Thank you so much Sarah Holding for the invitation to participate in this blog tour! What fun!
Lisa Devaney
Sorry that I’m a few days late in posting. Do check out Sarah’s work, she is the author of the SeaBEAN young adult trilogy, and a cli-fi colleague of mine in London!
a) What am I working on?
Right now I’m in furious promotions mode – trying to get the word out about my first ever book In Ark: A Promise of Survival that I self-published to Amazon in April 2014. I got amazing support and tons of RTs on Twitter, my press release got picked up by various places around the world and I’ve already been getting 5* reviews on Amazon!
I’ve also just done my first author interview with Cli-Fi Books.
Sales are slow, and that is a bit discouraging, but I have decided that I am in “beta phase” with my book and with being a new indie author. I’m actually glad now that I’m slowly getting responses, from some strangers, but mainly from people I know well. Getting honest and constructive feedback is really helping me. I’d love to someday be a bestselling author, but, baby-steps, baby-steps.
Everyone tells me that being a new author, and having a first book out is a real “slow-burn” process. I can go with that situation.
Right now, I’m also thinking through book 2 and 3 in my Mya and Ark trilogy. I aim to start writing book 2 Out of Ark this summer!
Ha, ha, what else am I working on? In addition to writing, self-publishing and promoting my book, I’m a PR consultant for tech startups with my Hai Media Group. And I’m mom to my toddler son who will soon be 3!
And I’m trying to understand the difference between “to” and “too” – two words that confound me.
b) How does my work differ from others of its genre?
I’m just now getting to know other writers and reading as many cli-fi books as I can. So far what is different about my book? S-E-X! There is a little bit of it in my book. I really want to “sex up climate change” and make the subject entertaining, hopefully a page turner, and get the subject out of the heavy, deep science reports that we hear on the news all the time and put it into Hollywood-style lights!
c) Why do I write what I do?
Ever since I was a kid, I feel like the only thing I have been able to excel at, or even have any talent with, is writing and art. I totally suck at math, science and especially logic. But, I’m intensely, torturously creative. I really can’t shut my head off. It is a bit of a problem — gift? Curse? Don’t know. I am constantly making things up that are wild and far-fetched.
I often joke about how my Malverne High School class of 1985 on Long Island in New York voted me Most Imaginative and Most Gullible. So, I make a lot of things up — and believe them!
I also love to mix up mediums – and I find digital media is a great paintbox for me. In fact, my YouTube channel has 500K views now! I plan to use YouTube to showcase some performance and readings of my book, in the near future. Right now the videos I post there are very random.
While I love writing my wild stories, I also am striving toward becoming what I call a “transmediaist” who works across multiple, mostly online, mediums in telling stories.
I want my gravestone to read “RIP Lisa Devaney, Transmediast”.
Ha, ha, I even made my own Blue Plaque and posted it on my door at my old flat in London’s Sheperds Bush.
Everyone needs a goal!
d) How does my writing process work?
I get a lot of inspiration from the world around me – seaweed, the view of the Olympic Park from my balcony in East London’s Hackney (E9), people I know, experiences I’ve had, books I’ve enjoyed reading. It is a total collage of ideas. What is really a challenge is to then think all these influences through and turn it into characters, a plot and an entertaining book – or transmedia story.
With everything going on in my life, I have only been able to carve out one day a week to sit at the computer and write. Usually Tuesdays. I bring my son to his child minder, then rush back to get to work. I make a huge pot of coffee (which I really should lay off) and I intensely write for about 4-6 hours. That is really about all I can take.
So I started doing my Tuesday writing days in August 2012. It has taken me two years of plodding along, but I’ve actually done it! OMG! I wrote a book!
Calling on you guys now! Looking forward to seeing your post on Monday, May 26th, 2014:
Hey to you! Clara Hume!
Author of Back to the Garden, among other titles.
Hey to you! Adam Strong!
Adam is the author of Move it or Lose it! and is a highly successful fitness guru, elite athlete, and movement specialist. He has trained with the likes of Mo Farah and other athletes. He has gained exceptional knowledge in improving and achieving healthy lifestyles. Adam is the creator of a revolutionary 12-step programme designed for business leaders and executives who want to re-balance energy levels, sleep patterns, motivation and posture.
Hey to you! Sandra Danby!
Since she can first remember, Sandra Danby has loved reading. Hardback, paperback, e-book, new or pre-loved, borrowed from the library and friends, magazines, online and newspapers, she reads them all. She grew up on a small dairy farm at the bleak edge of East Yorkshire where England meets the North Sea and was writing stories and making them into magazines when she was four. She went onto become a journalist for +30 years. Her first novel ‘Ignoring Gravity’ is soon to be published by BNBS Books and she is currently working on the sequel ‘Connectedness’. Both feature identity detective, Rose Haldane.
