Book Giveaway and Interview: SMoss, author, Arborea: A Romantic Thriller Novel

In his new page-turner romantic thriller novel, Arborea, SMoss takes the readers to the California coastline where secret operations, dangerous activist groups, a Billionaire couple looking for a romantic break, and a vicious storm wreak havoc and will have the readers on-the-edge of their seats throughout. Read my exclusive Interview with the author who already has the acclaimed “The Hacker” series under his belt in this post below and also win yourself a copy of Arborea by SMoss.

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Meet the Author:

SMoss is the pen name of the American author and brand guru Stanley Moss (b. 1948). He founded The Club of Venice, a private conversation on brands and branding, serves as brand guru for Gottschalk+Ash of Zürich and is Travel Editor of Lucire, a New Zealand-based fashion magazine. Moss has visited India numerous times, voyages which provided the research for his published fictional works, “Hitman In Delhi“, “The Hacker“, “HACK IS BACK,” and “Arborea“, all available from Amazon. He’s also penned Books 1 and 2 of “The Captain Blackpool Trilogy“, historical novels about a secret agent working during the Napoleonic Wars. He’s author of “Nuclear Brands“, “What Is A Brand?” and “What Did You Just Say?” – three nonfiction titles concerned with the brand discipline. 

Read my very interesting and enlightening interview with SMoss as he talks about his new romantic thriller, Arborea; his writing journey; and his tips for new writers; and don’t miss out on the chance to win yourself a copy of his latest page-turner, Arborea in the exclusive giveaway below.

• Also Read Arborea by SMoss Review

Author Interview: SMoss

How did you get the idea to write “Arborea”?

It’s actually a book I wanted to write for a long time. For many years, hotelier friends in New Delhi regaled me with tales from their experiences running boutique properties there. I always thought there might be a novel to write but could never connect it with the western world. Then one night I had a dream: that the entry to a luxury resort in the California redwood forest turned out to be via an elevator hidden in the trunk of a tree. From that portal I imagined all the rest of Arborea, and let it be run by a couple modeled on my Indian friends.

The hotel canon has been around since Victorian times, with many respected antecedents, among them Arnold Bennett’s melodramatic serial novel, “The Grand Babylon Hotel“; Vicky Baum’s classic, “Grand Hotel” – an international bestseller made into movies twice; “Down and Out in Paris and London” by George Orwell, containing amazing scenes of the kitchens of a Paris restaurant; Thomas Mann’s “Confessions of Felix Krull“, “Confidence Man” with its wonderful back of the house passages; Arthur Hailey’s “Hotel“, written during the Civil Rights era, an enjoyable, historical parlor comedy with many racist tropes that date it; and Wes Anderson’s recent “The Grand Budapest Hotel“, an otherwise brilliant work tainted by the distracting curse of excessive profanity.

You said you wrote it entirely during the lockdown. How was the overall experience as compared to your normal schedule? Was it better or worse?

Arborea was a great gift from the pandemic. Prior to self-isolation I had always stolen time from my professional occupations – which included international brand advising and a lot of traveling – to enjoy the vicarious pleasures of writing fiction. For me, fiction-writing is a luxury and a delicious, joyful experience. I get such a kick out of it. With long uninterrupted days I found it easy to focus for extended hours on the manuscript. It was definitely a better way to write.

What is your writing process? Is it fixed or do you experiment?

Arborea was heavily outlined – I spent a lot of time juggling chronologies before jumping into the actual writing. Once I could tell myself the story line coherently in my mind, the writing flowed easily. I’m always open to experimentation. The joy comes when you stumble upon some moment of illuminating, delightful and unexpected inspiration.

I am a work in progress with regard to technique. At the University of California I studied Joyce, Hemingway, Pound, and Augustan writers like Pope, Dryden, Johnson and Swift. So those writers and their method shaped my early worldview. In earlier works I attempted a lot of experimental writing, genre-fusing, magical realism. I avidly read everything by Borges.

What is the most difficult part of your writing process? 

Before the pandemic, it used to be finding the time to write.

Now, writing has become like a drug. I can’t be away from it for too long. At the moment of this interview, with Arborea published about three weeks ago, I’ve already started on my next novel, “The Jade Lion”, Book 3 of the Captain Blackpool Trilogy.

How long have you been writing or when did you start?

