Friday, May 10, 2013

Welcome Graeme Brown & a Contest


Welcome to Love Romances & More Reviews Graeme Brown. Comfortable? Let’s begin, shall we? Please tell us a little bit about yourself.

To get us started can you tell us a little about what you are working on or have coming out?
 
The Pact, an epic fantasy novella a la Game of Thrones, is about a boy who must confront his destiny when his castle wonderland is threatened by monsters. It came out on May 6th, published by Burst Books. I have been working on its sequel, A Thousand Roads, and expect to be done by the fall. It will be a novel, with all the elements of medieval fantasy, but the protagonist is grown up, so it’s got its share of romance, erotic flare, and rough-and-tough characters you can’t forget (whether you want to or not).


How would you describe yourself using only five words?
 
Creative, curious, detailed, word-loving


Do you have any guilty pleasures?
 
I must confess that I am an absolute math and computer programming nerd. I have three t-shirt that I wear on Monday, Wednesday and Friday: pi, e and phi, written to the first 10,000 decimal places. Oh dear, I’ve said too much...

If we asked your muse to describe you using five words, what do you think they would say? 
He lives and breathes art


Name one thing readers would be surprised to know about you.
 
That the first thing I do in the morning is spend ten minutes reading the Bible and praying 

If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?
 
If I could live anywhere in the world, that would mean I have the money to do so, in which case I’d want to have several simple cottages and travel between them. There are just so many wonderful places in this world, so many wonderful cultures and ways of life to experience. Why get stuck in just one of them? That would be the ultimate fuel for writing inspiration, oh, and all food...mmm!


How do you get yourself in the mood to write?
 
I usually spend about ten minutes going over my outline notes, characters profiles, and previous day’s writing. I will sometimes try to speak like my characters, hear conversations or ways they would say things. Sometimes I go back fifty pages to something that’s niggling and use that to jump into where I’m currently at (love the find feature!).


If someone hasn't read any of your work, what book would you recommend that they start with and why?
 
The Pact, because it’s the only title I have out. However, I am writing an epic, with each book planned out in detail, and though not every one of them will be chronological per se (the sixth book, for example, jumps back and forth between thousands of years to tell the larger story), they all proceed in order. Each book will stand on its own, but reading the ones that come before it will help with discovering the nuggets I bury within.

Is there something special you do to celebrate when one of your books is released?  
The Pact is my first title. For its release I planned a giveaway, with a 7-day countdown full of all sorts of fun posts and visits to blogs.

Could you tell us a couple of favorite books that inspired you to write? 
The Lord of the Rings was my first. Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time, Terry Goodkind’s Sword of Truth, J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter, Terry Brooks’ Sword of Shanarra, George R. R. Martin’s Song of Ice and Fire

Is music a factor for you while you are writing? Do certain songs put you in the right frame of mind to write certain stories? 
I don’t listen to music while I write, but I hear music. I play piano and sometimes compose. Usually, powerful scenes have music that go with them – every time I think about them I hear the music. I’ve written some of it down and am in the process of getting an ap so that I can capture others when they come.

What is the strangest source of writing inspiration you’ve ever had? 
Hmm...I can’t think of anything particularly out of place. Perhaps this is because I get inspired by everything. Writing is a lifestyle for me. The time I spend at the keyboard smithing my prose is the tip of a very large iceberg that follows me around all day long.

If your muse were to talk behind your back, what secrets would they tell? 
Oh dear...my muse is all about showing you the world as it is, cut and dry, so I think it would be best if I was not a character my muse encountered! <grin>

Are your characters able to love or do they need to be taught? 
I meet many characters. The central character in A Thousand Roads, Jak, doesn’t know what love is, and must discover what it means to make his own choices in life. You could say he’s being taught what love is by being led toward a choice that will involve discerning between true love and selfish love.

Do you have a book that was easiest to write or one that was the hardest? 
I am relatively inexperienced. My current work is the most complex, but it is the easiest so far because I feel like I have learned so much and have the tools I need to keep it on track and meet its demand. My first (unpublished) book was probably the hardest because I kept needing to convince myself that I could get to the end without it falling apart.

Could you tell us a couple of favorite books that inspired you to write? 
The above named (especially Lord of the Rings, Wheel of Time, Song of Ice and Fire). I am a sponge when it comes to reading – every time I read a new author my wheels start spinning and this gets me thinking about my own work and different ways to spin the yarn together.

If you could collaborate with one author who would it be? 
George R. R. Martin

What can readers expect next from you? 
Expect a lot more. I realized I have a lot of stories to tell and they’re all linked together. This made me stop and wonder, “How long will this take?” So, I sat down and planned it out, and found myself planning out the rest of my writing life. This fantasy epic will last 8 books, with the 8th being broken up into several parts because it belongs in a class of its own, but that will complete a very large arc that begins with The Pact. That won’t be the end for this world, though, but I will at that point step back and take a different spin on it that I’m keeping secret for the present.

A Thousand Roads will be up next. I have the sequel, White Star Fallen, planned out quite a bit, and expect it to be twice as long. To keep readers from waiting, I would like to deliver a title every 1-2 years. Each will get progressively longer as I proceed. In the meantime, I want to use NaNoWriMo to write the occasional fun story under a different muse (pseudonym is top secret!), to balance this other commitment that will likely last several decades.


Thanks for coming. Is there anything else you want to add? 

It’s been a pleasure to participate – thanks for having me! If anyone wants to find out more about my work, come and visit my website: http://www.graemebrownart.com/the_pact.html
I’m also on Twitter: @GraemeBrownWpg (https://twitter.com/GraemeBrownWpg) , with fun things like word of the day and links to all my blogging activities.

Contest Information:
Leave a comment to be entered to win an ecopy of The Pact. Make sure to leave your email address as well inside the comment so in case you win, we have a way to contact you. Contest closes May 13th with winner to be announced in the comments section of this post.




Will Lesterall has grown up in the safety of his father's castle, where tales of the outside world ruled by warring kings and creatures of nightmare have never seemed a threat. Yet on the night celebrating the two hundredth year of the sacred Pact that has kept Fort Lesterall safe, an old intrigue ripens, and in the course of a few hours Will is confronted with a choice greater than he can comprehend. Join an unlikely hero as destiny pulls him into the middle of an ancient conflict between fallen gods and ambitious women, one that demands blood, both holy and wicked, and the power of an ancient fire bound in steel. As swords clash below a watching wood, hope and betrayal war as fiercely as fear and valor. 

Whether he lives or dies, Will Lesterall will never be the same...


http://www.graemebrownart.com/the_pact.html 

1 comment:

Browng34 said...

Thank you, Dawn, for preparing this feature for me.

Graeme