Roland D Yeomans - PART 11: THE INFLUENCES THAT SHAPED MY WRITING STYLE - plus a review by Ann Best. BROKEN HEARTS BLOGFEST

Firstly, if you're looking for my Broken Hearts Blogfest entry, go here.

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Welcome back everyone! I hope you enjoyed the first interview I held with Roland, the author of The Bear with Two Shadows. I'm so pleased to see you all again.

Let's think about this question...what draws us to write? We plug away day after day, devoting a large chunk of our lives to putting words on the page. Why do we do it? What influences do we bring to it? These are the questions I pose to guest blogger and author Roland D Yeomans.

PART 11: THE INFLUENCES THAT SHAPED MY WRITING STYLE

Roland, I know you're a great believer in 'listening to the voices.' What voices are speaking inside your head?

Writing is a solitary sojourn. Most of us will never receive world acclaim ...nor do we expect it. So what then propels us on this journey? Denise, what swept you up when you first started to read for yourself? How often do you find a book which conjures that same spirit within you now?

Hmm...
Not often I'd wager.

I believe we write to create that world which spellbound us into reading in the first place. What voices called to us then? What lessons did they teach us?

Each of us heed different voices. I don't know what voices called to you, but for me the voices were :

Magic,
Horror,
and Otherworld Beauty

These three sirens dominated my solitary reading of choice during my high school years. And their voices can be heard in the background of all that I write today. Like the three fates, they weave the tapestry of my unconscious muse.

What particular books influenced you in your early days?

As a young child, I wandered alone into Edith Hamilton's MYTHOLOGY. In junior high, I joined the League of Five and group reading with BEAU GESTE and DR. FU MANCHU. In high school, I was alone again in my reading, open to any influence that caught my fancy.

The authors of those years were my unknowing mentors in how to write well. And oddly enough it was an artist who led me in the land where they all dwelt : Frank Frazetta. And he painted the first road sign on my path to becoming a writer :

I've heard other writers say that they are hugely influenced by artworks and some (like N. R. Williams) are also artists. I'd like to hear more about Frank Frazetta's influence on your writing.

OTHERWORLD BEAUTY WILL HAUNT YOU, BRINGING YOU BACK TO THE BEGINNING. {AND DON'T FORGET THE EYES.}

EERIE #23 : THE EGYPTIAN PRINCESS

When I spotted the cover to EERIE#23 with Frazetta's "Egyptian Princess" in a used book store, I was spellbound. Yes, she was clothing-challenged. But it was her eyes that ensnared me. And my encounter with her made me quite a few dollars lighter. EERIE #23, even back then when dinosaurs roamed the earth, was a collector's item.

From that moment on, I noticed eyes : weary ones , dull ones, evaluating ones, and those who were black windows into the nothingness that lived in the souls of those who possessed them.

As I began to write, I realized eyes could be the shorthand definition of the characters owning them. I noticed that when the eyes of strangers boldly met mine, it often meant the same thing as when Nixon proclaimed, "I am not a crook." I started counting my silverware.

But back to Frazetta. His art was vibrant, moody, and on-fire all at once. His paperback book covers led me to Edgar Rice Burroughs, Robert E. Howard, and even to H.P. Lovecraft. And those three authors sketched the second sign post.

And that would be?

HISTORY. HISTORY IS NOT WHAT WE THINK - THERE IS MYSTERY AND MAGIC UNDER THE TOMBSTONES.

UNDER THE PYRAMIDS by H.P. Lovecraft (with Harry Houdini)

My hands went into warp speed when I saw the Frazetta cover emblazoned with that title. Frazetta. Harry Houdini. Wow. I didn't know this Lovecraft fellow, but I had to see what kind of supernatural trouble Houdini had gotten into in his Egyptian travels.

And I wasn't disappointed :

The first sentence : "Mystery attracts mystery."

I was hooked.
From Frazetta, Burroughs, Howard, and Lovecraft ... I learned how history can be made alive and alluring ... and supernatural.

