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8 Days Offline to Finish a Book!

April 17, 2013 //
0

8 days offline to finish a new book, of course. Which is now done and multiply sent off the publishers.

At some point in a project, I need to put everything aside and totally concentrate.

So I’m back, my friends! At least for now. I should take a day off, but there’s too much to do. Maybe this weekend.

I must tell you, at first I feared that my growing online presence would collapse like. . . .the price of gold? The stock market?

Thank heaven that hasn’t happened. I mean me and the stock market. I don’t know about gold.

Without any Tweeting, I gained 54 new Followers on Twitter.

A bunch of you great folks on WordPress have liked my blogs from days ago and started following me (more about WordPress and my difficulties with the site in another day or so).

More have friended me on Goodreads and connected with me on LinkedIn.

Facebook is truly a constant stream that I’ve followed and contributed to less than I used to. So things were pretty quiet over there.

And my books have kept selling.

So. Question: is it really necessary for an author to blog and social network every day? The handlers out there say yes. The social sites are pleased to receive all this free content.

But do you, the reader, follow daily posts? Or is it too much? When does it become too much for you?

In the meantime, I’m working on the third volume of Celestial Girl (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) and a very fun collection of stories previously published in magazines and anthologies worldwide entitled Strange Ladies: 7 Stories.

Plus I’m mulling over what book I want to review next for Goodreads, which I’ll post here. Still on my To-Read List are A Discovery of Witches and The Night Circus. Don’t know when I’ll get to them. If you’ve read either book, let me know what you think.

From the author of The Garden of Abracadabra, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series, on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle, Summer of Love, A Time Travel (a Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle, and The Gilded Age, A Time Travel (a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book) on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.

Visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Website for books, ebooks, stories, screenplays, forthcoming projects, and more. And on my Facebook Author Page, on Amazon, on my Facebook Profile Page, on Goodreads, on LinkedIn, on Twitter at @lisaSmason, and at Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

If you enjoy a work, please “Like” it, add some stars, write a review on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and spread the word to your friends. Your participation really matters.

Thank you for your readership!

More affordable titles for your reading enjoyment:

New Romantic Suspense! Celestial Girl, Book 1: The Heartland (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) is on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle! Lily flees Toledo on the Overland train. She must share a seat with Jackson Tremaine and befriends the Celestial Girl, the daughter of a Chinese dignitary. But appearances are not what they seem.

New! Celestial Girl, Book 2: Jewel of the Golden West (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) is on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle! Lily and Jackson arrive in San Francisco and discover the murder of an immigration official connected with the Celestial Girl. She and Jackson are compelled into a dangerous murder investigation. Meanwhile, as they begin a hot affair, a contract for murder is taken out on Lily’s life.

Coming soon! Celestial Girl, Book 3: The Celestial Kingdom, which will include Book 3: The Celestial Kingdom, and Book 4: Terminus. The Omnibus Edition will include all three books.

Of The Gilded Age, the New York Times Book Review said, “A winning mixture of intelligence and passion.”

New Urban fantasy! The Garden of Abracadabra is available in three affordable installments. Begin with Book 1: Life’s Journey on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.

The Bantam classic, Summer of Love is available in seven affordable installments. Begin at the beginning on Nook, Kindle, or UK Kindle

Suspense! Don’t miss SHAKEN, my sexy thriller, an ebook adaptation of “Deus Ex Machina” published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, republished in Transcendental Tales (Donning Press), and translated and republished worldwide. On Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.

Literary science fiction! And don’t miss TOMORROW’S CHILD, The Story That Sold To The Movies. This began as a medical documentary, then got published in Omni Magazine as a lead story, and finally sold to Universal Pictures, where the project is now in development. On Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.

Thank you for your readership!

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Categories 2013, Authors, Blogging, Books, Lisa Mason, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author On Facebook, Lisa Mason on Facebook, Lisa Mason Romantic Suspense Author, Polishing, Polishing A Book, Writing, Writing A Book

Polishing a Book

April 9, 2013 //
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Polishing is the fun part. I’m myself having a hoot and a holler with a new book.

It all starts when an idea seizes you in a dream, in your morning shower, after reading an article or a book, after a life-changing experience, after searching for inspiration.

The result is the same–you have to write a book.

Notes, research, sketches of scenes, choosing characters’ names and personalities follow. This is usually fun because you are (or should be) playing with and exploring the material. You’re not doing any heavy lifting. Not yet.

I love doing research. If I’m not careful, I can research for days and days without getting any actual writing done. There’s a word for delighting overmuch in research–procrastination. At some point, enough research is enough. You can always dip back into your resources to clarify a detail.

Then come plot and structure. You probably intuitively know the story you want to tell, but the time has come to nail down the particulars. Consider your outline your blueprint, the book your completed house. Some writers prefer to work up a detailed outline of the plot from start to finish. Some work up a general outline and work out details as they proceed, reworking earlier material as a twist or turn emerges. Then, too, some work up a general outline and draft a detailed outline for each chapter as it comes (my preference). Some prefer to work organically, letting the material flow and reshaping it when the tracks are laid down. Letting material flow is good; having no direction in which to flow is not recommended. Onerous and intimidating as outlining is, you’re much better off if you do it.

Plotting and structuring is hard.

Then comes writing the first draft. Some writers like to barrel through the first draft from start to finish so they’ve got the material in hand. Some writers need to edit first draft, day by day, as they go along. After years of writing, I’ve reached a compromise between these two methods. The temptation to revise daily is often irresistible; I like to see coherent material before I proceed. But I’ve finished enough drafts to know that material I labored over sometimes needs substantial revision anyway. Sometimes gets tossed entirely. (Sigh.) So your time, I think, is more productively spent if you don’t worry too much about perfection. This is your first draft, after all.

Writing first draft is really hard.

Now you must remove your cool black poet’s beret and don an industrial hardhat because you must edit your first draft. When I say “edit,” I don’t merely mean revising draft language, though that’s certainly part of the process. You must look at the overall book and figure out what works structurally, what doesn’t. Your characters may have revealed aspects of themselves you didn’t realize at first (the best characters often do because in your fictional world, they’ve literally come alive.) You must be brutal with your writer self. If a lovely, lyrical passage is unnecessary backstory that slows the action, you must kiss it goodbye.

Editing is really, really hard. Editing often continues over many drafts. There’s a lot of wasted ink and paper to recycle. (Double sigh.)

At some happy point, you look at your book and declare, “It’s done! Off to a publisher, oh you who have consumed precious hours of my life! Go forth and prosper!”

But, wait. Before you uncork the champagne, you must polish. I started out by saying this is the fun part. Why? Because the nearly finished piece is in place. All there in all its glory and brilliance. You did it!

Don’t take off the hardhat quite yet. You should read the material aloud. Scrutinize the language one more time. Scrub out unnecessary words, even sentences.

Trust me, there’s always something.

From the author of The Garden of Abracadabra, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series, on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle, Summer of Love, A Time Travel (a Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle, and The Gilded Age, A Time Travel (a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book) on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.

Visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Website for books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, forthcoming projects and more. And on my Facebook Author Page, on Amazon, on my Facebook Profile Page, on Goodreads, on LinkedIn, on Twitter at @lisaSmason, and at Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

If you enjoy a work, please “Like” it, add some stars, write a review on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and spread the word to your friends. Your response really matters.

Thank you for your readership!

More affordable titles for your reading enjoyment:

New Romantic Suspense! Celestial Girl, Book 1: The Heartland (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) is on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle! Lily flees Toledo on the Overland train. She must share a seat with Jackson Tremaine and befriends the Celestial Girl, the daughter of a Chinese dignitary. But appearances are not what they seem.

New! Celestial Girl, Book 2: Jewel of the Golden West (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) is on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle! Lily and Jackson arrive in San Francisco and discover the murder of an immigration official connected with the Celestial Girl. She and Jackson are compelled into a dangerous murder investigation. Meanwhile, as they begin a hot affair, a contract for murder is taken out on Lily’s life.

Coming soon! Celestial Girl, Book 3: The Celestial Kingdom, which will include Book 3: The Celestial Kingdom, and Book 4: Terminus. The Omnibus Edition will include all three books.

Of The Gilded Age, the New York Times Book Review said, “A winning mixture of intelligence and passion.”

New Urban fantasy! The Garden of Abracadabra is available in three affordable installments. Begin with Book 1: Life’s Journey on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.

The Bantam classic, Summer of Love is available in seven affordable installments. Begin at the beginning on Nook, Kindle, or UK Kindle

Suspense! Don’t miss SHAKEN, my sexy thriller, an ebook adaptation of “Deus Ex Machina” published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, republished in Transcendental Tales (Donning Press), and translated and republished worldwide. On Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.

Literary science fiction! And don’t miss TOMORROW’S CHILD, The Story That Sold To The Movies. This began as a medical documentary, then got published in Omni Magazine as a lead story, and finally sold to Universal Pictures, where the project is now in development. On Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.

Thank you for your readership!

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Categories 2013, Amazon.com, Authors, BarnesandNoble.com, Bast Books, Books, Editing, Editing A Book, Lisa Mason, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author On Facebook, Lisa Mason on Facebook, Lisa Mason Romantic Suspense Author, Literature, Polishing, Polishing A Book, Writing, Writing A Book

#RyanSchneider Chats with #LisaMason about #Writing

April 2, 2013 //
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Ryan Schneider, Author, chats with Lisa Mason, Fantasy and Science Fiction Author, about Writing

RS: How did you get into writing?

LM: My mom bought me lots of great books when I was a kid. I loved reading and decided I wanted to be a writer. Stories and fantasies would pop into my head and I wrote my first book at age five. I’ve got it on my desk right now. It is 1¼ inches by 2 inches, hand-sewn, two chapters, lavishly illustrated by the author, and entitled, “Millie the Caterpillar.” Millie is despondent at being “a fat, green, hairy, little caterpillar.” Then spring comes, she breaks out of her cocoon, and “to her surprize, she found two beautiful red and black wings on her shoulders.” Happiness! The End. I’ve thought ever since surprise should be spelled with a z.

So you could say I got bit by the writing bug early on, but my life has taken some twists and turns and writing hasn’t been a straight shot for me.

RS: What do you like best (or least) about writing?

LM: I love publishing something and having readers tell me they loved it, were entertained by it, moved by it, couldn’t put it down. I’ll shamelessly admit readers have told me Summer of Love is their all-time favorite book. Readers’ responses make all the blood, sweat, and tears worthwhile. What I hate most is getting stuck, but that’s a blog in and of itself.

RS: What is your writing process? IE do you outline? Do you stick to a daily word or page count, write 7 days a week, etc?

LM: Oh, I’d love to write 5000 words a day, but that seldom happens. The main thing is to accomplish something seven days a week, if only making notes or working out a plot point you’re not sure of. I usually get a holistic concept of a book or story, sketch the general thrust of it, and break it open with the first scene. Often, I’ll have the first scene and the last, the story goal I want to accomplish. (You know the joke that every book has a beginning, an ending, and a muddle.) I don’t like outlining but the process is so important for keeping your narrative on track. I’ll often micro-outline what I’m working on and the material immediately after. Once I get through that, the next plot twists often reveal themselves. Then I do the same process again, step by step.

When a book gathers momentum and the world-building is set down, I’ll write every day for two weeks at a time, take a one-day break, then start again the next day.

RS: Who are some other writers you read and admire, regardless of whether they are commercially “successful?”

LM: You know, lately I’ve been picking up classic authors. I just read Raymond Chandler’s Lady in the Lake. Marlowe is the original chain-smoking, hard-drinking, lone-wolf, sardonic private eye and Chandler is such a master stylist. I’ve got Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome and Joseph Conrad’s Tales of Unrest on my reading table. And I’ve been enjoying Rex Stout’s Nero Wolf mysteries from the 1940s. Urban fantasy employs the mystery trope, as does romantic suspense, both areas I’m writing within.

RS: Should the question mark in the above question be inside or outside the quotes?

LM: Outside, of course, because the question mark punctuates the entire sentence, whereas the quotes indicate the word is, in the author’s opinion, a relative or subjective term.

RS: What’s your stance on the Oxford Comma?

LM: I’m totally freaked out by the Oxford Comma. What the hell is the Oxford Comma?

RS: What is your book about and how did it come to fruition?

LM: Please take a look at my bio below. How does any of that happen? Obsession-compulsion. Hard work. Late nights. Giving up a lot of time-consuming activities like television.

RS: What book(s) are you currently reading?

LM: On my To-Read list are The Night Circus and A Discovery of Witches because I’m working on the next book in my urban fantasy, The Abracadabra Series. Research books for a science fiction series I’m launching next year.

RS: Who or what inspires your writing?

LM: Oh, Life! Personal experience. Love, anger, vengeance. Joy. Beauty. A hummingbird landing on my feeder. Historical people I admire, like the women Surrealist artists in the story listed below, or Nikola Tesla, the great inventor and electrical engineer whom I wrote a screenplay about and who reminded me of my inventor-electrical engineer dad. Stage magicians. Real Magic. Being invited to contribute to a themed anthology always kicks me in the butt to dream up something new. I’ve written so many different kinds of books and stories, I’ll be adding blogs to my Goodreads Author Page just to talk about what inspired me, what I researched, and so on.

Quite a few redheaded or russet-haired or strawberry blond men seem to show up in my work, so I’m compelled to add to the list of inspirations my husband, Tom Robinson. But don’t tell him I told you so (his head is swelled enough already).

RS: Finally, is there anything you’d care to add? Please also include where people can read your published stories, buy your book, etc.

LM: Readers may not realize it, but traditional publishing is changing daily. Radically. Twenty years ago, there were twenty or thirty publishers. The big fish gobbled up the smaller fish, turned them into imprints, and subsumed everything to a larger corporation. Authors essentially could only submit to the Big Six Publishers. Just last week, the two biggest of the Big Six announced they’re merging. Now there is only a Big Five.

What does that mean for authors? Shrinking opportunities, smaller advances, longer wait times to get published–waiting two, even three years to get published is not uncommon these days—and getting yanked out of print before a book has had a chance to breathe.

What does that mean for you, the reader?

Fewer good books to choose from. More faddish, formulaic, cranked-out books by Big Names. Worthy authors, or entertaining ones, you will never hear of because they can’t get exposure in the Big Media.

That’s why the ebook phenomenon has exploded within two short years and shows no signs of slowing down. That’s why authors who have been published by the Big Six, like me, are rejoicing at the affordable opportunity of publishing worthy works brutally taken out of print and finding new (and former) audiences.

That’s why I urge everyone to invest in a Kindle or a Nook and search around for a great read. Yes, I love print books. Tom and I own 20,000 of them (seriously). But the ereaders are getting better, smaller, more powerful, and more affordable, and people who love print are saying they love ebooks, too.

Print books will never disappear, but ebooks are definitely here to stay.

Visit Ryan and check out his books at http://authorryanschneider.blogspot.com.

Visit Lisa Mason on Amazon, on my Facebook Author Page, on my Facebook Profile Page, on Goodreads, on LinkedIn, on Twitter at @lisaSmason, and at Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

If you like a work, please stop by Amazon.com or Barnes and Noble and “Like” it, add stars, write a review, and spread the word to your friends. Your participation really matters.

Thank you for your readership!

About Lisa Mason

I’m the author of eight novels, including SUMMER OF LOVE (published by Bantam, a division of Random House), a San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book and Philip K. Dick Award finalist, and THE GOLDEN NINETIES (Bantam, a division of Random House), a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book.

I published my first story, “ARACHNE,” in Omni and have since published short fiction in magazines and anthologies worldwide, including Omni, Full Spectrum, Universe, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Unique, Transcendental Tales, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Immortal Unicorn, Tales of the Impossible, Desire Burn, Fantastic Alice, The Shimmering Door, Hayakawa Science Fiction Magazine, Unter Die Haut, and others. My stories have been translated into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.

If you like a work, please stop by BarnesandNoble.com or Amazon.com and “Like” it, add stars, write a review, and spread the word to your friends. Your response really matters.

Thank you for your readership!

Romantic suspense fans! Celestial Girl, Book 1: The Heartland (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) is on Nook and Kindle! Also on UK Kindle.

New! Celestial Girl, Book 2: Jewel of the Golden West on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.

Coming soon! Book 3: The Celestial Kingdom. This volume will include Book 3 and Book 4: Terminus. The Omnibus Edition will include all three books.

If you love romantic suspense or historical mystery, please give Lily Modjeska a try!

Lily is not quite a typical woman in Toledo, Ohio, 1896. She may be repressed and dependent on her husband but she supports the vote for women and has a mind of her own. But when Johnny Pentland is found dead at a notorious brothel, Lily discovers her husband is not the man she thought he was.

Pursued by Pentland’s enemies, Lily embarks on a journey that will take her across the country to San Francisco and across the ocean to Imperial China as she unravels a web of murder and corruption reaching from the opium dens of Chinatown to the mansions of Nob Hill.

Her journey becomes one of the heart when she crosses paths with Jackson Tremaine, a debonair, worldly-wise physician. Lily and Jackson begin a conflicted, passionate relationship as they encounter the mysterious Celestial Girl and her dangerous entourage.

Urban fantasy fans! THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series is on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

This just in from Goodreads! Alan writes: “I loved the writing style and am hungry for more!”

