Meet J Lenni Dorner in this Debut Author Spotlight

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If you read Operation Awesome regularly, then you're already familiar with J Lenni Dorner, blog contributor. Today, however, you get to meet J Lenni Dorner, debut fiction author! We are so excited for the release of J's first novel, FRACTIONS OF EXISTENCE. Congratulations, J. We hope it feels good to be on the other end of the interview questions. :0)


1- What five words represent your most notable characteristic or values? #In5Words

Wordsmith, Lenni-Lenape, persevering, nemophilist, quirky

2- Can you share a story from your life that shows who you are as a person and why you are a writer?

I once wrote using a twig dipped in blood.

Wow, that sounded creepy, didn’t it?

My bio-parents weren’t “grocery store” types. I grew up in a hunter-gatherer environment. We used every part of the animal. The first time someone asked me where I got deerskin pants, I looked at them like they were stupid. At that point in my young life, I had never met someone before who lived another way. Now when someone asks me something like that, I just laugh and shake my head. I’m just barely “civilized.”

Of the people you know, I’m the Daryl Dixon.

3- What ignited your passion for writing?

Writing was how I connected the life I was raised in with the life I was moved into. It’s how make sense of the world.

4- Would you share a picture with us of some of your rejected book covers?



On a scale of 1 to 10, how terrible were those covers for an urban fantasy?


5- What are some of your short and long-term writing goals?

Short:

To get 50 reviews for this book.

Long:

To sell 90,000 copies of Fractions of Existence by September 2020.
To publish another fiction book by April 2018.
To write and publish the entire Existence book series.

6- What emotions do you hope your book will evoke for the reader, and is there a particular scene you hope will resonate with readers?

Wend has some “Ugly Duckling” moments in this book. She has no idea what Xavier might see in her, and wonders if he calls her beautiful just to be polite. There’s a scene in a garage restroom where this feeling hits her. The truth is that Xavier sees who she really is, and that makes a real difference. Wend spends this book as a square peg trying to fit into a round hole, not that she’s aware of this reality. I think there are readers out there who have felt like outsiders in their own life until they discovered where they belonged. Sometimes you just have to find your people or your niche.

7- Who is currently your biggest fan? What does that person love most (or "ship") about your debut novel?

Sandi. She loves the characters. Heath is her favorite in this book. She's a friend and was the first editor of the manuscript.

8- What's with the "What-Are-They"? It's the name of your website and the title of the last chapter.

I've based these characters off of a legend an elder in my tribe taught me. There are a handful (with fingers to spare) of us who know this passed-down story. I created a video of words that may enter a reader's mind while reading this and trying to figure it out. In book two, the characters will have a discussion about the question.



9- What most helped you to improve your writing craft?

Editing! It's interesting how finding the mistakes of others can make a switch go off in your mind. "Wait, did I do that too?"
The tool that made the biggest difference has been Grammarly. It's an extension in my Chrome browser, and an add-on in MS Word. I don't know how I lived without it. Grammarly doesn't just point out that something is wrong or might be wrong, it explains the reasoning behind it. For example, it pointed out that I was using the British version of a word. It also picked up on my using aloud instead of out loud. (Aloud is considered a more formal action. One reads a Bible aloud in church. This interview, however, you could read out loud to a friend.)

10- What is the most memorable trait or visual oddity of one of your characters?

That would be the eyes. I highly suggest paying attention to Xavier, Heath, Jez, and Wend’s eyes. (Caleb and Jun have impressive eyes, too. But that doesn't come up in book one.)

11- How is Jun pronounced?

http://www.pronouncenames.com/pronounce/jun

12- #DiversityBingo2017 https://twitter.com/novelparadise/status/808828422700998656 Which squares does your book cover on the card?

• MC w/ Underrepresented body
• MC of Color in SFF
• Contemporary World Arranged Marriage
• Free Choice = Native American Author

13- Which character has your favorite Personality Contradiction?

I've always been intrigued that Dumbledore is protecting Harry on one hand, and shoving him, unprepared, into danger with the other hand (the one that wore the ring).
What? Ohhh... no one else has ever answered with a character that isn't their own. Sneaky sneaky!
My honest answer to this question is Heath. But, until book two, I can't even hint as to why, or which personality contradiction I'm talking about!

