Please welcome Ann Crawford author of Fresh Off the Starship
Ann Crawford will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
Fresh off the Starship
by Ann Crawford
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GENRE: Women's fiction / humor
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INTERVIEW:
1. What or who inspired you to start writing?
I love to say that I’ve been writing ever since I could hold a pencil. As I was growing up, my mother was extremely ill, but she would read to me and those were among the most precious times of my early years. She always wanted to write, but died before she could accomplish that.
Even as a youngster, I always figured I'd write books to give another child that same sense of connection....although it took many, many years to really get the books rolling.
2. How did you come up with your idea for your novel?
I’ve wanted to write about something that takes places in Western Kansas ever since my husband—a former Kansas farmboy—took me there; I met his wonderfully charming relatives and fell in love with the land. I’m from the East Coast and lived on the West Coast for most of my adult life. When I tell people I lived in Kansas, their eyes glaze over…like I’m sure mine did at one point. I wanted to show these Kansas folks’ depth, sincerity, and wisdom—they’re definitely not the bunch of “hicks” so many may think.
I heard a line from the movie Starmanmany years ago—something along the lines of “You humans are at your best when you’re at your worst.” I’ve wanted to create my own starbeing for decades and have to look through her eyes to see how beautiful we humans can be and how amazing life on Earth is. It was really fun to have to imagine taking a sip of water for the first time as well as the many other fun and more exciting things humans engage in.
3. What would you want your readers to know about you that might not be in your bio?
Oh, goodness…my bio is pretty much right out there. OK, here’s one thing: my husband and I were matched on eHarmony on June 21, 2006. We talked for a few weeks and then met face to face on July 14. We were engaged on July 16. By July 21 I had my little Prius packed up and was moving from a Northern California hippie/surfer town to Topeka, Kansas (!), where he lived with his two teenagers (!!) who were finishing up high school. We got married on December 21 that same year. And he’s truly the love of my life—he’s a big, gentle bear of man; he makes me laugh all day; my hot, studly love interests are based on him; and many of the funny lines come from him!
4. As far as your writing goes, what are your future plans?
I put out two books last year and I’m expecting the same for this year, if not more. The book I just finished is about three generations of women: an aging hippie flower child, an arch conservative, and a 20 y.o. trans woman—all under one roof. What could go right? This book is being pitched to publishers this month.
Another is called The Life of My Love, which is a fun non-fiction about finding the love of your life (something I’ve done very well!).
And last but not least, I’m going to start the sequel to Fresh off the Starship. I didn’t write it to have a sequel, but Missy’s been tapping me on the shoulder to continue her story!
5. Can you give us a sneak peek into this book?
This was such a fun book to write. Ever wonder what it'd be like to wake up…human? Yes, of course, we do it every day and we’ve gotten quite good at it. But how about as a newly minted but fully grown and aware human? It can be as challenging as it is delighting. Imagine the joy of a very first bath or Starbucks Caramel Macchiato...and it was VERY fun writing those as brand-new experiences.
Here’s that first Macchiato and then the bath:
After heading down the highway a bit, Matt pulls into the parking lot of a busy little café. The sign out front has a woman on it holding…something.
After ordering, paying, and waiting a bit, Matt hands her a large drink with a little mountain of fluffy white stuff on top, with stripes of brown dripping down the mountainsides.
“Here, got you extra whipped cream and lots of car’mul on top, just the way you like it.”
Missy takes a lick of the whipped cream and her eyes go wide. “Oh!”
“Well, yer not supposed to lick it like an ice-cream cone. Sip it.”
She does and then slaps her hand on the table.
“Missy! You okay?”
“Oh, my! How can you beings ever complain about anything?”
“How’s that now?”
“Nothing.” She takes another sip and moans again. Several customers seated nearby look over at her.
“Missy, sweetheart, can you calm yourself a bit?”
She takes a bite of the round treat on a stick he’d set down by her. The moans escalate.
“Geez,” Matt says, trying to sink farther into his seat, “I feel like I’m straight out of When Harry Met Sally.”
“Who’s Harry? Who’s Sally?”
“The main characters in one of yer favorite movies. You made me watch it at least half a dozen times.”
She takes another sip and bite. The moans escalate even more. By this time everyone in the café is looking at her.
“Missy! Perhaps we should eat these in the car.”
“Wherever you want!”
The customers in the café receive one more rendition of “Ohhhhhhhh!” as Matt leads her out the door and she takes another sip of her drink. She climbs into the truck as he walks around to the driver’s side.
Okay, maybe it’s not thaaaat bad here.
She awakens the next morning, fully clothed, on top of the covers, laptop still running beside her. As she climbs out of bed, she catches a whiff of herself.
