An Interview
with Linze Brandon by Teresa Joseph
Franklin
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself?
1. What do you do when you are not writing? Aside from
work, I love to read, and enjoy cross-stitch, painting, fly fishing, archery,
and watching Manchester United play soccer. My husband is a serious
photographer (his hobby) and I sometimes like to go with him when he goes to
interesting places to take photographs. I have a camera too, but only take
pictures of things I would like to paint, or use to inspire my writing. An
award winning photographer, I am not :)
2. Do you have a day job as well? Yes. I trained as an
electronic engineer and I have dual specialities in electromagnetic
compatibility and intrinsic safety. Although I have also worked as an export consultant
for several years, I am now a project manager working in the military industry.
3. When did you first start writing and when did you
finish your first book? I started writing in 2001. I have written about 37
books and short stories, of which 10 need a final edit and a cover. The rest
are works-in-progress for the series The Nations of Peace and some are not
worth publishing. I didn't publish any books until 2012.
4. How did you choose the genre you write on? I think it
chose me, since I have been reading romance novels since I was about ten years
old. I write romance - fantasy romance, sci-fi romance, erotic romance...you
get the picture. Although I also like to read amateur sleuth novels and extreme
science fiction, writing romance remains my first choice.
5. Where did you get your ideas from? People. Whether it
be friends, colleagues, or online friends there is always something happening,
or being done by someone that brings the "what if?" question to my
mind. It usually leads to a story. Perhaps not always worth publishing, but
always worth writing.
6. Do you ever experience writer’s block? I do
procrastinate, and sometimes I am just lazy, but I have never not been
able to write.
7. Do you work with an outline or just write? It depends
on the story. Most of the time I just write, because I let my characters tell
the story and make their own choices. There is always editing afterwards to fix
any gaps :)
8. Is there any particular author or book that influenced
you in any way either by growing up or as an adult? Not influenced, as in
"I want to write like this person, or that person", but I do read
books by best selling authors to see what works, and what doesn't.
Erotica is one of my pet peeves. Too many writers
think that bad writing is excusable just because the book is filled with lots
of sex. This has improved a lot, but there are still books like that out there.
As a result of reading too many of those bad ones, I now read the best authors
to ensure that my own writing is at the highest standard for this genre.
9. Can you tell me
about your challenges in getting your first book published? The publication was
not so much of a challenge as it would have been without the creative writing
course I did in 2011. I learned a lot about the industry, although indie
publishing was not a subject in the course, and I realized there that I needed
to learn as much as I possibly could. I have since done a course in online
marketing as well.
10.
If you had to go back and do it all over, is
there any aspect of your novel or getting it published that you would change?
Yes. The novel not so much, perhaps a tweak here and there, but the story would
stay pretty much as is. I would not use the publishing company that I did, but
then I write that off as a lesson learned.
11.
How do you market your work? What avenues have
you found to work best for your genre? Online marketing via Facebook, but
mostly Twitter has worked the best for me. Unfortunately, I do not have the
time that I need to do the best marketing I possibly can, due to my work that also
require me to away from home in areas of South Africa where internet access is
uncertain at the best of times.
12.
Have you written a book you love that you have
not been able to get published? Since I self-publish my books, this has not
been a problem.
Not yet but
I am sure there will be one in the future.
13.
Can you tell us about your upcoming book? I
have released Keeper of the Dragon Sword in April 2013, and it is on blog tour
during June 2013. The official launch will be on 22 June in my home city of Pretoria.
My next book is called, Two +1, it is with my beta readers at present. The
cover is done, and I hope to publish that in August 2013.
14.
Is anything in your book based on real life
experiences or purely all imagination? Since I write mostly fantasy and scifi
romance, real life would be difficult to translate. It is mostly my characters
that are inspired by real life events or people, and probably the closest to
real life as the stories can be.
15.
What was your favourite chapter (or part) to
write and why? For a romance and happily-ever-after writer, it is the scene
where my main characters truly connect the first time. It does not have to be a
love/sex scene. In Keeper of the Dragon Sword, that specific scene was
extremely emotional for both the characters, and it made me cry while I was
writing it.
16.
How did you come up with the title? Most of
the time the title just pops into my head, and I stick with it. Although I have
one manuscript, the fourth book in the series, where the title has changed many
times. It is the only one, where the title seems to keep escaping me. I was
thinking of putting a synopsis on my blog and asking people to help me figure
it out. It is completely baffling me.
17.
What project are you working on now? I am
working on the third book in my series The Nations of Peace, called Michael's
Mystery, and it is the second Grandmaster novel in the series. I am also
working on a series of erotica short stories. They can be read as individual
stories, but there is a time-line, so I will finish all of them before
publishing them as an anthology.
18.
Will you have a new book coming out soon? Two
+1 will be coming out in August this year.
19.
Are there certain characters you would like to
go back to, or is there a theme or idea you’d love to work with? I love writing
books in a series. This way my characters make a return appearance as the
series develops. In the case of The Nations of Peace series, each novel or
novella can be read on its own, but also in sequence if people want to follow
the characters as the series grows.
20.
What has been the toughest criticism given to
you as an author? What has been the best compliment? Toughest is hard to say. A
story of mine had been shot down completely by one person, without any real
explanation. That story will be published in the near future, after I address
the more constructive criticism from a publisher that had initially rejected
it. You can't please everyone, and I don't expect everyone to like all my
books.
On the
other hand people have said that I have started to mature as a writer, and
given that it came from other writers, I consider that to be high praise
indeed.
21.
Do you have any advice to give to aspiring
writers? I would say chase you dreams, but it is not simple advice. You have to
decide if it is truly what you want, because there is a lot of hard work and
commitment involved in getting a book published and noticed.
22.
Is there anything that you would like to say
to your readers and fans? Thank you for your invaluable support. I write to
please myself, but I keep on writing because readers and fans alike, give me
the enthusiasm to keep pursuing my passion to write and publish more books.
Thank you so much Linze for taking the time out of your busy schedules and I especially have enjoyed this interview with and looking forward to reading your novels in the not so distant future.
Linze's novels can be found on her Profile which I will shortly be posting as well.
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