Secret life of a townie

Friday, October 2, 2015

Today's Authtoberfest featured author is Jeff Seymour!

1. It’s Halloween, pick 3 of your favorite writers to paint the town red with and tell us why you chose them.
Jeff Says: Neil Gaiman: The Graveyard Book is probably my favorite Halloween book. Spooky but not terrifying, full of ghosts and ghouls, and a fun and easy read.
Stephen King: The master, obviously. You really can't go wrong with his stuff.
Gris Grimly: Okay, so he's an artist. But his illustrated Frankenstein is an amazing Halloween read.

2. You’re ready to head out with your pillowcase to collect loads of confections on All Hallows’ Eve, what’s your costume and why did you choose it?
Jeff Says: Vash the Stampede, from the anime Trigun. Such a great character. Such a cool costume. Someday I'll actually make one.

3. Old Mrs. Robinson opens her door and you’re holding open your pillowcase patiently waiting. “Oh deary,” she says in her frail, little old-lady voice. “I forgot it was Halloween. Don’t know why you kids go begging anyways. Let me go find something to give you.” She shuffles off and finally returns three and a half minutes later with 5 pennies, 2 peppermint candies that look like they went through the dryer, and her deceased husbands dentures. “Take what you like,” she offers, squinting at you.
What do you choose and why.
Jeff Says: The pennies. There's nothing quite like snapping them at your friends all unexpected-like.

4. I really love reading Dean Koontz but some of his stuff scares the bejesus out of me. What’s the spookiest book you’ve ever read?
Jeff Says: Full Dark, No Stars by Stephen King. Couldn't finish it. Supernatural horror I can handle, but the real stuff---where the situations are completely realistic and the horror comes from the depravity of unhinged human minds---is positively gutwrenching.
Meredith says: I read it, was thoroughly disturbed.

5. You’re a writer by day and supernatural creature by night. (Shed that human skin you sack of bones) What are you and why?
Jeff Says: I suppose I'd be a troll---the old Norse kind. I think living in the mountains, rumbling around them at night, and then sleeping inside them during the day sounds like a pretty nice existence.

6. Every author has a bookshelf filled with his or her favorite reads. Run on over to yours and tell us the scariest book you have.
Jeff Says: Full Dark, No Stars again. Someday I'll go back and finish it.

7. We don’t all write horror but there comes a time when you’ve got to surprise your readers and make sure their hearts are still beating. How do you prepare yourself to get in the spooky writing mood?
Jeff Says:The first paragraph. Horror is all about voice and atmosphere to me. Once I've set it, the rest flows naturally.

8. Stephen King’s front porch light is on but there are no Halloween decorations.
Do you:
a) trick-or-treat and cross your fingers that he’s handing out the good stuff
b) run screaming
c) call your mom to bring your favorite King paperback and beg for an autograph
Jeff Says: a) I wouldn't like to bother him, but I'd still knock on his door if I had a decent excuse to. Besides, I'd like to know how he approaches Halloween.

9. Congratulations, you just won the literary lottery and sold a million books at full price! The royalty check clears on October 28th. What are you buying for the neighborhood kids?
a) an assortment of mini candybars
b) an assortment of cheap, hard candies
c) full size Hershey bars
Jeff Says: c) There was a dentist in my neighborhood growing up who gave out full-size candy bars (suspicious, now that I think about it...). That feeling of hitting the jackpot is one I'd love to pass on.

10. Your writer friend calls you with some frightening news. They’re giving up on writing, can’t take the pressure any longer. What do you tell them?
Jeff Says: Call it a break. It's important to take care of yourself and set a pace you can handle, but there's no reason to say you're giving up forever. Forever is a long time.

Connect with Jeff!

Author, writer, and editor Jeff Seymour has been creating speculative fiction since he was a teenager. He is the author of the magical realist short story collection Three Dances and the epic fantasy series Soulwoven, which has netted him over a million reads and 14,000 followers online. Jeff has also edited sci-fi and fantasy on a freelance basis for clients including Harlequin's digital-first imprint Carina Press and the Nelson Literary Agency Digital Liaison Platform. In his free time, he blogs about his writing and editing, pretends he knows anything about raising an energetic kitten, and dreams.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

Today's Authtoberfest featured author is Peter Heller author of THE DOG STARS and other awesome books!

