Welcome fantasy author, Karina Fabian, who is on her book tour for her latest book, Mind Over Psyche, Book Two in the Mind Over Trilogy. For your chance to win a free electronic copy of Mind Over Psyche, leave a comment or question for Karina.
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Can Deryl and his friend unlock the secrets of Deryl’s role on Kanaan
before the Kanaan decide he is too dangerous to let live?
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I admire Karina's creative, imaginative writing. Today she shares her thoughts on the joy of having written stories. Do you identify with her feelings?
The Joy of Having
Written
By Karina Fabian
Every now and then, we have Tabata week at the gym I
attend. If you don’t know Tabata, think
of it as being in labor: 20 seconds of
hard pushing and pain, followed by ten seconds of rest. Of course, drugs are discouraged and your
trainer might not appreciate it if you snarl, “This is your fault!” but it only
lasts an hour, and then you’re done until the next day. Sometimes, I enjoy going to the gym, but it
had been a crazy week, anyway, and my motivation was low, even less so for
Tabata, but I went.
Why? Even though I
didn’t look forward to going, I enjoyed having
gone.
That’s how it goes with writing sometimes. There are plenty of times when I don’t feel
like writing. Sometimes, other things in
life seem much more important, whether planning a surprise for my husband’s
retirement or doing dishes. Sometimes,
it’s looking at my Amazon sales and realizing that, should something horrible
happen to Rob, I would not be able to support my family on my writing. Rarely, but on occasion, a bad review or
comment from someone will make me wonder why I bother.
But why I bother in those moments is the same reason I
bother to go to the gym: Even if I don’t
want to write, I invariably enjoy having written.
There’s a definite satisfaction in a scene well crafted, a
character who comes alive on the keyboard, or a sentence that makes your eyes
sting with its poignancy. (Just wrote
one of those today, in fact.) There’s
getting that message out of the blue from a reader saying they loved my book,
or from an editor asking when the next story is coming. There’s that hope that this story, this
novel, will be the one to break through—but of course, that will never happen
if I don’t write it. I know, too, that
I’m in this for the long term. I love
writing. I love having written, and I
love going back over my own stories and marveling anew at the adventures I
lived without ever leaving my chair.
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| Karina shows off the results of her gym workouts. |
After eight months at the gym, including four or five weeks
of Tabata, I’ve lost 25 pounds. That
puts me at just under 145. One of the
ladies asked me what my ultimate goal was.
I suppose I could go for 120 or 125, which is what my weight from my
teens to my early thirties, but I realize that it doesn’t matter as much to me,
any longer. Maybe I’ll get there, but if
I can stay around 140 and keep going with my exercising, then I’m satisfied.
You know, I have to keep that same attitude with my
writing. Someday, I may make the NYT
best-seller list. I may find my Amazon
sales grow enough to let my husband quit his day job. But if that never happens, then if I can keep
writing and producing and find readers who love my work, then I’m
satisfied. Even when my motivation is
low, and things around me discourage me from my craft, I keep pounding away at
those words, the same way I pound away at the weights (minus the labor-like
groaning, of course.)
After all, the real satisfaction is in having written.
# # # #
Excerpt from Mind Over Psyche
Joshua
returned to consciousness fully expecting to be in a hospital bed, his slashed
throat swathed in bandages, his singing career over before it had started. His
hands moved to his throat, found it bare and intact and breathed a prayer of
thanks before opening his eyes.
He found
himself on his back in a small, tree-lined meadow, but he didn’t recognize the
trees.
He sat up
slowly, more disoriented than dizzy. Had he had amnesia? “Sachiko?” he called.
“Mom? Dad? Anyone?”
He saw
Deryl lying on his side, unconscious. Not far from him, near a break in the
treeline, stood—
Joshua
gulped.
A unicorn!
…or
something like a unicorn. Its rhinoceros-like horn and thick neck and shoulders
made it a far scarier version than any Joshua had read about in fantasy novels.
It stared straight at them.
Joshua
licked dry lips. “Easy fella,” he soothed, and reached over to shake his
friend. “Deryl, time to wake up.”
Part of
Joshua’s mind gibbered that Deryl was really psychic, that he’d teleported them
to an alien planet. Another part argued that he was dreaming or had gone insane
himself. He told them both to shut up, but he couldn’t stop his breathing from
accelerating or his hands from trembling as he shook his friend.
Deryl’s
eyelids fluttered, then closed.
He’s drugged. Malachai’s zombiefied him
again, and we’re stuck on another world!
He shook
his friend harder. “Come on, man! Don’t do this to me. Wake up!”
Joshua
heard hoof beats and turned in time to see several unicorns with red-clad
riders approach from the trail. He vaguely noted they looked human, before his
eyes focused on the swords they drew.
He did the
only thing he could think of. He raised his arms, palms open, and said, “We
come in peace!”
The
warrior he faced, a scowling man with a narrow head, wide-set eyes, and a
pocked and scarred face, didn’t understand him or didn’t care. He arched his
sword toward Joshua.
Joshua
covered his head with his arms and ducked.
Buy Links
# # # #
Winner of the 2010 INDIE for best Fantasy (Magic, Mensa and Mayhem), Karina Fabian has plenty of voices in her
head without being psychic. Fortunately,
they fuel her many stories, like the Mind Over trilogy. Mrs. Fabian teaches
writing and book marketing seminars,
but mostly is concerned with supporting
her husband, Rob Fabian as he makes the exciting leap from military officer to
civilian executive, getting her kids through high school and college, and
surviving daily circuit torture…er, circuit training. Read about her adventures at http://fabianspace.com.
Find Karina at:
