“Jude and Nina are the epitome of that whole raw, unflinching love thing that most people are jealous of. That is, until Jude dies and wakes up in The Waiting Room, surrounded by other souls who are all waiting to pass over into their next life. But unlike those souls, Jude’s name is never called by the mysterious “receptionist”. He waits, watching Nina out of giant windows. He’s waiting for her. What is this place? How long will he wait? And what will happen when and if Nina does join him? The Waiting Room is a story of not just love, but of faith, predestination, and philosophy, friendship and self-actualization, of waiting.”
Alysha Kaye Author of The Waiting Room Interview
Today I’m spotlighting newly published author Alysha Kaye. Her debut novel The Waiting Room was just released at the end of June and we are fortunate to be a part of her tour.
I immediately wanted to be involved with this tour when I saw not only the premise of Alysha’s novel but also the fact that she’s a teacher. This old man holds a fondness for the noble profession.
Alysha received her BA in Creative Writing from Texas State University and was accepted into Teach America ending up in of all places, Oahu, HI. I am still recovering from that piece of information.
But even Hawaii, where she received her Masters in Education from the University of Hawaii couldn’t keep her from the her home state where she now teaches 7th Grade in Austin.
Now for the interview!
Having read the summary of The Waiting Room, I just had to start off by asking;
RW: Where did the idea for the book come from?Was it some event or what that sparked the idea?
ALYSHA: I had a dream about waiting for my boyfriend after death. I was in a strange room that looked a lot like an airport terminal. I wound up writing him a (very cheesy) poem about it and somehow, that became an entire novel! I just couldn’t get it out of my head.
RW: Alysha, I know from having been in the classroom that free time is rare, even at home. Many people don’t realize the time you have to put into teaching, unless you have a very good system in place. How do you balance teaching and writing, managing the other aspects of your life?
ALYSHA: It’s extremely hard! Teaching is exhausting, especially my lovely middle schoolers haha but I adore them. I try to get all of my lesson planning and grading done at school so that when I come home, my night is free for writing/blogging, and everything else in between.
RW: I know from reading what I’ve written things surprise me in what I learn. What did you learn about yourself while writing this book?
“It is the end of fall in the kingdom of Alymphia. Princess Aria and Prince Hob are readying themselves for yet another Fall Passing Festival. But unbeknownst to them, change is coming to the kingdom. Change brought on by dark forces and events that occurred generations prior. And those changes will unfold over their lives like a flood that nothing can stop.
In another place and another time, a mysterious prince walks the world, trusted steel at his belt and a mystical stone imbued with magic at his neck. He is looking for a word that has never been said; a word that would save his love from the grip of an ancient beast.
The WorldMight is a fantasy imbued with romance and mysticism. It is a classic tale of love truer than time, a spiritual journey in a world heavy with secrets and magic. Despite spanning generations and more, it is also a very personal story of devotion, jealousy, and redemption.”
Interview with Cyril Bussiere Author of The WorldMight
One of the very talented people I have come to know since starting up this site is Cyril Bussiere a Poet, Musician, Intellectual, and Author of The WorldMight, all of which I am jealous of. Renaissance man perhaps? We’ll go with that. Oh, and did I happen to mention Photographer as one of his gifts as well?
Yes, I hate on him sometimes, because he’s just so good at everything. It doesn’t help that he is also French and so does that cool French accent thing. If I didn’t like the guy so much I might just throw myself under a bus, but then I would miss out on what next creation he came up with.
I asked Cyril if he would be willing to do an interview and he kindly and generously said yes. I won’t waste much more of your time now. I’m just glad this isn’t in sound so I don’t have to hear the cool accent compared with my slow Southern accent, y’all.
RW: Okay, Cyril, first thing first, where do we get a copy of your book, The WorldMight?
CYRIL: At this moment it’s available at Amazon for Kindle.
