And since I don’t have much to say and it’s too hot for thinking, here’s another author of the fantasy bundle! Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Mario Milosevic!

Where do you live and write from?

In the Columbia River Gorge in the Pacific Northwest.

Why do you write?

I want to be part of the long tradition of storytelling.

When did you start writing?

Submitted my first story (to Analog) when I was 14. (It didn’t get accepted.)

What genre(s) do you write?

Fantasy, mystery, science fiction, literary.

What is your goal as a writer and what are you doing to achieve it?

I want to sell enough to quit my day job. I write 1,000 words every weekday without fail, and I send stuff out all the time.

What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever been given?

Get a job. Most people don’t make a living at writing. Also, having other income frees you up to be as creative as you want in your writing.

Outliner or improviser? Fast or slow writer?

Improviser. When I outline, it feels dead. When I improvise it feels fresh and alive. Fast writer. Speed brings out things I never knew I had in me.

Tell us more about your book in the bundle

I live in the Columbia River Gorge, which is a beautiful place, and mystical as well. Our county has a law on the books which protects Bigfoot! Now how cool is that? I thought the gorge would be a perfect setting for a fantasy novel, so I imagined two societies, one in the gorge, and one above it. They are linked in ways I won’t give away here. I threw in some natural disasters from real life: The Missoula floods and the eruption of Mt. St. Helens (which is in our county) and I came up with an exciting coming of age story mixed with an after-the-apocalypse tale.

Tell us about your latest book

My most recent book is a collection of stories. The title says it all: 15 Strange Tales of Crime and Mystery. It’s got humorous, gruesome, futuristic, and fantastic, but they all deal with crime in some way or other. http://amzn.to/2tAWjXC

Any other projects in the pipeline?

Lots. I’m juggling numerous short stories, got a few novels making the rounds, and embarking on a series of stories about Red Fish Bay, my invented town on the Oregon Coast in which strange and mysterious things happen due to the fact that the town was the site of a meteor impact a few million years ago.

I don’t do much on social media, but here’s my twitter feed: https://twitter.com/mariowrites

One more for the ride! And one more that I met in person! I am thrilled to have her onboard! Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Debbie Mumford!

Where do you live and write from?

I make my home in the beautiful Pacific Northwest of the USA. Vancouver, Washington to be exact. No, not Vancouver, British Columbia, that’s in Canada, several hundred miles north of where I live. Vancouver, Washington is just across the Columbia River from Portland, Oregon, and in some ways, is a bedroom community to Portland.

As to the question of my writing, I don’t have an actual office. I write on a MacBook Pro laptop, sitting in my favorite chair in the living room … with my feet up. What can I say? I’m into comfort! With my body at ease, my mind is free to wander into other worlds and visit possibilities of existences other than our own.

Why do you write?

I’m an avid reader—I think most writers are—and I’ve always found myself saying, “Yes, but what if that happened?” At some point, I stopped wondering about nuances of other writers’ worlds and decided to create my own. It’s harder than you’d think, being the god of an imagined world, but at the same time, it’s exhilarating and freeing. When I’m really in the zone, I’m completely submerged in my story. Words rush from my subconscious through my fingers onto the screen without me being consciously aware of what I’ll write next. It’s like magic! Characters do things I hadn’t even dreamed of, and my surface mind wonders, “What will they do next?”

Ultimately, that’s why I write…to discover what happens next.

When did you start writing?

I can truthfully say that I wrote my first story before I could read. I dictated it to my mother and then illustrated it with crayon drawings!

Then came a LONG period of no writing other than school assignments and later, Christmas newsletters. I thought about writing often while I was raising my children, but time with them always took priority, so I didn’t truly start writing until my husband and I launched them out into the world. Then I sat down and wrote my first novel. I finished it, all 100,000 words, in a little over six-months and blithely sent it off to agents and editors, thoroughly expecting it to be snapped up immediately.

Yeah. Not so much. My novel was met with universal form letter rejections. I was so green, I didn’t even have a clue what I’d done wrong. At that point, I buckled down, found some writing mentors and began to learn my craft. Can anyone say “cart before the horse”? Definitely. But you don’t know what you don’t know, and at least I started and finished a novel and had the confidence to send it out. I also used the rejections as a goad instead of letting them defeat me.

