What would you like to tell readers about yourself?
* You can visit her blog at www.tabithalordauthor.com where she posts author interviews, hosts guest bloggers, and discusses some favorite topics including parenting and her writing journey. Horizon is her first novel.
Today Tabitha Lord will be talking about how she became a writer and what inspired her in regard to the story she's promoting.
* Now I am a writer, and I often find myself reflecting on how I got from there to here, because this destination feels both unexpected and exactly right at the same time.
* For years my husband would encourage me to write. His encouragement sounded something like this: “Honey, write a book already!” I would think about it and answer that I just didn’t have an entire story in my head. I’d written content for websites and ads, some blog posts, a little poetry, and correspondence for work over the years, but nothing truly creative since my college days, and even then, not a full-length novel.
* I think so much of my energy was taken up raising my kids, working, and running a household, there just wasn’t much left over for creativity. I am not implying you can’t have young children and write. I know people who do it very successfully, but after my workday, their activities, homework, laundry, cooking, etc. I really wasn’t interested. It was all I could do to string a sentence together. Reading a good book felt much more doable than writing one.
* Then my children got older. And when the dynamics in my family shifted, I began to consider changing careers. While I pondered what was next for me professionally I took on a yearlong writing project thinking it would give me the change of pace I needed. Turns out it was one of the most satisfying things I’d ever done in my career. Since I was in the habit of writing every day for work, I challenged myself to write creatively every day as well. A year later when the report was finished, so was the first draft of a manuscript.
* It’s funny, because when I look back at all the things I’ve wanted to do in my life, and all the experiences I’ve actually had, bits of my own passions and pieces of my real life are scattered throughout my debut novel Horizon. For example, there’s a big chunk of survival fiction in the first part of the book. Caeli, the protagonist, is alone in the wilderness, fending for herself, and living off the land. I grew up in a rural neighborhood until I was twelve years old and spent most of my playtime outdoors, in the woods, exploring and climbing trees. I tried to call on my own childhood memories to give Caeli’s experience authenticity.
* As an adult, I’ve had a few adventures that also influenced this particular aspect of the story. Over the years, I’ve had the pleasure of accompanying students on several class trips. We’ve hiked the rain forests in Costa Rica, paddled dozens of nautical miles in the open ocean off the coast of Maine, and camped in the mountains of West Virginia. I have actually tended a cooking fire, carved utensils, found edible plants, bathed in the ocean, and slept outdoors. And of course, Caeli is a healer, who did finish medical school!
* I’ve also always been a big sci-fi fan, so when I finally started writing fiction, I knew it would be sci-fi (at least for now). When I want to be inspired, to play with possibilities, to ask what if, and then create brand new worlds where I can explore the answers, my imagination goes straight to sci-fi. For me, this genre is also a place to consider serious, meaningful issues in a different context, slightly removed from the real world.
* I was toying with the idea of what would happen if one segment of an already small isolated population evolved differently (either naturally or by design) from the other. What if some had gifts that enabled them to imagine a different kind of future for themselves and their world? What if they were empathic and could sense each other’s emotions and thoughts? What if some of them could heal with their mind? How would the unchanged people feel about their neighbors? It created such an interesting premise I knew I had to find a way to make it into a story.
* So, at the right time in my life, when my creative energy began to flow, Horizon was born!
* Commander Derek Markham awakens stranded on an uncharted planet. His co-pilot is dead, his ship is in ruins, and he’s only alive because a beautiful young woman is healing him with her mind.
* As Derek recovers, Caeli shares the horror of her past and her fear for the future. When Derek’s command ship, Horizon, sends rescue, Derek convinces Caeli to leave with him. But his world is as treacherous as hers—full of spies, interplanetary terrorist plots, and political intrigue. Soon the Horizon team is racing to defend an outlying planet from a deadly enemy, and Caeli’s unique skills may just give them the edge they need to save it.
* They’d left her alone and she had lost all sense of time, but she knew they would be coming for her. Marcus wanted the information in her head. She was a liability to the whole group now, not only for what she knew, but also for how she could be used. She understood that she would have a limit. She would protect the resistance with her life, but Marcus was creative. If he put his gun to the head of a child, what would she do? Her mind raced with unspeakable possibilities. She had to get away.
* When she heard the door begin to open sometime later, she already had a plan. A single soldier entered the cell carrying water and food. She lay unmoving on the concrete floor and didn’t respond when he called to her. She heard him swear under his breath and put the tray down to approach her. When he knelt beside her and put his hand out, presumably to check her pulse, she grabbed his wrist. Startled, he tried to pull back, but she had already pushed her consciousness into his.
* His eyes widened with surprise and then fear as she used her mind to constrict the blood vessels traveling to his brain until he was unconscious. She dragged him into one corner of the cell, took his weapon, and after checking the hallway, closed the cell door behind her. The corridor was dimly lit. It was quiet and empty as she quickly made her way to the lift. Her heart pounded in her chest as the machine rose steadily and finally came to a stop aboveground.
ANNOUNCEMENT! Tabitha Lord will be awarding a $10 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour! So be sure to leave a comment AND use the Rafflecopter below. Also, visit the other tour stops for a greater chance of winning!
a Rafflecopter giveaway
5 comments:
This book sounds really good. I loved your comments.
Thank you for hosting me today!
MomJane - Thank you! Hope you'll check it out:)
Great excerpt, thank you.
Rita, Thank you!
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