Blog Archives
A Collection Of Bizarre Vignettes
The Fourth Wall follows an Army Captain to Afghanistan where he encounters supernatural elements that were responsible for a mass killing. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
I wanted to write something totally different from any other war novel. The memorable moments from my time in Afghanistan were the kinds of things you never read about or see in movies about war. I had strange encounters that inspired me to write of the fog of war itself, almost as an autonomous form. The Fourth Wall began as a novella, a collection of bizarre vignettes, but I decided to make it bigger and wilder. I wanted it to be an accurate description of modern warfare, but it also had to be adventurous and entertaining, fun for a reader but also fun to write. The supernatural elements grew out of that approach, but the main star of The Fourth Wall has always been the fog of war. I just gave it a different face.
Captain Thomas Jett is an intriguing and well developed character. What were some driving ideals behind your character’s development?
Jett is an explorer. He volunteers for a combat tour in Afghanistan. He is familiar with the occult, and his home is haunted by ghosts. By volunteering to go to war, he is seeking an escape but also personal transformation and exposure to dangers he has never known but wants to experience. Something is out there waiting for him, he just doesn’t know what it might be. This openness to change, for good and bad, is what drives Jett. It is the cycle of external and internal conflict that sustains him and pushes him.
He wants to be a good soldier, though, to do the right thing. He wants to find himself and find a place in this war. When presented with so many dark mysteries, he sees this as a chance to do both.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The Fourth Wall describes the chaos of modern warfare in myriad ways, from top levels of command to troops out on patrol. Exploring warfare in this way, I was able to step out of my own boots and learn about the experiences of others and their job specialties. As I am still in the Army, this book has been a vessel to continue learning about military culture, doctrine, procedures, and technology, as well as to keep growing in my profession of arms.
Another theme I explore is Jett’s individual transformation within military society. He is only a captain, in his fifth year in the Army, but because of his assignments he is exposed to a variety of dramatic situations. In addition to The Fourth Wall’s outlandish qualities, other very real (and mundane) elements of military life have their moment. There are many layers to military society, and I wanted to present these diverse elements in new ways and go beyond the usual tropes of war literature.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I’ve been working on the sequel to The Fourth Wall, in which Jett goes on more adventures and further explores mysteries presented in the first book. I hope to have the sequel available in two years. I’ve planned a five or six book Fourth Wall series, though only the first two or three books will take place in Afghanistan.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
Jett is tasked to investigate a mass murder in Kandahar, which people say was not the work of the Taliban. Instead, it was a creature of smoke and fire, perhaps a jinni. As the chaos builds, revealing otherworldly evil, Jett must devise a new approach. He creates an imaginative system for an unconventional, dreamlike kind of conflict, calling his system “The Fourth Wall.”
Author Scott Petty is a veteran of the War in Afghanistan. Through a phantasmagoric show, Petty reinvents the war novel, interweaving reality with magical and paranormal elements. The Fourth Wall offers a panoramic view of modern warfare…one surreal piece at a time.
Love Is Blind?!
Gambling Lion follows a talented but haunted man who meets a mysterious woman that changes his life. What were some sources that informed this novels development?
Gambling Lion is Part 1 of the tale of Nicholas de Bresancourt, my main character, an impoverished French noble who has grown up in England and hates what has happened to France, and for a variety of reasons joins the British Army and is recruited to become an undercover agent for the British against his former countrymen in the interminable war that has been going on in Europe. I’m very familiar with this period of history, and have always found it particularly interesting, hence the background to this story’s prequel, Behind The Shadow, where we meet Nicky as a small boy, just escaped from the French Revolution. Also, being a closet James Bond fan, I tried to imagine what an equivalent spying department might have been like back in 1812, along with an M equivalent and his assistant – however being 1812, it wouldn’t be a Moneypenny unless it was a Mr Moneypenny!
