Transcript of the Show

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Hello and welcome to the Finding Elara Podcast. Building worlds with words and sharing those words with the world. A podcast for writers, world builders and artists that would like to take a mindful look inside their creations. My name is Dianna and Elara is the world I created for a fantasy novel. In this podcast I will take a deeper look at the world around us and delve inside other works of art, over time we will find Elara.  

Music

Hello and welcome back to the Finding Elara Podcast This is episode number 5 and I have been really busy this week continuing on with my Christmas story I've been delving further into the pre-christian holidays so Bacchinalia, Saturnalia, different types of christmas' around the world and what people actually do to celebrate. I haven't got anything to share just yet I am hoping next week maybe I can give you a bit of an excerpt. I have had a few more responses come in through my email which is amazing. Thank you for taking the time to send things through. I have been told that it sounds a lot like I am talking at people and not to people so this time I am not reading from a script. I actually have dot points to use, so hopefully that makes the sound a little bit better. Also in my emails people have asked quite a few questions about my Elaran world so I am thinking next week I am going to do an episode on just answering those questions. There's too many to fit in this episode with my interview with Georgia.

Anyway, on to this show This week I have been talking to Georgia Tingley.  A west Australian author who had released her debut novel Justice recently. I read it and I loved it I asked her if she wanted to come into the show and she said yes which is a bonus. I talked to Georgia about mindfulness and her world building techniques. I surprised her a little bit when I asked her to read her favourite section in the novel. She knew what it was, she just had to find it. I actually met Georgia through Romance Writers Australia. We have been talking on email ever since she released the book.  She had been very open and honest with everything she has been helping me out with. She did send me a little blurb so I am going to read from that.

Georgia Tingley is a new player on the Author Scene with her break out novel Justice, the first book in the Angel calling series. She loves writing and creating stories so much that it has become her drug of choice. and freely confesses to being an addict. After deciding to take on the thrill of writing she hasn’t looked back. Having lived in various countries while growing up – India, England, Canada, New Zealand and Australia she calls Western Australia home, living near some of the best beaches in Australia. In her downtime she loves to read, read and read. Watch TV shows and movies, do sewing and crafts and get into the garden. Swimming and snorkelling are favourite pastimes and she tries to do laps at every opportunity.  She and her husband enjoy taking the caravan on trips into the Australian Outback and seeing as much of the ‘red’ country as they can.

I will have all of Georgia's contact information on the show notes. she has her own web page georgiatingley.com she is on Facebook Twitter and Instagram. But check out my show notes on dlnix.com/finding-elara and all of her contact information will be there. I hope that you will enjoy listening to what Georgia has to say and let's get on with the show. 

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Interview

D- Hi Georgia, how are you today?

G- I'm good Dianna, I am so happy to be on your podcast 'cause I've been listening to it and it seems really exciting and I am so proud of you that you're doing this. It's just awesome. 

D- Oh, Thank you! One step at a time. 

G- Well you're doing a good job. Better than a lot of us that are technically challenged in that regard. 

D- And I am so glad that you are here with me today. 

G- Oh it's a pleasure and I look forward to talking about different things with your listeners as well. 

D- So I thought I would start with mindfulness. How do you fit mindfulness into your day?

G- Well, there's a book that a read years and years ago that I religiously follow and it's called 'The power of your subconscious mind" by Doctor Joseph Murphy. I consider it my bible. The premise of the book is that if you believe in something without reservation and picture it in your mind. Your belief becomes a reality. So this can be a positive belief or a negative one. So basically, whatever you think about the most you attract. So if you think about positive things you attract positive energy and negative things, negative energy.

So almost every morning I wake up. I wake up early around 5, I lie in bed, I think about what I have to do this day. But I also think about things that I am thankful for in my life like, the main one is good health of my family and loved ones, glad that we have good relationships and things like that. Sometimes I go off in a tangent, then I try and bring my focus back and then at night just and I am falling asleep I do the exact opposite. I think  about all the things that I want, my goals, what's troubling me and I visualise how I can achieve this. I sort of handball all of this to my subconscious mind feeling confident that it will find the answers and it usually does. So whenever I have a tricky writing situation I do this. I usually wake up, I don't spring out of bed  with the answer, but I usually wake up feeling better. Then, sometime during the day I think "ohhhh. That's how I am going to resolve this issue" and it's like I had handed it over to my subconscious and try and visualise.

Say when I was going to publish I would visualise how I wanted the cover of the book and visualise how I want the pages to look. Things like that. So it's choosing positive visualisation and a lot of people used to say, you know, when they had a problem they would go "Oh I'll sleep on it" you know that saying? 

