Guest Author Interview - Terrence J Goodchild

Terrence J Goodchild, author of 'Dam Head Farm' joins me in today's guest author interview, discover more about him and his writing below:

Please introduce yourself, who are you and what do you do?
Terrence J Goodchild, I was born in Manchester in the UK, worked in the construction industry and then in the Automotive trade and ran my own business, Came to Australia in 1988 with my wife and daughter, where I worked for Mercedes Benz, Lada Australia, Kenworth and then International Iveco, we now have farm in The Tamar Valley in Tasmania.

What first inspired you to start writing?
When I lived in the UK my brother and I were put in an orphanage, he was seven and I was ten, the time was very traumatic and since then I have had nightmares and dreams, now I put them into stories and then into books, my first novel was Jacob Foley which is about an orphanage and what went on, and every time I have a dream a new book appears.

If you could write anybody's biography, whose would it be and why?
I would write a biography about Barack Obama, as he is the one who really has inspired a Nation, being the first black American president after all the black slaves and immigrants have been through, he must rank as one of the best, you never know the next president may be an American Indian, won’t that be something.

What is it about your stories that makes them stand out?
I hope what makes my stories stand out is there are a lot of truths in them as each one is a story about a part of my life, the people I have met and places I have travelled to.

What was the last book you enjoyed?
The last book I enjoyed was Tobias and the Angel, by Frank Yearby 

Every author loves receiving a good review, what has been your favourite so far?
I have only had one review, Dam Head Farm, four stars as I don’t really know how to get reviews.

What is the best piece of writing advice you have received?
The best advice I received was, write for you and if one person in the world reads it then be proud of that book.

What are you working on at the moment?
The book I am writing on at the moment is of course a dream, The Soul of Gordy Fitzsimmons, my 13th book, it is supernatural themes in a house bought by a brother and sister to turn into a night club.

Tell us about your latest work and how we can find out more.
My latest book is the second book of Dam Head Farm, it is called Dam Head Farm The Return, and is on Amazon, and is a crime thriller.

My web page is www.tezmannovels.com there is an about me page if you wanted to read it

Books by Terence J Goodchild on Amazon:

ABC Drabbles of Death - B is for Buried

Welcome to the second in the ABC Drabbles of death series, as can be expected we have reached the letter 'B'. The series will take each letter of the alphabet and I'll write a death themed drabble based on that letter.

If you missed the first in the series - 'A is for Axe' then do not worry, because you will find all of the drabbles from this series on this page:

http://thecultofme.blogspot.co.uk/p/welcome-to-first-drabble-in-my-new.html

If you enjoy reading or writing drabbles (or indeed both!) and other forms of short and flash fiction then come and join the Facebook group I've set up to showcase these bite sized stories:

https://www.facebook.com/groups/shortfictionreadersandwriters/

And now...

B is for Buried

Smothered in darkness, the air is warm and it’s difficult to breath. Where am I? How did I get here? I don’t remember! I cry out for help, my voice loud in my ears. The walls press close, I cannot move. The suffocating tomb swallows my frantic prayers.

Exhausted I slip into my personal darkness only to awake in the nightmare once more, the air is warmer and I feel light headed. I’m so weak that I lay in silence. Panic becomes my final companion in the darkness and it will hold me close until the air is no more.

Blog Shout Out - David Wailing

In this week's blog shout out we visit David Wailing's blog, I've read a few of his books and they're worth checking out as well. To add to his talents he's also a skilled editor, you can find details of that on his blog as well.

I had no choice when it came to blogging. When you officially become an indie author and get your special badge (the one that gives off warning klaxons and alerts sensible people that you’ve entered the room), it’s in the small print. You are hereby required to set up a blog and talk about yourself all the time. “Hey, I’m sure I can do that easily enough, don’t you think?” I said to the empty room.

Although I’m not the most prolific blogger in the world – or even in my street, her at number 26 blogs about her bowel movements – I have found it to be a useful platform. Over the past couple of years, it’s been a good way to ‘set out my stall’ as an author, alongside other online avenues like my Facebook page and Twitter account. The advantage of a blog is it’s flexible enough to handle more complex messages, from announcements about new work to short essays.

Alongside the standard news update posts, I write semi-regular book reviews which are often for the work of my fellow indie authors. There’s a hell of a lot of talent out there and every review helps raise awareness of it! But I’ll also feature a more mainstream book if I’ve enjoyed it and sometimes even classic authors such as Isaac Asimov.

