Peace on Earth - Goodwill to All Beings

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December 8 - 22

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Give the Gift of Time Travel

my historical romantic suspense novels:

Vestal Virgin (Suspense in Ancient Rome)

Hetaera (Suspense in Ancient Athens)

Paperbook

ebook

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Recap: Bouchercon 2014

Murder on the Beach, Bouchercon 2014

Bouchercon, the huge Mystery Writers' Conference took place in Long Beach, CA this year, and I had a blast catching up with people I hadn't seen in a while, like publisher/writer Tory Hartmann of Sand Hill Review Press, bestselling author, Barry Eisler (soooo handsome and a really nice guy), and my writing bud, Blake Crouch (who has just signed huge deals with Random House and Sony). I volunteered to be the timekeeper for a panel that included Blake and author/producer Lee Goldberg (currently writing with Janet Evanovich). Here's a pic:

Panel with Blake and Lee

I also got to meet up with fellow authors that I only knew from online, including authors, Helen Smith , M Louisa Locke, and M Ruth Myers (who received the Shamus award this year for best Indie Sleuth--she stood onstage with Sue Grafton). Really great meeting those ladies!

M Louisa Locke, M Ruth Myers, Suzanne Tyrpak

Bouchercon is a terrific event for writers, fans, and others in the industry. Next year it will be held in Raleigh, North Carolina ... I'd love to see you there!

By the way, one of next year's event coordinators is author/radio host, Stacey Cochran ... another great online friend I got to meet in person!

Ancient History News--Nero's coin

Roman Coin from 64-65 AD Found ...

stumbling on this

A golden aureus, the equivalent of what a Roman soldier would be paid for a year of service, lying in the dirt as if it had been dropped yesterday. The coin was found by a volunteer archaeologist at a site in northern England called Vindolanda, once the location of a Roman fort. The face on the coin is the emperor Nero--known to have terrorized Rome, and in particular, early Christians. 

Vindolanda

Read more about the story at Discovery News.

Nero is plays a major role in my historical suspense novel, Vestal Virgin.

The winner of Aphrodite is ...

Sarah Miles! My winner from the 

Summer Splash Blog Hop

Sarah has won a beautiful statue of the Goddess of Love, Aphrodite, also known as Venus. The drawing was random, but there were some wonderful comments ... unfortunately, the comment area was having problems, so most people wrote to me. Thank you, lovely ladies, for sharing your thoughts with me. I'm sure Aphrodite is sending love to all of you.

Here are some of the comments. I won't include names, because some are quite personal:

So, I wouldn't say that I *deserve* it, but maybe it would send some love my way.  I have health issues, which started up while I was dating my ex.  I loved him, figured we'd be together for a long time.  A few months after I started getting significantly worse, he ended the relationship.  Never gave me a reason, and from what I hear he's told others, he's made up one for them (as I know it's not true).  My assumption is that it's just difficult dating someone who is ill, but he doesn't want to say that and sound like a bad person.  I'm hesitant to look into dating now that I'm free, as I don't want to get attached to someone that's just going to get fed up with me.  Could use a little help from the lovely Venus/Aphrodite in finding someone that can look past how these chronic issues have handicapped me.  I'm not just a sick person, and I hate being boiled down into that one little bucket.  Plus, who doesn't love being in love?  It's missed.

I'm sorry I had to email you my comment, but I couldn't get it to post. I believe I should win the statue of the goddess because each of us should have a piece of beauty in the room to brighten their lives and remind them of their youth. Aphrodite/Venus is the perfect goddess to remind me of happier/healthier times in my life as I struggle toward regaining some modicum of health. She could stand watch and encourage me to regain control, while reminding me to laugh and enjoy the sun. Her beauty can stand sentinel over my struggles and remind me of the beauty I will miss if I don't go outside and enjoy the pool in the the summer, the breeze in my face, the ground beneath my feet. All the beauty of the earth is there, if only I remember to see it. Aphrodite, Goddess of Love, can reignite the flame within my heart. 

Thank you for the chance to win Aphrodite  "The Goddess of Erotic Love":  In my wiccan class we are studying different Goddesses and this would be great to have for my Altar that I have created towards her for more Erotic love in my life.
 I bet you didn't expect that one. lol

Once again, I so appreciate all of you who entered the contest. It was a lot of fun, and I plan to participate again next year. 

Suzanne

Summer Splash Blog Hop

June 13-16, 2014

hop around and win terrific prizes
from participating authors

in celebration of Venus and Aphrodite, the ancient 

Roman and Greek

goddess of love who causes so much heartache in my suspense novels 

Vestal Virgin and Hetaera

I'm giving away a statue of the 

goddess

Aphrodite (ancient Greece) aka Venus (ancient Rome)

to win the goddess of erotic love

(and secure eternal bliss)

please post a comment, or send an email, telling me why you deserve her (if you have a problem with posting a comment please send me an email--I need your email address anyway)
 Suzanne dot Tyrpak @gmail.com 

Get Extra Chances:

Become a Blog Buddy = 1 entry

Like My FaceBook Page = 1 entry

Follow Me On Twitter @SuzanneTyrpak = 1 entry

Grand Prizes:

Kindle Paperwhite

$50 Amazon Gift Certificate

   1) Register
          2) Hop Around
3) Share

Just .99 cents during the Blog Hop:

Vestal Virgin (suspense in ancient Rome): US Amazon

Hetaera (suspense in ancient Athens): US Amazon

World Building--A.R. Silverberry, guest post

What do historical fiction, fantasy, and science fiction have in common? Whether it's ancient Rome, a land filled with gnomes and fairies, or a distant planet, the writer must create a believable world for readers.

