Sara Alexi's Blog - Posts Tagged "reader-q-a"

I always have a lot of great fun with readers of The Greek Village Series books over on my Facebook page.

To get to know each other a little more, I have decided that every two weeks I am going to select a Facebook friend at random and ask them to tell us three things about themselves, and then ask me three questions in return.

These questions and answers will be featured both on my Facebook page and here on my Goodreads blog, so you can also get to know me and readers of The Greek Village Series a little more.

If you want to come and join in, then come and find me on Facebook here! And who knows, it could be you being featured in a future blog post. https://www.facebook.com/authorsaraal...

For my very first Ask Sara Alexi, I selected the lovely Susan Kilkelly who told us the following:

I am the third youngest of eight children and when I was the baby ( three at the time) my family were holidaying at a then famous holiday camp in North Wales. We got stuck on the cable car at the highest point and had to be rescued! We were on the front pages of a Sunday newspaper! To this day (50 years later) I am still afraid of falling from a great height.

The second thing that I can think of is we once lived two doors away from an actor who has appeared as long standing characters in two British Soaps. This was when my children were young. Since then my son is now the Soaps editor of an entertainment website. Very ironic!

Thirdly as you can guess I am crazy about Greece and all things Greek. I have visited Greece 24 times in 15 years and hope to make that 25 shortly! I like to think of myself as an honorary Greek as that adds up to several months of my life.

And here is what Susan asked me along with my answers:

Do you have the characters in mind before you sit down or do you create them as you go along?

Hi Susan, It is always the character that initiates the idea for a book, usually it is based on someone I have met or watched and questions begin to form in my head. What has 'made' them that way? How does their character alter how they see life? What are likely to do that I am not? What can they teach me? And this starts the process and their life story comes to mind and everything unfolds from there. It is very exciting.

Also we know that you are also an artist. Which of your gifts do you enjoy the most?

Writing is proving to encompass everything. It is inclusive of my experience and my knowledge in psychotherapy and it feels as creative as painting or drawing. The one thing I thought was missing, which I used to find in playing music, was that feeling of creating with other people, being a team. However with social media I am now finding that my reader friends are so creative in there input and feedback I no longer feel like I am doing this alone!
If I ever need time out though I turn to my love affair with ceramics.

Lastly how many months of the year do you spend in Greece and what home comforts do you miss the most when you are there?

I spend as many months of the year in Greece as I can. That's the short answer. I am usually here from June to Sept/Nov and then I visit three or four times during the other months. But the most beautiful times are Spring and Autumn so next year I might move my timetable around a bit and split my time more evenly with the UK.

As for what I miss of Britain when I am in Greece, well my friends are an obvious one, also my ceramic class is in the UK, but I am working on making something happen in that line in Greece. I also miss trees, I really miss trees.

Keep an eye out for the next Ask Sara post, and don't forget to come and join in over on Facebook too!

Us Greek Villagers are still enjoying getting to know each other over on Facebook, and as I mentioned in my last blog post, I'm going to share the conversation with you here on Goodreads, so you can get to know us too.

If you want to join in on Facebook, come and find me here https://www.facebook.com/authorsaraal...

This week's Ask Sara on Facebook was with reader and friend Clive Webb. I selected Clive to tell us three things about himself, and to ask me three questions.

Here is what Clive told us about him:

I went to boarding school aged 7 and then on to a public school (private school for our American friends) called Christ’s Hospital – also boarding. It was founded in 1552. We wore yellow knee length woollen socks, knee length breeches, a long coat with silver buttons down the upper half, a leather belt with a silver buckle, and white flappy things (“bands”) at the neck. Next I went to London Uni to study Marine Biology. I met my wife Bev there at the first interview.

I have been a nature boy since reading Gerald Durrell on Corfu at the age of 10, and in fairness the degree course was just an excuse to go fishing. These days I fish for Bass and other edible creatures off the south coast – I also love to cook them, and virtually any other quality ingredient.

I started playing the guitar at boarding school and although I have done various party rock/funk/ blues bands over the years, these days I play electric each week at our very lively multicultural church in Southampton, where Bev is one of the main leaders. (I became a Christian at Uni.). My main setup is a Gibson Les Paul through a Cornford amp, for any guitarists among you. We have great musicians and singers, and we range from atmospheric contemplative to out and out rock.