I've read sometime on your blog that ROGER ZELAZNY'S LORD OF LIGHT was a great influence:

You're right there. I found it in the used bookstore shelf right next to a Frazetta cover of a Conan novel. This was the book that taught me that prose could be beautiful and evocative. I read the first paragraph :

"His followers called him Mahasamatman, and said he was a god. He preferred to drop the Maha- and the -atman, however, and called himself Sam.

He never claimed to be a god. But then, he never claimed not to be a god. Circumstances being what they were, neither admission could be of any benefit. Silence, though, could.
Therefore, there was mystery about him."

{It is no accident that my own hero is called Sam.}

Mystery. Evocative imagery. I was hooked.

I became his student -- through his books, his essays, and his poetry.

Some of his words :

"No word matters. But man forgets reality and remembers words."


"I like libraries. It makes me feel comfortable and secure to have walls of words,


"Occasionally as an author, there arises a writing situation where you see an alternative to what you are doing, a mad, wild gamble of a way for handling something, which may leave you looking stupid, ridiculous or brilliant -you just don't know which.


You can play it safe there, too, and proceed along the route you'd mapped out for yourself. Or you can trust your personal demon who delivered that crazy idea in the firstplace.


Trust your demon."


"I try to sit down at the typewriter four times a day, even if it's only five minutes, and write three sentences. It seems to get the job done. I've written a lot of novels."

You mentioned Ernest Hemingway yesterday Denise. It was Roger Zelazny who led me to this quote by Ernest Hemingway years before it made its way into the latest PREDATOR movie :

"There is no hunting like the hunting of man, and those who have hunted armed men long enough and liked it, never care for anything else thereafter."

Thank you Roland. Awesome writing journey...I assure you the voices I've listened to have nowhere near the resonance of yours.

I posted the synopsis yesterday (see previous post.) Today I'm posting an Amazon review by Ann Best from The Long Journey Home: 

This is a poetic novel, one of the most beautiful stories I have read in a very long time! Such wisdom from the mouth of Hibbs, the Great Bear, a powerful figure, to me, of man on his journey toward Death. Yet along the path, Hibbs voices thoughts that I kept writing in my notebook, thoughts that lift me beyond the darkness and into the Light. At one point I had my own thought: Step into the darkness to see the light.


Hibbs says, "Seeing the light is one thing, while seeing BY the light is something else (emphasis mine)." Might as well enjoy the view "while we walk to death," he says. I enjoy the view as I journey with Hibbs, and such beautiful descriptions as this: "He had been wandering alone to greet the coming twilight, a time when he could enjoy the burst of color from the sun clawing to keep its fiery head above the horizon. The dying sunlight streamed through the hovering branches like glowing arrows, the grass beneath his bare feet was gray, and the spiderwebs gleamed silver. Life pulsed all about him. Spring was coming."

I love the "characters," especially Hibbs the Bear, Surt the fire, Little Brother the Hawk, Leandra the Sidhe, GrandMother the Turquoise Woman. They are as real, even more real, than the two-legged creatures around me. And as in great literature, there is the underlying theme of good versus evil, and light versus darkness (the Darklings). That Hibbs is a healer further endears him to me. For don't we all, in a dangerous world, need to heal and be healed?

In my opinion, this is a five star plus plus book. Roland Yeomans, the author, truly captures its essence in his synopsis. Read the book! You'll be glad you did.

Everyone, I know you'd like to win Roland's book, but Roland is offering it at a discounted price of $1.99 during the blog tour.Grab it now using the link! Roland is offering some AMAZING signed editions to all of you! So don't forget to leave your email in the comments section. JUST LOOK AT THESE BOOKS! DID YOU GET THAT THEY'RE SIGNED!!!! BY THE AUTHORS!!!!! DON'T YOU WANT ONE???

A comment offers one entry per host. Another two entries for linking the book to twitter or Facebook. Make sure to email Roland @ rxena77@yahoo.com And any blogger who posts a legitimate review on Amazon by March 31st will get three entries into the drawing. Believe me you don't want to miss out on any of these amazing signed books. Drawing will be on April 1st.

Please join Roland's tour tomorrow. I believe his next stop is at Jody Henry's  for the next two days - 14th and 15th.