The Shapeshifters’ Library - Interview with Amber Polo

A sundog welcome to author Amber Polo!  

There’s no better way to escape the craziness down here in my rabbit hole (seabed?) than a good read (believe me, there’s been plenty of craziness around here since my last post and plenty of reading to offset it). 

I’m particularly partial to good fantasy novels whose peculiarities offset my grim and clammy “realities”. Amber Polo’s  The Shapeshifters' Library: Released (Blue Merle Publishing, 2012), the newly published first volume of a series, is just the ticket to chase away bossy Red Queens and your jellyfish blues.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting this busy author around my former literary stomping grounds in the highlands of Yavapai County, Arizona. She’s the quintessential jack-of-all-trades, though I suspect she’s also an expert at many of the trades she’s taken up. Her multi-faceted careers as a librarian and yoga teacher, with a few stops in between, have culminated in her current life as an author and a blogger at Wordshaping and Relaxing the Writer. She lives in Camp Verde, Arizona on an airpark mesa.

Her published work includes Romancing Rebecca, the novella Christmas on Wherever Island (The Wild Rose Press, 2007 & 2008), the award-winning romance Flying Free (Treble Heart Books, 2009), as well as the guided relaxation CD, Relaxation One Breath at a Time (cdbaby, 2005), and Relaxing the Writer: Guidebook to the Writer’s High (CreateSpace 2011) and Relaxing the Writer: Relaxation, available as the entire MP3 and in single tracks. She is also proud of her short story due to be released soon in the forthcoming anthology Biblioteca Fantastica (Dagan Books, Fall 2012). “Egyptian Holiday" is a prequel to The Shapeshifters’ Library series, explaining that Cleopatra was a dog-shifter and Caesar, a werewolf.

As for the new novel:

“Liberty [Cutter] had been born in Shipsfeather [Ohio] and had lived here until her mother disappeared when she was five years old. Her four law librarian aunts had swooped into town and taken her home with them, eventually adopting her. They refused to talk to her either about her parents or Shipsfeather. She’d taken the job of Library Director because she wanted to run her own small town library and make a difference to the townspeople—and hopefully uncover the secrets of her own history. She should have been suspicious when no other librarian in the entire country had applied for the job, but she’d been too happy to question Fate.”

Liberty’s mother’s disappearance isn’t the only strange thing about Shipsfeather. When she’s on her way to work on the only Monday she hasn’t gone in early, she finds the two-story red brick library is sheathed in smoke and flames and spots a rangy critter fleeing the scene . . .

The story amps up quickly amidst a cast of quirky characters. Liberty must deal again with her nemesis Harold Dinzelbacher, Shipsfeather’s bankster and Chairman of the Library Board of Trustees. He’s blocked every innovation Liberty has ever proposed to update the library. Amid clues that the library fire was no accident and that Dinzelbacher may be more conniving than she realizes, Liberty questions his and the mayor’s plan to situate the new library in the crumbling, old Shipsfeather Athenaeum and Academy building.

But Liberty buckles down anyway to help renovate the Academy into a shipshape library with all the cyber-age bells and whistles, even as she senses someone following and observing her. Gradually she discovers more than she’d bargained for. Her new books begin to disappear, and she finds that the Shipsfeather Academy was once a training ground for an ancient race of dog-shifters whose mission is to protect the world’s knowledge. A powerful curse sealed those shapeshifter librarians in the Academy basement while a pack of book-burning werewolves took over Shipsfeather in their quest to destroy all books and their defenders forever.

Chronus, the English Sheepdog headmaster of the old Academy and leader of the dog-shifters, cautiously befriends Liberty and they join forces to keep his pack – and the world’s books – safe from the werewolves and their crafty human supporters.

I found the premise of shapeshifting dog librarians not only fun and fascinating, but also convincing and possible. I’ve often suspected librarians and dogs as having much more colorful lives than meets the eye. After all, librarians have all the knowledge of the world at their fingertips and can answer any question given enough time to research it. The domestic dog has over 400 distinctly different-looking breeds, all cultivated from the genes of the ancient grey wolf. If any critter can shapeshift or hide its talents in plain sight, it has to be the “ordinary” dog. Blend these two versatile elements – the humble dog and the humble librarian – as cleverly as Polo does in The Shapeshifters’ Library: Released, and you’ve got, voila, a well-considered, zany fantasy.

