books

Author Interview: Claire Buss

Today, Claire Buss is stopping by for an interview. She’s the author of The Gaia Effect, Tales from Suburbia, and, most recently, The Rose Thief.

About the Book

Title: The Rose Thief

Author: Claire Buss

Publication date: 10 November, 2017

Length: 347 pages

Goodreads

Synopsis: Ned Spinks, Chief Thief-Catcher has a problem. Someone is stealing the Emperor’s roses. But that’s not the worst of it. In his infinite wisdom and grace, the Emperor magically imbued his red rose with love so if it was ever removed from the Imperial Rose Gardens then love will be lost, to everyone, forever. It’s up to Ned and his band of motley catchers to apprehend the thief and save the day. But the thief isn’t exactly who they seem to be, neither is the Emperor. Ned and his team will have to go on a quest defeating vampire mermaids, illusionists, estranged family members and an evil sorcerer in order to win the day. What could possibly go wrong?

Interview

What is the hardest part of writing?

For me the hardest part of writing is shoehorning the time in. I constantly feel guilty that I’m not writing when I’m doing other things and I am probably the Queen of Procrastination so when I do have a little spare time, I usually find something else to do. I think a lot of that is fear or doubt in my writing ability. Quite often, as I’m sure most writers do, I’ll write something that I think is awesome and then a few days later I’ll be convinced it’s the biggest load of rubbish ever written, in the world, ever! I get very nervous at people I know reading my books, I want them to enjoy it of course but I also want their honest opinion. I’d like to think I take constructive criticism well and I’ve been fortunate to get some great reviews. Developing a thick skin is certainly a skill a writer needs to develop.

I know some writers claim they never read their reviews but I think I’ll always read mine, bad or good, I want to know what people thought. It can be so interesting when they pick up on something you never set out to include, it’s just what the book meant to them individually.

I can definitely relate to the self-doubt, but also to what you said about readers picking up on things. That’s so true!

Tell us a little about any upcoming projects.

I’m currently attempting to write the sequel to my first novel, The Gaia Effect. I say attempting because I had a baby girl in early December 2017 and trying to do anything at all is a challenge. Also writing a sequel is hard! Obviously you’ve got to keep the same tone and rhythm, keep the characters realistic and believable based on what you’ve shared so far. Then there are the questions readers have raised about various aspects of book one that you try to answer. The first rough draft is finished and it is extremely rough so this next stage isn’t so much about editing but more about reorganising sections and filling in the gaps, getting the basic structure sorted out. I’m actually looking forward to it!

I’m also planning to release another collection of humorous short stories in the summer called Tales from the Seaside and two novellas to go with my fantasy novel The Rose Thief. If I can get all that achieved this year, I’ll be very happy.

Welcome to the world, baby girl. How exciting! Babies do take all our extra energy. Sounds like you’ve got some great projects in the works despite all that. What do you do when you feel stuck (writer’s block)?

When I get stuck I usually walk away from the writing, I’ll leave it for a few days and let the problem marinate in my brain for a while. It works because part of my brain never stops thinking about it, never stops worrying over the problem so that suddenly the rest of the brain says – hey, we got it, lets crack on. I like it because I know I don’t need to worry about writers block, the answer will come to me, in time.

I did see a brilliant solution on twitter the other day. This guy said bake a square cake, ice writers block on it then cut it up piece by piece and enjoy with a cuppa until its gone. How genius is that?

Anything involving cake sounds good to me. Especially if it helps with writer’s block.

Time for some word sprints!

Coffee or tea?

Tea, and preferably a slice of homemade cake.

Mm, cake. Do you have any body art?

Yes – Leo starsign on my wrist, George the Gecko on my shoulder and dragon on my back.

Hey, both my kids are Leos. What’s on your to-be-read shelf?

Haha – over 4500 books on my Goodreads TBR list and over 50 indie author books on my kindle.

About the Author

Claire Buss is a science fiction, fantasy & contemporary writer based in the UK. She wanted to be Lois Lane when she grew up but work experience at her local paper was eye-opening. Instead, Claire went on to work in a variety of admin roles for over a decade but never felt quite at home. An avid reader, baker and Pinterest addict Claire won second place in the Barking and Dagenham Pen to Print writing competition in 2015 setting her writing career in motion.

The Gaia Effect, a hopeful dystopian novel and winner of the 2017 Raven Award for favourite Scifi/Fantasy novel, was published in 2016.

Tales from Suburbia, a collection of humorous plays, blogs and short stories was published in July 2017.

The Rose Thief, a humorous fantasy inspired by Claire’s love of Pratchett was published in November 2017.

