Big World Network on Roxana-Mălina Chirilă

Interviu cu Wendy Herman: Foiletoane și armată

Sat, 09 Aug 2014 05:29:05 +0000

Nu demult am scris o recenzie a unei cărți de acțiune/dragoste care mi-a plăcut mult mai mult decât mă așteptam: Just Kill Me, de Wendy Herman. În general nu prea citesc romane de dragoste…

Ok, minciună. În general nu citesc romane de dragoste, literatură originală. Pe direcția de dragoste citesc fanfiction, care e puțin altceva. Sau foarte altceva. Într-o bună zi chiar o să-mi aduc aminte să povestesc pe blog despre seria mea favorită pe direcția asta, dar nu acum.

Deci, în general nu prea citesc romane originale de dragoste pentru că nu prea mă pasionează. Dar Just Kill Me are un anumit ceva, te prinde, te face să întorci pagină după pagină. Mai ales după primele capitole. Așa că, având adresa de e-mail a lui Wendy, care a fost una din editoarele romanului meu, am întrebat-o dacă nu-mi acordă un interviu.

A fost de acord, am discutat puțin despre foiletoane, specii literare – și n-a uitat să menționeze că a fost și ea prin armată la un moment dat. Interviul e aici.

Wendy Herman – Just Kill Me [Review]

Mon, 04 Aug 2014 13:53:19 +0000

It starts slowly: Freya’s online-shopping for boots when her youngest child comes up to her with a quarter and says, „Mommy, I’m pretending this is gum.” And, in the way of mothers who are slightly distracted, she doesn’t realize the full implications of that statement until a few minutes later, when she sees him clutching his throat, choking to death while his lips turn blue.

Spoiler: he doesn’t die. Not that Freya’s any help: she stands there, frozen, watching him suffocate – but, luckily, one of his brothers saves him.

Naturally, Freya remains shaken, knowing she was useless and that, had she been alone, her child would have died. Less naturally, her answer to that powerlessness is to decide she wants to be an FBI agent.

Let’s get this clear: Just Kill Me is not perfect. The pacing is slow in the beginning, and sometimes it feels like there’s a bit of a stutter in the style. The first switch between narrators (there are two) was unexpected and since both are „I”, it was confusing for a second. But, all this aside, I loved it! It’s the sort of page-turner you’d devour in a day… if you have a day to spare. Which I lately really, really don’t, so it took me longer than that since I was only reading it on the bus and in the five minutes before I fell asleep at night. But I’m just saying, if I’d had a day, I’d have gladly read it on that day.

What’s really fun about it is that there’s always a twist. Sometimes it’s a twist you’re totally expecting (is anybody shocked that, in a story about FBI agents, even people not previously known as FBI agents turn out to be involved with the FBI?). Sometimes it’s a twist you don’t see coming. But there’s always something going on, always a hook to keep you reading more. If at first I thought that it was a bit cliched, it soon became almost a parody of FBI cliches: here’s an agent! Here’s another agent! Here’s a secret group! Here’s something the government did which is very morally questionable! Here’s a friendly figure who’s out of the agent loop! Here’s a friendly figure who’s not a friendly figure! Here’s somebody who looked evil, but wasn’t! Here’s a stereotypical, yet entirely unrealistic computer genius! Here’s a long-lost relative who’s getting involved! Here’s Karate Kids! Here’s a steamy FBI love-making scene! Would you like an almond chai with all that?

A recommended read for anyone who’s a fan of surprising plots, FBI agents, feeling a constant „now what, now what?”, going on a long trip (as I’ve said, it’s easy to get lost in it – time flies when you’re reading something cool) and, possibly, secret agent loooove.

By the way, I don’t mean to brag too much, but I’ll be posting an interview with the author soon.

(Available on: Amazon, BWN.com for audio and paperback)

Re: Re: Boss, here’s my not exactly a pen name (Roxana Kiril)

Mon, 09 Jun 2014 20:12:27 +0000

Jim McGovern, the big boss of the small publishing house I’m writing for, wrote this blog post, musing about authors and their mysterious pen names. Why do we have them? Well, he proposes the obvious: going for the other gender’s target audience, or hiding your true identity, or there already being someone with your name writing stuff out there.

And then I got to this part, which I’ll quote:

Some of our authors at BigWorldNetwork.com use pen names, and I never ask why. It really isn’t my business as a publisher.

Well, in my case it’s clear, but I’m taking this as a challenge to reply. My nom de plume is a more readable version of my real name, obviously. My real name’s perfectly fine in Romania where you have about a lot Chirilă people running about, including an annoying musician. Romanians can pronounce my name just fine. But foreigners, well… their struggles are funny, but usually off the mark. So calling me Kiril is fine. Say it out loud and it’ll probably be similar enough to my real one (Kiril-uh) that I might recognize myself.

Now, my editor’s name is Amanda Meuwissen, and that’s the name she writes under, because she’s a bit evil, I’d wager. I had to listen to her reading her series to figure out what I was supposed to call her in my head: May-vessen. I kept calling her Mew-vise-en.

So, anyway, Amanda writes a series called Incubus, which she also narrates. It’s a nice, romantic, and adventurous sort of series which at some point reaches a steamy sex scene or three. Which she narrates. See, that’s another reason to choose a nom de plume: not ever letting your family find out what you did, especially if what you did was write stuff that might be classified by older family members as „erotica”, but said as a four-letter word beginning with „p”. She didn’t choose a nickname, and I didn’t either despite writing some questionable stuff myself, but then again no matter how damned proud I am of Flight from Hell, I have not given dad the link to my story. He’s not really into reading, which is part of why I’m not using a nickname (and I run from mum whenever a new episode comes out).

