Writing Tips & Meet MG/YA Author Deirdra Eden

Before meeting our author, Carpinello's Writing Pages brings readers writing tips from authors interviewed early in 2018. As always, please share your writing tips in the comments.

Get your butt in that chair every day, and get used to staring at a blank page, consider time spent with the blank page well worth it; it’s an investment, it tells control central you’re serious about this writing thing. Copy a passage from a writer you admire, one that really rings your bell and reword it, improve upon it. Builds writing muscle

Carpinello's Writing Pages welcomes author Deirdra Eden. I met Deirdra when I was doing a blog tour for Guinevere: At the Dawn of Legend. I liked her books and wanted to introduce her to my readers. She writes middle grade and YA. Welcome, Deirdra!

First, a bit about Deirdra:

Deirdra has spent the last decade captivating audiences of all ages with her novels and fairy tales. She is also a Theological Historian and an artist. Her specialty is paranormal theology that delves into documented historical phenomenon and natural disasters of biblical proportions that entices indulgence of a fine line between fact and fantasy.

She is a Staff and Sword Fighter, Writing Coach, Public Speaker, Archer, and Survival Expert. Deirdra enjoys adventures, legends, and mythology. Deirdra loves adventures, all different kinds of people, kitties and unicorns.

Why did you pick to write books for middle grade and YA readers?

I’ve written a wide variety of genres for my own children as they grow up. I also think about my audience and what the purpose of my book is.

What types of books do you like to read?

I love all types of books. I read everything from children’s fairy tales to academics and scholarly books. I mostly enjoy books that I can learn something from.

 
When you are not writing, what do you like to do? 

I enjoy jousting in arenas, sword fighting and archery, planning invasions, and singing Celtic songs. I also like horseback riding, swimming in the ocean, hiking and camping, climbing trees barefoot, and going on adventures with my family. I love napping with my kitties.

Tell us about The Watchers, Knight of Light and how the story came to be.

The Watchers Series has been described as Braveheart meets Supernatural. The mythology for the series is based on many theological texts from dozens of sects with correlating themes. Ancient writings include the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Traditional Apocrypha, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Kabbalah. The Watchers are supernatural beings in human form whose duty it is to protect and guard mankind from the armies of darkness. Unfortunately, as the Book of Enoch mentions, some of these Watchers go bad.

It is written in a traditional fairy tale style with a young girl's discovery of incredible, but dangerous powers within herself, a cast of humorous side-kicks, a quest for greater self-discovery and purpose, and villains of epic proportions.

Here's a peek at Knight of Light, The Watchers:

In England, 1270 A.D., Aura flees her village after being accused of witchcraft and sentenced to death. Pursued by creatures of darkness, she struggles to accept the truth about her humanity and choose what side of an eternal war she will fight. Filled with fairies, dwarves, pixies, dragons, and epic villains, Knight of Light is an enthralling tale that will capture the imaginations of readers young and old.

Have you written other books? If so, tell us a bit about them.

Yes. This is a seven book series and the first three are already out. In addition to Knight of Light, book 2, Hidden Fire and book 3, Flood and Fire. are also available.

What’s next for your writing? Are you working on a new story?

Yes, I am finishing The Watchers series and working on a few surprise projects.

What advice do you have for other authors?
 
Here is some advice I wish someone would have given me MANY years ago when I first started in the publishing industry.

• Don't publish the first thing you write. Think of your first book as practice or a prototype book. Your writing skills will change and improve as your practice and learn new techniques. Develop your writing, edit and take the time to create something truly professional before you put it out there for the world to see.

• Learn to be business minded. Whether you go through a publisher or self-publish, learn to be a smart business person. Learn about contracts, learn how and what to invest in and learn to advertise and market.

• Join a critique group. I can't even tell you how valuable advice is from someone else besides your friends and parents. Not only can they help you hone your skills, but they can offer advice on the literary business.

• Support other authors. My book manager, Laura Watkins, says, "Books are a consumable." With this in mind, don't view other authors as competition, but a allies. For more on this, see her article here: http://lauralynnwatkins.weebly.com/home/turning-rivalry-into-sales.

