Goddess Fish Promotions Through the Oracle's Mist by Aedan Byrnes

PLEASE PICK 5-6 QUESTIONS MOST PERTAINING TO YOU
Please tell us about your writing. Can you explain the title without giving too much away?

Through the Oracle’s Mist is a story about the things we value and the choices we make. It is a love story through time and trials when there is everything at stake to lose and nothing left to give. The mist is the connective tissue between the lives. The title was a fan choice when they were given the opportunity to name the book.  They did a great job. It’s a perfect title!

Whom do you see as your ideal reader?

I have such a diverse audience.  It is a romance readers’ book to be sure, but I think the history and the other components in it make it a solid choice for readers across multiple genres and from various audiences as well.

When you have time, what would we find you reading?

You could truly find me reading just about anything. Right now I’m reading Moss’ Dreamgates; Exploring the Worlds of Soul, Imagination, and Life Beyond Death. I recently read the Landmark Thucydides which is a comprehensive work on the history of the war between Athens and Sparta, and I nearly always have the comprehensive Edgar Allen Poe lying close by.

What advice can you give to aspiring writers?

There is so much advice out there and all of it is great. This is a reprint of my answer to this question from an interview a year or so ago, but I think it is still the best advice I can give.

 BEGIN. Whatever you do or don’t do after that, Begin. There is no ‘THE END’ without ‘In the beginning’. I’ve talked to many folks who are trying to start and the question is always “How?” The answer is, keep it simple. Pick an image and describe it, take a word and make a conversation, choose a voice and write a monologue. Can’t come up with it? Try picking a character you love and write a story for them that hasn’t been told. I am not advocating plagiarism here… I am saying tell the side you have never seen. Choose a villain you love to hate and tell the love story that you’ve never heard. Choose the good guy from the television show and write about his wild and rowdy night on the town. Write something that you would never see for this character as it is completely against their nature as you know them. Once you can do this then start coming up with your own characters and the stories that go with them, but don’t kill yourself and burn out before you get started trying to take on the 300 or 500 page novel from scratch with nothing else under your belt.

     The 50 Shades of Grey series that came out by EL James started as fan fiction for Stephanie Meyer and her Twilight saga. Does it seem like it’s the Vampires and Werewolves Meyer wrote? I have no idea, I haven’t read them, but what I’m saying is that the idea developed by piggy-backing on something else that was out there…it was a place to jump off from. We all need to find the end of the pier and jump into the deep end somewhere. Just take a few laps in the kiddie pool first.

     Writing isn’t re-inventing the wheel. It’s finding new ways to tell the same stories we’ve been reading all along. There aren’t a thousand new genres that come out every year….there are a thousand books though that do and they fall into the established genres. And this is the next big step... Once you can honestly put a string of words together to complete a thought, once you can take a mental image of a character and breathe life into them, you have to decide what they are going to do and this will determine the genre you write in. Maybe there will be more than one, but probably best to start with just one. And there is nothing wrong with starting small. It’s like writing essays….in middle school they were a page, in high school we went from 3 to 5 to 10 pages and in college we went from 15 – to hundreds for thesis work. Allow yourself the time to grow. I would say to you, remember you have to crawl before you walk before you run. Always be answering the most important question about your work and your words; “And then what?”

     Whatever path you take, remember that you have to start. Dreaming is that voice inside telling you that there is something there but it can’t do it without you. There’s magic in dreaming and stories too. No matter how good the dream though you still have to get up and take up the pen to tell the tale or it is only ever a dream. There’s a song out that is more an analogy for life, but the key line is an absolutely perfect observation statement for this….Natasha Beddingfield says, “Today is where your book begins, the rest is still unwritten.” I say, “You are the only one who can change that.”  Begin, and then don’t ever give up.

Where can our readers find a copy of your work?

You can purchase book I, Through the Oracle’s Mist through these sources:

Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Through-Oracles-Mist-Vengelys-Series/dp/1935970186/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

Smashwords: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/379575

Barnes & Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/through-the-oracles-mist-aedan-byrnes/1117497870?ean=2940045449298

To connect with me you can find me at:

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AedanByrnes

Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/#!/aedan.byrnes.7?fref=ts

https://www.facebook.com/#!/AedanByrnes

And finally, as an author, do you have any quirks or habits that help you write better?

I have lots of quirks. Do they help me write better?  I don’t rightly know. I tell myself the tales and refine the language in my head for a long time before I take up the pen and start writing. I think that the story comes out very quickly this way because I’m not creating at this point, I’m just the scribe. Once that is done, I will transfer it to the computer, which is where my personal language quirks get ironed out (hopefully…don’t ask my editor) and the formatting gets set up so it can be sent out to the beta readers who can tell me if I’ve over or underdone parts of the telling. Once those have been fixed, it’s off to the editor who hopefully falls madly in love with the words and sends me smilies, or if not sends me my ‘to do’ list to get it right and ready for press. Does this process make me better?  Again, I don’t rightly know…but, it’s what works for me so far.

Thank you for being my guest today. I wish you the best of luck with your writing.

Thank you so much for having me here.  I look forward to the post!

Aedan will be awarding to one randomly drawn commentator a journal from his CafePress storefront, a charm and leather bracelet made for the story and a custom cover shepherd hook style bookmark made by Stone Soup Designs for Through the Oracle's Mist.  The bracelet leather colors and the journal cover may differ from the photo.

Follow the tour and comment; the more they comment, the better their chances of winning. The tour dates can be found here: 

http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2013/12/virtual-book-tour-through-oracles-mist.html