Monday, March 25, 2013

Interview with Austin S. Camacho

What have you learned about yourself as a writer from your first book to your latest novel?

I've learned that no story is ever quite as good as I want it to be... and that the next story will be better because of what I learned wrestling with the last story.  Also, I have learned that creating great fiction requires more than talent - you need to study your craft and never stop learning how to do it better.

Why did you make Felicity Irish in the Stark and O`Brien series?
I wanted to play with the concept of opposites attracting.  I started with the most familiar character for me - an inner city African American man with military experience.  When I reached in the other direction I ended up with a white woman from another country who had been an outlaw.  She needed to speak English of course, and aside from Scandanavians the Irish have the lightest skin of anybody so that's where I landed.
 
 In the Hannibal Jones mysteries, are the characters that help Hannibal anyone that you patterned them after?

Hannibal's posse all started out as stereotypes but I expanded them from there.  So none of them was based on any individual... except Virgil, who is loosely based on one of my uncles, who came back from WWII Army service hooked on heroine.
 
Your latest novel deals with a very sensitive issue that a woman would face. How were you able to capture the emotion of her feelings towards what happened to her?

That is the essence of writing fiction.  I have to be able to put myself in the emotion shoes of each character.  Emotionally women are different from men, so we men have to observe them very closely during moments of extreme duress and capture those emotions for later use.  Once you've seen a woman go through being really hurt, you can portray it in words.
 
In the age of e books how are you making your novel stand out from the rest?

I believe good writing will stand out regardless of the format.  I hope my novels stand out because of their well-developed characters - people you are happy to get to know and keep up with.

Do you listen to music, watch television or need total quiet when you write?

Definitely music!  It blots out distracting noises and amplifies emotion, making it easier to put the right emotional content into my writing. 
 
Since this blog is about shoes, books and writing...tell me what book you like the most, whose writing style you mimic and who is your favorite show designer.

I don't have a favorite book but I do have favorite authors: Raymond Chandler, Ellmore Leonard, and Walter Mosely of course.  I dream of writing Chandler's poetic prose and Leonard's real, troubled characters, with Mosely's perfect sense of social setting.  But I can't even name a shoe designer...LOL...
 
Tell my audience where you will be next. 
I will be reading at the Art and Lit event at Watermark Gallery at the Baltimore harbor on April 7th.  You can read all about it at https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/513941071981686/ 

Monday, March 18, 2013

Interviews anyone?

I routinely open up my blog to guest blogger and to other that would like to talk about what how they write, the books they read or the shoes they like, buy or just want.

I have started doing interviews on blog talk radio shows. They are radio shows via the Internet and someone actually said to me, "that's a waste of time; no one actually listens to those". Really?

So I decided to do a little research. +Cyrus Webb does a blog show, and tonight I will be on it. He has over 100K listeners. He does interviews with Jackie Collins as well as...well me. I say this because his show probably didn't start out with thousands of listeners but he now has overseas listeners, military listeners and he has a magazine and offers commercials for his shows.

So tell me again why you don't do blog talk radio shows?

Yeah; I thought so. If you haven't heard of Cyrus, you need to look him up. He is a man on the move and a man with a purpose. I can't wait for my interview tonight. Here is the link so you can listen in. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/conversationslive

And if case you were wondering, yep; I'm going to blog about it afterwards. Hell, I might even blog while I am talking to him.

Monday, March 11, 2013

Who, What, Where, When and How?

