{"id":515,"date":"2016-02-01T05:10:43","date_gmt":"2016-02-01T10:10:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/?p=515"},"modified":"2016-02-01T05:10:43","modified_gmt":"2016-02-01T10:10:43","slug":"flashfiction-challenge-a-blog-interview-with-arekan-morastan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/?p=515","title":{"rendered":"#FlashFiction Challenge: A Blog Interview With Arekan Mor’a’stan"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Arekan<\/a>Author: We are happy to have with us today, Arekan Mor\u2019a\u2019stan, the main character in two science fantasy serials, Arekan\u2019s War and the newest, Pirate\u2019s Luck. He also has a supporting role in The Mor\u2019a\u2019stani Chronicles, the series of full-length books about his daughter, B\u2019yetishen Mor\u2019a\u2019stan. Thank you, Arekan for being here today.<\/p>\n

Arekan: (irritably) Why are we doing this?<\/p>\n

Author: We are participating in Chuck Wendig\u2019s Flash Fiction Challenge<\/a> where we are to present a piece of up to one thousand words representative of social media. We are doing a blog interview.<\/p>\n

Arekan: What is a Chuck Wendig and what do I have to do kill it? For that matter, what is a social media? Can I run my sword through it?<\/p>\n

Author: (In an urgent hushed whisper) You aren\u2019t killing anyone or anything today.<\/p>\n

Arekan: And what in the seven hells is a blog? Sounds like something that happens after you drink one too many at the tavern. \u201cOh gods , I, uh, I\u2019m going to blllooooggghh.\u201d <\/p>\n

Author: (with head in hands) Can you just pay attention so we can get through this? <\/p>\n

Arekan: (with a resigned sigh) Oh, okay. What do you want me to do now? Because you make me do some pretty weird stuff. Like that spacewalk thing without a suit. Twice. What\u2019s that about?<\/p>\n

Author: How this works is that I ask the questions and you answer them.<\/p>\n

Arekan: Does this mean you are going to listen to me for once? Because I keep telling you that you need to use more (bleep) swear words. Real (bleep) men use real (bleep) swear words. Not this (bleep, bleep) \u201cWhat in the seven hells\u201d and \u201cby the hajens\u201d (bleep.)<\/p>\n

Author: Arekan, please. This is a family blog.<\/p>\n

Arekan: Bbbbllloooooggghhh. (belches)<\/p>\n

Author: (Cursing under her breath)<\/p>\n

Arekan: See, right there. That\u2019s good stuff. Use that.<\/p>\n

Author: You were never meant to be a main character.<\/p>\n

Arekan: (sarcastically) Is that a question? How do you want me to answer that? Of course I\u2019m a (bleep) main character. Just took you a hell of long time to listen to me. <\/p>\n

Author: I have other things to write, you know.<\/p>\n

Arekan: Sure, like that trash you ghostwrite. It takes away time from what you write about me. <\/p>\n

Author: It\u2019s not trash and it pays the bills, unlike you.<\/p>\n

Arekan: The problem in not me or my stories. Improve your marketing. Independent authors need to understand book marketing. Especially since you are too lazy to submit your stories to real publishers. <\/p>\n

Author: Now I understand why B\u2019yetishen says those things about you.<\/p>\n

Arekan: (alarmed) B\u2019yetishen? Is she here? I\u2019ve got to make tracks then. (stands to leave)<\/p>\n

Author: Sit, please, Arekan. B\u2019yetishen is not here.<\/p>\n

Arekan: Good. I mean, I love my daughter and all, but she can be, well, a little critical, if you know what I mean.<\/p>\n

Author: No. I don\u2019t know what you mean. She is a lovely woman.<\/p>\n

Arekan: How much wine have you drunk tonight?<\/p>\n

Author: Not nearly enough. <\/p>\n

Arekan: I mean sure, once you get past the deadly sword play and her acid wit you can have a decent conversation. But lovely? (makes scoffing noise)<\/p>\n

Author: Arekan, please. Let\u2019s get back on track here.<\/p>\n

Arekan: You do seem to have a one-track mind. But, sure, let\u2019s get this done. I have minions to train and underlings to harass.<\/p>\n

Author: I\u2019m sure.<\/p>\n

Arekan: It\u2019s a full day.<\/p>\n

Author: Arekan, some readers have complained about the apostrophes in your family name. They say it\u2019s a pass\u00e9 fantasy literary device and annoying.<\/p>\n

Arekan: Is that what they say?<\/p>\n

Author: Yes.<\/p>\n

Arekan: Then tell them to get over it. It\u2019s a (bleeping) family name. It\u2019s constructed from perfectly good Kyn words according to Kyn grammatical structure. Besides which, not all family names are even that elegant. Tell me, what\u2019s yours?<\/p>\n

Author: Turnage. <\/p>\n

Arekan: My point exactly. Sounds like a root vegetable. And not a tasty one at that. <\/p>\n

(Offstage) Father? You old reprobate. Is that you there?<\/p>\n

Arekan: Sorry. Gotta run. The daughter\u2019s here, which means I shouldn\u2019t be.<\/p>\n

Author: Arekan!<\/p>\n

Arekan: I\u2019ll get back to you soon. We have MANY words to write together.<\/p>\n

Author: That\u2019s what I\u2019m afraid of.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author: We are happy to have with us today, Arekan Mor\u2019a\u2019stan, the main character in two science fantasy serials, Arekan\u2019s War and the newest, Pirate\u2019s Luck. He also has a supporting role in The Mor\u2019a\u2019stani Chronicles, the series of full-length books about his daughter, B\u2019yetishen Mor\u2019a\u2019stan. Thank you, Arekan for being here today. Arekan: (irritably) […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[17,24],"tags":[55,57,95,97,218,249],"class_list":["post-515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fiction-challenges","category-morastani-universe","tag-arekan-morastan","tag-arekans-war","tag-chuck-wendig","tag-chuck-wendigs-flash-fiction-challenge","tag-pirates-luck","tag-science-fantasy"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=515"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/515\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=515"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=515"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bethturnage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=515"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}