In Conversation with Zena Shapter

Hi Everyone,

Today we have a special treat - an interview with Zena Shapter, author of Towards White.

Scientists in Iceland think they’ve figured out one of our greatest mysteries – where the electrical energy in the brain goes after we die. . . but when ex-lawyer Becky Dales travels to Iceland to track down her missing brother, the government blocks her at every turn. Becky must piece together the answers fast… before she becomes a victim herself.

Zena is an award winning Australian Speculative Fiction writer, editor, tutor and self proclaimed, 'all round story nerd.'

The Supernatural Underground is happy to share some of her insights and reflection here.

Enjoy!

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SU I’m so looking forward to seeing Towards White in bookstores. Can you tell us when it will be out, to start, and what genre we can find it in? 

ZS It came out 29th September 2017 and you should be able to find it in your favourite bookstore under: science fiction, thriller or crime/mystery (it’s a cross-genre book). It’s also written in a very realistic style, so will appeal to a variety of readers. One of the first editors to read it was a fan of literary fiction only. Towards White converted her and now she reads science fiction all the time!

SU Becky is an intriguing character. Can you tell us how much of yourself went into her creation?

ZS  I try to put a little of myself into every story, not only because it helps make characters more authentic, but because I read to connect with others, their stories and challenges, and assume others do too. So when I’m writing, I like to offer readers the opportunity to spend time in another person’s shoes, and to do that I have to search through my own closet of shoes and find the right pair to offer up (BTW I don’t actually have a closet for shoes, my shoes are bundled up on wardrobe shelves!). Once I’ve found an experience I might be able to share, I imagine what it would be like to intensify that experience and go through it in extreme conditions, and once I know what those conditions might be, I build my character. During character development, I also think of friends and family who resemble my character in some way, and borrow bits of them to add into the mix. So there’s a bit of me in Becky Dales, there are bits from a few lawyer friends I know, but Becky’s also herself because none of us have ever been in her situation in Towards White – I’m sure we wouldn’t want to be either! We all fall apart sometimes, face the darkest of dark hours, question the essence of our being, then seek a way back to ‘normal’ life. Unfortunately for Becky, she faces having to do this during a crisis. Sometimes when it rains, it pours!

SU I love the world building in Towards White. It is almost like and alien world. You must have lived in Iceland, am I right?

ZS He he, no, I’ve never lived in Iceland, but I’ve been there. I love travelling. I love exploring new places, seeking out unusual stories and uncommon sights, then taking copious notes on them. I have a heap of travel notebooks, and they allow me to travel back in time to when I was last in a place, then write scenes that really show readers what it was like to be there. I visited Iceland in 2001, and when I re-read my notes it’s like being there again. Hopefully when readers read Towards White, they’ll travel there with me too.

SU You know I’m very curious about the science and the philosophy woven into Towards White. Are these questions you’ve wrestled with for years, or did it come to you in a flash?

ZS Both! I grew up around elderly people, for whom death was never far away, and loved studying science at school, so knew all about the energy and nitrogen life cycles. As a teenager, I also enjoyed philosophical contemplations – wherever I could get them! So when I was about eighteen – home from University where I was reading English – I was up late one night philosophising with friends about life after death and I found myself layering our discussion with my scientific background... The conservation of energy theory states that one form of energy must always become another form of energy, energy cannot simply disappear. Our brains are powered by electricity, so I simply made the leap to wondering what happened to it after death. Our bodies go to the worms, what about our electricity? It can’t simply disappear, and it’s far too efficient an energy to simply dissipate, or entropy, as heat. I dwelled on the idea, pondered it, and extended it as far as I could. What if…what if that was the answer to one of man’s greatest mysteries: life after death.

Over the years I played with the idea but it wasn’t until I went to Iceland in 2001 that the story that would become Towards White started to take shape. I fell in love with the country’s austere beauty and inspiration simply poured into my brain from there. There were some delays along the way – moving to Australia, marriage, two children, a new career and finding the right publisher – but the story evolved so much it demanded to be told, and finally it’s here!

SU How much research went into the story? Can we hear a bit about your process?

