Re-Release Party for "His Own Good Sword" by Amanda McCrina!

Moving the Tuesday Snippet to Wednesday again, so I can give you all a feature for one of my fellow writers, Amanda McCrina, and welcome her to the sister/brotherhood of Indie Writers! Yay!


Amanda recently terminated her contract with a small publisher to go indie, and today is the re-relase of her historical fantasy novel His Own Good Sword, with a new lovely cover and all!


Mini Interview with Amanda:

1. How does it feel to be an indie author now?

On one hand, it's extremely liberating to know I have complete control over the entire book-production process. I know the design/formatting stage can be frustrating for self-pubbed authors (especially self-pubbed authors on college-student budgets, like me!), but I absolutely enjoyed it. I've always had something of a graphic-design urge, so it was exciting to be able to put that to use on my own book.

On the other hand, it's kind of scary: there's no one to blame but myself for any mistakes!

2. Have you made any changes to your book?

There were a few mundane typographical errors that have been corrected for this edition. I also took the opportunity to rework or flesh out some passages I felt were lacking in the first edition. For the most part, these changes weren't drastic--a sentence or two added here and there, some slight variations on wording to improve the flow. But there are some passages that have changed pretty significantly, especially towards the end; hopefully the changes will shed more light on certain characters. I've also added a map and a character list to both the paperback and ebook versions.

3. What's coming next?

Apart from the sequel to His Own Good Sword (tentatively scheduled for release this December), I'm currently working on a standalone novel called Aquae, a historical fantasy set in 1st-century-AD Wales. It's about a half-Roman, half-British boy who discovers he's inherited his mother's druidic abilities and is accused of attempting to murder his hard-bitten soldier father. It's a loose retelling of the Grimms' fairy tale "The Water of Life."

4. What are you reading right now?

I'm currently reading Walker Percy's The Moviegoer, because I need to maintain my high-brow literary facade. I've also finally gotten around to reading Black Hawk Down. I'm looking forward to continuing Ruth Downie's Ruso series, which I started just recently.(Hazel's note: Just finished the second Ruso book, it was really good ;-)

5. What books and movies are you looking forward to this year?

I have to admit I don't keep up with new book releases the way I should, probably because most of my favorite authors have been dead at least fifty years. But I'm looking forward to Elizabeth Wein's Rose Under Fire, for sure.

As far as movies go--well, I'm a huge film buff, so I could talk the rest of the day about movies. Like the rest of the planet, I'll be going to see Star Trek Into Darkness and Man of Steel. I'm holding out hope for Pacific Rim, because I love Guillermo del Toro as a director, but I wasn't too impressed with the first trailer. I'm also curious about Neill Blomkamp's Elysium, and yes, I'll probably see World War Z, because the book was so surprisingly good and because I'm a closet zombie aficionado.

6. Okay, really important question now: Coffee or tea?

I... don't understand why this is even a question. Coffee, of course--dark, strong Italian coffee. Starbucks' Caffe Verona is my favorite.

Read an excerpt from His Own Good Sword

By now Verio had nearly overtaken the four rebels before the cliff. One of them was falling behind, was perhaps riding with a wound—it would explain why they’d only gotten this far in better than half a day’s time. Another dropped back to stay alongside him. The other two came to the cliff face and dismounted and stood to face the troop with bows drawn back in their hands. Tyren lost sight of the two stragglers in the trees. He saw Verio go riding for the bowmen, sword in hand—too close for arrows to do much good. Verio cut one of them down before he’d the chance to loose. The other let fly a wild shot and turned to run with one of Verio’s men close at his heels. He fell before he’d taken five stumbling steps.

An arrow sped from the trees and took Verio’s man in the throat as he returned along the cliff face from his kill. He fell from his horse with the reins still clutched in his hand. The horse shied and bolted. Tyren saw Verio’s head jerk up in startled realization, saw him slide from his saddle and gesture wildly for a defensive formation—saw his men dismounting, falling back against the cliff in a ragged half circle, their shields out, facing the trees.

He straightened in Risun’s saddle.

“Columns,” he said, to the four men who were still sitting their horses behind him. “Follow my lead.”

Here are some fun re-release stuff that Amanda has going on, so you had best take advantage of it!

Get a free Kindle copy of His Own Good Sword from the 7th through the 11th! Yes, you read that correctly—the book will be free in Kindle format for the first five days of its release, so you are literally without excuse if you don’t have the book on your Kindle by midnight on the 11th.

Not to denigrate those Illustrious Readers who prefer physical books to electronic ones! If you purchase the $7.99 paperback edition of His Own Good Sword from either Createspace or Amazon between the 7th and 11th, forward a copy of your confirmation email to amandamccrina AT gmail DOT com and I’ll make arrangements with you for a free piece of signed artwork by yours truly featuring any character/object/whatever-you-choose* from the book. (For an example of my art style, take a look at this. Disclaimer: Batman is not a character in His Own Good Sword. Though that would have been awesome.)

Purchase Links:

Paperback

Kindle

Createspace

Where you can find Amanda:

Blog

Twitter

Facebook

Pintrest

You can also read my review of His Own Good Sword on Goodreads

Interview with Author Amanda McCrina

I'm very glad today to introduce debut author, Amanda McCrina who agreed to do an interview with me and is going to talk a little about her new novel "His Own Good Sword". I just read it recently and it's a great book! You can read my review on Goodreads here.

First off, when did you start writing?

I tried my hand at NaNoWriMo for the first time in 2007, and won, and that was when I really started taking writing seriously. I’d been writing off and on for a long time before that--for just about as long as I can remember, actually--and I’d always thought that theoretically it’d be nice to be an author, but that was when I first started devoting serious time and effort to it.

What inspired you to write “His Own Good Sword”?

