The Character Connection: fiction

My thanks to Paul H. Magid for stopping by The Character Connection for an author interview during the blog tour for his book, Lifting the Wheel of Karma.

1. Who is your favorite character?
I consider my novel, Lifting the Wheel of Karma, to be my baby, so by extension, all of the characters are my babies. But if I have to make a literary Sophie's Choice, I have to go with my main character/protagonist Joseph.

2. Why is he/she your favorite?
He is my favorite character because endures unrelenting suffering, yet perseveres to emerge on the other side of The Dark Night Of The Soul.

3. How did you come to create him/her?
Joseph is a fictional character who evolved from my own spiritual journey.

4. When did he/she first enter your mind?
He came to me all the back in 1986.

5. Where was he/she given life in the creative process?
Joseph has been with me from the very start.

6. What do like the most about him/her and what do you dislike the most about him/her?
What I like most about Joseph is that he will not quit. I can't say that there is anything that I dislike about him. He does, of course, as a main character in a mythological story, have a flaw and it is his journey that helps him to become a fully evolved human being and spirit.

About the Book
Lifting the Wheel of Karma

Book Details:
Price: $15.00 paperback, $9.99 Kindle
Format: Paperback, Kindle
Publisher: Point Dume Press
Published: September 2011
Pages: 192
ISBN: 9780984016068
Genre: Fiction, Spirituality
Buy Links: Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kindle

Blurb:
A Profound Spiritual Journey of Extraordinary Healing and Redemption - a modern tale that harkens back to the myths of antiquity. It takes you on a remarkable journey, while exploring the themes of healing, redemption, forgiveness, sacrifice, and ultimately...peace within.

Joseph Connell is a gifted high school athlete from Montana, loved deeply by his family, yet tormented by nightmarish visions he can neither explain nor escape.

He believes the answer to what threatens to crush him can be found in the knowledge possessed by a mystical old wise man, who lives deep within the remote Himalayas of India.

If Joseph is ever to find the peace he so desperately seeks, he must get this wise old man to reveal what he truly knows, but that will not be easy…for this sage knows far more than he admits.

About the Author
Paul H. Magid

Paul H. Magid started writing his debut novel, LIFTING THE WHEEL OF KARMA, twenty-five years ago while still in high school. It took him so long to complete because he tried repeatedly to abandon it, but the work refused to be forsaken. Eventually he realized that sharing this story with the world was, in fact, his Dharma.

Along the way he has worked as a Wall Street financial analyst, a waiter (not a very good one), a Hollywood Agent Trainee, a real estate developer, a summer day camp director, an award winning screenwriter, and independent filmmaker—including his autobiographical film, A LIFE UNFINISHED, which screened in The Hamptons International Film Festival.

Connect with Paul:
Web Site
Facebook (book)
Facebook (author)

About the Tour

Tribute Books Blog Tours

Lifting the Wheel of Karma Blog Tour Site

Tour Participants:

January 1 (review)
Dad of Divas

January 2 (review)
Crazed Mind

January 3 (review)
Minding Spot

January 4 (review)
Live to Read

January 5 (review)
vvb32 reads

January 5 (author interview)
You Gotta Read Reviews Guest Blog

January 6 (review)
Tic Toc

January 6 (review)
Tribute Books Mama

January 7 (author interview)
Tribute Books Mama

January 8 (review)
Red Adept Reviews

January 9 (author interview)
I Am A Reader, Not A Writer

January 10 (review)
My Favorite Things

January 10 (review)
Knits & Reads

January 10 (review)
Adventures of Frugal Mom

January 11 (author interview)
The Book Connection

January 12 (review)
Book Dragon's Lair

January 13 (review)
Bibliophilic Book Blog

January 13 (review)
Concert Katie

January 14 (review)
My Tower of Books

January 15 (review)
Cheryl's Book Nook

January 16 (review)
Tribute Books Reviews & Giveaways

January 17 (guest post)
CMash Loves to Read

January 18 (review)
Community Bookstop

January 18 (review)
Satisfaction for Insatiable Readers

January 19 (guest post)
Community Bookstop

January 20 (guest post)
Splashes of Joy

January 21 (guest post)
A Bookalicious Story

January 22 (author interview)
City Girl Who Loves to Read

January 23 (review)
The True Book Addict

January 23 (review)
Proud Book Nerd

January 24 (guest post)
Proud Book Nerd

January 26 (guest post)
Ascroft, eh?

January 27 (review)
Whispering Winds Book Reviews

January 28 (review)
Scorpion Stalking Duck

January 29 (author interview)
The Plot Thickens

January 30 (review)
Celtic Lady's Reviews

January 31 (author interview)
The Character Connection

My thanks to Jacqueline Paige for stopping by The Character Connection with a guest post during the blog tour for her books, Curses and Dreams.

Guest Post

I was asked to explain how I develop characters in my writing. There isn’t just one answer to this; it varies from story to story.