ZS Well, once I knew I wanted to write a story based on my scientific ideas set in Iceland, I started thoroughly researching those ideas. For the scientific side of things, I went to libraries in the UK and over here in Sydney, read online and asked scientist friends, putting together a folder of research and ideas about energy. I researched all kinds of other relevant things too like gravity and electromagnetism, how colour works, magnetic field therapy, Reiki, astronomy, genes, artic phenomena, the auroras, the constitution and history of Iceland, and of course the brain and nervous system, including brain death and methods of execution. I also bought an Icelandic dictionary and got to know the language as best as I could, including famous cultural quotes and swearing. Many of these ideas have been ingrained in the story from the very first draft back in 2002, but I cut out a lot of the language as my writing technique developed because it didn’t bring anything to the story but ambiguity. Some of the research I cut too because it was too lengthy – but I still have it all somewhere!

SU Becky’s relationships with men are complicated. Did you know she would have such an intense history/backstory from the start, or did that evolve as you wrote her?

ZS It evolved. In earlier drafts of the novel, Becky was a self-assured confident young legal editor who had simply had enough of men. But beta readers found her too assertive, so her confidence had to take a knock. At one point she was lactose intolerant! At another point she was called Kate. But as the drafts went by (there were about ten!), she became more and more complicated, she internalised more, and the more I based her on real friends and family, the more I came to understand her. Hopefully by the end of the novel, readers will understand her too.

SU  What is a typical writing day like for you?

ZS My typical writing day has changed so much over the past few months. It used to look like: admin and emails while the kids get ready for school, exercise until about 9.30am, sit down to write until the kids arrive home around 3pm, ensure I’ve written a minimum of 10,000 words a week, then the rest of the afternoon on client work and free stuff for other authors.

But my creative support business has taken off dramatically this year, and it’s become a struggle to get to any writing at all! I still exercise three days a week, but then have about five hours of client work each day, an hour of face-to-face mentoring other authors, and an hour of teaching (as an average across the week). It’s no wonder I’ve only written a few short stories this year. I have a plan though, to instigate some better balance into my writing life – wish me luck! I will write more again, I will write more again!

SU  Finally, what’s next for you?

ZS Once I’m writing again, I’d like to re-edit a fantasy novel I’ve been working on for a few years, following on from a Writing Inclusive Fiction course I studied earlier this year. It’s so important to write with sensitivity and respect, I want to ensure I’m doing what I can to address imbalances in society, as well as in my own life. I’m also working with agents in the US and England to get more of my writing to readers. Watch this space! Or rather this space over here: http://zenashapter.com/blog/ ;)

Thanks, Zena!

You can find out more about Zena on her Website, Facebook and Twitter.

Towards White can be purchased on Amazon.com in Kindle or Print.

And We Have A Winner — for Julie E Czerneda's #AgainstTheDark Giveaway (#1)

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Today is the day we announce the winner of the Supernatural Underground giveaway for Julie E Czerneda's blog tour — whom we've just loved having as our guest here on the SU!

And thank you all for joining in the fun with a comment. :-)

To remind you, the giveaway (#1) is:

(i)  a hardcover copy of Julie's new-out To Guard Against The Dark and

(ii) a mass-market paperback of This Gulf of Time and Stars.

And now, as promised, we have the draw result — and the winner is [pauses to blow vuvuzela]:

Jueles

Congratulations Jueles!

We’ll be emailing you directly, too, but at need you can also get in contact via Helen Lowe on her webmail: contact[at]helenlowe[dot]info

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For the tour-wide giveaway for all nine “Clan Chronicles” novels(!), click on the following link to check for a result:
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https://sweeps.penguinrandomhouse.com/preview/vg5pud

Thanks again for participating!

"So, When’s the Movie?" A Guest Post from Julie E. Czerneda — Plus Two Giveways!

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Photo Credit— Roger Czerneda Photography

Giveaway Result! The draw for giveaway #1 has now been made and the result posted. Click on the following link for all details:

And We Have a Winner — for Julie Czerneda's #AgainstTheDark Giveaway #1

Thank you to everyone who participated.

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Today, we're thrilled to welcome award-winning Canadian author, Julie E. Czerneda, to the Supernatural Underground.

Guest Post Goodness:
Julie is currently on a Blog Tour to celebrate publication of To Guard Against The Dark, the ninth and final novel in her very successful the Clan Chronicles series. Naturally we're delighted she's made the SU a stop in what is a very busy schedule.

