Interview with Kerry Downing, Author of Time Slice

Kerry Downing set out to become a meteorologist but was hooked by the world of computers instead, becoming a systems analyst and programmer. Astronomy and science fiction are his true passions and he’s been gazing at the stars during all hours of the night since the age of 10 when he received his first telescope.

An avid science-fiction reader, Arthur C. Clarke and his brand of “it really seems as if it could happen” literature has always been his favorite.

In the 90s, Kerry found the third love of his life: his wife, Lucy. They live in St. Louis, Missouri, with their five children.

This is Kerry’s second science-fiction novel. You can find him on the Web at http://www.kerrydowning.com/, or follow him on twitter via @KGDWrites.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Florissant, MO, a suburb of St. Louis. It was a good place to grow up, and I had what I would call a fairly normal childhood. You know, the usual stuff. Good friends to play with, hated going to school everyday, got bullied a few times. Good old Americana.

My dad bought me my first telescope when I was 10 years old and got me hooked on astronomy. I’ve always like reading and kind of naturally gravitated towards science-fiction, although I’ll read just about any genre of book, or at least try it once.
When did you begin writing?

I’ve been a writer of one sort or another for as long as I can remember. My first recognition came in high school when I won a short story contest, and a day off from school! Now that’s a prize that money just can’t buy.

I started my first actual novel back in the late 90s. It all began because my wife expressed an interest in trying to write, but she couldn’t come up with any ideas she thought were good enough or had enough meat on their bones. While we were talking about it, I started telling her about an idea I had, thinking that might spark something in her. After an hour or so of me going on and on about my idea, she suggested that maybe I should be the one to write a book.

I really had no idea whether or not I could do it, but after three months of work the first draft was completed.

Do you write during the day, at night or whenever you can sneak a few moments?

When I am actively in the midst of working on a project, I like to write first thing in the morning. I normally won’t even sit down and start unless I have at least two hours to devote. I’ve found that if I wait until later in the day I’m just too mentally tired to be creative.

The only exception would be if I’m just trying to make a few tweaks to something I’ve already completed. That I can do in snippets as time permits.

What is this book about?

Time Slice is a story about normal people placed into extraordinary circumstances. While a science-fiction/fantasy novel (as my sister told me, it must be science-fiction because it has an alien in it!), it’s also a story about the ups and downs of family life, and the connection between husband and wife. As I like to say, it’s science-fiction with heart.

Here’s some details!

Even though Roy Washburn has only been retired a few months, he’s already bored. When he finds a small metal cylinder with odd markings on an all-too-routine trip to the mall with his wife, he can’t help but investigate.

With just a nudge of the cylinder’s triangle shaped pointer, Roy finds he can float back and forth in the time stream and learns that countless civilizations inhabit “his” Earth, each occupying their own thin slice of time. During his travels, Roy encounters a tall, gangly creature, the Traveler, who knows more than a little about the cylinder and who needs Roy’s help.

Roy’s clandestine experiments with the cylinder continue even after learning that his wife is terminally ill. Roy’s daughter sees this inattentiveness to her mother as just another in a long line of black marks against dear old Dad, and further proof that he hasn’t changed over the years. The chasm between father and daughter widens.

Faced with his wife’s sickness, a daughter who resents him, and an alien who needs his help, Roy must decide whether to use the cylinder to satisfy his own wants or to help those closest to him through their crises. Much to his surprise, the goals are not mutually exclusive.

What inspired you to write it?

I was inspired by a concept I heard about while listening to a course on Time and Space. Yes, I’m that big of a geek. I spend my time in the car driving to/from work listening to CDs about the Theory of Relativity and the like. But I digress …

The idea is called Gravitational Time Dilation. It states that the time a person experiences varies based on the gravitational field they are in. A person flying in an airplane, for example, is in a slightly lower gravitational field than someone standing on earth, so the passage of time they experience is slightly (very slightly) different than that experienced by their earth-bound brother.

So, being a writer, I took that little kernel of information and wondered if maybe there are other civilizations that inhabit these other time frames. We all share the same earth, just at slightly different times.

The characters and storyline all stemmed from that one idea.

Where can readers purchase a copy of your book?

Time Slice is available in Kindle ($4.95) and paperback editions on Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, and Amazon Japan.

Other electronic versions are offered on Smashwords, BN.com, Google Ebooks or at any of the major online ebook stores.

I’m currently working on getting bookstores such as Barnes and Noble to carry Time Slice, but no luck quite yet.

What is one piece of advice you would like to share with aspiring authors everywhere?

