Blog Tour: How Fostino became... Fostino by Sara Celi (The Undesireable)

Author Sara Celi has stopped by today with a guest post for The Undesirable Blog Tour!

How Fostino became...Fostino

Naming a character might be one of the best parts of writing a book, but it can also be one of the hardest. You want to get the character names just right because (if readers are anything like me) impression are sometimes created by the name of character. When it came to Fostino, the male love interest for The Undesirable, I had a really hard time naming him. I kicked around about ten different names for him, and not one of them felt right. I could see him in my head, and almost hear him speaking in my mind, but I didn’t think any name I tried out for him worked. Would you believe an early name for this character was Derek? Yes, friends, it was. Fostino needed a certain name--an unusual name, a name that would immediately put him at odds with a community hellbent on conformity and “fitting in.” But after several weeks of trying on different names, I just couldn’t figure out a name that fit. In short, I was stuck. Enter my friend Jacob. He works with me at my day job as a photographer (I’m a TV anchor and reporter) and we sometimes work on stories that take up several hours of our day. It’s the kind of work environment that allows you get to pretty close to your co-workers. After almost two years of working together often, he and I are pretty tight.

By the time we got in a car one day on the way to Ft. Sill from Oklahoma City, he knew I had started writing a book. He knew about where I was in the story. And he even know how much anguish the male lead’s name had been causing me.

So, he did what he usually does. He forced me to talk about it. He asked probing questions and even teased me a little until I opened up.

And that’s when it began.

He tossed out a name. I toss out one. I pulled out my trusty Moleskine notebook and started jotting them down. He said another. I brought up two others. By about 10 miles from Ft. Sill, that notebook had a list of about 25 names.

Only one of those names had a big circle and star. It was the one that rang true.

Fostino.

Title: The Undesirable
Author: Sara Celi
Publisher: Lowe Interactive Media
Pages: 225

Book Description: *This book is Mature YA/ New Adult. It is recommended for readers 14 and over. What if everything you knew turned out to be a lie? Charlotte Walker knows how to live under the rule of The Party. She has managed for 18 years. She helps out her drunken mother and keeps life going at a familiar, steady pace. She doesn’t ask questions, even though she has many of them in her heart. Fostino Sanchez knows how to live under the rule of The Party, too. For 19 years, he’s worked to be the perfect Party member. He knows what must be done to keep Maxwell Cooper in power, and how find the The Undesirables that threaten to take away everything that matters. As the months go by, what matters most to Fostino is Charlotte Walker. While their love blooms, danger comes to Charlotte and Fostino’s small hometown of Harrison Corners, OH. Threats they never knew existed could take away all that they care about. And just when these two teens think they know what will come next, Charlotte learns the truth about a secret she has long suspected. What Charlotte finds out changes everything. EVERYTHING. THE UNDESIRABLE is Charlotte Walker’s story, from her point of view. It is a thrilling, suspenseful tale of love, curiosity, adversity, and maturity against the backdrop of a futuristic war. Should Charlotte trust Fostino with what she knows? Can she trust anyone? Will she find it in herself to rise up against terrible odds? What if the ultimate Undesirable is her?

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About Sara Celi

New Orleans born Sara Celi has lived all over the United States. She calls the Greater Cincinnati area and the Queen City home. She's currently a TV reporter and anchor in Oklahoma City, and has spent more than a decade working in journalism. She graduated cum laude from Western Kentucky University in 2004. Celi is also a contributing author to Chicken Soup for the Soul: The Power of Positive. The Undesirable is her debut novel. In her spare time, she likes to read, shop, write, travel, run long distances, volunteer with the Junior League, and fundraise for Cooperative for Education, a non-profit providing educational opportunities for Guatemalan kids.  

Blog Tour: Undertow Guest Post

Author Kiri R. Newton has stopped by today with a guest post for the Undertow blog tour.

