Between the Lines

This week’s Featured Author on Bookrix is John Stormm, author of the science fiction and witch stories, Parting The Veil of Worlds and Through the Rift.

1) Titles of the work you have on Bookrix (Please provide the link to the book cover)

“Parting The Veil of Worlds”  and “Through The Rift”
http://www.bookrix.com/library.html?lang=en&user=stormm

2)  Do you share your books with your grandchildren?

Absolutely.  Most of these are “family stories”, the kinds of things that get told over and over again at reunions, funerals and etc.  I “fictionalized” them a little to make a better overall story series.

3)  Or are they too young to read about witches and blades?

Witches are who we are and where we come from.  We have no tales of green faced hags who eat babies.  When my grandchildren hear tales of witches, it is usually about family members like their great, great grandmothers or even their grandfather (me).  They have wooden practice swords and practice with their mothers or myself or their Uncle Jon.  All of my children were taught martial arts from the cradle be they girls or boys.  For many years, they were never aware of it as such as we do it all as a game that builds balance and coordination.  Safety, responsibility and self discipline also get taught as well as the most important martial arts lesson: When NOT to fight.

4)  What inspired you to write about witches?

I am a hereditary Irish witch, from a very long line of such.  My first story in this venue now comprises the first three chapters of “Matriarch of the Witch Clan”.  It was about my grandmother and great grandmother and some stories that still resonate in our family today.  I wanted to write a story to tell people what we *really* are and how we raise our families and what comprises “normal” in such a family.  Much has been kept secret for a very long time out of fear of what our Christian communities might do to us.  It is not an unfounded fear,  even in 21st Century America.  *Most* of what anyone knows about witchery, or *thinks* they know is Dark Ages propaganda and has absolutely nothing to do with the Old Religion that once covered most of Europe and the Isles.  I wanted to tell a story from *our* perspective that would educate AND entertain.  I’m not just telling a good yarn, I’m telling you about the house and family *I* was raised in and how I was taught the craft.
http://www.witchvox.com/vn/vn_detail/dt_pa.html?a=usny&id=278151

5)  How do your hobbies of blade smithing and martial arts affect your writing?

In witchery, there is a discipline (among many) called “Artificing”.  It’s the age old craft of making enchanted weapons or artifacts for doing magic.  We still practice it to some extent, but in order to do something like that, one must, at the very least have a strong working knowledge of metallurgy.  I love a good action/ adventure and knowing the dynamics of effective techniques makes for a more vivid story in the telling.  If you follow the writing with your imagination in gear, it is as if you were executing the moves like a pro for yourself.

6) What is your writing method? Do you wake up super early in the morning? Do you burn the midnight oil drinking coffee to stay awake while penning your passion?

I work evenings at a local hospital.  I wake up about 8am and grab a cup of coffee and sit down at my PC and write for a few hours.  I do roughly 2000 words on an average day.

7) How long have you been writing?

In one way, shape or form for over 30 years.  Mostly I wrote articles, short stories, poems and stuff.  Around 2004 when I saw my job was about to be shipped off to China, I took a correspondence course called “Breaking Into Print” which helped clean up my work to make it more commercially acceptable… that is to say:  I’ve sold more stories since I took that course.

How do you maintain your regular job while writing?

I work alone in a very large vault with three linear accelerators for treating cancer patients.  I maintain things and work out my plots and twists as I work and go home and sleep on it.  The next morning, I commit those ideas to paper (or disk).  The arrangement works well for me.

9) Do you have special places where you go to write?

Just home.

10) Do you have any quirks when writing? Do you need to shut off your phone for the weekend or stay away from family and friends?

Nearly all of the above, but as I write mostly in the mornings, nobody calls me or disturbs me until afternoon, so I don’t really have to be very abrupt with them about it.

11) What inspires you?

The human heart.  The strength and courage it takes simply to love another person.

12) Do you want to make a living from your wordsmith skills or are you doing this for fun?

My retirement plan is to write a novel a year for the next ten years and retire on the royalties.  But I’ll probably continue writing even then as I love this stuff and have no lack of material to write from in a family like ours.