Jim mentions something else in his blog post: JK Rowling writing mystery novels under a nickname to disassociate those novels from Harry Potter. Which is fine for her, since she’s very rich and successful and need never earn any money again, but without her fame, one of her new novels barely sold 1,500 copies in hardback in the first few months. Once she revealed that Robert Galbraith was her, sales skyrocketed, obviously.

And that’s one reason against nicknames, or against switching between them: spread yourself too thin and it’s like you’re a new writer again and again and again.

Roxana Kiril. Here’s my writer’s name, both real and fake, neither loved by me, nor unloved. When sending in the first episode of Flight from Hell, I considered calling myself something special. Hell, no, even before that I spent a long time wondering what name to choose as an author. Should I invent something? Something pretty, with a lot of ‘a’s and not much krl-ness. I came up with some ideas, and some were great and elegant and suave. I loved them, and they loved me back. Except, unfortunately, I am a person who finds it very hard to commit to things such as names (or initial plots, for that matter: Amanda never commented on how I strayed from the summary I sent her last summer).

No, I decided, I’d rather my pen name was following me around, forcing me to keep it.

Now, there would have been another option. Since I am a woman, I could theoretically have it changed permanently and commit-fully* through marriage: since I’m not a huge fan of my name, I might use this little technicality to grab someone else’s. But whose? Not being clairvoyant, I can’t exactly choose the name of my future husband and run with it. And even if I could, prior to being married, it might be a bit of a faux pas to do so.

Obviously, my writing could not be put on hold for want of a name. I couldn’t wait to get married in order to write, since I’m not part of the chaste-writing club, or whatever the hell I’d need to be part of for such an oath. Nor could I get married in order to get a name, obviously. I could make a name for myself as a porn writer, which I’d never want to get associated with my real name, so I’d need a nickname anyway – but then I’d have to write porn bad enough to never want it known that I wrote it, which… nah.

Nearly real name it is, then. But it wasn’t an easy choice.

Yes, I make up words. Shush.

Cărți, știri, foiletoane și romanul meu disponibil gratis

Fri, 02 May 2014 12:58:26 +0000

Editura la care public Flight from Hell și-a schimbat stilul de funcționare. Pe scurt: toate romanele sunt disponibile gratis pe site și cei care donează prin Patreon pățesc tot felul de chestii bune. Schimbarea s-a produs azi, cu relansarea site-ului și înscrierea editurii în Patreon.

În ce mă privește sunt sceptică cu privire la mișcarea asta a celor de la Big World Network, dar pentru voi e numai și numai o chestie bună. În primul rând pentru că aveți acces gratis la romanul meu (și cei cărora nu le place de mine pot să se plângă mai în cunoștință de cauză, fără să dea niciun ban pentru asta):

Și în al doilea rând pentru că aveți acces la tot felul de alte romane, cărți de non-ficțiune, cărți audio și toate cele. (aș dori să precizez că m-a lovit la un moment dat revelația că Amanda Meuwissen, editoarea mea, autoarea seriei Incubus, scrie scene sexuale explicite și le citește ea însăși cu multă dăruire 😀 )

Pentru cei care au ajuns aici tardiv și au ratat toate anunțurile mele în privința asta, Big World Network e o editură care publică foiletoane în epoca digitală – câte un „episod” de carte de 4-10 pagini în fiecare săptămână. Pe site sunt și serii complete, și unele care sunt încă în scriere (ca a mea). Cărțile complete audio/ebook/tipărite sunt disponibile la vânzare și de obicei sunt re-editate, adăugite și în general mai bune decât ce apare pe site. (cei care donează primesc cărți pe gratis – inclusiv tipărite, inclusiv livrate internațional)

Nu știu dacă o să rămână pe donații la nesfârșit și dacă accesul gratuit o să fie disponibil pentru totdeauna, așa că merită să băgați un ochi sau doi pe acolo în perioada asta, să vedeți dacă vă surâde câte ceva.

Flight from Hell – the end of season 2

Sun, 05 Jan 2014 15:07:27 +0000

There’s still a bit to go before the last episodes of season 2 of Flight from Hell are available online, but I’ve already sent them out. (which reminds me, a new episode was posted today)

For the past few days I felt lost. I’ve written 2 seasons of Flight from Hell – 12 episodes each, so 24 in total. About 3000 words/episode, give or take. About 70-75 thousand words, I think. Unless my maths deceive me. And I know where the story is going and who the characters are, but there’s a point in anything I write when I wonder if the story isn’t, in fact, dull, crap, stupid, cliche or unreadable… or all of them together. That point, for Flight from Hell, is now.

Once upon a time, that feeling was absolutely correct. I wrote crap. That’s what teenagers and beginners do. It’s how you learn, by smearing the paper with what you think is brilliance and seeing later that you sound like a childish drama queen with a speech impediment and a slight IQ problem. These days the feeling is usually wrong (not always, but usually). As such, it’s something that I need to deal with. I need to push myself through doubt, through indecision, through the desire to flee and abandon the novel.

This is why last year I thought writing a serial novel is a brilliant idea: I’ve already made a contract to go on. As well as being a series of physical, on-paper contracts, writing for the Big World Network is a metaphorical contract with myself, a promise that no matter what, I’ll go through with it. Flight from Hell might not be the best thing I’ll ever write (I should hope not; it’d be disappointing to write my best work at 25). It might not even be as mind-blowing as I wanted it to be. But I’m hoping it’s good and I’m trying to make it so. You aren’t a real writer if you only ever write in your head. So eventually I had to take the big step and step on insecure ground, exposing myself to failure and criticism – but mostly, to being disappointed in myself.