14- Can you think of any small change in the world you could make to potentially benefit hundreds of other authors or readers?

I'm doing it already. Interviewing debut authors makes a huge difference. The more authors, the more books. More books, better odds a reader will find one to love. More readers means less illiteracy, and that means a better world for everyone.

15- As a reader, what most motivates you to buy a new book to read?

If it's by one of my favorite authors, that's the easiest sale. But I didn't realize my other motivations until I started the "Down the TBR Hole" blog prompt posts on my blog. It turns out that I'm most motivated to buy any books about the Lenni-Lenape, and any books that remind me of my book or my characters.

16- How will you measure your publishing performance?

I am ALL about reviews. Those are the rings in my tree. Sure, some rings show years where the forest burned or insects attacked; but every ring is earned by a growing tree.

17- What was the deciding factor in your publication route?

I self-published largely because I like having control. Urban Fantasy, all of Speculative Fiction, really, is hard to get agents interested in. Throw in that my book is lacking vampires, detectives, orphaned main characters, magic users, (and neither dragon nor shifter would be entirely accurate to describe Caleb)... and it's easy to see why agents replied, politely, by saying they didn't think they had the "right contacts" for my story. (And other similar rejections.)

I found a list with other clichés and tropes I avoided: renegade female loner, rebellious normal who “plays” with paranormals, and vigilantes/hunters/professional monster-fighters as the protagonists (mine are antagonists, and it's a religious sect…).

I considered throwing a disclaimer in the front of the book. "Warning: This Urban Fantasy isn't like the other ones."

18- What is one question which you would like the readers of this interview to answer or remark on in the comments?

I want to know what debut books you're looking forward to in the coming months!

19- Anything else you would care to share about your book and yourself?

Once they were humanity's exalted protectors— now they are being hunted.

Xavier will weigh all human life against Gwendolyn's ignorant happiness. The good news is that her choice can blow his away.

Omnipotent beings find each other while playing an online game. Xavier has been searching for Gwendolyn, his true mate and the missing member of the Existence. Only if reunited can the group regain the rest of their memories and access all of their powers. Hidden in plain sight, disguised as humans, they help who they can, as best they can, when they can.

The Eyes in the Shadows, a religious sect, has been trying to free humans from the “prison” of life on Earth for millenniums. The Existence has always been able to thwart them… until now. They've discovered a way to end the world that no one will see coming.

Gwendolyn has her future all laid out. There is a plan. She knows what her parents want for her and how to get it. Then Xavier, a friend from a virtual game, makes her question everything. He's full of secrets, one being an understanding of her fear of the wind.

She tries to suppress her intense attraction to the mysterious and frustrating Xavier. She's engaged, after all, and the thoughts she's having aren't proper. Gwendolyn is swept into a whirlwind of secrets, danger, and forbidden attraction. She'll drive across the country in her beat-up old car, not knowing if he's is genuinely interested or just being polite. (He refuses to kiss her!) Gwendolyn's journey is full of self-doubt, sacrifice, and dark visions that invade her sleep. Will she uncover the truth about herself?


Amazon

J is the Operation Awesome Team member who (usually) runs the Debut Author Spotlight on Wednesdays. (Thanks, Kara!)
The author attended Penn State.
J has won several writing awards, some which included publication in anthologies.
Learn more on the website:
http://www.what-are-they.com/

There's a giveaway! rafflecopter

Thanks for this, Kara. Putting me in my own hot seat has been an interesting experience!

Is Your Author Page the Place for Political Opinions?

My Facebook feed is full of political opinions and, of course, I have a few opinions of my own. In fact, there are some I feel strongly about, however when it comes to my author page, I never share political posts and rarely do so on my personal page. The reason? I don't want to alienate my audience.

Authors have a public presence. Those who read our books seek us out online and follow us on our social media channels. The last thing I want is to put someone off of reading my books because I came out strongly on one side of a debate. Whenever I consider blogging or posting about something political, I think long and hard about the repercussions. I think about my audience and how it might be construed. Not only could I potentially alienate readers, I could actually hurt them by devaluing something they feel passionate about. 

The opinions we share online are, like it or not, forever in the public eye. They are there for our readers to find and for potential publishers and employers to find. 

I'm not trying to make anyone paranoid. My hope is that you'll think it through thoroughly before you post something you may regret in the future. 

