Julius Bailey a fantasy author/blogger has nominated me for a Q & A blogger's tag!

Here's how it works:

• Tag the blogger(s) who have nominated you
• Answer the questions you were given
• Nominate 10 bloggers
• Write out your 10 questions
• Let them know they’ve been tagged

We'll, I can't say I actually followed all the instructions. I'm not going to nominate anyone, per se, but if you're a blogger and you'd like to answer my questions, please do. Just tag me and share a link to your response in the comments.  Anyhow, here are my answers to Julius's questions.

J. Bailey's Blogger  Q&A Tag Questions from Realm Delver:

1: What is your favorite drink?

Coffee, with a close second of unsweetened tea. Yeah, I know... Exciting, right?

2: What is your least favorite book?

Well, least favorite... That's hard because I would not likely have finished it, and maybe it picked up later.  Well, I guess I'll give you Moby Dick, but only because I couldn't make it past the first page. I tried to read it in highschool, but haven't given it another shot since.

3: What's the longest distance you've ever traveled on foot?

Hard to say. I used to run four or so miles at a time when I was in the Navy, but that's not going to impress too many folks. I'd love to say I trekked the forest trails of some interesting location, but the closest I've gotten to that is just walking the paved walking paths between streets in my local area. Not quite as far as when I was in the Navy.

I did once lock myself out of my car at a mall in Norfolk and run all the way home to my apartment to get the back up key. I think that was a few miles. Nowadays, I live so far from the mall, it would be an epic journey of maybe few hours to get home. That trip took about thirty minutes, I think.

4: If you could own one of the batmobiles from any one of the live-action Batman movies, which one would you choose?

I'd get the one that jumped the bridge.  It's not quite the traditional look, but it looks like it would be the most fun to drive. I can't remember which Batman movie it was in, but Christian Bale played him.

5: Would you rather be chased by human eating snakes or human eating spiders?

I can't get over the "human eating" part of that question...

6: Would you rather have awesome kung fu skills, or awesome lightsaber skills (with a saber included)?

Kung fu, because if you're a badass, but only with a weapon, all your opponent has to do is disarm you to win the fight. I think weaponless fighting is the most impressive thing. Now, that's not to say I wouldn't love the awesome lightsaber skills, too, just being practical, you know.

7: If you had to be stranded fifty miles out in either a desert, the ocean, or the north or south pole, which would you choose?

Key word here is stranded. I'd prefer not to be stranded. Still, I think I'd be better prepared to survive in the desert (depending on what kind it is), but only from what I've seen and learned from the slew of survival shows I watch on TV. Pretty much all the ones that have someone just out there on surviving or showing how to survive are on my to watch list. My favorites, currently, are Naked and Afraid and Dual Survival.

8: What do you consider to be your greatest skill?

Writing and editing, but maybe crochet as well. I can crochet a mean purse (maybe literally with a little embroidery, picturing a scowling face on the side of a purse), and I'm fairly good at loom knitting and excruciatingly slow at regular knitting, though the projects turn out alright. Anyhow, creative outlets.. That covers it, I think.

9: What's your dream job?

Well, I think I'm doing it.  I'm a training specialist. So, I get to feed my creative side by designing eLearning, presentations, and workshops, and my social side by actually delivering those trainings. I love helping people, so answering questions and helping folks find good solutions is a plus. I also get to dabble in projects and I meet pretty much everyone who comes in the door because I run the orientation schedule and teach a couple of those classes, too. 

Second to that is writing. I do a lot of technical writing at work, but I love writing book reviews and coming up with stories of my own, as well. I used to think that would be my dream job, but I'm beginning to think that would just suck all the fun right out of it. I'm happy to leave it as a side gig.

10: What did you think of Batman vs Superman: Dawn of Justice?

I didn't watch it. I prefer to think of Batman and Superman as best friends, so I don't want to break the illusion...

Ok, so if you want to be tagged, volunteer below in the comments.  Here are the questions I'd like answered:

1. What's your favorite pastime?
2. Pudding or Jello?
3. If someone at work would to mix up skittles and M&Ms in the same dish (with no warning), what would your reaction be?
4. What's your favorite movie of all time and how old were you when you first saw it?
5. If you have a favorite series (book, TV, movie, any of that), what is it and why?
6. What is your post-apocalyptic skill set?
7. If you could visit anywhere (real or fiction), where would you go and why?
8. What was the most life-changing decision you ever had to make?
9. If you could change one thing about yourself, what would it be?
10. If you read, what's your routine? Anything quirky or interesting you'd like to share?

Author Interview: Augustine Sam, Author of: "Take Back the Memory" & "Flashes of Emotion"

Today, I am excited to host an interview with Augustine Sam, author of Take Back the Memory & Flashes of Emotion.