My one piece of advice would be to write for only one reason: because you love it. Don’t write to become rich or famous. It’s not likely that either of those things will happen. If that’s your motivation, I wish you well but the chances are overwhelming that your quest will end in frustration.

If you write simply for the joy of writing, there’s no way you can fail. When your family reads and appreciates what you’ve done you’ll light up like a Christmas tree. If you happen to get published, when you have your first sale you’ll light up like Las Vegas.

Best of all, even if nobody ever reads it but you, it will still be worth it because you did something you loved to do. What better way to spend your time can there possibly be?

What is up next for you?

Immediately next for me is continuing to try and get the word out about Time Slice. If you, dear reader, feel so inclined to help me do that, please feel free!

As far as writing goes, I think there’s probably a sequel to Time Slice in the offing. There might also be a prequel to my first novel, The Collective.

I’m also exploring the idea of publishing a collection of my short stories.

Is there anything you would like to add?

Just one other note about Time Slice. Some reviews have indicated that it’s a novel about “Time Travel”. That isn’t quite accurate. In fact, it’s not accurate at all.

To me, a novel about time travel involves either going back or forward in time to a past/future era. Time Slice puts forth the idea that there are countless civilizations in the time stream, each separated by only a few milliseconds. All of these civilizations are sharing the same home (“our” Earth) but we don’t know of each others existence because each one is trapped in their own slice of the time stream (hence the name, Time Slice!).

If only there was a device that would let us slip backwards and forwards in the time stream to see these other civilizations … if only …

Kerry Downing web site:


http://www.kerrydowning.com

Kerry Downing blog:

http://kgdwrites.blogspot.com

Kerry Downing Twitter:

https://www.twitter.com/KGDWrites

Tribute Books Blog Tours Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Tribute-Books-Blog-Tours/242431245775186

Time Slice blog tour site:

http://timesliceblogtour.blogspot.com

Paperback
Price: $17.95
ISBN: 9781603818520
Pages: 256
Release: June 10, 2011

Amazon buy link

http://www.amazon.com/dp/1603818529?tag=tributebooks-20

Barnes&Noble.com buy link

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/time-slice-kerry-downing/1102590047?ean=9781603818520&itm=1&usri=time%252bslice

eBook
Price: $4.95

Kindle buy link

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0052MNKT4?tag=tributebooks-20
Nook buy link

http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Time-Slice/Kerry-Downing/e/2940011342554

Smashwords buy link

https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/61838?ref=tributebooks

Interview: Terri Lynn Main, Author of Dark Side of the Moon

Joining us today is Terri Lynn, Main. Terri teaches communication at Reedley College in Reedley California. She has been writing professionally for more than forty years, but Dark Side of the Moon is her first novel.


Welcome to The Book Connection, Terri. Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

I hate that question. I am not that exciting as a person. I live a fairly quiet life with three cats and a lot of books. I love teaching my classes and writing. In many ways it’s my dream life. There really is not much interesting about me, and I kind of like it that way.

I think in some ways that helps writing fiction. In fiction you can explore parts of yourself that you don’t express openly. If you live a very exciting life, there’s not much left of explore. :)
When did you begin writing?

That would be about third grade. I learned about paragraphs then. Seriously, my first published piece was in the school newsletter that went out to the parents. It was about the sun. I found it after my mother passed away in her cedar chest. I had written that the light from the sun took eight minutes to reach the earth.

The principal had changed it to read “eight light-minutes.” I scratched it out and put back what I wrote. I then went to the principal and explained to him that “light minutes” were measurements of distance and not time. He invited me to join the science club two years before I was eligible to join.

What is this book about?

Dark Side of the Moon is a science fiction/cozy mystery novel. That’s right. There are not that many of those sort of novels around. It takes place in a small community built underground on the moon at the end of the Twenty-First Century. The main character is Carolyn Masters, a history professor and former FBI profiler, who is looking for a change after her mother dies. She is offered a position at Armstrong University and she heads off to the Moon.

She isn’t there long, though, before Juan McAlister, a astromechanics professor and lunar independence advocate, is murdered in his office. Being the first recorded murder on the moon, they call in Carolyn and a former Dallas homicide detective who runs the criminology department to investigate the case. They must now solve the murder, but also deal with clashing personalities, stop a terrorist attack on Earth, and exorcise their own demons.

What inspired you to write it?

Oddly enough, it was a dream. I had this dream in high school about a golden eyed alien who shows up at a lunar colony where I am working as a teacher. He gets arrested for a crime he didn’t commit and I am defending him.

