Learn more about Time Shadows from the author herself!
Check out bestselling Permuted Press author Deborah D. Moore’s new novel, Time Shadows, available now at http://amzn.to/2tueboP, with a print edition coming out in early 2018.
Deborah sat down with us recently to discuss Time Shadows and what sets it apart from much of her other work.
Permuted: Hi, Deborah. We’re excited to learn more about your latest novel, which sends readers back in time. The cover prominently shows a picture of the Titanic and a pocket watch. Tell us a bit about the story.
Deborah: The pocket watch is set at the time the Titanic struck the iceberg, and of course the ship itself is well known to just about everyone. The cover wonderfully conveys the message of another, past time.
The story basically is about an ancient sorceress that has perfected a means of opening a portal to the past, which she wants to use to correct some of the things she now regrets having done during her long life. The paradox she faces is she can’t go back to a time she already exists, so she sends someone else. Enter our heroine, Sage, an out of work and homeless historian. Each time Sage is sent to the past, she doesn’t always know where she’s going or why or what she is supposed to correct, and all the while she must be cautious to not interfere with the future.
Permuted: What made you choose the Titanic as one of the settings for your story?
Deborah: The Titanic is so easily recognized and is well known for its fatal end. I wanted to draw the reader in immediately to what it felt like to be walking on those decks. The Titanic is only the first of several time-trips our main character takes. Each trip is somehow connected to the one before it and each trip goes further and further back in time.
Permuted: You’re well known for your popular series, The Journal. What made you decide to deviate from your best-known style of post-apocalyptic fiction to write a time travel fantasy?
Deborah: I wanted to do something different, stretch my wings so-to-speak. I love doing the disaster books, but quite honestly, I get so involved with the characters and their lives that I had to step away for a while to refresh my own soul; however, I didn’t want to stop writing. Once I was re-centered, I got back in the ‘groove’ with the sequel to EMPulse: EMPulse2 and I’m currently working on EMPulse3.
Time Shadows was originally outlined to be a romance novel. I find I’m not really good at that. I wrote one romance back in 1993, The Reef Roamer, which was finally published last year. As good of a story as it is, it falls short of the rather graphic stuff that is out there now. All of my stories have some romantic elements in them, because that’s the way life is. I found it easy to shift Time Shadows to a different type of time travel, one that was fun and basically light-hearted. As an example, our heroine is trapped in a Civil War hospital, telling jokes to the patients.
In doing Time Shadows, I had to do quite a bit of research to get the historical facts right. I loved that part of the process and I learned quite a bit. Researching the clothing of the different eras was exciting because I’m an avid sewer, and because I’m into cooking, understanding and sharing the foods common to each era was fun too. When our heroine was on the Titanic, I used the exact menu that was the last meal served, and even fixed it for myself.
Permuted: You recently also published a cookbook aimed specifically toward preppers. If time travel were possible, what kind of meal would you see yourself serving someone who had just traveled through time?
Deborah: Pizza! Although research does tell me that a type of pizza has been around for several hundred years, the current varieties of pizza now I think would be fun to serve someone from the past. With a dessert of chocolate cake! I know pizza and chocolate don’t go well together, but who cares?
Permuted: If you yourself could travel back in time to any moment or era in history, what would you choose and why?
Deborah: I’m not sure I would want to go back to any particular time. I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, when it should and how it should. If anything were to change, it could really mess up ‘now’; I believe they call that the Butterfly Effect.
Now, if I were to only observe something, I think I would want to witness The Crucifixion. Why? Who wouldn’t want that question finally answered to remove any doubts, one way or the other?
Permuted: What are your future plans as a writer?
Deborah: To write a best-seller! I think it’s in me and I had hopes with The Journal becoming the next Harry Potter. There’s still time.
Permuted: Do you have a particular routine you stick to when writing?
Deborah: Yes, most definitely. Many of my fellow writers need the TV on or loud music playing. I’m the opposite. I need absolute quiet; any kind of noise is distracting to me and since I live in the woods that’s easy to do.
I start my writing day around 10am. I need to be showered, dressed, fed and my email inbox emptied! Then I read what I wrote the day before, to get back into the story, tweaking if necessary, and then I write for two or three hours, break for some soup, maybe a walk, then it’s back to writing for another two or three hours. I’ve been asked if I have a daily word count I strive for. That’s a yes and no. One or two thousand words is a good day, mainly because I do very little rewriting, but I don’t beat myself up if I do only five hundred. I always keep a pen and pad near the bed in case I have a great scene that comes to me in the night; however, unlike some other authors, I don’t get up during the night to write. I find a good night sleep is better for the creative process for me.
Permuted: Thanks so much for chatting with us!
We’re looking forward to seeing where your writing takes you next!