Augustine Sam

PH: Hello and welcome to my blog. I'm interested in learning more about you and your work.

Augustine's first published book

AS:  Well, thank you for having me. My name is Augustine Sam; I am an Italian citizen of African descent. I’m a journalist by profession, a novelist by choice, and as I love to say, a poet by chance. I am a member of the U.K. Chartered Institute of Journalists, formerly special desk editor at ThisDay newspapers, an authoritative third world daily, first published in collaboration with the Financial Times of London. I am the author of Take Back the Memory, a contemporary women’s fiction, recently awarded a 5-star seal by Readers’ Favorite. My poems have been published in two international anthologies: The Sounds of Silence and Measures of the Heart. One of those poems, Anguish & Passion, was adjudged winner of the Editors’ Choice Award in the 1998 North America Open Poetry contest, sponsored by the National Library of Poetry, USA. And on Valentine’s Day this year, my complete collection of poems, Flashes of Emotion, was released.

PH: What do you like most about writing?

AS:  What I like most about writing is the opportunity to communicate with people everywhere (which is a big deal for someone who is as introverted as I am), and of course, the freedom to express my thoughts by way of prose or poetry. The truth is, the only time in my life that I really feel alive is when I am writing. 

PH: What sorts of things do you like reading? 

AS:  Actually I like reading all kinds of things, sometimes including even things that put me off. 

PH: What's your favorite book?

AS:  I have more than one favorite book. Angela’s Ashes by Frank McCourt, for example, is one. The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco, is another, and The God of Small Things by Arundhati Roy, to mention just three. 

Augustine Sam in Italy

PH: When did you begin writing, or what inspired you to write your first book, first story, first poem, etc.?

AS:  I had a passion for writing when I was a kid. I remember that while some of my friends kept toys I kept piles of notebooks where I wrote short stories that I invented mainly for the pleasure of my two sisters who, by the way, were my first real fans and readers. Back then, we used to sit by the radio every Thursday evening and listen to the radio theater, which was very entertaining. One day, I told my sisters that I wanted to write a play for the radio. Mercifully, they didn’t dismiss it as an untenable dream. So, I converted one of my short stories into a play and took it to the radio station. The producer of the radio theater, who was used to receiving scripts from Theater Arts students and lecturers from the local university, tried her best to be polite, took the script from me and sent me home.

A week later, I went back to see her, half-expecting to be politely dismissed. I was pleasantly surprised when she told me that she had actually read and enjoyed the script and then scolded me for giving her a script with no phone number or a forwarding address attached. The next Thursday evening, when we sat by the radio and heard the words: “The Breaking Point, a play for radio, written by Augustine Sam,” my sisters and I just looked at one another and started screaming.

I think what inspired me to write was my first literature textbook in school, which coincidentally, was a novel set in the port city where I grew up. It was the story of a one-eyed, shabby, old man, who spent his days at the harbor contriving different kinds of mischief that enthralled the local population. I had seen him at the harbor a few times when I was a kid. So, reading about him in the literature textbook, triggered my fascination with storytelling and gave me a whole new insight into how the written word can actually capture reality.

PH: What was the scariest thing about publishing your first book?

AS:  I suppose the scariest thing was being told that “I had no name,” which in some ways, also explained the constant rejection, to the extent that what eventually became my ‘first published book’ was actually the last one I wrote. 

PH: If you could say one thing to a fledgling writer, what would you say?

AS:  Invent your style. Listen to everything but take only what is useful to you. Aim at the sky so you might hit the tallest tree. 

PH: Do you like to do anything unique to get in the mood to write?

AS:  Not really. I just light my pipe and listen to news bulletin on the radio and I’m good to go. 

PH: Where can readers go to learn more about you and your work? (social media, buying links, etc.) 

Augustine's newest release

Social media:

Twitter handle: @austin_sam001
Facebook Page:   http://goo.gl/W7W1Ta
AuthorsDen: http://goo.gl/gsVNdG
Google+: http://goo.gl/yruj3D
Book trailer: http://goo.gl/2kt6td
Goodreads: http://goo.gl/AOY68S

Buying links:

Amazon: http://goo.gl/osU1VZ
Barnes & Noble: http://goo.gl/N6WXJ4
Google Play: http://goo.gl/qZaJsR
CreateSpace: http://goo.gl/XB59ea
Smashwords: http://goo.gl/7hwm6t
Lulu: http://goo.gl/KBLLRu

NaNoWriMo 2013- The Freeze is Complete at 50310 Words

This morning at 2:30am, I finished The Freeze, my second NaNoWriMo novel. It's a fantastic feeling, wrapping up a 50k word novel in 30 days, and this time, I did it in 14.  Talk about procrastination.  But it was fun.