Many people ask how an author comes up with the story lines we write.  Some of mine come from bits and pieces of conversations I hear.  A few develop off tangents of ideas I read in news articles or personal experience.  I read different genre as well as what I write, paranormal and erotic romance.
 My recent release, Hot for Torrey, came from a discussion on friends with benefits and the younger generation as well as generation X hooking up more.  I often listen to music as I write and my favorite group is Blue Sky Riders.  Their song Little Victories inspired Holt and Torrey’s second chance at love story. 
One thing that needs to be taken into account is letting your muse take you places and ask questions that sometimes you might find wacky or outside your comfort zone.  Once the questions start rolling you often can find a scenes or scenarios that intrigue you or percolate into characters and/or settings demanding their story be told.   My first book, Red Hot, came from a fellow author talking about a novella she was writing for an anthology call on firemen.  Brent and Bunny’s story went more than novella length and became my person catharsis to post 9/11 in many ways. 
Since mash-ups and cross-genre came on the scene, I’ve taken ideas from science fiction stories I’ve read and enjoyed, let them marinate in my muse’s juices and given them my own spin by twisting them with paranormal aspects.  It doesn’t always work.  Sometimes the outcome is as interesting as the journey.  
 I blog weekly at Shape Shifter Seductions.  My blog mates and I have come up with our own town of shape shifters.  We run flash pieces on them most days.  While others we have guest authors happen by as well as our own promo when we have new releases.  We enjoy the blog hops we participate in which gives us an idea to focus on as a theme and we go from there.  I’ve taken a few of our citizens from our shape shifter town and moved them up to Alaska.  The two triads are fun to write about.    Sharing our creative drives together allows the five of us (my blog mates and I) to use each other’s characters in our flashes and see our characters grow or find out new things about them. 
If a story line from a favorite movie, childhood cartoon, current program, or other books ignites your juices to tell the story from your view with unique and different characters go for it.  Remember plagiarism and stealing story ideas is theft. So be careful and write new and your story that we can all enjoy as much as you enjoyed the ones we authors have already written.
Solara Gordon
Romance with a Spicy Kick!

Monday, March 4, 2013

Spring is here...are you ready?

Ok, well it’s almost here and I am getting ready. I’m so excited that I can hardly sit still.

I went and got a pedicure and even splurged and got a design on them and you want to know why.

Because now is the time to get your feet ready for those cute sandals that we are buying now.

You can’t expect that your feet are healthy after having been jammed into boots and closed toe shoes all winter, now do you.  You need to take this season to start getting those feet beautiful.

Start by going to the nail shop and getting their deluxe pedicure. Let them scrub your feet and massage your toes and then let them give you a paraffin wax treatment. Trust me, you will enjoy it and then get them painted. Start by trying out those cool colors now…it will give you a visual as to what your feet will look like in the summer. Now ladies, don’t go with the bubble gum pink in the summer if it doesn’t look good now. Trust me, I know.

Now after your initial pedicure make sure you go back every couple of weeks. Trust me again, your feet will be summer ready by the time summer actually gets here.

Why am I telling you this now…because every year I see women who just slide their feet into those  cute sandals and did nothing to prepare their feet to be shown to the rest of us and yes, I’m very offended. I’m offended when I see the calluses on the back of your heels. I’m offended when I see your toenails not trimmed. I’m offended when I see what appear to be bunions and corns on the sides of your toes. Yes, I’m offended and so are a lot of people.

Now, men, you are not excluded. Get your toes done!
 
If you don’t want to go into a woman’s salon, go with your mate/girlfriend/wife. Trust me, that is the most sexiest thing you could do with her. Trust me, it's sexy! I have sat in the chair while the woman is working on my feet and a guy has come in, alone and I thought..wow; he is taking care of his feet. I'd want his feet rubbing against me at night.
 
Women, when you get your toes done..starting now...it might pay off later with a new pair of sexy sandals that he wants to see those beautiful feet in.

So what are you waiting for? I’ve already started, how about you.

Friday, March 1, 2013

Inspirational and Funny

Sometimes when I surf around Facebook, I find things that are inspirational and funny.
The things that are inspirational always prompt me to smile and to put a fire in my soul.

The things that are funny, well they stick a little longer.

One such thing is the small 'postcard' funnies that my son or some other person will send me. My funniest one to date was, "Oh look, its F*** this o'clock again". I still find that funny as ever. Now, either I'm getting old or just slow but it took me about ten minutes to get what it was actually saying and haven't we all said that at some point in our lives.

I know I have. One days where I can't take one more thing or do one more page of edits or send one more promotional email. I look at the clock and say, "F...this! I'm done for the day" and it was so funny that my son sent this to me because in his words, "mom, you look like you had this kind of day".

Wow. When your child thinks you need a laugh than you really have taken things much to seriously.

So, although I enjoy the inspirational moments found online, I find that the funny moments mean a lot more because they truly do, lift my spirit and will you look at the time....

Until next time America...(hey; isn't that a line from a television show)