Interviewed by blogger-friend

The following interview if from Bella Harte's Blog reproduced by permission.

What inspired you to start writing novels for your chosen genre?

I wrote my first novel because when I read The Romance of the Three Kingdoms, considered one of four great Chinese classic novels, I found it very boring. A couple of years later I found myself studying Mandarin (it’s a long story) and wondered if I had read a bad translation. Then I got into it and turned the 120-chapter classic into a twenty-three chapter novel I called The Battle of Chibi. Somehow it flatters me whenever I am told how close to the original readers find it.

Agamemnon Must Die grew out of decades of wondering why at University I was told I had to read Aeschylus’ Oresteia because it was essential to the foundation of Western culture and politics.

Are you working on anything new right now and can you tell us more?

I am sketching out a sequel to The Chinese Spymaster, which I had written because I found James Bond and Jason Bourne entertaining but not at all believable. So I decided to write about an intelligence agency in China whose main concern is intelligence, and the finding and analysis thereof.

Can you offer any advice to the fledgling authors, just starting out?

Be very sure this is what you want to do. The muse, some say, is a bitch-goddess and the pay is terrible. Some call what it takes, “passion.” I have settled for “curiosity.” Also, be sure to ask yourself why anyone would want to read what you write.

What is/are your all-time favourite novel/s?

I honestly can’t say although I have read The Lord of the Ring three or four times (also The Alexandria Quartet) and all of the Harry Potter stories at least twice (also Remembrance of Time Past). I also wish I could write something like The Life of Pi.

What are you reading at the moment & would you recommend it to us?

The Wine-dark Sea, a book about an English captain and his crew. It is quite knowledgeable and witty.

Do you have a favourite quote, if so what is it?

Life is uncertain; eat dessert first.

How do you come up with the Titles for your novels?

There does not seem to be any magic to it and three of the five things I have written have a straightforward title. The fourth, Heaven is High and the Emperor Far Away is a well known saying in Chinese culture among those who don’t have country homes or perhaps any homes. The original was a three act play about a tea house in Beijing. It had over seventy characters, etc. I adapted it into two acts and twenty characters, but I wanted to keep the feel of a world similar to that which Dickens might have written about. It was also about struggling to survive during with war and civil war. Agamemnon Must Die came to me early in my writing of the novel.

Do you have a day job, other than writing – if so can you share?

I used to teach history, then I was a banker, but I am now retired.

What is your preferred method of writing:-  The plot pre-planned from day one, or just go with the flow and see what happens next?

Both actually. One has to adapt.

If you don’t like a character you’re writing about, what do you do?

            a. Kill them off instantly

             b. Get over it and learn to like them

             c. Give them a whole new personality

            d. or something else – do tell?! Please!

You are the author and can do anything you want with the characters. But they do grow roots, so to speak. In any case, it should be easier than breaking up. If it isn’t, you need more help from a different department.

Do you have any input in the Cover design of your novel?

One tries. Cover designers should have a mind of their own though.

Who would be your dream cast if your novel was made into a movie?

Angelina Jolie as Clytemnestra (like a majestic Lara Croft) and Brad Pitt as her lover.

Tell us one thing that no-one else knows about you – your darkest secret if you dare!

I am an old Chinese male who wishes he had had the opportunity to play the role of Lady Macbeth.

Can you tell us why you think we’d love to read your novel?

The War, the Trojan War, is over. In Mycenae, it’s back to reality. Except the gods have something unfinished on their agenda. Wouldn’t you want to know what it is?

Finally, what 7 words best sum up your novel?

Love, reasonableness, realistic goals, honour, courtesy, courage.

Day 17. Twenty-seven thousand words to go

The National Novel Writing website is quite useful. It told me, for instance, that as of today the seventeenth I had 27,000 words to go. and should be writing at the rate of 1,943 words per day for the rest of November, Thanksgiving Day included (no football then). I had reported that to date I have written 22,801 words.