This morning, feeling like I was about to curl up in a corner and hyperventilate because I was so afraid of screwing things up, I re-read a pep talk I got on NaNoWriMo a few years back. It was by Neil Gaiman, because of course it was. And it started like this:

Dear NaNoWriMo Author,

By now you’re probably ready to give up. You’re past that first fine furious rapture when every character and idea is new and entertaining. You’re not yet at the momentous downhill slide to the end, when words and images tumble out of your head sometimes faster than you can get them down on paper. You’re in the middle, a little past the half-way point. The glamour has faded, the magic has gone[…] You don’t know why you started your novel, you no longer remember why you imagined that anyone would want to read it, and you’re pretty sure that […] it falls so painfully short that you’re pretty sure that it would be a mercy simply to delete the whole thing.

So true.

It turns out many writers have doubts. Including Neil Gaiman. Including 75% of the writers his editor knows. I assume that out of the rest of the 25%, you have at least 5% who think that they’re the best thing since Shakespeare and that perfection flows from their pens like lava out of the Vesuvius, cca. 79 AD.

So I got myself an Irish Coffee, which is basically coffee with whiskey in it. I rarely indulge in alcohol, but it’s fucking brilliant with anxiety. The amount of alcohol in an Irish Coffee is usually perfect: enough to lower my inhibitions, but not enough to make me think I’m funny or brilliant when I’m blatantly not.

I wrote.

I now have 1129 words of the 25th episode of Flight from Hell. And I’m in love with it again. Not because alcohol makes any novel idea looks pretty, but because I loosened up enough to remember why I love writing it.

The only thing I hate is that I write from a single character’s point of view and it’s frustrating not to know how to reveal others’ POVs as well. I know them, I know what they’re thinking, and Nakir is a bit clueless. But it’s not an insurmountable problem.

Last time I finished a season, I wrote an article called „12 episodes, 12 quotes” to entice people to check it out. But fuck it. I didn’t feel like advertising this time around. I’d rather celebrate, because it’s a fun novel and when I sent that first episode to the Big World Network last year, I had no idea that it would actually be a novel, and one people like reading, at that.

Working with the Big World Network

Sun, 24 Nov 2013 09:20:34 +0000

Flight from Hell is well into its second season by now – the fourth episode is out today and episodes 5, 6 and 7 are ready for when their time will come. 8 has been written, 9 is being written.

And the one thing I keep saying this morning is that I have awesome publishers.

First of all, the reason why I decided to get a novel published with them is that I absolutely loved the concept. I come from the wonderful world of fanfiction, where you wait for a new episode and you text your friends things like „Holy fucking shit! Beside You in Time was just updated :-O It’s alive!” Or you run around and tell people in Canada that silverkytten updated, or that Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality just got a new episode.

Literature can be a domain where you eagerly wait for more, where you can get involved, speculate, hope for more. We’ve kind of lost that in the mainstream when serial novels stopped being published – but fanfiction, where the chapter is the default posting unit, brought the excitement back. The only problem being that many, many series lie abandoned, maybe never to be finished (such as some of my own, actually… hiatuses just keep growing)

The Big World Network publishes one chapter/episode per week, though, so you’re ensured against heartbreak of looking at series that will never be finished. And I love that. It’s brilliant.

And of course, they publish audio episodes as well. Which is lovely, I adore audiobooks.

But. Part 2 of the story of my love for the Big World Network is the unseen one: what happens behind the scenes. After all, sometimes the books that are published can be lovely and so can the concept, but when you end up working with the people who make the magic happen, you can feel like crap (I’ve been in that situation before).

The truth is: I absolutely love the BWN team from this point of view. I’ve been working with them for some months now and they are awesome.

Here, let me bullet point the neat stuff you don’t see from the outside:

They’re great with planning. They take their time to come up with solutions, set deadlines which allow for unforeseen delays and think things through before they act. They know the extent of their abilities, and they know what to expect of the average author. In other words, they don’t rely on optimism and improvisation to get things done – which is a nice change from some of the artistic teams I’ve been in. „Better early than on time” is a decent standard to function by, no? And you always have time to notice whether anything needs more work that way.
They’re transparent about what they do. We get team updates regularly, in which we find out what the Big World Network is planning: site changes, convention participation, events, plans for certain events, what is going on with other parts of the Big World Network. Technically, I don’t need to know some of that (e.g. changes in the way the site looks like), but it does make me feel like I’m welcomed into their home. Which is great. I get to know who I work for and what they do.
They listen. I’m a nitpicking sort of person, and a lot of people grumbled over how evil and criticizing I am (I don’t mean it in a bad way, though). But the BWN guys don’t grumble. They check, explain, fix, improve. Is there a typo anywhere on the site? It will be fixed. A broken link, an audio glitch, anything that falls under the category of „you missed a spot”? That spot will be checked ASAP. And I’ll get replies to things like „Have you tried selling your books with X, Y or Z?”
They also dialogue. Let’s hit the full spectrum of communication here: I can discuss the merits/downfalls of an idea concerning either the novel or the site with them and some solution/compromise will be reached. And they’re polite, nice and assume you’re (trying to be) the same as well (which really helps people like myself, who can put their foot in their mouth regularly).
They try new things: today they’re at a convention, tomorrow they’re finding people on the net who will promote them, yesterday they talked to some people about promoting your work for some time to come, at some point they will do something promotional and neat God knows where.
I should’ve mentioned this above, but it’s obvious from the way the site looks: they’re very skilled at what they do. Novel covers look great – and they look different. My banner is very different from Thralldom’s banner, which in its turn is very different from the banner for Billie vs the Unseen. Perhaps some are less impressive than others, but you can see a personality in them, professionalism. The same goes for editing: Amanda and Wendy (yes, I have two editors) find typos and problems easily, fix my convoluted sentences, tell me when something is wrong and, all in all, save my ass every once in awhile. And, of course, everything runs smoother than smooth on their side.

