FRIDAY FIRSTS...with SS Hampton, Sr

The first five lines of... THE LADY OF THE EVERGREENS

The below is from a Work In Progress titled, “The Lady of The Evergreens.” Because it is a WIP I have not had the pleasure of an editor helping to make me sound like the next Shakespeare or Hemingway, or Faulkner. You get the idea:

Late fall on the southern shore of Lake Ontario seemed like an odd time to hold a ren faire.

But then, Julie Douglas had been told that the Evergreen Renaissance and Fairy Faire was special, and excitingly different. Upon passing through the entrance of two large wooden gates set within low stone built walls she found herself in another time. Excited crowds wandered the torch-lit dirt pathways that wound among evergreen trees short and broad, and tall Norway Spruce from Europe. Scattered along the paths and partly hidden among the trees were Medieval bell tents, broad trade tents, and wooden performance stages…

* * * * *

Fun First Facts About SS

Who was your first love?

I do not mean to make a mountain out of a molehill, but, first love? I think I’ll ignore my kindergarten teacher and a waitress who worked at the family restaurant. So, when I was in a juvenile detention facility due to dropping out of junior high school, I met this petite black haired woman who worked in administration. In spite of my circumstances, it wasn’t long before I “fell in love” with her. Ruthann was never more than a friend though. And, there was this fleshy girl with long brunette hair who I met at the facility. Barbara was about my age going-on-30 and much more experienced in life than I was. She was a habitual runaway who loved hitch hiking across the country. Not long after we were both out of the facility she found me, and, you might say, taught me a lot about many things. I fell in love with her; but her home was in a nearby city when she wasn't off hitch hiking. I went to work for the Bureau of Indian Affairs, wore a suit and tie, and prepared to forge a middle class life for myself. And then Barbara showed up. She always returned from her latest journey for a visit when I least expected it; she would stay for a few days and then leave again. We finally lost touch when I left for the Army several years later. (No, I am not plagiarizing “Forrest Gump,” but when I saw the movie I immediately thought of Barbara.) The subject of love makes me a little uncomfortable as I have never had a successful relationship. So, from an historical point of view, I doubt if I ever will.

If you had a free afternoon, what’s the first thing you’d do?

If I had money and a car on top of a free afternoon, I’d go to the nearest bookstore (there aren’t that many in Las Vegas), get a large cappuccino, and spend some time browsing books and magazines. My favorite subject is military history, of course, but also photography and art. And I would buy a few.

If you could live your life over again, what’s the first thing you’d do differently or change?

Go to college and get a degree. Go on to a university and get a higher degree. With a good education perhaps I would not have led such a financially-challenged life (I am almost 60 years old now and am registered in a 2-year VA program for homeless veterans). As we all know, there are a lot of sayings about how money is not everything, but guess what—money is 99% of everything. Money pays the bills, money buys medical care, money can keep you from being evicted from your home or being homeless. If you have enough money, you can even afford to go on a real vacation once in awhile. Everything, especially money, flows from an education—or it did until the Great Recession hit. So, if I could live my life over again, I would be sure to get a good education at an earlier age rather than starting at 53 years old.

More about SS: SS Hampton, Sr. is a Choctaw from the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma, a divorced grandfather to 13 grandchildren, a published photographer, photojournalist, and fiction writer. He is a serving member of the Army National Guard with the rank of staff sergeant, and is a veteran of Operations Noble Eagle, and Iraqi Freedom. His writings have appeared in Ruthie’s Club, Lucrezia Magazine, Megaera, The Harrow, River Walk Journal, and Dark Fire, among others. Second career goals include becoming a painter and studying for a degree in photography and anthropology—hopefully to someday work in and photograph underwater archaeology. After 12 years of brown desert in the Southwest and overseas, he misses the Rocky Mountains, yellow aspens in the fall, running rivers, and a warm fireplace during snowy winters. As of December 2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada, Hampton officially became a homeless Iraq War veteran.

SS's published books are available here:

Melange Books

http://www.melange-books.com/authors/sshampton/index.html

Musa Publishing

http://www.musapublishing.com/index.php?main_page=index&manufacturers_id=50

MuseItUp Publishing

http://museituppublishing.com/bookstore2/index.php?page=shop.product_details&flypage=flypage.tpl&product_id=514&category_id=60&manufacturer_id=249&option=com_virtuemart&Itemid=1

FRIDAY FIRSTS with Cynthia MacGregor

The first five sentences of... LOST LOVES REUNITED

Star-crossed lovers, separated by time, by fate, by their families, by circumstances … only to be reunited years later. It’s the stuff of Hollywood tear-jerkers.

            It’s also the stuff of real life … as this book proves.