13) What are your stories about? Are they fiction or non-fiction?

They are fiction that is structured after our family and culture to keep it and the characters consistent.  I want to entertain you, but the next time you might hear that so-and-so is a practicing witch, I want you to have a more realistic idea of what that means.  There’s times and places where a flight of fancy will hurt no one at all and times when the truth of the matter serves best.

14) Do you have a lesson in your stories? Do you have a philosophical or moral mission you are showing in your work?

There are not many “hereditary” witch families left.  I wanted to share a bit of what we are and were before we are all gone and no one to tell of us but the demonized tales of devil worshippers.  I’m not looking for any kind of converts or dabblers in the craft.  I just wish my grandmother could have lived long enough to be able to admit to being a witch and still be loved and respected for the special soul she was.  I have grandchildren that might well be talented witches in their own rights, and I’d like people to accept that as if it were nothing more bizarre than if they admitted to being Lutheran or something.  It’s a bit much to expect, but we have a black President now, so anything can happen.

15) What advice do you have for other authors?

Don’t just write what you know, write what you love and your own passion will move others, which is what any writer wants to see of their work.

Sorry for the delay! The Tuesday Featured Author blog did not post on time on Tuesday. We had a technical problem.

Please excuse the delay. Our Featured Author this week is Stewart Baker.

1) Your name

Stewart Baker. My last name on here is formulaic: (mother’s maiden name + wife’s mother’s maiden name) + (last name + wife’s maiden name)

2) Titles of the work you have on Bookrix (Please provide the link to the book cover)

“World Weird Web” – http://www.bookrix.com/_title-en-stewart-flintonlaubakersmith-world-weird-web

This is a pairing of two “short short” stories about weird things and the Internet. A longer version of the story called “The Newly Edited Man” has since been published in Ruthless Peoples Magazine, here: http://ruthlesspeoples.com/node/5?ID=1

3) What is your writing method? Do you wake up super early in the morning? Do you burn the midnight oil drinking coffee to stay awake while penning your passion?

I am allergic to most times before noon, so I usually write at night for a few hours a day. Most days, I also spend my lunch hour writing after I’ve filled my face with food.

4) How long have you been writing?

I’ve been writing on and off since I was a child (I’m turning 27 in July), but I’ve only been doing it seriously and with intent to get published for about a year and a half now.

5) How do you maintain your regular job while writing?

Free time? Who needs it! Fortunately, I’m one of those people who enjoys being busy, because in addition to my full-time job as a librarian and the 3-4 hours a day I spend writing fiction, I also work as a freelance article writer, play around on the Internet, and create websites both for fun and for other people’s money. In the fall, I’ll be juggling all this with graduate school, as I go back (again), this time for an MA in English Literature. My wife is very understanding and does not complain (much) about this, or I would be in trouble!

6) Do you have special places where you go to write?

Anywhere that there’s a flat surface and a chair is preferable, but I can write more or less anywhere that they’ll let me take in some paper and a pen. Or, failing that, a laptop.

7) Do you have any quirks when writing? Do you need to shut off your phone for the weekend or stay away from family and friends?

Something which probably sets me apart from a lot of people who write is that I do my rough drafts longhand and with a pen and paper. I’m a very fast typist (around 90 WPM), but I find that actually hinders my ability to be coherent most of the time. I do, however, use a computer for revision and editing purposes.

8a) What inspires you?

Mostly other writers. Philip K. Dick is a big influence, and so is Faulkner. Outside of things literary, I suppose I’m “inspired” by life’s weirdness in general. I’m also a pessimist, so many of my more serious stories (and some of my humorous ones) tend to be depressing, or at least stark.

9) I saw that your book is about the supernatural Internet. What got you into that subject? Do you work in Internet companies?

I work as a reference librarian and (tellingly) webmaster of the library website. I think what got me into the subject is the hated aphorism of “Write what you know.” I’ve been a denizen of the Internet since I was in my mid teens, and hope that my stories appeal to those in a similar situation (which is probably most people by now). The Internet is a daily part of a lot of people’s lives, so I’m sort of surprised it hasn’t featured more heavily in the works of published authors.

