, he’s the one we’re going to meet.”

–

The shuttle set down on an open grassy plain about a kilometre from the town of Tok-Cenb. There were fewer people than Warbur had anticipated, but then aside from its importance to the Expeditionary Fleet, Tok-cenb wasn’t that remarkable. In reality it was little more than a mining village, with one ‘mayor’, one ‘elder’ and a few ‘councillors’. These titles were approximations of course, but the translation between English and the native tongue had always been tricky.

The Children had made this small town famous around the entire planet, but this didn’t seem to have had much of an economic impact on it, in the ten years Warbur had been coming here, he’d observed very few changes aside from the rapid maturation of its citizens. Vonbekians aged about at about twice the rate of humans and seldom lived beyond the age of thirty-five solar years. Still, it was disappointing to see such a poor turn-out, especially with the visitors here.

They all waited for the ramp to descend at the back of the shuttle and walked down into the damp, barely breathable air. There was no fanfare and no applause, since both of these practises would have been totally unknown to the locals, but one alien did approach them and extend an appendage in a very human-like way. This was the ‘boy’. Now a full grown adult and a long time acquaintance of Warbur’s.

“Mr. LeVant, Miss Taylan, this is Dita.”

Warbur knew the Second wavers would have studied the aliens during their trip, but now as he watched for their reaction, he knew they were realising the great gap between the idea of a thing and the reality of having it stand in front of you. The aliens were squat creatures, about four feet high, and were an odd shape. Three legged, three-eyed, three armed and arranged somewhat like a three-pointed star when seen from above. The arrangement extended right down to their toes and fingers, three on each arm and leg.

Both LeVant and Taylan were not merely speechless, but breathless, hyperventilating. Warbur waved a hand and a crewman from the shuttle rushed forward with a portable oxygen container.

“You’ll have to excuse my friends, they’ve never met an extra-terrestrial before,” said Warbur.

“It’s ok, I remember the first time I met a human. It was stressful for me too,” said Dita, in perfect English.

They followed the alien, LeVant and Taylan gripping on to their masks as they walked, to the stand. It was nothing grand, but a simple stage built onto rocks and packed down straw. There was seating for the humans along the front, while the Vonbekians required only a clear space to rest, folding their rear two legs together to form a kind of seat.

Warbur had studied the schedule for the day’s presentation and knew that, like most Vonbekian events, it would take up many hours and be intersected by multiple stops for refreshments and informal chats. They never did anything in a hurry.

LeVant offered the seat next to Warbur up to miss Taylan, then took the seat on the end. Some of the other officals who had come down on the shuttle with them took up the seats in front and behind them and Dita sat at the back of the group.

The Mayor took to the stage and began speaking in the local dialect, which was immediately translated into whichever language was necessary by the computers in each human’s headpiece. The speech was standard, non-threatening and bland. Designed, it seemed, to offend no one and to welcome the new visitors to their humble planet. The effect of hearing second hand and spoken in the same flat automated voice that they listened to all day every day did little to counteract the soporific effect this had on each individual. This and the stifling air they were breathing between puffs on the oxygen cylinders had most of the human audience teetering on the verge of sleep within a minute of the Mayor’s address.

They were all suddenly brought out of it by a large explosion, which eminated from just behind the stage and expanded out into the audience. It took out the stage so completely that those who had been standing on or near it were instantly vapourised. The front four rows of people were killed either by the blast or the lethal shards of rock which were thrown outwards. Anyone behind that was in with a chance of surviving, though random luck seemed to determine the severity of the injuries suffered.

Warbur been forced back on top of Taylan, but LeVant who had been on the end had been hit. He was still alive, but barely. One by one each survivor rose from the ground to see which of those around them had not made it. Dita came forward from the rear and went straight for Warbur, picking him up and shaking him to his senses. Warbur could see Dita talking at him but could hear no sound at all, his ears were filled only with a single tone, like the feedback from a faulty microphone. Taylan stood and then saw LeVant and rushed to his side.

The Vonbekian response was slow and disorganised. The crew and security from the shuttle were on the scene long before any of the local emergency services had arrived. The injured humans, including LeVant, were bundled onto the shuttle and flown back up to the fleet’s medical ship. Taylan went with them, though she was able to walk to the shuttle herself. Warbur elected to stay behind and assist the security services in making sure any vital evidence was not lost and the scene was left as undisturbed as possible.