What genre(s) do you write?

I’ve written a little bit of everything, but my main genre is fantasy. Romantic fantasy, contemporary fantasy, urban fantasy, juvenile fantasy, if the genre has fantasy in the name, I’ve probably written it. I even write fantasy under a pen name. Deb Logan, my alter ego, writes contemporary fantasy for middle grade and teen readers.

Interestingly enough, Debbie Mumford writes her tales in third person, but Deb Logan always writes in first person. Yep. I can honestly say Deb is channeling my inner child!

Tell us more about your book in the bundle

Dragons’ Choice, the first book in my ‘Sorcha’s Children’ series, tells the stories of Aislinn and Taran, dragon shifter siblings who set out into the world to discover their destinies. Aislinn and Taran are two of a clutch of six shifters who have grown to adulthood in the ice aerie of the dragons. This book chronicles their adventures as they explore the human side of their heritage.

Sorcha’s Heart is a novella that tells the tale of how dragon shifters came into existence. The novella is actually the prequel to the series.

Tell us about your latest book (add link if published)

Remember how I said I write a little bit of everything? Well, my most recent release, Tales of Bygone Days, is a collection of historical fiction tales, three short stories and a novella. Two of the short stories are based on historical events, the third is a mystery, and the novella is a time-travel romance. See? Even in this limited collection, my writing is all over the map *lol*

Any other projects in the pipeline?

Interesting you should ask! I’m currently working on the final novel in the ‘Sorcha’s Children’ series. Dragons’ Destiny will tell the stories of the final pair of shifter siblings, Luag and Eibhlinn, and if I do say so myself, it’s shaping up to be the best tale yet.

Oh! In case you want it, my newsletter is here: http://eepurl.com/bTXLhX

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We won’t have 12 interviews, but I’m still introducing you to the other authors in the upcoming bundle. Only 6 days until release, yay! In the meantime I managed to read a few of the bundle’s books and  his is a fun romp of magic schools and crazy gods (much like the ancient Greek gods of mythology) on Martir, where both the magic and the crazy gods are real! Ladies and gentlemen, I’m very proud to present you Timothy L. Cerepaka!

Where do you live and write from?

I live in Cherokee, Texas in the United States of America.

Why do you write?

Because writing is one of my favorite activities. It also helps that I’m making good money doing it, too.

When did you start writing?

When I was 12, so I’ve been writing for about a decade now.

What genre(s) do you write?

Under Timothy L. Cerepaka, I write epic fantasy/swords and sorcery. Under my Lucas Flint pen name, I write young adult superheroes.

What is your goal as a writer and what are you doing to achieve it?

My goal as a writer was to make a living, which I am currently doing. So I guess I’ve already achieved it.

What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever been given?

Write to market. That advice helped me go from making mid three figures a month to making lower-to-mid four figures a month consistently.

Outliner or improviser? Fast or slow writer?

I’m a discovery writer, which means I don’t use an outline. I’ve tried outlining in the past, but I just find it too much of a waste of time, time I’d much rather spend actually writing the book.
I’m a fast writer. One of my most recent books took me a mere 10 days to write, though my average is around two or three weeks, depending on the length of the book of course.

Tell us more about your book in the bundle

The Mages of Martir series (which The Mage’s Grave is the first book of) is actually a sequel series to my Prince Malock World series, which you can also find on Amazon and other retailers. You don’t need to have read any of the Prince Malock books in order to understand Mages of Martir, but you will understand the world and characters a lot better if you do.

Barb sez: I confirm you don’t need to have read the other books – I haven’t and I enjoyed The Mage’s Grave! 😉

Tell us about your latest book

My latest book is Powers, the second book in my newest superhero series, The Young Neos. I just uploaded it to Amazon and it still isn’t published yet, so I can’t give you a link, but it should be available for purchase soon.

Any other projects in the pipeline?

Yes! The third Young Neos book, Counterparts, is scheduled for a May 2017 release, while I have another superhero series that I will probably release in the fall, depending on how things go. I don’t want to say much about that series yet, however, except to say that it is unrelated to my current series.

