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Posts Tagged ‘Travel’

How We Write – Future Tense

The prompts for this story were grand, judgment, and stone hammer. The prompt, grand, reminded Kyros of the Grand Canal in Venice because he had just come back from a vacation there. The prompt, judgment, immediately made both Kyros and Orion think of tarot cards because they both use them occasionally. That left the stone hammer. Being fans of Viking culture, Orion and Kyros always liked Thor’s hammer necklaces. Kyros also remembered that the Eight of Pentacles in the Morgan-Greer Tarot deck has a stonemason using a hammer.

Our story of a woman on vacation getting a tarot card reading unspooled from there, as did the plot, a nice little romance.


FUTURE TENSE

 

“The first position indicates your past year.” The tarot reader tossed her hair back as she turned over the first of the five star-covered cards to reveal a medieval workman at his bench. “The Eight of Pentacles. Hmmm. It looks like you’ve been working too much, my dear.”

Oh, she has no idea, Elizabeth thought to herself. This last year’s been nothing but work! Well, maybe not all. A wry smile came to her lips. There’s always Jason. Though all we’ve done lately is fight… She let that thought trail off, giving her mind a shake. This business meeting in Venice was the perfect excuse to take him somewhere he’d never been before. Hopefully, this beautiful setting will help rekindle our romance. C’mon, what’s more romantic than the Grand Canal?

(more…)

Annual Digital Writers Conference

This was the second conference we’ve attended put on by the Greater Los Angeles Writers Society. We learn so much at these conferences: pages upon pages of notes about topics like–how to be better writers, how to better market our book, and how to have a better online presence. Orion and I drive back up to San Francisco this afternoon. If past experience is any indication, we will talk about what we’ve learned the entire six-hour drive plus well into the night tonight. It’s going to be a long, but fun, day.

While we were in Los Angeles, we also took the opportunity to hang out with the very talented Chris Lang, who provided the voices for our characters in the audiobook version of Dreaming of Xeres. We hung out for several hours, talking about topics from all over the spectrum. Eventually, our conversation wandered to the upcoming books in The Third War series and Chris got an earful about what’s in store for Riley, Tessa, Alex and the gang. He’s the first person, besides Orion and me, who has heard the overarching story that will play out across the projected four books in this series. It was cool to let someone in on the secrets and then watch his reaction. As a writer, you always worry about how people will feel about your story but seeing Chris’ reaction to what we have planned had me smiling like a goofball the rest of the night. I felt revitalized after months of feeling like we weren’t making enough progress. Now, I can’t wait to finish the story so that everyone  can share in this world we’ve created and see what’s in store for our characters.

Orion visits San Francisco

Orion left the rainy Seattle area behind and is currently in the San Francisco Bay Area visiting with Kyros before they make the trek to Los Angeles for the Annual Digital Author and Indie Publishing Writers Conference this weekend. They’re excited about several interesting panels there, as well as getting to hang out with their wonderful Audible book producer, Chris Lang.

Kyros took Orion sightseeing today visiting several settings from Dreaming of Xeres, like the cafe Tessa and Diana drooled over the hunky Norse barista in while working.

Next time, they’ll get pics and share them here.

Kyros in Seattle for a week

I had to come to Seattle for some other business, so I’m taking this opportunity to hang out with my wonderful co-author, Orion. We talk every day via facetime when we are working, but it’s nice to see each other in person from time to time too.

Knowing us, we won’t get much work done. I’ll probably spend part of our time together fixing various computer / electronics problems she has. The rest of our time will be filled with talking about whatever topic strikes our fancy. We’ve had these meandering conversations about random topic ever since we met over 25 years ago. It’s one of my favorite things about getting to hang out with her.

Hello Boston!

Hey everyone. Kyros here. I’m in Boston for the next week doing research for book 2, Running to the Past. Orion and I figured that since neither of us had ever been to Boston before, one of us should visit and find out a little more about the city. Especially since James and Diana are going to be spending some time here in book 2.

I’m staying in an AirBnB in the South Boston neighborhood (Go Southie!). This is a great neighborhood and the people I’ve met have all been really friendly. I had lunch at a local restaurant/bar and casually mentioned to the waitress that I was doing research for a book about some people from Southie. As soon as I finished eating she dragged me over to a table of local women who were having lunch, introduced me and told me to sit down. I learned more in that one afternoon about the neighborhood, the people, and the culture of that area than I have in the rest of my trip combined. Yay for fortuitous connections! I’ve got lots of notes. Can’t wait to put them into the book.