At her mother’s urgent deathbed plea, Abby Teller enrolls at the Berkeley College of Magical Arts and Crafts to learn Real Magic. To support herself through school, she signs on as the superintendent of the Garden of Abracadabra, a mysterious, magical apartment building on campus. She discovers that her tenants are witches, shapeshifters, vampires, and wizards and each apartment is a fairyland or hell.

On her first day in Berkeley, she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. One of the victims is a man she picked up hitchhiking the day before. Compelled into a dangerous murder investigation and torn between three men, Abby will discover the first secrets of an ancient and ongoing war between Humanity and the Demonic Realms, uncover mysteries of her own troubled past, and learn that the lessons of Real Magic may spell the difference between her own life or death.

“So refreshing. . . .This is Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”

Fun and Enjoyable Urban Fantasy January 12, 2012
By D. Pflaster
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a very entertaining novel- sort of a down-to-earth Harry Potter with a modern adult woman in the lead. Even as Abby has to deal with mundane concerns like college and running the apartment complex she works at, she is surrounded by supernatural elements and mysteries that she is more than capable of taking on. Although this book is just the first in a series, it ties up the first “episode” while still leaving some story threads for upcoming books. I’m looking forward to finding out more.

New! Also available in affordable installments as THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA TRILOGY on Kindle, Book 1: Life’s Journey, Book 2: In Dark Woods, and Book 3, The Right Road. Get started here on UK Kindle!

And on Nook, Book 1, Life’s Journey, Book 2, In Dark Woods, and Book 3, The Right Road.

Forthcoming! The Labyrinth of Illusions, Volume 2 of the Abracadabra Series.

Science fiction and mainstream fans! The Bantam classic is back! SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL (a Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) is on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

Nineteen five-star Amazon reviews
“Summer of Love is an important American literary contribution.”
“This book was so true to life that I felt like I was there. I recommend it to anyone.”
“More than a great science-fiction, a great novel as well.”

The year is 1967 and something new is sweeping across America: good vibes, bad vibes, psychedelic music, psychedelic drugs, anti-war protests, racial tension, free love, bikers, dropouts, flower children. An age of innocence, a time of danger. The Summer of Love.

San Francisco is the Summer of Love, where runaway flower children flock to join the hip elite and squares cruise the streets to view the human zoo.

Lost in these strange and wondrous days, teenager Susan Bell, alias Starbright, has run away from the straight suburbs of Cleveland to find her troubled best friend. Her path will cross with Chiron Cat’s Eye in Draco, a strange and beautiful young man who has journeyed farther than she could ever imagine.

With the help of Ruby A. Maverick, a feisty half-black, half-white hip merchant, Susan and Chi discover a love that spans five centuries. But can they save the world from demons threatening to destroy all space and time?

New! Summer of Love Serials 1 through 7 are available in affordable installments!

New! Nook Owners! The Summer of Love Serials are again on Barnes and Noble.

Summer of Love, Serial 1: Celebration of the Summer Solstice
On Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 2: Festival of Growing Things
On Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 3: A Dog Day
On Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 4: Rumors
On Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 5: Inquest for the Ungrateful Dead
On Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 6: Chocolate George’s Wake
On Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 7: A New Moon in Virgo
On Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.

Science fiction and mainstream literary fans! THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL, the Bantam sequel to Summer of Love, (a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book) is on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

The year is 1895 and immigrants the world over are flocking to California on the transcontinental railroad and on transoceanic steamships. The Zoetrope demonstrates the persistence of vision, patent medicines addict children to morphine, and women are rallying for the vote. In San Francisco, saloons are the booming business, followed by brothels, and the Barbary Coast is a dangerous sink of iniquity. Atop Telegraph Hill bloody jousting tournaments are held and in Chinatown the tongs deal in opium, murder-for-hire, and slave girls.

Zhu Wong, a prisoner in twenty-fifth century China, is given a choice–stand trial for murder or go on a risky time-travel project to the San Francisco of 1895 to rescue a slave girl and take her to safety. Charmed by the city’s opulent glamour, Zhu will discover the city’s darkest secrets. A fervent population control activist in a world of twelve billion people, she will become an indentured servant to the city’s most notorious madam. Fiercely disciplined, she will fall desperately in love with the troubled self-destructive heir to a fading fortune.

And when the careful plans of the Gilded Age Project start unraveling, Zhu will discover that her choices not only affect the future but mean the difference between her own life or death.

“A winning mixture of intelligence and passion.”

The New York Times Book Review

Thriller fans! SHAKEN is on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

This sexy thriller is an ebook adaptation of “Deus Ex Machina” published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, republished in Transcendental Tales (Donning Press), and translated and republished worldwide.

Emma J for Joy Pearce is at her editorial offices on the twenty-second floor of Three Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco when the long-dreaded next Great Earthquake devastates the Bay area. Amid horrific destruction, she rescues a man trapped in the rubble. In the heat of survival, she swiftly bonds with him, causing her to question her possible marriage to her long-time boyfriend.

But Jason Gibb is not the charming photojournalist he pretends to be. As Emma discovers his true identity, his mission in the city, and the dark secrets behind the catastrophe, she finds the choices she makes may mean the difference between her own life or death.

A List of Sources follows this short novel.

Science fiction fans! The Story That Sold To The Movies. TOMORROW’S CHILD began as a medical documentary, then got published in Omni Magazine as a lead story, and finally sold to Universal Pictures, where the project is in development. On Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

A high-powered executive is about to lose his estranged teenage daughter to critical burn wounds and only desperate measures may save her life.

The ebook includes my 30-day blog, The Story Behind The Story That Sold To The Movies, describing the twists and turns from inspiration to movie deal.

Fantasy fans! HUMMERS was published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, chosen for Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 5th Annual Collection (St. Martin’s Press), and nominated for the Nebula Award.

On Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

Laurel, in the terminal stages of cancer, is obsessed with the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Jerry, her homecare nurse whose lover is dying of AIDS, gives her a surprising gift. A hummingbird feeder.

As Laurel comes to grips with her own death, she learns powerful and redeeming lessons about Egyptian Magic from the hummingbirds that visit her.

Literary fans! THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA is on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA was published in the acclaimed anthology, Full Spectrum 5 (Bantam), which also included stories by Neal Stephenson, Karen Joy Fowler, and Jonathan Lethem.

The year is 1941, and Hitler’s armies have swept across Europe. Nora, a budding young Surrealist artist, has fled to Mexico with B.B., a much older and acclaimed Surrealist playwright down on his luck. Hundreds of European artists and writers have formed a colony in Mexico City, and Nora befriends Valencia, a fellow Surrealist artist and refugee. Together the friends explore Jungian psychology and the power of symbols in their Art.

But Nora is plagued by an abusive relationship with B.B. She embarks on a harrowing journey deep into her own troubled psyche.

The novelette was inspired by my favorite Surrealist artists, Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo.

An Afterword describing Carrington and Varo’s lives and a List of Sources are included in the ebook.

Historical fantasy fans! EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED was published in David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible (HarperPrism), an anthology that included stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, and Kevin J. Anderson.

The year is 1895, and Danny Flint is a young man living in the shadow of his controlling father, a famous stage magician whose fortunes are fading. Uncle Brady, Professor Flint’s trusted assistant and business manager and Danny’s best friend, cannot stay in the same hotel as them—Uncle Brady is African-American. Danny is grieving over his mother’s recent accidental death, for which he feels he is to blame.

Danny and his father will confront the ethical dilemma between spiritualist séances and faked séances performed by stage magicians like them.

He will learn to reconcile himself with his grief and guilt, learn the secret of Uncle Brady’s identity, and assume his place at center stage as a talented magician in his own right with the help of a mysterious beautiful lady.

New! Historical fantasy fans! DAUGHTER OF THE TAO is on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

DAUGHTER OF THE TAO was published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn (HarperPrism), which included stories by Charles de Lint, Karen Joy Fowler, and Robert Sheckley.

Sing Lin is a mooie jai, a girl sold into slavery at the age of five to a wealthy merchant in Tangrenbu, the ghetto of her people in the new country across the sea. One lucky day, while she is out shopping by herself, she meets another mooie jai, Kwai Yin, a bossy, beautiful girl two years older. Kwai has a secret. Before she was sold into slavery, she had a Teacher who taught her about Tao Magic.

But Sing watches Kwai succumb to the terrifying fate of all slave girls in Tangrenbu.

Soon Sing is destined to go to the same fate. But will her invocation of Tao Magic save her?

New! Humor fans! Fast, fun, free! U F uh-O, A SCI FI COMEDY, my screenplay for a producer looking for the next “Galaxy Quest” or “Men in Black” that evolved into a novella, is free exclusively on Kindle Prime but only until May 19, 2013. Also on UK Kindle.

Nikki and Josh really want a child but have infertility issues. Gretchen and Mike have the same problem. When Nikki meets Gretchen at the Happy Daze Family Clinic in Pasadena, they discover that they share a love of music and have asked for a donor with musical talent. Nine months later, they give birth to very unusual babies and, seeking an answer to why the kids are so special, they meet again at a pediatrician’s office. And the search is on: who—and what—is Donor Number 333?

Filmmakers and screenwriters! TESLA, A WORTHY OF HIS TIME, A SCREENPLAY is on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

TESLA, A WORTHY OF HIS TIME, A SCREENPLAY was read by the producer of “Aliens” and “The Abyss” and is currently under consideration at another L.A. producer, A List of Sources is included in the ebook.

Genius. Visionary. Madman.

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was the pioneering genius who invented the AC electrical system that powers our world to this day, as well as radio, remote control, the automobile speedometer, X-ray photography, the AND logic gate that drives all our computer systems, and countless other devices and precursors to devices such as cell phones, television, and the Internet that we so effortlessly use today.

Strikingly handsome and charismatic, fluent in half a dozen languages, mathematics savant and master machinist, a reed-thin perfectionist who quoted poetry like a Victorian rapper, Tesla became one of the most famous men of his day. Friend of tycoons like John Jacob Astor and Stanford White and celebrities like Mark Twain and Sarah Bernhardt.

Yet Tesla was an intensely driven and lonely man, beset by inner demons, and cursed with a protean inventive imagination a century ahead of his time. He died in obscurity and poverty and, to this day, his name is not widely known. How did that happen?

Blending historical fact with speculative imagination, I explore the secrets of the Inventor’s inner life and his obsession with Goethe’s Faust set against the backdrop of sweeping technological changes at the turn of the twentieth century that have forever changed the world.

Coming soon! Strange Ladies: 7 Stories, a collection of stories published in magazines and anthologies worldwide will be on Nook and Kindle in early 2013. Also forthcoming is The Quester Trilogy, an ebook adaptation of my early cyberpunk classics, Arachne and Cyberweb.

So there you have it, my friend.

If you like a work, please stop by Barnes and Noble or Amazon and “Like” it, add stars, write a review, and spread the word to your friends. Your response really matters.

Thank you for your readership!

 

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Categories 2013, Amazon.com, Author Ryan Schneider Chats With Lisa Mason About Writing, Authors, BarnesandNoble.com, Bast Books, Books, Ebooks, Fiction, Lisa Mason, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author On Facebook, Lisa Mason on Facebook, Lisa Mason Romantic Suspense Author, Literature, Ryan Schneider, Ryan Schneider Chats With Lisa Mason About Writing, Writing

Variety Is The Spice of #Reading and #Writing

March 27, 2013 //
0

Variety is the spice of life, the saying goes. That’s true of food—a diet with a variety of fruits, whole grains, nuts, and vegetables is best for you. A variety of exercise—walking, dancing, hiking, even carrying groceries all the way across the parking lot—is good for your body. Wearing colorful clothes, rather than black all the time, is refreshing to your eye and your mood.

For me, the saying applies to reading, too.

I know some readers who read just one type of work. Only thrillers. Or political thrillers. Or mysteries, police procedurals, true crime. Or just science fiction. Just fantasy. Now some readers only want to read Young Adult (YA, as it’s called in the biz). Or only nonfiction. Only celebrity bios. Only romance. Only hot romance.

I understand! The publishers have parceled out the vast body of work out there into categories, subcategories, and sub-sub-categories, and packaged and marketed books that way. If you’re a reader with the reading bug, for whom reading is a passion, a special form of entertainment beyond TV, sports, movies, and gaming, you form expectations about what you want to read next. You want to see those expectations fulfilled. What works for you in your genre of choice may not work in another category. Words dart through your eyes into your brain, giving you that special feeling of entering another world on the most intimate level. Unlike TV or movies, you taste, feel, smell, and experience. And participate in that other world in a way even movies can’t match.

I remember having a long hard frustrating day of office work, picking up a fantasy story, and feeling as if I were drinking a cool fresh sip of water after being parched.

If you’re an author, you should be familiar with the genre you’re writing in, of course. But if you limit your reading only to that, you’re missing a lot of tricks. And the spice of variety. You also risk becoming too derivative of everything else in your genre. It’s true, the editors are looking for more of the same. More of the same, but different. That special edge of difference may mean the difference between a sale and a turn-down.

As a reader, I enjoy a variety of genres in fiction and enjoy nonfiction, too. I enjoy science fiction and fantasy, mostly of the earth-bound variety, mostly written by women. I enjoy mysteries, some mainstream if there’s a good story and not just linguistic frills. Some romance, also if there’s a good story and not just body parts steaming up. I know romance is super popular, but not so much with me. Still, I like a bit of hot romance. One genre I stay away from is horror. There’s enough horror in reality; I don’t need fictional horror in my mind. Yet there may be horror moments in urban fantasy, fantasy, mystery, and science fiction that work effectively.

I suppose I’m a riddle of a reader to the publishers who are trying to sell me a book!

As an author, I like to write in a variety of genres, as well, but my tastes are as specialized as my interests as a reader. I write fantasy, but not “high fantasy” kings and swords George R.R. Martin-style fantasy. I write science fiction, but not spacesuits and laser guns blazing hard SF. I write urban fantasy, but not cartoonish witches in black leather jumpsuits. I write some literary stories, but not about privileged people bored with their lives.

I want to read a good story. I very much want to write a good story.

You could say all my stories, however diverse, are Lisa Mason stories. Obsessed about discovering your true self, your destiny in life. About freedom and about moral responsibility. About creativity. About good overcoming evil.

So there you have it, my friend.

What about you? What do you read? Do you enjoy the spice of variety?

From the author of The Garden of Abracadabra, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series, on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle, Summer of Love, A Time Travel (a Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle, and The Gilded Age, A Time Travel (a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book) on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle.

New romantic suspense! Celestial Girl, Book 1: The Heartland (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) is on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle! Lily flees Toledo on the Overland train. She must share a seat with Jackson Tremaine and befriends the Celestial Girl, the daughter of a Chinese dignitary. But appearances are not what they seem.

New! Celestial Girl, Book 2: Jewel of the Golden West (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) is on Nook, Kindle, and UK Kindle! Lily and Jackson arrive in San Francisco and discover the murder of an immigration official connected with the Celestial Girl. They are drawn into a dangerous murder investigation and begin a passionate affair, as a contract for murder is taken out on Lily’s life.

Visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Website for books, ebooks, stories, and screenplays, forthcoming projects and more. And on my Facebook Author Page, on Amazon, on my Facebook Profile Page, on Goodreads, on LinkedIn, on Twitter at @lisaSmason, and at Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

If you enjoy a work, please “Like” it, add some stars, write a review on Amazon or Barnes & Noble, and spread the word to your friends. Your partcipation really matters.

Thank you for your readership!

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Categories 2013, Amazon.com, Authors, BarnesandNoble.com, Bast Books, Books, Ebooks, Fiction, Lisa Mason, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author On Facebook, Lisa Mason on Facebook, Lisa Mason Romantic Suspense Author, Literature, Reading, Writing

In Praise of Copyeditors

February 19, 2013 //
0

A while back, I wrote tax law books for a national law book publisher. I’d practiced tax law in a big San Francisco firm for a few years, but the time and commitment were overwhelming and I wanted—I needed–to work on my fiction.

Odd as it sounds, writing tax law books was easier.

The process went like this: my editorial director assigned me a topic, say, the charitable deduction. I researched the topic and wrote the chapter. I turned the manuscript in to my executive editor, who checked my research and tagged the manuscript for structure, language, and citation of authorities.

The editor returned the manuscript to me, and I responded to the tags and made changes. When the editor signed off, he or she then turned the manuscript over to a copyeditor.

We cranked out books on unforgiving deadlines. The director set up a production schedule for the hardcover book with facilities on the East coast before I had written one word.

We who wrote and edited substance were attorneys licensed by the State Bar of California and enjoyed window offices in a downtown skyscraper. The copyeditors, usually English majors, labored in interior cubbyholes. Like most business offices, we had a hierarchy and the copyeditors, all brilliant and educated folks who were probably working on their novels after their day job (as was I), harbored a bit of a grudge toward the lawyers.

Writing and riding. The two words sound almost the same, don’t they? I’m a huge fan of Blackfeet Indian pencils. I like to jot notes with Blackfeets. A sharpened point glides a soft, fine line onto paper that erases easily. Best of all, each pencil has a teeny, tiny Blackfeet Indian riding on a galloping horse. Love that horse and rider.

When you think about it, riding a horse is a lot like writing. The rider (your mind) guides the brute force of the horse (your material).

