Big splashy blog tour finish: inspiration, food, writing tips

Rebecca Roland makes waves, visiting blogs with Shards of History on a mission to discuss how she wrote the novel, how she stays sane, and food! Hey, come to think of it, inspiration, food, and tips for completing a novel might all be one and the same…

First, Rebecca Roland shows us the difference between world building and sourcing settings from the world’s most beautiful places on Nocturnal Book Reviews.  The pictures are awesome.  The landscape in Shards of History isn’t just passing scenery, it’s life and death. From the forest fire Malia gets caught in, to the staggering cliffs that can only be scaled by the winged Jeguduns, landscape provides life. And as the river unexpected drops — and even more suddenly rises —  the landscape becomes death.

Rebecca Roland writes: the setting was inspired in part by the Valles Caldera, a volcanic caldera in northern New Mexico. I knew I wanted to set my story in a large valley. The caldera is isolated, surrounded by mountain peaks and pine, fir, and aspen with a huge grassy plain in the center.  Read more…

Proving she has a way with words that can make anyone’s mouth salivate, Rebecca Roland discusses her most memorable meal with Lawrence M. Schoen in his regular author segment “Eating Authors.” Warning: cravings for seafood (and coffee) may ensue:

Rebecca Roland writes: My goal for the trip to Seattle was to eat so much seafood that I’d be in danger of sprouting fins and scales and to drink as much coffee as possible …  I started out the morning with an omelet filled with salmon and capers, and coffee, of course. The eggs were light and fluffy, the salmon lightly smoked, and the capers added just a sharp, little bite. The coffee was so strong I almost expected it to slap me a couple of times to help me wake up. It was perfect. I wasn’t sure if the day (or the food) could get much better, but it did. Read more…

Think writing a romantic storyline is easy? Not hardly. Visiting Hanging with Bells, Rebecca Roland describes how hard she struggled to put Malia in a relationship with one character while ignoring the character that popped up claiming he was the man for Malia.

Rebecca Roland writes: Somewhere along the way, this other guy popped up and kept waving his hands at me and suggested that maybe Malia should end up with him. And she agreed. How could they? I ignored them at first, cuz hey, didn’t they get the game plan? Didn’t they realize how things were going to be? Then my first readers let me know it wasn’t working, so I did what I should’ve done before and let the characters determine with whom they’d end up. They know best, after all. Read more…

How do you keep your steam up when you’re trapped in the boggy middle of novel writing? On The Bawdy Book Blog, Rebecca Roland talks about how taking yourself on “Artist Dates” can work for novelists when there’s no end in sight to the long project.

Rebecca Roland writes: One of the hard things about writing a novel is maintaining enough excitement to see your way through to the end of the story. There were times when my energy and momentum flagged while writing Shards of History, and I needed something to reenergize me and keep me going. One of the things that helped was going on artist’s dates. I started reading Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way years ago and ran out of steam before I could finish the book, but I took the idea of the artist’s date to heart. An artist’s date is meant to fill the well of experience that you draw from. It’s time away from your busy schedule to rejuvenate. It’s an adventure. It’s about play. It can mean going to a museum, taking a hike, trying a new restaurant, exploring a flea market. You never know what you’ll find. Read more…

Want to enter a giveaway for a chance to win a free ebook copy of Shards of History?  Kindle and Me is hosting a Raffelcopter giveaway, enter through Sep. 12. And remember there’s still a few more hours to enter the  Ex Libris giveaway to snag a copy of Shards of History just by leaving a comment about your favorite dish/recipe! Don’t want to wait? Buy a copy from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Kobo and start reading now.

Read the digital edition of Shards of History from these retailers and others:
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The Shards of History blog tour continues!

Check out all the blogs Rebecca Roland’s visited  & had so much fun:

Shards of History Official Blog Tour