I am not sure whether to be comforted since my target was to write two thousand words a day, but it is killing me. I feel like the fifty year old parent I was after having taken my then preteens on a horseback ride up and down some national park trail. Would I make it to dinner? Is there enough tylenol or advil to make me feel whole again?

Several other fellow writers in a local community group are also in this month of insane endeavor and are slightly ahead. Perhaps they "shaved their points" in our discussion to allow me to feel better. On the other hand, a correspondent blithely reported that he had not only written thirty thousand words but also just released a CD of original yuletide songs.

Both those who encourage and those who humiliate (without malice aforethought) are to be cherished. So help me God.

NaNoWriMo, the first step

Perhaps I took the first step last year. If so, it did not lead anywhere. Our local writers' group hosted two regional facilitators (or whatever it is that they are called) for an evening earlier this month and I was inspired to think I would try again. Besides, I am experiencing a writer's block in the worst way and believe extreme measures are in order if I am to get even a draft of the second volume to The Chinese Spymaster (published in 2013) done/started this year. 


The spy novel was announced as the first of three as I wanted to challenge myself to write something other than about Chinese Classics. Since last year, I have written a retelling of a GREEK classic (the subject of several posts on this blog), but I did not know this when I dreamed up the Spymaster. As an aside, let me note that some kind of political correctness filter must be in place on this site or on the sites to which I link this blog because the cover of The Chinese Spymaster will not show at the other site. But I digress.

As the facilitators shared their enthusiasm, I was lulled into thinking this year's NaNoWriMo would be a good exercise, at the very least. I determined that I would sign up and be official this year.

So here's the OFFICIAL logo and the link to the NaNoWriMo website. The website requires participants to check in regularly and to upload the novel occasionally. It also provides opportunities for writers to connect in person or "virtually." Early
life experience has taught me that I was more likely to get something done if I told other people, especially family (Mom in particular), what I wanted to achieve. 

Alas, Mom is no longer around. So I am telling my potential readers, you.

Giveaway on Goodreads

In the attempt to "get with it" in the promotion department of an independent author's life, I decided to have a "Giveaway" on Goodreads.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Agamemnon Must Die

by Hock G. Tjoa

Giveaway ends October 26, 2014.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

I hope this works!

If it does, who knows ...

Loukia Borell

I am occasionally able to present a guest blog. Today's is by Loukia Borell, who tells briefly of her Greek-Cypriote heritage and her recent writing.

Certain events in our lives stay with us, and when you are a writer, those are the times you remember when you need material for your books. In 1972, I went to my parents’ homeland, Cyprus, and encountered a world that might have been mine if my parents hadn’t immigrated to the United States.  I spent the summer in a small, mountain village surrounded by my grandparents and other relatives who lived off the land. The village was a study in agrarian life: Most of what they ate was grown by them – olives, figs, cheese, grains, fruits¸ and eggs from their own chickens. They had their own lambs or poultry when they wanted to add meat to a meal. There was a village church, built under the direction of the village priest (my great-grandfather), water came from the mountain, and donkeys were ridden to go from one village to the next. I was 9 years old and completely fascinated by this old world, a place that was 50 years behind the one I lived in.

In 1974, everything I saw two years before was blown away when Turkey invaded the Northern third of Cyprus in an effort to stop plans to unify the island with Greece. My maternal grandparents and other relatives were among those who were killed by advancing troops. Their bodies, along with hundreds of others, have not been recovered. Other Greek-Cypriots on the island were now refugees, driven out of their homes to live in exile in other Cypriot villages or to leave Cyprus entirely. When I overheard my parents talking about the atrocities, my mind was filled with scenes I was just beginning to understand: Stories of men and women shot and killed, young girls and their mothers raped repeatedly, families piling into cars with the clothes on their backs to flee to safety, men shipped to prisons and never seen again.

