Interview with Rachelle Ayala, author of BROKEN BUILD

I would like to welcome Rachelle Ayala back to the blog. She's here to talk a bit about her newest release Broken Build, a romantic suspense novel.

Congratulations, Rachelle, on your new release. Broken Build is a romantic suspense mystery taking place in 2012 Silicon Valley, California. Quite a change from Michal’s Window and Biblical Israel. How did you make the transition from historical fiction to contemporary romance?

It’s all a matter of immersion and writing one book at a time. During the writing of Michal’s Window, I studied the Bible, archaeological books and travel guides. It was a foreign culture and time from where we live and harder to reconcile with our current values.

Broken Build came naturally. I worked for over thirty years in the computer industry, from the days of giant CDC mainframes to the magic of cloud computing and server virtualization. The software release cycle flows through my veins. Everyone has seen the glamorous side, the magnetic CEOs, the high flying stock, the Ferraris and Lamborghinis rolling in the parking lots, but who has ever written a book about a release engineer?

Beyond you, I'm not sure who has. What’s a release engineer? I've never heard of it.

A release engineer, or build engineer, assembles the software from its various source code libraries and creates a working build for testing, and ultimately, packaging into a releasable image. These men and women are hardworking and tireless. Imagine the crunch time when bugs are being fixed left and right, and new builds are required to test and verify the fixes. Release engineers typically work around the clock. They are truly the unsung heroes of the computer industry.

How can you write a book about build scripts, config specs, and checksums? A lot of those terms make my eyes glaze over.

Easy. You throw in a sexy CEO, fast cars, stolen code, and an ingenious build engineer heroine, and then mix murder, mayhem and mystery with a blossoming romance.

Ah, that does help. *winks* Your book is certainly entertaining enough without the technology. Why did you put the technical details in?

I structured the story so that a reader does not have to understand server virtualization and release engineering to understand the story. The main plot is love, romance, murder and a dark, hidden secret. Anyone can relate to that. But, as you know, details make the novel more believable and authenticates the experience to the reader. And I did throw in a few bones for those readers who are technical to enjoy.

Very true. Those technical details do add to the authenticity. Any resemblances to real people or situations?

Heck no. Anyone from HR would break their Kindle over this book. Broken Build is meant to be entertaining and dramatic with a sprinkling of comic relief. And gosh! A real build engineer would NEVER tamper with the code. Horrors!

No one wants broken Kindles. *grins* I’m sure people will get a laugh from some of your outrageous characters. I know my favorite one was ahem… quite colorful and unusual. Still want that door. If you ever make millions of dollars from this book, you owe me a door, got it? *winks*

Oh, yes, well, we all know gossip sells.

That’s so true. Broken Build is a great read. Congratulations!

Make sure to tell everyone to buy my book! 99c introductory pricing, one penny less than that bag of Cheetos from the vending machine. What a deal!

Hehe! Cheetos sound expensive out in California, but Rachelle's right. You can't be a great book at the introductory price of 99c!

Broken Build is available here at Amazon.

You can find out more about Rachelle at her Amazon Author Page.

Interview with Rachelle Ayala, author of MICHAL'S WINDOW

We have a special treat today with an interview with Rachelle Ayala, author of Michal's Window. I had the honor of being her editor for this fantastic novel. Even though it's set in Biblical times, it's not preachy, and it showcases a fascinating character: Michal, David's first wife. And someone is going to go walk away with a copy too.

Tell us a little about yourself and what your writing process is like.

I’m a computer geek by nature, so it’s somewhat surprising that I’ve written a full-length novel. But I find the skill-sets similar. Writing software involves design and planning, as well as seat of the pants coding. Some programmers whip up tons of untested code and then debug it into viability. This is the NaNoMoWri, write the first draft in a month and take ten months to revise, gunslinger approach. Others are methodical and write beautiful and tedious design documents, review it to the wazoo and polish it lovingly through endless design meetings before writing a single line of code. I suppose you can call these the plodders, er plotters.