Claire has had two short stories published in 2017. ‘Underground Scratchings’ can be found in the sci-fi and fantasy anthology Tales from the Underground, published by Inklings Press. ‘Patient Data’ can be found in the sci-fi anthology The Quantum Soul, published by SciFi Roundtable.

Social Media

On writing, burning out, and starting over

Writing

Recently, I posted about why I was leaving the book reviewing system. I didn’t go too deep into some of the more controversial aspects of my thought process, in part because it was important to me not to hurt good people I’ve come to know and care about over the years. I’m not exactly breaking my silence on that, but some of it is important to what I’m about to say regarding my own writing.

I never set out to be a career author. I love that my words are out there, that I have publishers who have taken their chances with me, and that I can keep doing this. But for me, writing was never about being able to have a sustainable income.

When I was a teenager, my grandfather semi-retired. He’d made his living as an artist, specifically in ceramics. Perhaps I’m a little biased when I say this, but I don’t think so: He was extraordinarily talented. He won awards, and a couple of his pieces are somewhere in the Smithsonian’s collection. After his death, his work sold for multiple times its original worth. When it crops up on reseller sites, it’s always tagged as a genuine one of his pieces.

There are probably people reading this who think that sounds fabulous, making a living from creative work and having the kind of success my grandfather did. If they can make it work, more power to them! In all honesty, I never asked my grandfather if he loved his work that much and if he was happy that’s what he’d been able to do for most of his life.

It would never make me happy.

I had the impression (and one of my relatives can correct me if I’m wrong) that his semi-retirement was mainly about leaving the business of pottery-making behind. He spent many years after that making mosaics until he finally retired for good. He seemed far more relaxed and content. I watched him many times in his shop, listening to him whistle along with the arias on his stereo as he glued the tiny ceramic shards into perfect place.

While I’m not an artist of my grandfather’s caliber, I have been writing since I was a child. Short stories, fan fiction (though I didn’t know that’s what it was called), poetry (it was terrible, but I didn’t care). In high school, I took a creative writing class and learned how to write persuasive essays and satire. In college, I wrote for the student newspaper. Before I began publishing fiction, I kept a blog on a range of topics, from adventures in parenting to critiquing the church’s position on various issues. I had an opinion piece published in The Advocate once and another in LGBTQNation. I’ve even dabbled in publicly posting fan fiction (no possible way am I linking it here, but if you absolutely must see it…nope).

Writing, for me, has never been about earning a living. When I switched from blogging to novelling, I wasn’t looking to make money. This may sound ridiculous, but I wanted to change the world. Okay, maybe not the whole world, but perhaps a few people’s minds. I wanted to infuse my work with the same sorts of social justice messages I’d been putting into my blog. Lofty goals, I know, but it’s where my heart was (and is, if I’m truthful).

Growing up, books were not, for me, mainly an escape. The greatest gift my family gave me was handing me books they loved and saying, “Read it, and then we’ll talk.” (I still do this with my kids.) Books weren’t a doorway to other worlds; they were a mirror of our own.

In the same way, writing is not my way of providing an escape for myself or anyone else. It’s a reflection of the joy and pain of our lives, an outlet for things I can’t communicate in any other way. What I want, what I’ve always wanted, is for at least one other person to say, “You understood me, and I feel less alone.”

Writing for the purpose of earning a living doesn’t do this for me. It drains away my ability to listen. Personally, I found that reviewing books did the same thing. I was grinding out reviews, consuming books like a bag of chips rather than savoring them as a meal. And to be honest, a lot of those books were more like pottery vs. mosaics. Many were good, perhaps even the best examples of their type. But they were not the kind of art I was looking for.

A huge part of leaving behind book reviews had to do with my revulsion for turning art into a capitalist venture. I will always and forever side-eye folks with power and privilege who wish to build a career from exclusively making art about marginalized people whose identity they don’t share. Saying it’s because they need to keep a roof over their heads is not quite enough, since they could easily do so without using marginalized lives and bodies. But this is not something that is going away, and there is very little that I can do aside from yelling into the abyss. It’s far better for my well-being to distance myself rather than constantly smashing my head against a wall.

As for my own writing, I’ve never fit well into boxes, and I don’t want to. I will never be commercially appealing. Maybe that’s because I’m a terrible hack and readers are better off staying away, but I don’t think so. Instead of spinning my wheels trying for market appeal, I wish to return to the idealistic vision I had at the start. My desire is to change hearts and leave people feeling heard, whether it’s one or one thousand.

Calling all bi writers!

Writing

For my second #BiWeek post, I’m asking for a big favor.

I’m only one bi writer, one person writing about themes and stories important to the bi community. I’m only one reviewer with a short list of bi books.

First of all, do you identify as bisexual+? That includes pansexual, omnisexual, multisexual, polysexual, fluid, flexible, questioning, and any other type of multi-gender attraction—romantic, sexual, or both. If so, we want your stories! Come visit the BiCast’s page and tell us your story.