RW: Now that everyone has left the interview to buy your book I will ask a few questions. You were born and raised in France (yes he speaks French-for real, I was not just saying that earlier) and then came to the United States to continue your University studies, why? Why Utah and then Texas? Those are three very different environments I would think.
CYRIL: This is a good question and worthy of a long answer. Right after high school I joined the University of Medicine in my home town.
During Christmas that year I read On the Heights of Despair by Emile Cioran and it sent me into a rather deep spiritual and existential crisis in the light of which life, let alone school, became irrelevant.
RW: I think we all get like that sometimes. But you came out of it, obviously.
CYRIL: After a few difficult months, I gathered the tools to fend off the dark doubts and uncertainties that plagued me. My mother nonetheless decided a change of scenery was in order for me. One of my best friends from high school was already studying in upstate NY and so at the end of that year I joined him and enrolled in the small community college there.
RW: That is seriously a loving Mom there. But that is New York, where does the Utah stop come in?
CYRIL: What was supposed to be a one year stay turned into more. I transferred to Alabama where I attended the University of South Alabama in Mobile, a proper university but still not too expensive -my family was already making great financial sacrifices for me to be in the US, (it’s crazy expensive here compared to France where it’s almost free -Med school was $300 a year.)
A year later, it was decided that if I was to graduate, it might as well be from as good a school as possible. That’s when I moved to Salk Lake City, Utah, where I finished my B.S. in Biology at the University of Utah. After that I worked for a year at UC Davis as a lab tech (my old lab from U of U had moved there right before I graduated).
In the meantime, I applied to grad school, mostly randomly, to places that had good funding for research. At the end of my year in California, I took a 4 months break and traveled South East Asia solo. I was in Bangkok when I got the news that I was accepted at UT Austin. I spent the next seven years there, getting my Ph.D. in microbiology.
So to sum it up, it was mostly through chance that got me where I am. I knew almost nothing about all the places I moved to throughout the years and it’s all been great.
RW: I’ll have to talk to you about South East Asia another time. That must have been amazing. But for not in regards to your writing, coming from more of a biological/medical background to now writing novels, are there medical aspects in your work, your literary creations?
CYRIL: Not at all. My research was not medical, it was more basic science, how-does-this-work type of stuff. Although I’ve done a lot of scientific writing in my time, science has not influenced my creative writing. I do have a few ideas for potential novels that involve scientific aspects, but that’s in the ‘if and maybe’ realm.
RW: Your parents were obviously great encouragers and supporters in your education, did they encourage your writing as well or perhaps a teacher saw something? Where does the writing influence come from?
CYRIL: I’m not sure where it comes from. As far as I can remember I always wrote, though mostly short form and poetry. My parents always read a lot and I guess they passed it on to me, and that in turn inspired me to write. I think it comes down to a need for creative expression.
RW: How would you describe your style of writing? You write poetry and have most of your writing life, now you write a novel, how different and challenging did you find it?
CYRIL: My writing can change drastically from day to day, and that makes it difficult to assign it a style. For example my first novel, The WorldMight is a very poetic work, while the book I’m currently working on has a very crude and raw style.
Going from poetry to novel was a daunting prospect I had shied away from all my life. The WorldMight was not planned as a novel. Initially, it just wrote the prologue one morning, it came to be on its own, and could have been just a longish fiction blog post. It came from a ‘free his love’ idea that I had almost two years prior and mostly everything else in these paragraphs was improvised. Somehow I kept on writing after it, and everything I created past that point, the world, its magical rules and the overarching plot flowed from these first words and ideas.
RW: With the ‘daunting prospect’ and the ‘plot flowed’ comments being a bit at odds, how long did it take you to finish The WorldMight? I know the idea was probably daunting but apparently you flowed well once starting.
CYRIL: It took about 14 months to write the first draft. A couple of months after I finished it, my wife and I took a nine months break to thru-hike the Pacific Crest Trail and do volunteer work in Nepal, so I didn’t touch it during that time. When we got back home at the end of last year, I got started on the editing process and that took another four months.