I’m pretty much the code and test and iterate type. I have a good idea what the program has to do. I don’t do much design, not even something you can scribble on the back of an envelope. I have no use for a white board. Now that I’m retired, I don’t care if my ex-boss reads this. Instead, I place basic guide points in the code. Input, data structure, partial results, output. I figure out how to get the data into the program, transform it through the required steps (while testing) and format the final output.

As a writer, I do the same thing. I have my major plot points figured out in my head. I know what the story problem is (requirements). I have an idea of a hook, and point of no-return, and maybe an inkling of the dark moment and the character transformations that are needed to get to the climax. I usually have my ending figured out. And then I just write.

I unit test at CritiqueCircle.com and use beta readers for system testing.

In two sentences, describe your novel Michal’s Window.

Michal's Window is a story of one woman's journey through love and heartache to self-realization. As one reviewer said, "So, once I let the modern feminist inside of me relax, I realized how timely her story is, because, sadly, many of the things she has to deal with are things that women still face today."

What about Michal inspired you to tell your version of her Biblical story?

Michal was a courageous and often misunderstood person. She was one of the few women in the Bible to assert herself by putting her love into action. She stood up to her murderous father to save David’s life and later on, stood up to King David himself when he danced through the streets of Jerusalem in his underclothing.

Since pastors and commentators vilify Michal frequently, I wanted to tell her side of the story.

What research did you do to write Michal’s Window?

I relied mostly on the Bible, but also read a few reference books on life in Ancient Israel. A very useful guide was a travelogue by J. W. McGarvey Lands of the Bible (1881). It showed the plant and animal life, terrain and climate of the Bible lands. I found most of the biographies written about King David to be useless and sensational. They either tried to paint him as an evil person or sanctify him as a hero who could do no wrong. David and Michal were very real people who made mistakes like anyone else. I tried to bring out their humanity while keeping in mind the heroic actions and extraordinary things they did.

Why did you decide to self-publish Michal’s Window?

I realized early on that my book would not fit traditional publisher guidelines. It is not strictly a romance because both characters had other lovers. David was a polygamist and shockingly, Michal was married to another man while David was in exile. It is not strictly historical because I invented an entire storyline involving Philistines and added another love interest for Michal. It is not Christian fiction because it includes grittier scenes than generally acceptable. Yet the scenes are too tame for Historical Romance. If I wanted to categorize Michal’s Window, I would say it is Biblical Women’s Fiction with Romantic themes.

What else are you working on?

I’m working on a romantic suspense involving fast cars, fast code and fast women. Broken Build is a story set around the fast paced culture of a Silicon Valley startup complicated by code theft, extortion and murder.

I also have a psychological thriller in the back of my mind, but I refuse to allow myself to write a word of it until Broken Build has gone to my wonderful editor.

And perhaps the hardest question: if you could recommend one book, what would that book be and why?

This is the easiest question of all. The Holy Bible, King James Version. There’s no other book like it! Read it! B-I-B-L-E (Basic Instruction Before Leaving Earth)

Rachelle Ayala was a software engineer until she discovered storytelling works better in fiction than real code. She has always lived in a multi-cultural environment, and the tapestry in her books reflect that diversity. Rachelle lives in California with her husband. She has three children and has taught violin and made mountain dulcimers.

Links:

Goodreads http://www.goodreads.com/rachelleayala

Twitter: http://twitter.com/AyalaRachelle

FaceBook Page: http://www.facebook.com/RachelleAyalaWriter

Blog: http://www.rachelleayala.com

Mailing List: http://eepurl.com/lR5kv

Google+ : http://plus.google.com/107150235085345742473

Pinterest: http://pinterest.com/ayalarachelle/

Michal’s Window is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, and Smashwords.

Now I have a special giveaway for you. One lucky commenter is going to win an e-copy of Michal's Window. All you have to do is comment on this post to be entered to win. Simple as that, and I'll announce the winner during Wednesday's Writing Update on June 20th. Thank you for visiting with us today, Rachelle, and I look forward to reading Broken Build!