During my childhood and teens, I rode horses, trained at an academy, and competed in shows, winning seven ribbons in my day. I studied under a professional rider; I’ll call her Mrs. Grant. There she would stand at the center of the riding ring, a stern, silver-haired lady impeccably clad in canary breeches, black riding boots, and a tweedy hunting jacket. She would shout things like, “HEELS DOWN AND TOES FORWARD, MASON, YOU LOOK LIKE A DUCK.”

I loved riding horses. I did not love Mrs. Grant. But, like my fellow terrified riding students, I desperately wanted to please her. And she was always, always right.

The grudge match between the copyeditors and the lawyers sometimes went the other way when a copyeditor trudged from his or her dungeon down the hall to a lawyer-writer’s castle. After wrestling a manuscript out of thin air, many a lawyer-writer took a dim view of his or her masterwork beset by a million yellow tags, all of which had to be addressed in the space of two or three days.

My copyeditor, a stern, auburn-haired gamine in a slouchy sweater and tweedy slacks, would deposit my manuscript bristling with tags on my desk. Within, I would find comments like, “YOU’VE USED THE WORD ‘CONSTITUTE’ FORTY TIMES IN THIS MSS. ARE YOU WRITING ABOUT THE CHARITABLE DEDUCTION OR ORANGE JUICE?”

My copyeditor reminded me a lot of Mrs. Grant. I did not love her, but she was always, always right. And helped make my manuscript a polished piece of work publishable in a forty-dollar hardcover book. Which is just about as good as a blue ribbon won in a riding competition.

So here’s to you, my copyeditors. Your obsession with usage and punctuation has become mine, and everything I’ve learned about how to polish a manuscript for publication I’ve learned from you.

About Lisa Mason

A graduate of the University of Michigan School of Literature, the Sciences, and the Arts, and the University of Michigan Law School, I’m the author of eight novels, including SUMMER OF LOVE (published by Bantam, a division of Random House), a San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book and Philip K. Dick Award finalist, and THE GOLDEN NINETIES (Bantam, a division of Random House), a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book.

I published my first story, “ARACHNE,” in Omni and have since published short fiction in magazines and anthologies worldwide, including Omni, Full Spectrum, Universe, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Unique, Transcendental Tales, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Immortal Unicorn, Tales of the Impossible, Desire Burn, Fantastic Alice, The Shimmering Door, Hayakawa Science Fiction Magazine, Unter Die Haut, and others. My stories have been translated into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.

If you like a work, please stop by BarnesandNoble.com or Amazon.com and “Like” it, add stars, write a review, and spread the word to your friends. Your response really matters.

Thank you for your readership!

New! Romantic suspense fans! Celestial Girl, Book 1: The Heartland (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) is on Nook and Kindle! Also on UK Kindle.

If you love romantic suspense or historical mystery, this is both. Please give Lily Modjeska a try!

Coming soon! Book 2: Jewel of the Golden West, Book 3: The Celestial Kingdom, and Book 4: Terminus in affordable installments. The Omnibus Edition will include all four books.

Lily is a typical woman in Toledo, Ohio, 1896: repressed and dependent on her husband. But when Johnny Pentland is found dead at a notorious brothel, Lily discovers her husband is not the man she thought he was.

Pursued by Pentland’s enemies, Lily embarks on a journey that will take her across the country to San Francisco and across the ocean to Imperial China as she unravels a web of murder and corruption reaching from the opium dens of Chinatown to the mansions of Nob Hill.

Her journey becomes one of the heart when she crosses paths with Jackson Tremaine, a debonair, worldly-wise physician. Lily and Jackson begin a conflicted, passionate relationship as they encounter the mysterious Celestial Girl and her dangerous entourage.

Urban fantasy fans! THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series is on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

Also available in affordable installments as THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA TRILOGY on Kindle, Book 1: Life’s Journey, Book 2: In Dark Woods, and Book 3, The Right Road. Get started on UK Kindle

and on Nook, Book 1, Life’s Journey, Book 2, In Dark Woods, and Book 3, The Right Road.

This just in from Goodreads! Alan writes: “I loved the writing style and am hungry for more.:D”

At her mother’s urgent deathbed plea, Abby Teller enrolls at the Berkeley College of Magical Arts and Crafts to learn Real Magic. To support herself through school, she signs on as the superintendent of the Garden of Abracadabra, a mysterious, magical apartment building on campus. She discovers that her tenants are witches, shapeshifters, vampires, and wizards and each apartment is a fairyland or hell. On her first day in Berkeley, she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. One of the victims is a man she picked up hitchhiking the day before. Compelled into a dangerous murder investigation and torn between three men, Abby will discover the first secrets of an ancient and ongoing war between Humanity and the Demonic Realms, uncover mysteries of her own troubled past, and learn that the lessons of Real Magic may spell the difference between her own life or death.

“So refreshing. . . .This is Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”

Fun and Enjoyable Urban Fantasy January 12, 2012
By D. Pflaster
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a very entertaining novel- sort of a down-to-earth Harry Potter with a modern adult woman in the lead. Even as Abby has to deal with mundane concerns like college and running the apartment complex she works at, she is surrounded by supernatural elements and mysteries that she is more than capable of taking on. Although this book is just the first in a series, it ties up the first “episode” while still leaving some story threads for upcoming books. I’m looking forward to finding out more.

Science fiction and mainstream fans! The Bantam classic is back! SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL (a Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) is on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

Nineteen five-star Amazon reviews
“Summer of Love is an important American literary contribution.”
“This book was so true to life that I felt like I was there. I recommend it to anyone.”
“More than a great science-fiction, a great novel as well.”

The year is 1967 and something new is sweeping across America: good vibes, bad vibes, psychedelic music, psychedelic drugs, anti-war protests, racial tension, free love, bikers, dropouts, flower children. An age of innocence, a time of danger. The Summer of Love.

San Francisco is the Summer of Love, where runaway flower children flock to join the hip elite and squares cruise the streets to view the human zoo.

Lost in these strange and wondrous days, teenager Susan Bell, alias Starbright, has run away from the straight suburbs of Cleveland to find her troubled best friend. Her path will cross with Chiron Cat’s Eye in Draco, a strange and beautiful young man who has journeyed farther than she could ever imagine.

With the help of Ruby A. Maverick, a feisty half-black, half-white hip merchant, Susan and Chi discover a love that spans five centuries. But can they save the world from demons threatening to destroy all space and time?

New! Summer of Love Serials are available in seven affordable installments free exclusively on Kindle Prime until March 1, 2013. Get started with Summer of Love, Serial 1: Celebration of the Summer Solstice. Also on UK Kindle

Science fiction and mainstream fans! The Bantam sequel, THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL (a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book) is on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

The year is 1895 and immigrants the world over are flocking to California on the transcontinental railroad and on transoceanic steamships. The Zoetrope demonstrates the persistence of vision, patent medicines addict children to morphine, and women are rallying for the vote. In San Francisco, saloons are the booming business, followed by brothels, and the Barbary Coast is a dangerous sink of iniquity. Atop Telegraph Hill bloody jousting tournaments are held and in Chinatown the tongs deal in opium, murder-for-hire, and slave girls.

Zhu Wong, a prisoner in twenty-fifth century China, is given a choice–stand trial for murder or go on a risky time-travel project to the San Francisco of 1895 to rescue a slave girl and take her to safety. Charmed by the city’s opulent glamour, Zhu will discover the city’s darkest secrets. A fervent population control activist in a world of twelve billion people, she will become an indentured servant to the city’s most notorious madam. Fiercely disciplined, she will fall desperately in love with the troubled self-destructive heir to a fading fortune.

And when the careful plans of the Gilded Age Project start unraveling, Zhu will discover that her choices not only affect the future but mean the difference between her own life or death.

“A winning mixture of intelligence and passion.” The New York Times Book Review

Thriller fans! My sexy thriller, SHAKEN, an ebook adaptation of “Deus Ex Machina” published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, republished in Transcendental Tales (Donning Press), and translated and republished in Europe and South America, is on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

Emma J for Joy Pearce is at her editorial offices on the twenty-second floor of Three Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco when the long-dreaded next Great Earthquake devastates the Bay area. Amid horrific destruction, she rescues a man trapped in the rubble. In the heat of survival, she swiftly bonds with him, causing her to question her possible marriage to her long-time boyfriend.

But Jason Gibb is not the charming photojournalist he pretends to be. As Emma discovers his true identity, his mission in the city, and the dark secrets behind the catastrophe, she finds the choices she makes may mean the difference between her own life or death. Dark romantic suspense!

A List of Sources follows this short novel.

The Story That Sold To The Movies. TOMORROW’S CHILD began as a medical documentary, then got published in Omni Magazine as a lead story, and finally sold to Universal Pictures, where the project is in development. On Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

A high-powered executive is about to lose his estranged teenage daughter to critical burn wounds and only desperate measures may save her life.

The ebook includes my blog, The Story Behind The Story That Sold To The Movies, describing the twists and turns this story took over the years.

New! HUMMERS was published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, chosen for Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 5th Annual Collection (St. Martin’s Press), and nominated for the Nebula Award. Free exclusively on Kindle Prime until March 1, 2013. Also on UK Kindle.

Laurel, in the terminal stages of cancer, is obsessed with the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Jerry, her homecare nurse whose lover is dying of AIDS, gives her a surprising gift. A hummingbird feeder. As Laurel comes to grips with her own death, she learns powerful and redeeming lessons about Egyptian Magic from the hummingbirds that visit her.

New! Literary fans! THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, published in the acclaimed anthology, Full Spectrum 5 (Bantam), which also included stories by Neal Stephenson, Karen Joy Fowler, and Jonathan Lethem, is free exclusively on Kindle Prime until March 1, 2013. Also on UK Kindle.

The year is 1941, and Hitler’s armies have swept across Europe. Nora, a budding young Surrealist artist, has fled to Mexico with B.B., a much older and acclaimed Surrealist playwright down on his luck. Hundreds of European artists and writers have formed a colony in Mexico City, and Nora befriends Valencia, a fellow Surrealist artist and refugee. Together the friends explore Jungian psychology and the power of symbols in their Art. But Nora is plagued by an abusive relationship with B.B. She embarks on a harrowing journey deep into her own troubled psyche.

The novelette was inspired by my favorite Surrealist artists, Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. An Afterword describing Carrington and Varo’s lives and a List of Sources are included in the ebook.

New! Historical fantasy fans! EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, published in David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible (HarperPrism), an anthology that included stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, and Kevin J. Anderson, is free exclusively on Kindle Prime until March 1, 2013. Also on UK Kindle.

The year is 1895, and Danny Flint is a young man living in the shadow of his controlling father, a famous stage magician whose fortunes are fading. Uncle Brady, Professor Flint’s trusted assistant and business manager and Danny’s best friend, cannot stay in the same hotel as them—Uncle Brady is African-American. Danny is grieving over his mother’s recent accidental death, for which he feels he is to blame.

Danny and his father will confront the ethical dilemma between spiritualist séances and faked séances performed by stage magicians like them.

He will learn to reconcile himself with his grief and guilt, learn the secret of Uncle Brady’s identity, and assume his place at center stage as a talented magician in his own right with the help of a mysterious beautiful lady.

New! Historical fantasy fans! DAUGHTER OF THE TAO, published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn (HarperPrism), that included stories by Charles de Lint, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Sheckley, and Ellen Kushner, is free exclusively on Kindle Prime until March 1, 2013. Also on UK Kindle.

Sing Lin is a mooie jai, a girl sold into slavery at the age of five to a wealthy merchant in Tangrenbu, the ghetto of her people in the new country across the sea. One lucky day, while she is out shopping by herself, she meets another mooie jai, Kwai Yin, a bossy, beautiful girl two years older. Kwai has a secret. Before she was sold into slavery, she had a Teacher who taught her about Tao Magic.

But Sing watches Kwai succumb to the terrifying fate of all slave girls in Tangrenbu.

Soon Sing is destined to go to the same fate. But will her invocation of Tao Magic save her?

New! Humor fans! Fast, fun, free! U F uh-O, A SCI FI COMEDY, my screenplay for a producer looking for the next “Galaxy Quest” or “Men in Black” that evolved into a novella, is free exclusively on Kindle Prime until March 1, 2013. Also on UK Kindle.

Nikki and Josh really want a child but have infertility issues. Gretchen and Mike have the same problem. When Nikki meets Gretchen at the Happy Daze Family Clinic in Pasadena, they discover that they share a love of music and have asked for a donor with musical talent. Nine months later, they give birth to very unusual babies and, seeking an answer to why the kids are so special, they meet again at a pediatrician’s office. And the search is on: who—and what—is Donor Number 333?

Filmmakers and screenwriters! TESLA, A WORTHY OF HIS TIME, A SCREENPLAY, which was read by the producer of “Aliens” and “The Abyss” and is currently under consideration at another L.A. producer, is on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle. A List of Sources is included in the ebook.

Genius. Visionary. Madman.

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was the pioneering genius who invented the AC electrical system that powers our world to this day, as well as radio, remote control, the automobile speedometer, X-ray photography, the AND logic gate that drives all our computer systems, and countless other devices and precursors to devices such as cell phones, television, and the Internet that we so effortlessly use today.

Strikingly handsome and charismatic, fluent in half a dozen languages, mathematics savant and master machinist, a reed-thin perfectionist who quoted poetry like a Victorian rapper, Tesla became one of the most famous men of his day. Friend of tycoons like John Jacob Astor and Stanford White and celebrities like Mark Twain and Sarah Bernhardt.

Yet Tesla was an intensely driven and lonely man, beset by inner demons, and cursed with a protean inventive imagination a century ahead of his time. He died in obscurity and poverty and, to this day, his name is not widely known. How did that happen?

Blending historical fact with speculative imagination, I explore the secrets of the Inventor’s inner life and his obsession with Goethe’s Faust set against the backdrop of sweeping technological changes at the turn of the twentieth century that have forever changed the world.

New! Erotica fans! For a short, erotic, new adult novel, try Eon’s Kiss by Suzanna Moore, exclusively free on Kindle Prime until March 1, 2013. Also on UK Kindle.

Our sexy paranormal hero is not a vampire or a werewolf! If you’re looking for something sweet and steamy, check it out!

On the eve of what Jenna Coltrane believes will be Brett Becker’s marriage proposal, tragedy strikes her life—not just once, but twice. In the midst of trouble, she encounters Eon, a regal young man unlike anyone she’s ever met before.

With him, she enters the magical world of the Arbor, discovering love, passion, and beauty beyond her wildest dreams.

But Jenna cannot stay in Eon’s magical world for long–she’ll die. And Eon cannot stay in Jenna’s ordinary world—he’s a god. They can only meet through the Gateway Tree.

When Jenna discovers that Becker Construction plans to destroy the Arbor and build an office-condo complex on the site, she becomes the leader of an environmentalist movement to save the Arbor. But Becker Construction will stop at nothing and Jenna is swept up in a struggle in which her love for Eon and her very life are at stake.

Coming soon! Strange Ladies: 7 Stories, a collection of stories published in magazines and anthologies worldwide will be on Nook and Kindle in early 2013. Also forthcoming is The Quester Trilogy, an ebook adaptation of my early cyberpunk classics, Arachne and Cyberweb.

If you like a work, please stop by Barnes and Noble or Amazon and “Like” it, add stars, write a review, and spread the word to your friends. Your response really matters.

Thank you for your readership!

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Categories 2013, Authors, BarnesandNoble.com, Bast Books, Books, Copyeditors, Ebooks, Fiction, Lisa Mason, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author On Facebook, Lisa Mason Romantic Suspense Author, Writing

In Praise of Copyeditors

February 16, 2013 //
0

A while back, I wrote tax law books for a national law book publisher. I’d practiced tax law in a big San Francisco firm for a few years, but the time and commitment were overwhelming and I wanted—I needed–to work on my fiction.

Odd as it sounds, writing tax law books was easier.

The process went like this: my editorial director assigned me a topic, say, the charitable deduction. I researched the topic and wrote the chapter. I turned the manuscript in to my executive editor, who checked my research and tagged the manuscript for structure, language, and citation of authorities.

The editor returned the manuscript to me, and I responded to the tags and made changes. When the editor signed off, he or she then turned the manuscript over to a copyeditor.

We cranked out books on unforgiving deadlines. The director set up a production schedule for the hardcover book with facilities on the East coast before I had written one word.

We who wrote and edited substance were attorneys licensed by the State Bar of California and enjoyed window offices in a downtown skyscraper. The copyeditors, usually English majors, labored in interior cubbyholes. Like most business offices, we had a hierarchy and the copyeditors, all brilliant and educated folks who were probably working on their novels after work (as was I), harbored a bit of a grudge against the lawyers.

Writing and riding. The two words sound almost the same, don’t they? I’m a huge fan of Blackfeet Indian pencils. I like to jot notes with Blackfeets. A sharpened point glides a soft, fine line onto paper that erases easily. Best of all, each pencil has a teeny, tiny Blackfeet Indian riding on a galloping horse. Love that horse and rider.

When you think about it, riding a horse is a lot like writing. The rider (your mind) guides the brute force of the horse (your material).

During my childhood and teens, I rode horses, trained at an academy, and competed in shows, winning seven ribbons in my day. I studied under a professional rider; I’ll call her Mrs. Grant. There she would stand at the center of the riding ring, a stern, silver-haired lady impeccably clad in canary breeches, black riding boots, and a tweedy hunting jacket. She would shout things like, “HEELS DOWN AND TOES FORWARD, MASON, YOU LOOK LIKE A DUCK.”