D- Yeah.

G- I'll sleep on it. Thinking you'll have the answer the next day. So it's pretty much like that and i am a big believer in that so that is what I do. To get that mindfulness into my writing. Not just my writing but everyday I do this.

D- That's amazing. You didn't hesitate and you were straight in with the answer there. 

G- That's because I was prepared for it.

D- That's good.

G- But it's true. I do do that and I tell all my family. I have loaned this book to everybody.  Even I have read it probably, it feels like a million times. You would be surprised at how many people, famous people, have used this. This visualisation of what they want. Use it as a goal. They even have sports people who will visualise themselves winning before they lay the game.

D- Very True.

G- Yeah. So if you have the right mindset it helps you in your life. Because I've actually got the printed book and it is underlines, it's highlighted, it's got little things written everywhere it's just a real mess as I have gone through it so many times. It's all dog eared and things like that.

D- That's the sign of a good book.

G- Yeah. A good self help book. 

D- I haven't actually heard of that one before. I do have quite a few but I will have to look in to that one. 

G- Yeah, it's a really good one. A really good one.

D- Ok so let's get into your writing. I have read your book Justice and it was amazing. Can you tell me how you were inspired to write that story and a little bit about the process you went through?

G- Okay so, years ago I was watching an episode of 48hrs which is a true crime T.V. show and there was a story about a young boy who disappeared in the city in the USA but I can't remember what city. His body was found months later trussed up and dumped in a vacant block. His parent were beside themselves and nagged the police for years and years. This was years ago, back in the, I don't know, sixties or something. His parents nagged the police for years to not give up. The police felt that they knew who had committed the crime but because of lack of evidence or witnesses, the murder turned into a cold case. Then eventually, this is a true story, eventually forty years later a police woman was assigned to this cold case and while investigating it she re-interviewed all the people and they started to talk. Because after so many years they were tired of keeping this secret. It turns out it was a young guy from the local neighbourhood, A guy who was this boys friend and even helped in the search for the body, even attended his funeral. Apparently he was jealous of him and because some girl liked him, so he killed him. Year later he bragged about it. When confronted as an old man he confessed. He said that it had been bothering him for years. So then, unfortunately the little boys parents had passed away by then and they never got that closure. So I thought to myself, you know. Oh those poor parents It would be the worst thing having your child disappear but never giving up hope that they will find the killer and they would see justice done. That's when I came up with the name Justice. I thought, wouldn't it be great if there were a super hero or angel that could find justice for all those murdered kids or missing children and find the killer.  That is living right under every ones nose like this one was. 

D- So you went a little bit deeper than that with your angels. You have a hierarchy system involved in the story.

G- Yep, I do. I decided to have a situation where these angels were humans who had numerous incarnations on earth and who were now promoted to be angelic beings and who were then assigned to help humans. In this case, Justice Smith, who is my protagonist, Is an angel who comes to earth to help human kind to bring justice to some wrong doing and bring closure to people. So in this case, in my book, a little girl disappeared in 1976. A thirteen year old girl just vanished and her parents are beside themselves but never gave up that they would find her. So, forty years later he's be commissioned to find her body. Because even thought everyone thinks she's disappeared she's actually been murdered. So, he comes to this little town and he finds when he digs up her body he finds the body, the bodies, of seven other children. All young girls. Then he realises that a cereal killer has gone undetected in this small community for a decade so he works to find justice and find evidence to get the person arrested. The romantic part in it is that he has a relationship with the murderers daughter. 

D- Unbenknownst to him though.

G- Yeah, unbenknownst to him. So he finds himself teaming up with her to uncover the truth. Not that she does that much and also he crosses boundaries because there is a heavenly rule that an angel and a human cannot be together. He crosses this boundary for this forbidden love. So that's pretty much my story.

D- The powers that the angel uses, how were you inspired to present them in your book?

G-That's a good question because the's pure imagination. But you know how in your podcast previously you have always talked about yourself being inspired by movies and things. 

D- Yep

G- Well I love the X-men movies with the mutants.

D- Yep.

G- So, I just thought wouldn't it be awesome to have these powers and so rather than make them a mutant I made it an angel who has these powers to raise these bodies out of the ground. Well I don't want to give the story away by saying what else he can do you know he is a warrior angel so he does fight. So, I was sort of inspired by that. The prologue, the opening scene, he digs up the bodies and he uses his supernatural powers to, rather than digging them with a shovel, to raise them out of the ground.  

D- Do all angels have that same ability or are they all different?