I came across 'The Dog Stars' one day while doing an author event at a nearby Barnes&Noble. This book was on the discount shelf. I kept picking it up, reading a few pages and setting it down. Finally I splurged and bought the hardcover before leaving. 'The Dog Stars' was a great read, poetic and perfectly paced. I really really loved it.

Let's see what Peter had to say about reading, writing and zombies!

1. It’s the zombie apocalypse and writers have got to stick together to survive. Pick 3 authors to be on your zombie apocalypse killing team and tell us why you’d choose them.
Peter says: Denis Johnson. Because he’s a crazy f**ker and if he has as much energy as his fiction he’d be a nonstop killing machine. C.D. Wright, the poet. She’s a truthteller, very brave. She’d wade in with a bat if you were in trouble. Stephen King, of course. Anybody who has written that many books about scary crap has superhuman stamina and is pretty much afraid of nothing.

2. If Stephen King and J. K. Rowling were drowning in a river, who would you save first? And now you have to tell us why.
Peter says: Oh, here he is, again, drowning now. Well, they would save each other. The river is actually the liquid incarnation of King’s dead infant identical twin, and Rowling would trick the evil imp into running up onto the shore by offering him a scholarship to Hogwarts and a synopsis of Book Eight.
Meredith says: Best response I have ever received for that question. Flat out.

3. We authors are voracious readers. My TBR list is approximately 8 miles long. What are you currently reading?
Peter says: Vila-Matas, The Illogic of Kassel; Collected Poems of Robert Pinsky.

4. What is the one book that you could read a million times and never get bored with?
Peter says: Any of Rexroth’s translations of the Tang Dynasty poets; Poems of the Masters, trans. By Red Pine.

5. Last year my favorite read was The Martian by Andy Weir. What was your best read of 2014?
Peter says: The Adventures and Misadventures of Maqroll by the Colombian Alvaro Mutis.

6. This year my favorite read has been The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. What’s the best book you’ve read so far in 2015?
Peter says: Hey, thanks! I am loving this latest Vila-Matas, mentioned above. He’s a genius. From Barcelona. Makes me want to move there.
Meredith says: :)

7. You’re a writer by day and a superhero by night. (Take off those geeky glasses Superman) What’s your superpower?
Peter says: I can drink as much coffee as I want and still sleep at night.

8. I have writing spots all over my house: my desk, my couch, the patio, and my bed. Where’s your favorite spot to write?
Peter says: Couch in local coffee shop.

9. We’re supposed to love all of our children equally, but there are some scenes I’ve written that really stick out in my mind. Tell us your favorite scene from your book The Dog Stars.
Peter says: It’s the one where Hig is heartbroken and walking out of the trees and across the sage plains pulling a kayak sled and he gets a call crackling on his radio from his gun-nut associate Bangley who is in a watchtower a mile away, and Bangley tells him that he is being followed by nine marauders. Tells Hig to walk forward calmly and to start singing and he will direct him.
Meredith says: I loved that scene! I think that was the first "oh crap, these dudes are in trouble" feeling I had when reading.

10. Sometimes a little too much of myself slips into my characters. Which one of your characters most resembles you?
Peter says: Hig is a lot like me. He loves what I love, shies away from what I shy from. Loves to fish, fly his plane, loves his dog Jasper. Poetry. Kind of a dreamer. But he is definitely not me: he is six-one and he can cook.

11. I’ve always got tunes rocking while I’m writing. Tell us five songs that are on your playlist.
Peter says: Rain. Thunder. Rain.
Meredith says: It's really the best 'song' to write to.

12. If you could tell an aspiring author one tiny tidbit of information, what would you say?
Peter says: Write a set amount of words every day. Every one. Pick an amount that you can get done with good energy and be very disciplined in not writing under or much over. But always stop in the middle of an exciting thought or scene. Write your quota and keep going a little longer if you have to, so you’re smack in the middle of something. Then make yourself stop. That way you can’t wake to jump out of bed and continue the next morning.

Connect with Peter Heller

Facebook

Goodreads

Amazon Author Page
Webpage

(Read about Peter Heller's life below and let me know afterwards if you also feel like you've done absolutely nothing for your entire existence.)