But more seriously, I always thought the Napoleonic Wars fascinating, as is Napoleon himself, and his megalomania until he went a step too far and invaded Russia, underestimating what he would be up against there, not to mention the terrible weather in winter. Hitler never learned from history – if he had he might have thought twice about invading Russia. But there you are, another megalomaniac, except far, far worse than Napoleon of course. Also, when I visited the battlefield site of Waterloo (battle scenes referred to in Part 4 of The Pride of Lions set) I was stunned and tried to picture what went on there. Anyone who understands what historical battles were like,and the sheer carnage, will know what I mean. Men and horses alike. Terrible. But that epic battle kept Europe peaceful for decades after that… until everyone went to war again in 1914. Finally, I always think heroes who are perfect, or infallible, or one-dimensional, are boring; so depicting a man with issues, as a result of terrible abuse back in his childhood, along with PTSD from his military undercover work and interaction with the villain of the story, which compounds his already fragile mental state, makes him more interesting and realistic… well as far as anyone who is a James Bond type character can be. After all, this is a historical romance at the end of the day, just like James Bond gets the girl in the end!
Your characters are interesting, but I really enjoyed the relationship between characters. What were some driving ideals behind your characters and their relationships?
The story is very much about misplaced pride, and also, how people are often not quite how they appear. It’s about how women were still repressed at that time in history, but starting to assert themselves, and not all men believed them to be either frivolous nor brainless. Also, the hero was impoverished so has to make the best of what his attributes are to make his way in the world … eg his good looks and charm lend themselves to his line of work, and later in the series the reader gets to find out what else he has been up to in this regard. And finally, didn’t they always say that love is blind?!
What kind of research did you undertake to ensure the historical aspects in the novel are accurate?
As mentioned above, this period of history has always interested me, and I have to own up, I’ve always been a bit of a history geek, so knew a lot already about the period and subject matter, including visiting Waterloo before I even came up with the story. But I read a lot about what went on during the Peninsular campaign to check my facts, and was interested by how Napoleon left his Marshals to run most of it for him. Who knows what would have happened if he’d stayed there himself instead of leaving to sort out eastern Europe and then go into Russia. Now there’s a question! The Duke of Wellington finally came into his own in Spain, and the whole episode is fascinating to study as his battle successes during his time there ebbed and flowed and he learned a lot as a result of this, especially how the French fought and the capability of the French Marshals he came up against. Experts (not me) say he really made the most of that learning to put to use when he finally arrived at Waterloo. (Apologies for history lesson!)
This is book one in The Pride of Lions series. What can readers expect in book two?
Book 2, Undercover Lion, carries on with Nicky, our hero, deep in tracking down the villain of the piece, the clever and malicious French agent, Frederick Bernheim, son of the man who originally murdered his parents and was responsible for the horrific events of his childhood before he escaped to England. He’s now in Madrid, cut off from the British forces and on his own, but finds help from an unexpected quarter, and finally runs his enemy to earth,… but I won’t tell you any more than that, other than, being a spy story in true James Bond style, there’s a villainous woman involved along the line as well who needs dealing with….
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
London. June 1812.
He was carrying important dispatches from the British Army HQ in the Peninsula to the War Ministry in London and hadn’t been home for a year.
While waiting for confidential and urgent documents to take back to the Army high command, Nicholas de Bresancourt is taken to meet an inscrutable gentleman in the innocuous-sounding Department of Information in Whitehall. Lord Ashcroft wants to utilize his talents to track down a dangerous French agent who has been causing trouble for those still battling Bonaparte across Europe, and has now turned up in Spain. Meanwhile, Nicky also takes the opportunity to catch up with his adoptive relations, including the dying family matriarch, the nearest thing he’s ever had to a grandmother, as well as the wife he was inveigled into marrying and now wants rid of.
