“If the human’s world becomes boring, you have the sky.”
What inspired you to write your book?
Night hours! I like them when the Earth – my home-planet – sleeps profoundly and a new world, the one of the stars, wakes up in the sky above my head. Today information about them, about many galaxies is available on the Internet. I was always curious about the comparison between our Milky Way and the other galaxies. I wonder what would be a usual day for us at the neighbor Sagittarius galaxy if we live there. And the opposite, if we were Sagittarians, how we would feel starting a journey to the unknown planet Earth? How would a starry boy feel if he falls on the Earth and what would be the mix of the past, presence and future of our world for him…
What is it about?
Magical realism, a fiction, purposed for teens but I hope that all people with great imagination would love it. It is a lifeboat for everybody who loves to be drawn from everyday life in the free time and yearns to sink emotionally in another world when the reality is not enough.
Was there a character you struggled with?
Not exactly, The Starlight Prince had always drawn me. I loved to work over the character and the plot; I was thirsty to finish it; and to bring it to the world one day. Now the last sentence is written, the pages are wrapped with beautiful covers in warm colors… but I miss the hours when I was sitting behind my laptop and going with my hero on his next adventure… There is a sense of sadness that the journey is over.
I am content that my imagination has created my heroes. They keep a very friendly company of mine during the long hours of writing.
http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?t=wiswor0a-21&o=1&p=8&l=bpl&asins=0984547010&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifrHow many unpublished books do you have lurking under your bed?
Affairs of The Heart will be my second published book. There are two novellas, the contemporary love drama “The last secrets of the ancient island” and the historical love drama “A Love in Time of Wars”.
“The Last Secrets of The Ancient Island” is a story, which starts with loneliness and the fears of loneliness that can change our world with the same strength as strong love or hatred. Series of collisions and mishaps in an old town drives each of main characters under suspicion. There is an unknown driver, who has a tragically motivation to take his with others life. At the end with the unveiling the last mysteries of ancient sights unexplored in full by historians and archaeologists, it will be also clear that we were born alone, we die alone but life is our chance to live in love. If possible… or if we so wish…
“A Love in Time of Wars” happens in the beginning of 20 century. Sofia and Istanbul are scenes where passion, hatred, love and great efforts for peace changes everyone’s life of the two nations. On the ground of all differences in cultures, religions, languages, traditions and so on, a young Bulgarian girl and a Turkish officer know how to prevail over all borderlines between them.
The wars becomes past, the past becomes history, only love is still alive in a tale, very beautiful tale to remember them.
How did you find your publisher? How do they treat you? Would you recommend them?
Rose Heart Publishing is my publisher and I am happy to be their author! Till you find someone to believe in you and your works you may feel both hopeless and bored. The easy roads were already occupied and for me there was just one road left, the more difficult one.
One day I have found Rose Heart Publishing and I feel sincere gratitude to their team for the friendship and appreciation of my writing!
I also often receive compliments for their cover of my The Starlight Prince. It is very beautiful, indeed and sometimes people surprise me leaving a few words on my page at Facebook and even to my email using http://www.amazon.com how much they like it.
What’s the best/worst part of being a writer?
I consider myself a writer by soul because, although I have been working as a Recruiter in the field of Human Resources for years, at home in Sofia, my native city in the heart of Balkan peninsula, in my free time, history and writing are the important passions of my life. It is the best to share both of them with readers.
The worst is “to write or not to write”; “to start a new book or never start a new book”… such moments always can happen. But I believe that when one loves to do something – to climb mountains, to play a game soccer or to write – he or she just does it because of the pleasure and despite the result. Of course, there is also thought about success in everyone.
What is the most productive time of the day for you to write?
Perhaps night hours but I have no choice, if I find a little time for writing I do it. Being a professional HR I need to steal some free time to be a writer as well.
Do you start your projects writing with paper and pen or is it all on the computer?
I always have paper and a pen with me. I collect stories that impress me, the ones that I would not forget for a long time. Loving historical themes I also need strong research before I would be able to sit down behind my laptop because I like to be very accurate in historical references. Therefore I can never say “I have written it for a few months” because much time before the beginning I am used to taking some notes about heroes, dialogue, scenes that come in use in the process of writing. Usually a story “lives” in my mind for several years and all it starts with the notes on the papers, which I take out one day with the thought “I am ready to write it’ and turn on my computer.
What/who do you draw inspiration from?
Books and movies are inspiriting me and I perceive them as a specific channel of communication with their authors. I love interesting stories and legends, adventures that take us through the ages and help us to experience countless earthly and celestial places… I love Sofia, Sicily, Istanbul, Rome, Seville, London… the towns like museums under open sky, I like discovering these scenes of legends and secrets, history, journeys, culture, and ancient remains.
Do you set yourself goals when you sit down to write such as word count?
No. The important is whether I said everything that I wanted despite how many words I used for the purpose. After the completion of a story I need two-three months before starting its editing and sometimes it takes much time, perhaps as long as writing a new story. Therefore the word count put on the white paper in any evening or afternoon means nothing. The edit process could revise it in full.
What are you working on now that you can talk about?
“Somewhere Aroud Us”, a historical fiction. Here is its resume:
Italian ambassador, 40 years old Count Giovanni Di Castellano breaks all the rules of his world when in New York in the 1930s he meets Sofiana Assenova, an opera-star at “La Scala”. After two years of efforts, Giovanni and Sofiana succeed in obtaining permission for marriage from the Italian King Victor Emanuel the Third and from Vatican in spite of the protests of the Di Castellano family, because she is divorced and of Bulgarian origin.
She gives up her brilliant career and is converted to Roman Catholic religion. Count Di Castellano works in Paris, Moscow, London, Morocco and Rome. He is viewed as a Don Quixotte by political circles of that time. After his resignation, the couple returns to Sicily.
After the death of Count Di Castellano, Sofiana finds herself in Sicilian mental home and tries to understand what has happened with her and why. Seven years later she is saved with great difficulties and being treated in a catholic monastery before finding the path back to her grown-up son.
http://www.scribd.com/BORISLAVA_BORISSOVA
How do/did you deal with rejection letters?
In the past I asked very often myself: “Why don’t they feel my stories? Why don’t they accept them?” Of course, I know it is business but I think the rules of its business are very unfair for the beginning authors. There are many talented people, who have what to say, to give to the readers but no one would like to afford their books a chance. In recent days Internet changes it a bit and I am sure it is for better.
Sometimes I think that I am lucky to be part of the Internet generation and 40-50 years ago my initiative would have been an inanity, and the book would have been left in a cupboard at home without a chance for publication or being read by someone some time.
Do you have a critique partner?
My friends, they are my first readers and critics, well-wishers but critics.
Contacts:
http://borislavaborissova.quenit.com/author.html
http://www.roseheartbooks.com/borislava.html
Paperback and Kindle format of Starlight Prince
http://borislavaborissova.quenit.com/books/the-starlight-prince.html