“What happened?” Dita asked Warbur, once the worst of the ghastly situation seemed over. Warbur had to consider his response.

“It was an attack I believe,” he said.

“An attack?” Dita repeated. “I don’t understand, what kind of attack.” Warbur didn’t quite understand it himself, but could think of no other explanation.

“Nothing like this has ever happened on your planet before?” He asked. Dita shook his head.

“There have been wars, fights in the past, but this, I don’t see how it fits with what you are saying. Where are the attackers?” He looked about him, seemingly puzzled by the concept.

“It’s called terrorism. It’s something we used to be very good at on Earth in one period of our history. And it looks like now we’ve brought it to with us to your world.”

-2,357

Catching Up on Sandfruit

Earlier this year I announced that my next book, The Sandfruit People, would be released on November 28. And then my mother disappeared and I stopped working on it.

I'm back at work on it now, but I doubt it will be ready in just two weeks. I do believe it will be ready before Christmas. I'll keep you informed.

Meanwhile, it's looking like this short story collection is turning into a novella. As I'm bringing out more and more detail and backstory, the various stories are becoming so connected that there's no definite break from one to the next. And since there's already an overall story arc to the collection, there doesn't seem to be any reason to fight the trend.

Here's an excerpt:

Together they walked to the pool and slipped in. The water, like the air, was warm and rich with plant life. Jett found her little sibling - the legless, genderless tadpole that would one day become a bipedal child like herself - and placed him gently in his transport case. Chegg picked up the case and they both climbed out of the pool and walked out of the tangle of carefully interwoven trees that made up their home, out into the sunshine where Chegg's car waited.

The baby didn't have to stay in the carrying case long. Chegg carefully transferred him to the tank in the back of the car and set the case on the floor in front of it.

Jett gave her little sibling a rub on his smooth, soft head, turned her nose up for one more touch from her father's knuckle and watched him go. He knew she didn't want to stay, but she was fourteen now and had school in the afternoons. 

Interview with Author April M Reign

Here's an interview with the prolific and popular April M Reign by M Joseph Murphy. April commented on this interview afterwards on her blog: "I’m partial to this interview because Joseph took the time to ask me personal questions that relate to ME, MY KIDS, MY WRITING and MY BOOK PROMOTIONS!" (Emphasis is hers.)

April M. Reign is the author of several fan-favorite series (e.g. Dhellia Series, Mancini Saga, Disciples of the Damned Series, etc.) I met her on Twitter. However, after following her on Facebook I became a huge fan. Not just of her writing, but of the way she interacts with her fans.

And her fans love her. I wanted to find out how she was so prolific and how she managed her brand. I was fortunate enough to be granted an interview.

1. You are very prolific. From the looks of it, you have 5 series (including HASH, book 1 in the Imprint Trilogy), several standalone books and you’re also branching out into horror. What’s your secret for getting so much work done?

My secret is consistency. Every day, I sit in front of my laptop and I write. I may only write 200 words (on a bad day) or 3000 words (on a good day) but there is never a day that goes by when I don’t write. Consistency combined with my overly active imagination gives me the foundation to create new storylines and constantly provide new books for my readers.

2. With so many projects on the go, is it difficult keeping your stories straight? Have you ever mistakenly put a character into the wrong series?

I don’t usually put a character into the wrong series but I do have a tendency to mix 3rd and 1st person narrative. I’ve written three of my series in 1st person and two in 3rd person. At times, it gets confusing. (smile)

As far as keeping my stories straight, (Laugh) I have to reread each book in a series before I can write the next one, so that I keep the voice of my characters the same. With so many series going at once, I find this is the best way to keep it all straight in the chaos that I call my…creative mind. 

3. You are a very proud mother. What do you think is the greatest lesson you’ve been able to teach your sons? What’s the greatest lesson they have taught you?

Yes, I am a very proud mother of two amazing sons. Although, I’ve taught my boys many lessons in life, I’d have to say one in particular stands out above the rest… Finding and following their dreams.  Hard work, perseverance and determination are important factors in achieving their dreams and making them reality.  I’ve tried to lead them by example. 

They have taught me a thousand different things. But if I had to choose one, I’d say they’ve taught me the importance of being patient.

4. You also have very devoted fans: almost 25,000 on Twitter, over 3,000 on Facebook, and you have comments on all your blog posts. Does that put more pressure on you creatively or does it inspire you to work harder?