Sometimes (rarely), if I’m lucky, my characters just come to me—everything from their name and profession, their problems or ‘issues’ right down to their bad habits and eye color. These are the stories that just fly onto the page. Of course not all stories can be this easy.

Other times I’ll have a partial idea for a character, one that I think fits the part, so the first thing I’ll do is picture what they’d look like and from there I’ll discover their name. I never know everything about one of my characters until I put them in a scene with others. This is where they usually surprise me with personality traits I didn’t know they had and sometimes these traits require a little more editing and rewrites.

Quite often I will write scenes that have nothing to do with the story I’m working on, just to see how the characters fit. It’s a good way to dig a little deeper into who they are and why they are the way that they come out on the page.

Occasionally I have come across a difficult character, Dominic from the first story in Dreams would be one of those hard to write ones. In the beginning he was fairly easy to write, and didn’t present any sort of challenge but then he closed up and I had a hard time dragging anything from him. It was a good thing that Jennah was a strong character with some spine or the story may have just stopped. She was able to drag more out of him than I was.

Only once or twice have I had to put a story on the back burner and move ahead with something completely different because my characters would not help me out and share.

Over all I’ve been lucky to be able to write a wide variety of characters with all different types of personalities. Anything from quirky, timid or loud to misunderstood, injured and maternal. It has been brought to my attention recently that I write sarcastic characters very well and it seems the readers like those with a little sass behind them.

About the Book
Curses

Book Details:
Publisher: Self-Published
Published: October 2011
Genre: Fiction/Paranormal/Romance
Format: ebook

Price: $5.99

Buy Links: Amazon

Blurb from Behind the Mask:
In a fit of temper, Gracelyn’s only sister curses her so she’s forgotten the moment anyone turns away from her. Only one thing, at an exact moment, can break the curse. After years of failed attempts, she is forced to accept living her life completely alone. Her world becomes calm and predictable —until one Halloween night … one costume party … and one masquerading man change everything.

Blurb from This Ring:
Devastated Emma flees to a cabin on an isolated lake to attempt putting her life back together. How she’s going to accomplish this she has no idea— the only thing she knows is she can’t go back and will never be able to trust again.

Bryce spent forty years trying to figure out how he ended up in the strange situation of not being alive or visible—it’s when he stops trying to find the answer he discovers the reason. Feeling that deep in your soul connection with another was what he was lacking all along. Now if he can convince the woman he feels it for, he may have a chance at living once more.

About the Book
Dreams

Book Details:
Publisher: Self-Published
Published: September 2011
Genre: Fiction/Paranormal/Romance
Format: paperback & ebook
Pages: 326

Price: $14.99 paperback; $6.99 ebook

Buy Links: Amazon, Kindle

Blurb from In Our Dream:
Jennah Best left the adrenaline packed life of being a cop on the edge for a more peaceful place. She escaped a marriage that almost destroyed her and now lives her life working for a small police station in the town of Ridge. At her age, she’s accepted that it’s too late and too much work to start all over again, until she meets a man in a dream...

While young, Dominic Palmer has always proven he can get the job done. Or at least, that was the case before he accepted a job and agreed to go undercover as an inmate. When months go by and there’s no word from his outside contact he wonders if he’s been left on the inside for good. He’s fighting to stay alive and keep his sanity, but finds himself completely distracted by a mysterious woman he met in a dream...

Blurb from From A Dream:
Jennah has found happiness. She wasn’t looking for it but isn’t about to give it up now that she has it. Everything she craved for years was now right in front of her--a man that makes her feel cherished, a peaceful life, and a job she enjoys. It all changes when she wakes up in a dark hole, alone, unarmed and unable to connect with the one man she’s grown to need.

Dominic realizes he is one of those men that wants the whole package of marriage and a family, and he’s found the woman to have that with. He’s going stir crazy having to stay hidden until the leader of a criminal organization is caught, but he’s more than willing to stay right here with her.

All of his plans evaporate when a vindictive criminal takes her from him as a hostage. He won’t rest until she’s in his arms again.

Blurb from After the Dream:
Feeling less then worthy as a normal man surrounded by a team with special skills, Brody has to wonder why he’s a part of it. If it weren’t for one team mate being there, he’d transfer back to normalcy.

Tess has always felt like a freak, even surrounded by others that are different she still feels like an outsider. Only one of her team mates make her feel like an everyday person.

About the Author
Jacqueline Paige

Jacqueline Paige is a world class multi-tasker being a mother to five adventurous and unpredictable children, a cafe manager and having a colossal imagination that allows her to step outside of reality into a world of paranormal romance —with just a touch of suspense.

Jacqueline lives in Ontario, Canada and avoids the ever changing weather of the region she lives in by creating other worlds to fall into in her stories of all things paranormal.

Her first book was published in 2009 and since then has published ten. She is always writing and currently has more than a dozen stories in one stage or another of the writing process.

Connect With Jacqueline:
Web Site
Twitter
Facebook

About the Tour

Bewitching Blog Tours