Alexander M Zoltai's Blog – February 2011 Archive (20)

I want to give a respectful welcome to Irina and thank her for choosing this blog as a stop on her BlogTour. On to our interview…

Irina, I think a good first question is where are you from and what are some of the highlights of what brought you to write your book, Rediscovering The Power of No?

I was born and raised in Moscow, Russia and, being an admittedly…

Alert: Stay turned to this channel for a special broadcast, Monday, 28 Feb.

Irina Avtsin will tell us all about the power of the word, “No!”.

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{This post is almost a rant and purposefully written in a voice I rarely use…}

A madhouse is where insane persons are confined or a place exhibiting…

Alert: Stay turned to this channel for a special broadcast, Monday, 28 Feb.

Irina Avtsin will tell us all about the power of the word, “No!”.

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Today’s interview is with an author whose blog posts I eagerly anticipate.

Must soon read his books…

Alert: Stay turned to this channel for a special broadcast, Monday, 28 Feb.

Irina Avtsin will tell us all about the power of the word, “No!”.

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If you’re new to this blog, you may think its title, Notes from An Alien, refers to either me, Alexander M Zoltai, or writers in general being aliens…

Let’s see: The roots of…

Alert: Stay turned to this channel for a special broadcast, Monday, 28 Feb.

Irina Avtsin will tell us all about the power of the word, “No!”.

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Today we welcome Shari to the blog. Let’s get this interview goin’ :-)…

My most favorite author is C. J. Cherryh.

My other most favorite author is John C. Gardner.

If you read, or write, or publish, this…

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Where are you from, Mary?

I originate from the east coast of the US, but have lived in the Pacific Northwest for about 10 years.

When did you begin writing and can you remember how it felt inside, back then?

I wrote my first story sometime in grade school.…

I just got back from Book Island in Second Life.

Yep, a virtual world I visit for play and work. I wrote about virtual worlds in a previous post. Here’s a bit of what I said:

“All virtual worlds have virtues that…

We’ve had two interviews, so far, with authors: Simone Benedict and Karla Telega.

Today, we have the author, Jaleta Clegg. I first met her in the forums of…

I’ve been tracking our survey for this blog and “Writing”, as a topic for me to focus on, has pulled even further ahead, with “Reading” and “Publishing” tied for a respectable second focus.

{ For those bothered by the punctuation in the title of this post, I admit to maverick grammar :-}

As far as that dictum to write every day, go ahead and put write+every+day into Google and you’ll find thousands of reasons.

Naturally, as with most…

I’m very happy to give a short introduction to Karla. Short because I can’t wait to share her answers to my questions. She has wonderfully humorous insights about the writing process :-)

Karla, where are you from and how old are you?

I grew up in Seattle, home of the Space Needle and about three banana slugs per square foot. I’m at that magical age of 54: too old for hot flashes and too young for the senior menu.

When did you begin writing…

“Genre” simply means a kind or type of writing.

Some folks have even criticized the whole concept of genre.

If you look the word up in Wikipedia, you’ll see a questioning of the genre of the very article about genre:…

We all have bad days.

Bad days in general and bad days for writing and days when we can’t understand anything we read and days when the hope of publishing turns into the worst idea we’ve ever had…

This blog covers Reading, Writing, and Publishing and I’m still offering, “Write Your Way Out of The Bad Days…”, as an option in all three pursuits.

Let’s say you’re an avid reader, it’s what makes the rest of life bearable, but you hit one of those days when every book you…

Ever lived in Kansas?

Ever wondered how to escape from Kansas?

Our interview is with an author who can answer yes to both those questions :-)

Without further ado, here’s  Simone Benedict.

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Let’s start with where you’re from, how old you are, and is Simone Benedict your real…

It’s been there since the 2nd of January and, just like I wish more folks would comment on individual posts, I wish more folks would take the poll. It can be of great aid in deciding what our readership wants to see here.…

The last post in this blog generated more comments than any yet in its short life.

One of them was so unique and so valuable that I’m taking the liberty of freeing it from its public presence in the comments to give it prominence in a more public presence in this post. {alliteration, anyone?}

The writer of the comment was, for many years, a teacher of English. He now is a blogger who reveals a rich and powerful command of the language through his poetry on…

From that little bunny that pops out of the magician’s hat?

From dragons who’ve run out of knights to fight?

From bookies who moonlight as creative content dispensers?

Ya think??

One of the most common sources claimed for the brilliant ideas writers sometimes display is the fabled Muse. I’ll come back to that source in a minute…

Some writers steal their…

All it takes is getting the free copy of Notes from An Alien and giving some feedback.

I need to quote part of C. M. Marcum’s comment on that post:

“But we’re such good friends now. Why spoil it?

No, seriously, I have run the gauntlet of writing sites and I have found the relationships to be dreadfully…

That’s the back-cover blurb for my book. In the last post, I talked…

I’m going to have my first face-to-face meeting with my editor in eight days.

I just realized as I wrote that sentence that the combination of “face-to-face” and “editor” might have given a few readers a chill.

A face-to-face is serious, right?

Does serious have to mean bad?

The editor, that horrible person who has some perverted need to hack away at my pristine creation, tells me I can’t be…