RW: That is great to know. A lot of the ‘experts’ say you need to walk away from your manuscript for a period of time to then come back to it fresh.
You mentioned a new project that is very different form The WorldMight. What is it that you are working on now and when can we expect it in our hands?
CYRIL: Right now, I am working on a novel, BLUR. The story takes place in Austin, TX, and follows Barrett, a scientist and wannabe writer, and, Pete, the protagonist of Barrett’s first novel. In it I explore love, lust, and the effect childhood experiences have on intimate relationships. It’s a raw, sometimes graphic work, that’s very different from my first novel. I’m six chapters short of being done, so I hope to have it out by beginning 2015.
RW: Very different idea from The WorldMight. But I’ve read some on your site, especially the short story series you have going called Vamp, which I have to say is very unique take on the Vampire idea, so I know there is a different side of your writing and that you like to break out and expose your different ideas.
Now, Cyril, You wrote a novel for 14 months, what did you learn about yourself while writing The WorldMight?
CYRIL: First thing would be that I can write a novel. That was not something I was sure of until the epilogue was finished.
Second, that I don’t have much control over the writing process. It happens more than I make it happen. It’s both engrossing when it flows and utterly frustrating when it doesn’t.
Third, that I pour a lot of who I am in my characters. They might be very different from me, but there’s always a crucial aspect about them that is a reflection of an aspect of my own persona. Sometimes, I don’t see it right away and it’s only on the umpteenth reread that it jumps at me, but it’s always there.
RW: I share the same opinion. No matter how much you want to go in one direction it just goes where it wants to. Now, what did you learn about the writing while working on The WorldMight?
CYRIL: That it’s hard. It’s like the blank page is my foe and we’re doing some kind of dance of seduction of the to-the-death kind and half the time I win and she bends to my will, and the rest of the time, I try and try but end up deleting hours of bad writing.
But in the end, you just have to keep on going at it, keep the floodgates open, until something decent comes out. I find that often the good stuff is inspired by the crap that came before it.
RW: Ah, when the floodgates don’t open what is your escape from writing when you are waiting for them to open again?
CYRIL: Something mindless. Right now I’m getting back into classical guitar after a five year hiatus, so I do a lot of that. I’m also involved with Big Brother Big Sister and my little lent me Grand Theft Auto V so I’m playing that too.
RW: Obviously the floodgates opened, you revised, what was the most challenging part of getting your book to the public?
CYRIL: The editing process was tough, especially cutting down 10% of it. It took me a while to come to term with the fact that I just had to, that great phrases that bog down the flow of a paragraph have to be axed without remorse, however beautiful they might be.
RW: What advice would you give a first time novelist venturing into publishing a book?
CYRIL: If in the writing stages, just do it. The confidence you’ll get from having written a book, whatever the quality, is utterly satisfying.
If you have written the book, do your research and figure out who your public is, how to reach it and what your options are.
RW: For me when I write I find lighting in my room influences how I write. You write songs, do you listen to certain kinds of music to help you write various scenes?
CYRIL: I don’t usually listen to music while I write. I find it distracts more than anything else. However, I do listen in my head to the sounds and music, if there is some playing, of the scene. It helps me soak up the atmosphere of the moment and write the character’s reactions more naturally in the given context.
RW: Writing does take time away from other aspects of life. What did your wife think of the time you had to spend writing The WorldMight?
CYRIL: I’m a morning person and my wife is not. I wrote in the mornings, 5-7am, while she was still asleep, so it didn’t really impact her.
RW: That works out great. Finally, what is your go to beverage while writing?
CYRIL: A light beer like a Shiner or a Blue Moon. But they don’t last long.
RW: I know you are currently unsigned by a literary agency, if you could hand pick one what qualities in an agent would you want?
CYRIL: Since I enjoy writing in various styles and in different genres, flexibility would be important in an agent. Also, given my attachment to well written sentences, one who is ruthless when it comes to editing would be a definite plus. And of course someone who would know how to get my work in the right hands both publisher-wise and to reader-wise.