A.R. Silverberry writes fantasy and has recently created and released a new world into the universe in his novel, The Stream. I asked A.R. to write a post about world building, and I hope you find the process as interesting as I do.

A.R. Silverberry

World Building

Every novel needs a world, a ground on which the action unfolds. When I started working on The Stream, I thought creating that ground, what authors call world building, would be a fairly simple process. I had a five-year-old boy, Wend. I had boats. I had a waterway. I knew he would face the hardships of nature, but it all seemed like it would flow like a fairy tale, so how much detail did I need? I found out quickly just how much!

First, I knew almost nothing about boats and sailing. My knowledge of surviving in nature was just as scant. And the trick to writing is that the world, whether it’s a mythic world, such as that of The Stream, or the real world, such as found in thrillers, romances, or historical novels, in fact, any novel, must feel real. You must feel certain it exists, somewhere. You want to live there. Or not. (Who would want to live in the world of Katniss Everdeen?) If it doesn’t feel real, the reader is thrown out of the story. Worse, the characters won’t feel real. No matter how convincingly they’re portrayed, if they’re prancing around on a set with painted sheets, the book will feel shallow, unsatisfying, and unbelievable. There’s a good chance the book might get thrown across the room or deleted from the e-reader faster than you can say Kindle.

Here’s a short list of some of the things I needed to learn and integrate into the novel: the flora and fauna of the riparian wilderness; the technology available to the primitive people occupying the stream; knife making, basketry; boatbuilding; the myths, legends, rituals, and beliefs of the culture; and the mainstays of their diet and how it was prepared. Plus, if I haven’t visited an actual location for a scene I’m writing, I try to find a photo reference. Fortunately, I was within walking distance of a beautiful stream, which I was able to study during every conceivable weather condition.

Having established the details of the world, the next order of business was to establish its laws; how it worked. Defenseless and alone, Wend needed a world that would test him and the others he encountered, a world that was both harsh and beautiful, that distilled and concentrated the existential dilemmas of life. I needed the reader to quickly learn and accept the laws of this world. There’s a rule I learned from novelist Elizabeth George: if you want the reader to get something, you have to repeat it at least nine times through out the novel. Once you’ve established how things work, you must be consistent. If you violate how the world works, you’ve killed the magic, that fragile glue that binds the story.

Here’s a brief bit of prose I wrote to establish the world of the stream. I love the prose, but I ended up not using it because I found others ways to convey what I wanted.

If Wend had stopped to think about it, he would have realized that his family, searching for fruit, nuts, and roots, never ventured far from either shore, that travelers never sailed upstream to tell tales of what lay ahead. Except for tacking and voyages of a few miles, his family never ventured upstream either. When he’d asked his father why, he was told, “It’s a law.” Wend must have looked blank because his father told him to jump as high as he could. Wend jumped, and after his feet landed on the ground his father said, “Now jump as high as the top of the mast.” Wend had laughed, but declared that no one could do that.

“Why not?” his father asked.

“We come down first,” Wend replied.

“It’s a law,” said his father. “And it’s a law that we go that way.”

His father pointed downstream.

If Wend had thought of these things, he would have understood that everyone was tethered to the stream and could only go in one direction. People stopped from time to time, working at abandoned foundries to smelt metal for anchors, chains, and knives, cutting trees to build or repair boats, living in villages, taking over deserted houses like creatures that move into another animal’s shell. They never stayed long, always returning to their boats, always going with the current, always traveling downstream.

 A final note. From the above sample, you can see that the world I created isn’t just a fantasy world formed from random elements. The world is integrally bound up with the story’s theme, plot, and characters. Sauron and Gandalf can only exist in Middle Earth. The Red Queen and Madhatter can only exist in Wonderland. Wend could only exist in the world of the Stream.

Synopsis of The Stream:

What if your world was six miles wide and endlessly long?

After a devastating storm kills his parents, five-year-old Wend awakens to the strange world of the Stream. He discovers he can only travel downstream, and dangers lurk at every turn: deadly rapids, ruthless pirates, a mysterious pavilion that lures him into intoxicating fantasies, and rumor of a giant waterfall at the edge of the world. Defenseless, alone, with only courage and his will to survive, Wend begins his quest to become a man. Will tragic loss trap him in a shadow world, or will he enter the Stream, with all its passion and peril?

Part coming-of-age tale, part adventure, part spiritual journey, The Stream is a fable about life, impermanence, and the gifts found in each moment.

Purchase The Stream:

Ebook:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

iTunes: Coming Soon!

Softback:

Amazon

Follow A. R. Silverberry:

Website

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Twitter

About A. R. Silverberry:

A. R. Silverberry writes fiction for adults and children. His novel, WYNDANO’S CLOAK, won multiple awards, including the Benjamin Franklin Award gold medal for Juvenile/Young Adult Fiction. He lives in California, where the majestic coastline, trees, and mountains inspire his writing. THE STREAM is his second novel.