Ask yourself some key questions before you make that next political post on your author page:

• Who could I be alienating by posting this? 
• Could my post possibly hurt my audience? 
• Would I be comfortable with my future readers, publisher, or employer reading this? 
• Will this post build others up or tear them down? 

When in doubt, don't post it. Let it lie and see how you feel about it in a week or a month. It's better to err on the side of caution than to have regrets.

****************************

Melinda Marshall Friesen writes speculative fiction for teen and adult audiences. She lives in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada with her family.

Bizarro Twilight by Stephenie Meyer: an Analysis

Remember Bizarro from the Superman legends? He's that guy from Htrae, instead of Earth. Htrae is a cube-shaped planet, where Earth is a sphere. The S on Bizarro's chest is backwards, and he even thinks backwards. 

Buy it

Well, that's the first feeling you get when you open up Stephenie Meyer's 10th anniversary edition of Twilight upside-down and backwards. The title becomes Life and Death. The apple is green, not red. The hand is a man's, because the forbidden fruit isn't Bella anymore, it's Beau Swan. 

But it gets even better. Turn the page and you get to read a letter from the authoress herself, apologizing that you're not reading Midnight Sun, the much-hoped-for, unpublished volume of The Twilight Saga that tells the story from Edward's point of view. This is not that. But it's the second-best thing. I loved two things about Stephenie Meyer's foreword:

1) Her publisher contacted her with the idea in mind of having her write an exciting letter for the 10th anniversary edition of Twilight, but Stephenie thought that might be difficult. How could she make a simple letter exciting? It sounded boring to her. So... 

2) She decided to answer the critics of Bella "Damsel in Distress" Swan by doing what she often suggested one could easily do: switching Bella out for a human boy, who would be just as distressed when surrounded by superhumans. 

I have to confess that I have been a Twilight fan from the beginning, and I survived all the comparisons between Katniss and Bella, as if they were anything close to comparable (I think it's more honest to compare Katniss to Scarlett O'Hara, that self-preserving socialite from the Civil War era). I have pretty strong feelings about Bella's personal strength, a strength evident on every single page of The Twilight Saga. 

For example, the first page of Twilight has Bella explaining how dying in place of someone she loves is a pretty good way to go. But try to figure out which someone she's talking about, and you realize she isn't saving just one person; she's saving, in her mind, at least nine. Possibly all of Forks. Everything she does is calculated to save someone else. That's not damsel-in-distress behavior. Last I checked, that's hero behavior. 

Don't get me wrong, Katniss has her selfless moments, but she really has to milk them for all they're worth for the screens, doesn't she? In contrast, Bella spends every waking minute thinking about others. Now, we could argue about the psychological health of someone so martyred, so thoroughly invested in the idea of her own ordinary-ness. But her status as a hero is unquestionable. It's her mission in life. It's who she is. 

And it's who Beau is, too. :)  

First thought as I started reading: This is weird. I had to focus to keep all the names and genders straight. Okay, so this is a girl name, which means it represents a boy name from Twilight, so who had blond, straight hair and a round, cute face? Oh, right. McKayla is Mike. Got it. You may not suffer as I did if you aren't quite as OCD. In fact, I think the best way to read Life and Death is to pretend you never read Twilight. And if you never did read Twilight, you'll really love Life and Death. 

Now for ten observations about Life and Death:

