A Notepad and a Dream - Nadja Losbohm

 
In a series I'm calling 'A Notepad and a Dream', I'll be interviewing up-and-coming authors about their books, their writing process and their future plans.  If you have a book shortly due for release and would like to take part, or know someone else who would, please let me know via the 'Contact Me' page above.

 In the latest 'A Notepad and a Dream' episode, Nadja Losbohm talks translation, and stories that find themselves.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself and your novella series?

My name is Nadja, I’m 32 and live in Berlin, Germany.  Actually, I’m a dental nurse, but at times I transform into an author, writing fantasy stories for people all around the world.  I started writing at the age of 19.  My first German novel, called 'Alaspis', was published in 2012.  Since then I have been working on the self-published project, 'The Huntress'.  Parts 1-5 are available in German, but there’s also an English edition of Part 1 called, 'The Beginnings'.  This series of books is about a young woman who isn’t the right kind of person to be a supernatural heroine, but she and the reader find out that there’s more to her than being a faceless girl in the crowd.  I had a lot of fun writing the books and I think you notice that.

The protagonist in the 'The Huntress' series is Ada, a young woman who is selected to protect the world from supernatural devastation. To what extent does your own personality come across in your main character? 

I think it’s difficult not to add certain things to your characters.  It’s something that makes the people in your book vivid.  So, Ada and I do share a few things, like some of the experiences she goes through, our sense of humour, our will to not give up. Ada also doesn’t like Brussels sprouts, just like me, though I don't eat green vegetables at all.  But that’s another thing.


'The Huntress' contains elements of Urban Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult and Humour. Are there any particular challenges with trying to fit so much into one series? 

The writing process was quite easy.  It wasn’t me who found the story.  The story found me.  It wanted to be written, it seems.  'The Huntress' told me what she wanted to include and what not to. The only thing that challenged me was to write fighting scenes. That was a bit tough.

Which other self-published authors do you most admire, and why?

There are a few I admire for different reasons.  I’m very impressed by author Jason Tru Blood, who writes so many different stories: fantasy, romance, historical fiction, crime and lots more.  I cannot imagine writing in so many different genres myself.  I also admire authors Leisl Kaberry and Kasper Beaumont.  The worlds they've created in their books are just amazing, plus they’re very kind people.  I wish I could read more self-published authors.  There are incredible talents out there without a big publishing company behind them.

As someone who speaks (excellent!) English as a second language, how easy did you find the process of arranging for your work to be translated?

Getting 'The Huntress' translated was a nightmare.  I worked with a translator who quit after a few months for health reasons.  Then someone else translated the book, but I was told it wasn’t the way it should be.  So, the translating process had to be done again. It took more than eighteen months to finish the English version, a real emotional roller coaster ride.  But I just couldn’t give up.  That was not an option for me.  There she is: the huntress in me.

As a successful self-published author, what advice would you give to those seeking to follow in your footsteps?

Don’t give up! Do what you can, follow your heart, be grateful for every chance you’re given.

If you’d like to get in touch with Nadja, visit her on Twitter or Facebook.  She posts in English and German.

You can find all her books on Amazon, and she's hopeful that there will be more opportunities for readers to check out 'The Huntress' in future.

Combatting Bullying in the Workplace - a guide for Younger Workers

It's anti-bullying week here in the UK!  With this in mind, the lovely folks at Norfolk and Suffolk Foundation Trust asked me to pen a few thoughts on bullying in the workplace, with particular emphasis on younger workers.  This is a handy guide that you may wish to share with someone who you suspect may be being bullied at work.


Other resources: Anti-bullying.co.uk.

Trade Unions Congress website: www.tuc.org.uk.

Four Thousand Words reviews 'Ink', by Amanda Sun

Author: Amanda Sun
Publisher: MiraINK
Published: July 5th 2013
Pages: 384
Format: Paperback
Source: Bought

Add It: Goodreads, Amazon UK, Amazon US

Note: This review was first posted on Faye's blog, 'A Daydreamer's Thoughts', which comes highly recommended to all readers of fiction.  Thanks Faye! :)

Summary:
On the heels of a family tragedy, the last thing Katie Greene wants to do is move halfway across the world. Stuck with her aunt in Shizuoka, Japan, Katie feels lost. Alone. She doesn’t know the language, she can barely hold a pair of chopsticks, and she can’t seem to get the hang of taking her  shoes off whenever she enters a building.

Then there’s gorgeous but aloof Tomohiro, star of the school’s kendo team. How did he really get the scar on his arm? Katie isn’t prepared for the answer. But when she sees the things he draws start moving, there’s no denying the truth: Tomo has a connection to the ancient gods of Japan, and being near Katie is causing his abilities to spiral out of control. If the wrong people notice, they’ll both be targets.

Katie never wanted to move to Japan — now she may not make it out of the country alive.

** CAUTION ** This review contains spoilers ** CAUTION **

A girl, ordinary but special. A boy, misunderstood. Two dead mothers. Special powers. Fighting. Tears. A bag full of ‘My heart soared and I knew I couldn’t live without him’ cliches. Welcome to Young Adult Paranormal Romance fiction review.

In a genre where vampires, werewolves, zombies and faeries have received critical attention from every possible angle over the last few years, publishers are desperate to find something new and interesting, so Harlequin Teen must have been very pleased to find first-time author Amanda Sun’s novel about kami, spirits from the Shinto belief system, which in this particular incarnation take the form of individuals whose drawings come to life.