What does that have to do with this story? Well, back in 2007 when I was planning a novel for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), I thought about doing something with that dream. Being in my 50’s, golden eyed handsome aliens were not quite as attractive as they were when I was 17. So, my main character aged a bit, but she was still a teacher and there was still a murder. And the love interest? Well, you’ll have to read to find out, but he’s definitely not a golden eyed alien.

Where can readers purchase a copy of your book?

It will be released in February at a number of locations, but it will appear first on the MuseItUp Publishing website. The URL for that page is huge. So just use this TinyURL http://www.tinyurl.com/darksidenovel.

Do you have a website and/or blog where readers can find out more?

Yes, I have a website with free reads featuring these characters, excerpts from the book, information about the moon, and a map of the places mentioned in the novel. I’m updating it frequently.

It’s at http://www.darksideofthemoonnovel.com/.

You can also “like” us at http://www.facebook.com/darksidenovel.

What is up next for you?

Well, right now, I’m working on four sequels to Dark Side of the Moon. The next one which I will be finishing up this month is called Stormy Weather. Someone is messing with the weather control system in Armstrong City. Carolyn and Mike are called in to investigate. Soon they are on the trail of a serial killer. Their investigation takes leads them to sports betting, big time wrestling (in 1/6g it’s pretty interesting) and steroids for the brain. And, yes, it was inspired by another dream.

Thanks for spending time with us today, Terri. We wish you much success.

Guest Blogger: DCS, Author of Synarchy Book 2: The Ascension

Today's guest blogger is DCS, author of Synarchy Book 2: The Ascension.

A lifetime ago, Stefano Vasco Terenzio saw one way to maneuver his family into a game of betrayal against an unbeatable enemy; walking into a bullet.

A generation later, what started with one man’s ego will determine the fate of the whole word.

For centuries The Brotherhood and their Gods, the Anunnaki have hidden in plain sight among us. For centuries they have lied, sacrificed man by the thousands, and manipulated humanity into their service.

As the clock ticks closer to December 21st, 2012, they will stop at nothing to keep their control of planet Earth.

In the thrilling sequel to Synarchy Book 1: The Awakening, the end is only the beginning. Secrets emerge that will challenge the core of everything you think you believe.

All the while a team of scientists must make sense out of the fantastical, and the tenuous link holding together the one family that can save humankind, shatters.

Writing is a Business, Period by DCS

Writing is a business, period. Sure, it’s our creative release, our artistic genius, but when all is said and done, unless you’re writing solely for your journal most authors have the goal of seeing their works sustain them financially. Even just a little. Most of us have what I call our “fake” jobs, the ones that pay the bills but don’t light us up the way putting fingers to keys, or pen to paper does. If we want to get rid of those big wastes of our creative time, we can’t ignore the business side of our craft. Even if you do get signed with a publisher, there will be work to do on your end. But if you’re a writer who’s done their research (and you better be) you know this already. We self-published authors should know this better than most. So, I want to encourage you not to forget the business side, and when those moments of writers block hit and you’ve just spent the last thirty minutes watching your cursor blink, waiting for inspiration to strike, remember two words: time-management. As a business owner (and you are, your work is your business) there is always something you could be doing instead of sitting there frustrated because your creativity is off today.

I know, I know, they say write everyday. I say, work on your dream every day, no matter what that entails. If you’re not feeling inspired, if that paragraph just won’t come, I say, don’t force it. There are about a million other things you could be doing. Get your fan page up. Update it, if only to let your fans know that you’ve got writers block. Maybe they can help give you some tips to get the creative juices going. Jump over to marketing and refresh your knowledge about search engine optimization and keyword tracking. Draft the letter you’re going to send to the agent pitching your story. Head over to writers digest and check out the free articles and tips to improve your craft. The Writer Magazine is a great source of inspiration and information too.

Bottom line, as authors we are also our own CEO’s. At some point, we’re going to have to step outside of our creative bubble, and play the business game. In the moments that our creativity has failed us, let’s engage another part of our brain and tackle another aspect of our creation. Our time is precious and we’ve got a big niche to carve out for ourselves. Your inspiration will return to you, and when it does you’ll be glad you didn’t waste your down time.

DCS is the author of Synarchy Book 1: The Awakening and Synarchy Book 2: The Ascension. When not writing you can listen to her radio show, In The Mind of DCS every Saturday evening at 7pm CST on the Paranormal Soup Network. Currently sucking up the creative energy of New Orleans, she is attending the American Institute of Holistic Theology to earn a PhD in Metaphysical Spirituality while being hard at work at the next book in the Synarchy Series, and an upcoming webisode series called The Fallen. Visit her website at http://www.themindofdcs.com/ to learn more.