On the fantasy front, I have a few ideas I am batting around, but my fantasy books don’t sell as well as my superhero books, so I don’t know when I’ll get around to actually writing any of these ideas. It may not be until 2018 that I put out another fantasy novel, but we’ll see.
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Timothy L. Cerepaka

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And it’s another author from the bundle! We’re back to the U.S. of A.! And we have the same aim (quit that DayJob) and the same weaknesses (marketing hell…)! And he does write a lot! 🙂 And I love his covers! 😀 Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Joseph Robert Lewis!

Where do you live and write from?

Maryland, USA

Why do you write?

I love all sorts of art, from drawing and music to woodworking and landscaping. But the only one I seem to be any good at is writing. But beyond that, I really love how easily writing allows me to explore all sorts of people and places and ideas, real or imagined, all using the exact same old laptop and comfy chair. My hope is that my writing will make my readers happy, just genuinely happy, whether that means being entertaining and funny, or letting them explore different types of characters and plots that are less mainstream.

When did you start writing?

I first started wanting to write a novel in high school, and I continued to want to write a novel through college, but I didn’t actually weld 100,000 words together until sometime in my early 20s. But since then, I’ve learned to write more consistently and to complete books in much less than two decades.

What genre(s) do you write?

Science fiction and fantasy.

What is your goal as a writer and what are you doing to achieve it?

Right now, my selfish writing goal is to be successful enough that I can quit my day-job and write fulltime. It’s challenging to write several novels each year just in the narrow span of free time between a fulltime job, raising two daughters, romancing my fiancé, staying in shape, and taking care of the house. And the cats. So, in addition to trying to write great stories that readers will love, I’m also trying to learn more about marketing. So far, all I’ve really learned is that I don’t particularly like marketing, and that I’m not particularly good at marketing.

What is the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever been given?

Write. Finish. Publish. The tricky thing about any skill is that you really only get better through practice, which is fine for tying shoelaces or making hummus, or any other activity that only takes a minute or two. But when the activity takes several weeks or months to complete just one attempt, the idea that writing a whole novel is “just practice” can be a little disheartening. But it’s true. You can’t spend forever trying to write the one perfect novel, because you’ll never succeed and you’ll never get any better. You just have to keep writing, finishing, and publishing, and trying to learn from your mistakes along the way so the next one can be a little better.

Outliner or improviser? Fast or slow writer?

Over time, I have come to embrace outlines as completely necessary. After spending months researching ideas and kicking ideas, I eventually reach a point where I think I have all the pieces for a good story, and then I have to sketch out a chapter-by-chapter outline with as much detail as possible. That way when I sit down to write, after a long day at the office and a long evening of checking homework, making dinner, and cleaning the house, I will know exactly what I want to write next and quickly get into a writing headspace. Regarding speed, all I can say is that I’ve released about two millions words and two dozen books in about six years, so make of that what you will.

Tell us more about your book in the bundle

Elf Saga: Doomsday is the first book in my Elf Saga series. It’s your basic epic fantasy, sword-and-sorcery tale of knights and dragons, but with a little twist. All of the main characters are women from different nations and cultures, it’s written with completely modern language and dialog, and it’s funny. Can I say that about my own book? The reviews all say that, so I’m going to say it too. It’s funny. So if you like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, or Supernatural, or Archer, then you will probably like Elf Saga.

Tell us about your latest book (add link if published)

My latest book is “Elf Saga: Solarpunk”, which is the fourth and final book in the Elf Saga series. Each book in the series is set 33 years after the previous one, so this one is 100 years after the first one, Doomsday. Solarpunk takes place in a more modern era, with gunslinging elves who watch movies about dragons. The heroines find themselves confronting a massive ecological crisis involving spirit creatures from beyond the stars, metal-eating insects, and plagues that bring together alchemists, shamans, musicians, and mermaids on a strange quest not to save their world, but to transform it. Plus, it’s funny.

Any other projects in the pipeline?

My new project is a science fiction series full of aliens, spaceships, cyborgs, and dinosaurs! I’m writing it as an old-fashioned serial, which I’ll start releasing soon, maybe once a month, and then I’ll have larger story arcs bundled together into larger volumes as well. Inspirations include Farscape… yeah, mostly just Farscape. But also the Transformers comics, the Legacy of Kain games, the Black Sails show, and a lot of other random titles!

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Find Joseph online

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