Both! I have supportive, amazing readers. They’ve watched me grow as an author. I can honestly say that my readers inspire me to work harder, and create different worlds where they can truly get lost. 

Of course, that also puts creative pressure on me, but I thrive in the midst of pressure.


 

5. “The Dhellia Series Fun Video” is a superb video. Very simple and yet highly polished and professional. Who did the video and what was the process like for you? What do you think makes for good video promotion?

Well, I’m not an expert on video promotion. One day, I was browsing the internet, and I saw this cool thing called a whiteboard video used as advertisement. I searched high and low for someone to create this video, but every company I researched had prices that ranged from $1500.00 to $10,000.00. That was certainly out of my price range for promotional tools. Then I found a person on a discount website that could do the video for me at a reasonable price. 

I love the video and it gives The Dhellia Series a thirty-second opportunity to shine. 

6. Lastly, if you could give fellow writers one piece of advice on how to promote their products, what would it be?

Be consistent with writing. One published story is an accomplishment, but a reader who enjoys your work will want to read more than one story. Are you giving them a selection? Sometimes individuals will wrap themselves up in promoting one story and they will forget to write the next. Your name is your brand, write the next story and your fans/readers will follow you.

Links:

April M. Reign's Website
April M. Reign's Amazon Author Page
April M. Reign's Goodread Page
April M. Reign on Smashwords
April M. Reign on Twitter
April M. Reign on Facebook

Luke Bellmason Interview, Part Two

Here is part two of M Joseph Murphy's interview with author Luke Bellmason:

You did the cover for Canterbury Tales yourself. It’s very impressive, a rarity for authors. Simple and yet instantly recognizable. Is there a difference, for you, between writing and creating visual art?

Thank you for saying so. I am so critical of my own work and it's almost impossible to judge yourself. I think there is link between all of the creative arts. music, painting and writing and it's aesthetics. It's such a difficult concept to grasp because it's entirely subjective. Two people might agree that something looks beautiful but ten others might not. Who is right? I know when I've done something that looks right image wise, but I can't explain how. I just look at it and say to myself "yes, that's right." When someone else agrees that's very pleasing. I only wish it were that easy with writing, I am never quite sure whether that's good or not. There's a lot less certainty.

I think I must have a visual sort of mind, I tend to visualize everything in the story before I ever write it down. The writing part is the last part, like the events have happened and the words are just the 'reporting' of those events. I did a two year course in visual communications about six years ago and, even though I can't draw that well and have never seriously considered working in the industry professionally, I learned how to present things professionally. How to 'sell' yourself and take a professional attitude to manage deadlines and such. It seems like something so simple now, but before going to college I would start projects and never finish them, or never plan them out to how I would complete them. I'm a lot more workman-like about my writing as a result of that and it's certainly come in very handy to know how to do typesetting and produce stuff for print and all that.

The other great thing I learned at college was to be experimental. You have to do something which will stand out. Everyone has access to Photoshop and computer imaging software these days but they are just tools. There's a great temptation to let the computer do all the work but then you'll simply end up with something which looks exactly like everyone else's.

At college, they would encourage us to go out and photograph 'textures' or to collect unusual objects, or do something else totally random. Then we'd have to incorporate these into our work. It made us think differently and come at things from another direction. I have certainly tried to apply this ethos to my writing.

Like the story I'm working on at the moment, which has the plot line of 'discovery'. The main character discovers something which ends up changing his life and leading him in turn to discover something fundamental about himself. I took the word 'discovery' as a theme and 'discovery' wrote the first draft instead of carefully outlining it like I normally would. The result was a different story to the one I would have written if I'd planned it, probably. I don't actually know this for certain of course. I would be inclined to say I learned 'to think outside of the box' if that phrase wasn't so hideously overused.

Describe your writing process? How often do you write and how long per session?

I write do a lot of my writing at work, in the truck or sitting in the driver's waiting room. I can easily clock up three or four hours of sitting-around-time a night. Having said that, I do have an iPad and waste a huge amount of that time on twitter, or watching TV shows and movies.

I recently set up a very convoluted system for making myself write, which involved writing a text adventure game. Check my blog for more details. It's completely crazy, and I know it's crazy, but it seems to be working. It goes back to what I said about being experimental. Nobody in their right mind would waste time creating a text adventure game to help them write a novel, but doing the obvious and the expected is only a sure route to creating something obvious and expected.

