Distraction, Child Month & A Reviewer's Reward!

Just a quick update to say that Distraction is featured on Ereader News Today.

The book is on sale for $0.99 for the next few days.

The link to the Ereader News site is here and the feature on their Facebook page is here.

I’ll share the results of this experiment, as well as some other stuff I’ve learned over the past month. The craft and business of writing is fascinating stuff.

On other matters, this week is Children’s Book Week and I’m participating in a giveaway hop on my other blog.

I also have an ongoing promotion for the month of May (Child Month in Jamaica) for Christine’s Odyssey. I’m looking for reviews on that novel, so if you do read it, make sure you enter the Reviewer’s Reward that comes up in June. Rafflecopter is also below. 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway
 

Have a great week!

Who's Kiya? - Hope of the Pharaoh

Thanks for stopping in and here's to the start of a great week.

Being fascinated with all things Egyptian, I’m happy to host Katie Hamstead, who is going to tell us about the research that went into producing her book, Kiya: Hope of the Pharaoh.  

First up, thank you for allowing me to guest post here! I’m really excited about my debut NA Novel, Kiya: Hope of the Pharaoh. It’s is a Historical Romance released by Curiosity Quills. It’s the first book in the trilogy following Naomi’s (Kiya) life. It’s set during the late 18th Dynasty of Egypt, and begins when she is taken to be a wife of the infamous heretic pharaoh, Akhenaten.

This story took a lot of effort to write. With most of the characters being real historical figures, like Kiya herself, Akhenaten, Nefertiti, Horemheb, Ay, the three Queen daughters and Tutankhamen just to name a few, I needed to do a TON of reading and research on each and every one of them. I then had to figure out a timeline of events and line all their lives up. There was math to work out ages and corresponding dates.

I read up on Egyptian culture, especially during the Amarna period and the tension which ensued. The Amarna period was an enormous upheaval from the traditional ways as they moved the capital and disposed of all the gods except Aten. So I needed to understand a great deal about their religion too, and which god each of the characters favored and had to keep concealed.

I also read about daily living, what they wore, ate, how they went to the bathroom. All the small details counted to make it believable. With Naomi being Hebrew, that culture needed to be researched as well. The contrast between the Hebrews and Egyptians was dramatic, and a great source of internal conflict for Naomi. Being a stark believer in Elohim according to her people’s traditions, living in Amarna under the strict Aten only regime is hard for her and causes her trouble.

After doing all this research I was finally able to begin. But as I wrote I found I needed to research more and more so I was in a continual state of shifting events to match which historical theories I wanted to slot into the plot line. Incredibly, I enjoyed every second of it. I’d recommend reading about the time period. Being more than 5000 years ago the history is in fragments, especially as later pharaohs (especially the 19th Dynasty kings) tried to erase the Amarna period from history, and tomb robbers desecrated the Valley of the Kings for its wealth. So historians often have contradicting ideas, but that was part of the fun of it! I could pick which theory I liked the most and use it in my plot.

Some books I used while doing my research are below:

• Littleton, C. Scott. Mythology: The Illustrated Anthology of World Myth and Storytelling
• Tyldesley, Joyce. Egypt’s Golden Empire: The Dramatic Story of Life in the New Kingdom
• Hawass, Zahi. Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs

That’s only three books, but most of my research came from online journals, museum and university websites etc.

Connect with Katie:

Blog ● Facebook  ● Goodreads ● Twitter

Purchase links:

Amazon ● B&N ● Kobo

So, are you as fascinated with Egyptian history as I am and would you dedicate yourself to this much research in writing your own novel? Share your questions and comments with Katie. 

Here's to the Indie Life!

It’s the second Wednesday of the month already and time to post in honour of the indie life, hosted by the Indelibles. Here goes. 

Sometimes the pressure of being an indie writer can be overwhelming, but let me hasten to say the stress I feel is mostly self-induced. That comes with the thought of having to do everything.

With each book published, there’s the need to promote and ensure strong and sustained visibility. While that is going on, it’s easy to neglect the things that are supposed to be happening behind the scenes, like finishing that next book and staying on top of work, home and family matters.

Nevertheless, the sense of achievement with the publication of each novel is wonderful and low sales or not, that’s enough to keep the writer in us going.

I recently released the first in a series of YA novels, Christine’s Odyssey. What have you been working on lately?

See list of other persons in the indie movement here.

A-Z Reflections Post & Christine's Promo Adventures

My participation in the Blogging from A-Z Challenge was a bit different this year. I was in the Ninja Captain’s army, one of a group of people who checked on a specific number of bloggers to see if they were posting, or were just ad sites. 

I think that was a good move by the organizers in that it stopped A-Zers from wasting time at sites where owners signed up to advertise things that were no way related to the Challenge. 

I met bloggers with some interesting concepts, including the kid’s learning site that tracks Flat Stanley’s activities and a series of short stories by Fictitious Amo with a little character by the name of Lizzy. Loved C. LeeMcKenzie’s sometimes funny foray into words and their meanings and Lexa Cain’s blog that has some super-interesting information on Egypt. (Can you tell I’m fascinated by the land of Eygpt?) There were others, of course, way too many to list, but I hope to keep the links going. 

If I was disappointed with anything it’s that some blogs didn’t get a lot of comments or follows, which makes me wonder if they were visiting and/or whether people weren’t making reciprocal visits. The Captcha sites slowed me down a bit. Some of that stuff is hard to read and takes multiple attempts to get the words right. 

Each year, I try to write as many of my posts beforehand as possible, but never get them all done. Next year, God willing, I’ll get those suckers done in a timely manner. 

I’m happy the Challenge is at an end. My tail feathers were dragging near the end. Once more, I proved to myself that I can get stuff written if I concentrate, but more than that, the Challenge always brings me some wonderful people I eventually get to call friends. 

Many thanks to Arlee Bird and his team for putting on the internet’s biggest and best blogfest

Thanks to those who shared tweets during my WLC promotion yesterday. Christine’s Odyssey is now at #4 on an Amazon list. I hope the momentum continues. Thanks so much for your help!  

Stay with me, I’m not done yet.

Make sure you enter Christine’s month-long giveaway below for a $10.00 Gift Card. 


If you manage to read Christine’s book in the next month or so, you’re eligible to win a $20.00 Gift Card. Feel free to enter that as well.

Have a great week!

a Rafflecopter giveaway
 

a Rafflecopter giveaway