And here is what Clive asked me:

What was your education path? What were the highlights and lowlights?

Ah Clive, this brings back memories I would rather forget! For a brief time I went to a convent school, the first place I was misunderstood because I was dyslexic and I could not remember which hand to cross myself with! The lowlight was at the tender age of six. The school had taught me to give before receiving, so at the tuck shop in the break I would put my money in the dish before taking my sweets and Sister Marie’s face would wrinkle as she smiled at me. One day there was a new nun who did not know our system and she did not see me put my money in the dish, but she did see me take the sweets. With a swish of her robes I was whisked to Mother Superior so quickly my little feet did not touch the ground, where I was accused of stealing. On the way home I tried to explain what had happened to my mother. She listened but insisted it must be a misunderstanding, that it didn't happen the way I said. That was quite a day for me - to be branded a thief by the nun and then to feel like I was being called a liar when I told my Mother, and it burnt deep. That sense of injustice and of not being heard has fuelled the writing of many of my stories.

The highlight? Talking to my art teacher and expanding my mind on how we view things. What if everything was white? What if there were no shadows...?

What in nature grabs my attention? Does it give you any notion of a creator?



Everything in nature grabs my attention. I love nature in all its forms, and especially as it overgrows man’s attempts at permanency; a vine growing up the side of a house, a flower breaking through tarmac. I love wide open spaces as well as the rich foliage of a wood. Moorland is my ultimate release - rolling bracken or heather as far as the eye can see. I can still recall from teenage rambles the sound of a stream still running, bubbling underneath its top surface of ice on a winter’s day.

But does it give me a sense of a creator? Well there is no doubt something has created all this, but was it a big bang, evolution, the god within or the God without? Who am I to answer such a question? There are some things we do not have enough information about to make informed decisions.

I think you appreciate music, but which styles? Have you ever played or sung?

I began to learn the violin aged six and studied seriously until the age of 18 when I achieved my grade 8 and there was some encouragement for me to attend music collage. I tinkered with the violin for a while after that, then studied the saxophone without too much success. I pootle on the Irish whistle if there is one around but I think my days of making music have passed, although I still dream that one day I may pick up the violin again before my fingers get too crooked. As for what I prefer to listen too, I listen to everything from Led Zep to Puccini. At the moment my preferred music is silence - simply because I do not get much of it.


Thank you Clive! And as always, keep an eye out for the next Ask Sara post, and don't forget to come and join in over on Facebook too!

PHEW! I lost track of time what with the new book launch, and so Ask Sara was a little bit delayed this time.

Ask Sara is my way of getting to know readers better and for readers to get to know me better. I ask one reader at random to ask three things about me and to tell us three things about themselves.

For this instalment of Ask Sara, the name out of the Facebook hat was Gillian Frost.

Gillian told us these three facts about her:

I live in Northamptonshire, my special interest is WWII aircraft and my favourite place in all the world is Oxford.

And here is what Gillian asked me:

What did you do before you became a writer?

Before I was a writer I was a psychotherapist, which I loved. I worked eclectically although I was strongly influenced by Eric Berne who developed the theory of Transactional Analysis (TA).

Studying most weekends to keep myself current and to expand on what I already knew was very satisfying and working with clients was an honour.

What struck me the most was that what worked the best for all issues was good old love, pure and simple. If I took the time to really listen to my clients, invest in hearing them then they became important to me through this nurturing love; love for my fellow man in that situation was easy. I believe the client feels this love and this can be an important catalyst for promoting healing and building self worth. I have a great deal of passion for the subject and for people in general and I could go on for pages on this topic. I think my background in psychotherapy has helped immensely with my writing.

What made you move to Greece?

My first visit to Greece was a last minute holiday with some fellow students. The moment my feet touch touched Greek soil I knew I belonged here and I began to think how I could live here. My return flight was a week later. I got off the plane and onto the bus and the rain was so hard we were just crawling up the motorway, stuck in a traffic jam. I wondered why I had come back and as soon as we arrived in my home town I went to the travel agents and arranged a flight back again the next day. I stayed until my money ran out and then commenced years of backwards and forwards depending on time and money.