G- Yes I am writing a series and I am actually making different classes of angels so there is going to be a warrior angel and I do want to make the next story, for instance for the next story I'm writing is that angel in it is an angel of guidance. She hasn't got the warrior, she's got no weapons but she has other angelic powers that help her. So I've to two more stories coming after and same thing of different abilities and powers as angels to deal with the different problems that they are tackling. 

D- So the book is actually set in a small town in america. How did you gain the knowledge to have a town like that. 

G- Well I grew up in Canada. I lived, I didn't live in a country town in Canada, but where I lived was not, the landscape, and the plant life and vegetation and things was very similar to where I set this. Which was set in Oregon, so I drew on what I remembered to describe the area. For instance the trees, the river. The river actually, as a matter of fact, we used to go camping at a place called burnt river, which I was going to actually name the river in my book but I thought I had better not. The river was similar to that. There was pine trees, there was forest and of course I researched to find what trees grew in that area and wildlife that was in that area and things like that. So that's what I did. But when I was in Australia I lived in a country town for many years. I know how people in a small town think and I drew on what I remembered to describe the town. Not particularly the town that I lived in, but they are all kind of similar. All little country towns have main streets which is just the hive of activity at certain times of the day. Then at other times of the day it is almost like a ghost town. I love the way the cars are angle parked with wide sidewalks. Every town has a hardware shop and they have the local men loiter around outside. Every town has a Cafe which was the hub for breakfasts and coffees and you know almost every town will have a butcher, bakery, newsagent and things like that. I sort of drew on those experiences and even the police station was always, well in our town it was, at the end of the main street. I wanted to set that town to get that flavour of this little country town that everybody known what's going on or suspects but they don't do anything about it. 

D- Did you build the world outside in or inside out? Did you make all the streets and building first and then plop your characters in or the other way around?

G- The other way around. I had my characters and things and I knew I wanted my opening scene to be in the forest at night where is was kind of spookyish. 

D- Uh huh

G- I also knew that I wanted, like I said, it to be in little country town. So as I was writing, when I knew, for instance that he had to go to town and go to the police station and things like that I started to build that town and I pictured this is what the police station is going to look like and the police station can look down the main street. What the police see and when he, my main character walks down the main street, what he sees, what shops are there and I set it around about in between thanks giving and Christmas. So you know the town had started to put up Christmas decorations, there was Christmas music and there was tinsel in the cafe and things like that. So I painted it as I went along. 

D- Build as need.

G- Yep. Pretty much and I wanted my angel not to look like an angel. I wanted him to just be a regular human so that the other humans wouldn't suspect that he was another angel helping them and that's why he, when he transformed into his angelic being it was usually secretively and they were in a remote location or behind closed doors. Things like that so that the humans, I don't want the angel, one of their guidelines is that their footprint on the earth is to be minimal. So that they don't, It doesn't affect anybody, it doesn't change history doesn't go like oh latest news flash. Angels have been seen in Oregon.

D- So, where did you come up with the guidelines?

G- I just made them up. I just didn't want a story, like you know how there's a lot of books that have got, like true blood, the Sookie Stackhouse books where they, the humans and angels and vampires and werewolves and everything freely mix together. I didn't really want that, I just wanted a normal human life but with these angels that step in to help the humans. . 

D- Oh, so no vampires in your next book.

G- No, no vampires. I have got a vampire story planned for a future book though. 

D- Oh that's good.

G- So no vampires or werewolves in these ones. 

D- How did you approach world building angels into a small country town? You've pretty much said that you wanted them to be as human as possible but how did you approach that from a world building perspective.

G- One of the things I did was had them freeze a scene for only a few seconds because if you freeze something too long it will change history. I  don't want history to be changed so they only have the power to freeze something for a few seconds and even then they can only freeze the human, just briefly so I did that. In my next book I talk about that a more and they do more of that. They do more of that but in this book if he froze a scene when he needed, when it absolutely needed to be done. He used his powers when he absolutely needed them to be used. Another things is, having a little bit of a religious background, not that I am religious anymore, I knew that humans have been given, in the bible, god's given mankind free will, I don't want the angels to interfere with that by changing someones will. Like making making them do something they don't want to, they can put suggestions onto someones mind but they can't coerce them.

D- Uh-huh

G- So that's what I kind of wanted. So just guiding the humans and not controlling them.

D- That's fair.

G- That's what I wanted. Because humans, we still have to make our own mistakes and correct them. Be responsible, answerable and own any of the mistakes that we make. You know, I'm a big believer and I say this in the book too, things that happen in your life are life lessons that you're meant to learn from. Other than go, why did this happen to me. I feel like this happened to me for a reason I need to take that into account. What can I learn from this bad thing that has happened or good thing and use it to make me a better person.