_______________________________________________

About Peter Heller:

Peter Heller is a longtime contributor to NPR, a contributing editor at Outside Magazine and Men's Journal, and a frequent contributor to Businessweek. He is an award winning adventure writer and the author of four books of literary nonfiction. He lives in Denver. Heller was born and raised in New York. He attended high school in Vermont and Dartmouth College in New Hampshire where he became an outdoorsman and whitewater kayaker. He traveled the world as an expedition kayaker, writing about challenging descents in the Pamirs, the Tien Shan mountains, the Caucuses, Central America and Peru.At the Iowa Writers' Workshop, where he received an MFA in fiction and poetry, he won a Michener fellowship for his epic poem "The Psalms of Malvine." He has worked as a dishwasher, construction worker, logger, offshore fisherman, kayak instructor, river guide, and world class pizza deliverer. Some of these stories can be found in Set Free in China, Sojourns on the Edge. In the winter of 2002 he joined, on the ground team, the most ambitious whitewater expedition in history as it made its way through the treacherous Tsangpo Gorge in Eastern Tibet. He chronicled what has been called The Last Great Adventure Prize for Outside, and in his book Hell or High Water: Surviving Tibet's Tsangpo River.

The gorge -- three times deeper than the Grand Canyon -- is sacred to Buddhists, and is the inspiration for James Hilton's Shangri La. It is so deep there are tigers and leopards in the bottom and raging 25,000 foot peaks at the top, and so remote and difficult to traverse that a mythical waterfall, sought by explorers since Victorian times, was documented for the first time in 1998 by a team from National Geographic.

The book won a starred review from Publisher's Weekly, was number three on Entertainment Weekly's "Must List" of all pop culture, and a Denver Post review ranked it "up there with any adventure writing ever written."

In December, 2005, on assignment for National Geographic Adventure, he joined the crew of an eco-pirate ship belonging to the radical environmental group the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society as it sailed to Antarctica to hunt down and disrupt the Japanese whaling fleet.

The ship is all black, sails under a jolly Roger, and two days south of Tasmania the engineers came on deck and welded a big blade called the Can Opener to the bow--a weapon designed to gut the hulls of ships. In The Whale Warriors: The Battle at the Bottom of the World to Save the Planet's Largest Mammals, Heller recounts fierce gales, forty foot seas, rammings, near-sinkings, and a committed crew's clear-eyed willingness to die to save a whale. The book was published by Simon and Schuster's Free Press in September, 2007.

In the fall of 2007 Heller was invited by the team who made the acclaimed film The Cove to accompany them in a clandestine filming mission into the guarded dolphin-killing cove in Taiji, Japan. Heller paddled into the inlet with four other surfers while a pod of pilot whales was being slaughtered. He was outfitted with a helmet cam, and the terrible footage can be seen in the movie. The Cove went on to win an Academy Award. Heller wrote about the experience for Men's Journal.

Heller's most recent memoir, about surfing from California down the coast of Mexico, Kook: What Surfing Taught Me about Love, Life, and Catching the Perfect Wave, was published by The Free Press in 2010. Can a man drop everything in the middle of his life, pick up a surfboard and, apprenticing himself to local masters, learn to ride a big, fast wave in six months? Can he learn to finally love and commit to someone else? Can he care for the oceans, which are in crisis? The answers are in. The book won a starred review from Publisher's Weekly, which called it a "powerful memoir...about love: of a woman, of living, of the sea." It also won the National Outdoor Book Award for Literature.

Heller's debut novel, The Dog Stars, is being published by Knopf in August, 2012. It will also be published by Headline Review in Great Britain and Australia, and Actes Sud in France.

Halloween all year long!

*Image courtesy of author Brea Behn

Monday, September 28, 2015

Amy Wolf author of THE MISSES BRONTË'S ESTABLISHMENT

1. It’s the zombie apocalypse and writers have got to stick together to survive. Pick 3 authors to be on your zombie apocalypse killing team and tell us why you’d choose them.
Amy says:
1. Charlotte Brontë. Even though she had a life filled with tragedy, her ambition and perseverance tell me she could kick some serious butt.
2. Emily Bronte. Emily proved that she could kick butt: she once cauterized her own wound after having been bitten by a dog.
3. J.K. Rowling. I think she’d be fun to be around, and she has such a great imagination I believe she could outsmart those zombies.