Fast forward and my daughter is five and I am in a restaurant. My daughter was trying to be patient but the food was taking it’s time. She asked to walk round our table to kill her boredom. As there was only one other couple in the whole place (it was early, six o’clock.) I said it was alright, so she circled the table and talked to me.

The man at the next table said very loudly that if ‘People cannot control their children they should not bring them out.’ In that moment I knew I wanted my daughter growing up where she would be loved. I made the move to Greece so she could start school with all the other children (Greek children start school aged six, not five). I recall that she was at school on her sixth birthday and that her teacher made a real fuss of her.

Who is my favourite author?

This is so difficult, I can’t possibly say I have only one!

My first love was Thomas Hardy, a favourite who lasted for years, then the Bronte’s all took their turn. The passion in their stories was astounding given their secluded upbringing.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn has made a big impression on me and Antony Trollope is someone who I can read (his less political novels) again and again. His observations of human nature are so acute.

I also like to read non-fiction psychology.

Want to join in? Come and find me on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/authorsaraal...

Wandering out of the village for a break from writing the other day, I came across a farmer tending his olive trees. When he saw me he stopped work and leaned on his hoe.

‘Another half hour should see me done’ he said, inviting me to stop and chat for a moment.

‘Oh what are you doing?’ I accepted his invite and this led to a very interesting conversation about his olive trees.

I love the olive trees that grow abundantly in the countryside around the village, and all over Greece. The oldest one in Greece is located on the island of Crete, apparently, and is one of seven trees in the Mediterranean believed to be between 2,000 and 3,000 years old. The farmer didn’t know that, but his knowledge on his own olive trees was vast.

He told me that olive trees thrive best when neglected - let them be, he told me, and they will still produce. The only thing he did was to ensure a supply of water during the long hot summers. Wild olives, he said, only produce fruit every three or four years but their roots are strong and resistant to fungi and disease. The cultivated trees are the opposite - the yields are good but the roots are less hardy.

‘It’s a pity you cannot have the best of both worlds,’ I said.

‘Aha!’ he replied, and went on to explain how he grafts the branches of a domestic tree onto the roots of a wild one.

‘The whole point of grafting is that each part of the grafted tree keeps its original character,’ he said.

‘Can you tell me how you do it?’ I was curious. His face lit up.

‘Come see,’ He said, and he led me to a branch on a nearby tree with cardboard bound around it and secured with elastic bands. ‘For the goats,’ he explained as he took off the cardboard coat, and there underneath the severed limb was exposed. The bark had been spilt vertically in five places and peeled back, and into these clefts young shoots had been wedged.





He showed me how he prepared the shoots from the domestic tree, stripping off the bark and shaping it with a knife. ‘You cut off the outer bark of the branch you are grafting so the soft bark of that touches the soft bark to the parent tree, and that way it will take.’

The new shoots were arranged perimetrically around the host branch, and the whole lot was bound around with green tape. The exposed top surface of the branch on the host tree was sealed with what looked like plastic.

‘It’s wax,’ he enlightened me. ‘I heat it up in a little hot water and then smear it on like butter. It keeps the insects out and protects the grafts from drying out. He began to chuckle to himself.

‘For fun and to keep my wife amused, in my back garden I have an orange tree,’ he said. ’Onto this, some years ago, I grafted a mandarin branch and a lemon branch, and now she can take all her fruits from the one tree.’

‘Oh how lovely,’ I exclaimed. ‘I bet that looks pretty.’

He took up his hoe again and this told me he was back to work, clearing the weeds and moving the stones.

My walk took me through several olive groves, and I viewed the trees with a new-found appreciation.

For those that don't know, I'll give a quick recap on what Ask Sara is.

Ask Sara is a monthly event where I select one Village friend on Facebook to tell us three things about themselves, and then they ask me three things about myself in return.

It's turned out to be such a lovely way for not only me to get to know readers of my books better, but for readers of The Greek Village Series to get to know each other better too!

This week I chose a lovely lady who turned out to also be very generous called Sam Clarke.