I loved riding horses. I did not love Mrs. Grant. But, like my fellow terrified riding students, I desperately wanted to please her. And she was always, always right.

The grudge match between the lawyers and the copyeditors sometimes went the other way when a copyeditor trudged from his or her dungeon down the hall to a lawyer-writer’s castle. After wrestling a manuscript out of thin air, many a lawyer-writer took a dim view of his or her masterwork beset by a million yellow tags, all of which had to be addressed in the space of two or three days.

My copyeditor, a stern, auburn-haired gamine in a slouchy sweater and tweedy slacks, would deposit my manuscript bristling with tags on my desk. Within, I would find comments like, “YOU’VE USED THE WORD ‘CONSTITUTE’ FORTY TIMES IN THIS MSS. ARE YOU WRITING ABOUT THE CHARITABLE DEDUCTION OR ORANGE JUICE?”

My copyeditor reminded me a lot of Mrs. Grant. I did not love her, but she was always, always right. And helped make my manuscript a polished piece of work publishable in a forty-dollar hardcover book. Which is just about as good as a blue ribbon won in a riding competition.

So here’s to you, my copyeditors. Your obsession with usage and punctuation has become mine, and everything I’ve learned about how to polish a manuscript for publication I’ve learned from you.

About Lisa Mason

A graduate of the University of Michigan School of Literature, the Sciences, and the Arts, and the University of Michigan Law School, I’m the author of eight novels, including SUMMER OF LOVE (published by Bantam, a division of Random House), a San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book and Philip K. Dick Award finalist, and THE GOLDEN NINETIES (Bantam, a division of Random House), a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book.

I published my first story, “ARACHNE,” in Omni and have since published short fiction in magazines and anthologies worldwide, including Omni, Full Spectrum, Universe, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Unique, Transcendental Tales, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Immortal Unicorn, Tales of the Impossible, Desire Burn, Fantastic Alice, The Shimmering Door, Hayakawa Science Fiction Magazine, Unter Die Haut, and others. My stories have been translated into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.

If you like a work, please stop by BarnesandNoble.com or Amazon.com and “Like” it, add stars, write a review, and spread the word to your friends. Your response really matters.

Thank you for your readership!

New! Romantic suspense fans! Celestial Girl, Book 1: The Heartland (A Lily Modjeska Mystery) is on Nook and Kindle! Also on UK Kindle.

If you love romantic suspense or historical mystery, this is both. Please give Lily Modjeska a try!

Coming soon! Book 2: Jewel of the Golden West, Book 3: The Celestial Kingdom, and Book 4: Terminus in affordable installments. The Omnibus Edition will include all four books.

Lily is a typical woman in Toledo, Ohio, 1896: repressed and dependent on her husband. But when Johnny Pentland is found dead at a notorious brothel, Lily discovers her husband is not the man she thought he was.

Pursued by Pentland’s enemies, Lily embarks on a journey that will take her across the country to San Francisco and across the ocean to Imperial China as she unravels a web of murder and corruption reaching from the opium dens of Chinatown to the mansions of Nob Hill.

Her journey becomes one of the heart when she crosses paths with Jackson Tremaine, a debonair, worldly-wise physician. Lily and Jackson begin a conflicted, passionate relationship as they encounter the mysterious Celestial Girl and her dangerous entourage.

Urban fantasy fans! THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series is on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

Also available in affordable installments as THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA TRILOGY on Kindle, Book 1: Life’s Journey, Book 2: In Dark Woods, and Book 3, The Right Road. Get started on UK Kindle

and on Nook, Book 1, Life’s Journey, Book 2, In Dark Woods, and Book 3, The Right Road.

This just in from Goodreads! Alan writes: “I loved the writing style and am hungry for more.:D”

At her mother’s urgent deathbed plea, Abby Teller enrolls at the Berkeley College of Magical Arts and Crafts to learn Real Magic. To support herself through school, she signs on as the superintendent of the Garden of Abracadabra, a mysterious, magical apartment building on campus. She discovers that her tenants are witches, shapeshifters, vampires, and wizards and each apartment is a fairyland or hell. On her first day in Berkeley, she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. One of the victims is a man she picked up hitchhiking the day before. Compelled into a dangerous murder investigation and torn between three men, Abby will discover the first secrets of an ancient and ongoing war between Humanity and the Demonic Realms, uncover mysteries of her own troubled past, and learn that the lessons of Real Magic may spell the difference between her own life or death.

“So refreshing. . . .This is Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”

Fun and Enjoyable Urban Fantasy January 12, 2012
By D. Pflaster
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a very entertaining novel- sort of a down-to-earth Harry Potter with a modern adult woman in the lead. Even as Abby has to deal with mundane concerns like college and running the apartment complex she works at, she is surrounded by supernatural elements and mysteries that she is more than capable of taking on. Although this book is just the first in a series, it ties up the first “episode” while still leaving some story threads for upcoming books. I’m looking forward to finding out more.

Science fiction and mainstream fans! The Bantam classic is back! SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL (a Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) is on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

Nineteen five-star Amazon reviews
“Summer of Love is an important American literary contribution.”
“This book was so true to life that I felt like I was there. I recommend it to anyone.”
“More than a great science-fiction, a great novel as well.”

The year is 1967 and something new is sweeping across America: good vibes, bad vibes, psychedelic music, psychedelic drugs, anti-war protests, racial tension, free love, bikers, dropouts, flower children. An age of innocence, a time of danger. The Summer of Love.

San Francisco is the Summer of Love, where runaway flower children flock to join the hip elite and squares cruise the streets to view the human zoo.

Lost in these strange and wondrous days, teenager Susan Bell, alias Starbright, has run away from the straight suburbs of Cleveland to find her troubled best friend. Her path will cross with Chiron Cat’s Eye in Draco, a strange and beautiful young man who has journeyed farther than she could ever imagine.

With the help of Ruby A. Maverick, a feisty half-black, half-white hip merchant, Susan and Chi discover a love that spans five centuries. But can they save the world from demons threatening to destroy all space and time?

New! Summer of Love Serials are available in seven affordable installments free exclusively on Kindle Prime until March 1, 2013. Get started with Summer of Love, Serial 1: Celebration of the Summer Solstice. Also on UK Kindle

Science fiction and mainstream fans! The Bantam sequel, THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL (a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book) is on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

The year is 1895 and immigrants the world over are flocking to California on the transcontinental railroad and on transoceanic steamships. The Zoetrope demonstrates the persistence of vision, patent medicines addict children to morphine, and women are rallying for the vote. In San Francisco, saloons are the booming business, followed by brothels, and the Barbary Coast is a dangerous sink of iniquity. Atop Telegraph Hill bloody jousting tournaments are held and in Chinatown the tongs deal in opium, murder-for-hire, and slave girls.

Zhu Wong, a prisoner in twenty-fifth century China, is given a choice–stand trial for murder or go on a risky time-travel project to the San Francisco of 1895 to rescue a slave girl and take her to safety. Charmed by the city’s opulent glamour, Zhu will discover the city’s darkest secrets. A fervent population control activist in a world of twelve billion people, she will become an indentured servant to the city’s most notorious madam. Fiercely disciplined, she will fall desperately in love with the troubled self-destructive heir to a fading fortune.

And when the careful plans of the Gilded Age Project start unraveling, Zhu will discover that her choices not only affect the future but mean the difference between her own life or death.

“A winning mixture of intelligence and passion.” The New York Times Book Review

Thriller fans! My sexy thriller, SHAKEN, an ebook adaptation of “Deus Ex Machina” published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, republished in Transcendental Tales (Donning Press), and translated and republished in Europe and South America, is on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

Emma J for Joy Pearce is at her editorial offices on the twenty-second floor of Three Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco when the long-dreaded next Great Earthquake devastates the Bay area. Amid horrific destruction, she rescues a man trapped in the rubble. In the heat of survival, she swiftly bonds with him, causing her to question her possible marriage to her long-time boyfriend.

But Jason Gibb is not the charming photojournalist he pretends to be. As Emma discovers his true identity, his mission in the city, and the dark secrets behind the catastrophe, she finds the choices she makes may mean the difference between her own life or death. Dark romantic suspense!

A List of Sources follows this short novel.

The Story That Sold To The Movies. TOMORROW’S CHILD began as a medical documentary, then got published in Omni Magazine as a lead story, and finally sold to Universal Pictures, where the project is in development. On Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle.

A high-powered executive is about to lose his estranged teenage daughter to critical burn wounds and only desperate measures may save her life.

The ebook includes my blog, The Story Behind The Story That Sold To The Movies, describing the twists and turns this story took over the years.

New! HUMMERS was published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, chosen for Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 5th Annual Collection (St. Martin’s Press), and nominated for the Nebula Award. Free exclusively on Kindle Prime until March 1, 2013. Also on UK Kindle.

Laurel, in the terminal stages of cancer, is obsessed with the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Jerry, her homecare nurse whose lover is dying of AIDS, gives her a surprising gift. A hummingbird feeder. As Laurel comes to grips with her own death, she learns powerful and redeeming lessons about Egyptian Magic from the hummingbirds that visit her.

New! Literary fans! THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, published in the acclaimed anthology, Full Spectrum 5 (Bantam), which also included stories by Neal Stephenson, Karen Joy Fowler, and Jonathan Lethem, is free exclusively on Kindle Prime until March 1, 2013. Also on UK Kindle.

The year is 1941, and Hitler’s armies have swept across Europe. Nora, a budding young Surrealist artist, has fled to Mexico with B.B., a much older and acclaimed Surrealist playwright down on his luck. Hundreds of European artists and writers have formed a colony in Mexico City, and Nora befriends Valencia, a fellow Surrealist artist and refugee. Together the friends explore Jungian psychology and the power of symbols in their Art. But Nora is plagued by an abusive relationship with B.B. She embarks on a harrowing journey deep into her own troubled psyche.

The novelette was inspired by my favorite Surrealist artists, Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. An Afterword describing Carrington and Varo’s lives and a List of Sources are included in the ebook.

New! Historical fantasy fans! EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, published in David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible (HarperPrism), an anthology that included stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, and Kevin J. Anderson, is free exclusively on Kindle Prime until March 1, 2013. Also on UK Kindle.

The year is 1895, and Danny Flint is a young man living in the shadow of his controlling father, a famous stage magician whose fortunes are fading. Uncle Brady, Professor Flint’s trusted assistant and business manager and Danny’s best friend, cannot stay in the same hotel as them—Uncle Brady is African-American. Danny is grieving over his mother’s recent accidental death, for which he feels he is to blame.

Danny and his father will confront the ethical dilemma between spiritualist séances and faked séances performed by stage magicians like them.

He will learn to reconcile himself with his grief and guilt, learn the secret of Uncle Brady’s identity, and assume his place at center stage as a talented magician in his own right with the help of a mysterious beautiful lady.

New! Historical fantasy fans! DAUGHTER OF THE TAO, published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn (HarperPrism), that included stories by Charles de Lint, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Sheckley, and Ellen Kushner, is free exclusively on Kindle Prime until March 1, 2013. Also on UK Kindle.

Sing Lin is a mooie jai, a girl sold into slavery at the age of five to a wealthy merchant in Tangrenbu, the ghetto of her people in the new country across the sea. One lucky day, while she is out shopping by herself, she meets another mooie jai, Kwai Yin, a bossy, beautiful girl two years older. Kwai has a secret. Before she was sold into slavery, she had a Teacher who taught her about Tao Magic.

But Sing watches Kwai succumb to the terrifying fate of all slave girls in Tangrenbu.

Soon Sing is destined to go to the same fate. But will her invocation of Tao Magic save her?

New! Humor fans! Fast, fun, free! U F uh-O, A SCI FI COMEDY, my screenplay for a producer looking for the next “Galaxy Quest” or “Men in Black” that evolved into a novella, is free exclusively on Kindle Prime until March 1, 2013. Also on UK Kindle.

Nikki and Josh really want a child but have infertility issues. Gretchen and Mike have the same problem. When Nikki meets Gretchen at the Happy Daze Family Clinic in Pasadena, they discover that they share a love of music and have asked for a donor with musical talent. Nine months later, they give birth to very unusual babies and, seeking an answer to why the kids are so special, they meet again at a pediatrician’s office. And the search is on: who—and what—is Donor Number 333?

Filmmakers and screenwriters! TESLA, A WORTHY OF HIS TIME, A SCREENPLAY, which was read by the producer of “Aliens” and “The Abyss” and is currently under consideration at another L.A. producer, is on Nook and Kindle. Also on UK Kindle. A List of Sources is included in the ebook.

Genius. Visionary. Madman.

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was the pioneering genius who invented the AC electrical system that powers our world to this day, as well as radio, remote control, the automobile speedometer, X-ray photography, the AND logic gate that drives all our computer systems, and countless other devices and precursors to devices such as cell phones, television, and the Internet that we so effortlessly use today.

Strikingly handsome and charismatic, fluent in half a dozen languages, mathematics savant and master machinist, a reed-thin perfectionist who quoted poetry like a Victorian rapper, Tesla became one of the most famous men of his day. Friend of tycoons like John Jacob Astor and Stanford White and celebrities like Mark Twain and Sarah Bernhardt.

Yet Tesla was an intensely driven and lonely man, beset by inner demons, and cursed with a protean inventive imagination a century ahead of his time. He died in obscurity and poverty and, to this day, his name is not widely known. How did that happen?

Blending historical fact with speculative imagination, I explore the secrets of the Inventor’s inner life and his obsession with Goethe’s Faust set against the backdrop of sweeping technological changes at the turn of the twentieth century that have forever changed the world.

New! Erotica fans! For a short, erotic, new adult novel, try Eon’s Kiss by Suzanna Moore, exclusively free on Kindle Prime until March 1, 2013. Also on UK Kindle.

Our sexy paranormal hero is not a vampire or a werewolf! If you’re looking for something sweet and steamy, check it out!

On the eve of what Jenna Coltrane believes will be Brett Becker’s marriage proposal, tragedy strikes her life—not just once, but twice. In the midst of trouble, she encounters Eon, a regal young man unlike anyone she’s ever met before.

With him, she enters the magical world of the Arbor, discovering love, passion, and beauty beyond her wildest dreams.

But Jenna cannot stay in Eon’s magical world for long–she’ll die. And Eon cannot stay in Jenna’s ordinary world—he’s a god. They can only meet through the Gateway Tree.

When Jenna discovers that Becker Construction plans to destroy the Arbor and build an office-condo complex on the site, she becomes the leader of an environmentalist movement to save the Arbor. But Becker Construction will stop at nothing and Jenna is swept up in a struggle in which her love for Eon and her very life are at stake.

Coming soon! Strange Ladies: 7 Stories, a collection of stories published in magazines and anthologies worldwide will be on Nook and Kindle in early 2013. Also forthcoming is The Quester Trilogy, an ebook adaptation of my early cyberpunk classics, Arachne and Cyberweb.

If you like a work, please stop by Barnes and Noble or Amazon and “Like” it, add stars, write a review, and spread the word to your friends. Your response really matters.

Thank you for your readership!

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Categories 2013, Authors, BarnesandNoble.com, Bast Books, Books, Copyeditors, Ebooks, Lisa Mason, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author On Facebook, Lisa Mason Romantic Suspense Author, Literature, Writing

#RyanSchneider Chats with #LisaMason about #Writing

January 9, 2013 //
0

Ryan Schneider, Author, chats with Lisa Mason, Fantasy and Science Fiction Author, about Writing

RS: How did you get into writing?

LM: My mom bought me lots of great books when I was a kid. I loved reading and decided I wanted to be a writer. Stories and fantasies would pop into my head and I wrote my first book at age five. I’ve got it on my desk right now. It is 1¼ inches by 2 inches, hand-sewn, two chapters, lavishly illustrated by the author, and entitled, “Millie the Caterpillar.” Millie is despondent at being “a fat, green, hairy, little caterpillar.” Then spring comes, she breaks out of her cocoon, and “to her surprize, she found two beautiful red and black wings on her shoulders.” Happiness! The End. I’ve thought ever since surprise should be spelled with a z.

So you could say I got bit by the writing bug early on, but my life has taken some twists and turns and writing hasn’t been a straight shot for me.

RS: What do you like best (or least) about writing?

LM: I love publishing something and having readers tell me they loved it, were entertained by it, moved by it, couldn’t put it down. I’ll shamelessly admit readers have told me Summer of Love is their all-time favorite book. Readers’ responses make all the blood, sweat, and tears worthwhile. What I hate most is getting stuck, but that’s a blog in and of itself.

RS: What is your writing process? IE do you outline? Do you stick to a daily word or page count, write 7 days a week, etc?

LM: Oh, I’d love to write 5000 words a day, but that seldom happens. The main thing is to accomplish something seven days a week, if only making notes or working out a plot point you’re not sure of. I usually get a holistic concept of a book or story, sketch the general thrust of it, and break it open with the first scene. Often, I’ll have the first scene and the last, the story goal I want to accomplish. (You know the joke that every book has a beginning, an ending, and a muddle.) I don’t like outlining but the process is so important for keeping your narrative on track. I’ll often micro-outline what I’m working on and the material immediately after. Once I get through that, the next plot twists often reveal themselves. Then I do the same process again, step by step.