2. If Stephen King and J. K. Rowling were drowning in a river, who would you save first? And now you have to tell us why ;)
Amy says: J. K.! I am a huge Potterhead and don’t care much for horror. I also think that J.K. could offer a more substantial reward. And invite me to live with her in her castle. (Can you say “wish fulfillment”?)

3. We authors are voracious readers. My TBR list is approximately 8 miles long. What are you currently reading?
Amy says: A fun book interviewing comics of all stripes, Poking a Dead Frog by Mike Sacks. Also finished an excerpt from The Girl With Seven Names: A North Korean Defector’s Story by Hyeonseo Lee. Next up: A People’s History of the Great Recession by Arthur Delaney and The Second Intellient Species by Marshall Brain. You know, just some light “beach” reading with Fabio on the cover! :>

4. What is the one book that you could read a million times and never get bored with?
Amy says:Pride and Prejudice, baby!

5. Last year my favorite read was The Martian by Andy Weir. What was your best read of 2014?

Amy says: Sideways 3: Chile by my friend Rex Pickett.

6. This year my favorite read has been The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. What’s the best book you’ve read so far in 2015?
Amy says: The Hidden Reality: Parallel Universes and the Deep Laws of the Cosmos by Brian Greene

7. You’re a writer by day and a superhero by night. (Take off those geeky glasses Superman) What’s your superpower?
Amy says: In fact, I’m a software developer by day and a writer by night. So my superpower is working two full-time jobs concurrently!

8. I have writing spots all over my house: my desk, my couch, the patio, and my bed. Where’s your favorite spot to write?
Amy says: My dining room nook. Yes, it’s uncomfortable, and yes, it gives me lower back pain, but I have a nice view of lovely Northwest scenery.

9. We’re supposed to love all of our children equally, but there are some scenes I’ve written that really stick out in my mind. Tell us your favorite scene from your book The Misses Brontes Establihsment.
Amy says: It’s the scene where the young heroine, Maria, pretends to be Emily Brontë on the sisters’ fabled trip to London to prove they were three different authors. In reality, Emily refused to go, but Maria does a bang-up impersonation laden with subtle comedy.

9. Sometimes a little too much of myself slips into my characters. Which one of your characters most resembles you?
Amy says: Charlotte Brontë. Like her, I’m hypersensitive, thin-skinned, and appreciate truth in Art, but I also have her ambition, never-say-die attitude, and nun-like dedication to her craft.

10. I’ve always got tunes rocking while I’m writing. Tell us five songs that are on your playlist.
Amy says: NONE! I can’t concentrate with music in the background. I am however fond of Guns N’ Roses, Marilyn Manson, and Ting Ting.

11. If you could tell an aspiring author one tiny tidbit of information, what would you say?
Amy says: DON’T! (kidding). Be prepared for the long haul. The arts ain’t easy, and they never have been. This is a tough game, so toughen up and be prepared to go the distance. I prepared by working for 15 years in the film industry. Do I win something?

Get your copy of The Misses Brontë’s Establishment

Connect with Amy!

Amy Wolf is a Kindle Scout winner for her novel THE MISSES BRONTES ESTABLISHMENT, which launched on August 11, 2015.
She has published 38 short stories in the fantasy/sf press, including REALMS OF FANTASY (2) and INTERZONE (U.K.). She is a graduate of the Clarion West Writer's program and has an honors English degree from The University of London.
She started her career working for the major Hollywood studios, especially 20th Century Fox.
One of three natives out of 10 million, Amy was forced from L.A. and now lives in Seattle (where it rains). She has one adult daughter currently terrorizing L.A., 2 horses, 2 dogs, and a bunny.
Check out her blog on http://www.missesbrontes.com

*The promo below is not affiliated with Secret Life of a Townie book blog or M. R. Pritchard*

