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Author Update 2023: Joyce Hertzoff

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Author Joyce Hertzoff writes mystery and speculative fiction for middle grade, young adult, and adult audiences. She has written three fantasy series (completed or in the works)—the Crystal Odyssey set of four novels, the ongoing Portal Adventures, and the new More Than Just Survival books. Her newest release is Train to Nowhere Somewhere: Book 1 of the More Than Just Survival Series (July 2023). You’ll find Joyce on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, as well as on her blog HertzoffJo.blogspot.com and website at FantasyByJoyceHertzoff.com. For more about Joyce and her writing, visit her SWW author page and follow the links to previous interviews. Visit Amazon for all of her books.

Train to Nowhere Somewhere follows a group of passengers stranded in rural Missouri after their train derails. At its heart, what is the book about?
This is a book about survival, about taking what we know and recreating a new modern world after disaster, to rebuild with the hopes of an improved life. It is also about found families, the strangers we come to embrace because of shared experiences. Third, it’s about small-town life in farm country.

You had some trouble winnowing down your POV characters to a manageable number. What was that process like and who did you keep to tell the story?
Early critiquers found twelve POV characters a bit too much, even though each had something to contribute, a viewpoint that was unique and an interesting history. Spoiler alert: after the first novel, I envisioned the second would involve two groups splintered off to find answers while the main group continues to build a new community. Each group needed at least two people to tell what happened to them. Because of this, I needed to establish the goals and viewpoints of seven of the forty people stranded in book one. Those seven included one couple, two people who’d been at odds even before the story started, and a retired doctor, a lawyer turned cook, and one of the train attendants.

Tell us about the journey from inspiration to completed book for this first in a new series.
This book, like a few other stories I’ve written, began in a class I took as part of an online MFA program. The class was called Maps, and we were to take our characters on a journey, both physical and metaphorical. My characters’ journey hit a snag due to the collapse of a railroad trestle. From there, my imagination took off, as it often does, in the form of a more widespread disaster.

How did you go about choosing the title and subtitle?
The title for this one refers to their train journey which ended in a kind of nowhere, but also to the fact that they turned it into a somewhere. The subtitle refers to the entire series, which is all about survival and how that can take unexpected turns.

What makes Train to Nowhere Somewhere unique in the dystopian market?
Is it dystopian? Maybe. I think of it as near future. When I describe it to people, often they say, “That could happen.” I hope not. We’re too dependent now on being able to communicate with people far away and to have reliable electricity in our homes. In this book, I never say what caused the disaster, although there is speculation.

What was your favorite part of putting this project together?
Doing research on wind generators and other aspects of the story. It was fun to learn new facts and find a way to incorporate them into the story. Also developing the characters was fun, the threads about knitting as a useful skill, working out some logistics.

Any new writing projects in the works?
As always, I have several. Besides the second and third books of the More Than Just Survival series, I’m working on: book three in my Portal Adventures series; a series of stories about a girl who’s exiled from her domed town; a murder mystery that takes place in 19th century England; a group of stories about a family that acts as couriers between planets of a system settled by people from Earth; two or three murder mysteries; the story I just workshopped about a boy who wants to work on a time travel machine while his parents want him to help at their dig in the desert near an extinct volcano; and my favorite, a story about two girls from Tucson who manage to time travel to 1873 Arizona and are accused of murdering a merchant. There are probably more projects but these are ones I’m actively working on.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
I’ll be selling my books at assorted venues throughout the fall. Watch for announcements of when those will take place.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kat has a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



Author Update 2022: Joyce Hertzoff

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Author Joyce Hertzoff writes mystery and speculative fiction with strong female characters eager to earn a place in their world. In 2020, she completed her four-book Crystal Odyssey fantasy series, and in 2022, she released Winds of Change, book two in her series of science fiction Portal Adventures. You’ll find Joyce on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, as well as on FantasyByJoyceHertzoff.com and HertzoffJo.blogspot.com. Read more about Joyce in her 2015, 2017, 2019, and 2021 SWW interviews, and visit Amazon for all of her books.

What is your elevator pitch for Winds of Change?
The portals from Nokar to other worlds are changing and the inhabitants of those worlds are disappearing. Will Anabet Haines and the other portal travelers discover why and find a way to restore them?

What unique challenges did this work pose for you?
I had some creative problems concerning finding a solution to the plot situation at the end, but the biggest challenge was formatting the manuscript to meet Amazon/Kindle’s exacting requirements.

