Books and Broomsticks: *Author Guest Post* EMBASSY

Embassy (Recovery #1)

Publication Date: January 2014

Genre: Science Fiction

Pages: 330

Arman Lance was supposed to travel the galaxy with his father, not watch him die. He was supposed to experience the adventures from his father’s stories, not isolate himself from the world. He was going to join the Embassy Program, fly across the galaxy, and find Ladia Purnell, a girl from another planet whom he loved years before. Clinging to his fading hopes and dreams, Arman joins the Embassy Program to fulfill that last promise. If he can reach Ladia, he’ll never have to worry, never have to feel alone. But it doesn’t take long for his plan to fall apart when he’s confronted by his fellow Embassy recruit, Glacia Haverns, the ever-smiling adrenaline junkie who decides it’s her job to show Arman there’s more to life than chasing a desperate obsession.

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Guest Post

How did publishing your first book change your process of writing?

I’ll actually answer this in terms of writing Embassy (which is actually the fourth book I wrote!) At this point, I’d been writing books for nine years, but I can’t say that as a teenager, my writing style really changed with each new publication. Embassy is where things changed, and both Resonance and Perihelid, the sequels, evolved from the book prior.

On one hand, my dedication to writing completely took over. I see it as a career that’s always going to be with me (at least, for the next 10-12 years or so as I finish writing this current series). But instead of just being a thing I did for fun, I began seeing writing as it should be seen by anyone taking it seriously as a life choice: as a craft, as art. It was no longer a “video game” to me, but a method of expressing myself. That might be the biggest shift in my process over the years, honestly. The transition from “Hi, I’m a kid who writes books!” to “I’m pouring my very essence into this book, and I hope you can connect with it on some level.” And people have, and they’ve told me their own stories, and gone on to do great things, and it’s given me a chance to see the impact you can have on people through words like these.

In another way, each of my recent books has been written in its own form. One reviewer of Perihelid commented on the fact that each book in the series has felt unique in terms of style, tone, and content, despite them all being in the same series, with the same characters, and following the same overarching plotline. I find that to be a strength of mine, and it’s an evolution I’m actively aware of. I want my books to feel different from each other. It’s another depth of realism that fits in well with my books. It shows how life transforms in both the short and long term. Where you were, who you were, and what you’re doing with your life might change slowly or rapidly, even in the course of six months. Most of that, I think, depends on the choices you make. I myself have gone through dramatic changes in several different directions over the course of a few years, and so, too, in my books, are these observations reflected.

The last major changes I think I’ll continue making are how Book 4 is being written, and the point of view of Books 5-7. Book 4 of this series is the first and only book written in third person past, limited, whereas the other six are (or will be) first person present, limited. There’s a reason for that (it offers much more flexibility in this particular volume much better than what first person can offer) and I don’t think it will take people out of the series. I’d rather write a single volume in a way that works well and keep readers through to Book 5, than force it into a perspective that doesn’t work for it, and lose readers all the way to the end of the series. Obviously, time will tell, but I have high hopes for the temporary style shift!

S. Alex Martin grew up fascinated with astronomy and reading Harry Potter. His books reflect his vision for the future of humanity in the way of space exploration. He hopes to help inspire that same love of the final frontier in another generation to do his part to help progress humanity a little further.

In the words of Stephen Hawking: "There should be no boundary to human endeavor."