When a book gathers momentum and the world-building is set down, I’ll write every day for two weeks at a time, take a one-day break, then start again the next day.

RS: Who are some other writers you read and admire, regardless of whether they are commercially “successful?”

LM: You know, lately I’ve been picking up classic authors. I just read Raymond Chandler’s Lady in the Lake. Marlowe is the original chain-smoking, hard-drinking, lone-wolf, sardonic private eye and Chandler is such a master stylist. I’ve got Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome and Joseph Conrad’s Tales of Unrest on my reading table. And I’ve been enjoying Rex Stout’s Nero Wolf mysteries from the 1940s. Urban fantasy employs the mystery trope, as does romantic suspense, both areas I’m writing within.

RS: Should the question mark in the above question be inside or outside the quotes?

LM: Outside, of course, because the question mark punctuates the entire sentence, whereas the quotes indicate the word is, in the author’s opinion, a relative or subjective term.

RS: What’s your stance on the Oxford Comma?

LM: I’m totally freaked out by the Oxford Comma. What the hell is the Oxford Comma?

RS: What is your book about and how did it come to fruition?

LM: Please take a look at my bio below. How does any of that happen? Obsession-compulsion. Hard work. Late nights. Giving up a lot of time-consuming activities like television.

RS: What book(s) are you currently reading?

LM: On my To-Read list are The Night Circus and A Discovery of Witches because I’m working on the next book in my urban fantasy, The Abracadabra Series. Research books for a science fiction series I’m launching next year.

RS: Who or what inspires your writing?

LM: Oh, Life! Personal experience. Love, anger, vengeance. Joy. Beauty. A hummingbird landing on my feeder. Historical people I admire, like the women Surrealist artists in the story listed below, or Nikola Tesla, the great inventor and electrical engineer whom I wrote a screenplay about and who reminded me of my inventor-electrical engineer dad. Stage magicians. Real Magic. Being invited to contribute to a themed anthology always kicks me in the butt to dream up something new. I’ve written so many different kinds of books and stories, I’ll be adding blogs to my Goodreads Author Page just to talk about what inspired me, what I researched, and so on.

Quite a few redheaded or russet-haired or strawberry blond men seem to show up in my work, so I’m compelled to add to the list of inspirations my husband, Tom Robinson. But don’t tell him I told you so (his head is swelled enough already).

RS: Finally, is there anything you’d care to add? Please also include where people can read your published stories, buy your book, etc.

LM: Readers may not realize it, but traditional publishing is changing daily. Radically. Twenty years ago, there were twenty or thirty publishers. The big fish gobbled up the smaller fish, turned them into imprints, and subsumed everything to a larger corporation. Authors essentially could only submit to the Big Six Publishers. Just last week, the two biggest of the Big Six announced they’re merging. Now there is only a Big Five.

What does that mean for authors? Shrinking opportunities, smaller advances, longer wait times to get published–waiting two, even three years to get published is not uncommon these days—and getting yanked out of print before a book has had a chance to breathe.

What does that mean for you, the reader?

Fewer good books to choose from. More faddish, formulaic, cranked-out books by Big Names. Worthy authors, or entertaining ones, you will never hear of because they can’t get exposure in the Big Media.

That’s why the ebook phenomenon has exploded within two short years and shows no signs of slowing down. That’s why authors who have been published by the Big Six, like me, are rejoicing at the affordable opportunity of publishing worthy works brutally taken out of print and finding new (and former) audiences.

That’s why I urge everyone to invest in a Kindle or a Nook and search around for a great read. Yes, I love print books. Tom and I own 20,000 of them (seriously). But the ereaders are getting better, smaller, more powerful, and more affordable, and people who love print are saying they love ebooks, too.

Print books will never disappear, but ebooks are definitely here to stay.

Visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Website, on my Facebook Author Page, on my Facebook Profile Page, on Amazon, on Goodreads, on LinkedIn, on Twitter at @lisaSmason, and at Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Visit Ryan and check out his books at http://authorryanschneider.blogspot.com.

About Lisa Mason

A graduate of the University of Michigan School of Literature, the Sciences, and the Arts, and the University of Michigan Law School, Mason is the author of eight novels, including SUMMER OF LOVE (published by Bantam, a division of Random House), a San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book and Philip K. Dick Award finalist, and THE GOLDEN NINETIES (Bantam, a division of Random House), a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book.

Mason published her first story, “ARACHNE,” in Omni and has since published short fiction in magazines and anthologies worldwide, including Omni, Full Spectrum, Universe, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Unique, Transcendental Tales, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Immortal Unicorn, Tales of the Impossible, Desire Burn, Fantastic Alice, The Shimmering Door, Hayakawa Science Fiction Magazine, Unter Die Haut, and others. Her stories have been translated into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.

Lisa Mason lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her husband, the renowned artist and jeweler Tom Robinson. Visit me on the web at Lisa Mason’s Official Website.

THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series, my urban fantasy, is on Nook and Kindle. A print edition is planned for late 2013.

Also available in three affordable installments as THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA TRILOGY!

On Kindle, Book 1: Life’s Journey, Book 2: In Dark Woods, and Book 3, The Right Road, and

On Nook, Book 1, Life’s Journey, Book 2, In Dark Woods, and Book 3, The Right Road.

This in from Goodreads! Alan writes: “I loved the writing style and am hungry for more.:D”

At her mother’s urgent deathbed plea, Abby Teller enrolls at the Berkeley College of Magical Arts and Crafts to learn Real Magic. To support herself through school, she signs on as the superintendent of the Garden of Abracadabra, a mysterious, magical apartment building on campus. She discovers that her tenants are witches, shapeshifters, vampires, and wizards and each apartment is a fairyland or hell. On her first day in Berkeley, she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. One of the victims is a man she picked up hitchhiking the day before. Compelled into a dangerous murder investigation and torn between three men, Abby will discover the first secrets of an ancient and ongoing war between Humanity and the Demonic Realms, uncover mysteries of her own troubled past, and learn that the lessons of Real Magic may spell the difference between her own life or death.

“So refreshing. . . .This is Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”

Fun and Enjoyable Urban Fantasy January 12, 2012
By D. Pflaster
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a very entertaining novel- sort of a down-to-earth Harry Potter with a modern adult woman in the lead. Even as Abby has to deal with mundane concerns like college and running the apartment complex she works at, she is surrounded by supernatural elements and mysteries that she is more than capable of taking on. Although this book is just the first in a series, it ties up the first “episode” while still leaving some story threads for upcoming books. I’m looking forward to finding out more.

The Bantam classic is back! SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL (a Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) is on Nook and Kindle.

Nineteen five-star Amazon reviews
“Summer of Love is an important American literary contribution.”
“This book was so true to life that I felt like I was there. I recommend it to anyone.”
“More than a great science-fiction, a great novel as well.”

The year is 1967 and something new is sweeping across America: good vibes, bad vibes, psychedelic music, psychedelic drugs, anti-war protests, racial tension, free love, bikers, dropouts, flower children. An age of innocence, a time of danger. The Summer of Love.

San Francisco is the Summer of Love, where runaway flower children flock to join the hip elite and squares cruise the streets to view the human zoo.

Lost in these strange and wondrous days, teenager Susan Bell, alias Starbright, has run away from the straight suburbs of Cleveland to find her troubled best friend. Her path will cross with Chiron Cat’s Eye in Draco, a strange and beautiful young man who has journeyed farther than she could ever imagine.

With the help of Ruby A. Maverick, a feisty half-black, half-white hip merchant, Susan and Chi discover a love that spans five centuries. But can they save the world from demons threatening to destroy all space and time?

New! Summer of Love Serials are available for your holiday reading in seven affordable installments free exclusively on Kindle Select til 3.1.13.

Summer of Love, Serial 1: Celebration of the Summer Solstice
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 2: Festival of Growing Things
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 3: A Dog Day
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 4: Rumors
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 5: Inquest for the Ungrateful Dead
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 6: Chocolate George’s Wake
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 7: A New Moon in Virgo
On Kindle.

The Bantam sequel, THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL (a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book) is on Nook and Kindle.

The year is 1895 and immigrants the world over are flocking to California on the transcontinental railroad and on transoceanic steamships. The Zoetrope demonstrates the persistence of vision, patent medicines addict children to morphine, and women are rallying for the vote. In San Francisco, saloons are the booming business, followed by brothels, and the Barbary Coast is a dangerous sink of iniquity. Atop Telegraph Hill bloody jousting tournaments are held and in Chinatown the tongs deal in opium, murder-for-hire, and slave girls.

Zhu Wong, a prisoner in twenty-fifth century China, is given a choice–stand trial for murder or go on a risky time-travel project to the San Francisco of 1895 to rescue a slave girl and take her to safety. Charmed by the city’s opulent glamour, Zhu will discover the city’s darkest secrets. A fervent population control activist in a world of twelve billion people, she will become an indentured servant to the city’s most notorious madam. Fiercely disciplined, she will fall desperately in love with the troubled self-destructive heir to a fading fortune.

And when the careful plans of the Gilded Age Project start unraveling, Zhu will discover that her choices not only affect the future but mean the difference between her own life or death.

“A winning mixture of intelligence and passion.” The New York Times Book Review

Lisa Mason’s thriller, SHAKEN, an ebook adaptation of “Deus Ex Machina” published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, republished in Transcendental Tales (Donning Press), and translated and republished in Europe and South America, is on Nook and Kindle.

Emma J for Joy Pearce is at her editorial offices on the twenty-second floor of Three Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco when the long-dreaded next Great Earthquake devastates the Bay area. Amid horrific destruction, she rescues a man trapped in the rubble. In the heat of survival, she swiftly bonds with him, causing her to question her possible marriage to her long-time boyfriend.

But Jason Gibb is not the charming photojournalist he pretends to be. As Emma discovers his true identity, his mission in the city, and the dark secrets behind the catastrophe, she finds the choices she makes may mean the difference between her own life or death.

A List of Sources follows this short novel.

The Story That Sold To The Movies. TOMORROW’S CHILD began as a medical documentary, then got published in Omni Magazine, and finally sold to Universal Pictures, where the project is in development. On Nook and Kindle.

A high-powered executive is about to lose his estranged teenage daughter to critical burn wounds and only desperate measures may save her life.

The ebook includes my blog, The Story Behind The Story That Sold To The Movies, describing the twists and turns this story took over the years.

New! HUMMERS, published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, chosen for Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 5th Annual Collection (St. Martin’s Press), and nominated for the Nebula Award. Free exclusively on Kindle Select til 3.1.13.

Laurel, in the terminal stages of cancer, is obsessed with the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Jerry, her homecare nurse whose lover is dying of AIDS, gives her a surprising gift. A hummingbird feeder. As Laurel comes to grips with her own death, she learns powerful and redeeming lessons about Egyptian Magic from the hummingbirds that visit her.

New! THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, published in the acclaimed anthology, Full Spectrum 5 (Bantam), which also included stories by Neal Stephenson, Karen Joy Fowler, and Jonathan Lethem, is free exclusively on Kindle Select til 3.1.13.

The year is 1941, and Hitler’s armies have swept across Europe. Nora, a budding young Surrealist artist, has fled to Mexico with B.B., a much older and acclaimed Surrealist playwright down on his luck. Hundreds of European artists and writers have formed a colony in Mexico City, and Nora befriends Valencia, a fellow Surrealist artist and refugee. Together the friends explore Jungian psychology and the power of symbols in their Art. But Nora is plagued by an abusive relationship with B.B. She embarks on a harrowing journey deep into her own troubled psyche.

The novelette was inspired by Mason’s favorite Surrealist artists, Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. An Afterword describing Carrington and Varo’s lives and a List of Sources are included in the ebook.

New! EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, published in David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible (HarperPrism), an anthology that included stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, and Kevin J. Anderson, is free exclusively on Kindle Select til 3.1.13.

The year is 1895, and Danny Flint is a young man living in the shadow of his father, a famous stage magician whose fortunes are fading. Danny is grieving over his mother’s recent accidental death, for which he feels he is to blame. He learns to reconcile himself with his grief and guilt and to assume his place at center stage as a magician in his own right with the help of a mysterious beautiful lady.

New! DAUGHTER OF THE TAO, published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn (HarperPrism), which included stories by Charles de Lint, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Sheckley, and Ellen Kushner, is free exclusively on Kindle til 3.1.13.

Sing Lin is a mooie jai, a girl sold into slavery at the age of five to a wealthy merchant in Tangrenbu, the ghetto of her people in the new country across the sea. One lucky day, while she is out shopping by herself, she meets another mooie jai, Kwai Yin, a bossy, beautiful girl two years older. Kwai has a secret. Before she was sold into slavery, she had a Teacher who taught her about Tao Magic.

But Sing watches Kwai succumb to the terrifying fate of all slave girls in Tangrenbu.

Soon Sing is destined to go to the same fate. But will her invocation of Tao Magic save her?

New! For something fast and fun, U F uh-O, A SCI FI COMEDY, Lisa Mason’s script for a producer looking for the next “Galaxy Quest” or “Men in Black” that evolved into a novella, is free exclusively on Kindle til 3.1.13.

Nikki and Josh really want a child but have infertility issues. Gretchen and Mike have the same problem. When Nikki meets Gretchen at the Happy Daze Family Clinic in Pasadena, they discover that they share a love of music and have asked for a donor with musical talent. Nine months later, they give birth to very unusual babies and, seeking an answer to why the kids are so special, they meet again at a pediatrician’s office. And the search is on: who—and what—is Donor Number 333?

For something different, TESLA, A WORTHY OF HIS TIME, A SCREENPLAY, which was read by the producer of “Aliens” and “The Abyss” and is currently under consideration at another L.A. producer, is on Nook and Kindle. A List of Sources is included in the ebook.

Genius. Visionary. Madman.

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was the pioneering genius who invented the AC electrical system that powers our world to this day, as well as radio, remote control, the automobile speedometer, X-ray photography, the AND logic gate that drives all our computer systems, and countless other devices and precursors to devices such as cell phones, television, and the Internet that we so effortlessly use today.

Strikingly handsome and charismatic, fluent in half a dozen languages, mathematics savant and master machinist, a reed-thin perfectionist who quoted poetry like a Victorian rapper, Tesla became one of the most famous men of his day. Friend of tycoons like John Jacob Astor and Stanford White and celebrities like Mark Twain and Sarah Bernhardt.

Yet Tesla was an intensely driven and lonely man, beset by inner demons, and cursed with a protean inventive imagination a century ahead of his time. He died in obscurity and poverty and, to this day, his name is not widely known. How did that happen?

Blending historical fact with speculative imagination, I explore the secrets of the Inventor’s inner life and his obsession with Goethe’s Faust set against the backdrop of sweeping technological changes at the turn of the twentieth century that have forever changed the world.

New! For a short erotic novel, try Eon’s Kiss by Suzanna Moore, exclusively free on Kindle Select til 3.1.13. This has a paranormal hero who is not a vampire or a werewolf. If you’re looking for something sweet and steamy, check it out!

On the eve of what Jenna Coltrane believes will be Brett Becker’s marriage proposal, tragedy strikes her life—not just once, but twice. In the midst of trouble, she encounters Eon, a regal young man unlike anyone she’s ever met before.

With him, she enters the magical world of the Arbor, discovering love, passion, and beauty beyond her wildest dreams.

But Jenna cannot stay in the Arbor; she’ll die. And Eon cannot stay in Jenna’s world; he’s a god.

Jenna is swept up in a struggle for survival between human greed and the Arbor, a struggle in which her love for Eon and her very life are at stake.

Suzanna is working onthe next two books of the Eon Trilogy. Stay tuned.

New! Lisa Mason’s romantic suspense, Celestial Girl, A Lily Modjeska Mystery, will be on Nook and Kindle for the year-end holidays. There will be an Omnibus Edition including all four books, which will also be sold separately in affordable installments.

Strange Ladies: 7 Stories, a collection of stories published in magazines and anthologies worldwide will be on Nook and Kindle in early 2013. Also forthcoming is The Quester Trilogy, an ebook adaptation of Mason’s early cyberpunk classics, Arachne and Cyberweb.

For news about print books, ebooks, and more visit Lisa Mason’s Official Web Site and Lisa Mason’s Blog.

If you like a work, please stop by Barnes and Noble or Amazon and “Like” it, add stars, write a review, and spread the word to your friends. Your response really matters.

Thank you for your readership!

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories 2013, Author Ryan Schneider Chats With Lisa Mason About Writing, Authors, Bast Books, Books, Chat With Ryan Schneider, Ebooks, Fantasy, Fiction, Lisa Mason, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author On Facebook, New York Public Library Recommended Book, New York Times Notable Book, Romantic Suspense, Ryan Schneider, Science fiction, Story That Sold to the Movies, Summer of Love, Summer of Love A Time Travel, Summer of Love Serials, The Garden of Abracadabra, The Garden of Abracadabra 1: Life's Journey, The Garden of Abracadabra 2: In Dark Woods, The Garden of Abracadabra 3: The Right Road, The Garden of Abracadabra Trilogy, The Gilded Age, The Gilded Age A Time Travel, The Magicat, The Story That Sold To The Movies, Thrillers, Time Travel, Time Travel Romance, Writing

#2012! What A Year!

December 30, 2012 //
0

Dear Reader,

An old Chinese proverb says, “May you live in uninteresting times.”

That’s right. Uninteresting. Calm. Happy. Prosperous. Peaceful.