They make you feel like you’re part of the team and, overall, they make my life a bit more cheerful than I’d expected it to be. Which is why I’m writing this post.

And it isn’t just me saying it, either.

Flight from Hell – the end of a season

Fri, 04 Oct 2013 21:43:40 +0000

I’m currently uploading the audio for episode 12 of Flight from Hell. That’s the last episode of the season – seeing as I won’t be taking the opportunity for a prolonged holiday, season 2 will start on the tail of season 1, with just one week’s break to mark the change.

I’ll be offering little quotes and teasers in a post on Sunday or so (tomorrow I’ll be visiting this Turkish city, forgot its name, with a bunch of Erasmus students, never knew their names).

Stats say that people enjoy Flight from Hell. Well, either that, or they click on its links a lot – it’s a bit hard to tell which is which, considering the limitations of today’s technology. It makes me happy, even if I don’t know who they all are, or what they think or such. Except my mum and Linda and this friend of mine who was one of the first people to ever read my stories (back when they were truly crap). They say stuff from time to time.

I kept expecting people to complain about things, or to get my usual insulting trolls saying stuff. But they never did. (except mum, but mothers do that)

And I got to kinda love the Big World Network team. They’re not perfect, but they damned well strive to be, from the editors who read my mind and edit my words accordingly (but are still open to discussion), to the friendly tech support which reads my e-mails and gets things fixed yesterday.

I have a nice writing rhythm now – no more periods of non-writing, no tendency to abandon the project (since I need to stick to it). It’s beautiful and it gets easier every week.

So. I’m a proper novelist-person-thingy. Which is cool. Should be writing some more now 😀

Plug for Eliza Enea's "Small Steps"

Fri, 27 Sep 2013 07:53:13 +0000

Fairytales coming to life during your University years are often more annoying than magical.

Well, just so you know, the South Wing of the university vanished (so no classes, because that’s where they were held) and the roommate with the crossbow isn’t on goblin patrol duty because she went to a werehamster convention, or something like that.

It’s the cheerful, absurd, fantastic, fluffy style of the story that brings on the fun. It has the air that you could be attacked by soft rabbits at any point of time and will need to pet them before you move on. The plot is cute and amusing – sometimes you might think there’s no stopping the matchmaking ways of the older generation of women, except through paranormal means. I have been assured that the behavior of such middle-aged women is entirely modeled on reality and have to be Mighty Glad to have escaped a large collection of aunts trying to set me up with cute men (I’m not entirely sure I wouldn’t have liked being subjected to eye-candy whenever I visited relatives, but that’s another story).

Eliza Enea’s lovely, heart-warming series, „Small Steps” is happening over on the Big World Network, where it’s read by the authoress herself in her own clear, pleasant, talented way. Check it out!

Discussions on literature (consider us drunk)

Sat, 24 Aug 2013 19:07:49 +0000

Linda’s come over, all the way from the other side of the country. Which is really cool. And conversations are getting really weird. We were talking Flight from Hell and we got to incubi and succubi.

Linda: Do you remember how incubi and succubi used to be so rare in fiction? And now they’re all over the place.

Me: I swear to God I didn’t know Amanda had a series called Incubus before submitting to the Big World Network.

Linda: Speaking of Incubus. *fangirls* I really, really like it. It’s fun!!! But no, I mean, all over the place. Everywhere.

Me: Remember where vampires were a metaphor for sex?

Linda: Yeah.

Me: So we just decided to drop the metaphor part.

Linda: Remember that English lit class?!

Me: YES!!!! O_O

*flashback*

15-20 students are sitting around a table during a literature seminar.

Professor: So, how would you like to die? [note: In her defense, we were talking about Emily Dickinson]

Student: By incubus.

Class: *stupefied silence*

Linda: Do you know what an incubus is?!?!?!?!

Student: Yes. *confused*

Class: O_O *more stupefied silence*

Professor: *starts snickering*

Student: I want to die peacefully in my sleep.

Professor: *barely stops from laughing out loud*

Linda: *dramatically* But they suck your soul and drag you to hell!

[…]

Me: But do you remember that class in which a professor asked what the fuss about vampires was?

Linda: *falls over laughing*

*flashback*

Professor: What’s the fuss about vampires?

Student: [something-something metaphors, literature, symbolism]

Professor: No, I still don’t get it.

Annoyed student: They’re hot, sexy hunks used as sex metaphors!

Professor: Ooooooooooooh. I understand now! *gets wistful look*

[…]

Me: *checks her blog stats* OMG, somebody came from Google Plus! That place is alive!!!!!!!!1 This is the first time this happens. I should write a special ’thank you for sharing my post, single G+ actual user out there!'

[…]

Me: I never meant to put any actual gay stuff in Flight from Hell. Aside from Ashmedai-the-pansexual-devil being a threat in the background. I thought I could just skirt the issue constantly and have Nakir escape him over and over. Then I realized, Ashmedai would go for him in immoral, creepy ways. He totally would.

Linda: *does that dreamy thing fangirls do*

Me: And Nakir’s weak and confused and trying to play reverse psychology at one point and Ashmedai, well… „Lead us not into temptation, because we’ve already been there and proved we were abysmally bad at it.” [note: I have a thing for that ’lead us not into temptation’ saying recently]

Linda: *wiggles her eyebrows*

Me: Not that anything actually happens, mind you. Not really. Not beyond this one thing, this short, clothes-on thing which ends fast and makes the threat and Nakir’s confusion so much worse.

Linda: *does a sad face* I would love to see them together. Maybe all three of them. That would be fun.

Me: Bad idea in the text.

Linda: *puppy eyes* How about in the Alternate Universe Christmas Special?