1. Beau makes a better Bella that Bella does. I think this feeling comes from my initial disconnect with Bella as a fellow girl. I'm a girly girl and she's not. She doesn't like to wear pink, paint her nails, go shopping, nada. Hence, when she became a boy, it just worked for me. If you read Life and Death first, you'd think Beau was possibly sexist, insisting on opening doors for Edythe, even after he knows she could crush him with a pinky. He refuses to lie down after almost being slammed into his truck by a sliding van on an icy day. He tries to be tough even when he faints at the sight of other people's blood during Biology. Everything tough Bella tried to do in Twilight looks stereotypical male when Beau does it.   
2. Edythe makes more sense than Edward does. She writes in pretty calligraphy, just like Edward does. She listens to classical music, just like Edward does. She laughs at everything Beau says and does, like Edward did to Bella. The graceful way she moves--a vampire thing, I know--matches a female more than a stereotypical male. 
3. The spider-monkey scene is awkward. So awkward I couldn't even picture it right. Beau is super tall, even taller than Carine (the female counterpart to Carlyle) and Edythe is short. Wearing Beau like a backpack just isn't feasible. My brain hurt a little trying to see it.
4. Traditional stereotypes of the cultures represented in the book become glaringly obvious. For instance, I hadn't noticed that all the teachers at Forks High School were men until they all became women. The office receptionist became a balding guy, which reminded me that all office receptionists are actually women. The alpha male system for the werewolves is now matriarchal. Carine becomes the father of the family, er... mother. There is a definite power shift from men to women that I think has less to do with Stephenie Meyer's prejudices and more to do with the standing cultures she is writing about. I could sense the author was having fun with this shift.
5. Royal is less forgivable than Rosalie. I recognized this may be my personal bias, and likely is. Even after hearing his backstory, I felt less sympathy for him than I had for Rosalie. It's sad, really, that I could recognize he had been a victim and yet still want to blame him when I wouldn't dream of blaming Rosalie for her victimization, no matter how shallow she had been prior to her death. Something for me to think about.
6. Jules is more pitiable than Jacob. For some reason I didn't feel bad for Jacob during Twilight. Not really. But I felt really bad for Jules. I attribute this to two things: 1) I already know how Breaking Dawn ends and it could never end that way with Beau being unable to create life with Edythe. 2) Again, my natural bias and sympathy goes to women and girls because of what I am. 
7. Beau is funnier than Bella, and Charlie gets along with him better. (Only Beau's parents remained the same gender for reasons Stephenie Meyer explains in her foreword.) The relationship between Charlie and Beau lacks the over-protectiveness Charlie endearingly feels toward his only daughter in Twilight. While Charlie still does protective things, like ask about Beau's social life and put snow chains on his truck's tires, it feels less--for lack of a better word--patriarchal. When Charlie says, "Beau, you're easy to live with," it's easier to believe. This is probably due to the simple difference between dads and daughters and the slight anxiety which is healthy to any relationship in which one does not naturally understand the other. It's that anxiety of not understanding, after all, that impels us to try to understand. Just as Bella relates more to Charlie than to her mom, Beau is basically a miniature Charlie. This makes it all the more heartbreaking when Beau lies to Charlie to protect him, and tells him his worst fear is ending up like him, trapped in small-town Forks. 
8. Beau's voice is easier on the ears. Despite Bella's tomboy-ness, there were still times her voice came across as a bit whiny. Beau's voice is literally different. His character is almost exactly the same as Bella, but the way he talks to people and to himself is different. 
9. The teasing at school feels different. When the guys tease Beau about his aversion to blood, it feels more mean-spirited. Jessica's envy and passive-aggressive behavior toward Bella was easy to write-off as harmless. Beau seems to have a higher bar to clear.
10. The ending. That's all I have to say about that. Read it. You'll see. *wink*

In closing, read Life and Death. You'll get a kick out of it, and maybe have an opportunity to analyze your own gender-based assumptions, always a good thing. In fact, I can see this being a great English class project or Gender Studies essay prompt. 

I can't resist a book that gives me this much to think about.

THE GATEWAY THROUGH WHICH THEY CAME by Heather Marie

Last month, on my other blog, I featured the lovely Heather Marie and her new book, THE GATEWAY THROUGH WHICH THEY CAME, which debuts today! I also know that our own Angelica R. Jackson will be on an upcoming the Writer's Bloc panel with her on January 3, from 1-3pm.

Here's a bit more about THE GATEWAY THROUGH WHICH THEY CAME:

From Goodreads:

To seventeen-year-old Aiden Ortiz, letting the dead walk through his body to reach the other side comes with the territory. Being a Gateway isn’t an easy job, but someone’s gotta send Bleeders where they belong. Heaven. Salvation. Call it whatever you want. Dead is dead. But when his search for Koren Banks––the girl who went mysteriously missing seven months ago––leaves him with more questions than answers, he finds himself involved in something far more sinister and beyond his control. 

With the threat of the Dark Priest's resurrection, and his plan to summon his demon brothers from hell, Aiden is left to discover his identity before the Dark Priest's curse infecting his blood consumes him, and before the world as he knows it succumbs to the darkness of hell on earth.

And here's the trailer (with some cool behind-the-scenes stuff too):

And here's where you can buy it!

