Boosting the Signal: Heartsick, by Caitlin Sinead

Fellow Carina author Caitlin Sinead has a New Adult book out this week, one that straddles the line between mystery and romance. Heartsick tells a tale of a mysterious affliction spreading through a college town and turning everyone’s eyes purple–and in today’s Boosting the Signal post, we’ve got a character interview with someone who I daresay will be part of the research into this very problem! Though his goals appear to be rather more basic than that, too. Let’s let Zachary tell you all about it!

Heartsick

Allan High School Principal: As a continuing university outreach project, we have another Poe University student here to talk with you. We welcome Zachary Leibowitz, a graduate student in the biology program. Thanks, Zachary, for coming by. What first interested you in a science career?

Zachary: I thought it would get me girls. *grins*

Principal: Ha, and how is that working out for you?

Zachary: The most amazing woman I’ve ever met is dating me, so, I’d say pretty well. Seriously, she’s awesome. She laughs at almost all my jokes and she can build a mini hut out of sugar packets. Kids, let me tell you, some people will try to tell you there are more important things to consider when assessing a potential girlfriend, like trust fund sizes, but it’s all about laughter. And sugar packets.

Principal: I’m glad you’re love life is going well, but—

Zachary: Swimmingly!

Principal: Okay, swimmingly, but let’s get back to your career. What made you want to study viruses?

Zachary: The human body is amazing. It can run on nothing but Tostinos and orange juice for eight straight days. I know this because I’ve tried it. But then these tiny viruses can come in and mess with all that important cellular machinery and completely crash the party. I’ve always found that interaction interesting.

Principal: So, you want to stop viruses?

Zachary: I wouldn’t use the word “stop.” I want to understand them. Sometimes the guy who crashes the party ends up being the life of the party…I know this because it’s often me. Bringing Tostinos doesn’t hurt.

Principal: Have you enjoyed your time at Poe University?

Zachary: Yes. My advisor has supported my whacky ideas and the other students in the program are brilliant and friendly. It’s been great. I’ve also really enjoyed Allan. I know not everyone in Allan thinks Poe students are great, especially after…well… *shifts in seat* but, anyway, I think if we can get past our differences we can accomplish some really amazing things together.

Principal: Thank you for your thoughts on that, and for stopping by today.

Zachary: Of course, thanks for having me. And I’m happy to stay and talk with anyone who’s interested in becoming a scientist. As I said, that’s how to get the girls. *winks*

Buy the Book: Carina Press | Amazon | Nook | iBooks | Kobo | Google Play

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Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Friday fun with French

Since I’ve had some cycles free up now that Bone Walker and Victory of the Hawk are done, I’ve turned my attention to playing with translating my own prose. Specifically, I’m amusing myself writing that story I threatened to write some time ago, “The Dragonslayer of Chimay”, based on Le Vent du Nord’s song “Le dragon de Chimay”–and hey, I figure if it’s based on a song in French, I should try to write the prose in French!

Playing around with this yesterday, though, finally let me figure out the answer to a question I had come up doing the Trilingual Hobbit Reread: i.e., how quoting dialogue in French prose actually works.

I’d noticed in Bilbo le hobbit that some dialogue was bracketed by the familiar angle quotes, « and ». Some dialogue also involved m-dashes, and some actually mixed them in ways that didn’t seem obvious to me. To further complicate the matter, I noticed as well that within the same paragraph, dialogue was not separated from dialogue tags by closing quotes the same way an English sentence would do it.

So for example, an English sentence might look like this:

“I love that band,” she said. “Their tunes are awesome!”

But in French you’d get this:

« J’aime ce groupe, dit-elle. Leurs tounes sont fantastique! »

See how there’s no closing quote after “dit-elle”–which is “she said” here, what gets called a dialogue tag in writing–and no quote to reopen the spoken words after it?

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE. The m-dash comes into play, it seems, to signify if there’s a change in speaker. And furthermore, the angle quotes are used less to signify “here is something a person says”, and more “a general area of conversation that can involve one or more people”–and so the starting and closing quotes bracket an entire section of dialogue, as large as possible in the context of the narrative.

Which suddenly makes large bits of Bilbo le hobbit make more sense to me!

Here’s an example:

« J’aime ce groupe, dit-elle. Leurs tounes sont fantastique! 

— Qu’est-que tu penses de leur violoneux? demande son ami. Il joue bien, oui?

— Absolument! Il est merveilleux! Je veux apprendre toutes ses chansons! »

So that’s fun, and something I look forward to practicing as I slowly work my way through not only writing “The Dragonslayer of Chimay”, but also translating it as I go!

Relatedly: I have also discovered that if you’re dealing with those angle quotes in French prose, you’re going to want to make non-breaking spaces to go between them and the words they’re surrounding–otherwise the text will wrap weirdly and that’s no fun. And there’s an easy way to do this on the Mac: Option + Space.

Not as easy to do if I’m on one of my iOS devices, but this is a problem that can be solved by my Bluetooth keyboard!

