Buccaneer Blogfest: Week One, Day Three

 

I'm back again with day three of the month long Buccaneer Blogfest hosted by Sharon Bayliss and Courtney Young.

First, I'd like to say thank you for all the comments on Wednesday's entry. It was lovely to read everyone's reasons for getting into blogging, and inspiring to know that many of you, like me, have found the writing blogging community so warm, welcoming and supportive.

I probably don't say this enough, so I'll say it again now, a huge thank you to everyone who supports and encourages my writing. I couldn't keep going without you guys. ♥♥♥♥♥

Okay, enough lovin' on with the fest.

(July 13) Interview the person signed up below you on the linky and post that interview.

Today, I have the pleasure of interviewing Brighton Luke (Pineapple) and Utsav Mukherjee (Lightning) of Pineapple Lightning. 

For those of you wondering, I'm being interviewed by the lovely Aldrea Alien over at Thardrandian Thoughts. Thanks for having me Aldrea, and posing such wonderful questions!

Utsav Mukherjee (Lightning)

 

A co-written blog is an interesting and original concept, how did the collaboration come about?

Brighton : If I remember correctly, I think Utsav and I met on the Agent Query Connect chat, and were both offering some helpful comments on each other’s query letters. And then at some other point Utsav suggested we should do a blog.We're awesome so it clearly had to be called Pineapple Lightning because both of those are awesome.

Utsav : It’s simple. We are both whacky, loony and authors. What more reason do you want? Oh and did we mention aptly sarcastic? Plus it helps managing the blog. We don't go too long without a post and the blog is kept alive.

Your current works (a dystopian literary fiction for Brighton, and a YA Sci-Fi for Utsav) sound interesting, what was the inspiration behind them?

For me, the inspiration for writing a saleable book came from Harry Potter. It even has a HP reference. It started off as a fantasy book but ended up being a Sci-Fi. But besides that I’d blame my incessant love for books and my wild imagination.
I studied political science in college, so a lot of what I write has a political bent to it, but for What the Water Gave Us I had a very specific goal I was going for. I had been reading a lot of books about forgiveness, and one, Sunflower by Simon Wiesenthal, was the story of a dying Nazi SS officer who has the nurse bring him a Jew from the concentration camp nearby so that he may ask this Jew for forgiveness, as if he could speak for the whole population even if it was possible for him to forgive this man on a personal level. It's an amazing book I recommend reading it. The part I took away from it that really inspired What the Water Gave Us was that idea of personal forgiveness versus a broader societal forgiveness. In that story the two characters obviously didn't know each other, in mine I wanted to have two characters who knew each other very intimately who are faced with each others seemingly unforgivable acts. And who are the people behind such acts, are they ever something other than monsters?

I like moral ambiguity, and I wanted to create characters that people like and care about, so it really raises the emotional stakes when you finally uncover what they've done.

So yeah, that was my inspiration, even though my story doesn't have anything to do with World War II, and doesn't even take place on this planet. And I can't for the life of me remember where the idea of the people in power gaining their power through immunity to a virus. But I have always been interested in writing stories about the effects of absolute power. So in this one I wanted to create a character who, that's his biggest fear, has absolute power, and he's in a position to have it if he defeats his main antagonist. So that sets up an important internal conflict.

You offer query/ agent tips on your blog, but do you have any query horror stories or highlights to share?

We could probably find some, though I haven't experienced anything horrific yet myself. I haven't sent out any query letters from the first person POV of my cat yet, so… I think the worst thing writing wise that's ever happened to me personally is when I was writing for my college paper, covering the soccer team, and the editor changed the wording from 'scored two goals' to 'potted two goals'. I was incredulous and threw a bit of a fit over it. I mean seriously, who pots goals? This is soccer not the gardening club. But my name is forever tied to it attributed as the idiot who thought that was a decent word choice. Fortunately no one reads those things so it's all good.

Well frankly, we are new authors just starting on the query process. I have a rejection and two No Responses to show.

So, no horror stories yet. Although writing a query is enough of a horror in itself. Combine that with a synopsis and it becomes Friday the Thirteenth crossed with the Exorcist with a dash of Saw.

Any inspirational quotes – from favourite authors, movies, songs etc. - you'd like to share?

Myyyyy Precciooooous...Gollum. Well not really helpful. Brighton might have better.
Too many to mention, but one that's been on our refrigerator for years that I've always found pertinent is: "Do what you have to do, to do what you want you want to do." Which according to the fridge is from Denzel Washington, and it can be very inspirational when mucking through the un-glamourous part of the accent towards any dream. I think sometimes too people spend so much time dreaming or talking about the summit they never actually start hiking. You have to do the work to get where you want to go.

I actually have a whole bunch of my favorite quotes from literature on a page of my website. I'm big into quotes.

If you won the lottery, how would you spend it?

I am donating it to the Support Brighton for World Dictator Fund.

It's hard to argue with Utsav's answer. I would make an excellent world dictator, we really should start a fund for that.

Thanks for giving my your time guys. It was great getting to know you both a little more, and I wish you continued success in your writing journey.