 Hello all, now that I've "downsized" on the amount of blogging I do, and after discontinuing The Lit Chick Show, I will be bringing guests on "Sylvia Says" from time to time.
These guests will not always be authors, but in this case, today's guest is a paranormal suspense author, A. J. Scudiere.
The interesting thing about this post is that although A. J. predominantly talks about her latest book release "God's Eye", she inadvertently gives us a wealth of information about the kind of media that she uses in order to promote her book. Aside from paperback and ebook formats, A. J. talks about her book being released as an audio-movie, and she also utilises a website called The Smart Chickens Team where readers can sample her books and experience a chapter of her new book in audio-movie format. Her site also offers special discounts, collector's items of her novels and much more.
I found A. J.'s video refreshing and very informative. So please watch the video and find out all about "God's Eye" and the many ways A. J. is creating exposure for her novel.
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 Okay all, Mia Ferrari has a lot to celebrate this month. First and foremost, her creator, multi-genre novelist, Sylvia Massara, has unleashed her smartass, wise-talking, older-chick, wannabe investigator protagonist out into the digital world of publishing earlier this month. To celebrate, Sylvia then took over as Mia's alter-ego and went off to our country's capital city, Canberra, to catch the Renaissance Exhibition that is out here for a limited time, all the way from Bergamo, Italy.
Mia Ferrari and friend, Marie Giovenco, both super-cool chicks (pictured right) went off on a propeller plane (of all things) and flew from Sydney to Canberra, just a 30-minute flight, to go back to their roots and see some hot paintings by some hot Renaissance artists (not stolen hot, but hot as in fantastic). Poor Marie (pictured to the left of Sylvia) wasn't sure whether to call her friend Sylvia or Mia. So she made the best of it and didn't call her by name; she simply enjoyed the day!
 In raptures over paintings from Raphael, Botticelli, Perugino, and others, the girls loved this one, painted by Giovanni Bellini, circa 1488. It felt so wonderful standing in front of something that was so perfect and which was painted some 524 years ago. With her love of Renaissance, both Sylvia and Mia were in raptures; and so was friend, Marie :-)
 And here is another to wet your appetite; this one by Lorenzo Lotto. Ah, la bella Italia ... What more can I say? We're all about talent, pasta, Vespas and Ferraris!
The day was great. The month was great, as Mia Ferrari was unleashed, but what was even greater was that Sylvia's novel had her first review by none other that the queen of mystery/suspense from Florida, author Darcia Helle.
Sylvia was terrified when she asked Darcia to be brutal, and this is what Darcia came back with:
"Mia Ferrari is a fun and adventurous woman in her late forties. In this first book in the series, she leads us through a tangled web as she plods along in her quest for answers.
I really enjoyed Mia's character, as well as her supporting cast. At times this book made me laugh. Other times I'd find myself nodding in understanding. The pace is quick, the mystery a bit of a whodunit that allows readers to figure things out along with Mia."
I immediately wrote back and told Darcia that getting this kind of review from her, an author I highly esteem, is like getting a blessing from the Pope. LOL. Thank God, we're not living in the Renaissance period now though; for if I'd said something like this in the 1500s I would have been burned at the stake for being a heretic!
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 Okay, this is really spooky. It seems that every time I write a novel I am either on the way to fulfilling some kind of unknown or subconscious prophecy, or my life changes in such a way that I start to become like the main character in my novel.
For instance, when I wrote the romantic comedy, The Other Boyfriend (TOB), in 2010, there were certain elements in the story that at the time were mainly fiction but partly based on an old ex-boyfriend. But lo and behold, within months of publishing TOB my marriage broke up and I discovered in my ex-husband aspects of the lying, cheating and thieving person he turned out to be--and which he shared with one of the characters in TOB! Ironically, when I started my first draft of TOB, I hadn't even met my now ex-husband. Yes, I started working on TOB about a year before I met him!
Now, I have just finished writing Playing With The Bad Boys--A Mia Ferrari Mystery; and suddenly, I've started to become more like her: confident, sassy, doesn't suffer fools gladly, assertive, strong, and a whole lot more. Well, I've always possessed these personality traits, but now they have become a lot more pronounced. And what's really strange is that Mia Ferrari works for a hotel group and this is where she stumbles upon her mysteries. Now, only this week, I have started consulting for a hotel group! You see, my bread and butter comes from consulting (this is until I become famous like JKRowling. LOL), and in between my consulting I write.
One of my present clients is a wholesaler and I have been consulting to them for 20 months. But as soon as I finished writing Mia's first mystery I landed my second client, and sure enough, like Mia, I will be working within a group of hotels Australia-wide. So how's that for spooky? I only hope that when I start consulting this coming week I won't stumple upon a dead body, like Mia does in her first mystery!
I know that writers draw from their life experience, but it all starts to get a little weird when something I write about ends up happening in my life at a later stage. On the upside, this sets me to thinking that I should write about winning Lotto! Hmm. Food for thought.
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