“Oh! That’s not pleasant!”
She pulls off her clothes from the day before and puts them in a basket on the closet floor. She catches a glimpse of herself in the full-length mirror and lets out a gasp of surprise. She looks down at her body and then back at her reflection. She turns to the right, then to the left, then even more to the right, and then even more to the left.
She gazes at her long limbs and then at the gentle curves and soft swells with interesting shapes, patterns and varying colors. She’d seen the human form during her training, but it’s quite different seeing it in person, literally, as a person. She’s nowhere near as big as most of the women she saw at the hospital or restaurant—or Linda—but not as thin as some others she’s seen either.
This vehicle is amazingly beautiful!
The morning starlight—by now she knows it’s called the sun here, but she prefers star, since that’s what the sun is—lighting up the bedroom casts her in a golden glow. She turns and looks over her shoulder to see the back of her in the mirror. Her long, light-brown-colored hair—she could match the living-room furniture, too—falls down her back like a veil.
It’s one thing to study human beings. It’s a whole other thing altogether to be encased in this gorgeous piece of Creation.
She pulls on a robe that’s hanging on the closet door—and then becomes lost for several moments in the sensual sensation of the soft, plush pile against her skin. “Ohhhhhhhhhh!” She slips into a pair of slippers and giggles as the softness caresses her feet.
She wanders down the hall to the bathroom, which is also very yellow with wallpaper, towels, fuzzy rug, and prints featuring that color. She examines the tub and the faucets, remembering coming across such objects in her Googling and Youtubing. She starts filling the tub, adjusting the temperature to something that feels good, and climbs in.
Holy Heaven!
Not only is the water pressing against her, head to toe, a sensory pleasure in itself, she also runs her hands over this luscious body thing of hers. Nothing in her eternal life had ever felt like this. “Ahhhhhhhhhh!”
She explores the various parts of her body. Like the flowers by her hospital bed, she also has gentle folds and crevices and interesting hiding places. So soft and delicate, too—just like the flower petals.
A knock on the door breaks her sudden reverence for being a human be-thing. “Missy, you okay in there?” Linda calls.
“Ohhhhhhhh, yes!”
“You going to be out any time soon? You’ve been in there fer more’n an hour!”
“Yes!”
But then she disappears into the euphoria of toweling herself off. She rubs the towel over her eyes and gasps at the multitudes of shapes and colors that appear. Oh my galaxy, it looks like my galaxy. It looks like home. Then one single blue dot appears. Oh, that looks like Earth when I first was coming here.
She finishes toweling herself off, but then starts doing it all over again.
Who knew?
6. Do you outline your books or just start writing?
My books start writing themselves in my head before I ever start typing them. I speak notes into my iPhone for a bit. Then when the story is bursting at the seams, I sit down at a specific time every day and write the book.
Since my books are coming so fast and furious these years (for me, anyway), I do have to take some downtime between books. But then they start knocking on the door (inside my head) and the stories come.
After a few drafts I might draw up an outline to make sure everything’s in the right order and that the pacing works.
7. How do you maintain your creativity?
I travel a lot—I’ve been to all 50 states and ~70 countries…and counting. I spend a lot of downtime on the beach, which feeds my spirit like nothing else and is my favorite place to be. I also do a lot of road trips as I do my best thinking in the car, especially at night. I heard that Lionel Richie would write his songs that way, so I’m in good company. 😊
I make sure I get enough sleep as well as eat very clean and exercise…I sound like a commercial! But if I don’t do that, I’m no good for anyone or anything at all.
8. Who is your favorite character in the book. Can you tell us why?
9. Are your plotting bunnies angels or demons?
Oh, they’re definitely angels in the form of all of these wild, wonderful, way-out-there characters who come and knock on the doorway to my mind, saying, “Write my story!” And they don’t leave me alone until the story is done.
The best example of this is my book Spellweaver, which is about a healer during the witch hunts. It was a very hard book to write and I didn’t want to—but Catriona would NOT leave me alone. I finally just wrote out the harder parts and made them a very small part of the story. Catriona also wouldn’t let me change her name….it takes places in Scotland, and since the star of Outlanderis named Catriona, I thought another name might be better. Oh, no. I changed it on the screen and it was like something moved the mouse to press the undo button—my heroine’s name was to stay Catriona. I’m in loving servitude to these awesome characters.
The story has its way with me, instead of vice versa. Sometimes the plot has a twist to something even I wasn’t expecting. One time I was taking a screenwriting class and mentioned that my writing surprises me. “You mean you say I can’t believe I just wrote that?” the professor asked. The whole class laughed, as did I. But, well, yes…I do mean exactly that. I can’t believe the things I write sometimes! LOL
10. Anything else you might want to add?
The one thing all of my books have in common is that they’re inspirational. The main thrust of my stories is to have the shero shoulder awful events / marriages / circumstances and spin them into gold somehow. I also love love love writing about falling in love, so they always involve a love story.