KR: Amber, your books and CDs span the gamut from quirky paranormal romance to meditation and relaxation techniques. You’ve obviously taken the adage “write what you know” seriously. Tell us a little about your decision to write and publish particular books

AP: It all makes sense to me. I started writing a paranormal romance because there was a romance writing group close to the rural Arizona town where I moved. And I was near Sedona and these famous vortices helped. I learned many new romance publishers were looking for manuscripts. A friend told me to submit. I was accepted and I began to learn at a faster rate because I was working within the publishing process. Since my first romance started out as a parody of a romance novel, moving to fantasy felt natural. I write funny and had trouble making sure the HEA was not too quirky.

My second novel Flying Free takes place in my aripark neighborhood. All I had to do was imagine some unlikely new neighbors and try not to let my real neighbors know they were going to appear in my book. Guys like this book for the airplanes. “Senior” citizens love it for the oddball neighbors (who, of course, have NO relation to my neighbors.)

During this time, I was teaching yoga and realized what my students needed most was real help in learning to relax. Even if they didn't know it, the last twenty minutes of every class when I talked them through savasana was what they needed most. I decided to record it and add a track without a wakeup, allowing anyone having trouble sleeping to use the same techniques. When I wrote Relaxing the Writer I decided to re-record that CD and call it Relaxing the Writer Relaxation.

The techniques, of course, work for non-writers and both CDs are about as non woo-woo as I could make them for anyone who is stressed.

KR: I love any sort of relaxation recording, woo-woo or not . . . I need all the help I can get to relax . . . I love your voice on both your relaxation CDs / MP3s by the way, very soothing . . . Writers are contemplative folk, but we’re also often notorious workaholics . . . how do you convince writers on fire to slow down and do your relaxation exercises?

AP: Most writers know they need balance in their lives but don't know how to create that balance. In Relaxing the Writer  I've tried to give them ideas that would work for them. In short everyone need to find a mix of three categories:

• Active - Get out of the chair and move your body.
• Meditative - Find an activity that creates so much focus you forget everything else.
• Artistic/Senusal - cultivate activities that feed your creative soul.

Don't tell anyone, but I wish I could follow my own advice all the time.

 KR: Me too . . . especially the writing advice I dispense here! 

You obviously love fantasy as evidenced by your work in paranormal romance and your interviews of fantasy writers on your Wordshaping blog. What inspired you to take a leap from the romance genre into urban fantasy in Shapeshifters?

AP: The Shapeshifters’ Library is the series of my heart - I am a recovering librarian. And for ten years of my life I was owned a flock of Old English Sheepdogs. I showed in conformation and exhibited my dogs in obedience on the West Coast and later from a base near Blacksburg, Virginia (and, yes, I met all the characters portrayed in the movie Best in Show). Combining two interesting parts of my life in a fantasy felt right, and has given me a chance to promote libraries and dogs. I'm excited about Book 2 of the series and can't wait to begin Book 3.

KR: Wow, that is a fantastic feeling when our other interests and our passion for writing merge into the creation of  short story or novel . . . I can’t think of anything more fun than that.

I’m struck by the fact that you’ve produced so many books in a short time (makes me feel lazy and guilty) plus serving other writers with interviews on your Wordshaping blog and with tips on your Relaxing the Writer blog, as well as doing other volunteer work. Tell us about the drive and the discipline that keep you going .

AP: As passionate as I was about other things in my life, writing (on the good days) feels like what I was meant to do. I don't think of stopping. Actually, the first two books of the Shapeshifters’ Library each took a year. The other two novels took a year each too. The relaxation book took less time. I could have spent years on that one, but I wanted to make it short enough for the busy writer to take away some tips without boring them with stuff they already knew. I put in a lot of alternatives and enough quotes and writerly anecdotes to make it light and fun. This book gave me an opportunity to try out the self-publishing path. Throughout the publishing process, a good portion of my writing time was spent learning about writing, editing, and things like designing websites, writing blogs, setting up Facebook pages, reviewing books on Amazon and Goodreads, and many, many more tasks. Initially I did it all myself. More recently, the talented Connie Lee Marie Fisher has helped me by creating banners and book covers. She designed the interior of Relaxing the Writer.

KR: I admire her work. If I ever self-publish anything, I just might check in with Connie. . . Do you now look at librarians and figure out what dog breed they remind you of?

AP: Sometimes, but I can always tell which ones are the werewolves.

KR: *Giggles* What dog breed were you in your librarian life? 

AP: I refuse to answer that question. I'd like to think I happily retrieved information like my heroine with Golden Retriever tendencies.