D- Definitely.

G- Yeah so I think that I let my own ideas come into a story. 

D- I think that you can't help that as a writer. Some of yourself always trickles in for a little bit.

G- Absolutely, One of the things that you'll know, with me, when I am drinking tea or coffee I have three sugars.

D- Uh-huh

G- Everybody always goes on about it. I literally only have probably one cup a day. I am not a big coffee or tea drinker so I think like oh well I am only having one cup a day so I made my angel have, I don't know if you remember, but he had 3 sugars in his coffee. One of the lines from the book is that he says, because I get that too, people always look shocked when you say three sugars. they look at you like "What" and I think to myself it's sugar not crystal meth. I put that in the story as a funny thing. Somebody who read it wrote to me and they said they loved that line. They thought it was hilarious. 

D- So we've heard a little bit about your next angel book. What other projects do you have in the works. 

G- So I have written a romance, a contemporary romance called having faith. I want to start a new series of Romance because I do actually love romance books. It would have to be my favourite genre. These ones are called mature love. I want to make them with only stories of women over the age of 35 because I am sick of reading stories of women who are in their twenties all the time. I feel like now with the ageing population and us older ladies have something. Women who have faced hardships and things like that. So this book having faith is, can I read out the blurb?

D- Sure thing.

G- Okay, When Faiths ex husband announces by text message that he's remarrying after a year since their divorce she was shocked because at the back of her mind she always thought that one day they would reunite and it was one of her most consistent fantasies. But that wasn't the worst part, his bride to be was much younger, beautiful and intelligent, and she was also pregnant. A sensitive subject for faith because she was unable to have children. It was something that had contributed to her own marriage failure. So she's nudging the big 4 0 and she was feeling battered, her dreams of reunion were crushed, her ego was bruised. Her friends suggests, why don't you take a young hot stud muffin to meet your husbands new fiance. So she says who did you have in mind. She says Adam, her friend says. Adam was her friends younger brother. Faith had always considered Adam to be her younger brother as well. They had always been close. But then something Taboo happened between them on his 18th birthday that drove him away for 10 years. Now he was back and looking so good it should be illegal and wanted to resume where her left off. The soul insinuating chemistry that bound them was still there, only this time she was damned if she would play the older sister any more. So that's pretty much it. 

D- Sounds Good.

G- So, I pitched it to escape publishing and they asked to read it. 

D- Time will tell.

G- Exactly. Fingers crossed. yes, toes and everything crossed.

D- Have you looked into making Justice an Audio book? 

G- No, I'm not that interested in that at the moment because it is quite expensive and I just don't have the finances for it. I've realised that you really need to pay somebody who is really good at reading to do it. Because it can ruin your book if you get somebody who doesn't do a good job. So at the moment I am not but what I am doing is, everybody that has read Justice and has contacted me that I kept picturing it as a movie. What I have decided to do is try and write it next year as a screen play. and send it off and see how that works. because you know now that there are so many avenues of live streaming TV shows and movies. There's Netflix there's Presto, there's Stan. Now Amazon is getting into it in a big way they're just going to blow everyone out of the water. So I have heard with Amazon Prime. Which is going to be a new channel of streaming.

D- On Demand.

G- So it's just going to get bigger and bigger. People have got a voracious appetite for, TV shows especially more than movies so I thought why not. 

D- It's worth a try.

G- Yeah. I'm going to give it a go and see if it works and what happens with it. 

D- So when can I read this next book? The next book in the justice series.

G- Well the next book in the Justice series is going to be called 'An Unholy Gift' and I am working on it now. I have done the last draft and I have sent it off to my beta readers and I have just got it back. I am hoping to clean it all up and add a few more bits and pieces where I thought it didn't work. Yeah, it needed a bit of work I felt. So I am doing that now I've got my lady who did the cover for justice is Designing the next one at the moment and hopefully I'm trying to get it all done so that I can self publish that mid December. Just before Christmas.

D- Brilliant.

G- Yeah, so that's the plan. But you know. plans don't always work out do they. But hopefully it will. 

D- It will fit nicely into my stocking. Are you going to do a big launch again for the second book?

G- No, it's too expensive to do a big launch like that every time I mean I made the effort for this time because it was my first and do you know what I am finding I love my family and friends, don't get me wrong but I think they are getting bored with me talking about my book because as a writer and you'll be able to verify this we are a bit obsessive aren't we? About writing.

D- Just a little.

G- And we do go on and on and on until I think we've made them sick. 