Sunday, September 27, 2015

All Octoberlong

October 1st - Peter Heller
October 2nd - Jeff Seymour
October 3rd - Carol Davis
October 4th - Lindsey Winsemius
October 5th - Peter Cawdron
October 6th - John Hancock
October 7th - Lisa Weaver
October 8th - Theresa Watson
October 9th - Isaac Marion
October 10th - James Knapp
October 11th - Jon Frater
October 12th - The Behrg
October 13th - (TBA)
October 14th - Heath Stallcup
October 15th - Debbie Mumford
October 16th - (TBA)
October 17th - Terry Maggert
October 18th - Shaun Allan
October 19th - Angela Henry
October 20th - Yvonne Ventresca
October 21st - Pete Kahle
October 22nd - M. Lauryl Lewis
October 23rd - Rob Blackwell
October 24th - Fiona Quinn
October 25th - Vincent Robert Annunziato
October 26th - Ernie Lindsey/Desmond Doane
October 27th - Nick Cole
October 28th - James Morris
October 29th - R. E. Carr
October 30th - Nicole Ciacchella
October 31st - Josh Malerman

Monday, September 21, 2015

Please welcome KindleScout winning author T. L. Zalecki!

1. It’s the zombie apocalypse and writers have got to stick together to survive. Pick 3 authors to be on your zombie apocalypse killing team and tell us why you’d choose them.

T. L. Says: Great question! I love imagining what I would do in the zombie apocalypse. Neil Gaiman (The Ocean at the End of the Lane) because, man, he can come up with some crazy characters. Suzanne Collins (The Hunger Games) because she knows a million ways to kill someone. E.L. James (Fifty Shades of Grey) because ... well, the Red Room.

2. If Stephen King and J. K. Rowling were drowning in a river, who would you save first? And now you have to tell us why ;)

T. L. Says: J.K. because Stephen scares the hell out of me. I can’t walk by a gutter without seeing that snaggle-toothed clown.
Meredith says: Sweet lord, I just choked on my coffee.

3. We authors are voracious readers. My TBR list is approximately 8 miles long. What are you currently reading?

T. L. Says: I am currently reading two very different but enjoyable books. One is Fiona Quinn’s Weakest Lynx about a badass psychic girl and her quest to find and destroy her stalker. It’s keeping me on the edge of my seat. Another is a deep cut, a cult classic within the fantasy genre called The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. I’d seen the movie as a child, then recently stumbled across the book and had to read it, especially since I’m writing within the genre.

4. What is the one book that you could read a million times and never get bored with?

T. L. Says: Charles Dickens books, because once you get to the end, you have already forgotten the beginning. But seriously, I love Great Expectations. It is so epic and full of brutal, yet beautiful, life lessons. Some authors are great writers, some are great storytellers and some, like Dickens, are both.

5. Last year my favorite read was The Martian by Andy Weir. What was your best read of 2014?

T. L. Says: Are you making me pick one??? Ok, fine. I would say Archetype by M.D. Waters. It is a lovely, intimate sci-fi story about a woman who is a newly minted clone and must unravel the mystery of her new, unfamiliar life. The story addresses the science of cloning in a personal and believable way without being too techie.

6. This year my favorite read has been The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. What’s the best book you’ve read so far in 2015?

T. L. Says: Atlantia by Ally Condie. I held off on reading any mermaid or siren books until I was finished writing book one and two of SIRENS, and then sifted through a ton until I chose hers. It reminded me of Hunger Games a bit – dystopian, fast paced and dark.

7. You’re a writer by day and a superhero by night. (Take off those geeky glasses Superman) What’s your superpower?

T. L. Says: I can breathe underwater.

8. I have writing spots all over my house: my desk, my couch, the patio, and my bed. Where’s your favorite spot to write?

T. L. Says: With two toddlers and an inability to write after 8pm due to exhaustion, I have to write literally wherever I can... usually a place where I can hide inside my house. Sometimes there are only 5-minute chunks!

9. We’re supposed to love all of our children equally, but there are some scenes I’ve written that really stick out in my mind. Tell us your favorite scene from your book SIRENS, Rising Tide.

T. L. Says: This is easy for me. When I close my eyes I am there: a sixteen-year-old Mello standing on the outer shore of Rodinia for a ceremony in which he begins a journey across the ocean. Sirens surround him, singing in ethereal voices, and the sand is peppered with rose petals. He closes his eyes, walks into the crashing waves, and finds the courage to let the open ocean swallow him for the first time in his life.

10. Sometimes a little too much of myself slips into my characters. Which one of your characters most resembles you?

T. L. Says: Mello—by far the most flawed of my characters—has a place in my heart. I relate so closely to him that deep down I must be writing myself. Though I would never torture myself the way I torture that poor guy. Nor do I have the power to start a revolution ... or do I?

