Fiction Scribe

Hello and thank you for stopping at Fiction Scribe, Ms. Silva. Tell the readers a bit about yourself.

You mean, aside from being a bit off-center? Eccentric? Your typical too-much-going-in-my-pea-brain writer? Hmm…okay.

Well, for a living, I teach at several online universities and love it. I teach at three community colleges (Oregon, Wisconsin and Georgia) and two technical colleges. I love it, but that pretty much means I am on the computer all the time. I think that’s just made me love writing more because I write my first draft in long hand with a fountain pen.

Didn’t I mention eccentric?

What brought you into the world of writing?

My imagination, I suppose. I figured if I didn’t get these characters out of my head and onto paper, they would drive me insane. The truth is, the greatest disappointment of my childhood was the moment I realized I had to stop pretending. I think I was 15…lol…okay, maybe 13, but still, that’s OLD to be figuring out that you HAVE to leave your old pretend friends behind.

When I realized that I could actually bring them with me into the adult world through writing, my disappointment lifted and here I am! When did you start? I started a couple of years after I was a cop. A friend said, why don’t you write cop stories? I didn’t want to because I wasn’t a good one and preferred to leave that chapter behind me. (At that time, in the state of California, it took 9 months to become a licensed hair dresser, and 3.5 months to become a cop. What?)

However, the character of Delta Stevens refused to shush, so I had to write a book about her…and then 5 more.

You’re currently on virtual tour for your book Across Time. Could you tell us a bit about the book and what inspired you to write Across Time?

I have always been fascinated by past lives. Past lives fascinate me.

Love at first sight, five year olds who can play Beethoven, people who come out of comas fluent in a foreign language? Past lives at work. What other explanation is there when we meet someone for the first time, yet they feel so familiar, so comfortable to us? Where do our phobias come from? How is it we know some of the things we know, yet have never learned?

I pondered these questions as I delved deeper into Druidry and the mystical arts, and the deeper I dug, the more I could hear Cate, a Druid Priestess from the first century, calling.

She wasn’t calling me. She was calling Jessie.

And so, hearing this, I knew the novel needed to be written, that it was time to create a series and a character who manages to find herself only when she steps through the portal and into a hostile world where Druids are being hunted, their way of life destroyed.

Cate needs her to save the Druids from annihilation, and I needed to tell her story.

What character do you relate to the most and why?

Oh good question! So many readers believe that that authors put themselves in the lead role, but that’s never really been the case with me. In this book, I relate more to Cate, the Priestess who was brave enough to send her soul in search of Jessie. Cate does this not only to save the Druids, but to save her soulmate. That is definitely something I would do.

I had a therapist tell me once that I suffered from a hero complex, and since I wrote about a badass cop, a powerful druid, and my latest, as-of-yet unpublished series, an empath, I think she might be on to something! It must be from all of the comic books I read as a kid.

What is your favourite part of the book?

Another great question. I love history and wished I would have majored in that instead of English.

Most history teachers are insufferable bores because they fail to focus on what we all want to talk about and that’s THE PEOPLE! So, my favorite part of all the Across Time novels (I just finished the 5th) is when we’re back in Jessie’s old beings. The second novel takes us to Elizabethan England, where Jessie is actually a man…a pirate. It was big fun!

What draws you about writing?

Draws is a good term because, like I must draw in oxygen, I must also write. It’s funny. The other day, I finished the first draft of book 5. I put it away, as I do when it needs to ferment, and then the next day, when I went to write, I realized…”I’m done. Oh. Umm…what now?”

It’s a sickness, really. An obsession. People say you need to have passion and discipline to write…I say it’s more of an obsession and addiction.

Are there any authors who have inspired you in your writing?

Oh yes! Elizabeth Peters writes a great Egyptology series. Clive Cussler writes great action and adventure. Stephen King just rocks. My new fave is Kelley Armstrong who write the Women of the Otherworld series.

What are you working on now?

I have the first 4 manuscripts completed for a series about an empath and other paranormals that I’m shopping around. I am looking for an agent for these because I want to jump into the big pool with the big kids!

What are your dreams for your writing?

Oddly, I want to receive a phone call from someone in Hollywoord who wants to make a movie out of one of my books. Of course, being a best seller would be fun, but I’m more of a niche writer, so I’m not entirely sure that’s possible.

When you’re not writing, what do you do? How do you find time to write?

If you have to find the time, then you don’t really want to write. Someone obsessed with writing MAKES the time. I write every day. When I’m not writing, I’m teaching, grading papers, playing with my cockapoo dog, Lucy, and travel, travel, travel. I recently returned from Central and South America via the Panama Canal. Travel stimulates me more than anything else. Travel is my muse.

Do you have any advice for writers?

Don’t give up, but stop reading all those how to write books. If you want to write, do it. Don’t talk about what you’re writing, don’t read about writing, don’t dream about writing. Put the pen to the paper or the fingers to the keyboard and do it. Just as one step takes you on a trip around the world, one page gets you close to completing a novel.

Take that step.

Thank you very much for your time.

Thank you! I really love writing and I love helping others start or continue on their own journey!