Me: There is no Alternate Universe Christmas Special.

Linda: There could be. Hey, I knew this author who wrote fanfic of her own stories, ever thought of doing the same?

*conversation dives straight into the gutter*

[…]

Me: So sometimes, I look at the editors’ comments, and they’re, like, so confused, you know? Trying to solve that old question, which for once makes perfect sense: what did the author mean to say over here?

Linda: I only ever get giggles in the margins.

Me: I get confusion. What did the author mean?… And then the author shows up and says, no, no, no, wait! That’s not what I meant! Oh, crap. Let me change it. In chapter two, I had the devil say that thing, you know? *quotes from memory* „For that I, and not your husband, must be their father.” Except the first time I said it like crap and it was confusing. So when the editor modified it for clarity, there was this confused scene between the queen and the devil. He was like, „I won’t be your husband.” And she went, „Good, I’ve already got one of those.” And I went, „ooooh, wait, he was actually saying ‘I’ll be knocking you up myself’. Which is a bit different.”

[…]

Linda: I never thought I’d say this, but I am so happy to get rid of the romance subplot with my story. It didn’t work. At all. So right now I’ve taken the romance down and I’m adding a lot more crazy.

Me: Like?

Linda: Well, there’s a whole new plot with the Physics Department. Some klutzy students did some experiments and that’s why it’s… missing. Carmen goes off to search for the missing South Wing.

Me: You have a vanishing university.

Linda: Pretty much. Oh, and I have to figure out how to put in the vampire bounty hunter. Because I said there would be one – and there will be, dammit.

Flight from Hell – episode 3

Sun, 18 Aug 2013 15:47:36 +0000

Episode three – the final free episode – of Flight from Hell is out.

Quote:

The way he was still touching the maid-clad woman was both disturbing and as eye-catching as erotica written on dirty sheets by a naked writer with a cigarette between his lips and three-dollar whores serving as muses.

Warning: There’s a lot of sex-related stuff in this one (sex Hell, duh). And probably disturbing stuff as well (although I’m sure slash fans and fetishists will enjoy it). If you’re repelled, try to remember that Ashmedai is a sex devil and acts accordingly. If you’re one of the slash fans, please try to remember that Ashmedai is a sex devil and Nakir acts accordingly.

(I’ve been dying to say that since forever)

Read it here.

Flight from Hell – episode 2

Sun, 11 Aug 2013 18:09:10 +0000

A reminder that the new episode is out and that it’s free to read and free to listen to.

Quote:

[H]e leaned his sword against the warm, reddish stone and it occurred to him that the image created was beautiful in a simple, elegant way. When his sword would drop and his blood would seep into the reddish ground, that would be beautiful, too.

Read it here.

Flight from Hell – episode 1

Sun, 04 Aug 2013 13:46:13 +0000

The first episode of „Flight from Hell” is out!

A dying angel, a strange magician human woman, and a carnivorous horse met in sex-Hell. If this was the beginning of a joke, Nakir couldn't wait to hear the punchline.

Check it out on the Big World Network website!

New episode every Sunday, first three episodes free – look for Roxana Kiril 😉

Audio version also available (read by yours truly)

(genre: Horror/Supernatural; rating: 18+)

Amanda Meuwissen's "Incubus" [Book Review]

Wed, 31 Jul 2013 18:01:58 +0000

Title: Incubus

Author: Amanda Meuwissen

Rating: 4/5

Is this book for me? Probably. Wait, no! Do gay people bother you? Then no, it’s not. But otherwise, yes. A cool, adventurous novel of the supernatural and romantic sort, complete with a Seer, fairies and magic.

Incubus is the sort of novel that keeps you turning pages (or, in my case, listening to the next audio chapter, read by the author herself). It’s sweet, a bit fluffy, romantic and it has action going on, as well as danger hanging over the heads of the characters for a bit of thrilling fun.

Now, I might be evil here (of course I am), but the story reminds me a bit of the TV show Supernatural – we have two brothers involved in a sort of battle against the supernatural world, a monster of the arc, a silent and stoic helper, some of that old-fashioned monster-chasing through the streets of cities and a sacrificing-for-each-other brotherly love.

Except Incubus has fairies, not angels and demons. And there isn’t anything disturbingly much like a love-hate relationship between the brothers (unlike in Supernatural where the show just thrives on Implications). Nor is the mood downbeat at any point. And, oh yeah, the gay relationship is explicit and clear.

The title character, the incubus, is a fascinating and attractive guy (bonus for chicks who dig wings: he’s got wings (at times, when he’s in incubus-form); and red hair; and tattoos – actually, his descriptions remind me of an occasionally winged, horned, fanged Abarai Renji, but that might be my long dabble in Bleach fanfiction speaking).

I won’t be spoiling your fun, but I’m assuring you it’s fun. And fluffy.

P.S. The paperback is available via Amazon, if Amazon is your thing. If you prefer going to the source, then the paperback, audiobook and Kindle or other eBook versions are on the Big World Network website. And you can of course just subscribe to the Big World Network at $3/month and have access to Incubus and a number of other series.

Presenting: Flight from Hell by Roxana Kiril (coming next week)

Fri, 26 Jul 2013 19:44:37 +0000

My novel is nearly here. Just a bit over a week and, on August 4th, the first chapter/episode will be launched on the Big World Network.

Until then, I’ll be procrastinating with you and sharing little tidbits. Let’s see… where to start, what to say…

About 9 years ago I realized being a writer was an option.

Picture it: somewhere in Transylvania, there is a village. It has a castle (a very tiny castle) and the castle has a domain. It isn’t much of a domain, but there’s a forest that’s been tamed into a park (or a park that went wild and became a forest). And there’s a lake. It’s a small lake, but everything else is tiny, so why not. And on the lake, there is a very small island. And on the island there’s a table with two benches, all covered by a roof. They’re painted in yellow. Around the table there’s around 10 people. They’re writers.