What prompted you to write this second installment in your portal series? How did the book come together?
I enjoyed writing A Bite of the Apple, the first book in the series, and I knew I had more to do with the characters. I needed a situation where most of them would participate in the action and in the conclusion. I think I started writing this soon after Apple was published but set it aside a few times before I finished the first draft. I finally finished it and submitted it to a couple of critique groups. At sixty-one chapters, it took a long time for them to get through it. Then the editing began.

I used Fiverr for the cover after I found I had no idea what I was doing creating a cover in Canva. The Fiverr artist I picked was able to take my first stab at it and transform it into the final cover. She sent me covers for both the eBook and the print version and knew how to modify them to meet the KDP requirements.

Who are the main characters, and what do you like most about each of them?
The main character is Anabet Haines, called Bet. She’s a spunky nineteen-year-old farm woman who’d been recruited to be a portal traveler about six months before this story begins. She showed how smart and inventive she could be in the first book of the series where she had several situations to deal with. But she’s also a bit naïve and unsure she can do everything she’s asked. Quint is a young man from another world, Lamady, where his mother is one of the councils of ruling Mothers. He’s the youngest of several brothers and determined to prove he’s the worthiest. He’s also an advocate for the portals and the use of portal keys and magic. He’s currently an apprentice to the mage Cass.

Aunt Gill is Bet’s aunt and an experienced portal traveler. She and the mage Morgan have become a couple. Monique Cho is a young woman from Earth who was Bet’s roommate in New York City in the first book. She writes historical novels and used Bet as the model for the heroine of her book. Bet meets her again in the oddest of places.

What was the most difficult aspect of world building for this book?
Because the characters visit several worlds in Winds of Change, I had to build several very different ones. I had to think of diverse parts of these worlds and how they differ from each other.

TheCrimsonOrbThe Portal Adventures series and The Crystal Odyssey series use science to make their storylines work. What elements of science do you include in Winds of Change?
The main scientific principle I used was that electronic vibrations can have many frequencies. In this case, though, their use is very different from how we use vibrational frequencies. I needed some kind of science to explain how portals work. I still haven’t decided how portal keys can allow travelers to pass through portals or even how the portals can take people from one place to another. We’re just scratching the surface.

What was your favorite part of putting this project together?
I enjoy writing about Bet and her growing awareness. There are more adventures in store for her. Who knows where she’ll go next?

Did you learn any lessons from writing/publishing this book that you can apply to future projects?
I’ve definitely learned more about how to format in Word and the differences in what works for a print book vs. an eBook. It’s more complicated than it used to be. I’ve also learned to let my imagination flow, not to force the story in a certain direction it will not go.

What’s your reading routine like? What’s on your to-read pile?
I read both eBooks (on my phone, often while I’m eating) and print books (in the bathroom — can I say that?). At the moment I’m reading two very different stories: Grand Ellipse, a hardback fantasy novel about made-up monarchies and republics and a race around the made-up world for glory and property; and The Brighter the Light about people in an Outer Banks beach resort following a character in the 1950s and her granddaughter in 2021. Waiting on my pile are an assortment of mysteries, science fiction and fantasy, books on writing and thrillers. On my phone I have books in the same genres. Then there’s my list of “Want to Read Books” on Goodreads.

What writing projects are you working on now?
Currently, I’m working on a time travel story set in southern Arizona, a mystery story set in a smallish city in 1890s England (which requires the most research), and a series of shorter pieces about the teenage members of a family who deliver goods and messages from planet to planet in a distant star system that was settled after the Earth was destroyed.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kat has a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



Author Update 2021: Joyce Hertzoff

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Author Joyce Hertzoff writes mystery, science fiction, and fantasy in every length from flash fiction to novels, and for different audiences including middle grade, young adult, and adult. Her newest YA fantasy release is Homeward Bound (2020), the fourth and final book in her Crystal Odyssey series. You’ll find Joyce on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, as well as on her website at FantasyByJoyceHertzoff.com and blog at HertzoffJo.blogspot.com. Read more about Joyce in her 2015, 2017, and 2019 SWW interviews, and visit Amazon for all of her books.

What would you like readers to know about the story you tell in Homeward Bound?
In Homeward Bound, I’ve wrapped up Narissa Day’s story. Nissa, her siblings and friends are sailing back to Solwintor from Fartek with devices and information that the scientists at the Stronghold need. But first, she and her group have to get past an island that wasn’t there before. When they reach home, they’ll have to fight the Legion that threatens to take over the continents of Solwintor and Leara. There are also two weddings that take place.

