My Writing Process Blog Hop - by Vijaya Schartz

I want to thank author Lena Jakes (Hardened Hearts) for tagging me into this blog hop. You can read about her writing process at: http://www.lenajakes.com/blog This is what she says about herself: Well, I am Lena. In my real everyday life, I'm a single mom of two teenage boys, three dogs, with an over active imagination and manage a law firm in Arizona. In my other life, I am putting my daydreams into words—which believe it or not is quite a feat considering I've been writing since before we had computers... or typewriters... or time not devoted to someone/something else.

 

MY WRITING PROCESS

What are you working on?

Right now, I'm writing Book Five in the CHRONICLES OF KASSOUK series, it's titled SNOW CHEETAH, and will cap the end of the series, with the official discovery by humans from Earth of the planet where the series takes place. The last book in the series was a prequel, NOAH'S ARK, telling the story of how humans happened to crash on that unknown planet in the first place. Like all the books in the series, it's a romance as well as a science fiction adventure. The heroine, Natalia, is a human hybrid with psychic abilities, and the hero is the captain of the ship, a nano-enhanced Space Marine, with a secret mission. Like in the other books, cats play a role in the story, and in this one, it's a Cheetah.  The book comes out in November of this year. Look for the gorgeous award-winning cat covers.

 

 And in July, I'll start writing the next book in my medieval fantasy series, The Curse of the Lost Isle. It will be Book Six in that series. It will be set upon the backdrop of the First Crusade. 

How does your work differ from others of its genre?

My books are not typical romance and touch on other genres, like sci-fi, fantasy, historical, or a mix of at least two genres. I also take the time to create worlds where the reader wants to stay a while, but always keeping the action and the romance going. My logline is Blasters, Swords, Romance with a Kick.

Why do you write what you do?

I write what I love to read. A romance novel without any action would bore me, and an action story without a relationship would leave me disappointed. As for sci-fi and medieval settings, some say I'm a time traveler and I have known all these timelines.... the truth is, I do intensive research, even when I write sci-fi.

How does your process work?

I'm usually on deadlines, so I have to plan in advance, and figure out what works best for me. I usually write a chapter a week, not a draft, but a polished chapter. After five rewrites during that week, I present the chapter to my critique partner, she makes comments, then I rewrite it again, print it, set it in the binder with the other finished chapters. When the book is finished, I revise the entire manuscript several times, before sending it to my publisher. A month or so later, I get the first edits, then second edits, then a final copy to review before it gets published.

Next author speaking on the writing process;

I'm tagging my critique partner, multi-published author Linda Andrews, very successful in the Dystopian genre. She also writes science fiction and  historical romances set in the American West, and is currently working on a series of WWI romances, set in Belgium (1914-1918). You can find more about her on her website at: http://www.lindaandrews.net/ and visit her blog at: http://lindaandrews.wordpress.com/

Vijaya Schartz - Blasters, Swords, Romance with a Kick

http://www.vijayaschartz.com

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/author/vijayaschartz 

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/Vijayaschartz

I just read: THE SYN-EN SOLUTION by Linda Andrews

Find this book in kindle HERE

As far as Sci-fi romances go, this one has everything. From the space ship battles, the altered beings regarded as inferior by the purely biological entities, to the political intrigues, genocide, plagues, and a voyage to a faraway planet through a wormhole. Of course, between all the action scenes and unraveling mystery, the hero, a SYN-EN, (synthetic entity but not entirely) burns for the soft skin of this stowaway unaltered biological woman he found naked in a pod aboard his ship.

The fact that the woman traveled through time from Twentieth Century Earth provides the perfect device to help the reader understand the technology of this spacefaring modified human race. It makes the jump in time easier. Although the science in this book is irreproachable, it never obscures the human and semi-human emotional conflicts, and the love scenes sizzle with intensity.

I loved the Syn-En solution, a very well written book, and am looking forward to more novels in this very promising series.

I give this book five stars!

Find more of Linda Andrews novels and novellas in print and in kindle at:
 http://amzn.com/e/B001JOWEAU

Welcome Author Linda Andrews, author of Blue Maneuver

We've all heard the cliche: Nothing is free. We buy a bright, shiny piece of technology and low an behold it needs to be recharged. Electricity to recharge it costs money. Replacement batteries cost money. That solar cell to recharge it costs lots of money up front. Even the tiny Guinea pigs rowing in a tank of water (plus the one shouting 'row!') providing electricity need food, which cost money.

So when I infected Rae, the heroine of my Urban SciFi novel called Blue Maneuver, with nanotechnology, I needed to come up with a means to recharge them without Rae sticking her finger in a light socket every 24 hours or so. (Rae hasn't thanked me yet. She's quite uppity for a figment of my imagination.)

Fortunately, I'm a biologist and I know enough science to be dangerous, er, I mean to figure out a means to power them. It is a little acknowledged fact that the human body is a machine. A biological machine, true, but it is still a machine. We power our machine with food that provides energy through chemical processes. Chewing is a physical process that facilitates the chemical breakdown (by making the pieces smaller) and makes the energy dividend higher.

Stop rolling your eyes, I'm not going to get much more science geekish on you.

If you've ever been on a diet or heard of one, you probably think carbohydrates are the Darth Vadar in the fatty foods Evil Empire. Not so. The brain doesn't just like them, it needs them to function properly. You quit carbs full stop and your brain will suffer. But I digress. (Getting off soap box now). Unlike proteins, carbs are easy to access, readily available energy. In other words, if every cell of your body was infected with hungry nanotechnology like Rae's is, eating carbs would be like swallowing batteries.

So, in effect, I've created the perfect fantasy. Eat anything you want--especially those yummy sugar-filled desserts--and you won't gain a pound. Plus, there's the added bonus of higher salt requirements because, you've guessed it, those lovely anions and cations help conduct electricity.

So after poor Rae was infected by three Cerebral Bots (nanotechnology) they needed to replicate which required energy. Poor Rae passed out and when she woke up she was hungry. She got to eat a lot of chips and drink lots of soda to shore up her flagging energy stores.

She's not quite sure if the trade off is worth it.

The Spam dots (Rae's nickname for them since she doesn't like giving money to her swear jar by calling them damn spots) have left their mark on her. You see, the technology also gives off an electrical signature that tech hunters want and some collectors are will to kill to acquire. And they're inside her, marking her with a great big bull's eye. Of course, they do other things besides keeping her healthy, but that's a story for another post.

So what do you think? Are you willing to pay the price to have this technology? One person who comments will receive a free ebook copy (in the format of their choice) of Blue Maneuver.

Blurb: The extraterrestrials have landed and they're human.

Rae Hemplewhite didn't believe in aliens until a close encounter with out-of-this-world technology drags her into the extraterrestrial security program. Helping alien refugees adjust to life on Earth is difficult enough, but her first clients have a price on their heads. Plus, her new partner seems torn between the urge to kiss her or kill her.

And that's the good news.

The bad news: Alliances are forming in deep space. If Rae doesn't keep her witnesses alive long enough to transfer their top secret information to the right faction of humanity, Earth will become a battlefield.

Blue Maneuver available now:

Amazon  -  Barnes and Noble  -  Smashwords

If you want to know more about Rae, she's being interview on Bandit Creek books on Wednesday and I'll be talking about the idea that sparked Blue Maneuver on Cynthia Woolf's blog this Friday

Linda Andrews

http://www.lindaandrews.net

Linda is giving a free book to a commentator, so feel free to comment.