Two Giveaways of Awesome!
Nine books is quite an achievement—plus promising hours of reading pleasure!—so Julie and her publisher, DAW, are celebrating with not one but TWO awesome giveaways. Details for both are following the post—and there's also more great information on Julie herself, and the series.

Right now, though, let's read-on because if you love insights into the writing life, you'll love this post!

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So, When’s the Movie?

Yup. The go-to question from those who sincerely want to know if you’re any good.
 

Clan Chronicles #1

I think it’s safe to say few other professions face that one. Authors? We hear it regularly. At gatherings of family or friends. The dentist. In the grocery store. I’d go on, but you get my drift. It’s a question posed by those who don’t know the business of writing, but who do know where science fiction and fantasy goes to be successful. On screen.
 
Which brings up a more—useful—question.

How do we know if we’re any good? Movie deals aside.*

Creative people are like that, you realize. Prone to wondering. Doubt. We can, of course, think we’re pretty good, which, if you’re Canadian too, comes wrapped up in our national twitch of: don’t tell anyone! But then the whisper in the mind starts…are we…really?

Meaning, like anyone else, we look outside ourselves. Fortunately, society does provide one easily understood mark of success: being paid for what you do, so you can do what you do without starving.

Most of the time. Talk to me about the 101 ways to prepare zucchini. Better yet, buy me lunch—not zucchini, however. (Honestly, authors/artists. We do appreciate food. It’s primal.)
 

Clan Chronicles #6

For those of us who write books, having people buy those books pays for meals, children’s footwear, hockey equipment, a roof (Canadian, that’s my list). It also, incestuously, lets us buy other authors’ books. There are so many GOOD authors out there! We know what’s good when we read it, in others, and willingly admit it. Remember that for later. 

Whether published traditionally or via self-publishing, the number of books sold is the bottom-line. There’s more. Bestseller lists. Is your book in stores and warehouses? Airports? In catalogues. Other languages. Are you pirated online—which is a bizarre compliment until you start doing more math about starving. There’s as many ways to check your numbers as there are stars above, and, to be frank, to obsess over them is as helpful as arguing with our star as winter approaches your hemisphere.

Clan Chronicles #3

Nor, for me, are number of readers a useful measure of “am I any good.” The reasons a book may or may not catch these readers’ eyes and hearts and not those are beyond my control. We—my publisher, booksellers, and I—do our best, including tours like this, to put my books out there. (Though if you buy me a beer with that lunch, I’ll tell you my Walmart story of marketing woe.)

Don’t get me wrong. Sending my manuscript out into the world provided immense validation. I’d finished something, for starters. And finally someone read my stuff! Go ahead and gasp. I didn’t know any better. My first readers were the people, editors, who could decide to buy it or not.

To decide, if for their purposes, it was any good.

The emphasis is important because I’d one advantage. I was an editor myself and knew my story being bought, or not, wasn’t All About Me. (Except for the wee whine inside my head, but I ignored it, most of the time.)
My first book, A Thousand Words for Stranger, spend a few years with a trio of editors who did like it, very much, but their publisher didn’t. It whooshed in a day across the desk of another editor, at another publisher, who quite loved it, but had bought something similar that very day. See? For their purpose. Timing is all.

I was told, repeatedly, DAW was where I belonged.

Now the problem with not knowing if you are any good (at this writing thing) is that self-doubt—even rational-seeming caution—can deflect you into wasting time and effort. DAW published the authors I loved. Why would I try there? I wasn’t yet worthy! (Something I mentioned in an earlier post, so lesson maybe learned?)

Which in hindsight cost a decade of my time, since DAW, in the person of Hugo award-winning editor Sheila E. Gilbert, indeed thought I was good and why hadn’t I come to them first? Surely I’d noticed they liked what I liked.

It never ends, by the way. In moments of personal doubt I’ll email Sheila to ask is she SURE my latest book is good? and she provides a virtual pat on my head—or thump—because why wouldn’t it be? That’s our relationship.

While vastly reassuring before a book launch, this isn’t, however, how I answer the real question: am I any good?

No, this isn’t how my yard
looks at present. Still fall
here.

Awards? Are very nice, believe me. (THE PRECIOUS!) As marks of achievement, they’re damned fine proof a story worked for a sufficient number of wonderfully motivated-to-vote individuals to be noticed. Thanks!

