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.
For More Information Visit Kelley at her website
-
Kelley and Harper Voyage Impulse are giving away a $25 Gift Card!
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- This giveaway begins April 13 and ends on April 30.
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- Winner has 48 hours to reply.
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