Thursday 20 June 2013

Selene Grace Silver's "Brianna’s Bewitching"

 
Today I'd like welcome Selene Grace Silver, author of "Brianna’s Bewitching" to the Thursday interview. Before we get started, intro please!!






 

Selene Grace Silver has dedicated most of her life-long academic study to the art of writing and literature, her efforts culminating in a BA and MA in creative writing. After years of crafting literary stories, she rediscovered her love of the romance genre. She decided to turn her hand at writing her own happy-ever-afters last year, publishing her first short piece as part of Boroughs Publishing Group’s Lunchbox Romance Line in September 2012, then branching out into indie publishing with two more novella-length romances in October and December 2012. She recently published a contemporary paranormal romance novella, Brianna’s Bewitching, and is currently preparing her first full-length novel for release, the second in her Witches and Warlocks series, entitled The Binding of Adara. Her stories blend romance with mild elements of the paranormal, the futuristic, and tasteful erotica. A high school English teacher during the week and writer during the weekend, Selene Grace Silver is too busy, fortunately, for activities like housework.
 
 

Ok - lets go!
 
 

No.1 Would you break the law to save a loved one? .. why?
I would probably do anything, including break the law, to save a loved one from dying. That said, I don’t love just anyone. I’ve got standards. The individual in need of saving better be worth my love. Especially assuming I might have to serve time in jail afterwards. My time is limited, precious.
 
No.2 What is the difference between being alive and truly living?
Being alive is passive; living is active. Philosophically, I’m for quality over quantity of experience. Truly living is being consciously present every possible moment. Whether a given moment is filled with pleasure or peace or pain, I want to experience it fully. I’d rather be truly living for 60 years than merely be alive for 80 or 90.
 
No.3 What motivates you to write?
A deep love of story and language; a desire to organize meaning through myth and archetype. I crave the way story organizes and makes meaning out of human experience, out of the wonder of life. Stories are my addiction. At any given moment, I am either reading, writing, listening to or telling stories.
 
No.4 Why do humans want children?
To remake their own imperfect lives with fresh clay. To extend their own existence. To shake a fist of defiance at death. To experience the joy and wonder of life. To love something like themselves.
 
No.5 What was the biggest challenge in creating your book Brianna’s Bewitching?
The answer is the same for all my books. The biggest challenge is writing a story that is engaging, that desires a reader, that wants to be told. And since I think that characters are the chemical agents of all stories, I always struggle in shaping and then unveiling the essential aspects of my characters’ personalities so they can spark to life a story that a reader cares about and remembers.

No.6 What is the most important thing you have learned in life so far?
Other people cannot make us happy, nor is it our responsibility to make other people happy. Actually, it’s impossible to make other people happy, except for a brief moment. Then, you have to do something to make them happy in the next moment, and the next moment, and the next moment, ad infinitum. It’s exhausting, and meanwhile, no one is seeing to your happiness. Frankly, people who give their emotional well-being into the hands of other people are only asking to be let down, disappointed, even abused, so in essence, they are ensuring they will be unhappy. I recommend finding a lover or partner who shares this philosophy of nurturing self-love. Then you can be happy together at the same time.

No.7 How did you come up with the title Brianna’s Bewitching?
My husband/partner/lover/task-master/agent/word-monger/curmudgeon helped me. It was a joint process that involved a fair bit of yelling, flinging of hands, stomping feet, the rejection of many suggestions, and a final settling on something imperfect but which, in the end, sounded better than all the other options.

No.8 How do you handle personal criticism?
By personally identifying, dissecting, categorizing and hierarchizing all the faults of the person delivering the criticism. I do this silently in my head. Sometimes, depending on the depth of the criticism and how much it stings, I then play out scenarios of impending tragedies that fate has most likely lined up for the bitter, unhappy individual. In gory detail. I do this silently in my head too. Then, after some reflective time, I determine what, if any, part of the criticism could be useful if applied to improving my craft. Needless to say, this is a time-consuming, emotionally draining process, so I generally don’t read criticism of my work.

No.9 Why should people read your book?
People should read my books if they enjoy escaping reality into alternate worlds where love is the most important, driving force in existence, and where fate and justice work together to
reward good and punish evil. Also, I like to write about characters having their faulty set-in-stone beliefs and expectations overturned in wonderful ways. I avoid dramatic emotional types, and I write happy endings. After all, life is full of unhappy experiences. I don’t want to spend my reading/writing time having them too.

No.10 Why is there something rather than nothing?
Life is ephemeral, temporary, inconsequential. All we have is the moment, which is over just as it starts. We may experience time as continuous and eternal, but that doesn’t mean that we are like time. I’m not convinced there is something. But if there is something, it is imagination.
 
 
Thanks Selene for taking the time to answer my questions & the best of luck with your new book!






Check out her new book "Brianna’s Bewitching" on



 
 

 A radical feminist and a traditional cop meet during a women's rights rally in Los Angeles in 1977.
Brianna is a feminist finishing up her university coursework. She’s a bit wild, but isn’t that what being young and free is all about? It’s a new age for women; she intends to reap the benefits that new status provides her. She’s focused on developing a rewarding career and finding an adventurous lover. She’s also a witch-in-training. Unfortunately, she’s not sure if one of her reality shifting spells is the reason she’s become the love interest of one staid LAPD officer.
 
 
Jack Ross never does anything without a well-thought out plan. On track to make detective, he’s chosen a perfect woman to be his wife. She’s gracious and lovely, and best of all, she’s not one of those radical bra burning feminists. She desires a traditional life as a wife and mother. If he doesn’t exactly love her yet, he’s sure that he will once they marry. He’s never been in love and it seems to him that it’s as easy to love one attractive woman as another. Then one unruly, mouthy blonde lands in his arms, disrupting all his carefully-laid plans.







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