Blog tour stop for Nora Weston with Virtual Book Tour Cafe

Today I'm hosting a virtual blog tour stop for Nora Weston.

CONTEST: Introduce yourself by leaving a comment (plus your e-mail), and you’ll have a chance to win a poster of Guardian 2632’s cover! The winner will be randomly chosen.

And now for a little bit about Nora:
Nora Weston’s fiction and poetry slips in-between and all around science fiction, fantasy, and horror. Her publishing credits include the anthologies Mind Mutations, Cyber Pulp’s Halloween 3.0, and Dark Pleasures. Other venues in print and online include; The Hacker’s Source, The Dream People, Hoboeye, Abandoned Towers, Lost in the Dark, Sputnik 57, Soul Engravings, and Decompositions. Recently, Dark Gothic Resurrected Magazine, Worlds Within–Worlds Beyond, Trapeze Magazine, and Four and Twenty published her work.

Melange Books has accepted The Twelfth Paladin for a May 2011 release. Nora has had the pleasure of reaching people through the airwaves on radio stations throughout the U.S., and episodes can be downloaded from Blog Talk Radio’s show Not Picture Perfect.

Nora, please tell us a bit about yourself.
I grew up in Wheeling, WV at a time when life was very simple. The neighborhood gang walked to school over a little bridge and then into a hilly populated area...without parents to watch over us. We enjoyed our neighborhood without fear, and time was always available for friends to visit long into the evening hours. Cell phones, computers, iTunes, and Xbox did not exist. I had to write down my homework, and go to a public library to do research. Truthfully, that all sounds more like fiction when I compare it to how my six kids have been raised! I’ve been an elementary teacher, and an artist, plus many other jobs as well have occupied my time. Although I’m a speculative author, and I love all things horror...teaching four, and soon to be five, teenagers to drive is the scariest thing I’ve ever done!

Please tell us a bit about Guardian 2632.
In Guardian 2632, time travel, Mercs, and a magnificent time chamber are part of everyday life for Zane Grayson. He’s the most accomplished executive director Guardian TMF has ever seen, and he’s breaking the law…his law against time surfing. Zane has the supreme power to decide which paradoxes in time need altered, or deleted, but he’s frustrated. Something, or someone, is missing from his life.

Time surfing in illegal time zones is the rush Zane can’t live without. As addictive as the Martian dust called kilred, time surfing becomes Zane’s obsession. And knowing full well if caught by the Elite Guardians, he’ll suffer a brutal death by Time Mercs, Zane still dives deep into trouble. Due to time surfing, he discovers a mission, in 2035, left him trapped in Pittsburgh, PA, 1998...a timehole. While in Pittsburgh, Zane strolls into a coffee shop to see the bewitching Julia Emerson. From that point on, his life, in 2632, spirals out of control as he fights to protect what he loves most.

Guardian 2632 does embrace the possibility of time travel, but the essence of this novel is Zane Grayson’s unstoppable determination to repair the past so Julia will have a future. The prologue can be found at the Noracast, and the first chapter is posted at my All Romance E-books.

What inspired you to write this book?
Inspiration for Guardian 2632 came about because Zane Grayson and Julia Emerson kept appearing in spectacular dreams that involved time travel. Julia, and her “good cop-gone bad cop” husband, Jack, argued relentlessly in my dreams. Jack and a mobster, named Marshall Pickett, became cohorts in crime, so Jack and Julia’s world crumbled. As a result, Julia’s life was put in jeopardy. Zane entered my dreams as a way for Julia to survive, well...that is if Zane accomplishes the perilous task asked of him. Since these people from nightmare land would not go away, I wrote a short story about them, and then that evolved into a full length novel.

What exciting story are you working on next?
Currently, I’m getting ready to do the final edit on my next release from Melange Books, called The Twelfth Paladin. It’s a smoking-hot, heaven/hell adventure involving a fallen angel named Micah, a rebellious hero...Jake Cottrell, and a temptress extraordinaire named Rachel Darnell. It’s a reworking of an older novel that deserved more attention. The cover has been posted at my website.

When did you first consider yourself a writer?
I first considered myself a writer while teaching in Pennsylvania, because I wrote stories for my students, and they were received with smiles and lots of laughter. At first, many of the children only liked to write nonfiction, but that soon changed. Making the children happy with unusual characters, and richly detailed settings, helped them to learn about using their imaginations while writing. The best part of the entire process was seeing how proud my students were while reading their magnificent stories to the class. Yes...the power of the written word is truly amazing.

Do you write full-time? If so, what's your work day like? If not, what do you do other than write and how do you find time to write?
Writing, full time... Ah, those three, little words go together like super hot tea and a warm, glazed donut. (Yes, those are two of my favorite things!) Always and forever, I will be a wife, mother, sister, daughter, daughter-in-law, and friend...so no writing full time for Nora. Besides enjoying my family and friends, I enjoy movies like Chronicles of Riddick, Serenity, Happy Accidents, Upside of Anger, and Pride and Prejudice. Soon, I’ll begin illustrating some of the characters from Guardian 2632.

I find time to write by doing everything else as quickly as possible! By nature, I’m a night person, so that’s when I have time to create my worlds of speculative fiction and poetry.

What would you say is your interesting writing quirk?
I simply cannot be creative without the hottest tea on the planet. If I have Twizzlers to snack on, the writing goes even better. Now, if a handful of Hershey kisses also happen to be on my nightstand, then there’s no telling what galaxy I’ll find myself in.

As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?
Wow! That’s so long ago now...that I can barely remember, but I believe I wanted a job working with animals. Maybe it was a veterinarian, or a journalist for National Geographic. Hum, those both still sound like good options.

Anything additional you want to share with the readers?
Sure! Whatever your life is like at this moment, take time to express your creativity in some way. It relieves stress, and people are usually shocked at what they are capable of creating. If you think buying paint, canvases, and brushes are too costly...try a paint program, like Graffiti, on Facebook. The artwork I’ve seen on Graffiti blows me away! Today is the day to write, paint, play the piano...or sing for the first time. Please drop by my website and the Noracast from time to time for updates.

Nora, thanks for visiting!


Nora's next stop is Wednesday, Feb 23. She will be guest blogging at http://ashleysbookshelf.blogspot.com.

Reminder:CONTEST: Introduce yourself by leaving a comment (plus your e-mail), and you’ll have a chance to win a poster of Guardian 2632’s cover! The winner will be randomly chosen.