KR: *Smiles*

AP: Thanks for inviting me into your jellyfish world!

KR: Thank YOU  for braving it, Amber!  I hope you’ll return with your sequel, The Shapeshifters’ Library: Retrieved.

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~ * ~

Join Amber at The Well Red Coyote Bookstore in Sedona, Arizona on Saturday,
September 29 at 2:00 PM for “Anthropomorphizing Animals in Print” plus dog biscuits

for those in four-footed form.

*  Download Shapeshifters' Library free on Halloween and Day of the Dead!

True Confession - Transformation is Key

I bumped into a strange thought in the part of my mind that begins to whirl as I prepare to do a blog post. Is not writing while writing a blog about the writing life deceptive?

I have a confession. I’ve not written much of anything except blog posts for a very long time. It’s not because I don’t want to write or because I feel blocked. It’s more a matter of doing what I gotta do. What I do for a living is moderate comments on a website and proofread their articles part-time, and do freelance editing and manuscript evaluation  as well, so my spurts of creative writing blossom only around the edges of these time constraints.

This is not unusual, since most writers have day jobs because we don’t make much money writing unless we work  for media or if we're one of a small number of best-selling authors. I find my day job much more distracting than other types of day jobs, because my work involves using a computer and going online, and well, you get the picture . . . I find it easier to block time for creative writing when I work away from home and when that job doesn’t involve computers.Then I’m more eager to face a blank screen or notebook. Sitting down to write  - in my case, staying in front of a computer for eight, ten or twelve hours of work - doesn’t foster creative thoughts. Plus, ya gotta live to have something to write about, and my stationary jobs don’t require much lively engagement with the world.

Lately I’ve found another compelling distraction. I find butting heads online with people who think differently than me about the Zimmerman legal case a  great excuse to not write. Just when I thought we might be out of the rabbit hole, despite all the election year nonsense, George Zimmerman had to go and shoot Trayvon Martin. I won’t comment on all the media hoopla surrounding the case, but it certainly became a walk through the looking glass, though I might mean that differently than others do.

Gun control is an issue that touches my heart deeply, both as a mother / grandmother and as a bystander who’s witnessed numerous people suffer greatly over the “freedom” to bear and use arms. I'm a Buddhist and I  regard guns as a tool we could mostly live without. The writer in me thinks these make good props in thrillers, dramas, and mysteries.  I’m a lifelong pacifist and haven’t seen a war in my lifetime that seems worth fighting, I don’t support the death penalty, and I’m suspicious of people who execute someone after a minute or two of unarmed combat and then claim self-defense. I seem to recall all sorts of rowdy brawls in years past that people walked away from alive. I regard loose gun laws and the SYG laws that accompany these in the 21^st century as a national disgrace. Jellyfish and more jellyfish. We have about as many firearms as there are people in our country – what could possibly go wrong?

I’m okay if you disagree with my assessment. Many do, and they have compelling reasons for their stance as well. I think the  national conversation we’re having because of the Zimmerman legal case is long overdue. It’s a shame that two more families are suffering because a firearm was used to solve an issue that could have and should have been resolved in another manner.

What can we do to protect ourselves from abuse and still respect the rights of others to live? I only ask this rhetorically, because I’m really not interested in debating the question on a writing blog or in fielding a bunch of angry comments here. This topic will be discussed until kingdom come, I’m certain, and there will likely be little reconciliation between the two or more camps on the subject until people are flat out tired of easy killing and overuse of force to solve issues solvable in other ways. Many other industrialized nations tired of this issue long ago and have very different self-defense laws than ours. In the US, we embrace a Wild West, rights-driven point of view with regards to owning weapons and have extended Castle Doctrine to the great out of doors and public places. Many Americans live in a bubble and don’t even realize how different our culture is from others in this regard . . .

As you can see, my way of thinking is very different from many other people’s, and I’ve felt like a pariah or a prophet for most of my life.

*Sigh* But back to my w-r-i-t-i-n-g concerns:  I do feel like a fraud, talking about writing and yet not doing much. Aiding others to write through edits or suggested revisions of their work just doesn’t seem like the real deal. Sure, I’ve pulled out old, unpublished stories and essays a time or three over the past year, and even put together a manuscript of short fiction which includes my postgrad novella. I’ve doodled around with these pieces, even sending submissions out to publishers and writing contests, and have even had a few old unpublished pieces published. I’ve collaborated with a writing friend and hashed out some stories that we’ve also published recently – but these had a skeleton, a plan started by my collaborator, and weren’t entirely my brainchildren. As far as truly getting down to the creative nitty-gritty and starting fresh, new work – even a mere poem or a flash story . . . well, I hang my head in shame!

