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Interview with author Olga Godim

6/21/2015

June Jests continue here on my blog. (Clown noses and squirting corsages are optional.) Today, Olga Godim is my guest.

Thanks, Audra, for inviting me to your blog.

Any time, Olga. So tell us, when was the last time you laughed out loud while reading? Tell us about the book & what struck you as funny.

It was probably Jennifer Crusie’s first book Manhunting. I reread it recently. I love Crusie’s novels (she writes romantic comedy) and periodically go on a rereading spree. Why is this book funny? Hard to say. It has vivid characters, witty dialog, and wonderfully absurd situations. When I read it, it felt as if the author enjoyed writing it as much as I enjoyed reading it. It felt as if we laughed together.

Do you think humor can be incorporated into any genre, or are there genres in which it doesn’t work?

I think humor can be used with any literary genre. Even more, humor enhances any genre. There are funny sci-fi and fantasy stories, humorous mysteries and hilarious romances. Only boring fiction can’t be humorous – by definition.

Who is your favorite humor author & why?

I can’t really name one favorite humor writer but I can tell you a few of my favorite writers who use humor in their stories. Jennifer Crusie – I already mentioned her – is a romance writer. Terry Pratchett – many of his Discworld fantasy novels are hilarious. Lois McMaster Bujold – some of her sci-fi books about Miles Vorkosigan, especially The Warrior’s Apprentice, are hysterical. And then there is Georgette Heyer. She also wrote romances, and a number of them are side-splittingly funny.

How do you incorporate humor into your novels? Do you ever draw inspiration from real life?

I have a collection of urban fantasy short stories written with humor. All the stories are united by the same protagonists, a young modern witch Darya and her familiar, squirrel Beatrice. Beatrice is telepathic – she talks to Darya in her head. How could I write about an intelligent, telepathic squirrel without humor?

I don’t write hysterical funny, more like irony. I want my readers to smile or grin or chuckle. For example, in the beginning of one story, Darya dyes her hair blond. She likes her new look, but Beatrice disagrees and says so. She considers blond hair detrimental to one’s mental abilities. When later in the story, Darya does something stupid with her magic, Beatrice is not shy to point it out. Of course, she blames the newly-dyed blond hair.

And yes, real life often inspires me. Some time ago, my daughter dyed her hair blond. Then she did something stupid... and she didn’t need magic or a telepathic squirrel to poke fun at herself. I borrowed some of her expressions for this story.

Another example of life inspiring humorous fiction would be one of my magic realism stories. Several years ago, I was upset about my lack of publishing success. I was making dinner and pouring my grievances aloud into the kitchen sink while I peeled potatoes and cut chicken. I was alone in the house, so nobody could hear and ridicule me. Then I thought: why don’t I channel my frustration into a more creative outlet and write a story about it. What could happen if I added a fantasy element? Maybe my protagonist would complain to her kitchen sink, turn on the water, and a water sprite would splash out from the tap? Maybe the water sprite would start talking to her? Maybe it could offer her help to find a publisher in exchange for... what? What would a water sprite want in exchange? And how would a water sprite go about finding a publisher for my heroine? So the story was born and published by a magazine a few months later. It’s available for free now on my wattpad page: http://www.wattpad.com/story/19762859-trading-wishes

And now for some THIS or THAT questions:

Brooklyn Nine-Nine or Big Bang Theory?

Big Bang Theory

Erma Bombeck or Dave Barry?

Neither. Jon Stewart

Much Ado About Nothing or A Midsummer Night’s Dream?

Much Ado About Nothing

Silly animal videos or cute kid videos?

Neither. TED Talks. Some of them are marvelously witty

Thanks for being a good sport today, Olga. For more information about Olga and her books visit:

Website and blog:      http://olgagodim.wordpress.com
Twitter:                       https://twitter.com/OlgaGodim
Smashwords:                         https://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/OlgaGodim1
BookLikes:                 http://olgagodim.booklikes.com/

And to Buy the book:

Smashwords https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/423740
Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Squirrel-Magic-stories-Olga-Godim-ebook/dp/B00JNFG750/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1397367918&sr=8-2&keywords=olga+godim

2 Comments

Love Poem Challenge - Olga Godim

2/7/2015

12 Comments

Winner - Honorable Mention!

About the Author:
I’m a freelance writer and journalist from Vancouver, Canada. My articles appear regularly in local newspapers, but my passion is fantasy fiction. I write it and I read it. My short stories have been published in multiple internet and print magazines. My fantasy novels ALMOST ADEPT and EAGLE EN GARDE were recently released by Champagne/Burst. An anthology of my short urban fantasy stories SQUIRREL OF MAGIC is available at Smashwords and Amazon. My favorite occupation is curling on a sofa with a good book. My collection of toy monkeys is taking over my house.

The Poem:

Space-faring cats
And heroic PIs,
A dragon atwitter,
A duke in disguise,
Calamitous teens
And capricious elves,
My joy, my escape,
My beloved bookshelves.

Olga Godim

Enjoy the poem? How about this:

My fantasy novel EAGLE EN GARDE takes place in Talaria, a kingdom surrounded by a magic-resistant spell. While the king wishes to break the spell and invite magic back into the country, the fanatical sect of Cleaners rampage against magic. Darin, the novel’s protagonist, doesn’t participate in the discussions. He is a swordsman, a mercenary officer, not a philosopher. Then he accidentally overhears the Cleaners’ hidden agenda to destroy all magic workers in Talaria, including witches and elves, and his orderly life is turned upside down. His sweetheart is a witch, his daughter is a half-elf, and he has many elven friends. He can’t allow the Cleaners’ murderous scheme to succeed, can’t allow innocents to suffer. But what can a lone mercenary do against a horde of extremists? His only choice lies in trickery and deceit to outsmart the devious Cleaners, and the anti-magic spell on the border suddenly becomes his only ally.