            All the stories in here are true to the best of my knowledge. They were sent to me by people responding to requests I disseminated in online publications, in old-fashioned “snail mail” mailings, and by word of mouth.

Readers can purchase Cynthia's book here.

FUN FIRST FACTS ABOUT CYNTHIA 

1. What’s the first thing you do after you wake up in the morning (other than using the restroom LOL)?

My days all begin the same: I get out of bed by or before 5 AM—sometimes very much before—and after a quick “pit stop” in the bathroom, where I also put on my clothes (because I don’t want to get dressed in the dark of the bedroom, and the light would waken my sleeping S.O., who does not keep my hours!), I grab a cup of iced coffee (black, no sugar) and head to the computer. Email takes the better part of an hour, by which time the newspaper has arrived, and that takes another hour. Then there are certain websites I check each morning, and after that I’m ready to start work.

Depending on what I have going on, “work” might mean a paying writing or editing assignment for a client, working on a book I’m writing, reading an edited copy of one of my books or what I still think of as “galleys,” though they aren’t called that anymore, doing publicity for one of my books, editing the ezine that I publish every Friday, lining up guests for my TV show, or some other task.

2. What was your first date with your significant other?

My first date with my S.O. was pretty much standard for me: I cooked him dinner. We’d been talking after services at church, where he’d been the guest speaker, and he said he wanted to sit down with me and talk about writing. Intrigued with him and hoping the evening would evolve into something more than a professional discussion, I offered to cook dinner for him one evening. (I love to cook—it’s my hobby.) Well, needless to say (since we’re living together now), the evening didn’t remain on a professional plane, though the convo ranged far and wide before it became personal.

3. What’s the first thing you notice on an attractive member of the opposite sex?

Voice and personality. Though I’ve been turned off by looks, I’ve never been turned on by looks. But then, I’m not a visual person. A wise friend explained this about myself to me decades ago: Just as most people are right-handed but a few are lefties, most people are visual but a few are audial (or aural). Those of us in this minority relate more to what we hear than what we see, learn more by hearing than reading, remember better what we heard than what we saw, and so on.

Because I am not a visual person, I have never been attracted to a man based on his looks. On the other hand, being an audial person, it just figures that a guy’s voice can do a serious number on me.

And personality? Definitely!

But looks? Nah-ah. In fact, a long time ago, when I was married, I was filling out some kind of form or another that asked the color of my husband’s eyes and I had to ask him. I honestly did not know! (He told me they were brown.) I had never noticed. But I bet that if hypothetically he were to call me up today, I’d recognize his voice!

More About Cynthia:

“There’s no one in the world I’d want to trade lives with.” So says Cynthia MacGregor, prolific author of 54 conventionally published books and over 50 e-books…and that’s not counting the books she’s ghostwritten for others. When she’s not crafting another self-help book, cookbook, novel, general non-fiction work, or children’s book, she offers her writing and editing services to “anyone who needs me…and will pay me.” Besides ghostwriting books and blogs, she’s written web copy, catalog copy, two scripts for promotional videos, press releases and flyers, and “just about anything else…except for grant proposals and college papers. I won’t do either of those.” Cynthia has edited both books and magazines, as well as web copy, and loves editing almost as much as she loves writing.

            For the last year and a half, she has also hosted and produced Solo Parenting, a weekly TV show that airs in South Florida, and as of this writing she is waiting with bated breath to see whether the show will be renewed for another season, a decision that supposedly is imminent. As well, she is siteowner of www.TheSoloParent.com. Her professional website is www.cynthiamacgregor.com.

            Cynthia has lived in South Florida since 1984, before which she was a New Yorker. You can reach her at Cynthia@cynthiamacgregor.com.

FRIDAY FIRSTS: K. Victoria Smith

The first five sentences from: Ogham Court



Symbols are the Ogham,
first form of writing in Ireland.



“I’m so sorry for your loss, Nora. I will miss your Aunt Aine terribly. So gifted, so important to the community, a blessing from the Goddess.”  Another hand to hold.  Faces I would never remember once things were settled with the shop and I was back in Philadelphia.

FUN "FIRST" QUESTIONS

1. What’s the first thing you do when you start writing a new story?

That has changed over time. My first novel, Dark Dealings, also expected in 2012, started as the main character’s voice.  She was demanding to be heard.  A Wall Street banker, she found in me a kindred spirit--a person who had tried to be what she wanted to be and not she really is. So that book was written in flashes of scenes and characters.  I learned a lot from that and from Chris Vogler’s book The Writer’s Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers.

Since then, I start brainstorming about plot and characters on my 4x3 whiteboard at night and in notebooks as I go through the day. Ideas are loosely transferred to notecards that represent the touch-points of the Hero’s Journey. It’s not exactly outlining, but I’m not a pantser either.