The first four tales took over four years to write, but it allowed me to develop a kind of production line system where I start out with a concept, themes and a plot then go on through drafts on to a final version.

Link: Kurt Vonnegut Explains Drama

So to begin with I draw up (with coloured lines and everything) an outline for each main character. If you've seen that video of Kurt Vonnegut explaining Cinderella and other classic tales, you'll get the idea. That outline forms the basis for the first draft, which is a really free-flowing exploration of all the ideas I've had for the story. I don't hold anything back, I just chuck everything in. Usually the story has been gestating for months and rolling around inside my head. I like it best when the first draft spills onto the screen in a couple of weeks.

Sorting out the mess of the first draft is the task of the second draft, which is where I try and figure out where the scenes are, and each scene has to advance the plot. This is vital with a short story where space is at a premium, but it also keeps the story moving along and I like to switch up locations a lot too, have contrasts between scenes so the mood changes and the reader gets a sense of following the character through their journey.

The third draft is where I edit down, make things clearer, try to cut out scenes which aren't necessary or merge scenes. It's great when you can double up things too, like having dialogue which doesn't just explain the plot, but also describes a character and maybe foreshadows or sets something up for later. The third draft really has to get the story ready for publication, with line-editing to cut down the word count as much as possible. Someone once told me to 'imagine the editor is charging you for each word'.

Then there's the final draft, where I do the last bit of proof-reading and checking for overused words, like 'just' or 'decide' or 'wonder', which I seem to use a hell of a lot!

I am the worst procrastinator in the world and will do anything to avoid writing, but with this new system I'm hoping plan out my time much more carefully and get the next volume out in a year.

The ideal amount of time I've found for writing is about 90 minutes. You have to decide to make those 90 minutes sacred, keep away from Twitter and the internet. Even so, for the first half an hour is just messing about, getting the brain warmed up. Then I'll hopefully be in the zone for a good hour, before I stop. I stop at the end of the time, even unless things are going really well, because I'll go off the boil and stop producing anything any good.

One of the things I like to do at the end of a session like this as well is to set up the thing I'm going to be doing in the next session. Write the first few lines of the next scene or a few lines of dialogue. So I'm not coming to the work completely cold next time.

What do you think is your weak point as a writer? Or, to say that another way, describe something about your writing you would like to improve.

I often worry about my characters and whether they're all the same, or whether they're all just versions of me. I enjoy writing dialogue but it's so hard to get into a character if you're not sympathetic with them or if they're supposed to be the 'bad guy'.

My main gripe though is my lack of output, the procrastination that I mentioned. But then again, I would not be too unhappy to have written only one or two good books by the time I leave this rock by one means or another.

I used to read a lot of books on writing and listen to writing podcasts and go to writing workshops, but in the end I think you can overdo it. One tends to end up with analysis paralysis, where you end up doing nothing because you think everything you're writing is bad. There's a sort of bad writing hypochondria where you recognise every example of bad writing and think 'yes, I do that.' You can easily convince yourself you're writing is shockingly bad and that has the effect of stopping you from writing, which is the opposite of what you should do of course, which is write more and more until you get better.

Or, you could do what I do and just have your story told by a narrator and then blame all the bad writing on him.

Lastly, how many volumes are planned for Canterbury Tales? Have you thought about what you’d like to write after the series is finished?

There will be two more volumes of the tales to come, making up the total of twelve tales. Volume 2 should be out next year, with volume 3 following in 2015. Then I'll probably collect the three volumes together into one book, and I'm thinking that maybe I should add some new stuff for that version.

There could be an infinite number of follow ups, but I'm a big fan of ending things before they go stale. Leave your audience wanting more and all that.

The book after was planned so long ago, well before the Canterbury Tales were even conceived. But it's going to be a better book for the fact that I have honed my story-telling skills on this project first. I'm really aware of learning all I can from this project to build up to writing the next one.

It will also be based on video-games and the culture that surrounds them. It'll have two levels going on, a little like the Canterbury Tales has; firstly the group of players in an online game and also the events and characters they play in the game itself. It will also tie in with what I said about online games and the character's stories emerging from the players themselves, rather than having pre-written and scripted things in the game.

I'd love to explore the iteration between the players and their characters in a system which could potentially generate and manage an entire fictional universe drawn from all the world's literature and culture on the internet. A sort of automated AI storytelling machine which injects new stuff into a video game all the time. Such a game would be endlessly playable (not to mention highly addictive.)