11. I’ve always got tunes rocking while I’m writing. Tell us five songs that are on your playlist.

T. L. Says: I created a SIRENS playlist to share with my readers. The songs all inspired me at some point during the creation of SIRENS and each one reminds me of a specific scene or character. I’ll choose five from it, but the full playlist can be found on my website.
1. M83 – We Own the Sky
2. Vance Joy – Riptide
3. The Knife – Heartbeats
4. Arcade Fire – Sprawl II
5. M83 – Midnight City

12. If you could tell an aspiring author one tiny tidbit of information, what would you say?

T. L. Says: Let a story develop and marinate in your mind until you can’t stop yourself from telling it to the world. That is how to avoid writer’s block. Some of my best ideas come to me during idle times. I don’t sit down to write until I know what I am going to say—and am bursting at the seams to say it!

Get your copy of Rising Tide (SIRENS, Book 1)

Nominate Lost World (SIRENS, Book 2) on Kindle Scout until 9/25.

(If this book is selected for publication you get a free copy for nominating!)

Connect with T. L.

T.L. spent several years in the corporate world working with global "megacorps" before moving on to her most important job, raising her two children. During naptime, she created a world to escape to in SIRENS. She enjoys using science to create fantastical fiction, packing sophisticated, sometimes controversial, themes into stories of adventure, and twisting ordinary legends. Book 1 Rising Tide will be followed by Book 2, Lost World. She lives with her family and some tropical fish in Washington, DC.

Monday, September 7, 2015

Welcome Jake Lingwall author of Freelancer

Let's see what Jake had to say about reading, writing and Zombies!

1.It’s the zombie apocalypse and writers have got to stick together to survive. Pick 3 authors to be on your zombie apocalypse killing team and tell us why you’d choose them.
Jake Says: Brandon Sanderson – He always has a creative magic system and good endings. Those are two things that could prove helpful when you’re trying to survive.
J.K. Rowling – She’s brilliant and rich (so hopefully she has lots of supplies). I’m not sure if a Patronus can chase off zombies, but I’m hopeful.
Ernest Cline – My strategy for survival would be to just hunker down somewhere and wait for the zombie apocalypse to sort itself out. No better way to pass the time than playing some games with Ernest Cline and debating if Kari (from Freelancer) could beat Wade at video games.
Meredith says: Nice picks. Have you read World War Z? There's a scene where survivors go after the rich folk because of their gated homes and stockpiled supplies. I'm betting on a Patronus! I like that idea.
Jake Says: Saw the movie, but I don't remember any supply raiding in the film. Just lots of Brad Pitt and sick people. Guess that's another example of how watching the movie just isn't the same thing.

2. If Stephen King and J. K. Rowling were drowning in a river, who would you save first? And now you have to tell us why.
Jake Says: Since J. K. Rowling is on my zombie survival team I better save her first. Otherwise, I’d have to replace her with Stephen King and that would make me uneasy.
Meredith says: Lol!

3. We authors are voracious readers. My TBR list is approximately 8 miles long. What are you currently reading?
Jake Says: I’m actually reading a few things at once right now. There’s so much I want to read that it’s hard not to start a few books at once.
Armada by Ernest Cline. Ready Player One was epic and the top selling novel in the “cyberpunk” category that my book is in, so I had to check out Cline’s next book.
Hooked: How to Build Habit Forming Products by Nir Eyal. I’m a front-end web developer for work so I try to keep up on my trade when I’m not writing. This is a great book about building products that users want to keep using. I actually find it has many great parallels for writing as well.
The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee. My wife is currently battling Leukemia and this book was a recommendation by her Oncologist.
I see you are one of those readers who reads more than one book at once.
Meredith says: My father battled Leukemia. Prayers to your wife.
Jake Says: Thanks, I really appreciate that. We're doing pretty well right now all things considered.

4. What is the one book that you could read a million times and never get bored with?
Jake Says: I’m a sucker for nostalgia so anything that I read and loved as kid never grows old. I’d probably say that Ender’s Game is the one book that I have read the most times.

5. Last year my favorite read was The Martian by Andy Weir. What was your best read of 2014?
Jake Says: Words of Radiance by Brandon Sanderson was my favorite book of 2014. I’ve been a sucker for anything he writes ever since he finished the Wheel of Time.