Bio:

Heather Marie lives in Northern California with her husband, and spends the majority of her time at home reading. Before she followed her dreams of becoming a writer, Heather worked as a hairstylist and makeup artist for several years. Although she enjoyed the artistic aspect of it all, nothing quite quenched her creative side like the telling of a good story. When the day had come for her to make a choice, she left behind her promising career to start another, and never looked back.

Twitter: https://twitter.com/HeatherMarieYA
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/heathermariewrites
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/19089172-the-gateway-through-which-they-came
Website: http://heathermarieya.com/

Favorite Childhood Books... Go.

From the Mixed-up Files of Middle-Grade Authors has some fabulous lists of books for children.

I'm curious today to find out which books most impacted your childhood/life. Was it If You Give a Mouse a Cookie or The Lord of the Rings, or both?

For me, it was Christopher Pike's See You Later...

Willo Davis Roberts' The Girl with the Silver Eyes...

The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis...

and Anne of Green Gables by L.M. Montgomery.

These are not all strictly middle grade books, of course. But what kid reads only at her own "level"? I sure didn't. Whatever level these books were marketed for, I devoured them, and they remain a big part of my personal canon. If you look at the books I choose to read from today's market, you'll see some similarities, to say the least.

Paranormalcy by Kiersten White...

Shifting by Bethany Wiggins...

Across the Universe by Beth Revis...

Possession by Elana Johnson...

and The Maze Runner by James Dashner.

Heck, I even chose to work for a children's/YA publisher that specializes in speculative fiction: Month9Books. Here's some of their selection:

How have the books you loved as a child shaped you today? Are they still your favorites?

Myth and Science Made Mainstream: Thor, Vampires, and The First Martian Colony

Thor is part of ancient Scandinavian folklore.

Usborne Stories from Around the World

But it wasn't until the 2011 blockbuster movie THOR that the Einstein-Rosen Bridge became associated with the mythical god in the pop culture psyche. Suddenly Thor's boomerang hammer and rainbow bridge aren't goofy anymore.

They're freaking awesome.

One of the things I loved about this cinema treatment of an old comic book/myth was the subtle combination of shiny technology and folklore magic. In The Avengers, Black Widow says, "These guys are basically gods."

Basically. But not really.

And in the first Thor movie, Thor says, "Your ancestors called it magic. You call it science. Where I come from they're one and the same."

*sings* Loooove iiiit!

One of the things I enjoyed about Twilight, aside from the intense rip-roaring emotion and curly-haired hilarity of Emmett, was the sci-fi idea slipped into vampire lore that the same evolution or God that brought us the shark and the angel fish could have brought us the vampire and the human.

"Well, where did you come from? Evolution? Creation? Couldn't we have evolved in the same way as other species, predator and prey? Or, if you don't believe that all this world could have just happened on its own, which is hard for me to accept myself, is it so hard to believe that the same force that created the delicate angelfish with the shark, the baby seal and the killer whale, could create both our kinds together?" -Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

Why not?

Speculative fiction. My absolute favorite place to play. Whether I'm reading or writing, it's just a wonderland for the imagination, tickling the very edges of our knowledge with the as yet unknown.

It influences our scientists, engineers, inventors:

Self-driving cars, spray-on skin, and even invisibility cloaks have leaped off the pages, gone from science fiction to science reality.

"British Columbia company HyperStealth Biotechnology showed a functioning prototype of its new fabric to the U.S. and Canadian military this year (2012). The material, called Quantum Stealth, bends light waves around the wearer without the use of batteries, mirrors, or cameras. It blocks the subject from being seen by visual means but also keeps them hidden from thermal scans and infrared."

Source: toxel.com

And maybe you don't know about this but I'll bet most of you do, there's a soon-to-be reality TV show all about the first colonizers on Mars, from selection to training to the actual flight and colonization of the Red Planet.


Ha ha! "The search for life on Mars begins on Earth." Brilliant!

Speculative fiction does a great service to humanity as well as being a ton of fun. It keeps us hoping for a better future, and sometimes warns us of technology abuses (cough, cough, Cybermen) that could destroy us in a horrifying echo of excruciating shrieks.

So, okay, some of it's scary. But that's only so we can resolve the conflict with the other side of the creativity coin.

Have you ever been inspired by technology or magic in fiction? 

Pass it on.