Author-fest - Meet Sarah Billington

I worked with Sarah on the "Taste Test" sampler, which we produced earlier this year. It has been so cool getting to know her. I've read The Kiss Off and really enjoyed it. Her writing is full of fun and humour. It was so cool to bury my nose in a light read that had me smiling and guessing the whole way through.

So it is my absolute pleasure to have her on my blog for the Author-fest.

When did you publish your first book?

April 2011, The Ballerina & My Best Friend and The Runaway, two short stories that had both previously been published before in an anthology (Ballerina) and magazine (The Runaway). Ballerina had a TERRIBLE original cover for its ebook, back in my noob days. That's since been rectified.

How many books have you published altogether?

Fourteen! Ten short stories, two novels and two short story collections.

What are you currently working on?

The sequel to The Kiss Off (which has been reviewed right here on this blog! It was an exciting day)! It has the most original of titles at the moment. Yes. It's The Kiss Off 2.

Where is your favourite place to read?

In bed. I love curling up in bed with a good book. LOVE. I pretty much always read lying down. On a couch, on the grass, on my desk...okay maybe I haven't done that last one. But it doesn't mean I won't. 

If you could recommend any book to aspiring writers, what would it be and why?

The Writer's Guide to Character Traits by Linda N. Edelstein, PH.D.

It's an absolute goldmine for character development, and helps to really make your characters three-dimensional, real people. Is your character a thirteen year old pyromaniac? She can tell you what personality traits he/she would have. Going through a divorce? What type of divorce? She takes you through the different stages of divorce and the effects it can have on the husband as wife as well as any kids involved. It's a brilliant book.

And Save the Cat! by Blake Snyder. It's a book about plotting out screenplays but it 

DEFINITELY applies to novel writing. BIG TIME.

Five Favourites...

One? You want ONE of each? Yeah, that's not possible.

TV Show: Awkward. And Smash. And Game of Thrones. And Criminal Minds. And The Walking Dead. And Veronica Mars. And... yes I love TV.

Style of Music or Band: I love power pop and punk rock so my favourite bands are McFly and All Time Low. But I love the Rock of Ages soundtrack. And I love Marc Broussard. And I really love upbeat pop because my favourite songs right now are Brokenhearted by Karmin, Good Time by Owl City and Carly Rae Jepson and Gangnam Style by Psy. I know everyone's over it but I literally JUST heard Gangnam Style a week ago for the first time. How funny is that video?  

Movie: As of today, because I only saw it a couple of days ago and am still thinking about it, Cabin in the Woods. The only thing I knew about that movie before seeing it was what the move cover looked like. So if you were to say "There's no way Sarah would have seen any of that coming"... you would be right.

Book: The Georgia Nicolson series by Louise Rennison, the Carter series by Brent Crawford, The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins and Goodnight Mr. Tom by Michelle Magorian.

Item of clothing: My Threadless tee shirts. Especially my Don't Care Bears one. I'm very into tee shirts right now.

Thanks for having me, Melissa! It's been fun!

Thanks so much for being here. I love "Good Time" by Owl City and Carly Rae Jepson. I love blasting it super loud and dancing around the house with my kids :)

If you'd like to connect with Sarah online, here are her links:

Twitter
Facebook
Amazon Author Page
Goodreads
Website
Blog

Friday Favourites - Indie Authors

Because this month is all about the Author-fest, I thought a good Friday Favourite would be authors. This week I want to look at indie authors. Do you have a favourite?

I've read some pretty good, some pretty excellent and some okay indie authors in my time.

The few that pop to mind as favourites are:

- C. M. Keller (Screwing Up Time & Screwing Up Babylon - releasing soon.)

- Cindy M. Hogan (Watched)

- T. G. Ayer (Dead Radiance & Dead Embers)

- Patti Larsen (Fresco) - Okay I haven't finished reading Fresco yet, but I started reading it last night and am loving it so much, I think it will be a winner :)

I will definitely be keeping track of these authors and working my way through their books.

How about you?
Are there any indie authors you just love and will read whatever they publish?

Author-fest! - Meet C. M. Keller

I am very excited to have the lovely C. M. Keller kicking off the Author-fest for me. She is such a great person and I have very much enjoyed getting to know her in the past year. She has been a great support to me in my writing and I love seeing her name pop up in my e-mail inbox.

This is an exciting month for her as she has her second book hitting the internet - Screwing Up Babylon - the sequel to Screwing Up Time. I have read it and it's brilliant! I can't wait for you guys to be able to read it as well.

Here's a short interview with this awesome lady :)

How many books have you published altogether?

I have one out now - Screwing Up Time, and my sequel Screwing Up Babylon will be published this month (October). I have a short story being published by Compass Press in their anthology Winter Wonders.

What is the best lesson you've learned since starting out in the writing business?

Love the writing! There’s so much you can’t control in the business. But if you do it because you love it, then everything else is secondary.

What is your favourite part of the writing process?

The first draft. I write “by the seat of my pants,” so I usually have very little idea of where I’m going and how I’m getting there. It’s like riding a rollercoaster while wearing a blindfold. It’s the scariest thing I’ve ever done, but the rush is addictive.

Where is your favourite place to read?

My favorite spot is wherever I am—home in bed, at my kids’ piano lessons, waiting at the doctor’s office, while I’m making dinner…Kindle makes it so easy to chop veggies while reading. Thankfully, I still have ten fingers.

 If you could recommend any book to aspiring writers, what would it be and why?

Stephen King’s On Writing. He talks about writing with the passion of the story—getting caught up in the story without worrying about perfection or errors. I think a lot of beginning writers get so caught up in their mistakes that they become stymied. My favorite quote about first drafts is “A first draft is a celebration of everything that can go wrong on a page.”

5 Favourites...

TV Show:  Grimm (Monroe is my favorite character.)

Style of Music or Band: I’m pretty eclectic in music—I love everything from classical to Big Band to rock to pop. But when I’m writing first drafts, I listen to Thomas Tallis’s “Lamentations of Jeremiah.” My kids call it “the Moaning Monks,” but there’s something about the minor Latin polyphonies that brings me to a very creative place.

Movie: I love old movies—the creative camera angles, the repartee, and the artistic subtlety. On the other hand, I love blockbusters too—Inception, the Bourne trilogy, and Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol.

Book: Picking a favorite book is liking picking a favorite star in the sky—an impossible task. But my favorites include: Persuasion (Jane Austen), Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Salman Rushdie—yes, that Salman Rushdie), Rebecca (Daphne DuMaurier), The Jeeves and Wooster stories (P.G. Wodehouse), The Horse and His Boy (C. S. Lewis)…I’d better stop there, though I could go on and on.

Item of clothing: Sundresses in the summer, and yoga pants and wool cardigans in the winter.

The Horse and His Boy is my favourite C.S. Lewis book as well. Great choice :)

Thanks so much for participating in this Author-fest with me!

If you'd like to connect with C. M. Keller, here are her links. Keep an eye out for her book release later this month. I know I'll be promoting it big time!

Twitter

Facebook

Goodreads

Amazon Author Page

Blog

Author-fest!

It's October and in Germany they are celebrating with Oktoberfest... so I thought, why not have an Author-fest.

So for the month of October, I'll be posting twice a week with a short author interview. It'll be a great chance to get to know some fantastic authors a little better and find out about what they're up to. If you're an author and you'd like to be involved, you can message me through my Facebook page - http://www.facebook.com/melissapearlauthor.

I hope everyone's having a great start to their week :)

MP