6. This year my favorite read has been The Dog Stars by Peter Heller. What’s the best book you’ve read so far in 2015?
Jake Says: I feel like I keep mentioning the same names, but I’d be lying if I said anything but Ready Player One. Although some of the regency romance books I’ve been reading with my wife are closing in ;).
Meredith says: Whoa whoa whoa... you can't just drop a bomb like that. A dude reading regency romance?! I've never come cross a guy who will admit to this. Kudos to reading with your wife - I love discussing books with my husband. Also, have you read Captain and Countess by Alice Gaines - a fellow kindle scout winner? It was a great read.
Jake Says: I haven't had a chance to read any of the Kindle Scout books yet. But there are dozens that I'm going to get to shortly. I'll have to move Captain and the Countess to the top of that list. =)

7. You’re a writer by day and a superhero by night. (Take off those geeky glasses Superman) What’s your superpower?
Jake Says: I’m actually a software engineer during the day and a writer by night, but there’s always time to be a superhero. I’ve always been a big superhero guy so it’s hard for me to choose. I don’t think I’d want anything too powerful that would be too much pressure. So, I think right now I’d go with something simple like Longshot’s power from the X-men. He’s just super lucky. Blind pick some stocks to make some money and do some party tricks to impress people sounds like less stress than always having to save the world like Superman.

8. I have writing spots all over my house: my desk, my couch, the patio, and my bed. Where’s your favorite spot to write?
Jake Says: I bought an old used treadmill that with a few old pieces of wood sitting across the handlebars works pretty well as a treadmill-desk. Feels double productive to write and get a little bit of exercise.
Meredith says: I mean... I've been reading a lot about these fancy treadmill desks and they are pretty pricey. To think you just made one with some old pieces of wood.
Jake Says: Works like a charm too! I lost 15 pounds on a steady diet of writing.

9. We’re supposed to love all of our children equally, but there are some scenes I’ve written that really stick out in my mind. Tell us your favorite scene from your book Freelancer.
Jake Says: I’m not sure I believe the premise of the question, as it’s a generally accepted fact amongst my siblings that I am the 5th most favorite child of my parents. =)
My favorite scenes from Freelancer are when Kari is working on new designs. What inspired me to write this book was dreaming about how programming in the future would be a much more accessible and fluid process than it is now. I think it’s a lot of fun to just freely create whatever the mind can imagine and then use what you came up with to solve problems.

Meredith says: ...having 4 siblings myself, I know you know what I mean ;)

10. Sometimes a little too much of myself slips into my characters. Which one of your characters most resembles you?
Jake Says: I’d say it’s a split between the main characters. Kari is a hacker and a programmer like myself, (although she’s way smarter than I am) and David is a little old school.

11. I’ve always got tunes rocking while I’m writing. Tell us five songs that are on your playlist.
Jake Says:
Firebird – Stravinsky – Love me some classical music. This one is the inspiration for a novel I’m going to start working on soon.
I Wanna Get Better – The Bleachers – Catchy tune with a title that is perfect for when your wife is fighting cancer.
Long Cool Women in a Black Dress – The Hollies. I only listen to the “oldies” station on radio and this one gets played a lot.
Hall of Fame – The Script featuring Will.I.Am. We watch a lot of food network and this song advertises their “Food Network Star” show. I’ve been listening to it ever since the advertisements started a few months ago. =)
Jurassic Park Theme Song – John Williams. John Williams is a genius. I’ve always loved his music, but Jurassic World has landed his work back on my playlists.
Meredith says: Long Cool Woman.... gosh, I forgot how much I loved that song. iTunes thanks you for my recent purchase.
Jake Says: If only they had an affiliate program...

12. If you could tell an aspiring author one tiny tidbit of information, what would you say?
Jake Says: Stop being an aspiring author and be an author. There is nothing stopping you from writing, so do it. You don’t need a certificate, or a license, all you need is a story.

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(This is Jake - he's working hard and living the dream)

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Jake's Bio: I'm a full time writer (of JavaScript code) during the day, but at night my mind turns to Science Fiction and Fantasy. I'm 25 years old and currently living the American dream with my wife and puppy. Freelancer is my first novel and I hope you find it as special as I do. You can find me at my website JakeNotJacob.com or tweet me @JakeLingwall.