Wellll, the ‘writers’ claim is dubious. I think one or two actually wrote on a regular basis. I certainly did not. But for all intents and purposes, on that occasion they were writers. Because it was a writing workshop and the people who attend those and scribble are writers, no?

So the workshop coordinator asked me: „What sort of stories do you want to write?”

I said, „Children’s books.”

Give me some slack. I was 16. No, I didn’t want to write for a younger audience. I just wasn’t aware that ‘fantasy’ was its own genre. I knew, what?… The Chronicles of Narnia, Mary Poppins, Peter Pan, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Alice in Wonderland. I wasn’t aware you could write this sort of stuff for, you know, adults. For all of its reputation with vampires and werewolves, Transylvania wasn’t really brimming over with knowledge of this sort of literature. (and I don’t remember if I had even heard of the mysterious ‘anime’ and ‘manga’)

Fast-forward nine years. I’m still writing what I thought back then that I’d be writing, except now I know what it’s called. It’s called fantasy. Except, when I wasn’t paying attention, they went ahead and made up this new category they called ‘supernatural’, so yeah…

Flight from Hell is (apparently) a supernatural story. It’s got an angel. It’s got devils. It’s got Hell and a werewolf and incubi and succubi. And that little ‘18’ in the corner stands for ‘You have to be 18 to read this’. So much for children’s books.

The main characters are Nakir (an angel I stole from the Muslim tradition) and Sara (woman of infamous kick-ass-ery). At the beginning of episode 1 they’re standing in the Hell of succubi and incubi, led by the devil Ashmedai. Nakir, the angel questioning the faith of the dead in their graves, questioned his own role and the justice of God. He never found his way back up to Heaven. And Sara… she tried to bring someone back from the dead. Needless to say, she failed and suffered the consequences.

I enjoy writing every second of it, from the action scenes to the disturbing imagery. But I won’t spoil that.

Just a teaser of what the novel feels like. If both Nakir and Sara had songs that represented them, they’d be something like this:

Sara’s would be „Our Solemn Hour” by Within Temptation:

Because she thinks of herself as larger than life, strong, exploding with energy and fighting spirit. And there must be a woman doing amazing things with her voice in there. She has something about her that’s questioning, confrontational, rebelling – and screaming in Latin and English while comparing herself with Winston Churchill in stressful situations is not entirely out of the question. Definitely prone to thinking of herself in mythic terms.

Lyrics best fitting her:

Is the heart of stone, no empathy inside?
[…]
If we can’t restrain the beast which dwells inside
it will find it’s way somehow, somewhere in time
Will we remember all of the suffering
Cause if we fail it will be in vain

On the other hand, Nakir:

Entirely different sort of beast. Mellow, confused, tired, wary. Uncertain of anything, not much into struggling with fate. Asking himself questions, but finding no answers. And if he dies, well, he’s going to die wishing he didn’t die. He likes thinking the universe has some sort of harmony and order – even if he resents being kicked out of that order.

He carries burdens and fears – and the deep, deep thought that he deserves it all. Even if he doesn’t want it. Closer to resignation than desire to escape.

Lyrics for him:

Been a long road to follow,
Been there and gone tomorrow,
[…]
Is somebody there beyond these heavy aching feet?
Still the road keeps on telling me to go on…

Something is pulling me
I feel the gravity of it all

Both neat songs, but they don’t fit. And that’s why this story might be supernatural, and apparently it’s horror, but nobody ever suggested it should also be romance.

Thoughts around my novel

Thu, 11 Jul 2013 07:17:30 +0000

I’ve finished recording the audio version of the first episode of Flight from Hell and I’ve sent it off to the Big World Network. Meanwhile, I’m writing episode four, which turned a bit surreal on me. Novels do that, I think. Surprise you. You think you have stuff figured out and then there’s this extra bit of richness or of fun lying about, ripe for the writing.

Flight from Hell is the sort of thing you don’t plan on writing. Its setting, its plot, its characters – they were all a side-story in another story, the sort of thing where someone goes „Sara?… Sara was in Hell. And now she’s damaged goods.”

But one night I was bored and I felt like typing a bit of crazy, a bit of oppressive atmosphere, a bit of sharp bitterness against the world. Unkind characters and a hostile universe, things going wrong even when they go right, beauty found in bleeding and in pain. Flight from Hell was meant to amuse me during a sleepless night, but since I liked the idea of publishing I sent it off to the Big World Network, alternately telling myself that it would be the best thing they ever published and the worst and most unfitting story that’s ever been sent to them. Sometimes I feel like I need narcissism to get read, megalomania to withstand the onslaught of criticism, masochism to read suggestions for improvements. Otherwise I’ll only remember that outside of me there are written worlds so beautiful that they make me cry and I’ve never managed to get to that point. The crush would be too great, so I do declare myself brilliant. I must be.

Episode four of Flight from Hell is surreal and I’m letting it carry me around. I know where it must end (perhaps that particular bit will end in episode five, if I can’t squeeze it all in ten pages), but the road there can wind any way it likes. I’m having fun with ideas, alternately putting them on the page and washing them away, remembering what little things need to be in there and editing them in or out, spinning them around until they look like they’ve always belonged. Which they did, I suppose. Stories are marvelous that way. By the time you write them to the end, they will have always been meant to be that way.

