- Where can we find you?
My five sci-fi novels are available for sale, in both paperpack and E-book formats on Solstice Publishing and Amazon, and in PDF format at Fictionwise, Coffee Time Romance, Manic Readers, and numerous other E-Book sites selected by Solstice. My website is www.gbryansmith.webs.com/
- What is the link for the best review you have had?
My first sci-fi novel, Challenge To The Stars, was reviewed in 2009 by Coffee Time Romance and received “four cups” which is very good for the strict Coffee Time Romance reviewers.
The link for the review is:
http://www.coffeetimeromance.com/BookReviews/Challengetothestars.html
which you can highlight and paste in your browser.
- What’s your favorite cover you have seen recently? (feel free to add a picture but please try to keep it pg 13 lol!)
I am actually very pleased with the cover used on my fifth sci-fi novella, Amira, published early this year. I will give you the link on Amazon as follows:
Solstice Link:
http://www.solsticepublishing.com/products/Amira%252d%252d%252d-PDF-EBOOK.html
You can highlight either link and paste in your brower.
4. If you can have anyone read your book and give you feedback who would it be and why?
Without doubt, master horror writer Stephen King, who is not only the best at horror but, in my view and that of many commentators, the greatest fiction writer of the 20th and 21st centuries so far. Some people would assign that role to Thomas Pynchon (Gravity’s Rainbow) but I disagree.
5. What is it that addicted you to your genre?
I grew up in the 1960’s with the original Star Trek and that fine, fine sci-fi anthology, the original black and white Outer Limits which best-selling horror writer Stephen King has called the best program of its kind to ever air on network television. I read every “Golden Age” novel of Science Fiction I could check out from the library or buy off the drugstore paperback racks: the novels of Robert Heinlein, Poul Anderson, Andre (Alice Mary) Norton, H. Beam Piper, Lester Del Rey, Robert Silverberg, Clifford Simak, and others.
6. Your favorite author.
Stephen King.
7. If you have a day job how do you balance everything.
I am a self-employed attorney. In short, you have to be efficient with your off-work time if you want to write. I have written five sci-fi novels from late 2007 through the end of 2010 and I could not have pulled it off without a disciplined writing schedule. For me, that means generally three hours per weekday evening (if I am not preparing for court the next day) and considerably more time than that over the weekends. Over the Christmas and New Year of 2007, when I happened to be alone, I wrote the first draft of my first sci-fi novel Challenge To The Stars.
8. What does your writing schedule look like.
Again, at least a three hour writing block on the weekday evenings, and more than that over the weekend when I am immersed in a project. Ernest Hemingway commented that most people cannot ever finish a novel because they bog in the middle. There is always time to refine after you complete the first draft but you have to finish that first draft. I took that to heart. In each of my five novels, I hit the ground running to finish the first draft. Once that is done, I typically edit and rewrite at least two to three more drafts before I deem it “final.”
How long does the whole process take? It is said that Charles Dickens wrote A Christmas Carol in about 30 days. That may be do-able if you don’t work a day job as I do. Each of my five sci-fi novels took about four to six months from start to finish. I wrote Challenge to the Stars and Lizard World in late 2007- 2008. I wrote A Final Battle and The Master entity in 2009 and, finally, the novella (78 pages) Amira in August through December of 2010. Since Amira’s publication in early 2011, I have taken time off, having no further inspiration presently for the five novels/novellas which I call the “Colonel Kendrick Landry Space Adventure Series.” I don’t know for sure whether there will be a sixth Colonel Kendrick Landry story. Regardless, however, I do feel that there will be some writing project for me around the corner soon.
9. Have you ever came across a book you don’t know why a publisher published?
Yes, just go to the paperback stands and look at all the trade-published garbage by third-rate or worse writers. As they say, it is all in who you know.
10. Do you believe in self publishing?
Only if you have no alternative and you have plenty of money for publicity. “Legally Blonde” was self-published and made into a movie. The author spent a fortune on publicity. A better alternative for the average new author to break in exists in the “Indies,” or small independent publishers like Solstice. Large trade publishers are normally closed to new writers unless you have an established agent. In turn, most established agents will not take new writers as clients, a vicious cycle that feeds itself and bars most new writers from making the big time. A paradigm story is that Stephen King’s famous novel “Carrie,” made into a major motion picture, was rejected by the publishers some 33 times before one major trade publisher took a chance and picked it up. But the Indies at least give the new writer a chance for publication, some public exposure, avoidance of a gazillion reject slips, and a better choice than self-publishing.
11. Are you a believer in Karma?
The great cosmic “what comes around goes around.”
Frankly I don’t know. I do know that the world’s leading physicist, Stephen Hawkings, has recently expressed his view that there is no great beyond. In his view, life is generated randomly and spontaneously based on gravitational and other powerful but natural forces, and that is all there is to it. He compares the human brain to a computer hard drive and said, “I don’t believe in a heaven for worn-out hard drives.” Hawkings is a truly brilliant man, but then again, what does he know about it? That is his opinion—and you know what they say about opinions.
Check back tomorrow to learn more about G. Bryan Smith!
Bridal shop manager Chloe Rogers will soon marry Richard Foster—so she thinks—until suddenly, she bumps into her childhood sweetheart, Josh Goldman, whom she hasn’t seen in thirteen years. The sparks between Chloe and Josh fly, but Richard provides safety, financial security. Should she follow her heart or her head? The answer comes in a surprise twist. While cleaning her attic, she stumbles upon love letters written to her estranged mother forty years ago from a man she loved. When Chloe secretly brings them together again and sees how much time they’ve lost, she is challenged not to make the same mistake her mother made. Will Chloe opt for security or will she risk her heart and marry her true love? 
