Author Interview :
Author Bio:
My name is Tanya Miranda. I am a writer of
science fiction, romance, suspense...I still haven't settled on a specific
genre yet. In a former life I was an I.T. professional in the retail industry. On
the side, I build websites for small businesses and startups. But, at the heart
of it all, I am a stay-at-home mother of two incredible children.
What inspires you to write?
Writing is
something I’ve done since I was very young. I wrote poetry and short stories
for as long as I can remember, but I never shared them with anyone except a few
writer friends in high school.
Flash forward
fifteen years after graduating college… work got more political than I’d
expected and I found myself working late night and weekends with no reward. It
was mentally, physically, and emotionally draining. This propelled my decision
to take some time off to spend with my young children while they still thought
I had magical powers.
A month after I
quit my job, my daughter and I found a long letter that I had written to her
before she was born. While I read it, she and my husband laughed and told me
that it was really funny. Then she said, “Mommy, you should be a writer.” I
haven’t stopped writing since.
What are you reading now?
Right now I am
re-reading Ender’s Game as part of getting my daughter into science fiction
novels. Her and my son both love sci-fi movies. After watching an adaptation of
a novel, I tell her the parts that the movies leave out. This got her thinking
about reading the original novels before watching the movies.
She read the
first few chapters of Enders Game and had a couple of questions that I could
not answer because the details have been long forgotten. So I just picked it up
this weekend in order to help her out.
For Fiction Writers: Do you listen (or talk
to) to your characters?
All the time! I
play the roles out in my car, as I’m driving to pick up my son from kindergarten.
Sometimes I forget the kids are in the car, and they catch me creating dialog.
My daughter once asked me what I was doing, and I told her I was “writing”.
What advice would you give other writers?
Writing takes
time and patience. Take your time to write the story you want to write, and be
patient with the process. I rushed Dramani, my first novel, and had to go back
and re-edit several times before the final version was released. My second
novel, A Selfish Moment, was easier and more fun to write once I established my
process.
How did you decide how to publish your
books?
Dramani was a
great learning experience. I got great feedback from my friends and family, as
well as a few other people who read the earlier edition, but I couldn’t
successfully pitch the idea it to an agent or directly to publishers. So I thought, why not just self-publish? I
have heard so much about it that I thought it would be a stepping stone to
grabbing an agent. I rushed the production and was up on Amazon in November of
2012.
During a revision
of A Selfish Moment, I established my process. Once A Selfish Moment was done
and I sent it off to a professional editor. I re-read Dramani’s first
chapter. To my utter humiliation, I
realized that Dramani was nowhere near being production-worthy, yet it was out
in the market for the world to reject. And reject the world did. Aside from
several orders by friends and family, the book didn’t sell. My rushed edition
was just not up to par. (I wrote a full post about this on my blog.) I re-edited the novel as if I was starting
with a first draft using my new process.
I released an improved version in Spring of 2013 on Amazon, Smashwords
and CreateSpace. I finally have sales from people I don’t know.
This made me more
determined in publishing A Selfish Moment the right way, and on my own. So far, it has been selling modestly, and
received its first 4-star review on Goodreads.com. My editor, during an email
exchange about her status, had let slip that she was enjoying the story. It
gave me some reassurance that choosing to self-publish, and not begging for
representation, was the best choice for me.
What do you think about the future of book
publishing?
It’s unpredictable.
Look at Hugh Howey and Maria Murnane. These folks are making moves people never
dreamed of as self-publishers.
What genres do you write?
So far, I have
written science fiction novel and contemporary romance novel. I have a paranormal story in the idea mill,
probably to start once I finish the first draft of Voyaran, the sequel to
Dramani. I have a few short stories in other genres, but I love writing about
life-and-death situations, events that intensifies relationships and help us
value the things we take for granted. Science
fiction opens up more possibilities, and allows me to hit topics that are
somewhat taboo in today’s world. I can make you “understand” the antagonist’s
point of view from a scientific, logical, cold, inhumane perspective. Whether
you agree with it or not is a whole other story.
What formats are your books in?
In all formats
available today: paperback via CreateSpace, Kindle, Nook, Sony, Kobo, Apple
iTunes, and all formats available on Smashwords (pdf, txt, etc.)
Website(s)
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