What fascinates me is that I’ve always known Sara. She was around long before this novel, doing things, fighting, failing, trying, loving, broken, going on. I know what she thinks, I know who she is. I know what she thinks of Nakir, of this angel she chose for a companion, of Hell, of escaping, of herself. I know her fears and desires and motivations, the whole bit. I thought at first she’d be the one lending her voice to Flight from Hell, but Nakir took over. I’m just getting to know him – and he barely knows anything of Sara, but he’s watching her from behind, guessing, thinking, speculating, judging. I’m writing what I don’t know, against that silly advice of writing what you do know. Where would you be, if you always did that?… Spinning around in circles, that’s where I would be. No, exploration is the best way to go, the way I see it.

I can’t wait to see it published. And I’m curious about what cover they’ll come up with, what little song bit before the audio version of each episode. I have no talent for visual arts, no idea what I’d want as a distinctive sound. I’m waiting to see those to figure out what others think Flight from Hell is like, to see what they see it as.

Amanda Meuwissen's "Real Fangs" [Book Review]

Fri, 05 Jul 2013 16:50:44 +0000

Title: Real Fangs

Author: Amanda Meuwissen

Rating: 3/5 (subjectively. I can see it get 4/5 from somebody who likes the style of the story)

Is this book for me? It’s a light, slice of life supernatural novella. Some vampires, some werewolves. No wars. No psychological drama. Not much plot, either. If you’re looking for something fun and almost fluffy, this is it. If you’re looking for something engaging or deep… not so much.

I made a mistake with this book when I started reading it. I thought it would be a traditional sort of supernatural novel, with the drama of being turned, or with bad people needing to be hunted down, or that sort of thing. It’s actually slice of life. It’s not so much about the newly-turned vampire Chris going through huge issues concerning the meaning of life or the meaning of fighting evil, but about the just out of college Chris needing to find his way in life.

After that, my vision changed. Instead of being annoyed with the book that it’s not really pushing the plot anywhere, I started taking it as a sitcom (especially since the Big World Network likens its stories to television series). Which it really works as, actually.

The story doesn’t really do it for me (not a big fan of sitcoms), but it has a few points in which it shines. The ideas about what a number of vampires and some witches do all day are quite plausible as well as amusing. And you can feel the characters. They’re real people, living in a real city and going about their real day-to-day business.

I recommend it for sheer fun.

P.S. The audio version is read by Amanda Meuwissen herself. Her accent is a bit unusual (…said the Romanian, I know), but her voice acting and narration style are quite enjoyable. I think I could rate the audio version 4/5. Her reading it makes the difference.

Amanda Meuwissen's "The Collector" [Book review]

Fri, 05 Jul 2013 16:25:12 +0000

Title: The Collector

Author: Amanda Meuwissen

Rating: 4/5

Is this book for me? It’s a light supernatural novella. It has the Devil, some hell creatures and a simple mystery plot. If you’re looking for something light and easy to read this weekend for your enjoyment, then go ahead. If you’re searching for complex plots or philosophical insights, skip it.

The link above is to Amazon, but the book can be read directly on the Big World Network website, where you gain access by paying a $3/month subscription (which also allows you access to a few dozen other books).

The Collector wasn’t really the sort of book I’d usually read – unless I was reading fanfic. It’s light, flows easily and it’s a pleasure to flip through, reading a new episode (chapter) with the ease with which you can take a new piece of chocolate. Not the sort of chocolate you buy from specialized shops which bankrupt you in three days flat, but the sort of normal, common chocolate that you can enjoy on a daily basis. It won’t blow your mind, but it will be fun during the afternoon.

Adam is the Devil’s Collector of souls. That means that the Devil makes a deal… and Adam goes off and takes the soul of the person when their time is due. All’s been good since Antiquity or so, but now somebody is starting to hound him, leaving disturbing messages to him. Things get weirder and weirder, until…

Well, I’m not going to spoil you, am I?

Cute. Fun. Not going to be on my ‘best of the year’ list of books, but I’m glad I read it.

P.S. The audio version, read by Blaise Douros is actually quite nice. I like his voice and reading style – pleasant, clear, fun.

Niște update-uri pe scurt.

Thu, 04 Jul 2013 17:05:32 +0000

Pe Gog.com au reduceri de 70-85% la o grămadă de jocuri în următoarele 18-19 ore (după postarea asta). Recomand Tales of Monkey Island.

Am citit două serii de pe Big World Network, The Collector și Real Fangs, ambele de Amanda Meuwissen. O să le scriu recenzii în curând. Pentru acum: sunt simpăticuțe, ușurele, genul d nuvele din care mai citești încă un episod de parcă ai lua o bucată de ciocolată. Nu o ciocolată foarte specială, dar plăcută oricum. Consider că și singure ar merita cei trei dolari dați pe abonamentul lunar. Deci recomand site-ul ca atare.

Îmi iau aer în piept să încerc din nou să citesc Metamorfoza lui Kafka. Data trecută când am renunțat după ce mi-am dat seam că e singura carte care m-a speriat cu adevărat în ultimii ani. Și pentru că m-am trezit cu o fobie față de gândaci de bucătărie. Dar mai încerc!

Săptămâna viitoare plec la mare, așa că îmi cer scuze în avans pentru întârzieri de moderare sau chestii de-astea. Teoretic o să am net, dar nu garantez că stau pe el prea tare 😛

Cursul de Istoria rock-ului, partea a II-a, începe de luni pe Coursera. Am văzut prima parte și o recomand cu căldură pe a doua. Pentru că e istorie și nu matematică sau programare sau alte chestii de genul ăsta, vă recomand să-l încercați chiar dacă nu v-ați uitat la prima parte. Țin să vă reamintesc că e gratis.

În continuare îmi ofer serviciile de traducător și interpret autorizat de limba engleză (și de limba japoneză, dar doar traduceri japoneză-română, că încă nu sunt la nivel de nativ acolo).