To walk us through this genuinely intriguing premise, we are introduced to spunky-but-vulnerable blonde-haired orphan gaijin teenager Katie Greene, who is living in Japan with a nondescript aunt due to an improbable set of circumstances with her extended family and US Social Services following the death of her mother. When she meets Yuu Tomohiro, a slouching, distant anti-hero who nonetheless guards an improbable heart of gold, she unwittingly stirs his kami blood to the point where dark and dangerous things start to happen.

So far, so good. Katie is a likeable if slightly bland main character, but Sun’s initial steps seem uncertain ones, with a notable over-reliance on colour as a visual medium in many scenes, including the one where we first meet Yuu. In the space of a few short paragraphs, we see his then-girlfriend’s black book, pink-and-silver nails, his own navy blazer and copper hair, and so on. The girlfriend is swiftly removed from the picture, and a pregnant might-be-girlfriend is introduced and immediately discounted within a few pages. This leaves the way open for Katie and Yuu, though their initial fleeting hints of romance are somewhat untidy, veering from the Bridget Jones-esque moment where she climbs a tree to prove to him that she can make an exit (simultaneously displaying her underwear to all and sundry) and a scene immediately afterwards where he tries to walk into her to intimidate her into leaving him alone.

Yuu is a vast disappointment as a love interest. He is an example of the stock teenage ‘bad boy’ mould, constructed directly from lazy cliches. In two consecutive scenes, we see him beating up boys much younger than him, and then when he thinks nobody is watching, he helps an old lady onto a train. Despite numerous references to how troublesome and dangerous he is, Katie is intrigued by his non-existent sense of mystery (where does he go when she’s not around?) and stalks him around the neighbourhood until she discovers that he breaks into a fenced-off archaeological site in order to be able to draw his magical sketches without attracting undue attention. Given that both his personality and his magical powers are still almost completely unexplored at this point, the idea of a dangerous guy who finds redemption through drawing sadly reminded me of the villain Raymond Calitri from the most recent film version of ‘Gone in 60 Seconds’ (2000). Calitri is an unintentionally comic figure, a supposedly vicious killer who nonetheless finds time to talk at length about his interest in carpentry. It is not a welcome comparison.

Characterisation is easily the weakest part of Sun’s debut. Without much effort on her part, Katie soon garners an alternative potential love interest called Jun, but he is suitably interchangeable with Yuu, given that the two have the same magical powers, the same interests and the same dependable white-knight qualities that seem so out of place in seventeen-year old males. Fortunately, Sun makes sure to avoid confusion between the two by giving them different coloured hair. The background characters are treated in a similarly off-hand fashion and seem about as substantial as the paper creatures that the kami create in the novel.

Since reading ‘Ink’, I have seen several online comparisons between it and the ‘Twilight’ series, a comparison which is to a degree inevitable given the subject matter and the lack of freedom that an author has to really explore their themes if they want to attract the attention of a major publisher these days. I cannot comment on the comparison as I have never read any of Stephanie Meyer’s work, but in common with the first ‘Twilight’ movie, the first half of ‘Ink’ moves at the speed of continental drift. However, unlike the first ‘Twilight’ movie, the midpoint in ‘Ink’ sees a dramatic improvement when the kami premise is explored and the characters actually start to do things.

Notably, there is a scene where in a bizarre attempt to force her away, Yuu takes Katie to a love hotel, treats her aggressively and kisses her forcefully. Without wishing to make light of the seriousness of the situation that Katie finds herself in, I have seen this referred to repeatedly online as a rape scene, and I can assure any potential reader that ‘A Clockwork Orange’, this is not. The truth is that the scene, like much of the novel, is so emotionally unengaging that I found myself wondering why it appears at all.

It is a tremendous shame that this sense of inconsequentiality pervades the novel to such an extent, given that Sun’s writing style is generally very good. Her dialogue is believable and enjoyable, and she does an excellent job of capturing Shizuoka through Katie’s eyes. Her use of pathetic fallacy is one example of technique applied subtly and unobtrusively. The settings, such as ‘the stomped-down grass and broken branches’ of Toro Iseki, or the ‘barnacle-encrusted base of the snaking orange hallways’ of the Itsukushima shrine, are distinctive and effective.

If my disappointment at ‘Ink’ is palpable to you, you should be aware that as a 35-year-old man, I am not the likely target market for this book. Nonetheless, I was quietly optimistic that ‘Ink’ had the potential to be genre-defining in the way that ‘The Hunger Games’ or ‘Divergent’ were. While it would do the book a disservice to describe it as an opportunity lost, it would be true to describe it as an opportunity that is not fully realised, for while the action scenes in the second half are well-observed, the characters left me feeling largely ambivalent and the romance seems thoroughly contrived. While I would certainly read more fiction by Amanda Sun, I would expect that the subsequent volumes in this particular series will pass me by.

Before I finish, I would like to make a special mention of the ‘Ink’ cover art, which on my pre-release copy is absolutely beautiful and one of the reasons I was attracted to reviewing it. Suffice to say, if Katie had been formed as well by her actions in the novel as she is captured in brush stroke on its cover, ‘Ink’ could have been something very special indeed. Sadly, it seems like it was not meant to be.