Most of my longer articles look at the background behind my Auto Series, which is all about how social media will evolve in the near future. This includes asking who actually controls the internet, how personal data assistants will soon evolve into ‘autos’, and what Facebook will be like in ten years time. The digital world is so fast-moving that I can see the roots of the future I’m writing about very clearly in the news stories of today. It’s unsettling to read that something I’ve predicted is actually happening!

Probably my favourite post was the one inviting everyone to a virtual launch party to celebrate the release of my first Auto novel. Mainly because it led to a fantastic and hilarious day with dozens of people around the world, using our imaginations to have a crazy imaginary party on Facebook! I can heartily recommend this as a way of drumming up interest and giving your readers a good time while also promoting your work.

In terms of popularity, it’s perhaps inevitable that the posts advertising freebies and promotions are usually those with the highest number of viewers. This inspired me to create a new section on my blog specifically for free eBook downloads. Readers can nab some of my short stories and even a whole novel for free in whatever format they prefer.

Next year I plan to set up a brand new blog for my freelance editing business. This will offer tips on English usage, advice for writers, and articles on the nuts and bolts of proofreading and editing. It’s also likely to be riddled with rants about how much I hate semicolons and my personal crusade to stop them infecting literature like some kind of nasty punctuation virus… (Time for your special sweets, Mr Wailing.)

But at the moment, my author blog will continue promoting my fiction, reviewing books and offering the occasional article about our ever-changing world. I might not be as regular as her at number 26, but hopefully my blogs won’t go down the pan as often as hers do.

Blog link: www.davidwailing.com

Tuesday Tease - Hellbender by Jason Jack Miller

Jason Jack Miller provides an excerpt from his horror novel Hellbender, an excellent read as you can see from my review here. I hope the excerpt whets your appetite as much as it did for me:

Click on image to purchase from Amazon

Hellbender

by Jason Jack Miller
“Yeah, I get it. But that doesn’t make me feel much better. I have a hard time putting my faith in magic, Ben.”

“Trust us. That’s what family’s for.”

It would’ve have been easier to trust them if there weren’t so many variables. I could find faith in the fact that people I trusted wouldn’t let me down, but my trust ended there. Beyond that there was little we could do to limit the actions of people hell-bent on living like they needed no justification for their actions. If Charlie Lewis decided he was wronged, then by God, he was wronged. Fate didn’t have a hand in this ordeal. This was simply people at their worst.

At the bottom of Otter Creek we followed the Dry Fork up to its junction with Red Run. The rocky banks were low to the water. All around us mosses and ferns fought for moisture. The bluets speckled the green banks with faint blue pinpoints creating a galaxy in miniature. Wild bleeding hearts stared, sleepy eyed, at hawthorns, oaks, and ash, perhaps looking for fairies, perhaps just readying the ground for the Indian pipes and Pink Lady’s Slipper that would pop forth any day now.

On the slopes of Mozark Mountain, we bounced through a weedy clearing where an old logging town had once stood. The only recognizable structure was the stony foundation of an old hotel where wood hicks and gandy dancers could drink and fight without worrying about their bosses. We passed long-dead coal shafts where miners had labored beneath the earth, dreaming of daylight and fresh air.

When we reentered wilderness, we left behind any ties we had to the modern, mechanized world for good. We knew all we had was all we carried with us. If things got really bad we could only rely upon ourselves.

The forest lining Red Run was greater than any I’d ever seen. Monster oak trees, ten feet across at the height of a man’s waist, crowded the old green path we followed up to the camp. Giant poplars stretched hundreds of feet into the air, quickly stifling any talk of redwoods and giant sequoias.

We bumped up the path. The streams were wilder, the cliffs rockier, the laurel hells thicker than any I’d ever seen. This forest wasn’t the product of conservation, planning and management. This forest was the product of seeds and sunlight. Thunderstorms and blizzards.

This forest and its dark, woody depths held secrets. Held fables.

This was a fairy tale forest, an abomination of imagination and nightmares. Every tale that began ‘Once upon a time’ has a forest like this present at its birth. Demons and devils evolved from the wolves and serpents that played midwife to the birth of such tales. Thorny greenbrier served as the cradle.

In all of this our role was a small one. We were nothing more than a small drop of milk sliding down, down, down to the navel.

