Meet Beth Barany.

 

Hi Beth! Thanks for joining us today. Tell us a little about yourself.

Award winning author, Beth Barany writes in several genres including young adult adventure fantasy, paranormal romance, and soon science fiction mysteries. Inspired by living abroad in France and Quebec, she loves creating magical tales of romance, mystery, and adventure that empower women and girls to be the heroes of their own lives.

For fun, Beth enjoys walking her neighborhood, gardening on her patio, and watching movies and traveling with her husband, author Ezra Barany. They live in Oakland, California with a piano, over 1,000 books, and their cats.

When not writing or playing, Beth runs her own company helping novelists as a book coach, speaker, and teacher to help them write, market, and publish their books to the delight of their readers.

           Social media links.

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bethbarany

Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/beth_barany

Instagram: http://instagram.com/bethbarany

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/bethbarany/

Goodreads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4169630.Beth_Barany

 

The Interview.

 

“Inspired by living abroad in France and Quebec…” If you could, set the scene of a memory where you knew it had to be incorporated into a story.

I spotted a cathedral spire from the distance. I was on a bus to a French town north of Paris to spend the night, feeling glum, because I had missed my flight to Italy from France. For some reason the spire gave me hope. Maybe the accidental layover wouldn’t be so bad, and I’d get to my destination just fine. Once I arrived in town and settled into the little hotel, I took a walk to find the cathedral.

It was mid afternoon. The fall air was balmy with a hint of the crisp evening to come. I approached what looked like to be the front of the cathedral. There were stairs leading to a plain wooden door, not even a double door. No figurines lined the lintel. No angels, no bishops, no fabulous creatures marked the door as important. How odd. A front door that wasn’t a real cathedral front door.

Because this was a cathedral, most likely build in the Middle Ages. I’d seen the tall spire from miles away.

I walked around the grand building, passing a gated manor house and came to the back of the church. A small vegetable garden nestled up against the back door.

The back door was a double door — decorated with stone lizards and monks, and even a dragon carved on the sides and arch of the door.

I’d found what once had served the front of the cathedral, but now only faced a garden and renaissance-looking housing—all red walls and tall pointy black sloped roofs.

By itself on a wall, only a few feet from the ornate back door was a gargoyle standing by his lonesome.

I was in love. I had to know about this gargoyle. I had to know about this odd cathedral with its decorated back door. I had to write a story about this small town of Beauvais, north of Paris, I’d stumbled into by accident.

And I did. This location and my discovery of the gargoyle became the basis of my novella, A Touchstone of Love, the first in my Touchstone series. (https://author.bethbarany.com/books/touchstone-of-love-romance/)

 

Novelist, book coach, speaker, and teacher. Do you find it difficult to juggle the many hats you wear in a day? To keep order, do you have set schedules for writing, your business, and your personal life?

I do find it difficult to juggle the many hats I wear in a day. But I have developed some systems to keep order, to stay focused, and to get work done.

One of the things I’ve done is devote the lunchtime break to writing, usually at one of my local cafes or at the local diner. I’m a midday writer. I have the most energy and enthusiasm to do creative work from about 11:30am to about 2:30pm. This type of lunch break works well when I am working on first draft material.

When I’m editing as I am doing now, I still can edit in the middle the day, but I’m finding that I am fitting in editing wherever I can. I prefer the quiet of my home for this type of editing work. Editing takes me a lot longer than writing the first draft, so I need to be able to work on it anytime and just about any place. Although I don’t usually work my books late at night.

For the business, I usually take care of administrative details in the morning. In the afternoon I usually take care of client appointments and meetings. If I don’t have appointments and meetings, I focus on business marketing.

I generally devote a few hours on Saturdays to marketing my fiction. I try to create schedules and systems even for fiction marketing, so that I can get to work on the things that need my special touch.

 

If you could write a story – a fanfiction really – for a world already written, where would it be and why?

I’m really quite enameled with “SG-1,” the long running TV show based on the movies, “Stargate.” I’d write fan fiction for that. I’m especially curious to write (or read, LOL) a story written by the Daniel Jackson character, the archaeologist.

In fiction, I’d write far future fan fiction in Elizabeth Moon’s science fiction Vatta world.

 

What is your favorite cliched romance trope?

I like friends-to-lovers. I also really like second chance romances.

 

What is the weirdest topic you have ever researched for one of your novels?

Don’t cringe—I researched what a body looks like dead for my science fiction mystery series, forthcoming.

Maybe also weird is how to build a space elevator; how brain-computer interfaces could work; what the future of coffee cultivation could look like in 100 years; and nanomaterials for clothing; and what the constellations look like from high-Earth orbit.

Those are just some of the weird things I’ve been researching lately.

 

Was there any scene or character you had to cut in one of your novels that you kept because you couldn’t part with it (them)?

I can’t think of anything. My critique partners have been great at convincing me of scenes or partial scenes to cut where there wasn’t enough conflict.

 

Is there anything else you’d like to share with the readers today?

Readers can sign up for the 1^st chapter of my YA fantasy here: https://author.bethbarany.com/free-excerpt-to-henrietta-the-dragon-slayer/

 

For my paranormal romance, they can check out the 1^st book in the series (the one about the strange cathedral and gargoyle) here: https://author.bethbarany.com/free-romance-story/.

 

 

 

Thank you, Beth for stopping by Bookish Looks!