Sadly, 2012 was not an uninteresting year. The media will recap for you all the terrible things that happened this year. I won’t. Can’t.

As for me, with the serializations of my big books, The Garden of Abracadabra and Summer of Love, the ebook adaptations of those books and my New York Times Notable Book The Gilded Age, and the ebook adaptations of novellas and novelettes published in gorgeous hardcover anthologies (now long out of print), Bast Books has got twenty-two Lisa Mason titles up and running!

The Summer of Love Serials and the shorter works are, as you can see in the list below, exclusively free on Kindle Select but that’s not forever. Only till March 1, 2013, when Bast Books will review how well Amazon.com’s program has worked out. I’m eager to offer those titles on Barnes and Noble again, so if you’re a Nook owner, stay tuned!

And if you only want to read print books, Bast Books is planning print releases within the next year.

As for 2013, wow! Celestial Girl, A Lily Modjeska Mystery, Book 1, The Heartland should be up and running on both Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com, first as ebooks, in early January. The next three books will follow, along with the Omnibus Edition of all four books.

I’ve got a very fun story collection of stories published in magazines and anthologies worldwide called Strange Ladies, 7 Stories in the works.

The Quester Trilogy, an ebook adaptation of my early cyberpunks, Arachne and Cyberweb, which The Boston Globe called “cyberpunk classics,” should finally be done.

The biggest news is my new urban fantasy, The Labyrinth of Illusions, Volume 2 of the Abracadabra Series, is in the works, along with another new and fresh urban science fantasy series, Chronicles of Chrome. Like Abracadabra, I’m writing Chrome to please both the genre reader and all other readers who appreciate a good story unencumbered with genre-heavy language.

I sincerely hope you had an uninteresting year. That is, a good year! And many more to come!

I welcome your comments, Likes, Follows, and suggestions.

Visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Website, on Amazon, on my Facebook Author Page, on my Facebook Profile Page, on Goodreads, on LinkedIn, on Twitter at @lisaSmason, and at Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

About Lisa Mason

A graduate of the University of Michigan School of Literature, the Sciences, and the Arts, and the University of Michigan Law School, I’m the author of eight novels, including SUMMER OF LOVE (published by Bantam, a division of Random House), a San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book and Philip K. Dick Award finalist, and THE GOLDEN NINETIES (Bantam, a division of Random House), a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book.

I published my first story, “ARACHNE,” in Omni and have since published short fiction in magazines and anthologies worldwide, including Omni, Full Spectrum, Universe, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Unique, Transcendental Tales, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Immortal Unicorn, Tales of the Impossible, Desire Burn, Fantastic Alice, The Shimmering Door, Hayakawa Science Fiction Magazine, Unter Die Haut, and others. My stories have been translated into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.

I live in the San Francisco Bay area with my husband, the renowned artist and jeweler Tom Robinson. Visit me on the web at Lisa Mason’s Official Website.

THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series, my urban fantasy, is on Nook and Kindle. A print edition is planned for late 2013.

Also available in affordable installments as THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA TRILOGY on Kindle, Book 1: Life’s Journey, Book 2: In Dark Woods, and Book 3, The Right Road, and on Nook, Book 1, Life’s Journey, Book 2, In Dark Woods, and Book 3, The Right Road.

This just in from Goodreads! Alan writes: “I loved the writing style and am hungry for more.:D”

At her mother’s urgent deathbed plea, Abby Teller enrolls at the Berkeley College of Magical Arts and Crafts to learn Real Magic. To support herself through school, she signs on as the superintendent of the Garden of Abracadabra, a mysterious, magical apartment building on campus. She discovers that her tenants are witches, shapeshifters, vampires, and wizards and each apartment is a fairyland or hell. On her first day in Berkeley, she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. One of the victims is a man she picked up hitchhiking the day before. Compelled into a dangerous murder investigation and torn between three men, Abby will discover the first secrets of an ancient and ongoing war between Humanity and the Demonic Realms, uncover mysteries of her own troubled past, and learn that the lessons of Real Magic may spell the difference between her own life or death.

“So refreshing. . . .This is Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”

Fun and Enjoyable Urban Fantasy January 12, 2012
By D. Pflaster
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a very entertaining novel- sort of a down-to-earth Harry Potter with a modern adult woman in the lead. Even as Abby has to deal with mundane concerns like college and running the apartment complex she works at, she is surrounded by supernatural elements and mysteries that she is more than capable of taking on. Although this book is just the first in a series, it ties up the first “episode” while still leaving some story threads for upcoming books. I’m looking forward to finding out more.

The Bantam classic is back! SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL (a Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) is on Nook and Kindle.

Nineteen five-star Amazon reviews
“Summer of Love is an important American literary contribution.”
“This book was so true to life that I felt like I was there. I recommend it to anyone.”
“More than a great science-fiction, a great novel as well.”

The year is 1967 and something new is sweeping across America: good vibes, bad vibes, psychedelic music, psychedelic drugs, anti-war protests, racial tension, free love, bikers, dropouts, flower children. An age of innocence, a time of danger. The Summer of Love.

San Francisco is the Summer of Love, where runaway flower children flock to join the hip elite and squares cruise the streets to view the human zoo.

Lost in these strange and wondrous days, teenager Susan Bell, alias Starbright, has run away from the straight suburbs of Cleveland to find her troubled best friend. Her path will cross with Chiron Cat’s Eye in Draco, a strange and beautiful young man who has journeyed farther than she could ever imagine.

With the help of Ruby A. Maverick, a feisty half-black, half-white hip merchant, Susan and Chi discover a love that spans five centuries. But can they save the world from demons threatening to destroy all space and time?

New! Summer of Love Serials are available for your holiday reading in seven affordable installments free exclusively on Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 1: Celebration of the Summer Solstice
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 2: Festival of Growing Things
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 3: A Dog Day
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 4: Rumors
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 5: Inquest for the Ungrateful Dead
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 6: Chocolate George’s Wake
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 7: A New Moon in Virgo
On Kindle.

The Bantam sequel, THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL (aNew York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book) is on Nook and Kindle.

The year is 1895 and immigrants the world over are flocking to California on the transcontinental railroad and on transoceanic steamships. The Zoetrope demonstrates the persistence of vision, patent medicines addict children to morphine, and women are rallying for the vote. In San Francisco, saloons are the booming business, followed by brothels, and the Barbary Coast is a dangerous sink of iniquity. Atop Telegraph Hill bloody jousting tournaments are held and in Chinatown the tongs deal in opium, murder-for-hire, and slave girls.

Zhu Wong, a prisoner in twenty-fifth century China, is given a choice–stand trial for murder or go on a risky time-travel project to the San Francisco of 1895 to rescue a slave girl and take her to safety. Charmed by the city’s opulent glamour, Zhu will discover the city’s darkest secrets. A fervent population control activist in a world of twelve billion people, she will become an indentured servant to the city’s most notorious madam. Fiercely disciplined, she will fall desperately in love with the troubled self-destructive heir to a fading fortune.

And when the careful plans of the Gilded Age Project start unraveling, Zhu will discover that her choices not only affect the future but mean the difference between her own life or death.

“A winning mixture of intelligence and passion.” The New York Times Book Review

My thriller, SHAKEN,an ebook adaptation of “Deus Ex Machina” published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, republished in Transcendental Tales (Donning Press), and translated and republished in Europe and South America, is on Nook and Kindle.

Emma J for Joy Pearce is at her editorial offices on the twenty-second floor of Three Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco when the long-dreaded next Great Earthquake devastates the Bay area. Amid horrific destruction, she rescues a man trapped in the rubble. In the heat of survival, she swiftly bonds with him, causing her to question her possible marriage to her long-time boyfriend.

But Jason Gibb is not the charming photojournalist he pretends to be. As Emma discovers his true identity, his mission in the city, and the dark secrets behind the catastrophe, she finds the choices she makes may mean the difference between her own life or death.

A List of Sources follows this short novel.

The Story That Sold To The Movies. TOMORROW’S CHILD began as a medical documentary, then got published in Omni Magazine, and finally sold to Universal Pictures, where the project is in development. On Nook and Kindle.

A high-powered executive is about to lose his estranged teenage daughter to critical burn wounds and only desperate measures may save her life.

The ebook includes my blog, The Story Behind The Story That Sold To The Movies, describing the twists and turns this story took over the years.

New! HUMMERS was published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, chosen for Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 5th Annual Collection (St. Martin’s Press), and nominated for the Nebula Award. Free exclusively on Kindle.

Laurel, in the terminal stages of cancer, is obsessed with the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Jerry, her homecare nurse whose lover is dying of AIDS, gives her a surprising gift. A hummingbird feeder. As Laurel comes to grips with her own death, she learns powerful and redeeming lessons about Egyptian Magic from the hummingbirds that visit her.

New! THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, published in the acclaimed anthology, Full Spectrum 5 (Bantam), which also included stories by Neal Stephenson, Karen Joy Fowler, and Jonathan Lethem, is free exclusively on Kindle.

The year is 1941, and Hitler’s armies have swept across Europe. Nora, a budding young Surrealist artist, has fled to Mexico with B.B., a much older and acclaimed Surrealist playwright down on his luck. Hundreds of European artists and writers have formed a colony in Mexico City, and Nora befriends Valencia, a fellow Surrealist artist and refugee. Together the friends explore Jungian psychology and the power of symbols in their Art. But Nora is plagued by an abusive relationship with B.B. She embarks on a harrowing journey deep into her own troubled psyche.

The novelette was inspired by my favorite Surrealist artists, Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. An Afterword describing Carrington and Varo’s lives and a List of Sources are included in the ebook.

New! EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, published in David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible (HarperPrism), an anthology that included stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, and Kevin J. Anderson, is free exclusively on Kindle.

The year is 1895, and Danny Flint is a young man living in the shadow of his father, a famous stage magician whose fortunes are fading. Danny is grieving over his mother’s recent accidental death, for which he feels he is to blame. He learns to reconcile himself with his grief and guilt and to assume his place at center stage as a magician in his own right with the help of a mysterious beautiful lady.

New! DAUGHTER OF THE TAO, published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn (HarperPrism), that included stories by Charles de Lint, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Sheckley, and Ellen Kushner, is free exclusively on Kindle.

Sing Lin is a mooie jai, a girl sold into slavery at the age of five to a wealthy merchant in Tangrenbu, the ghetto of her people in the new country across the sea. One lucky day, while she is out shopping by herself, she meets another mooie jai, Kwai Yin, a bossy, beautiful girl two years older. Kwai has a secret. Before she was sold into slavery, she had a Teacher who taught her about Tao Magic.

But Sing watches Kwai succumb to the terrifying fate of all slave girls in Tangrenbu.

Soon Sing is destined to go to the same fate. But will her invocation of Tao Magic save her?

New! For something fast and fun, U F uh-O, A SCI FI COMEDY, my script for a producer looking for the next “Galaxy Quest” or “Men in Black” that evolved into a novella, is free exclusively on Kindle.

Nikki and Josh really want a child but have infertility issues. Gretchen and Mike have the same problem. When Nikki meets Gretchen at the Happy Daze Family Clinic in Pasadena, they discover that they share a love of music and have asked for a donor with musical talent. Nine months later, they give birth to very unusual babies and, seeking an answer to why the kids are so special, they meet again at a pediatrician’s office. And the search is on: who—and what—is Donor Number 333?

For something different, TESLA, A WORTHY OF HIS TIME, A SCREENPLAY, which was read by the producer of “Aliens” and “The Abyss” and is currently under consideration at another L.A. producer, is on Nook and Kindle. A List of Sources is included in the ebook.

Genius. Visionary. Madman.

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was the pioneering genius who invented the AC electrical system that powers our world to this day, as well as radio, remote control, the automobile speedometer, X-ray photography, the AND logic gate that drives all our computer systems, and countless other devices and precursors to devices such as cell phones, television, and the Internet that we so effortlessly use today.

Strikingly handsome and charismatic, fluent in half a dozen languages, mathematics savant and master machinist, a reed-thin perfectionist who quoted poetry like a Victorian rapper, Tesla became one of the most famous men of his day. Friend of tycoons like John Jacob Astor and Stanford White and celebrities like Mark Twain and Sarah Bernhardt.

Yet Tesla was an intensely driven and lonely man, beset by inner demons, and cursed with a protean inventive imagination a century ahead of his time. He died in obscurity and poverty and, to this day, his name is not widely known. How did that happen?

Blending historical fact with speculative imagination, I explore the secrets of the Inventor’s inner life and his obsession with Goethe’s Faust set against the backdrop of sweeping technological changes at the turn of the twentieth century that have forever changed the world.

New! For a short erotic novel, try Eon’s Kiss by Suzanna Moore, exclusively free on Kindle Select. This has a paranormal hero who is not a vampire or a werewolf. If you’re looking for something sweet and steamy, check it out!

On the eve of what Jenna Coltrane believes will be Brett Becker’s marriage proposal, tragedy strikes her life—not just once, but twice. In the midst of trouble, she encounters Eon, a regal young man unlike anyone she’s ever met before.

With him, she enters the magical world of the Arbor, discovering love, passion, and beauty beyond her wildest dreams.

But Jenna cannot stay in the magical Arbor for more than a measured time, or she’ll die. And Eon cannot stay in Jenna’s world. He’s a god.

Jenna is swept up in a struggle for survival between human greed and the Arbor, a struggle in which her love for Eon and her very life are at stake.

I’m trying to persuade Suzanna to write the next two books of the Eon Trilogy. Stay tuned.

New! My romantic suspense, Celestial Girl, A Lily Modjeska Mystery, will be on Nook and Kindle for the year-end holidays. There will be an Omnibus Edition including all four books, which will also be sold separately in affordable installments.

Strange Ladies: 7 Stories, a collection of stories published in magazines and anthologies worldwide will be on Nook and Kindle in early 2013. Also forthcoming is The Quester Trilogy, an ebook adaptation of my early cyberpunk classics, Arachne and Cyberweb.

For news about print books, ebooks, and more visit Lisa Mason’s Official Web Site and Lisa Mason’s Blog.

If you like a work, please stop by Barnes and Noble or Amazon and “Like” it, add stars, write a review, and spread the word to your friends. Your response really matters.

Thank you for your readership!

Tags , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Categories 2012, 2013, Abracadabra!, Authors, Bast Books, Books, Eon's Kiss, Fantasy, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical Mystery, Historical Romance, Lisa Mason, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author On Facebook, Literature, Virtual Bookstore

Ryan Schneider chats with Lisa Mason About Writing

December 24, 2012 //
0

Ryan Schneider, Author, chats with Lisa Mason, Fantasy and Science Fiction Author, about Writing

RS: How did you get into writing?

LM: My mom bought me lots of great books when I was a kid. I loved reading and decided I wanted to be a writer. Stories and fantasies would pop into my head and I wrote my first book at age five. I’ve got it on my desk right now. It is 1¼ inches by 2 inches, hand-sewn, two chapters, lavishly illustrated by the author, and entitled, “Millie the Caterpillar.” Millie is despondent at being “a fat, green, hairy, little caterpillar.” Then spring comes, she breaks out of her cocoon, and “to her surprize, she found two beautiful red and black wings on her shoulders.” Happiness! The End. I’ve thought ever since surprise should be spelled with a z.

So you could say I got bit by the writing bug early on, but my life has taken some twists and turns and writing hasn’t been a straight shot for me.

RS: What do you like best (or least) about writing?

LM: I love publishing something and having readers tell me they loved it, were entertained by it, moved by it, couldn’t put it down. I’ll shamelessly admit readers have told me Summer of Love is their all-time favorite book. Readers’ responses make all the blood, sweat, and tears worthwhile. What I hate most is getting stuck, but that’s a blog in and of itself.

RS: What is your writing process? IE do you outline? Do you stick to a daily word or page count, write 7 days a week, etc?

LM: Oh, I’d love to write 5000 words a day, but that seldom happens. The main thing is to accomplish something seven days a week, if only making notes or working out a plot point you’re not sure of. I usually get a holistic concept of a book or story, sketch the general thrust of it, and break it open with the first scene. Often, I’ll have the first scene and the last, the story goal I want to accomplish. (You know the joke that every book has a beginning, an ending, and a muddle.) I don’t like outlining but the process is so important for keeping your narrative on track. I’ll often micro-outline what I’m working on and the material immediately after. Once I get through that, the next plot twists often reveal themselves. Then I do the same process again, step by step.

When a book gathers momentum and the world-building is set down, I’ll write every day for two weeks at a time, take a one-day break, then start again the next day.

RS: Who are some other writers you read and admire, regardless of whether they are commercially “successful?”

LM: You know, lately I’ve been picking up classic authors. I just read Raymond Chandler’s Lady in the Lake. Marlowe is the original chain-smoking, hard-drinking, lone-wolf, sardonic private eye and Chandler is such a master stylist. I’ve got Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome and Joseph Conrad’s Tales of Unrest on my reading table. And I’ve been enjoying Rex Stout’s Nero Wolf mysteries from the 1940s. Urban fantasy employs the mystery trope, as does romantic suspense, both areas I’m writing within.

RS: Should the question mark in the above question be inside or outside the quotes?

LM: Outside, of course, because the question mark punctuates the entire sentence, whereas the quotes indicate the word is, in the author’s opinion, a relative or subjective term.

RS: What’s your stance on the Oxford Comma?

