Author on the Couch: Pamela Stewart
Today I’m conducting a session with…Pamela Stewart!
GIVEAWAYS!
*Pamela is currently hosting a giveaway for a signed copy of her book, Frozen Hearts, on Goodreads.
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/213046-frozen-hearts
*Leave a comment for Pam and share this post and you are eligible to win an e-copy of FROZEN HEARTS!
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Enter Pamela Stewart's Goodreads Giveaway for a signed copy of FROZEN HEARTS! @pfunky32 https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/213046-frozen-hearts Click To Tweet
Me: Tell me about an experience that had a profound impact on your life.
Pamela: Raising my kids as a single mom. I learned: unconditional love, sacrifice, multi-tasking, prioritizing, faith, hard work, patience, and persistence. I also learned the importance of having fun in any job you have to do. Very Mary Poppins-ish, I know, but true. I am an infinitely better person because of my kids.
I am an infinitely better person because of my kids. - @pfunky32 #amwriting Click To Tweet
Me: Being a mother is the most important job!
What personality trait of yours helps you most as an author?
Pamela: Persistence and patience. I have been seriously writing for over ten years. If I had wavered I would not be publishing now. Most writers need the patience and persistence to write, take classes, write more, get critiques, write even more, and start doing queries. Learn about the industry, enter contests, change genres, win contests, lose contests, go to conferences and crit groups and writer’s retreats. It’s a blast, but exhausting. After ten years of chasing the dream, I am finally indie publishing my book. If I had not had patience and persistence before, I have acquired them now.
Persistence and patience--Personality traits of the successful writer. #amwriting @pfunky32 Click To Tweet
Me: Persistence and patience… So true. I had persistence when I started and have had to learn patience.
What personality trait of yours hinders you most as an author?
Pamela: A mean streak of perfectionism and a lot of self-doubt. (We can choose two per category—right? 🙂 Both slow me down.
Me: Perfectionism and self doubt are frequent answers to this question.
What was your high point as a writer?
Pamela: When I won my first contest. Before that day, I would have moments of excitement when I thought I might be a good writer, but to have agents and editors say this is good. And not only that it’s good, but the best. That was the last push I needed to have self-confidence.
Me: I’m a self admitted contest slut, probably because it is such a rush to be told that what you wrote is the best!
What was your low point as a writer—a time when questioned your path?
Pamela: I had lunch with a multi-published writer and asked if she thought I could make a living writing. She told me a flat out no and mentioned that I might be able to make some money with erotica but not enough to live on. This was devastating to me. I had envisioned a life as a writer, with my novels as my primary source of income. I had a few dark days. Then I realized that even if I couldn’t make a living, writing was my passion and I would pursue it. I now feel that it is completely possible, especially with indie publishing, to earn a living writing.
Me: Those slap in the face moments, take a while to get over don’t they?
How did you know you wanted to be a writer?
Pamela: I have always loved writing. Short stories and a play based on the legend of Eros and Psyche in elementary school were early clues, then in sixth grade, I met my good friend Rita. We both loved all things geek in a time when it wasn’t necessarily cool. After watching The Empire Strikes Back, we decided to write what would now be called fan fiction about our favorite characters. Our story topped 300 pages. I had never had so much fun. The rush of creativity. Hours slipping by. The excitement of sharing my work. It took many more years before I understood I wanted to make a career out of writing, but those were the seeds.
Me: How cool is that!
How do you deal with rejection or bad reviews? What advice can you give others?
Pamela: Ah, rejection my old friend. I have had both gentle and ajax-down-the-throat painful feedback. In the old days, I would shut down and not write for months, even abandon the work as too-horrible-to-save. I finally realized that critiques and reviews are subjective. If one person hates your work it doesn’t mean that everyone will. I’ve had one reader say that a line was horrible when another says it was their favorite. I’ve learned to trust my own instincts.
Critiques and reviews are subjective. If one person hates your work it doesn’t mean that everyone will. @pfunky32 #amwriting Click To Tweet
Me: Tell me about it! I had a major review source quote a line from my novel as being an example of the awfulness of my writing and then just a few days later three or four readers randomly quoted that line as being one of their favorites!
Tell me about your upcoming YA science fiction, Frozen Hearts.
Pamela:
Blurb
South Pole Station, A.K.A the Butt Crack of the World, any teenager’s worst nightmare, and home to free-spirit Ionia Sonberg.
To shake up her bland, boring, stuck-on-blah life, Ionia defies her uber-controlling mother and adds a companion droid, Den, to the supply requisition. The droid’s arrival takes Ionia’s relationship with her mom from toxic to Seventh Level of Frozen Hell.
Ionia and her droid escape the station by stowing way on a cargo plane bound for Mac Town, the biggest city on the continent. But just as she reaches her destination, a terrorist attack forces her to choose between freedom and family loyalty.
Den’s primary programming dictates that he please his mistress, but accompanying Ionia across the Antarctic tundra into imminent danger does not match the definition of pleasure in any of his manuals. Yet, his greatest desire is to keep her from harm, and he’s willing to risk his very existence to ensure her safety. Whether she likes it or not.
Together they must travel over Earth’s harshest terrain to uncover a secret that may save or destroy them both.
Me: Guys! I critiqued a version of this book. And I must say that I never thought I could love a droid, but then Den came along and changed my mind!
Share with us a favorite paragraph or two from Frozen Hearts.
Pamela:
This is a segment from the middle of my book from Den’s, my android companion, POV. I love it because it’s one of the first times the reader realizes that he’s having real feelings for Ionia my MC.
“Have you smelled these? You can smell, right?” He nodded and she sniffed again and shoved a shaft at his face. “I think I miss flowers the most. Beautiful, you know. Like summer caught in a moment, right in your hand.”
“Flowers are beautiful. Like you.”
She smiled again. His basic companion protocol told him she would respond in this manner to a positive comparison, but his programming did not explain the tightness in his chest. She had lowered her outer garment’s hood, and her gold hair hung down in waves, untended. Her eyes caught the light and sparkled. Her cheeks flushed with blood and washed color into her tawny skin.
It wasn’t a falsehood. She resembled a beautiful flower, fascinating and fragile and fine.
Buy Now: http://a.co/9MBngdU
Add to your TBR: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/30193286-frozen-hearts
You can find Pamela here:
Abbie Roads writes dark emotional novels featuring damaged characters, but always gives her hero and heroine a happy ending… after torturing them for three hundred pages. RACE THE DARKNESS and HUNT THE DAWN are available now! Stayed tuned for SAVING MERCY. Book 1 in the new Fatal Truth Series.
RACE THE DARKNESS
HUNT THE DAWN