I thank Cyril for agreeing to this interview. I must say he really agreed to help me out by doing so. My Friends here at RonovanWrites deserve to see the inside workings of getting to a goal and that real people write their dreams into reality.
If you are a fan of Cyril’s poetry then you MUST get this book. Just read the reviews at Amazon and the excerpts as well and you will see mention of his poetic style.
I ask everyone to make sure to visit Cyril at his site, cyrilbussiere.wordpress.com . You can also reach him by email at cyril.buissiere@gmail.com and of course as the whole of the world has a Twitter account, you can find Cyril there as well at @cyrilbussiere. Of course he and I are Twitter friends, and I also Follow his blog, so I’m not asking you to do anything that I don’t.
“A real adventure, epic and fantasy melt with some romance … you wish Alymphia and all its characters to exist, the prince and his quest of love and truth the writer does play with philosophical themes beautifully I really recommend the book !”-Review at Amazon
If you are a follower of Megan and have a facebook account, click like on her author page, https://www.facebook.com/meganelizabethmoralesauthorpage
If just half of us did that she would have a lot of supporters. Don’t worry about knowing who you are. She’ll just love having people support her. I even posted on my regular facebook page and my friends have clicked like for her. I think we in the community can do better than strangers can.
One of my followers suggested that I should post my Facebook Author Page so that you guys can see what I post! Feel free to follow me on that as well! I don’t update it as often as I do on here, but I think its swell!
Katniss Who? That’s what every new somewhat dystopian YA book with a heroine likes to say, “We’re going to make you forget Katniss.” The main character of Remy Alexander in The Sowing is not your typical stereotype. She is much different, and that’s only part of what is intriguing about the story. There are other concepts you can read on The Professional Project Site. They do a better job of explaining it than I could. I write about writing. You know, those who can do, those who can’t teach or write about it. Well I’m a former teacher who writes about writing.
A blurb? Comparing Hunger Games and The Seeds Trilogy is like comparing a Jackson Pollock painting and a Van Gogh. Both are visually appealing and entertaining but one gives you something not quite as real as the other.
The Professional Project Site:The Seeds Trilogy with the publication of the first book The Sowing: The Resistance Has Begun.
I recently spoke with Amira Makanski, the middle 1/3 of the Mother and Daughters creative team behind The Sowing: The Resistance Has Begun, Book One of the The Seeds Trilogy, and was much impressed with her passion for what she does and her being real. I could tell right away that her book is as half as full of spirit as she is then it will become a standard of measurement. She’s a very open and engaging person and the experience was entertaining, a pleasure and informative. I learned about her book The Sowing available to purchase in print and e-book.
Her story has personal characteristics and concerns that a true writer cannot but help but put into their creation. This isn’t just a fantasy for her, it is a heart felt, and well thought out world she has created. And she didn’t do it alone. Her co-authors and creators are:
I won’t go into details about the book, I leave that to you to visit their the official site which does a great job of explaining the YA and NA mix of adventure/science fiction/romance and overall inner/outer life struggles/turmoil of its main characters. The site gives a great overview of the story, the background, and even has character profiles and discussions about the world’s technology and shows some of the artwork with the characters.
I will say the world in some ways is almost a possibility which makes it even more of a must read.
There are twists on characters that will appeal to you, I even identify heavily with one of them. No character is one dimensional it seems. In a way it keeps you wondering what the person might do next in a given situation.
The heroine is not the typical cookie cutter versions of recent years and after reading the biographies of the authors you will understand why.
The only thing I would change about this project would be to have my name on it instead of theirs.
This was not an interview or review but simply someone impressed by a creator and creation and wishing to share it with other creators and potential readers. It’s out right now and the sequel is out this fall. Read it now so you aren’t behind.
Visit the site. You’ll enjoy the tour and enjoy the author bios.
novel! I just couldn’t get it out of my head.
ronovanwrites 