Unsurprisingly, being Nicky, he decides to take a few hours off for a bit of personal R&R, away from the stresses of family matters and work. Good looking, charismatic and a consummate lothario, he heads out on the Town with a few regimental friends and they take him to a new gambling salon in Mayfair which is all the rage: Le Lion D’Or, owned by a mysterious masked woman who calls herself La Lionesse. Inexplicably fascinated by the lady, who in turn seems very taken with the handsome soldier, she asks him up to her private quarters to continue their game of cards and he accepts, and that’s when she raises the stakes…
Wilbur – Author Interview
Journey of 200 is an adventure thriller with some dark themes. What were some driving ideals behind Guillaume’s character’s development?
The people who were on his side, like his sisters, or friends. They treated him well. His enemies impacted his character, by abuse and mistreatment. New events also changed his character.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The important themes were companionship and hope. It was hope that drove Guillaume on this journey, along with companionship that helped Guillaume succeed.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
Currently I’m not writing a second book, until this book succeeds.
Author Links: Amazon | GoodReads
Changemakers Of The Future
You Belong Too follows a young girl as she navigates being the new kid in school. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
The inspiration for the set up to this story was to teach children the importance of including others and accepting one another despite differences.
The art in this engaging picture book is fantastic. What was the art collaboration process like with Carrisa Harris?
The art collaboration process with my illustrator, Carissa Harris, was phenomenal. She is extremely talented. We worked well together as a team and she was very open to and patient with all of my suggestions, changes or additions I wanted.
What made you decide to write a children’s book on empathy and kindness?
I decided to write a children’s book on empathy and kindness because I believe these qualities will empower todays children to become impactful leaders and changemakers of the future. As well, there is always room for more kindness in our world.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
The next book I am working on is about two boys and their adventures sailing the North Channel, but it is still in progress while I enjoy sharing this one.
Author Links: Instagram | Website | GoodReads
But to Annie, it’s so much more.
Today is her first day at a brand-new school. She can feel the butterflies fluttering in her tummy.
Even though Annie’s Mom reminds her that she can do hard things, she wonders if it’s really true.
As she sits alone at recess, she begins to lose hope.
Maybe I can’t do hard things.
…. Or can she?
Join Annie as she overcomes her fears and takes a brave step towards kindness and friendship that leaves a positive effect on her entire class.
Poetry for hUmaNITY
Organic eMotions provides readers with a powerfully emotional collection of poetry. What inspires you to write poetry?
Thank you for reading Organic eMotions, Poetry for hUmaNITY. This collection was a work of passion as I reflected on my emotional intelligence during the pandemic events during the summer of 2021. The creative surge flowed through me as I tapped into the collective energy vortex. I permitted myself to dive deep into all the feelings of melancholy, the anger over human atrocities, the sadness over the blame and division within the spiritual community, the cognitive dissonance, the tyranny experienced around the world, feeling unsafe, afraid of the future, and being misaligned. I wrote over three hundred verses consisting of ballads, free verse, villanelle, ekphrastic, haiku, and limerick poems divided into four parts. The book takes the reader through the journey of state of mind, emotional vortex, clarity, and purity as it guides back into personal truths, deep resonance and understanding of the gift provided by the catalytic events transforming humanity into a state of empowerment, purity and bliss.
This anthology provides activating poems with elements of a nostalgic, narrative, lyrical form of healing philosophies that aim to increase awareness within the deeper layers of the human psyche and emotional body, the vortex of autonomy. The verses capture both the transient and the prevailing feelings through a vulnerable lens, using a powerful and electrifying nuanced artistic expression. It is a rejuvenating, poignant reflection of trauma liberation and quantum healing during humanity’s evolution. These verses are a culmination of my lived experience of self-actualization, awareness, and profound presence. Within me, I have found the unlimited space of peace, wholeness, validation, belonging, joy, home, and true freedom. This emotional freedom is a continuous journey inward through the turbulence of duality, emancipation from fear, anxiety, and the programmed narratives of the past as I released all judgemental views and guilt.
These poetic sonatas creatively guide the resonance of self-healing modalities. By feeling and healing our individual childhood wounding, we alchemize the density and rise as collective energy in motion while hUmaNITY exposes the collective shadows, past traumas, and our combined density through the process of transmutation, illuminating our organic global light on its existence.