In 2011, years after my trip to Cyprus and long after the crisis that changed our lives, I wrote a historical fiction novel, Raping Aphrodite, and told my family’s story. A few weeks ago, I self-published the prequel to Raping Aphrodite. Delicate Secrets explores the love story of my two primary characters when they first met.  Both books are available on Amazon.com and BN.com as e-books. Raping Aphrodite is also available in paperback; Delicate Secrets will be released in paperback in 2015.

Getting "beta reads" for Agamemnon

Through a group on Goodreads.com, I found some beta readers for my next publication, Agamemnon Must Die. The Group, one of hundreds (perhaps more) on the site, is called the (link here) Beta Reader Group. I had never heard of a beta reader before and was most grateful to have found this group and the volunteer readers who can be reached there. A writer's circle of friends gets tired after being asked so many times and anyone willing to read one's writing and give concrete feedback other than paid editors is truly welcome.

Finding online those willing to read one's work in this manner is a blessing. The same rules of etiquette still apply, of course. These readers perform a service without contract and must be treated with courtesy and respect. If any do not comment (or read), they are no different from one's friends who blithely promised to do so but do not deliver. One may only prompt or nudge for a response only so often and only with regard for feelings, "life events," etc.

As it turned out, I was fortunate to find three such readers in a combination of friends and the online group. I wish here to report on my experience. 

One reader raved over Agamemnon to such an extent that I actually asked if there was not anything that might be less than perfect. Honestly, I did. Obviously there is nothing better for an author's ego than such a reception. I felt vindicated in the choices I made in the retelling of thoroughly foreign (to me) myths that are over three thousand years old.

But I was glad also for the reaction of the second reader who confessed that reading my work had been an almost overwhelming chore--that nothing worked, not the plot, the characters or the dialogue. The reader was most apologetic and fortunately my usually robust ego had been previously fortified by the first response I received. Here was warning, if such was necessary, not to expect a runaway seller.  

The third reader turned out to have been born and educated in Greece. We discussed the nuances of religion and philosophy implied by my reinterpretations of the myths that Aeschylus wove into the Oresteia seven hundred years after the "events." I was quizzed about the sources of the differences, many quite radical, between what the fifth century (B.C.) dramatist conceived for his prize-winning trilogy and the story I wished to tell. I was also challenged to check on the terrain, for instance between Mycenae and Delphi, since I could not use the excuse that something happened "off stage" for some of the major transitions (scene changes). How wonderful these days to be able to avail oneself of satellite maps and "street views"!

These beta readers have prepared me for the forthcoming travail with the editor and proof-reader. I don't pretend to have discovered their existence, not even in the sense of Columbus discovering America, but nonetheless heartily commend them to my fellow writers.

Why fuss over the cover of a book?

Some time ago, I asked friends and acquaintances which of two covers they preferred. (I am vague about this because I no longer recall what social media I used for my inquiry.) But I am able to reproduce both covers and also add that I chose neither of them. Instead I worked with a cover designer to come up with this.

The decision was made more difficult because the first two covers had been designed and given to me by a friend. In honor of those gifts, I am reproducing the covers here with an explanation of why I decided on a new one.

This cover appeared most attractive to many viewers, but I had to admit to myself that although it was attractive to more browsers because of the action evoked, it was misleading. Agamemnon Must Die is not about warriors or war although there is a fight scene and the story is set after the Trojan War. It is about those who watch and wait and the consequences of they did.

Of the two covers, I preferred this as it evoked the dark atmosphere of the story even though I like to think that it is a story of individuals who defy their fate with affection and spirit. But then I decided that the helmet does not belong to the era, late Mycenaean. It struck me as being almost Roman in style. (I did like, however, the "hollow men" feel of the disembodied armor.)

But I chose to commission the final cover in order to incorporate the Mask of Atreus, commonly referred to as the Mask of Agamemnon because it is an artifact genuinely from the period and is in fact iconic of the generation of the Trojan War.

Agamemnon Must Die will be published November 1, 2014.