My love for Roman history and culture played a big part. I spent a semester abroad in Rome in 2009, and that experience definitely helped shape the story and flavor the world behind the story. I also owe a huge debt to Rosemary Sutcliff, both stylistically and thematically. They say to write what you want to read; to be honest, a major reason for writing “His Own Good Sword” is that I’d run out of Rosemary Sutcliff books to read.

How did you go about creating the world in your book? What were your inspirations for the different people?

The world of “His Own Good Sword,” Cymeria, existed independently before this particular storyline did, though not always in its current form. Originally it was more of a typical medieval fantasy world. But then I fell in love with Italy, and by the time I wrote the rough draft of “His Own Good Sword” for NaNoWriMo 2010, I had reimagined Cymeria as a pseudo-Roman world (an “alternate antiquity,” as a friend of mine likes to put it), with my Vareni modeled on the Romans, and the Cesini based on the ancient Britons. It’s not an exact analogue; I’ve rather indiscriminately mish-mashed several different periods of Roman history, with some tweaks of my own. But I did want it to feel grounded in reality, so it still required a lot of research (did the Romans use horseshoes? How did their postal system work? And so forth).

The specific characters had their own evolutions. None of them are deliberately modeled on real-life figures of any sort. I wanted them to feel totally organic within the world of the story. In creating characters, my basic starting point was to imagine how and why people might react differently to the same cultural stimuli. My hero, Tyren, is concerned for truth, justice, and all those important things (and I love him for it), but he’s still very much a product of his upper-class, privileged environment; he can be arrogant, insensitive, even bigoted. Meanwhile, my antagonist, Luchian, has nearly the same background and upbringing as Tyren, but he manifests it a bit differently, shall we say.

What was the most difficult part about writing “His own Good Sword”?

I had, and still have, difficulties with action scenes. The battle scenes in “His Own Good Sword” were the last things to be written; I actually started querying the manuscript before I could bring myself to finish them. (For future reference, I wouldn’t recommend doing that.)

What was the most fun?

Plotting--by which I mean to say stretching, twisting, and beating the plot into submission--was challenging and frustrating, but so much fun at the same time. There’s nothing more satisfying than having a thorny plot problem (and I had lots of them) finally work out.

Who was your favorite character to write about and why? (You can choose more than one if you have to!)

It’s hard to pick favorites! I love both Tyren and his father Torien, and both of them came fairly easily to me (perhaps because they’re both very similar, though neither of them would admit it). But I’d have to say my favorite character to write was Aino. He stays in the background for most of the book, so the reader really doesn’t get to know him all that well, but I think he’s probably the most complex of all my characters. He gets to play a bigger part in book two, and I’m excited about that.

As a writer, do you have any quirks when you write?

I like having complete silence when I write, so I’m usually in my room with the door closed. I also have the odd compulsion to write my drafts in Notepad, then write the final draft in OpenOffice with the Notepad draft open for reference. I think it’s because it’s impossible to get distracted with Notepad.

What are your favorite books and authors? Who inspires you?

I have too many favorite books to list, I’m afraid. But my all-time-favorite book is Ernest Hemingway’s “A Farewell to Arms” (and Hemingway is my favorite author). Rosemary Sutcliff’s “The Lantern Bearers” is a close second, though. As far as nonfiction goes, my favorite book is George Orwell’s “Homage to Catalonia,” his autobiographical account of the Spanish Civil War.

As for who inspires me... at the risk of exposing myself as a hopeless history nerd, I’ll say that three of my heroes are Patrick Hamilton (16th-century Scottish martyr), Claus von Stauffenberg, and Major Richard Winters of Easy Company.

What do you do when you’re not writing? Have any other hobbies?

I’m a huge cinephile. I also like to dabble in graphic/web design. At present, most of my non-writing time is taken up by school; I’m currently in my senior year at the University of West Georgia, studying history and political science.

What’s your favorite movie?

Guillermo del Toro’s “Pan’s Labyrinth” has been my favorite for a while. It’s just a beautiful film. Ridley Scott’s “Black Hawk Down” is runner-up; in my opinion, it’s the best war movie ever made.

In your opinion, what is most important to you in a book?

Theme is important to me. I’m usually willing to overlook shortcomings in other areas if I like a book’s overall theme. And there are certain themes in particular that appeal to me. I’m a sucker for father-son relationships, villains with redemptive arcs, and honorable characters facing impossible moral dilemmas. (In other words, I like “Star Wars.”)

If your book was made into a movie, do you have any choices for actors who would play your characters?

I usually have pretty clear mental images of my characters, and unfortunately I can’t always think of actors who fit. There are a few exceptions, though. I imagine Muryn looking something like Jeremy Irons. And I almost immediately envisioned Hailee Steinfeld for the role of Tyren’s sister Challe. A dark-haired Alex Pettyfer would fit my vision of Tyren closely enough, I suppose.

What are you working on now?

I’m currently finishing up the sequel to “His Own Good Sword.” It’s called “The Sword Unsheathed” and it’s due out from Winter Goose in August 2013. I’ve also been toying with an idea for a fairy-tale retelling that may end up being my NaNo project this year.

And lastly, what is the best advice you would give to a new writer?

I always hesitate to give writing advice, since I’m still a relative newbie, and because there’s no one “right” way to write. It’s a very indefinite process. But I will say that nothing helps my writing more than reading. If I ever hit a block in my writing, reading is what gets the creative juices flowing again. And while I do think you should write what you want to read, don’t read only the things you like to write. No matter your chosen genre, your writing will be so much more well-rounded if your broaden your reading horizons.

Read an Excerpt Here!

If you want a copy of your own, you can find "His Own Good Sword" through the links below:

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Indiebound

Books-A-Million

Winter Goose Publishing