Second, let’s stand up and be counted! Leave me a comment if you feel comfortable and share your bi-themed books. Share ones you loved or ones you wrote. If you’re a bi-identified (or any other MGA; see above) author or blogger, share a link to your website or author page in the comments.

This is a celebration of us, and I’d love if all of us could find more books that speak to our unique queer experiences. Please share this with your networks so we can get as many as possible. At the end of the week, I’ll blog a list of all the comments I receive with links.

Happy reading and writing!

Kicking off Bi Week with a giveaway!

Blogs, Books, Cool Stuff, Fiction, LGBTQ+, Sexuality and Gender, Social Justice, Writing

Happy Sunday! It’s the start of Bisexual Awareness Week. Don’t know what that is? Here’s a primer from BiNet USA and GLAAD: https://www.glaad.org/biweek2017. All week, I’ll be celebrating, so be sure to come back and see what new things I have.

First of all, I had the privilege of co-interviewing Miles the Bisexual with Elizabeth for the BiCast. What a great time! Check out out chat here.

Second, I’m running a giveway all week. Winners can choose any book in my backlist, excluding multi-author publishers’ anthologies. (My own single-author anthologies are all available, however.) You can enter below.

Third, I’ll be posting book reviews and recommendations. If you missed it last year, I posted a list of all my bisexual characters. I’ve updated it to reflect my 2017 releases. I also have a list of my favorite bisexual characters. This list has been updated as well to include great reads from 2017.

Fourth, my WIPpet Wednesday and Rainbow Snippets Saturday posts will reflect bi content, of course. Cian, one of the two main characters in my WIP, is bi+ and in a polyamorous family relationship. LR (Cat’s sister in the Faithfully Yours series) is married to a bisexual man, and I’ve been snipping from their story on Saturdays.

Finally, every day will feature a bit of flash fiction (very short stories, in this case under 750 words). These are all on various aspects of coming out and understanding ourselves. Part of my own story is going to be part of the #WeAreBisexuality campaign on Miles the Bisexual’s blog, and I’ll share more about it later on in the week.

Happy Bisexual Awareness Week!

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Perfection

Books, Writing

It’s raining, yesterday was A Day, and I’m exhausted. So instead of doing what I should—writing any of my WIPs or doing book reviews—I’m here drinking my coffee and blogging.

This is hard to admit, but when it comes to my writing, my perfectionism kicks into high gear. That is not to say I’m a “perfect” writer; far from it. What I mean is that I have a tendency to cave to my anxieties and believe that absolutely nothing, no matter how hard I try, will be good enough on an interpersonal level.

It’s never about the actual words on the page or the characters or the plot. It’s always, always, always about whether or not I’ve “perfectly” represented some particular thing. Sometimes this isn’t even a large part of the story. Most often, it’s an aspect of a character’s identity.

There is no such thing as a perfect novel or perfect representation. Almost no matter what we do, someone will have issue with it. I’ve seen people criticized for writing about their real-life experiences, both because someone felt that narrative was “overdone” and because they felt it was “incorrect.”

There will always be people on both sides of any situation, with nearly anything for which a person can be marginalized in our society. It’s unnecessary (and I would argue does more harm than good) to self-righteously insist one’s personal preference be the yardstick.

That’s not to say there can’t be terrible representation or wonderful representation. Only that most falls somewhere in the middle, and we need to be careful when addressing it that we aren’t invalidating someone’s lived experience or need for validation in their books in the process. This is different from when people who are part of a marginalized group repeatedly explain to those who are not that what they’re doing is harmful. I’m specifically talking about #OwnVoices work here and whose narrative is allowed to be put forth.

When I read the “you should always/you should never/you should stop doing XYZ,” it flips a switch in me. I go from feeling like I can put myself into my work to believing that my experiences are “incorrect” and not worthy of appearing on page because they fit too neatly into a “problematic” narrative. Instead of being allowed to explore healing through my art, I feel as though I have to quite literally change who I am in order to be accepted—to pretend these are not parts of my life.

To be honest, it’s also reminiscent of the type of interpersonal perfectionism which is rampant in evangelical Christianity, too, only they usually call that “sin.” It’s a level of nit-picking which is really more about personal preference than anything which does actual damage. This is the voice of my trauma, the way in which I was led to believe that who I am is so broken that I’m lucky “God” was willing to glance my way.

I’m trying to let go of that type of perfectionism. Of course I’ll still work to listen and understand, particularly when it comes to identities apart from my own. However, I also need to give myself permission to write about my life and feelings, free of “thou shalt nots.” I think in leaving the door open, I will also be able to extend more grace to others about their work.