LM: I’m totally freaked out by the Oxford Comma. What the hell is the Oxford Comma?

RS: What is your book about and how did it come to fruition?

LM: Please take a lookatmy bio below. How does any of that happen? Obsession-compulsion. Hard work. Late nights. Giving up a lot of time-consuming activities like television.

RS: What book(s) are you currently reading?

LM: On my To-Read list are The Night Circus and A Discovery of Witches because I’m working on the next book in my urban fantasy, The Abracadabra Series. Research books for a science fiction series I’m launching next year.

RS: Who or what inspires your writing?

LM: Oh, Life! Personal experience. Love, anger, vengeance. Joy. Beauty. A hummingbird landing on my feeder. Historical people I admire, like the women Surrealist artists in the story listed below, or Nikola Tesla, the great inventor and electrical engineer whom I wrote a screenplay about and who reminded me of my inventor-electrical engineer dad. Stage magicians. Real Magic. Being invited to contribute to a themed anthology always kicks me in the butt to dream up something new. I’ve written so many different kinds of books and stories, I’ll be adding blogs to my Goodreads Author Page just to talk about what inspired me, what I researched, and so on.

Quite a few redheaded or russet-haired or strawberry blond men seem to show up in my work, so I’m compelled to add to the list of inspirations my husband, Tom Robinson. But don’t tell him I told you so (his head is swelled enough already).

RS: Finally, is there anything you’d care to add? Please also include where people can read your published stories, buy your book, etc.

LM: Readers may not realize it, but traditional publishing is changing daily. Radically. Twenty years ago, there were twenty or thirty publishers. The big fish gobbled up the smaller fish, turned them into imprints, and subsumed everything to a larger corporation. Authors essentially could only submit to the Big Six Publishers. Just last week, the two biggest of the Big Six announced they’re merging. Now there is only a Big Five.

What does that mean for authors? Shrinking opportunities, smaller advances, longer wait times to get published–waiting two, even three years to get published is not uncommon these days—and getting yanked out of print before a book has had a chance to breathe.

What does that mean for you, the reader?

Fewer good books to choose from. More faddish, formulaic, cranked-out books by Big Names. Worthy authors, or entertaining ones, you will never hear of because they can’t get exposure in the Big Media.

That’s why the ebook phenomenon has exploded within two short years and shows no signs of slowing down. That’s why authors who have been published by the Big Six, like me, are rejoicing at the affordable opportunity of publishing worthy works brutally taken out of print and finding new (and former) audiences.

That’s why I urge everyone to invest in a Kindle or a Nook and search around for a great read. Yes, I love print books. Tom and I own 20,000 of them (seriously). But the ereaders are getting better, smaller, more powerful, and more affordable, and people who love print are saying they love ebooks, too.

Print books will never disappear, but ebooks are definitely here to stay.

Visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Website,  on my Facebook Author Page, on my Facebook Profile Page, on Amazon, on Goodreads, on LinkedIn, on Twitter at @lisaSmason, and at Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Visit Ryan at http://authorryanschneider.blogspot.com.

About Lisa Mason

A graduate of the University of Michigan School of Literature, the Sciences, and the Arts, and the University of Michigan Law School, I’m the author of eight novels, including SUMMER OF LOVE (published by Bantam, a division of Random House), a San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book and Philip K. Dick Award finalist, and THE GOLDEN NINETIES (Bantam, a division of Random House), a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book.

I published my first story, “ARACHNE,” in Omni and have since published short fiction in magazines and anthologies worldwide, including Omni, Full Spectrum, Universe, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Unique, Transcendental Tales, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Immortal Unicorn, Tales of the Impossible, Desire Burn, Fantastic Alice, The Shimmering Door, Hayakawa Science Fiction Magazine, Unter Die Haut, and others. My stories have been translated into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.

I live in the San Francisco Bay area with my husband, the renowned artist and jeweler Tom Robinson. Visit me on the web at Lisa Mason’s Official Website.

THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series, my urban fantasy, is on Nook and Kindle. A print edition is planned for late 2013.

Also available in affordable installments as THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA TRILOGY!

On Kindle, Book 1: Life’s Journey, Book 2: In Dark Woods, and Book 3, The Right Road, and

On Nook, Book 1, Life’s Journey, Book 2, In Dark Woods, and Book 3, The Right Road.

This just in from Goodreads! Alan writes: “I loved the writing style and am hungry for more.:D”

At her mother’s urgent deathbed plea, Abby Teller enrolls at the Berkeley College of Magical Arts and Crafts to learn Real Magic. To support herself through school, she signs on as the superintendent of the Garden of Abracadabra, a mysterious, magical apartment building on campus. She discovers that her tenants are witches, shapeshifters, vampires, and wizards and each apartment is a fairyland or hell. On her first day in Berkeley, she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. One of the victims is a man she picked up hitchhiking the day before. Compelled into a dangerous murder investigation and torn between three men, Abby will discover the first secrets of an ancient and ongoing war between Humanity and the Demonic Realms, uncover mysteries of her own troubled past, and learn that the lessons of Real Magic may spell the difference between her own life or death.

“So refreshing. . . .This is Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”

Fun and Enjoyable Urban Fantasy January 12, 2012
By D. Pflaster
Format:Kindle Edition|Amazon Verified Purchase
This is a very entertaining novel- sort of a down-to-earth Harry Potter with a modern adult woman in the lead. Even as Abby has to deal with mundane concerns like college and running the apartment complex she works at, she is surrounded by supernatural elements and mysteries that she is more than capable of taking on. Although this book is just the first in a series, it ties up the first “episode” while still leaving some story threads for upcoming books. I’m looking forward to finding out more.

The Bantam classic is back! SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL (a Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) is on Nook and Kindle.

Nineteen five-star Amazon reviews
“Summer of Love is an important American literary contribution.”
“This book was so true to life that I felt like I was there. I recommend it to anyone.”
“More than a great science-fiction, a great novel as well.”

The year is 1967 and something new is sweeping across America: good vibes, bad vibes, psychedelic music, psychedelic drugs, anti-war protests, racial tension, free love, bikers, dropouts, flower children. An age of innocence, a time of danger. The Summer of Love.

San Francisco is the Summer of Love, where runaway flower children flock to join the hip elite and squares cruise the streets to view the human zoo.

Lost in these strange and wondrous days, teenager Susan Bell, alias Starbright, has run away from the straight suburbs of Cleveland to find her troubled best friend. Her path will cross with Chiron Cat’s Eye in Draco, a strange and beautiful young man who has journeyed farther than she could ever imagine.

With the help of Ruby A. Maverick, a feisty half-black, half-white hip merchant, Susan and Chi discover a love that spans five centuries. But can they save the world from demons threatening to destroy all space and time?

New! Summer of Love Serials are available for your holiday reading in seven affordable installments free exclusively on Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 1: Celebration of the Summer Solstice
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 2: Festival of Growing Things
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 3: A Dog Day
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 4: Rumors
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 5: Inquest for the Ungrateful Dead
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 6: Chocolate George’s Wake
On Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 7: A New Moon in Virgo
On Kindle.

The Bantam sequel, THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL (aNew York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book) is on Nook and Kindle.

The year is 1895 and immigrants the world over are flocking to California on the transcontinental railroad and on transoceanic steamships. The Zoetrope demonstrates the persistence of vision, patent medicines addict children to morphine, and women are rallying for the vote. In San Francisco, saloons are the booming business, followed by brothels, and the Barbary Coast is a dangerous sink of iniquity. Atop Telegraph Hill bloody jousting tournaments are held and in Chinatown the tongs deal in opium, murder-for-hire, and slave girls.

Zhu Wong, a prisoner in twenty-fifth century China, is given a choice–stand trial for murder or go on a risky time-travel project to the San Francisco of 1895 to rescue a slave girl and take her to safety. Charmed by the city’s opulent glamour, Zhu will discover the city’s darkest secrets. A fervent population control activist in a world of twelve billion people, she will become an indentured servant to the city’s most notorious madam. Fiercely disciplined, she will fall desperately in love with the troubled self-destructive heir to a fading fortune.

And when the careful plans of the Gilded Age Project start unraveling, Zhu will discover that her choices not only affect the future but mean the difference between her own life or death.

“A winning mixture of intelligence and passion.” The New York Times Book Review

My thriller, SHAKEN,an ebook adaptation of “Deus Ex Machina” published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, republished in Transcendental Tales (Donning Press), and translated and republished in Europe and South America, is on Nook and Kindle.

Emma J for Joy Pearce is at her editorial offices on the twenty-second floor of Three Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco when the long-dreaded next Great Earthquake devastates the Bay area. Amid horrific destruction, she rescues a man trapped in the rubble. In the heat of survival, she swiftly bonds with him, causing her to question her possible marriage to her long-time boyfriend.

But Jason Gibb is not the charming photojournalist he pretends to be. As Emma discovers his true identity, his mission in the city, and the dark secrets behind the catastrophe, she finds the choices she makes may mean the difference between her own life or death.

A List of Sources follows this short novel.

The Story That Sold To The Movies. TOMORROW’S CHILD began as a medical documentary, then got published in Omni Magazine, and finally sold to Universal Pictures, where the project is in development. On Nook and Kindle.

A high-powered executive is about to lose his estranged teenage daughter to critical burn wounds and only desperate measures may save her life.

The ebook includes my blog, The Story Behind The Story That Sold To The Movies, describing the twists and turns this story took over the years.

New! HUMMERS was published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, chosen for Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 5th Annual Collection (St. Martin’s Press), and nominated for the Nebula Award. Free exclusively on Kindle.

Laurel, in the terminal stages of cancer, is obsessed with the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Jerry, her homecare nurse whose lover is dying of AIDS, gives her a surprising gift. A hummingbird feeder. As Laurel comes to grips with her own death, she learns powerful and redeeming lessons about Egyptian Magic from the hummingbirds that visit her.

New! THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, published in the acclaimed anthology, Full Spectrum 5 (Bantam), which also included stories by Neal Stephenson, Karen Joy Fowler, and Jonathan Lethem, is free exclusively on Kindle.

The year is 1941, and Hitler’s armies have swept across Europe. Nora, a budding young Surrealist artist, has fled to Mexico with B.B., a much older and acclaimed Surrealist playwright down on his luck. Hundreds of European artists and writers have formed a colony in Mexico City, and Nora befriends Valencia, a fellow Surrealist artist and refugee. Together the friends explore Jungian psychology and the power of symbols in their Art. But Nora is plagued by an abusive relationship with B.B. She embarks on a harrowing journey deep into her own troubled psyche.

The novelette was inspired by my favorite Surrealist artists, Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. An Afterword describing Carrington and Varo’s lives and a List of Sources are included in the ebook.

New! EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, published in David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible (HarperPrism), an anthology that included stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, and Kevin J. Anderson, is free exclusively on Kindle.

The year is 1895, and Danny Flint is a young man living in the shadow of his father, a famous stage magician whose fortunes are fading. Danny is grieving over his mother’s recent accidental death, for which he feels he is to blame. He learns to reconcile himself with his grief and guilt and to assume his place at center stage as a magician in his own right with the help of a mysterious beautiful lady.

New! DAUGHTER OF THE TAO, published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn (HarperPrism), that included stories by Charles de Lint, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Sheckley, and Ellen Kushner, is free exclusively on Kindle.

Sing Lin is a mooie jai, a girl sold into slavery at the age of five to a wealthy merchant in Tangrenbu, the ghetto of her people in the new country across the sea. One lucky day, while she is out shopping by herself, she meets another mooie jai, Kwai Yin, a bossy, beautiful girl two years older. Kwai has a secret. Before she was sold into slavery, she had a Teacher who taught her about Tao Magic.

But Sing watches Kwai succumb to the terrifying fate of all slave girls in Tangrenbu.

Soon Sing is destined to go to the same fate. But will her invocation of Tao Magic save her?

New! For something fast and fun, U F uh-O, A SCI FI COMEDY, my script for a producer looking for the next “Galaxy Quest” or “Men in Black” that evolved into a novella, is free exclusively on Kindle.

Nikki and Josh really want a child but have infertility issues. Gretchen and Mike have the same problem. When Nikki meets Gretchen at the Happy Daze Family Clinic in Pasadena, they discover that they share a love of music and have asked for a donor with musical talent. Nine months later, they give birth to very unusual babies and, seeking an answer to why the kids are so special, they meet again at a pediatrician’s office. And the search is on: who—and what—is Donor Number 333?

For something different, TESLA, A WORTHY OF HIS TIME, A SCREENPLAY, which was read by the producer of “Aliens” and “The Abyss” and is currently under consideration at another L.A. producer, is on Nook and Kindle. A List of Sources is included in the ebook.

Genius. Visionary. Madman.

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was the pioneering genius who invented the AC electrical system that powers our world to this day, as well as radio, remote control, the automobile speedometer, X-ray photography, the AND logic gate that drives all our computer systems, and countless other devices and precursors to devices such as cell phones, television, and the Internet that we so effortlessly use today.

Strikingly handsome and charismatic, fluent in half a dozen languages, mathematics savant and master machinist, a reed-thin perfectionist who quoted poetry like a Victorian rapper, Tesla became one of the most famous men of his day. Friend of tycoons like John Jacob Astor and Stanford White and celebrities like Mark Twain and Sarah Bernhardt.

Yet Tesla was an intensely driven and lonely man, beset by inner demons, and cursed with a protean inventive imagination a century ahead of his time. He died in obscurity and poverty and, to this day, his name is not widely known. How did that happen?

Blending historical fact with speculative imagination, I explore the secrets of the Inventor’s inner life and his obsession with Goethe’s Faust set against the backdrop of sweeping technological changes at the turn of the twentieth century that have forever changed the world.

New! For a short erotic novel, try Eon’s Kiss by Suzanna Moore, exclusively free on Kindle Select. This has a paranormal hero who is not a vampire or a werewolf. If you’re looking for something sweet and steamy, check it out!

On the eve of what Jenna Coltrane believes will be Brett Becker’s marriage proposal, tragedy strikes her life—not just once, but twice. In the midst of trouble, she encounters Eon, a regal young man unlike anyone she’s ever met before.

With him, she enters the magical world of the Arbor, discovering love, passion, and beauty beyond her wildest dreams.

Jenna is swept up in a struggle for survival between human greed and the Arbor, a struggle in which her love for Eon and her very life are at stake.

I’m trying to persuade Suzanna to write the next two books of the Eon Trilogy. Stay tuned.

New! My romantic suspense, Celestial Girl, A Lily Modjeska Mystery, will be on Nook and Kindle for the year-end holidays. There will be an Omnibus Edition including all four books, which will also be sold separately in affordable installments.

Strange Ladies: 7 Stories, a collection of stories published in magazines and anthologies worldwide will be on Nook and Kindle in early 2013. Also forthcoming is The Quester Trilogy, an ebook adaptation of my early cyberpunk classics, Arachne and Cyberweb.

For news about print books, ebooks, and more visit Lisa Mason’s Official Web Site and Lisa Mason’s Blog.

If you like a work, please stop by Barnes and Noble or Amazon and “Like” it, add stars, write a review, and spread the word to your friends. Your response really matters.

Thank you for your readership!

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Categories Author Ryan Schneider Chats With Lisa Mason About Writing, Authors, Bast Books, Books, Chat With Ryan Schneider, Ebooks, Fantasy, Fiction, Lisa Mason, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author On Facebook, Literature, Ryan Schneider, Science fiction, Time Travel, Urban Fantasy

You MUST Check Out Ryan Schneider’s Fab Website!

December 16, 2012 //
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Ryan Schneider, the author of ten books, graciously invited me to his monthly Author Spotlight with 10 Questions about writing. You MUST check out Ryan’s Fab Website where he’s engineered the interview below to display all my links and lovely book covers! You’ll also discover Ryan’s books, learn what he’s been up to, discover the authors he reads, get to pet his virtual spider, and much more.

Ryan Schneider’s 10 Questions for Lisa Mason, Fantasy and Science Fiction Author

RS: How did you get into writing?

LM: My mom bought me lots of great books when I was a kid. I loved reading and decided I wanted to be a writer. Stories and fantasies would pop into my head and I wrote my first book at age five. I’ve got it on my desk right now. It is 1¼ inches by 2 inches, hand-sewn, two chapters, lavishly illustrated by the author, and entitled, “Millie the Caterpillar.” Millie is despondent at being “a fat, green, hairy, little caterpillar.” Then spring comes, she breaks out of her cocoon, and “to her surprize, she found two beautiful red and black wings on her shoulders.” Happiness! The End. I’ve thought ever since surprise should be spelled with a z.

So you could say I got bit by the writing bug early on, but my life has taken some twists and turns and writing hasn’t been a straight shot for me.

RS: What do you like best (or least) about writing?

LM: I love publishing something and having readers tell me they loved it, were entertained by it, moved by it, couldn’t put it down. I’ll shamelessly admit readers have told me Summer of Love is their all-time favorite book. Readers’ responses make all the blood, sweat, and tears worthwhile. What I hate most is getting stuck, but that’s a blog in and of itself.

RS: What is your writing process? IE do you outline? Do you stick to a daily word or page count, write 7 days a week, etc?