Your book is currently the #1 new release in Amazon’s Epic Poetry category. How do you feel about this accomplishment?
I am so thrilled that the metaphysical poems resonate with so many incredible souls. I feel humbled, grateful, and fulfilled to be in the company of other incredible poets. It is an honor to contribute to the rhythmical art of harmonics created with words. If my poems inspire more people to read the classic creations of EE Cummings, Maya Angelou, or Walt Whitman, we will bring poetry back into the mainstream. Some of my favorite verses that inspired me growing up were “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou, “Stopping by Woods On a Snowy Evening” by Robert Frost, “A Dream Within A Dream” by Edgar Allan Poe, “Among School Children” by W. B. Yeats regarding mortality and worth of life, and quite recently, any Spoken Word poetry by Amanda Gorman, to name a few.
What is one thing you hope readers take away from your book?
My intention behind every publication, be it fiction or nonfiction, is that if my words inspire and empower even one person on their healing and transformative journey, I have fulfilled my objective. The messages and energy of self-realization poems in Organic eMotions aim to assist the reader to reflect within themselves rather than depending on external forces for emancipation. It is my belief that each of us has the power, strength, and capability to connect to our higher self and to remember that we are an aspect of the Divine’s expression, experiencing life through the human form. We don’t need a third party to commune with a higher presence of Source, or to identify with our thoughts, emotions, fears, or past traumas, when we realize that our consciousness is indestructible when we flow in pure wholeness and aligned with our sovereignty. We are all powerful alchemists born with free will and the ability to choose our every present moment when we are fully aware of our personal truths. If we can rise above the negative polarity and duality of the matrix, come together with respect, honor, and inclusivity, we realize that when we choose organic love, kindness, compassion, and autonomy, we contribute to the magnetic energy of the quantum field of existence. This is how we transform our planet and choose a unified world that doesn’t focus on perpetuating the separation consciousness of divide and conquer. We advocate for innocent children, the vulnerable, our planet, and all living creatures, with radical accountability, intentions, integrity, freedom, and hope for utopia.
Do you have plans to publish more works of poetry?
Since I work full time, I try to balance my publications and self-actualization priorities. I am currently writing the third and final book in The De-Coding of Jo, Ascending Angel Academy YA SFF series, to be released in late 2022. I have another work in progress that I will also like to devote my time to writing, a psychological thriller that is part of the Heart of a Warrior Angel trilogy. When the creative flow strikes me to write more poetry, I will focus all my energy to transmit the healing and uplifting sonnets much like my hardcover, full color art and poetry anthology, The Joy of I.T. (Infinite Transcendence). Thank you so much for this opportunity to share, I’m very grateful. Many blessings of peace, joy, and harmony for all.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
The Choices We Make Aren’t Mistakes
My Awareness Book follows a boy and girl as they encounter strong emotions and learn how to work through what they are feeling. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
The set up for My Awareness Book is: I had already written My Grateful Book and My Welcome Book talking about the importance of gratitude and self esteem and to start with this was going to be My Choices Book, but then My Awareness Book seemed more appropriate as it talks about how it is ok to have feelings and talk about them. Big or small. The choices we make aren’t mistakes they are all learning experiences.
The art in this book is fantastic. What was the art collaboration process like with the illustrator Sarah Jane Marchant?
Sarah had illustrated my first two books so it was just a given she would illustrate the third. I just give her the story and she creates these amazing pictures. I don’t have to change anything usually it is exactly what I was thinking as well. We work very well together.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
The important themes in this book for me was to tell children, we do have some strong emotions growing up and it’s ok to talk about them. That the choices we make are ok for us individually. We are all different but can still all get along.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
The next book in this series I think will be My Brave Book with what is happening in the world, vaccinations etc., masks and social distancing. Just letting kids know its ok to be scared but moving through the fear and doing it anyway will make you feel like a hero!