Writing on the novel (vs writing on TV scripts)

Fri, 21 Jun 2013 14:21:22 +0000

I’m under the weather again today. Somewhat dizzy, somewhat nauseous. It’s either some sort of flu, or the meditations of my ’enemies’ are actually working for once (yes, I live in a context in which people meditating for my downfall is not entirely out of the question, even if I think it highly unlikely – I’m not important enough).

I would go to the gym, but I’m already working out with the lightest weights in existence and there’s nowhere to downgrade to. I’m also quite certain that the people owning the gym would be less than happy about my fainting there.

So I’m working on „Flight from Hell”. Chapter 3. Technically, I need to send it in by July 15th or so (unless I calculated the date wrong). But I prefer having things done a bit earlier.

Once upon a time I worked on TV scripts. I had a ‘reality’ show on my hands and I was supposed to provide a 40-page script on a weekly basis. It was hell on earth and it was probably the worst work I’ve ever done or will ever do in my life. Like, seriously. I’ve come a long way as a writer since then and even now I wouldn’t be able to write 40 pages of quality TV show script from Thursday to Sunday (especially not with the conflicting demands from the other scriptwriter, my supervisor, the director and the bosses). Not sure what I’d do today. Probably kick some ass, demand that they tell me what they want me to write on Monday, so I’d have a full week and tell some people to shut up and let me do my stuff. But then again, I’m much more self-confident now…

Maybe I could write a romance novel about it (romance so it’d be lighthearted). It would work.

Anyways, the Big World Network (whom I’m writing for) are sort of like television in concept. They publish an ’episode’ a week from all their stories. 12 episodes/season. I suppose I should find the concept worrying, considering how badly it worked out for me last time. However, it’s an entirely different sort of thing and the main reason why I submitted my work to them in the first place. They’re sane. They require relatively short episodes – and it’s your story, so you don’t have to come up with something quick on Thursday to be able to throw something on the site not far from then. They do real storytelling, not „Scandal! Scandal! Throw in scandal, because that’s what the audience wants!”

The format appeals to me, when stripped of madness and bad taste and rushing and impossible demands.

Reading a story episodically is an entirely different experience from reading a whole novel in one go. I’m a fangirl and I’ve read a lot of fanfiction, which is published one chapter at a time, unless the author really decides otherwise. Most of the time the distance between chapters in fanfiction is flexible – sometimes the first chapters come quickly, the later ones come hard. At other times the story is abandoned. Sometimes you have somebody like silverkytten who updates twice a year, if you’re lucky (unless she wrote everything beforehand). Or RosieB, who updates whenever. And the excitement! Have you heard, have you heard, there’s a new chapter of „Shades of Grey”, or of „Beside You in Time”, of „Touched”/”Contact”, of „Off the Record”?! Have you read, have you seen, you must!

The news spreads like wildfire amongst fans, the chatter goes a level up and you understand that you’re not alone in appreciating this story or that, that it’s alright to love and enthuse and speculate and wish and desire and demand of the writer – „But when are Sesshoumaru and Kagome getting together?!”

And then you wait some more.

There’s fanfiction writers who are amazingly good at writing regularly, but they’re rare. Still, they’re excellent. There’s lightning on the wave, who updated nearly every day for over a year, writing an amazing 3 million word series which has me crying with love whenever I re-read lines of it. Unfortunately I didn’t catch that one as it was being written, discovering it barely two years ago or so. (and it made me want to read and understand poetry)

My first experience of weekly updated fanfiction was phoenix.writing’s „The Problem with Purity”. I caught it when it was 20-something chapters in and I rushed over the beautiful writing which took its time to describe things properly. I waited for the new chapter to be released on Thursday, I cried out in joy when the author released an extra chapter on special occasions.

Reading something episodically is an experience stretched over time. It lets characters walk with you longer. Immersion in the story happens from time to time, in small batches – but then you get to come back over and over, take another step, see something else go on. It’s a different sort of adventure. I’m happy that the Big World Network decided to throw this sort of experience back into the world of books and literature.

Because yes, it’s been done before. Over a hundred years ago, Dickens and Thackeray and so on would have their huge novels published chapter by chapter in the literary magazines of the age, before bringing everything together in a single volume. But then those magazines eventually died and novels published as novels became the standard – and indeed the only way most people think of stories existing.

I’m happy about the Big World Network. I’m happy they like my novel and I’m happy that we can work together. I debated long and hard whom I should submit to, looking at experiences with writers, at royalties and sales and so on – and then I realized that this was the most fun option and the one I was most excited about from a writing and story experience point of view.

And the best surprise thus far is the editor. Who seems to be a nice person, but who is also a careful professional. I think I nearly cried with joy when I realized she used notes and tracked changes on the first chapter of „Flight from Hell”. To compare yet again with my TV experience, there I never found out which changes had been made to my words (which I have been assured happens with some small publishers, too, although I haven’t had that experience myself).

Yeah. I’m totally procrastinating on writing the novel.

"Flight from Hell" on August 4th

Thu, 20 Jun 2013 09:01:45 +0000

Just a short announcement: my novel, „Flight from Hell” will be launched on the 4th of August on the Big World Network. Keep an eye out for Roxana Kiril 😉

The genre(s): Horror/Supernatural.
Rating: 18+. Apparently I can’t write stuff for a general audience even if I try. Not that I was particularly trying to.

The first episode (chapter) will be available for free. After that, reading is subscription-based, but the subscription is barely $3. And you can get the audio version as well. I’ll be reading it (I’m not that bad).

When the novel’s all said and done, it’ll (probably) be gathered into a volume and sold as paperback, audio and full electronic version, in some sort of pricing combos.

Yeah… Not feeling up to writing anything more fascinating in this blog post right now. So laterz.