I made the usual feeble attempts during my adolescence. I completed my first novel, a terrible unpublishable detective story, when I was about 25 years old. I’ve written eight full-length novels in the intervening 45 years. I have been Travel Editor of Lucire, a New Zealand-based fashion magazine, since 2005, so I have seen a lot of the world and stayed in a lot of hotels, scribbling journalistic pieces along the way. Two of the novels tell the story of a rogue Indian hacker; two are historical fiction; Arborea is classified as eco-fiction, mash-up fiction, hotel fiction, or a romantic thriller. 

What advice would you give to a writer working on their first book?

Lower your expectations about your early work. Just get words onto paper. As many as you can, and don’t agonize. Everything you write isn’t going to be a masterpiece. You just need to practice and definitely rewrite. Revision is the finest tool.

'What advice would you give to new writers?' Read SMoss' #Interview on #NjkinnysBlog where he shares his expert tips and talks about his writing journey. + #BookGiveaway Enter to #win #newrelease ARBOREA. Open Internationally! Click To Tweet

What, to you, are the most important elements of good writing?

1) Clarity of intent.
2) High awareness of technique, especially the judicious use of vocabulary.
3) In fiction, pacing and crafting of people you love to hate.

 

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What comes first for you — the plot or the characters — and why?

That’s not enough choice for first criteria. It’s so much more than plot and characters. I might originally imagine the location, or have a concept as simple as trying to frame a story within a particular category of literature. It might be a theme like in Arborea, which I meant to be about the idea of redemption, about everybody getting what they wanted in the end. The “Captain Blackpool” books are about fooling around with genres. Blackpool 1 is a bodice-ripper; Blackpool 2 is a boy’s adventure novel; and I’ll leave you guessing about where Harry goes in Blackpool 3.

Other books by SMoss:

How do you develop your plot and characters? 

Plotting is an oddity. Arborea takes place, mostly, in four days at an isolated resort, with a core cast of 15 people. The question is, how much can happen to it and them in four days?

So the action/character outline required a serious amount of choreography and sequencing. The reader always needs to know where they are, when, and who is speaking.

The American audience told me that they were unable to remember characters by their unfamiliar names in the India novels. So I developed a character list to appear at the beginning of the book as a guide for them. In having to create such a list it forced me to imagine all the players in greater detail.

What is your schedule like when you’re writing a book?

When you’re hot, you’re hot. I did some compulsive 10 hour writing days as I composed Arborea. I’d allow myself the luxury of walking away to wash dishes, make a cup of tea, but couldn’t stay away for long. I would vary my tasks such as research, which took up an unusual lot of time. I built a good-sized file of images for reference, pictures to help visualize the story, an ongoing process. For the last half of the novel I was writing in 3-4 day clusters of energetic keyboard time, full, rich days, then a day or two off as I allowed my brain to cool, as I reconsidered the progress of the tale. Most nights I fell asleep retelling myself the story.

How do you use social media as an author? 

Not much. Social media wants to propel itself, so I don’t feel like I have much influence over it. Younger people have higher skills in deploying and appreciating it. So I will remain old school, loose messages into the void, and stare with bemusement at whatever washes back in my digital direction.

How would you describe your book’s ideal reader?

20 – 70 years old, interested in environment, humanism, fast media.
Someone tired of car crashes and explosions passing as literature – only one shot is fired in Arborea, and it is into the trees.
Somebody looking for an uplifting message and a good story in an era of dark and dystopian literature.

Why should the readers read Arborea?

• An uplifting message and a feel-good story in an era of dark and dystopian literature.
• Gives the reader a sense of inner peace, balance and harmony and quiets the adrenaline in the body in tumultuous times.
• It shows the interplay of humanity and nature, a real account of day to day sensibilities.
• It’s about the fight for beliefs in a story where the good guy prevails.
• Recounts the old fashioned values of love, goodwill, discovery, respect for elders and ancient artifacts and antiquities, traditional wisdom, a plea to honor our society.

Buy Arborea by SMoss:

Amazon.in | Amazon.com

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• Book Review: The Hacker : Client. Coder. Chaos by SMoss
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• Book Review: Fallen by Mia Sheridan
• Njkinny’s List of the Best Books of 2020
• Book Review: The Girl in Room 105 by Chetan Bhagat

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