What unique challenges did this work pose for you?
I had to wrap up a few loose ends. I always have a problem coming up with an ending. And, as usual, I had a hard time with the fight scenes, making them as realistic as possible. I also didn’t want to be saccharine in the romantic and wedding scenes.

How did the book come together?
There had to be at least one more story after the third book in the series. The gang finished their mission in Fartek and had to go home. It took about seven or eight months to write what happened along the way, and then another year or so to get feedback and revise the story. I rely on critique groups, both online and local, and a few of those critique partners helped me.

Tell us a little about your main character and what she has to overcome in this story.
The main character, as in the previous three stories, is Narissa Day, called Nissa. She’s learned quite a bit about her world since her eighteenth birthday when she left home for the first time with brother Blane to find Madoc, her missing magic teacher. She’s definitely grown up. In this particular story, she mainly has to overcome the threat of the Legion on Solwintor, the East Islands and her home continent of Leara. Her sword-fighting skills come in handy in the story, along with the ability to harness the energy all around with her mind.

What did you do to make your story world, with its fantastical elements, believable and logical?
As a former scientific abstracter, I believe in building my story worlds on sound scientific bases. I have a need to explain everything and make fantastical elements scientifically possible. For example, the world of my series relies on crystals to power devices and engines. In the past, crystal radios used similar crystals to change which sound frequencies they were tuned to. In my stories, the crystals are used to focus the energy around us as a power source.

Did what-if questions help shape your series?
All speculative fiction starts with what-if questions. The consequences of those suppositions should be logical, yet interesting for the reader. Those consequences lead to more what-if questions, and so on. For example, if you ask, “What if you find two books written in a strange language that show star patterns different from those where you are?” Then the next question is: “What would you do?” In the second book of the series, Nissa, Madoc and their siblings travel north looking for the source of the books and a place where the stars look like the patterns in the book.

What was your favorite part of putting this project together?
I surprised myself with some of the places the story went, and that I needed four novels to finish the whole story. But my favorite part was brainstorming all the obstacles the characters had to overcome to achieve their goals, and then brainstorming ways to get past each obstacle. Characters, not just mine, have a habit of taking a story places it wasn’t supposed to go. I enjoyed dreaming up ways to bring them back to where I wanted the story to end up. I love solving puzzles, even ones I create for myself.

Looking back to when you wrote book one, The Crimson Orb, when did you know the story was strong enough for a series?
As I wrote the first story, ideas occurred to me that I couldn’t include in the first adventures. But it was those two books that Nissa and Blane found in Madoc’s rooms that made sequels imperative.

If the stars aligned, what past or present television or movie series would you love to write for (or be involved with in any capacity)?
I just finished re-watching the first four seasons of Eureka, and I’m currently watching season five. It appeals to my sense of mixing science and fantasy. Sure, a lot of the science is made up, but so is the crystal-based science in my series. I would have loved to have written for Eureka.

I’ve written fan fiction for other TV shows and movies, including The Princess Bride, Twister, Winnie the Pooh, Northern Exposure, and even the British mystery series Rosemary and Thyme. Always a fun activity. But those were for fanfic exchanges, not as real continuations of the movies and TV shows. Still, I would want to write for them for real.

What are the key issues when writing a series to keep readers coming back for more?
At least two things are needed: a premise large enough that it can take you through a series and characters that readers can relate to. Recurring details can also be good. And, of course, the world building has to be solid and consistent.

What writing projects are you working on now?
I’m working on the sequel to my award-winning novella A Bite of the Apple. I have two near-future/post-apocalyptic series in the works, one for middle-grade students and one for adults. I even have a crime/mystery series that’s partly finished. Finally, I’m writing a few short stories.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kathy posts to a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



Author Update: Joyce Hertzoff

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Retired from over four decades in a science-based career, author Joyce Hertzoff now writes flash fiction, short stories, novellas, and novels in several genres including mystery, science fiction, and fantasy. She released two books in 2018: So, You Want to be a Dragon, a middle-grade adventure, and Beyond the Sea, book three in The Crystal Odyssey series for a YA audience. You’ll find Joyce on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, as well as her website at FantasyByJoyceHertzoff.com and blog at HertzoffJo.blogspot.com. Read more about Joyce in her SWW interviews for 2015 and 2017, and visit Amazon Central for all of her books.