What fun things do you all know about in non-English prose? What tricks do you know to make non-English characters when you’re typing?

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.

Boosting the Signal: Going Against Type, by Sharon Black

I don’t often get queries for Boosting the Signal from authors I don’t already know–but this one came to me from Sharon Black, who approached me asking for help promoting her debut romantic comedy. “But Anna,” I hear you cry, “you don’t read contemporary romance!” That’s true, usually. But I’ll cheerfully say that a) she did catch my interest talking about how this one’s set at a newspaper, and I do have a personal history involving newspaper employment, b) Ireland is always a win, and c) her cover’s rather adorable. So let me turn this over to Sharon’s protagonist Charlie, who’d like to have a word with you all! Because she’s definitely a girl with some goals.

Going Against Type

AN OPEN LETTER TO READERS OF BOOSTING THE SIGNAL, FROM CHARLOTTE ‘CHARLIE’ REGAN, THE PROTAGONIST IN GOING AGAINST TYPE.

Dear reader,

My name is Charlotte. My friends and colleagues at the paper usually call me Charlie, so you can too. I’m a 29 year old Dublin girl. Most importantly, I’m a sports reporter for a national Irish newspaper, Ireland Today.

Which isn’t easy. I mean, the work is fine. Better than fine. It’s great. I adore sports. Even wanted to be a professional soccer player, until I injured myself. And I’m not afraid to go after the big stories. I’m surrounded by men—they do dominate sports reporting. So I have to prove myself.

And a few weeks ago, it paid off! The editor gave me a shot at writing the new sports column, Side Swipe. It’ll be written anonymously—which is fine by me. For the moment.

I can almost feel the other reporters looking over my shoulder. Don’t get me wrong, most of them are great. Recently, some of us even spent a weekend in the West of Ireland, surfing in the Atlantic. Loved it!

But any reporter worth his salt would do pretty much anything to get his own column.

What’s a girl to do? Well, I’ll tell you what this one’s going to do. Write the best damned column I can. Week after week. Which is why it has to be spiky and sharp and controversial. No holds barred. What I have I got to lose?

Only the column! Because if I’m not careful, I’ll lose it to somebody who thinks they’ve earned it, just because they’ve been here the longest.

And when I’ve put my stamp on it, they’ll have to give me a by-line, right? Because by then, they won’t want to let me go.

Which would be straightforward enough, if a rival columnist hadn’t declared war! No sooner had my first column appeared, than The Squire let loose on me. The Squire is the gossip columnist at The Irish People. I don’t know who he is, of course, because his scathing column is anonymously written. But I loathe him.

A couple of years ago, he went to town on a friend of mine, when her marriage was in trouble. Her celebrity husband had been having an affair, and that despicable man at The Irish People ran the sordid details for weeks in The Squire.

Anyway, he had the nerve to attack me! I had merely pointed out the stupidity of professional footballers, getting involved with big brand sponsorship. Fashion, in particular. I mean, I’m a huge sports fan. I’m just getting a bit tired of seeing my football heroes modelling briefs. Not to put too fine a point on it, I only want to see balls going into the back of the net!

But back to The Squire. Whoever he is, he’s picked the wrong girl for a fight. Because, as I said before, this girl isn’t afraid to get her hands dirty.

Thing is, the whole thing has escalated, and it’s turned into this weekly war of words. It seems everyone is following us. Broadcast media, social media, you name it. Which is a lot of pressure!

Of course, I’m absolutely determined to win. There is no way I’m going to let this arrogant slime, whoever he is, get the better of me.

The other exciting thing that’s happened, is that I’ve met somebody. He is seriously hot! Derry Cullinane. Tall (the guy must be a foot taller than me), dark and dapper. He’s actually a fashion writer for The Irish People. Which is a bit weird, I must admit. But this man is not only comfortable in his own skin, I think he actually enjoys being surrounded by women. Although maybe it’s not that shocking. He’s definitely a bit of a player.

Funny thing about our first meeting. I was covering Ladies Day at The Galway Races, and this guy steps back on my foot. He apologised, but he had the cheek to suggest that I might have been standing too close to him! Anyway, when I bumped into him again later that day, he told me he’d read Side Swipe‘s racing tips and had lost €1000!

He asked me straight out who wrote Side Swipe, by the way. I told him I hadn’t a clue. Pretended I was just there to write about the fashion. There was no way I was owning up to getting that one wrong!

I nearly blew it though. We met a few weeks later, through mutual friends. When he told me he worked for The Irish People, I started ranting about how much I hated The Squire. You’ve never seen anyone change a topic of conversation so fast. It’s a wonder he asked me out at all.

I don’t really understand why he did. You have no idea, we are complete opposites. I just don’t think I’m his type at all.

But right now, I deserve a bit of fun in my life.

And after my last boyfriend, I have no intention of getting hurt again.

Buy the Book: Tirgearr Publishing | Amazon | Nook | iBooks | Kobo

Follow the Author On: Facebook | Blog

Mirrored from angelahighland.com.