Black, white and fifty shades of grey

Relax, this will not be about ‘that’ book or why I dislike it or anything of the sort instead more about writing entirely in grey tones. What do I mean? Well, the formula for writing a good story is actually quite simple; characters, location, conflict, villains, more conflict for extra measure and resolution. In every story you come across you will be introduced to the ‘good guys’ and the ‘bad guys’ who will spend the entire story fighting over or for something and in the end there will be a winner and the story is over. It’s the classic tale of black and white that is in every story on the face of this earth because as humans we’re wired to find the light, the dark and then expect a result. Undertow though is a little different. Ok sure, we’re introduced to the good guys and then the bad guys but are they what they seem? Dasan knew who Zoe was right from the moment he clapped eyes onto her and yet doesn’t reveal to his son at least until much later, let alone Zoe. Then when he explains Zoe’s alleged destiny to her, he skimps on details. He also skimps on the story of how the mess started in the first place, simply because it suited him. For a good guy, Dasan is awfully shady about some of this goings on in the present; let alone what he got up to in the past. Then we have the antagonist, Nesoi. Her motives are painted black by Dasan but are they really? When mer-folk set up their kingdoms, Forsthwyth in the North Sea was the centre only to be moved to the Pacific even though it was promised to be returned. Nesoi simply wants to return the throne to where she, a few others believe it belongs and carry on her father’s goal who wanted to do the same but died before seeing results. Then there’s Nesoi’s son Nox. For all its worth, he could be the legitimate heir to the throne and is being denied it by Dasan. We don’t actually know. Sure Nesoi’s manner of going about things is a little crooked but Dasan is no better. When we compare the protagonist and the antagonist they are quite similar as well. Both are leaders not followers, not afraid of treading on anyone else’s toes to get their point across and ‘means to an end’ type people. Not to mention the fact that they are both sassy chain-smokers with questionable dress sense. This then jumps down to the next generation where Nox is the polar opposite identical twin of Josiah. When you strip away the outer layers, they could be the same person just with two very different ways of doing things. And this was entirely my motive. Straight out black and white in a story is boring. When you hear the creepy music you know who is going to pop out of the shadows with a hunting knife and wreak havoc. What’s far more interesting is being told whose right and whose wrong but then finding yourself questioning it? Are they really all they make out to be? Human nature makes us question what we believe and I wanted my readers to do just that.

Title: Undertow Author: Kiri R. Newton Publisher: Bookpal Austrailia Blub: For far too long these sailor-drowning, ship-sinking sea sirens have been portrayed as happy, peaceful creatures who want nothing more than to fall in love with a prince and live happily ever after. Undertow is an unconventional twist on one of the oldest mythological creatures known to man. Buy Links: Amazon Barnes and Noble Smashwords Bookpal Media Links: Website

About Kiri R. Newton

Its weird right but as an author I could tell you about my characters inside out and yet when people ask me to talk about myself I go all quiet. Anyways, here I go. I am a child of ‘91 born in Jandowae, a tiny little town out past Dalby. When I was five my parents decided to pack everything up and move to Tonga in the South Pacific after Dad visited there and mum fell in love with the place after reading a book about it. So I grew up in a third world country, fluent in a second language by the time I was eight and lived amongst the locals who I was friends with. When I was thirteen my father passed away and due to the fact that the government refused to pay my mum a pension over there like they did my father, we were forced to move back to Australia. As for my writing career, I started writing progressively longer short stories in Grade 5 where one teacher noted on my report card that ‘I had unique ideas and an unusual talent’. By Grade 7 I had completed my first novel a post-apocalyptic fiction where cats are the highest life form and live basically as we do and follows the lives of a litter of cats, the characters based on a litter of cats belonging to my neighbour. I continued writing different things from horsey stories to Phantom of the Opera fan-fiction right through my teenage years, nothing serious, mostly just a lot of scribbling. In Grade 12 I realized that if I was going to be serious about being a writer I needed to finish stories, not just have a lot of random scribbles to my name. So forgoing all my assignments I finished my second book called Dynamite which is an Australiana tale about a racehorse. Two years later I went on holidays to Fiji, came home and three months later Undertow was completed. In the middle there I wrote a Tolkien-esque fantasy epic called The Dark Assassin with my now ex-boyfriend. The year after that I completed Hazardous, which will be my next published title.