Or should I be ashamed? Even light revision is part of the writing process, is it not? How many times have you tweaked and tweaked and tweaked an essay, a story, a poem, or even a novel, thinking the project finished, and then finally, after you impulsively change one more sentence, or maybe the title, you send off your work – and hallelujah! – you get an acceptance letter in return!

What is more important – the first draft, the major edits, or the final tweaks?

In life, as in writing, I suspect it’s the journey, the process that matters most. Yep, transformation is still the key for our writing and our lives.

 In the end, even those little tweaks count for something!

Author David Morrell, Rambo, and Me - Prescott Book Fair:  Sixth Edition

Joe DiBuduo  © 2007

Live to Write, Write to Live

I shall live badly if I do not write, and I shall write badly if I do not live.

 ~ Francoise Sagan, playwright and novelist (1935-2004)

Judging from Francoise Sagan’s biography, this quote has more to do with her passion for writing and life, but it seemed to speak to me in these wee hours about a theme of resilience that is chiming in my life lately. I’ve been crazy busy, otherwise known as crazee bizee ( with eyes appropriately crossed).This is as good an excuse as I can muster for not posting at Jellyfish Day for six weeks. But heck, I’ve edited a children’s chapter book, nearly completed an eight-month stint of back and forth editing with a client on his memoir, reconnected with an old client in preparation to assist with her upcoming book, not to mention manning my post seven days a week at my 20-some odd hour telecommute job. I’ve also socialized my darn networks faithfully, served as a World Book Night giver, and took a day off to attend the Los Angeles Times Book Festival, not to mention fanning the hearth fires at home and assisting with same at my eldest daughter’s when she felt overwhelmed by the 24 / 7 childrearing  grind.

In other words, I’ve rolled with the punches and popped back up with a little more pluck than I had before. Not that I wanted to sign up for any life-changing experiences, but stuff has a way of happening. By now I’ve been around the block a few times, both age-wise and as a writer. Some events that used to be jarring seem like no more than a jog in the saddle. Applying butt to chair and writing no matter what happens around us or inside our heads pays off handsomely  (although I can never seem to do this for the darn blog!)

Within this frenzy of being present here, there, and everywhere at once, one of my younger offspring decided to withdraw from the secondary education that thrilled him no end during his first term, a program in a  one-of-a-kind collegiate music school he’d worked his posterior off to enter. He returned home this week, right about the time I'd suddenly and without good reason acquired a large breed dog, an adoption that manifested, I suppose, from loneliness and discontent with an empty nest . . . Now my big boy has a big dog, so this tale whistles with a good ending. The extra bonus is that we cleaned and rearranged the entire house, a process that makes everything feel new and benefits beings and creative flow.

Ultimately, life seems to be nothing more than a process of changing gears. This is sounding suspiciously like a chat we had recently about impermanence, so I wouldn’t want to bore you with another. You know all about making sundogs out of jellyfish, how to keep going, and other fine points of perseverance. We furless, bipedal monkeys with opposable thumbs pretty much discover that what doesn’t kill us makes us stronger at a very young age.

Our writing lives really aren’t separate from our ordinary daily lives. The same rules apply. Sometimes putting pen to paper seems no different than digging a grave with a rusty shovel in permafrost. At other times, we slice through our prose like a hot stainless steel blade through soft butter. Sometimes we tell our characters or our paragraphs to go left and they go right, but on better days, they write their scenes for us. Or we order our words to rise and they fall, making our prose stutter when our intention is flow. Our work wanders when we give it a map and when we want to explore unknown territory, the work refuses to leave its cushy bed. Sometimes it throws off the covers and goes on a sudden flight of fancy that leaves us breathless with surprise.

By applying patience, persistence, and the skills we master through study and steady writing practice, we overcome the mental and mechanical obstacles that impede our writing, and manage the wild stampedes of imagination that that leave us with reams of interesting but unpolished work.

One way or another, we make do with what life gives us, and somehow we survive to push forward and write another day. As we allow our lives to unfold without judgement, responding to each moment or urgency in whatever way seems appropriate, so our writing falls into place if we give it the space to flourish and grow in its own time.

Hopefully there’s a story in here somewhere!