For more about Olga & her projects visit:
http://olgagodim.wordpress.com
http://olgagodim.booklikes.com/
http://www.wattpad.com/user/olga_godim

Buy links:
* Champagne/Burst http://champagnebooks.com/store/index.php?id_product=343&controller=product
* Amazon http://www.amazon.com/Eagle-En-Garde-Olga-Godim-ebook/dp/B00K4PIH3S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1399432952&sr=8-1&keywords=olga+godim

To Vote:
Stop by this blog every 3 days to see the new poems. Leave positive comments on your favorite posts. Invite friends to do the same. Poems with the most hits & comments will win gift certificates for some on-line shopping -- and bragging rights, of course.

12 Comments

Interview with Olga Godim

10/20/2013

2 Comments

Break out the garlic and crucifixes, the paranormal writers are visiting my blog this month! Today I’m interviewing Olga Godim, author of sword and sorcery fantasy Almost Adept (due out January 2014). Thanks for being here, Olga!

Thank you, Audra, for inviting me here.

From where did you draw inspiration for Almost Adept?

A writer’s imagination works in a mysterious way. This particular novel started for me, when I read Mercedes Lackey’s Magic’s Price – the final book of her trilogy about Vanyel, the last herald-mage of Valdemar. In the book, the hero dies in the end. I dislike such endings, so I started fantasizing: what if he didn’t die? What if… One thing led to another,
until Vaniel transformed into someone else entirely, relocated to my imaginary country of Varelia, had a wife and a daughter. Considering that in Lackey’s book he was gay, such a transformation was really drastic. He changed name, and his daughter became Eriale.

Strangely, when I started thinking about Eriale’s adventures, they came to me backwards. First, I wrote a story about her, when she was about 30 years old. This story exists on my computer as the first draft of a novel. I’m going to revise it soon. Then I wanted to see how she started on her magic path – and Almost Adept got written.

Tell us about Almost Adept in 25 words or less.

For Eriale, magic is a source of joy, until she is faced with a terrifying task: to hunt and destroy a power-hungry blood
mage.

Did Eriale ever pull any pranks as a kid?

Of course. She had her magical power since she was about three, and like any kid, she tested her abilities and her limits. She played with magic. Once she flooded the cellars of her parents’ manor. It was a mistake, of course, a slight miscalculation of applied magic, but she got grounded for a month. Another time, she made her mother’s ball gowns dance by themselves, and she danced with them. Her mother was frightened when she came home and found all
her gowns frolicking independently downstairs, partnering her nine-year-old daughter. Eriale’s father and mentor had to punish her repeatedly, until she finally learned the hard lesson: she couldn’t use her magic for pranks or
practical jokes – ABSOLUTELY NEVER!

But magic was her life, and she used it to solve problems. Sometimes, such solutions got out of hand. Her latest escapade with magic was why she had to leave home in a hurry in the beginning of the novel. A young nobleman she fancied herself in love with insulted and almost raped her, and in retaliation, she turned him into a muttonhead, literary. She transformed his head into a sheep’s head. She knew she misused her magic almost as soon as the spell took. She should’ve broken his nose instead, but magic was her instinctive response, and she lashed out in her pain and frustration. It was only for one week, but the aristocratic parent of the young man didn’t understand. They
screamed revenge. She had no choice but to flee.

What was Eriale’s most embarrassing moment?

She fell in love with a guy, but he didn’t seem to care for her. When she tailed him to see where he was going, after he’d spurned her advances, she ended up in front of a brothel. Despairing of ever having anyone to love her, she decided to follow him in. Maybe she could learn something useful from the whores, if the only man she ever loved preferred them to her? Her experience inside the brothel was rather embarrassing but extremely enlightening.

This or That – questions to the character, Eriale

What animal would you prefer as a familiar: a cat or a bat?

Neither. I’m not a pet person, besides I don’t have time to care for a pet. But I had a familiar once – a pony. It was an
accident.

Who is scarier for you: a vampire or a dragon?

I’m not afraid of any creature. With my power of an Adept, not much can hurt me. Besides, I don’t think vampires exist. I’ve never read about them in any magic research books. Dragons do exist, even though I’ve never seen one. They live on another continent and can’t cross the ocean, but sailors sometimes bring their scales or claws. Once they brought a mummified head of a dragon – it was disgusting. I’d like to see a living dragon at least once. They’re creatures of magic. I wonder what I can do with their magic.

What would you transform you worst enemy into: a frog or a swine?

I wouldn’t do that at all. I did something similar once, and it was the worst mistake of my life. Never again! I would embarrass him instead: make him speak exclusively the truth at a social gathering or make him oink like
a pig for several days whenever he tries to talk or something similar. Or drop him into a huge clump of nettles naked and let him find his way out.

You can transform one living being into another, it’s possible, but it’s a very complicated spell and a brutal one. It takes lots of power and lots of knowledge. You have to learn every detail of the anatomy of your original creature and the target creature. Otherwise, you’ll create a monster. And the overall masses of both creatures should be the same. You can’t turn a man into a frog. Where would the extra mass go? Unless you want a frog the size of a man. But there is another solution, if I wanted to be flashy. I could use a transportation spell. You know, find a frog in a nearby pond, transport the man there and the frog here: kind of a switcheroo. Done properly, it only takes a moment. For a bystander, it would look like a transformation, but it’s a trick, really.

2 Comments

Interview with author Olga Godim

Love Poem Challenge - Olga Godim

Interview with Olga Godim

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