Here is what Sam told us:

:) What a lovely surprise to be chosen, I am honoured. Gosh, 3 things...

I realised last year that there is actually nothing 'commercial' missing from my life. It was my birthday and there was NOTHING I wanted. I have a home, a car, enough money to pay the bills, I have a garden and my dog and my chickens, enough spare to buy books (what more can a girl need?) So, I decided to give back and my big 45 was born. www.mybig45.wordpress.com if you want to have a look, and its THE most fun ever. I have the next 2 years lined up already :D

I had to leave work 2 years ago now, I always worked in Theatre, backstage, wardrobe mistress, stage crew, lighting then front of house manager as I got older and humping stuff about got hard work :)

Now I work for a knitting designer, knitting his patterns to be photographed for his books. I love it because I get to knit for a living, I get time to do my own projects and I get to spend my life at home with my family. Perfect.

I get weirdly obsessed with the strangest things, big things that are small, small things that are big, for example tiny Eiffel towers and HUGE chickens, I go through phases of buying everything to do with one thing, chickens, budgies, Eiffel towers, statues of liberty, wire fox terrier dog ornaments ...those are just a few of my latest. Then I go wild and decide there's no flippin room to move in this house, and they end up in the loft :/

Well, that's MORE than enough of me.

Here is what Sam asked me about myself:

Sara, what made you decide to move to Greece?
I'm quite new here so I apologise if these have all been asked before.

When I took my first holiday in Greece I felt like I had arrived home. It was more than the warmth and the people; it felt deeper - spiritual you might say.

But I was there on a package holiday so I duly took the plane home and arrived in the UK to find pelting rain. I took the bus home and it crawled along the motorway in a miserable grey traffic jam.

When I finally arrived in my home town I went straight to the travel agents and brought a ticket to return to Greece the next day. This was my first long term stay in Greece.

Any place that can create such an internal change, as Greece has done to me, must be pretty special.

Was it a hard move to make? leaving family, friends etc?

The first time I moved was no struggle at all - it felt perfect. I stayed until my money ran out and came back to the UK intent on finding a way to live in Greece permanently. Coming home was the hardship.

The second time I was more brave. I took jobs even though I did not speak Greek, and I signed a short lease on a flat which felt scary but gave me the energy to follow my dream through.

I had a lot of different jobs and moved around to where the work was in those first two years until I became confident that I could survive by drawing portraits and taking part time jobs. The process gave me a great deal of confidence in my ability to survive.

I visited home every year and leaving became harder, but that was because living in the UK with family and friends around me felt so easy and living in Greece took a lot of energy and I grew tired. But tired or not there felt like there was no choice, I just had to be in Greece however hard it was. In retrospect the whole jigsaw falls in to place so eloquently it seems obvious why I wanted and needed to be there.

Life has a funny way of taking you down the best route to suit your character. I am learning more and more to go with the flow and to stop thinking I have any real control!

Do you collect anything?

I am the opposite of a collector. I am an unhoarder, if there is such a thing! I would rather do without than have clutter.

I object to things that are necessities because by definition I am forced to ‘own’ them. If I could fit my life into one bag I would be very happy

As a result I no longer feel like I own very much at all. I see myself as a guardian of my home and the furniture in it as there is a very good chance they may, one day, be someone else’s, so for now I am just looking after these things for future owners.

On a slightly different tangent I suppose I do collect memories and friends, things that are irreplaceable, oh and stories, I love to collect stories.

Thank you Sam!

Remember to check out Sam's My Big 45; 45 random acts of kindness here: MYBIG45.WORDPRESS.COM

And if you want to join in the Village shenanigans then do come and find me and friend me on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/authorsaraal...

Finally, If you want to be first to know about new releases, competitions and news then come and join us at the Sara Alexi VIP Club here http://saraalexi.us10.list-manage1.co...

Phew, it's been an exciting couple of months with the release of my latest book The Piano Raft, and starting not one but TWO new Greek Village Series books almost immediately afterwards.

But if there was one thing I wanted to make sure I found time for amongst the whirlwind of writing, it's something that gives me great pleasure; Ask Sara.