Click here to purchase Hellbender from Amazon (it's an excellent read)

About the Author:

Jason Jack Miller knows it’s silly to hold onto the Bohemian ideals of literature, music, and love above all else. But he doesn’t care.

His own adventures paddling wild mountain rivers and playing Nirvana covers for less-than-enthusiastic crowds inspired his Murder Ballads and Whiskey series, published by Raw Dog Screaming Press. The first three books are currently available: The Devil and Preston Black, Hellbender, and The Revelations of Preston Black. The next installment, All Saints, is due out in 2014.

Hellbender was Jason's thesis novel for Seton Hill University's Writing Popular Fiction Graduate Program, where he is now adjunct faculty. The novel won the Arthur J. Rooney Award for Fiction and is a finalist for the Appalachian Writers Association Book of the Year Award.

His career got its start when he co-authored an outdoor travel guide with his wife in 2006. Since then his work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, literary journals, online, as part of a travel guide app for mobile phones, and in the award-winning writing guide Many Genres, One Craft.

When Jason isn't writing he's on his mountain bike or looking for his next favorite guitar.

He is a member of The Authors Guild, Pennwriters, and International Thriller Writers. He lives just outside of Pittsburgh with his wife, Heidi, and a cat. His blog is http://jasonjackmiller.blogspot.com. Tweet him @jasonjackmiller. Email me at jasonjackmiller at gmail.com

Guest Author Interview - J. U. Scribe

In today's guest author interview I am joined by J. U. Scribe, author of Before the Legend, find out more about him and his writing below:

Click image to purchase book from Amazon

Please introduce yourself, who are you and what do you do?
I’m J.U. Scribe, but for those that know me personally I go by Joe or Joseph. I’m an indie author who also does some freelance blogging on the side. By day I work in the field of IT but at night I’m a writer/blogger.

What first inspired you to start writing?
It first started in the fourth grade when we were made to write our own book about anything we wanted. It started off as a class assignment but the more I wrote, the more I found myself actually enjoying the story I was creating. It wasn’t though until middle school when I decided to write just for the fun of it. I think personally I was inspired partly by my love for history and in part by other stories I’ve read in middle school including The Giver. The way writers such as Lois Lowry were able to create new worlds and characters that drew you in and really made you think about life and the choices we take for granted are still embedded in my mind. The book I have out now stemmed from a story about a boy in Roman times that was stuck in my head and I felt his story would come alive in writing otherwise I would forget the idea while it was still fresh in my mind. That was the birth of my story series.

And what makes you keep writing?
I keep writing because from time to time I’ll get new ideas that pop in my head that I’m curious to explore. I love to see how my storylines evolve and exploring the growth of my characters. For me it’s a way to explore endless possibilities.

If you could spend a day with anyone from history, who would it be and why?
This is a tough one! There are several historical figures I found fascinating whether it be in the history books or in the Bible. I would sure love to spend the day with Jesus. So many prophecies were written about him hundreds of years before his birth that he fulfilled. Besides being perfect and healing others, he sounds like a humble down to earth person you would want to be around.

What was the last book you enjoyed?
I’m really enjoying the book, Let’s Get Visible by David Gaughran. Still reading it by the way and loving every bit of it. He gives practical suggestions for self-published writers seeking more visibility for their works and using simple techniques outlined in his book to drive more sales for your book. (Does this count if it didn’t finish yet? If not I recently reread The Giver by Lois Lowry which is my favorite story of all time.)

What do you find most rewarding about writing?
One of the most rewarding things about writing is seeing how others are touched or engaged by your characters and storyline. Receiving sincere positive feedback about my stories is fuel for me to continue writing despite the challenges. If I can create real characters that grab the reader and make you care then I did my job as a writer.

And the most challenging?
One of the most challenging things about writing involves more of the technical aspects of getting it ready for publishing such as editing and formatting which can be very tedious and difficult. But looking at just the writing aspect of it, writing the midpoint can be particularly challenging because it’s easy for the plot to lose steam, so it’s a challenge sometimes to find ways to propel the plot towards the climax and ultimately ending the story.

What are you working on at the moment?
In addition to marketing, Before the Legend, I’m also working on the fourth and final book to the series, Chasing Blue which I hope to complete by 2014.

Tell us about your latest work and how we can find out more.
My latest work is my debut novelette; Before the Legend- The Prologue just released this past November. You can find out more about the book my blog Writer's Nook

Find it on Goodreads

Smashwords

Facebook Page

Click here to purchase Before the Legend from Amazon