Today, I’m swapping blogs with the fabulous author Christoph Fischer. We ‘met’ on Facebook a few years back on Wanda Hartzenberg’s group and we’ve supported each other ever since.  Christoph Fischer was born in Germany, near the Austrian border, as the son of a Sudeten-German father and a Bavarian mother. His historical fiction reflects his family background and I loved these particular books. Educated in Hamburg, he now lives in the UK with his partner and three labradoodles.

1 How do you write? Is everything plotted, planned to perfection? Do you ever change tack as

you go along or always stick to a pre-made plan?

I write impulsively. I start with an idea and a vague plan of where the book is meant to go but the stories and characters change and the outcome is usually different from my original idea. Additionally, I go back over the first draft many times and change some more.
For example, my latest book, The Healer, started as a character study and ended up as thriller.
2 Do you have a writing ritual? Meditation, certain cup for your tea, writing trousers?

I need to walk the dogs first, or else they won’t let me write. I prefer to write at night or early mornings, when the world is quiet and peaceful. I drink a lot of water and camomile tea and prefer total silence.

3 Aside from writing, what makes you tick? Tell us 5 things about yourself we probably don’t know.

1. I used to be scared of dogs, now I have three large Labradoodles.
2. I worked as a DJ in Brighton [cheesy pop ;-)].
3. The only thing I hate about writing is that I don’t get to spend enough time outdoors any more.
4. I would love to be a vegan, but it is a very unsocial thing to be.
5. I once made a burger for Samuel L. Jackson

4 If you were stranded on a desert island with shelter, food and water, what 5 items would you

want with you?

Ipod, Kindle, Running Shoes, Pen & Paper
5 On said island, what 5 books would you take and why?

Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts, The Gift of Rain by Tan Twan Eng, Satan Hates Me by Robert Irwin, The Slap by Christos Tsiolkas, We Need to Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver

6 Off the island now, which famous person would you like to have dinner with?­

Maybe not many people know my first choice: Vanessa Feltz. I know she can be difficult but she is highly intelligent and witty and I imagine dinner with her to be quite an experience. (For your American followers: Vanessa is a talk show host and radio presenter.)
To pick a more known celebrity: Hilary Clinton would be the other choice. Or Sarah Palin, for a laugh.

7 Your current writing projects?

“In Search of a Revolution” is in the final stages of proof reading. It is a historical novel about two friends set in Scandinavia between 1918 and 1950. I hope to release it around Easter.

I just completed the first draft for another thriller which was entitled “The Gambler”. Now there is a movie with Mark Wahlberg (also a potential dinner guest) with the same title and so I need to find a new title. I also want to release this new project as part of a charity Box Set with a few other authors. The Set will have an art theme, so I need to re-work the book anyway to make that angle more prominent. My basic story is about a man who rises from rags to riches overnight and needs to come to terms with his wealth and all that comes with it.
I’m also writing the sequel to my mental health drama “Conditions”.
8 Other published work and links….feel free to add as many as you like.

The Luck of the Weissensteiners (Three Nations Trilogy Book 1)
In the sleepy town of Bratislava in 1933 a romantic girl falls for a bookseller from Berlin. Greta Weissensteiner, daughter of a Jewish weaver, slowly settles in with the Winkelmeier clan just as the developments in Germany start to make waves in Europe and re-draws the visible and invisible borders. The political climate in the multifaceted cultural jigsaw puzzle of disintegrating Czechoslovakia becomes more complex and affects relations between the couple and the families. The story follows them through the war with its predictable and also its unexpected turns and events and the equally hard times after.
But this is no ordinary romance; in fact it is not a romance at all, but a powerful, often sad, Holocaust story. What makes The Luck of the Weissensteiners so extraordinary is the chance to consider the many different people who were never in concentration camps, never in the military, yet who nonetheless had their own indelible Holocaust experiences. This is a wide-ranging, historically accurate exploration of the connections between social location, personal integrity and, as the title says, luck.
On Amazon: http://smarturl.it/Weissensteiners

On Goodreads: http://bit.ly/12Rnup8
On Facebook: http://on.fb.me/1bua395
Trailer: http://studio.stupeflix.com/v/OtmyZh4Dmc/?autoplay=1
B&N http://ow.ly/Btvas