Author Links: Website | Facebook | YouTube | Instagram
With simple rhyming prose, My Awareness Book follows the journey of a little boy and a girl, steering through their struggles toward a positive mindset and learning the skills for mental resilience.
My Awareness Book teaches your child how to have a growth mindset, build mental resilience and identify and regulate their emotions, all important skills for a young mind to master. Beautifully illustrated with simple rhyming prose, this book is the perfect story to help a child feel supported and understood as they grow and learn. An easy read, My Awareness Book invites broader and deeper discussions with your child, enabling them to continue to move confidently towards adulthood, with empathetic direction and positive guidance.
This delightful book is part of the Feel Good series.
About the author
Diana Smith is the author of My Grateful Book, My Welcome Book and My Awareness Book (the celebrated children’s Feel Good series). Her other early childhood books include Bruiser’s G’day at the Park, Bruiser’s G’day at the Beach, Bruiser’s G’day Camping and The Adventures of Clive.
It Saves My Soul
Water follows a young woman that has felt unfilled throughout her life and doesn’t understand why. Learning about her spiritual abilities puts her on a path that will help her find her true self and heal. What was the inspiration for the setup to your story?
Water is the fourth novel in a five-book series called The Elemental Journey Series (Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Ether). The first four books are published and are semi-autobiographical, loosely following my journey of growing up in Missouri, living abroad for a decade in Tokyo and London, and finally in WATER repatriating to the U.S. and coming to terms with my mysticism. WATER is based in Seattle and explores my years reading tarot there. The novel isn’t memoir, though, and as fiction, I created characters and scenes to illustrate my main theme of fully owning who you are. To quote Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Fiction reveals truth that reality obscures.” In reality and in the novel, I am a mystic. I had to learn to channel my visions and did so using the tool of tarot. During the time period of the novel, I read for hundreds of people in the Pacific Northwest and around the world. (Today, that number is in the thousands.) I love the idea of showing in the novel how tarot brings forward higher spiritual truths to apply to the daily tribulations all of us undergo. There are so many unseen forces at work directing our lives in a good way, even when times are difficult. My protagonist Pearl was a journalist and was being called to give it up to become a metaphysical healer. She doesn’t go willingly. Even though the path was difficult, it really was the universe guiding her to a better, more fulfilling life, and one where she could be of greater services to the world. This echoes my own path, and the path of many of the people I now coach as a book coach and a metaphysical healer. So, I wanted the novel to convey this — the path to spiritual awakening may be difficult but ultimately it’s fulfilling especially with the direction the world is going now with pandemics and climate change.
I fictionalized it for two reasons, to help the real people in my life have privacy, and to give me more freedom to explore my themes. I have an active imagination and characters and scenes come to me by the hundreds daily.
I am compelled to write to understand my own life, without writing I don’t know where I’d be. It saves my soul. I hope my writing also informs, entertains and heals the reader.
What were some driving ideals behind Pearl’s character development?
I wanted to show, really show, how much despair we suffer when we don’t accept who we truly are. I show step by step my protagonist coming out of that despair into the light. I demonstrate the resistance and the difficulties involved with being profoundly alternative in mainstream society. I hope I show how owning our power transforms our lives and the lives of others. Pearl, my protagonist, owns her mysticism and takes her second sight — a gift that would have historically gotten her persecuted — and turns it around to help heal herself and others.
I didn’t want to pull the punches on how she resists her path. So, I have Pearl reject everything she builds again and again (this actually happens throughout the series). I wanted to show how long and arduous this path to finding purpose really is.
Gem, her nextdoor neighbor, is a radical on-the-edge artist who helps Pearl accept her radical self. I’m interested in developing characters who don’t fit into the mainstream. I’m interested in a mainstream that is crumbling, and how outsiders might be the wisest people of all.