10) Do you want to make a living from your wordsmith skills or are you doing this for fun?

I would love to make a living from it.

11) What are your stories about? Are they fiction or non-fiction?

Most of what I write could be termed “genre” fiction. Specifically, fantasy or science fiction. I like to combine the weird and impossible with the realistic to create strange worlds which seem at the cusp of believability, but are at the same time disturbingly different. They are almost without exception fiction, so far as I know.

12) Do you have a lesson in your stories? Do you have a philosophical or moral mission you are showing in your work?

Probably the closest you could get to a lesson in most of my stuff is “Life often makes little sense.” If people take a lesson other than that from anything I write, more power to them! Both the stories in World Weird Web actually do have other lessons, I suppose. They’re sort of re-tellings of older, archetypical stories and focus in both cases on hubris.

13) What advice do you have for other authors?

Whatever happens, don’t stop writing. Whatever happens, don’t stop reading. And always wait until your food’s properly digested before you go swimming.

Children’s book author, William Sawyers, is Bookrix’s Featured Author today.

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My name is William Sawyers and I’ve been a children’s author for three years and a school custodian for 21 years at an elementary school.

My book on Bookrix is called The What Am I? Bugs
Here’s the link: http://www.bookrix.com/-william2233

What is my writing method?

This is a very easy question. I just come up with an idea and start writing about it. Fiction and non-fiction, and every once in a while, poetry.
Some of my stories came from personal experiences.
Like Hummer the Humming Bird, and The Bat . I wrote The Nest that could fly from watching Mother Nature and from helping baby birds fall from the nest and I would put them back up.

The what am I? book started from my writing poetry and then it branched out to riddles.
I wrote Bills P.R.I.D.E (Public Relations In Dare Education) to help children aged nine and older to never try tobacco. I wanted them to read about the mistakes I had made in my life so they would never start smoking.
If I could keep at least 1,000 kids from smoking, then I’ve made my goal with this book. The book has not been published yet, it’s being tested on my blog site to get input from others.

I’ve been writing poetry for 25 years and children stories for over thirteen years. I’ve been published for three years.

How do I maintain a full time job and keep up the writing?

Hard question.
First of all, I spend four to six hours nightly on the computer to keep up on about 27 networking sites trying to get out my name out in our society. I’m able to go to story-telling events or book signings by using my vacation time when needed.

Do I have special places that I use to write?

No.
I think of a story and take notes to finish it later.

Do I need any special quirks when writing?

It helps to be without my two children and with the TV off.

What inspires me to write?

This is very easy. Thirteen years ago, I wrote a few riddles and tested them in a kindergarten room of 20 children. They laughed and giggled. I write to help children to want to read and to giggle and be happy while doing it. It makes me feel great and proud.

Do I want to make a living from my skills or just have it as a hobby?

It started as a hobby. Now it seems it might be possible to even be a part time job.

Do you have a lesson in your stories? Do you have a philosophical or moral mission you are showing in your work?

Some stories like, the What am I? book are to see what children have learned at school, from watching TV, and from their parents. Other stories like Bills Pride, and Rockets over California are to teach about different things.

What advice do you have for other authors?

I’ll tell them to never give up. I did for two years then started back up. Reasons? For those who look up my name on search engines will figure it out later. I won’t mention why right now.

So I’ve been very lucky as of today. Why? For a few reasons:
1) I built my first web site through Comcast cable and after three years had 95,000 visitors. Then, Comcast did an up grade and messed up my site. Since this happened I bought my own domain www.williamsawyers.com. This site has a lot of free stories and poetry for the ages of five on up and it is best viewed by using Firefox browser.

2) I was on CNN in 2005, and on Global talk radio, Blog Talk Radio in Texas, Florida, and Delaware and in a week or so, I will be on a show in Arizona.

3) As of now, I’m practicing my reading skills to children before my next book. I’m trying to get into libraries and such. My first event is at Clayton Book Store July 7th at 10:30am.

4) My Motto? “Daring to make a difference in today’s youth-one page at a time.”