Untethered Realms Spotlight: Graeme Ing

For the last several weeks, Graeme Ing has been interviewing his fellow Untethered Realms authors, including me, and hosting us on his blog. I thought it would be fun to give his interview questions back to him and see his answers to the questions he has posed to the rest of us. So here is Graeme interviewing Graeme!

Tell us about your latest Book:

"Ocean of Dust" is a YA Fantasy story about a young girl, Lissa, who finds herself a slave on a mysterious ship that sails upon a huge ocean made of a gray dust, not water. Strange things start to happen to her and she discovers her latent talent, one linked to the dust and the monstrous creatures that live in it. After a lethal battle aboard ship, Lissa is abandoned on a remote island with the Captain and few supplies. Only her quick-thinking, bravery and secret talent can help her save the ship and her best friend.

What genre(s) do you write/want to write in?

Primarily fantasy, but I also plan to write science-fiction, paranormal, cyberpunk and steampunk, and you'll see crossovers too.

What do you like most about being an author?

World creation. I work out entire timelines, draw maps and try to turn the usual into the unusual. Then I need interesting characters to populate those worlds.

What do you hate most about being an author?

Like many authors, I'll say Marketing. I love meeting and talking to new people, but I'm not a natural salesman.

What does Untethered Realms mean to you and why should folks follow UR?

I 'm proud to be a member of UR. It really helps to know fellow authors to bounce ideas off, and trade tips about how to best get our books before the most people. We write the same genres so it's easy to cross-promote. My fellow Realmers are extremely talented, and if you like to read spec-fic then follow UR and sample the great stories on offer.

What do you enjoy doing when you're not writing?

One of my passions is travel. My wife and I have a wall map in our home office with pins marking all the amazing places in the world we have been to, and there are still a lot of gaps on that map. Greenland anybody? I also play and design role-playing games and attempt to pay attention to our six demanding cats.

What's the most fun you've had writing a scene or character and why?

I'm thoroughly enjoying the main character of my work-in-progress. He's a cocky, sarcastic necromancer and I have so much fun with him. His partner is a fiery, fearless woman and I can't help but chuckle when I write dialog between them, especially when they argue. Apart from those two, I'm a sucker for a sad scene, and hope that if it has me crying when I write it, readers will get emotional too.

If you could live as one of your characters whom would you choose and why?

There's a character in my upcoming necromancer book that I think of as me, but you'll have to figure that out for yourselves, and no its not the cocky hero himself. :) In "Ocean of Dust", I'd like to be Oban, the ship's navigator. He has a special role and responsibility aboard ship, but is quite happy to report to the Captain.

Tell us a secret, something few people know about you?

If I ever made millions out of my books (A man can dream!) I'd happily fork out $200,000 to Sir Branson for a flight into space aboard Spaceship 2.

What's your next book about? Go on tease us!

It's a fantasy about a young necromancer in a city inhabited by as many undead as the living. My goal is to show a totally different side to the necromancer stereotype. A new and seemingly invincible creature threatens the city, but when the necro discovers who is controlling it and why, he and his new apprentice, Ayla, face an uphill battle to save the city. It's the first of several books I plan to write about him and this new world. Look for it on all ebooks, paperback and audio book early 2014.


About Ocean of Dust:

YA Fantasy:  Fourteen-year old Lissa is snatched from her home and finds herself a slave on a trading ship traveling on a waterless ocean of nothing but gray dust. A feisty, curious and intelligent girl, her desire to explore the ship earns her the hatred of the cruel first officer, Farq.

Fascinated by the ocean of dust, Lissa becomes embroiled in its mysteries, sensing things that the crew cannot, while cryptic whispers in her head are leading her toward a destiny linked to the dust itself. Only one man aboard can help her make sense of her new talent, but can she trust him? All is not as it seems, and she must unravel the clues before it’s too late.

When a sinister plot casts her adrift on the barren ocean, her best friend is left in the hands of the treacherous crew. Everything hinges upon her courage, quick wits, and her ability to master her new talent.