LM: Oh, I’d love to write 5000 words a day, but that seldom happens. The main thing is to accomplish something seven days a week, if only making notes or working out a plot point you’re not sure of. I usually get a holistic concept of a book or story, sketch the general thrust of it, and break it open with the first scene. Often, I’ll have the first scene and the last, the story goal I want to accomplish. (You know the joke that every book has a beginning, an ending, and a muddle.) I don’t like outlining but the process is so important for keeping your narrative on track. I’ll often micro-outline what I’m working on and the material immediately after. Once I get through that, the next plot twists often reveal themselves. Then I do the same process again, step by step.

When a book gathers momentum and the world-building is set down, I’ll write every day for two weeks at a time, take a one-day break, then start again the next day.

RS: Who are some other writers you read and admire, regardless of whether they are commercially “successful?”

LM: You know, lately I’ve been picking up classic authors. I just read Raymond Chandler’s Lady in the Lake. Marlowe is the original chain-smoking, hard-drinking, lone-wolf, sardonic private eye and Chandler is such a master stylist. I’ve got Edith Wharton’s Ethan Frome and Joseph Conrad’s Tales of Unrest on my reading table. And I’ve been enjoying Rex Stout’s Nero Wolf mysteries from the 1940s. Urban fantasy employs the mystery trope, as does romantic suspense, both areas I’m writing within.

RS: Should the question mark in the above question be inside or outside the quotes?

LM: Outside, of course, because the question mark punctuates the entire sentence, whereas the quotes indicate the word is, in the author’s opinion, a relative or subjective term.

RS: What’s your stance on the Oxford Comma?

LM: I’m totally freaked out by the Oxford Comma. What the hell is the Oxford Comma?

RS: What is your book about and how did it come to fruition?

LM: Please take a lookatmy bio below. How does any of that happen? Obsession-compulsion. Hard work. Late nights. Giving up a lot of time-consuming activities like television.

RS: What book(s) are you currently reading?

LM: On my To-Read list are The Night Circus and A Discovery of Witches because I’m working on the next book in my urban fantasy, The Abracadabra Series. Research books for a science fiction series I’m launching next year.

RS: Who or what inspires your writing?

LM: Oh, Life! Personal experience. Love, anger, vengeance. Joy. Beauty. A hummingbird landing on my feeder. Historical people I admire, like the women Surrealist artists in the story listed below, or Nikola Tesla, the great inventor and electrical engineer whom I wrote a screenplay about and who reminded me of my inventor-electrical engineer dad. Stage magicians. Real Magic. Being invited to contribute to a themed anthology always kicks me in the butt to dream up something new. I’ve written so many different kinds of books and stories, I’ll be adding blogs to my Goodreads Author Page just to talk about what inspired me, what I researched, and so on.

Quite a few redheaded or russet-haired or strawberry blond men seem to show up in my work, so I’m compelled to add to the list of inspirations my husband, Tom Robinson. But don’t tell him I told you so (his head is swelled enough already).

RS: Finally, is there anything you’d care to add? Please also include where people can read your published stories, buy your book, etc.

LM: Readers may not realize it, but traditional publishing is changing daily. Radically. Twenty years ago, there were twenty or thirty publishers. The big fish gobbled up the smaller fish, turned them into imprints, and subsumed everything to a larger corporation. Authors essentially could only submit to the Big Six Publishers. Just last week, the two biggest of the Big Six announced they’re merging. Now there is only a Big Five.

What does that mean for authors? Shrinking opportunities, smaller advances, longer wait times to get published–waiting two, even three years to get published is not uncommon these days—and getting yanked out of print before a book has had a chance to breathe.

What does that mean for you, the reader?

Fewer good books to choose from. More faddish, formulaic, cranked-out books by Big Names. Worthy authors, or entertaining ones, you will never hear of because they can’t get exposure in the Big Media.

That’s why the ebook phenomenon has exploded within two short years and shows no signs of slowing down. That’s why authors who have been published by the Big Six, like me, are rejoicing at the affordable opportunity of publishing worthy works brutally taken out of print and finding new (and former) audiences.

That’s why I urge everyone to invest in a Kindle or a Nook and search around for a great read. Yes, I love print books. Tom and I own 20,000 of them (seriously). But the ereaders are getting better, smaller, more powerful, and more affordable, and people who love print are saying they love ebooks, too.

Print books will never disappear, but ebooks are definitely here to stay.

Visit me at Lisa Mason’s Official Website,  on my Facebook Author Page, on my Facebook Profile Page, on Amazon, on Goodreads, on LinkedIn, on Twitter at @lisaSmason, and at Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America.

Visit Ryan at http://authorryanschneider.blogspot.com.

About Lisa Mason

A graduate of the University of Michigan School of Literature, the Sciences, and the Arts, and the University of Michigan Law School, Lisa Mason is the author of eight novels, including SUMMER OF LOVE (Bantam), a San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book and Philip K. Dick Award finalist, and THE GOLDEN NINETIES (Bantam), a New York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book.

Mason published her first story, “ARACHNE,” in Omni and has since published short fiction in magazines and anthologies worldwide, including Omni, Full Spectrum, Universe, Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror, Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, Unique, Transcendental Tales, Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Immortal Unicorn, Tales of the Impossible, Desire Burn, Fantastic Alice, The Shimmering Door, Hayakawa Science Fiction Magazine, Unter Die Haut, and others. Her stories have been translated into Chinese, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish, and Swedish.

Lisa Mason lives in the San Francisco Bay area with her husband, the renowned artist and jeweler Tom Robinson. Visit her on the web at Lisa Mason’s Official Website, follow herOfficial Blog, or e-mail her at LisaSMason@aol.com.

THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA, Volume 1 of the Abracadabra Series, Mason’s urban fantasy, is on Nook and on Kindle. A print edition is planned for late 2013.

New! Also available in affordable installments as THE GARDEN OF ABRACADABRA TRILOGY on Kindle, Book 1: Life’s Journey, Book 2: In Dark Woods, and Book 3, The Right Road, and on Nook, Book 1: Life’s Journey, Book 2: In Dark Woods, and Book 3: The Right Road.

At her mother’s urgent deathbed plea, Abby Teller enrolls at the Berkeley College of Magical Arts and Crafts to learn Real Magic. To support herself through school, she signs on as the superintendent of the Garden of Abracadabra, a mysterious, magical apartment building on campus. She discovers that her tenants are witches, shapeshifters, vampires, and wizards and each apartment is a fairyland or hell. On her first day in Berkeley, she stumbles upon a supernatural multiple murder scene. One of the victims is a man she picked up hitchhiking the day before. Compelled into a dangerous murder investigation and torn between three men, Abby will discover the first secrets of an ancient and ongoing war between good and evil, uncover mysteries of her own troubled past, and learn that the lessons of Real Magic may spell the difference between her own life or death.

“So refreshing. . . .This is Stephanie Plum in the world of Harry Potter.”

The Bantam classic is back! SUMMER OF LOVE, A TIME TRAVEL (a Philip K. Dick Award Finalist and San Francisco Chronicle Recommended Book) is on Nook and on Kindle.

Nineteen five-star Amazon reviews
“Summer of Love is an important American literary contribution.”
“This book was so true to life that I felt like I was there. I recommend it to anyone.”
“More than a great science-fiction, a great novel as well.”

The year is 1967 and something new is sweeping across America: good vibes, bad vibes, psychedelic music, psychedelic drugs, anti-war protests, racial tension, free love, bikers, dropouts, flower children. An age of innocence, a time of danger. The Summer of Love.

San Francisco is the Summer of Love, where runaway flower children flock to join the hip elite and squares cruise the streets to view the human zoo.

Lost in these strange and wondrous days, teenager Susan Bell, alias Starbright, has run away from the straight suburbs of Cleveland to find her troubled best friend. Her path will cross with Chiron Cat’s Eye in Draco, a strange and beautiful young man who has journeyed farther than she could ever imagine.

With the help of Ruby A. Maverick, a feisty half-black, half-white hip merchant, Susan and Chi discover a love that spans five centuries. But can they save the world from demons threatening to destroy all space and time?

New! Summer of Love Serials have been published for your affordable holiday reading in seven installments free exclusively on Kindle.

Summer of Love, Serial 1: Celebration of the Summer Solstice

Summer of Love, Serial 2: Festival of Growing Things

Summer of Love, Serial 3: A Dog Day

Summer of Love, Serial 4: Rumors

Summer of Love, Serial 5: Inquest for the Ungrateful Dead

Summer of Love, Serial 6: Chocolate George’s Wake

Summer of Love, Serial 7: A New Moon in Virgo

The Bantam sequel, THE GILDED AGE, A TIME TRAVEL (aNew York Times Notable Book and New York Public Library Recommended Book) is on Nook and on Kindle.

The year is 1895 and immigrants the world over are flocking to California on the transcontinental railroad and on transoceanic steamships. The Zoetrope demonstrates the persistence of vision, patent medicines addict children to morphine, and women are rallying for the vote. In San Francisco, saloons are the booming business, followed by brothels, and the Barbary Coast is a dangerous sink of iniquity. Atop Telegraph Hill bloody jousting tournaments are held and in Chinatown the tongs deal in opium, murder-for-hire, and slave girls.

Zhu Wong, a prisoner in twenty-fifth century China, is given a choice–stand trial for murder or go on a risky time-travel project to the San Francisco of 1895 to rescue a slave girl and take her to safety. Charmed by the city’s opulent glamour, Zhu will discover the city’s darkest secrets. A fervent population control activist in a world of twelve billion people, she will become an indentured servant to the city’s most notorious madam. Fiercely disciplined, she will fall desperately in love with the troubled self-destructive heir to a fading fortune.

And when the careful plans of the Gilded Age Project start unraveling, Zhu will discover that her choices not only affect the future but mean the difference between her own life or death.

“A winning mixture of intelligence and passion.” The New York Times Book Review

Mason’s thriller, SHAKEN,an ebook adaptation of “Deus Ex Machina” published in Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, republished in Transcendental Tales (Donning Press), and translated and republished in Europe and South America, is on Nookand on Kindle.

Emma “J” for Joy Pearce is at her editorial offices on the twenty-second floor of Three Embarcadero in downtown San Francisco when the long-dreaded next Great Earthquake devastates the Bay area. Amid horrific destruction, she rescues a man trapped in the rubble. In the heat of survival, she swiftly bonds with him, causing her to question her possible marriage to her long-time boyfriend.

But Jason Gibb is not the charming photojournalist he pretends to be. As Emma discovers his true identity, his mission in the city, and the dark secrets behind the catastrophe, she finds the choices she makes may mean the difference between her own life or death.

A List of Sources follows this short novel.

New! The Story That Sold To The Movies. TOMORROW’S CHILD began as a medical documentary, then got published in Omni Magazine, and finally sold to Universal Pictures, where the project is in development. On Nook and Kindle.

A high-powered executive is about to lose his estranged teenage daughter to critical burn wounds and only desperate measures may save her life.

The ebook includes Lisa Mason’s blog, The Story Behind The Story That Sold To The Movies, describing the twists and turns this story took over the years.

New! HUMMERS was published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine, chosen for Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror 5th Annual Collection (St. Martin’s Press), and nominated for the Nebula Award.

Free exclusively on Kindle.

Laurel, in the terminal stages of cancer, is obsessed with the Egyptian Book of the Dead. Jerry, her homecare nurse whose lover is dying of AIDS, gives her a surprising gift. A hummingbird feeder. As Laurel comes to grips with her own death, she learns powerful and redeeming lessons about Egyptian Magic from the hummingbirds that visit her.

New! THE SIXTY-THIRD ANNIVERSARY OF HYSTERIA, published in the acclaimed anthology, Full Spectrum 5 (Bantam), which also included stories by Neal Stephenson, Karen Joy Fowler, and Jonathan Lethem, is free exclusively on Kindle.

The year is 1941, and Hitler’s armies have swept across Europe. Nora, a budding young Surrealist artist, has fled to Mexico with B.B., a much older and acclaimed Surrealist playwright down on his luck. Hundreds of European artists and writers have formed a colony in Mexico City, and Nora befriends Valencia, a fellow Surrealist artist and refugee. Together the friends explore Jungian psychology and the power of symbols in their Art. But Nora is plagued by an abusive relationship with B.B. She embarks on a harrowing journey deep into her own troubled psyche.

The novelette was inspired by Mason’s favorite Surrealist artists, Leonora Carrington and Remedios Varo. An Afterword describing Carrington and Varo’s lives and a List of Sources are included in the ebook.

New! EVERY MYSTERY UNEXPLAINED, published in David Copperfield’s Tales of the Impossible (HarperPrism), an anthology that included stories by Ray Bradbury, Joyce Carol Oates, and Kevin J. Anderson, is free exclusively on Kindle.

The year is 1895, and Danny Flint is a young man living in the shadow of his father, a famous stage magician whose fortunes are fading. Danny is grieving over his mother’s recent accidental death, for which he feels he is to blame. He learns to reconcile himself with his grief and guilt and to assume his place at center stage as a magician in his own right with the help of a mysterious beautiful lady.

New! DAUGHTER OF THE TAO, published in Peter S. Beagle’s Immortal Unicorn (HarperPrism), that included stories by Charles de Lint, Karen Joy Fowler, Robert Sheckley, and Ellen Kushner, is free exclusively on Kindle.

Sing Lin is a mooie jai, a girl sold into slavery at the age of five to a wealthy merchant in Tangrenbu, the ghetto of her people in the new country across the sea. One lucky day, while she is out shopping by herself, she meets another mooie jai, Kwai Yin, a bossy, beautiful girl two years older. Kwai has a secret. Before she was sold into slavery, she had a Teacher who taught her about Tao Magic.

But Sing watches Kwai succumb to the terrifying fate of all slave girls in Tangrenbu.

Soon Sing is destined to go to the same fate. But will her invocation of Tao Magic save her?

New! For something fast and fun, U F uh-O, A SCI FI COMEDY, Lisa Mason’s script for a producer looking for the next “Galaxy Quest” or “Men in Black” that evolved into a novella, is free exclusively on Kindle.

Nikki and Josh really want a child but have infertility issues. Gretchen and Mike have the same problem. When Nikki meets Gretchen at the Happy Daze Family Clinic in Pasadena, they discover that they share a love of music and have asked for a donor with musical talent. Nine months later, they give birth to very unusual babies and, seeking an answer to why the kids are so special, they meet again at a pediatrician’s office. And the search is on: who—and what—is Donor Number 333?

For something different, TESLA, A WORTHY OF HIS TIME, A SCREENPLAY, which was read by the producer of “Aliens” and “The Abyss” and is currently under consideration at another L.A. producer, is on Nook and Kindle. A List of Sources is included in the ebook.

Genius. Visionary. Madman.

Nikola Tesla (1856–1943) was the pioneering genius who invented the AC electrical system that powers our world to this day, as well as radio, remote control, the automobile speedometer, X-ray photography, the AND logic gate that drives all our computer systems, and countless other devices and precursors to devices such as cell phones, television, and the Internet that we so effortlessly use today.

Strikingly handsome and charismatic, fluent in half a dozen languages, mathematics savant and master machinist, a reed-thin perfectionist who quoted poetry like a Victorian rapper, Tesla became one of the most famous men of his day. Friend of tycoons like John Jacob Astor and Stanford White and celebrities like Mark Twain and Sarah Bernhardt.

Yet Tesla was an intensely driven and lonely man, beset by inner demons, and cursed with a protean inventive imagination a century ahead of his time. He died in obscurity and poverty and, to this day, his name is not widely known. How did that happen?

Blending historical fact with speculative imagination, Lisa Mason explores the secrets of the Inventor’s inner life and his obsession with Goethe’s Faust set against the backdrop of sweeping technological changes at the turn of the twentieth century that have forever changed the world.

For a short erotic novel, try Eon’s Kiss by Suzanna Moore, exclusively free on Kindle. This has a paranormal hero who is not a vampire or a werewolf. If you’re looking for something sweet and steamily erotic, check it out!

On the eve of what Jenna Coltrane believes will be Brett Becker’s marriage proposal, tragedy strikes her life—not just once, but twice. In the midst of trouble, she encounters Eon, a regal young man unlike anyone she’s ever met before.

With him, she enters the magical world of the Arbor, discovering love, passion, and beauty beyond her wildest dreams.

Jenna is swept up in a struggle for survival between human greed and the Arbor, a struggle in which her love for Eon and her very life are at stake.

I’m trying to persuade Suzanna to write the next two books of the Eon Trilogy. Stay tuned.

New! Lisa Mason’s romantic suspense, Celestial Girl, A Lily Modjeska Mystery, will be on Nook and Kindle for the year-end holidays.

Strange Ladies: 7 Stories, a collection of stories published in magazines and anthologies worldwide, will be on Nook and Kindle in early 2013.

Also forthcoming is The Quester Trilogy, an ebook adaptation of Lisa Mason’s early cyberpunk classics, Arachne and Cyberweb.

For news about print books, ebooks, and more visit Lisa Mason’s Official Web Siteand Lisa Mason’s Blog.

If you like a work, please stop by Barnes and Noble or Amazon and “Like” it, add stars, write a review, and spread the word to your friends. Your response really matters.

Thank you for your readership!

 

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Categories Author Ryan Schneider Chats With Lisa Mason About Writing, Authors, Blogging, Chat With Ryan Schneider, Ebooks, Lisa Mason, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author, Lisa Mason Fantasy and Science Fiction Author On Facebook, Literature, Ryan Schneider, Writing
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