The problem with awards as a measure is they come after the work. After the hours, days, weeks, months, and sometimes years of work—work you do alone. You bake muffins, you know in under 30 minutes if they’re edible. See what I mean? Writers and other artists face an inescapable period of time during which only they can judge if they’re getting it right, or not, while they start “baking” the next long before they do.

What comes very close to a useful measure of “am I any good” are those readers who contact me, privately and while I’m mid-book, to tell me how much my writing has meant to them. Thank you. That’s—that’s remarkable and a treasure and yes, that’s almost all I need.

Almost.

As in not quite. To accomplish a steady word count, to stay deeply focused on the plot as I must be, to keep doing this? I can’t pause to seek external reassurance. There’s no time. No head space. And, to be frank, no point. I must have confidence in my abilities. In what I do.

Clan Chronicles #8

So here’s the thing. What lets me jump into the next project, and plan for the next, and keep the buzz of excited hope I’ll be doing this for years to come—right, Sheila? It’s what I’ve done from the start. From the very start. From the first time I put words to paper at ten years of age, right through to now and tomorrow.

It’s an intimate, hard to share, even harder to admit to you feeling. (Remember, Canadian.)

A feeling. That’s all.

At some unpredictable moment I’ll be writing and it happens.

I’ll read over what I just wrote, sometimes through tears.

Because it’s good enough, for me.

~ Julie E. Czerneda

Footnote:

*The movie? As of now, I’ve no idea if or when any of my works will appear on screen, but I’d love to see it too. Thanks for asking.

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About Julie E. Czerneda

For twenty years, Canadian author/ former biologist Julie E. Czerneda has shared her curiosity about living things through her science fiction, published by DAW Books, NY. Julie’s also written fantasy, the first installments of her Night’s Edge series (DAW) A Turn of Light and A Play of Shadow, winning consecutive Aurora Awards (Canada’s Hugo) for Best English Novel. Julie’s edited/co-edited sixteen anthologies of SF/F, two Aurora winners, the latest being SFWA’s 2017 Nebula Award Showcase. Next out will be an anthology of original stories set in her Clan Chronicles series: Tales from Plexis, out in 2018. Her new SF novel, finale to that series, To Guard Against the Dark, lands in stores October 2017. When not jumping between wonderful blogs, Julie’s at work on something very special: her highly anticipated new Esen novel, Search Image (Fall 2018). Visit www.czerneda.com for more.
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Cover art by Matthew Stawicki

About the "Clan Chronicles" Series

The Clan Chronicles is set in a far future where a mutual Trade Pact encourages peaceful commerce among a multitude of alien and Human worlds. The alien Clan, humanoid in appearance, have been living in secrecy and wealth on Human worlds, relying on their innate ability to move through the M’hir and bypass normal space. The Clan bred to increase that power, only to learn its terrible price: females who can’t help but kill prospective mates. Sira di Sarc is the first female of her kind facing that reality. With the help of a Human starship captain, Jason Morgan, himself a talented telepath, Sira must find a morally acceptable solution before it’s too late. But with the Clan exposed, her time is running out. The Stratification trilogy follows Sira’s ancestor, Aryl Sarc, and shows how their power first came to be as well as how the Clan came to live in the Trade Pact. The Trade Pact trilogy is the story of Sira and Morgan, and the trouble facing the Clan. Reunification concludes the series, answering these question at last. Who are the Clan?

And what will be the fate of all?

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Be In To Win with Two x #AgainstTheDark Giveaways!

Giveaway #1: (US & Canada Readers Only)

Win Julie's latest book, To Guard Against the Dark, in hardcover,  plus a mass market of This Gulf of Time and Stars. 

i) How to Enter: Leave a comment with your details below. Entries will close at midnight on Friday 13 October (EST.)

ii) Notification: The draw will be made and the result posted here on Saturday 14 October.  if the prize is not claimed by midnight Tuesday 17

October,  it will be redrawn and renotified on Wednesday 18 October.

Note: All times are US EST.

iii) Terms:  The books will be supplied by DAW.
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Giveaway #2

This is a fabulous tour-wide opportunity to win all nine “Clan Chronicles” novels!

To enter, click on the following link and follow the entry instructions there:
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https://sweeps.penguinrandomhouse.com/preview/vg5pud

Good Luck!