Where to Buy:
Amazon Kindle: USA | UK | Canada | B&N Nook | Apple iBook | Kobo | WHSmith | Smashwords
Paperback: USA | UK

About Graeme:

Graeme Ing is a writer of fantasy and SF novels, both adult and YA. His first novel, Ocean of Dust is a YA fantasy.
 
Graeme is currently working on his second book, a dark fantasy full of undead, destruction, and a sinister pact. The hero is cocky and sarcastic, but a hero none-the-less.

Born in England in 1965, Graeme lives in San Diego, California. His career as a software engineer and development manager spans 25 years, including the development of a dozen computer games for consoles, home computers and online. He is also an avid D&D nerd, armchair mountaineer, astronomer, mapmaker, pilot and general geek. He and his wife, Tamara, share their house with six crazy cats.


Thanks to Graeme for playing along with me for this spotlight post. I recently read Ocean of Dust and can't recommend it enough, it's fantastic!

I can't believe it's the end of another week already, but here we are at Friday and another round of the Celebrate the Small Things hop.

Thanks to the 4th of July holiday here in the US I am enjoying a four day weekend, so that is a very welcome celebration for me this week. I hope my American friends enjoyed the holiday and I hope everyone has a great weekend ahead.

Interviews and Celebrations

Source

Clancy and I are very excited today because we were both interviewed by some great writer friends.

To start, I was interviewed by the wonderful writer Graeme Ing, who is one of my Untethered Realms co-horts. Graeme is the author of the fantastic Ocean of Dust. You can find my interview on Graeme's blog here. Thanks for this opportunity, Graeme!

Clancy was interviewed by the dynamic duo of Sir Poops and Hair Ball, the fur-kids of Shelly Arkon, who is the author of such great books as Secondhand Shoes and The Partners' Progeny. Find Clancy here at Two Fur-Peeps and A Writer. He and I both send huge thanks to Shelly and her fur-peeps!

Of course, since it's Friday it's also time to Celebrate the Small Things with Vikki at Scribblings of an Aspiring Author.

This week I'm celebrating a few things:

1.) Clancy and I did these fun interviews and now get to be featured on our friends' blogs.

2.) I got my Cincinnati Tails animal rescue blog up and running and am excited about working on that.

3.) I have some good news about my novel The Ghosts of Aquinnah that I hope to be able to share next week.

4.) And, this week was a much better week than last week and I'm feeling 100% better than I was last week at this time. That's always something to celebrate, isn't it?

Happy weekend, all! :)

Small Celebrations

The end of another week means its time to Celebrate the Small Things with Vikki at Scribblings of an Aspiring Author. If you'd like to learn more about this hop and participate, visit Vikki's page and join us here.

I have to admit that this wasn't a good week for me. It started with the first anniversary of the death of my father, and I found that day to be even more difficult than I expected it to be. Between that and some ongoing personal issues, I found myself in a funk and spent most of the week feeling like a bit of a zombie.

But thanks to Vikki's hop I realized today was the perfect day to turn that around and focus on the good parts of the week.

1. I was interviewed by Graeme Ing and my dog Clancy was interviewed by Shelly Arkon and we both had fun doing the interviews. :) We're looking forward to being featured on Graeme's and Shelly's sites sometime soon.

2. I finally made a dent in my TBR list and read great books by two of my wonderful author friends. Lisa Regan's Abberation and Graeme Ing's Ocean of Dust are both fantastic reads!

3. I commissioned the awesome Heather Holden to create pictures of my Polar Night main characters Danny and Aleksei. This was a new experience for me and it was fun to see what Heather created based on the descriptions I gave her. Her pictures are excellent and I'm looking forward to using them to help with my ongoing marketing efforts.

4. I completed my first Rafflecopter giveaway and was amazed at how easy it was to do. I had been kind of intimidated by Rafflecopter and thought sure I would find a way to mess it up if I used it, but I managed to create the giveaway and choose the winner without adding to the abundance of grey hair I already have on my head. Nancy LaRonda Johnson of Writer's Mark won an ebook copy of Polar Night, and I'm grateful to Nancy and everyone else who entered the giveaway and helped make it a success.

I'm glad to put this week behind me but I'm also glad to celebrate the fact that there were quite a few roses among the week's thorns.

I hope everyone has a great weekend!