What are some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Self-acceptance and self-love are the primary themes. As a coach for nearly 30 years now, I’ve found the single biggest stumbling block people have is that they simply don’t want to accept who and what they truly are. The ego drives them to be what society defines as successful, instead of what their soul is calling them to do. This is my life’s work — through writing, visual art (I’m also a visual artist), and coaching, I assist people in owning, living, and loving their authentic selves. It can be a long journey.
To me, the diversity of the human soul is like a tropical rainforest. Each of us is a unique and wild entity in this vast forest of the human experience, and we’re losing that diversity. Our eccentric alternative selves are needed now more than ever. Our creative cores are necessary so that we can come up with radical solutions to today’s problems.
Mysticism is another theme. I wanted to show how the mystical works for those many people who are unfamiliar with it or scared of it. Throughout religious traditions, there have been famous mystics. A mystic is simply someone who has a direct channel to the divine. I wanted to demystify mysticism in WATER.
Water also plays as a theme as the title of the book suggests. Set in the Pacific Northwest, rain and bodies of water permeate the book. More importantly, I’m interested in the notion of water in Jungian psychology. To Jung, water represents the depths of our untapped subconscious. How can we deep dive into our souls and stop skipping the rock over the surface of our lives? That is a profound theme in my work.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
I’m working on three books now.
ETHER is the fifth book in the Elemental Journey Series. It’s actually a memoir. I’m calling the entire series “Four novels and a memoir.” I was called so strongly to go from semi-autobiographical writing to direct autobiography in this final book in the series. I write in my yurt studio in the woods, and the work is exploding. ETHER explores my further awakening as a healer, my veganism, and my coming full circle back to the earth when I gave up living in cities and moved back to nature. I now live on many acres in the woods in Oregon (after decades living in Tokyo, London, Seattle, and Boston). The memoir process is quite a bit different than writing a novel. As a book coach over the past 20 years, I’ve mentored lots of memoirists, but this is my first time writing the genre. I’m having profound epiphanies and just loving the process. ETHER will be available in 2024.
BLUE is a middle grade novel about a mystical 11-year-old girl named Maisie-Grace whose best friend is an old growth Douglas Fir named Blue. The characters include a Japanese American girl in a wheelchair named Jack who’s an artist, and Macon, a farm girl who’s bullied. The three girls come together to try to save Blue and the forest. This novel is finished and I’m shopping it around to publishers now.
And finally, I’m working on RED, a young adult novel that follows Maisie-Grace, Jack, and Macon as they become teenagers. Maise-Grace loses her magic and becomes embittered. Slowly, she finds her spirit back again through a horse named Red. This is slated for completion in three years.
Author Links: GoodReads | Instagram | Facebook | Website
This Ancient Parable Has A Modern-Day Twist
Barclay & Berk Builders retells the parable of the wise and foolish builders with charming illustrations and easy to understand language. What inspired you to retell this specific parable from the Bible?
As a children’s school librarian I am always on the lookout for good, read-aloud stories.
This ancient parable has a modern-day twist. The story is about working together, caring for one another, helping each other and primarily life’s choices. I wrote this story to appeal to a wider non-Christian audience but the sounds of a busy worksite will especially appeal to boys.
I enjoyed the art in the book. What was the art collaboration process like with illustrator James Hensman?
James is a professional artist who has his own colorful style and humor. This is his first illustrated picture book, and his seagull character, Gulliver S Gull, is now showing up in his most recent paintings. View and purchase his art at www.jameshensman.net.
What do you hope young children take away from your story?
Stories are always multileveled, so whatever a child takes away from the reading experience is good. I hope children will enjoy the characters, and the art while perhaps discovering what a parable is. If a child remembers to help others–that’s a bonus! and on a deeper level to comprehend that this story that Jesus told is about our everyday choices and building a firm life-foundation by following God.
What is the next book that you are working on and when will it be available?
My next two projects are a historical Canadian novel for grade five, and a gift/picture book for children and adults, on the Promises of God. Possibly both published in 2022.
Author Links: GoodReads | Twitter | Facebook | Website
LITERARY TITAN 