Just for fun, here is what my mini descent into the crazy writing frenzy that is NaNoWriMo looked like this year.  Obviously I'm a weekend warrior when it comes to writing, but this time I took it to the extreme. I had a couple of 8k days and even a 10 and 12k day. Coming to the end of one of those is like coming to edge of an insanity cliff and looking over the edge.

NaNoWriMo 2013-The Freeze

I was good and only wrote 3k on Thanksgiving, spending the day cooking and the evening watchin Punkin Chunkin on Discovery with my family.  But on Black Friday I avoided the stores and sales in favor of a pie induced sugar high and a 12k word writing marathon (actually 10k on the 29th and 2k after midnight).  I must have found words for the perfect ending three or four times in those final few hours, only to check my word count and realize my work was not done yet, a symptom of NaNoWriMo. The book isn't over until you reach 50k.

So what did I write about? A frozen future where residents of a city, led by a prepper named Mr. Prowler have taken refuge in an underground tunnel system. A young girl, Andrea, sick of writing sappy, optimistic essays for what the adults call school, decides to try her luck on one of Mr. Prowler's scavenging crews, who go topside to sweep the abandoned city for cast off supplies and materials.  With the help of a boy she likes who happens to be Mr. Prowler's son, she joins the team as Chaz.  But getting on the team isn't at all what she expected and she soon finds herself separated from the team, lost in the frozen city and alone.

NaNoWriMo 2012- Fearless (The Zombie Logs)

Of course, this year I knew I could do it. This wasn't my first trip down this road, and last year I spent 20 of the 30 days of NaNoWriMo delving into my version of the zombie apocalypse. Why? Not because I like zombies or zombie stories. Quite the opposite in fact. I wrote Fearless (The Zombie Logs) to combat the desire to hide out in the computer room whenever my husband watched The Walking Dead. It was therapeutic. It was also fun, sad, and the first book that actually had a scene that brought tears to my eyes when I wrote it. I also gave myself some writing constraints just to make it a bit more interesting. One, I never say the word zombie anywhere in the book. Two, the whole thing is written as a journal from the perspective of a young woman who managed to survive the outbreak and who finds herself the leader of a small band of survivors. Three, I only name three characters over the course of the book, though to hit my word count I did a run down of who's who at the very end. Still, I surprised myself.  Even with all these constraints, the characters took on realistic identities, humor and tragedy blossomed from the pages, and I even managed to fit in a little romance.  

The downside, though, was that I had a totally weird timeline since I didn't have a calendar out when I wrote it.  I'm working on taming that timeline in my current editing run for this book. In fact, I've got everything labeled with the correct date and now I'm just running through it making sure I haven't talked about it being Christmas in the middle of April or Thanksgiving in the middle of October.  Details, details. 

That's all for now. I'm giving myself the rest of the day off to recover.  Tomorrow? Well, tomorrow I'm back to editing. 

Did any of you NaNoWriMo this year? If so, share your experiences with it in the comments.  What was your best word count day? How much caffiene did you ingest? Etc. Etc.

While you're at it check out MichaelSciFan's interview with me and enter to win a free ecopy of Forgotten Valor.

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Interview with David Estes, author of the fantastic Dwellers and Country Sagas

Welcome, David, and thank you for stopping by my blog for this interview.  I'm excited to participate in the Earth Dwellers Book Blast event.

Thanks so much, Patricia! It’s an honor to be able to stop by your awesome blog.

1.   Before we get started on the interview questions, why don't you take a moment to tell us a little bit about the Earth Dwellers?

This shouldn’t be a complicated question, but it is! Why? Because The Earth Dwellers is the 7th and final book that brings together two other series that, to this point, haven’t had any connection to each other; namely, The Dwellers Saga and The Country Saga. 

The Earth Dwellers is an attempt to bring an epic end to two YA dystopian series that take place in the same overall world, but with different characters, settings, and plotlines. However, in the final book, these characters and plotlines come together in a tale of rebellion against a tyrant, love, family, and unfortunately, loss. 

2.  David, you've written quite a few books over the past couple of years. Do you have a favorite?

Whew! It’s been a really busy couple of years! I’ve written and published 14 books (including my 4 Children’s chapter books) over the last three years. But picking a favorite would be like choosing your favorite child, right? Ha! Not exactly. Well, my favorite of my books was Fire Country, because of the strong and colorful personality of the protagonist, Siena (random fact: I’m responding to these interview questions while staying in Siena, Italy. Just a coincidence!). Siena spoke to me so strongly that she practically wrote the book herself. So I’ll always love Fire Country. But I have to say that my new favorite is definitely The Earth Dwellers, and I’m not just saying that because it’s my newest book. 

3.  What makes Earth Country your favorite?