D- Possibly.

G- I do think I don't want to talk to them as much about it as I  did because I can see their eyes glazing over over as if they're thinking oh, here she goes again. Talking about her book.

D- Maybe, if you do a book signing tour with the second one or when you finish the series do a tour. 

G- I'd like to do a lot of promotion because what happened was when I published justice was in May, between march and May because I did the Ebook first and then the print one. Then as you know I went on that big holiday I haven't really had time to do promotion so I really need to do quite a bit of promoting and then you know what it's like when somebody reads a book that they like they go oh what else has this person written and of course I've written nothing. Or published nothing else so once I've got the two books at least I've they'll go oh I can read this now. So I am going to try and do that. Do a lot of promoting those things and so that's my plan for 2019 promoting and as well as advertising and trying to get my book out there into some newsagents, book shops and things like that and also try to go to festivals or whatever I can really to get that, get it out there. Noticed.

D- Visible.

G- Yeah. That's right. That's the word I was looking for. 

D- Do you have a favourite line in the book?

G- I do actually like have a favourite line in the book I have to look it up. So this girl Delvene whose actually a police officer as well and she finds justice attractive goes in and talks to him. She brings him a cup of Coffee. I'll just read it out. I smiles at Delvene I've written in first person so this is Justices talking.

I smiled at Delvene who'h just entered with my coffee and sat it on the desk in front of me. Chief do you wan another one? The question addressed her boss but she looked at me the whole time. No thank you Delvene I've got some left. He sighed loudly exasperated when she continued to stand, still staring at me. I took a sip of the sweet brew, it tasted dreadful way too weak and milky Hmm, perfect Delvene, Thank you. I smiled warmly at her trying to project sincerity. Delvene, The chief raised his voice to get her attention when she made no effort to leave. The man likes your coffee you can go now and write that in your romance diary he grouched. Startled at his comment she flushed but wasn't phased coming back with a sarcastic reply. No boss we both know I keep my romance Diary up here.  She pointed to her head and I'm making an entry right now. With that she spun on her heal and hustled out of the office. So that's probably one of my favourite lines. 

D- She's pretty Sassy.

G- Yeah. I like that about her. One reader said, Oh, you're not going to put her in another book? They were disappointed. I said no, she's not going in to another book.

D- Maybe she needs to be in your romance series?

G- Maybe, I might put her in, who knows. She's the right age. She's the right age group, that's for sure.

D- Thank you so much for talking to me today. I think that we've pretty much run out of time. It has been really nice talking to you. 

G- It was a pleasure to come onto your podcast and I look forward to hearing, not only the one that I'm on but your future ones as well because I too and following along with the story of Elara Discovering bits and pieces about it. I am interested as well. 

D- Brilliant.

G- Hmm. 

D- So if you would like to have a bit of a look into the justice book I am going to put the link into the show notes on my web page. You can talk to Georgia on Facebook, Email, Twitter and I'll also have all the links on my show page. Thank you so much for coming in again Georgia it has been a real pleasure. 

G- Thank you Dianna, I really enjoyed it and I enjoy listening to your podcast and I am so happy to be on the show and I look forward to hearing more of your podcast and I look forward to hearing from anybody who is interested in getting in touch with me and I just wanted to wish you good luck with Elara. and with who ever you've sent your book to and I hope it's a rip roaring success for you. And that your podcast too has success.

D- Thank you. I wish you luck with hearing back from the publisher as well. 

G- Thanks, fingers crossed for both of us then. 

D- I will be in touch.

G- Thanks a lot. Bye.

D- Thank you, Bye.

Close

I hope that you really enjoyed my interview with Georgia. I certainly enjoyed giving her an interview she was really natural, so nice to talk to and Patient, considering I am still learning how to do this thing. I know that on her website Georgiatingley.com she's actually got a competition running at the moment so if you want to check that out or you can go to my webpage and dlnix.com/finding-elara I'll have all of her information in the show notes. So you will be able to contact her that way. She is on Facebook and twitter and instagram. So all of the links are in the show notes. So much fun talking to her and I'm sure that she'll be back. Unfortunately we are out of time so I couldn't have my buffy night or my linking to Elara this week, Those sections will be back next week When I answer some of the emails that have been asked this far. There is a lot of questions about the world I have created so I am going to try and answer a few of them and maybe give some tips about how i came up with the ideas I like to have 5 tips on my individual episodes. It give me more of a purpose SO I think we will see how that goes. and i have some really exciting news for you next week. I have secured an interview with a few other authors. I am thinking I might actually do a series. we will just see how that goes. Until net time. Keep up the search.