Indie Author Spotlight of Laura Vosika Author of Blue Bells of Scotland and The Minstrel Boy

The Author

Laura Vosika

The work of art:

Blue Bells of Scotland

Where she creates:

Minesota

The genre that gets to claim her:

 Time travel/historical fiction

If the author was a fan explaining the story, she would say:

In my own words, talking to a friend?  I'd say, so there are these two guys, totally different.  One's a selfish, self-centered, lecherous, arrogant pig--and he'd take everything I just said about him as a compliment!  The other is Mr. Devout, Mr. Responsibility, follow the rules, do the right thing.  One is a modern American musician, the other is a medieval Highland warrior.  They both go to sleep at the top of a castle tower in their respective centuries and wake up in the wrong times. 


Now because they happen to be the spitting image of one another, they're stuck in each other's lives, and neither is too happy about it.  Shawn, the musician, can't understand why everyone's got an issue with his attraction to all the women and doesn't particularly want to cross Scotland to save the whole nation.  Niall is stuck trying to solve all the messes Shawn left in his own life, in order to get anyone in the twenty-first century help him figure out what happened at the Battle of Bannockurn and get back to save his people, as he was supposed to be doing before all this happened!

Her muse just does whatever it wants:

  I do try to follow rules of grammar and good writing, certainly.  As far as outlines, I try, but Shawn, Niall, and Amy don't always co-operate.  Angus, in The Minstrel Boy,  most definitely didn't co-operate.

 Has she ever written anything and thought; " The world has got to see this!" ?

 In exactly those terms, no.  But writing feels a little incomplete if it just sits in a drawer.

Who so we thank for the look of the series?

For Blue Bells of Scotland, I did the work myself.  For book two of the series, The Minstrel Boy, I had a cover designer and the help of a great editor.

The authors who inspired her to write:

I've been writing since I was quite young and have known from early on that I wanted to use this life I was given to write novels and make music.  But probably the author I've read the most is Dick Francis.  Among my favorite authors are C.S. Lewis and Ted Dekker, for their ability to write stories on multiple levels--both engaging adventures, and deeper messages woven in.

Laura hates editing.

 I find sitting still long enough to edit a 125,000 word novel very difficult.

Her characters have a mind of their own.

I'd have to say they write themselves.  Some of them can be quite headstrong.

Does she write herself into her characters?

 Not deliberately, but I think all authors put bits and pieces of themselves into various characters.

Laura has a "day Job" As well.

 I currently continue to teach music lessons.  I enjoy it quite a bit and like my students too well to tell them I'm quitting.

If she had a time machine she'd learn from a great in Scottish History.

At this point, with all the research I've done, James Douglas, who was Robert the Bruce's right hand man, and quite an impressive character.  Nigel Tranter, the great Scottish novelist, portrays him as a fierce monster on the battlefield, but a rather gentle, soft-spoken man off it.  He carried out amazing feats of military strategy and routinely routed armies two, three, and four times the size of his own.

This series will stand out in the masses because:

  Mine is one of the few that features two people trading places in time.  I'd say, too, that many time travel stories focus more on the adventure, whereas I find mine to be also a strong human interest story, of growth, change, and redemption, themes I don't think you'd typically find in time travel. 

How to find and follow Laura in the social media.

Facebook Page: www.facebook.com/laura.vosika.author

Twitter: www.twitter.com/lauravosika

Blog: www.bluebellstrilogy.blogspot.com

Website: www.bluebellstrilogy.com