What is your elevator pitch for So, You Want to be a Dragon?
When three children succeed in turning themselves into dragons to parlay with real ones and protect their town, how can they change back?

How did the book come together?
I honestly don’t recall the spark that ignited this story. I had an image of a teenager selling shellfish and her little sister alerting her to the dragon attack on their harbor town. That’s basically still the first scene in the book. I had to put it together after that. What would they have to do to reason with the dragons? What process would they need? That was all based on the characteristics dragons have. It’s not a long book, so it took less time to write than my novels, but there was a lot of thought and research necessary to bring it together. And then I got the services of the amazing Rik Ty to give me drawings I could use and even a cover design.

Tell us a little about your main characters.
Bekka, the fourteen-year-old first-person POV character, is the responsible one, but she’s caught up in her little sister’s enthusiasm. She also learns during the story that her sister has skills and abilities she’s never known about. Cora is described by Bekka as seven going on forty, full of energy and enthusiasm. She’s the one who comes up with the idea to shape-shift into dragons. Derry, the third of their group, is a next-door neighbor, the kind of boy mothers are wary about. Additional characters include a revered mage, a self-styled shape-shifter, a boat captain, and the girls’ mother, as well as dragons (of course).

What was the most difficult aspect of world building for this book?
Finding ways for the kids to turn into dragons when the shape-shifter failed them, and then ways to turn them back.

What was your favorite part of putting this project together?
I had fun writing the story, and my enjoyment doubled again when I saw Rik’s drawing of the dragons and the kids, both for the cover and the inside of the book.

The Crimson Orb, the first book in The Crystal Odyssey series, follows teenager Nissa on a journey to find the wizard Madoc, her missing magic teacher. The series continues in Under Two Moons with Nissa searching for the source of Madoc’s strange books which leads her to discover secrets about her world and its lost crystal-based technology. What would you like readers to know about the story you tell in book three, Beyond the Sea?
It continues the story of Nissa’s growing awareness of the world she lives in. Traveling beyond the sea to Fartek, she has more new experiences and learns how divided the people of that continent have become since the fall of the artificial satellites a thousand years before. Finally, she and her companions find the source of the strange books Madoc got from a traveler from Solwintor.

Each of the books in the Crystal Odyssey Series takes place in a different part of your story world. How did you decide on the settings for this book?
I wanted it to have a somewhat Asian influence, as opposed to the Scandinavian features of Solwintor and the British feel of Leara. But the setting had to have inherent dangers too, like the chasm and the tigers.

What do you like most about Nissa, the main character in the series?
She is open to learning new things and accepting new people. She’s also a feminist, encouraging other girls and women to take charge of their lives.

What unique challenges did this project pose for you?
I wanted to make Nissa’s experiences different from those in The Crimson Orb and Under Two Moons. I also wanted each group of people to have unique characteristics and knowledge.

How do you meld science with fantasy elements to make this series work?
When I wrote the first book, I referred to it as crystal punk. Rather than electricity powering the machines, everything works using crystals. But they had to focus energy for that to be true. I based part of it on things like crystal radios, and the rest on the characters’ abilities to use their minds to focus the energy all around them. I wish we could do that. Many fantasy stories refer to the ley lines supposed to exist all around the Earth. The energy is strongest at certain places.

You help facilitate online courses for Writers Village University. What do many of the beginning writers you deal with misunderstand about storytelling?
Many don’t know how to bring out the emotions in their characters. That’s part of what engages readers. I struggle with that skill myself. Also a few rely too heavily on descriptions that have nothing to do with the plot or characters.

What writing projects are you working on now?
I’m working on several projects: the fourth book in The Crystal Odyssey series; a sequel to my award-winning portal novella, A Bite of the Apple; a story about a train disaster that turns out to be apocalyptic (I’m writing the third novel of that series); and an enviro-apocalyptic story about a girl exiled from a domed town.

Is there anything else you’d like readers to know?
I’ve also had a few short stories published. The latest story, “A Woman Hobbles into a Bar,” appears in the charity anthology Challenge Accepted.

KLWagoner150_2KL Wagoner (writing as Cate Macabe) is the author of This New Mountain: a memoir of AJ Jackson, private investigator, repossessor, and grandmother. Kathy posts to a speculative fiction blog at klwagoner.com and writes about memoir at ThisNewMountain.com.



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