• Watch out for people and publishers looking to take advantage of authors who are desperate to get published.

Anything else you want readers to know?

Always have hope. Fight for your dreams, and never give up.

Where can readers find you and your books?

My website

My books on Amazon 



This interview is also listed on Booktastic Link it up Thursday.

Meet YA Author Rossandra White

Carpinello's Writing Pages welcomes YA author Rossandra White. I found Rossandra's story about how she started writing extremely interesting, and I'm sure you will also.

Here's a bit about Rossandra:

Rossandra White, a fourth generation South African, spent the first twenty-three years of her life in Zambia, where she had a baboon for a pet and learned to tell a log from a crocodile. As well as Monkey's Wedding, she is the author of the memoir, Loveyoubye: Holding Fast, Letting Go, And Then There's The Dog, published by She Writes Press. She lives in Laguna Beach with her two Staffordshire Bull Terriers, with whom she fights for space in her bed. When she’s not writing, she's at the gym or hiking the hills behind her home in Laguna Beach.

Why did you pick to write books for YA?

Twenty-two years ago, I felt compelled to write a book. Not something I’d always wanted to do. Maybe it was just time to finally get down all those stories I’d heard over the years about my ancestors who had been in South Africa since the 1800s. And then there were my own experiences growing up in a small Zambian copper mining town, as well as those two years we lived on a Zimbabwe sisal plantation. This was when Britain ruled, when the bush was full of animals.

There were all those road trips my family took to the Congo, Malawi, Tanzania and Kenya. The time an elephant chased our car for two miles, forcing my dad to reverse down an excuse for a dirt road before the elephant gave up. The time we spent in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro with a crazy Belgian who kept wild animals for filmmakers’ use, as well as that episode in Kenya when rebels attacked the cattle ranch where we were staying with a family my dad befriended along the way. I had a lot to write about. What I didn’t know was that I had intuitively chose writing, “to take fuller possession of the reality of my life,” to paraphrase Ted Hughes.

What types of books do you like to read?

Literary fiction.

When you are not writing, what do you like to do?

Read, hike, travel, the occasional movie, dinner with friends.

Tell us about Monkey’s Wedding and how the story came to be.

It came about as I was revising an awful 500-page memoir of flashbacks I wrote about my life in Africa. I found myself wanting to give voice to a black African point of view. With this in mind, I created these two adolescents, Elizabeth and Tururu, a boy who worked for the family, and began with an incident that happened to me in Zimbabwe as a six-year-old when I was poisoned by rebels.

Here's a Peek at Monkey's Wedding:

Adolescents Elizabeth and Tururu—she’s white, he’s black—share an uneasy friendship on a remote sisal plantation in 1953's Zimbabwe. Resentment to white rule erupts throwing them into the crossfire of political change and ancient ritual.

To make matters worse, a clash between Tururu’s witchdoctor grandmother and her apprentice unleash ancient fire spirits that will make the British overlords look like saints. Will their friendship survive?

The novel’s dual viewpoints afford an intimate glimpse into the two faces of a country at a crucial time in its history.





Have you written other books? If so, tell us a bit about them.

My memoir, Loveyoubye: Holding Fast, Letting Go And Then There’s The Dog, was the first of my books to be published. It was written after Monkey’s Wedding.

What’s next for your writing? Are you working on a new story?

I’m revising Mine Dances, a coming-of-age story. It’s the sequel to Monkey’s Wedding with the same characters.

What advice do you have for other authors?

Get your butt in that chair every day, and get used to staring at a blank page, consider time spent with the blank page well worth it; it’s an investment, it tells control central you’re serious about this writing thing.

Copy a passage from a writer you admire, one that really rings your bell and reword it, improve upon it. Builds writing muscle.

Anything else you want readers to know?

On my website, I have a more detailed description of how Monkey's Wedding came to be.

Where can readers find you and your books?



My website
Facebook

Amazon:~
Monkey’s Wedding
Loveyoubye

B&N:~
Monkey’s Wedding
Loveyoubye