My favorite books to write are romantic comedies but with a deeper message. In between the chuckles in Fresh off the Starship, I talk about sexual abuse, drug addiction, PTSD in the Vietnam veterans, and other issues. Those PTSD events are true stories from some vets I’ve had the honor to know.
In every book I write, I love to show how we—no matter how “ordinary” we may think we are—all are extraordinary or very special in one way or another. Missy’s already extraordinary (being a starbeing on Earth—on her own planet, she’s not quite so extraordinary), but she lost her training in her descent to earth. So she has to figure out the ways of these strange humans without letting on that she’s not who they think she is.
I really do believe that good prevails, that love triumphs, and that we’ll come through any adversity that we face, whether individually or as a collective. I definitely believe in love at first sight—it’s happened to me! I also believe that we’re all special and unique in our own ways and that whatever dreams we hold can come to be. That’s one of the main reasons we’re here.
BLURB:
Love to laugh? You'll enjoy this feel-good tale.
A starbeing skyrockets to Earth from the other side of forever with a specific assignment: to help steer humanity away from the collision course it's on. But we all know how travel can get drastically diverted--instead of landing in Washington, D.C., where she could assist on a grand geopolitical scale, she ends up in...Kansas!
Wrong place, right time? Join our shero on this whimsical journey as she pursues her purpose as well as discovers the beauty of life and love on Earth.
A starbeing skyrockets to Earth from the other side of forever with a specific assignment: to help steer humanity away from the collision course it's on. But we all know how travel can get drastically diverted--instead of landing in Washington, D.C., where she could assist on a grand geopolitical scale, she ends up in...Kansas!
Wrong place, right time? Join our shero on this whimsical journey as she pursues her purpose as well as discovers the beauty of life and love on Earth.
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EXCERPT:
Ohhhhhhhh—what a strange place this is! Loud noises, awful smells, strange beings looking at me.
The woman struggles to lift her hand just a few inches off the bed, clearly shocked to see it. Oh. Right. I’m one of those strange beings now.
She stares up at the group staring down at her.
This is odd. Do humans just stare at each other?
“Well, you’ve had a very, very long journey back here,” the doctor says.
You’re not kidding.
“We should give you some time,” the doctor continues.
When can I go back in the other direction?
“Don’t push her,” the doctor emphasizes to the other three humanoids. “Give her lots of time and space.”
Time and space. Oh, you have no idea.
“Where am I?”
The group, obviously ecstatic that she can talk but dismayed by her question, turns to the doctor.
“Missy, yer in a hospital room. You had a terrible accident a few months ago, and we thought we lost you at one point. But yer a tough survivor and fought yer way back here.”
That’s truer than you know.
“Perhaps we should just let her sleep some more,” the doctor tells them. “That’s when most of the body’s healing takes place.” She ushers them out of the room. “Amnesia can be a strange, strange thing,” the doctor starts to say. “The brain—” But she shuts the door and the voices are muffled.
Ohhhhhhh, I have a feeling I’m not in the Andromeda galaxy anymore.
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AUTHOR Bio and Links:
I'm a fun-loving, world-traveling, high-flying, deep-diving, and living-to-the-max author of eight books. When I'm not flying planes, scuba diving, climbing every mountain (on the back of my husband’s motorcycle) or riding the world’s fastest roller coasters, you can find me in my writing nest with a view of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains out the window. I've lived all over--from both oceans white with foam, to the prairie, and now to the mountain. Yes, a little backwards, but what the hey.
My bestselling and award-winning novels go as high and deep as I do—they’re profound yet funny; playful although poignant; heart-opening and heart-lifting; thought-provoking and inspiring; and edgy while universal. I'm also a screenwriter and award-winning filmmaker and humanitarian.
Social Media & Book Links
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Book link:
The book will be on sale for only $0.99.
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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE:
Ann Crawford will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.
Thanks for hosting!
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your book with us. I think we all enjoy hearing about new books we previously didn't know about. Also, thank you for the giveaway.
ReplyDeleteHow did you come up with the title for the book?
ReplyDeleteWelcome to the Angel's blog. I hope you have a great tour.
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for hosting, Rogues Angels, and hi, everyone. Thank you for the comments and good wishes. Bernie, the title is a spinoff from the saying "fresh off the boat" -- just a little more space-agey, since the main character comes from a galaxy far, far away. I hope you all enjoy this snippet and the book!
ReplyDeleteSounds like my kind of book!
ReplyDelete