2. When standing in front of a buffet line, what’s the first food that catches your eye?

Dessert, especially chocolate!  Like my novels, I need to have a good idea of the ending and the sweeter and gooier the better.  One of the things on my bucket list is to go the Hershey Spa for a chocolate body wrap.  I don’t think they supply the hunk to help “remove” it so I may to bring my own. Hey, I can dream…I’m a fiction writer.

3. What was your first date with your significant other?

To begin with, we met at a bar in Tribeca that formed the basis for the Salmon Run Inn. It was not a fix-up but a get-together of a group of people engineered by a bond trader I worked with who also happened to have gone to high school with him.  We spent the evening together (only the evening).  The next morning I called my best friend and told her I had just met the man I was going to marry. Over a week later, he finally called and we decided to have dinner in a cute Mexican restaurant south of Washington Square Park.  During dinner, I found out he was over three years younger than me.  Back then that was cougar territory. He was very nervous.  At the end of the meal, he reached into his pocket. The color drained from his face and he started to stammer.  He had left his wallet on the dashboard of his car which was parked down by Canal Street. So I paid for dinner. Miraculously the car and the wallet were still there.

This December we will be together 28 years.

4. If you won the lottery, what’s the first thing you’d buy?

I would buy the farm in Ireland, outside Galway, that belonged to my maternal grandfather’s family.  It was sold off during the days of the Celtic Tiger economy for development. Fortunately for me, although unfortunately for the developer, the real estate market there is as bad or worse than the US market and no development has taken place.  When last visited by family members, the original farmhouse with thatched roof and center hearth was still intact. What a wonderful place to write my stories and hold writing retreats with whiskey around the hearth.

About K.Victoria Smith: She learned storytelling at the feet of her Roscommon-born grandmother.  For years, K.Victoria lived in an imaginary world peopled by magical and horrifying creatures and the humans who loved them. Then one day, these characters demanded to be let out. So during the day, K.Victoria is a mild mannered banker while at night she writes paranormal romance and urban fantasy. The magic of Ogham Court will see the light of day in 2012.

 Visit her author page on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/K.VictoriaSmith

On her blog: Storyteller’s Grove: http://kvictoriasmith.blogspot.com/

On Twitter as @kvictoriasmith: http://twitter.com/KVictoriaSmith where she has been known to hang out at #pubwrite.

FRIDAY FIRSTS: Greta van der Rol

The first five sentences from... The Iron Admiral: Conspiracy

Ullnish Space Port, a spectacular confection of multi-colored domes and turrets in the best ptorix architectural style, glowed a welcome. Allysha traded a look with Sean as the driver guided his taxi around the concourse to join a line of vehicles, all depositing passengers.

“Looks like we made it,” she murmured.

“So far. But they’ll be after us.” Sean stared along the road to Shernish, where lights were starting to hold their own in the gathering dusk.

FUN "FIRST" QUESTIONS

1.What was the first romance novel you read?

I think that would be the 'Angelique' series. It spanned quite a few books as I recall – six or seven – following the life of Angelique, a minor nobleman's daughter during the times of Louis XIV in France. I enjoyed the realism of the settings and the hints of sex (I was in my early teens at the time). In the first book, she was married off to a scarred nobleman she'd never met. He went to lots of lengths to win her heart and seduce her instead of just having his way with her. Then after they've had two sons, Joffre de Peyrac is arrested by Louis' police and killed and she has to make her own way in the world – which she does, with a succession of men in her life. Ah, me. Great stuff.

2. What was the first Rated R movie you ever saw?

It was 'The Exorcist'. I took my mother, who enjoyed horror stuff, to the movies. I went up to the ticket window, asked for two tickets and fumbled in my purse for the money. The girl said, “First, how old are you?” (Since it was R rated, you had to be over eighteen). I think the look on my face told her she'd made a mistake. “Twenty. Three,” I said. These days I'd be delighted to be mistaken for six or seven years younger than I am.

3. What is the first thing you do when you sit down each day to write?

I suppose that means after I've checked Facebook, gone through Twitter and emails and all that.

Right. Now it's writing time. Blank page is the worst. If I'm past that, I'll make a copy of yesterday's work and file it in my backup folder. I have a file for every day I write so I can always go back if I decide to take out an edit I've made. Then I'll catch up on and edit what I wrote yesterday. Then I'll carry on from there.

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Bio
Greta van der Rol loves writing science fiction with a large dollop of good old, healthy romance. She lives not far from the coast in Queensland, Australia, and enjoys photography and cooking when she isn’t bent over the computer. She has a degree in history and a background in building information systems, both of which go a long way toward helping her in her writing endeavours.

Facebook: Author – Greta van der Rol
Twitter: @GretavdR
Email: gretavdr at gmail dot com
Website: http://gretavanderrol.net/

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