I'm happy to welcome M. Pax, writer of Sci-Fi stories and someone who knows a thing or two (more than that actually) about Astronomy. Today, she's shares some interesting views on writing.
Let's jump right in!
Thanks to Joy for hosting me on her fine and lovely blog.
When I was young, I’d watch the world drift by the car windows like a movie, the radio was the soundtrack. Now it’s my creations running through my head in a constant stream, like a play. The worlds, the characters, the acts, they keep me in constant company.
The scenes that run through my mind have a soundtrack of emotion as well as action and drama. It was this subtler track that took a lot of practice and finesse to get down on the page. My first attempts were awkward and didn’t do what I wanted. I searched for ways to tap in – workshops, classes, talking with other writers. I kept writing and practicing and I found my voice. I think that was part of the indefinable track playing with the scenes and the music.
Yet there was more to it than that. When I first started writing, I envisioned creating some great literary work ala Hermann Hesse, Tolstoy, Thomas Hardy, Dickens, the Brontes or Jane Austen. But that sort of writing didn’t completely satisfy the calling. I wanted to explore the fantastic. I kept thinking of my favorite stories by Arthur C. Clarke, Kurt Vonnegut and Ray Bradbury, stories which hit me with an awe factor of wonder, making me curious and think, stretching me beyond the trappings of my own perspective.
So, I try in my own work to constantly reach beyond my own biases and perspectives. I doubt I ever succeed, but I like to think I do now and then.
Yet no matter how far out there I think I tread, the stories are always innately human. Peppered with human frailties and hopes. Strewn with what I believe is the essence that makes us human.
I love inventing worlds to explore. But they’re not really other worlds or aliens I’m inventing, so I find out as I write. I end up exploring loneliness, loyalty, faith, basic belief, courage, over coming overwhelming odds, dealing with betrayal and facts that don’t jive with what is believed as true. Humanity is complex. And I love to dabble in the gray zones, poking at all its nuances.
All the things I mentioned above, I explored in Semper Audacia. I find these explorations repeat themselves in different ways.
It calls to me. So, I keep writing and exploring, sometimes even daring to experiment. No matter what we write, common threads of humanity connect all the stories and all the genres.
What aspects of humanity do you find yourself exploring again and again?
Here are a few things you can do to help:
1. Promote on your blog / website, twitter, FB, etc ...
2. Hit the FB ‘LIKE’ button on Amazon and Smashwords. On B&N when it winds its way there.
3. Leave a review. Amazon is most important, but if you’re so inclined, you can also leave them on Smashwords, B&N, and Goodreads.
4. Invite the author to do a guest post some time.
Smashwords link: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/92160
Amazon link: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B005QB25H4
Amazon UK: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005QB25H4
Amazon DE: https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B005QB25H4
Links to iTunes and B&N are on my website and blog.
Description: Alone. Leda is the last living member of the brigade, the sole defender of her world. War took everyone she knew, leaving her in the company of memories and ghosts. Or is it madness?
The siren blares. The enemy is coming. Or is it? The approaching vessel isn't a friendly design, but it answers with the correct code. Leda must figure out whether the arrival is reinforcements or the final assault. In an aging flyer, she ventures out to meet her world's fate, the last stand.
Details: 99 cents. Space Opera. Novelette. 13,200 words.
About M. Pax: Inspiring the words I write, I spend my summers as a star guide at Pine Mountain Observatory in stunning Central Oregon where I live with the husband unit and two loving cats. I write speculative fiction mostly and have a slight obsession with giant, man-eating reptiles and Jane Austen. I know, they don’t really go together, but it’d be interesting to insert Godzilla in the middle of Pride & Prejudice.
website: www.mpaxauthor.com