I really do enjoying getting to know my Village friends on Facebook and in turn telling a little more about me. And it seems other Village friends enjoy it too and appreciate getting to know more about each other.

For this Ask Sara, I asked Pam Forrest Spann to tell me three things about herself and to ask me three things about myself.

Here is what Pam told us:

I am passionate about supporting public schools where every student is accepted and taught by teachers that want the best for each child. I have been a public-school teacher for 26 years. I teach prek in the Texas public school where I started 1st grade nearly 60 years ago.

I have only recently become a world traveller. I went to Copenhagen and Paris last summer and Progresso, Mexico for Christmas. I can’t retire anytime soon or I won’t be able to afford the trip to Greece!

I absolutely love to read and have so enjoyed my “trips” to Greece and Great Britain through Sara’s books. I love to pass on my love of reading by promoting reading aloud to children. There is nothing a parent (or other adult) can do to ensure a love of reading and success in learning to read than to read at least 20 minutes a day to your child. Have your read a book to a child today?

And here is what Pam asked me:

Did you attend public schools?

To clarify, in England a public school refers to a fee paying school, and as such is not public at all, but confusingly private!

There are state schools (free to all) and public schools (fee paying).

I believe my kindergarten school was state run, but then for some mad reason known only to them, my parents sent me to a fee paying convent school for two years, where I did battle with the nuns...

My parents have no clear religious feelings, and are certainly not Catholic, but the experience was a serious eye opener for me, and introduced my young mind to the concepts of hypocrisy and negativity.

The nuns were bullies who delighted in accusing us of anything they could. I still feel anger, and disbelief, at the way they treated me when I was only six years old!

After that I attended state schools until the age of thirteen, when I was sent to a grammar school. My schooling on the whole was poor, and I have many gaps in my knowledge. My dyslexia was never diagnosed. My personal belief is that teachers should be paid the highest wages, to attract the brightest and best, above politicians and bankers, as they are moulding our future, and what could be more important than that?

Have you travelled in the United States?

I must cry a loud and mournful NO to this one! I have wanted to visit for years. When I was younger I could not afford it, and then, when I was in a position to scrape together the air fare I was nervous of going alone, so I arranged to come with my daughter but then she couldn't come...

I am beginning to feel I am destined to never see the USA! I would love to do a tour, I cannot think of one state that I would not want to visit so it might be quite a long tour!!

Being the geek I am I have even learned all the states and where they are just in case I ever get to go. I feel that with it being such a large country there must so much diversity amongst the states and people, I want to see how, let's say, the people of New Hampshire differ from those of South Dakota. So interesting!

How do you write so fast and still do such a great job of coming up with completely new ideas?

I love writing and I will spends hours and hours at the keyboard. The stories just have to get out of my head and onto the paper (hard drive!) so it is also a relief to make progress.

I am very self disciplined. I do not allow myself to do anything else until I have completed my work. I work seven days a week, and if I lose a day I try and make it up over the week.

Occasionally I give myself a day off but then think 'I will just write 500 words for fun,' and end up doing a normal day.

My word varies between 2200 to 3000 words a day. I find that it is the emotional content in the stories that tires me, so after I complete my word count I need to leave it till the next day - it's too tiring to continue.

But just recently I have found that although I might not be able to continue with that story, I feel fresh as a daisy for a new story.

So this last week I have been writing two novels in tandem and it seems to be working out very well indeed! Fingers crossed tat I can continue!

As for finding new ideas, they just seem to come to me. I am constantly enquiring into everything I see; I people-watch a lot when I am out and when/if I watch television I often do so with the sound turned down. I find the words people say is what they want you to believe of then, and are often a distraction and I can feel so much more by a person's body language. I then extrapolate the character I think I can see and if they are interesting or unique then often a story forms by itself.

Thank you Pam!

To find out about my last book The Piano Raft follow this link https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog...

And if you want to join in the Village shenanigans then do come and find me and friend me on Facebook here https://www.facebook.com/authorsaraalexi

Finally, If you want to be first to know about new releases, competitions and news then come and join us at the Sara Alexi VIP Club here http://saraalexi.us10.list-manage1.co...