Interview With Writer M Pax 's Friends from Settler Oregon - The Rifters

Today I'm turning this blog over to a great writer, M Pax. 

M. Pax is author of the space adventure series The Backworlds, plus other novels and short stories. Fantasy, science fiction, and the weird beckons  to her, and she blames Oregon, a source of endless inspiration. She docents at Pine Mountain Observatory in the summers as a star guide and has a cat with a crush on Mr. Spock. Learn more at mpaxauthor.com.

  

So what's on tap next for Pax?  There's the release of her third in the Rifters Series, and here's what folks are already saying about this fantastic series:

“The world Pax creates here is like the Wild West meets Ghostbusters with some Stargate and a bit of Steampunk thrown in. Even though everything seems a bit familiar, it’s not, which is what makes it compelling.”

Got it? Good! Now let's check in with a couple of the folks who're hip deep in the goings on at Settler Oregon where the Rift has settled in for the long haul, Darli Dae Long and Earl Blacke. 

So, tell our readers a little about yourselves. Daelin, ladies first.

Please call me Daelin. I can’t stand my full name (Darlin Dae Long). I had a great job in New York City as an editorial assistant at a publisher. I loved it. Then I was laid off, and on my way home I was robbed on the subway. Lost my last paycheck and the jerk even took my stapler. My sister invited me to stay with her and helped me get a job as county librarian in the dinky town of Settler, OR. Not only do I guard books, I guard the town from monsters.

over to you Earl...

My name wasn’t always Earl Blacke, but that’s what I want to be called in this century. I was plucked out of 1888 after I was released from San Quentin. I went through some rift in Oregon and ended up in this modern century. I own a resort ranch and I fight monsters.

All righty!  Can you tell us what it is about Settler that holds you there and would you remain if the Rift closed for good?

Daelin: My sister is missing. She went through that rift and warns of brewing evil on the other side. Once she’s safe, I might move on with my life. Maybe. Settler is growing on me a bit, and I kind of like battling monsters. It makes me feel powerful, which is better than a sniveling victim on a subway platform. I swore I would never be a victim again, and I mean it.

Earl: If the rift went away, Settler would be quiet. That’s just fine with me. It’d be best if the world didn’t find out who I really am.

Sounds like Settler has a lot to offer other than the Rift, but that's pretty hairy.

Can the two of you tell us a little about the dangers of the rift?

Daelin: So far I’ve defeated a head-stealing phantom and a swarm of volcanic killer ash bees. I haven’t met anything from the rift yet not out to kill us all.

Earl: Hey, there’s me. I’m from the rift. I’m not trying to kill you.

Daelin: Maybe not, but I don’t fully trust you either.

Earl: I’m harmless. It’s my supposed ‘friend’ from the rift that can’t be trusted. He’s hiding something.

Daelin: Yeah, something big. We better find out what it is before we’re all dead.

Hmmm, thank you both. The rest of us will have to ponder just how far this Rift and it's denizens might spread. I urge my readers to read on and keep tabs on what might be coming next. 

To help us all out M Pas has a great offer. If you need to catch up on the Rifters you can read books 1 & 2 in the Rifter series for free by becoming an M. Pax Reader. ENTER MY DIMENSION

Don't pass that up. 

 

And. Dec. 1, the third in the series releases. The Reader, releases!  Grab it quick!  Don't get blind-sided by the denizens of the Rift.  

Buy links for The Reader:

 Amazon

AmazonUK / AUS / CA / DE / FR / ES / IT / NL / JP / BR / MX / IN

Bookcessories

iBook / Nook / GooglePlay / Kobo / Smashwords / inktera / Scribd

With the rift closed for the season and no more monsters to fight, Daelin Long gets bored as librarian in the podunk town of Settler, Oregon. A job interview and her brother’s arrival present a tempting opportunity to escape, until her brother and her best friend, a ghost, disappear.

While Daelin searches for them, more mysteries pile up: dead people coming back to life, portraits of the town founders replaced with strange white trees, and people on the other side of the rift returning. It’s impossible. The portal that allows monsters from other universes to come to Earth is sealed until next summer.

The Rifters, a secret group protecting our world, believe the troubles are nothing more than the tantrums of an offended ghost. Daelin disagrees. If she’s right, the evil hell-bent on destroying Earth has new technology making the rift more deadly.

