Advice to New Authors by Alexander Charalambides – Guest Post and Giveaway

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What I’d Tell a New Author

I can’t speak for anyone else, but when I write, it’s a constant struggle for improvement, and I define every novel by what it helped me learn to do better.  I’m still pretty new, but I’ve learned a few things I think a new author could benefit from knowing.

I know it sounds self-indulgent, but I think the most important thing for an author, new or experienced, is to have passion for their work, and having worked through a few projects I really didn’t care about, I think what scares me the most is losing passion for a project, that’s why it’s so important for you alone to choose what you work on.

At the same time, recognizing your interest and maintaining it, even though it seems like a mundane matter of time management, is the hardest thing about writing, and keeping your passion consistent as you work is the only way to guarantee a good quality result.

There’s another side to this, too. You can’t always maintain your passion for creativity, especially if you’re a professional, that’s why it’s important to remember that having no interest in something doesn’t make it worthless.

What kind of environment should you be cultivating for optimal quality of creative output? You need to avoid distraction and it isn’t easy. I find it helps to keep a notebook of ideas for the future, not so you don’t forget them, but to get them out of your head, distracting your imagination. Next, set aside a room only for writing, or at least somewhere you can be free from any interruptions and focus on the work of producing your first drafts.

So far, these are the nuggets of how-to knowledge I’ve acquired. Nothing revelatory or earth-shattering, but I think you’ll be better off with them than without.

Hildegard lives in a real-life dollhouse, surrounded by prop houses and actors who play friends, teachers and foster parents. Only one man ever seemed real, and after his disappearance, she’s had enough playing along. As Hildegard makes her final preparations to run away from home, a swarm of black clad soldiers appear, controlling the police and swarming across her home town. She can evade them for now, but after learning their mission, she decides to play along one last time, following them to Truman Academy, a lonely building on a freezing aleutian island. Hildegard knows it for what it is: just another prop, but not everyone feels the same way. Through the hell of endless drills and marching, Hildegard befriends the stealthy Grace and bloodthirsty David, and enlists them in an effort to unravel the plan of the man called G and his monstrous menagerie of inhuman soldiers.

Enjoy an Excerpt

“Bacteria again,” David says. “A biological weapon?”

“I don’t know.” Islet slurps the last of his soup. “I only sequenced part of it, and they keep the different teams apart.”

“Is that what they’re going to launch from the Silo?” Grace asks.

“You knew?” Islet asks.

“We found out about the Mobile Silo a while ago,” I say. “We saw blueprints for it, orders for parts, too.”

“Well, that’s what they’ve been doing for days now,” Dr. Islet says. “Hauling down the tanks of bacteria, assembling missiles.”

“They’re going to launch.” Grace stands up as she says it.

“Right,” I say. “There’s not going to be any placement in special forces. Or graduation.”

A few students stand up, like Grace. A few gasp. Most don’t seem surprised. “If I had to guess, I’d say that once they launch, they won’t need us. It’ll be a massacre.”

“You think so?” Islet pushes his glasses back up his nose. “It could be, we’ve been getting weapon shipments with the missile parts and replacement components for the Mobile Silo.”

“Stop saying we,” David grunts. “Unless you’re with them.”

“No, no, I’m not.” Islet waves his hands back and forth. “You’re right.”

“We have to stop them,” Grace says. I can’t help but tally up the numbers. At the very least the baggers outnumber the students two to one. Almost certainly more, not counting KU Giant. Then there’s the equipment discrepancy, and the differences in energy from eating and sleeping. I know there are vehicles, too, I’ve seen plenty of personnel carriers and jeeps with mounted guns, as well as the helicopters that are always coming and going.

“Uh, Hildegard,” Grace says. “We were sort of hoping you’d come up with something.”

I only wanted to find out what happened to Cooper. To be honest, I think I might already have lost my chance. It can’t be my priority anymore. By the sound of it, it’s not just the students that are in danger.

“There’s only one way we can get enough supplies, weapons, and bodies to stop the launch.”

“Okay,” Grace says. “What’s that?”

“This should be good.” David leans back on the walls of the cabin. All the students stare at me.

“We have to take over the school.”

About the Author: Alexander Charalambides was born in London and grew up in Berkshire in the UK.
He studied Creative Writing, and graduated from the Open University.

As a freelance writer Alexander enjoys storytelling just as much as editing and analysis, but often takes time off to enjoy wind surfing, do the sickest of motorcycle flips, wrestle with deadly animals and lie about his hobbies.

In 2008 he moved to the USA and now lives in New Hampshire’s beautiful White Mountains with his family and two dogs, Gwynne and Gimli.

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