Sit yourself down and have a glass of iced tea. Join me in welcoming Margaret today. We’re going to get a peek at her writing and learn some interesting things about her. Let’s start with her bio.
Born and raised in New York City, Margaret Fieland has been around art and music all her life. Her poems and stories have appeared in journals such as Turbulence Magazine, Front Range Review, and All Rights Reserved. She is one of the Poetic Muselings. Their poetry anthology, Lifelines, was published by Inkspotter Publishing in November, 2011. She is the author of Relocated, Geek Games, and Broken Bonds, published by MuseItUp Publishing , and of Sand in the Desert, a collection of science fiction persona poems. A chapter book is due out later this year.
Broken Bonds Blurb and excerpt:
Sex with aliens? How about romance with aliens? A treason accusation? Brad Reynolds has his hands full. When Major Brad Reynolds is assigned to head the Terran Federation base on planet Aleyne, the last thing he expects to find is love, and certainly not with one of the alien Aleyni. How can he keep his lover, in the face of political maneuvering and of Ardaval’s feelings for his former partners — and theirs for him?
Brad clasped Ardaval’s outstretched hand, and the other man’s suppressed arousal flowed over him. Aleyni considered the touch of hands an intimate gesture because the contact conveyed the other person’s thoughts and emotions. Brad may not have the mind speech abilities of the average Aleyni, but by God, he was empath enough to get plenty from Ardaval’s touch.
They started to amble around the building. Bright red and purple flowers swayed in a light breeze, and the sun blazed out of a bright blue sky.
“Tell me something about yourself,” Ardaval said.
Brad grinned. “I’m single, no entanglements.”
Ardaval nodded and stopped walking. They’d come perhaps half way around the building, and the other officers and a couple of Aleyni stared at them through the large windows. “Any family?”
“I have two sisters, both younger, both married and living on New Arizona.”
Brad glanced at the mountains visible across the glittering desert sands. The rocks showed purple instead of the red of his home world, and a wave of homesickness flowed over him. He wanted to visit his family; he last visited New Arizona more than five years ago.
Ardaval glanced at the gawkers before they continued around the building.
“New Arizona is where the first ship to encounter the Aleynis settled and formed
their colony.”
“Yes. My grandfather claims we’re descended from a couple of the first ship’s
officers.”
“Aleynis settled there, along with the original colonists, I believe,” Ardaval
said.
“A number of Aleyni joined the Terran settlers, and now New Arizona has a sizable Aleyni population.” Brad peered into a window as they walked past, and one of the officers stared back. Too bad. He would give a lot to be alone with Ardaval.
“Come visit me.” Ardaval turned Brad’s hand over and kissed the palm.
“A spectacularly bad idea.” Brad smiled, and his eyes crinkled at the corners.
Ardaval nodded. “But you’ll come nonetheless.”
As Ardaval strode away, Brad contemplated the other man’s retreating back. He’d visit. He wouldn’t be able to help himself.
Here are some more fun facts about Margaret:
What made you finally get serious about writing?
I’d written poetry for years, poetry that I scribbled in notebooks. Then one day I wrote a poem I wanted to keep, and be able to find again – the notebooks were kind of hard to search {wry grin}, especially as my handwriting is atrocious. So I found a couple of online communities and stored my poems there. They didn’t stay there; one of my sons turned me on to Yahoo Briefcase. I now use Google Drive and MS Onedrive to store copies of my documents.
But anyway, to return to the question, one Chrismas vacation I was alone in the house and decided to read one of my favorite online poetry ezines (now defunct, alas). They were having a contest, and I had a poem handy which I submitted. The poem was one of four finalists. It didn’t win, but, thus encouraged, I started submitting for publication, taking courses, keeping track of my poems, and the like.
Later that year I came across the Muse Online Writers Conference and ‘met’ Linda Barnett Johnson. I wanted to join her writing forums, but she required everyone to write fiction as well as poetry. I started writing fiction then, and got hooked.
I had a similar experience with an online contest and it gave me the confidence to take things a step further.
Name a book/author you can read again and again and always learn something new.
My favorite book to return to is Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. I am a big fan of his poetry and can still recite the first two stanzas of Jabberwocky from memory. You Are Old, Father William, is another favorite. There are so many wonderful, whimsical moments in the Alice books.
Isn’t it funny how books from our childhood seem to stay with us forever?
Tell us about your current WIP.
I’m working on a prequel to the Novels of Aleyne series. It recounts the first encounter between the Terrans (us) and the Aleynis. It’s going pretty smoothly so far {knock wood}, especially as I have Constance Trusdatter’s poems and journal to work with.
Give us an interesting or fun fact about your book/series (one we couldn’t possibly know).
So who, you may ask, is Constance Trusdatter, and what the blazes do her poems and journal have to do with the prequel?
I started writing Relocated, the first Aleyne novel, for 2010 NaNo. Up until then the longest thing I’d written was about 15,000 words, a preteen novel that I’ve set aside because it needs a complete rewrite. I was worried about making the word count, and moreover, I wanted to participate in Robert Lee Brewer’s November poem-a-day chapbook challenge.
What I did was create an imaginary poet, Raketh Namar, and wrote thirty of his poems. A number of them are included in Relocated, and I published the entire collection, Sand in the Desert.
When I started writing Geek Games for 2011 NaNo I did the same thing: created an imaginary poet. I created Constance Trusdatter and wrote not only thirty of her poems, but also her journal, which recounts a bit about the first encounter of the Terrans and Aleynis. I don’t yet know how much of the journal will end up in the finished novel, but it does give me a rough outline of how I imagined the events.
I’m realizing there’s a ton of research and background necessary when writing. If we included all of it in our book, we’d be guilty of the infamous info-dump. But it’s all important, whether or not it ever makes its way there. We need to know our characters’ background and how they will react to things.
What do you like to do when you aren’t writing?
Walk my dogs. Make a mess in the kitchen. Play music. Read. I’m a total book junkie.
What is the one thing you never seem to have enough time for?
Right now it’s playing music. I almost always get side tracked when I start to play. It doesn’t help that my playing causes my spouse’s ears to ring, or that the upper register on my piccolo gets our dogs to howling.
Margaret, it’s been great getting to know you better. Thanks for coming and good luck with your book sales.
Website: http://www.margaretfieland.com/
Blog: http://www.margaretfieland.com/blog1/
Email: margaret.fieland@gmail.com
Buy links:
Publisher’s website:
http://museituppublishing.com/bookstore/index.php/new-releases/broken-bonds-detail
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Bonds-Novels-Aleyne-ebook/dp/B00E5SGVSS/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1374851946&sr=1-1
Barnes and Noble:
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/broken-bonds-margaret-fieland/1116214695?ean=2940148784913
Bookstrand: http://www.bookstrand.com/broken-bonds
Where to find me on the web:
Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/margaretfieland/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/margaret.fielandAuthor
twitter: http://www.twitter.com/madcapmaggie
goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4417476.Margaret_Fieland
Susan A. Royal 