Not Sexy

Writing

The title of this post refers to the most frequent criticism I’ve had from readers of romance novels. I’m going on record saying I agree, but here’s why: I don’t write romance.

Well, not really. I do like a good love story, but real life is not about lonely people finding their soul mates and having oodles of hot, hot sex. I suppose that must happen at least some of the time, given how many people are married or partnered with at least one other person. Still, the world does not operate in the following steps:

Find TrueLove™
Hump like bunnies
Find out some horrible secret/have some horrible event happen
Believe TrueLove™ has been lost
Finally resolve the emotional drama and live happily ever after/happily for now (probably with more humping like bunnies)

I admit, I’ve tried to actually follow that formula in my writing, and this is probably why (some) readers think it’s not sexy. It is damn hard to write like that! I keep getting distracted by other important things.

In a recent online conversation with several other authors, I learned a few things I hope to take into the future with me.

I’m a person who loves slice-of-life books with a lot of plot. I don’t actually care much about the sex. I’m more invested in the characters and their situations, and I’m interested in their lives outside of any budding romance. I’m much happier reading about friendships and families, and I prefer the love story to be secondary—in fact, I don’t care if it’s not there at all.

I don’t write great sex scenes, nor do I enjoy writing them. One reason is that I think there needs to be a good reason for them to be there or they distract from the story. So I don’t see a huge need to build chapters and chapters of sexual tension and then get two hot people in bed together. If they’re intimate, it’s because it makes sense to the story, and that’s typically less “sexy” than when getting them together is the goal.

I’m invested in making sure lgbtq sex isn’t fetishized. I’m bothered by how many women say they see “no point in reading m/m romance if there’s no sex.” It goes right along with how many women also don’t want to read about femme men and prefer women be absent or minimal in the story (or reduced to the plucky BFF). I was absolutely appalled recently at the dismal reviews for one of the best books I’ve read in ages—and all the ranting was about “glossing over” the sex and not having an “alpha male” type character. Sex wasn’t an integral part of the story, and the characters would not have made sense as culturally macho men. What some straight readers want is a very heteronormative version of gay and bisexual relationships. I understand that it’s “just a story,” and I don’t need to read or write it. But I wonder how many women with such preferences are invested in being genuine allies outside of making their Facebook profile pictures rainbow-fied. (For a great video on what it means to be an ally—bisexual-specific, but relevant to other communities—see here.)

I want more from my lgbtq books. I don’t think all of our books involve relationships and/or sex, but a lot certainly do, in all genres. That’s not a terrible thing—for too long, we’ve been considered to have “unnatural” lusts, and our kind of sex has been taboo (or fetishized). It pleases me no end how many straight guys liked my first novel, despite having sexual situations between two men. These readers were invested in the story, and the sex didn’t put them off or distract them. That said, a lot of what I see is about romantic relationships, and books heavy on other storylines are not always well-received. There’s a lot of non-romantic speculative fiction (SF, fantasy, etc) featuring lgbtq characters, but what I want is more literary genre lgbtq books. Some mainstream authors of literary fiction already include lgbtq characters, but I’m looking for something beyond “I wrote a gay character once!” There are some lgbtq authors whose books are shelved as literary, for sure. I just crave more, and I don’t want my fellow authors, especially writing m/m, to feel locked into romance or romantic relationships.

I’m probably approaching my own work all wrong. Okay, maybe not completely, but at least in some sense. I’ve been invested in writing a story around a “pairing”—a romantic couple and how they got there—because I’ve had the sense it’s what people want. Except the things I want to say keep getting in my way, and I’m doing neither romance nor literary genre any good, as evidenced by accusations of “not sexy.” I want to write about intersecting lives and friendships and family and couplehood at multiple stages, not just the falling in love part. I’d like to write young adult books and stories about women and novels on the way faith and identity intertwine. In short, I want to free my own mind from trying to write “romance.”

Allow me to reinforce that despite my view of what I want to read and write (and aside from my concerns about how lgbtq people are viewed by straight readers), I don’t see anything wrong with reading or writing romance. So much of what’s out there is personal taste. This is about where I want to go, and I’d like to return to my desire to write compelling stories without worrying about how “sexy” they are. If someone chooses not to read it because it’s not romantic or steamy, so be it.

Author Interview: Claire Buss

About the Book

Interview

About the Author

Social Media

On writing, burning out, and starting over

Calling all bi writers!

Perfection

Not Sexy

Let's Be Friends

Sharing

Tip Jar

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Supposed Crimes Publishing

Beaten Track Publishing

About the Book

Interview

About the Author

Social Media

More Content

Let's Be Friends

Sharing

Tip Jar

Shopping Cart

Your Shopping Cart

Supposed Crimes Publishing

Beaten Track Publishing