Guest Nico Rosso

Friends, in the ALBTALBS world, I like to make things a little fluid. Here, it’s a lot fluid. (In fact, way more fluid than even I’m comfortable.) As in, let’s all agree this post is as dated. Please indulge me – and know that I am very sorry and contrite. 

That being said, let us all welcome the wonderful (and patient) Nico Rosso! Today (ahem! September 30th) is his wife Zoë Archer’s birthday! His post was actually supposed to go live the Thursday before this one but… well you know. Real life hasn’t been my best friend lately. And I thought it’d be super cute that this post went up on Zoë’s birthday. (Somehow it was really underlined thus in my mind.)

Anyway, I think we have a great post here. And also? Please respond, and ask him all the questions you have. Because I can’t imagine Mr. Rosso will be coming back to visit any time soon – all my fault. (Although I do try my best to keep things running here!) So anyway, give him a warm welcome, and please make up for my shortcomings, okay?

Thanks so much for having me on the blog, Limecello.

When I’m writing, I try not to lose sight of the final goal: telling a good story to the reader.  I’ll try to put myself in the reader’s shoes as the book unfolds.  I’ll ask myself questions as I go along: Is everything making sense?  Are the characters compelling?  Am I using the senses so the reader can feel, smell or taste the environment I’m creating?

But writing is also the journey for the writer.  Every day isn’t easy, but there’s always something to be created or learned.  And sometimes it’s more than that.  Life throws a lot of adversity at everyone.  Nowadays, it seems like a heavy rain of trouble has been coming down on a lot of people I know.

Just like reading fiction can be an escape for a reader, the process of writing it has helped me deal with the burdens of the world.  In my latest steampunk Western, Night of Fire, the hero, Tom Knox, and heroine, Rosa Campos, must defend their home town from an evil mining company’s rolling fifty foot rock eating machine.  This device starts out a few miles from town and seems unstoppable through most of the book.  As I was writing it, I was able to centralize my concerns in the world into that one villain.  And I could use my hero and heroine to stand up to that threat.

It isn’t always that simple in life, and I think that’s why reading fiction is important to us.  Hope is a strong salve, no matter if it’s given to us from the so-called “real world” or a book.  Writing it was the same for me, giving me a sense of a clear struggle between good and evil where good always prevails.  At least during the time while I was writing, there was relief from the nebulous troubles of the world.

Life will continue to bring ups and downs.  Through it, we readers and writers can find escape and hope in the romance and adventure narratives that pit our heroes and heroines against great evils, giving them the stage to prove how extraordinary they are, while showing us that the ability to persevere is in all of us – written or real.

So here’s my question for you: Is there a particular book that has helped you through tough times?

One lucky guest will win a free paperback copy of Night of Fire.  Good luck!

Night of Fire can be found at AmazonBarnes and NobleIndie Bound

Nico can be found here: Website, TwitterFacebook

Seriously – this question is almost scarily apt – at least for me: So here’s my question for you: Is there a particular book that has helped you through tough times? 

I’d like to know too. Maybe I can add some keepers to my reading list! (And remember, there’s a prize up for grabs!)

0 thoughts on “Guest Nico Rosso

  1. Mary Preston

    I can’t think of any particular book that has helped me. Reading in general takes my mind off things. Gives me time to gain a little perspective.

    NIGHT OF FIRE looks amazing!!

    Reply
  2. Barbara E.

    I’ll just say that “books” have helped me through tough times. It doesn’t matter so much which book, just as long as it’s an engrossing story that takes me away to another place so I can forget whatever’s troubling me. That has happened so many times in my life, I don’t know how I would have made it if not for books.

    Barbed1951 at aol dot com

    Reply
  3. Linda Thum

    No, I wouldn’t say there’s any one book that has helped me through tough times but I can’t imagine life w/o books to read! There’s nothing more enjoyable to me than curling up with a good book; When I’m bored, want an escape, need a pick me up; they are life savers!

    Reply
  4. Sharon Chalk

    I have read a lot of books and remember about 80% of them but 2 that stick in my mind because they made me think, one is a series written by Joss Ware in the beyond the night series–its 5 books all have the word night in them–they made me think about what is really important in life and how our day to day life would change if we suddenly had none of the conviences we have and had no technology,no food unless you knew how to farm,you get the idea,it made me think a lot and the other book surprisingly was a romance called Dream Man by Linda Howard,Ive reread it probably 30 times and can quote pages from it but it taught me a lesson about pre-concieved notions that I have never forgotten, every book I read adds something,even if its only entertainment to my life but those and a few other have actually made me re-evaulate and make changes in my life

    Reply
  5. Mary M.

    For some strange reason, The Princess Bride comes to mind. Whether it is the idea that love conquers all, even death, or the more bizarre aspects such as fighting “to the pain” or Diego Montoya’s quest, bits of the story remind me that in this construct several characters, flawed as myself, were able to conquer some pretty big evils.

    Reply
  6. Lisa Uranker

    I wouldn’t say a particular book but that just the reading itself gave me an escape. I love all my books, that being said The Black Dagger Brotherhood is at the top. I always wanted to find a guy like them to take me away.

    Reply
  7. lavendersbluegreen

    Oh yes, but depending on what kind of tough time, what my state of mind is, the time in my life and etc… that book has changed. Really, just reading daily helps me through every day. It sounds like your book is going to be a good good read!

    Reply
  8. Nico Rosso

    Thanks again to Limecello for having me on her blog and thanks so much for your comments, everyone. It’s interesting to see that for many of you there isn’t a specific book that helped, but just the process of reading in general. While the others who do have specific works have memorized them to the point where they don’t have to read them anymore, the book is always available in their memory.

    Reply

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