Guest blog from Kelley Grant, author of Desert Rising

Title: Desert Rising
Author: Kelley Grant
Publisher: Harper Voyage Impulse
Genre: Science Fiction/Fantasy
Format: Kindle

  "It frightens me, knowing the One has called up two such strong individuals. It means that there are troubled times in our future, and you must prepare yourselves."

 The Temple at Illian is the crown jewel of life in the Northern Territory. There, pledges are paired with feli, the giant sacred cats of the One god, and are instructed to serve the One's four capricious deities. Yet Sulis, a young woman from the Southern Desert, has a different perspective - one that just might be considered heresy...

 Sulis's twin Kadar, meanwhile, is part of a different revolution. When Kadar falls in love with a woman from a Forsaken caste, he finds he's willing to risk anything to get her people to freedom. But with Sulis drawing a dangerous level of attention from the deities, and war about to break out on two fronts, change may not come as easily as either twin had hoped. An astonishing debut, Kelley Grant brings to life a powerful new epic fantasy tale of determination and self-discovery.

For More Information

• Desert Rising is available at Amazon.

 I’m often asked how do you get inspired? How does a fantasy writer find all that crazy imaginary stuff to put down on paper? And – how do you deal with writer’s block? I can’t respond for any writer but myself because every brain, every imagination is different.

But for me, both answers are a type of focused daydream. That’s right, the thing teachers and parents told you to stop doing. Daydreaming and staring off into space are the most important things I can do to avoid writer’s block. I don’t even really get writer’s block – it just means that I haven’t taken enough time to imagine the scenes that need to be written and run them through in my moving picture mind in detail before sitting down to write. I am a visual person, so I need to run the “moving picture” of my scenes through my imagination before writing them down.

 Today I was feeling “blocked” so I did what works best for me. I went for a walk by myself. My shaggy black pooch Sherlock gazed at his leash, then me, reproachfully, but I closed the door on him and left so I could unfocus and dream.

And here is where being a yoga teacher and learning meditation has aided me in writing. As I was walking to our local park, my brain started rummaging through the rubbish bin. Yoga teaching problems, class reunions, bills, all started running though my mind, with the accompanying imaginary conversations. I have had billions of conversation with people that never actually occurred in real life. And I have won all of them. Unlike meditation, where the goal is to completely quiet the mind – I used the same principles of breath and redirection to make my thoughts focused, one-pointed.
 

“Did you call Mom? Did you pay the bills?” my brain moaned.

            I whispered back “Sulis, in the desert. Let’s go there right now.”

"Classes, should I do yoga workshops?" it whimpered.

"What's the Crone doing these days?" I asked it.

They call that constant chatter of voices in the brain “monkey-mind” in Buddhism - the way the mind jumps from subject to subject. Training the monkey to hold still is the goal of classical yoga and meditation. Gently guiding it again and again to where you need it to go is an achievement.

On this day, it took about a mile. Right about the time I usually circle back, I had a huge revelation that will set up the third novel. So I kept walking. And then another, so I turned another block.  I’m certain the people I passed thought I was nuts as I whispered to myself and gestured. 

 “Sulis isn’t going to like that,” I shook my head, and turned towards home. It was time to write, to at least get this cascade of imaginings down in a few memory jostling paragraphs before they disappeared completely.

And that’s it. No magic really. Just a constant juxtaposition of unfocused gaze turning to focused typing, of the spaciness it takes to create turning to the focus needed to actually get it all down.

  Kelley Grant grew up in the hills of Ohio’s Amish country. Her best friends were the books she read, stories she created and the forest and fields that inspired her. She and her husband live on a wooded hilltop and are owned by five cats, a dog and numerous uninvited critters. Besides writing, Kelley teaches yoga and meditation, sings kirtan with her husband, and designs brochures and media.

  For More Information Visit Kelley at her website

• Connect with Kelley on Facebook and Twitter.

 

• Kelley and Harper Voyage Impulse are  giving away a $25 Gift Card!

   
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