Before the monster summons the next apocalypse, Daelin must find it and destroy it.

Thanks for the interview Daelin and Earl, and for introducing us to them M Pax. Looking forward to the next adventure and whatever might crawl, sling, fly or splat out of the rift!

A Writer's Thanksgiving

To those in the US, happy upcoming Thanksgiving. 

 

As a writer there’s a good and a bad side to this. Yep, I love Thanksgiving. Food Friends, relaxation, who could complain?

Well, actually I could. Here’s the thing. I’m involved in a new comic series, Planet Of The Eggs (the latest of which, Grimoire: Book of Spells, is FREE 

Nov. 25 and 26 – yep, tomorrow and Thanksgiving Day), so I have to buckle down and get the word out today. I'll be all over the web letting folks know about the freebie, so if you want to help, tell your friends, tweet, spread the word! 

Additionally, I’m going to cook (yeah, well, I volunteered), have guests coming in so must clean the house, have a novel three quarters finished and the third comic, Mummified Egg, due to release in mid Dec.  My plate’s kinda full, but figuratively and literally. 

 

sneak peek at Mummified Egg

That’s the thing with writers. We don’t have a regular job to go to or a time clock to punch. Many of us work much more because of that, some get kind of lazy. Ahem, but we’re not here to talk about them.

It's the desert, what did you expect?

Nope, it’s a ‘me’ day here at my blog, all about me and my own personally set demands upon myself. So here I sit, writing for my blog – with a guest blog that needs doing as well, and waiting for a great writer friend to send back the questions I asked for her interview as she has a new book releasing soon as well. (I’ll be blogging about that soon).

And I’m thinking about the cooking and cleaning I have to squeeze in as well, tonight and tomorrow night and of course Thursday morning. Thank heavens I have a husband to lends a hand. He’ll be doing the turkey and helping me peel and cut the apples for the pie, assisting in the clean-up and other details.

But he can’t help with the work I need to do on the new comic in the Planet Of The Eggs series my writing/creating partner, Charlene Brash Sorensen and I are hard at work on. We have to give thought to the cover as we’re so close to thinking of the upcoming release. A few more pages of the book itself to finish, then edit. Thanksgiving comes at an awkward time for us :-0  But, we’re both good soldiers, so onward and upward! 

The fantastic news is that the first in our comic series, Planet Of The Eggs: Cracked Open, has gotten 5 star reviews on Amazon and Grimoire: Book Of Spells a 4 star; you know, the freebie for two days, go take a look.  Of course we’re always looking for more honest reviews, so feel free to jump right in, grab that free copy I mentioned above and let us know what you think.  Comment here and/or leave a review on Amazon. And don’t forget we have a page on facebook as well and we love people to like it. 

Enjoy that Thanksgiving feast. 

3 Tips For Serious Writers From A Writer Who’s Just as Serious---

---at least about doing the writing work.

So what ‘rules’ am I going to show you? What rigid ‘do it this way’ ideas will I present? 

I’m going back to basics and nothing is written in stone, ever. I read tips all the time and I admit I’m guilty of writing them. Rules though, even suggestions are tricky. What works for one doesn’t necessarily work for another. But, there are some strong basics I suggest. Simple, but powerful. 

1.      Wake up and bring energy to the time you write. Really, face the day with enthusiasm, joy and energy and you’re going to write much better. So, how do I do this you say? It’s a mental thing (yes you can add caffeine) and a body thing. Maybe take a walk before you write (I walk even when the snow is knee-deep and the chill considerable). It wakes the body and stimulates the mind. If that’s not for you, just move, maybe walk up and down stairs a couple of times if you have them, play with the dog, do some stretches, whatever it takes to get the blood flowing a bit. If you have challenges and can’t do that kind of movement, THINK about it. Seriously, picture yourself doing it. Wake up, center, really feel enthusiasm for what you’re about to undertake. Creativity is dampened by boredom, exhaustion and low energy. Act first to bring yourself up to speed. You’ll see a definite difference in your writing.

2.      I’ve found more and more that a to-do list or some sort of planner really does smooth the way. It helps me keep organized and know what’s up next on my calendar of projects that need to get done. And, planning out the next day or at least the beginning of it means when I sit down (or stand up) at my desk I know exactly where to start and am far less likely to find myself cruising the web or checking endless email and social media. Those are fun, yes, but they can be terrible distractions.  Also, if you have recurring deadlines of any kind a simple ‘month-at-a-glance’ calendar is a great help. I have both on my desk, the calendar and a simple list of things that are coming up that I need to get done. Try it, see how much more you get accomplished.

3.      Finally do the most important things first. If you want to get some wordage out there, do that first. Write.  If you’ve promised a guest blog post somewhere, get that done. Whatever it is, prioritize. I keep a highlighter handy in a couple of colors and when I create my list for the next day’s launch, if there’s something that really needs my immediate attention I highlight it with one of the colors. There may well be more than one, so I keep one color for the most important, highlighting that most important with one color and something of less importance with another. Then I check things off as I get them done.

Try out these three tips and you’ll find the simple approach with propel you forward in creativity as well as productivity. 

Give it a try. And if you already do these things, post below if they help you and how they do. Comments always appreciated. 

And don't forget to check out the new comic series we're creating - see more on www.facebook.com/PlanetOfTheEggs as well. 

A Writer’s Life – The Comic Series Planet Of The Eggs Continues

Yes, work on the Comic Series, Planet of the Eggs (written and illustrated by Peggy Bechko and Charlene Brash Sorensen), continues with the release of our second installment; Grimoire: Book of Spells.  

Oh, and heads up blog readers, Grimoire will go free Nov. 25 and 26, 2015 so be sure to stop by then and download your copy.

Meanwhile we’re busy developing new characters, new looks and new story lines.  Number three, Mummified Egg is already underway. The portal has taken our Egglanders to a new land of sand, storms, wolves and other inexplicable creatures as they attempt to puzzle out what has brought them here.  But there is an evil rising, something dark and controlling. Will the brave eggs find their cause and rescue the mummified egg? What is the mystery behind the egg? Hmm, watch for it here, release is planned for mid-December. Hey, just in time for those digital holiday stocking stuffers for comic lovers of all ages.

Visit our site at www.facebook.com/PlanetOfTheEggs for the chance to sign up for our newsletter and get the PDF of first in the series, Planet Of The Eggs – Cracked Open free.  You’ll also be signed up for our free newsletter (a not-too-frequently-published paper) that will let fans be the first to know when the next release is coming up, info about the characters, sneak peaks at new characters and teasers for the next installment. We’ll be offering giveaways, getting to know the authors, and more fun bits and pieces.

The whole project is great fun, but it’s also a tremendous amount of work. Not only do Charlene and I write the scripts and develop the mythology of the Egglanders, but we research backgrounds, create characters via any means that come to hand, blowing out egg innards, painting eggs and photographing them so we can photoshop them into valiant little beings. Many many of the background shots are photos we’ve taken on trips or around where we live. Some are gleaned from photo sites.

 

The egg creations are all ours. Both of us have a great time creating characters from all angles and tweaking them into existence, but Charlene has a particular gift in their creation. She has a great brain for storylines as well and my strength is in that area having published numerous novels and optioned screen scripts over past

years. We come up with dialogue and frequently I take the lead for a short time in helping to create more strength in the dialogue. We collaborate beautifully, each contributing strengths where the other isn’t as strong.  The Planet Of The Eggs continues on! Watch for Mummified Egg soon!

Then there’s the software with which to create the comics that we had to learn to use – and indeed are still learning shortcuts and work-arounds. And, since we publish right now with Amazon there’s the conversion of the completed comic to the kindle publishing format we've learned - sort of (we usually have to dink with it). And, now, we’re looking into reformatting so the comics can be put out in print format as well. More expensive than Kindle, but folks ask for print as well and we’re going to do our very best to give folks what they want. We’ve both had a crash course in Photoshop and Powerpoint as well. One heckuva learning curve.

So that’s a writer’s life, and now I guess we're illustrators as well – busy up to the eyeballs. Admittedly it’s a very fun busy and one we will keep up for the foreseeable future.

Charlene and I hope you’ll join in the ‘Eggciting’ ‘Eggventure’, give us reviews, tell us where you might want to see the Egglanders head out to next, who’s your favorite Heroic Egg or character, and what you think of Eggland.

Come on along. It’s a HOOT!