Sebastian (Three Nations Trilogy Book 2)
Sebastian is the story of a young man who has his leg amputated before World War I. When his father is drafted to the war it falls on to him to run the family grocery store in Vienna, to grow into his responsibilities, bear loss and uncertainty and hopefully find love.
Sebastian Schreiber, his extended family, their friends and the store employees experience the ‘golden days’ of pre-war Vienna and the timed of the war and the end of the Monarchy while trying to make a living and to preserve what they hold dear.
Fischer convincingly describes life in Vienna during the war, how it affected the people in an otherwise safe and prosperous location, the beginning of the end for the Monarchy, the arrival of modern thoughts and trends, the Viennese class system and the end of an era.
As in the first part of the trilogy, “The Luck of The Weissensteiners” we are confronted again with themes of identity, Nationality and borders. The step back in time made from Book 1 and the change of location from Slovakia to Austria enables the reader to see the parallels and the differences deliberately out of the sequential order. This helps to see one not as the consequence of the other, but to experience them as the momentary reality as it must have felt for the people at the time.
On Amazon: http://smarturl.it/TNTSeb

On Goodreads: http://ow.ly/pthHZ
On Facebook: http://ow.ly/pthNy
Trailer: http://studio.stupeflix.com/v/95jvSpHf5a/
B&N http://ow.ly/Btvbw

The Black Eagle Inn (Three Nations Trilogy Book 3)
The Black Eagle Inn is an old established Restaurant and Farm business in the sleepy Bavarian countryside outside of Heimkirchen. Childless Anna Hinterberger has fought hard to make it her own and keep it running through WWII. Religion and rivalry divide her family as one of her nephews, Markus has got her heart and another nephew, Lukas got her ear. Her husband Herbert is still missing and for the wider family life in post-war Germany also has some unexpected challenges in store.
Once again Fischer tells a family saga with war in the far background and weaves the political and religious into the personal. Being the third in the Three Nations Trilogy this book offers another perspective on war, its impact on people and the themes of nations and identity.
On Facebook: http://ow.ly/pAX3y
On Goodreads: http://ow.ly/pAX8G
On Amazon: http://smarturl.it/TBEI

Trailer: http://studio.stupeflix.com/v/mB2JZUuBaI/
Time To Let Go:
Time to Let Go is a contemporary family drama set in Britain.
Following a traumatic incident at work Stewardess Hanna Korhonen decides to take time off work and leaves her home in London to spend quality time with her elderly parents in rural England. There she finds that neither can she run away from her problems, nor does her family provide the easy getaway place that she has hoped for. Her mother suffers from Alzheimer’s disease and, while being confronted with the consequences of her issues at work, she and her entire family are forced to reassess their lives.
The book takes a close look at family dynamics and at human nature in a time of a crisis. Their challenges, individual and shared, take the Korhonens on a journey of self-discovery and redemption.
On Amazon: http://smarturl.it/TTLG
On Facebook: http://ow.ly/BtKtQ
On Goodreads: http://ow.ly/BtKs7
Conditions
When Charles and Tony’s mother dies the estranged brothers must struggle to pick up the pieces, particularly so given that one of them is mentally challenged and the other bitter about his place within the family.
The conflict is drawn out over materialistic issues, but there are other underlying problems which go to the heart of what it means to be part of a family which, in one way or another. has cast one aside.
Prejudice, misconceptions and the human condition in all forms feature in this contemporary drama revolving around a group of people who attend the subsequent funeral at the British South Coast.
Meet flamboyant gardener Charles, loner Simon, selfless psychic Elaine, narcissistic body-builder Edgar, Martha and her version of unconditional love and many others as they try to deal with the event and its aftermath.
On Facebook: http://ow.ly/C0ZqX
On Amazon: http://smarturl.it/CONDITIONSCFF
On Goodreads: http://ow.ly/C0Ziw
The Healer

When advertising executive Erica Whittaker is diagnosed with terminal cancer, western medicine fails her. The only hope left for her to survive is controversial healer Arpan. She locates the man whose touch could heal her but finds he has retired from the limelight and refuses to treat her.  Erica, consumed by stage four pancreatic cancer, is desperate and desperate people are no longer logical nor are they willing to take no for an answer. Arpan has retired for good reasons, casting more than the shadow of a doubt over his abilities. So begins a journey that will challenge them both as the past threatens to catch up with him as much as with her.  Can he really heal her? Can she trust him with her life? And will they both achieve what they set out to do before running out of time?

Amazon: http://smarturl.it/thehealerthriller
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheHealerNovelbyChristophFischer?ref=hl
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23662030-the-healer
Book-likes: http://booklikes.com/the-healer-christoph-fischer/book,12975746
Rifflebooks: https://read.rifflebooks.com/books/388235

You can link up with Christoph Fischer here:
Website: http://www.christophfischerbooks.com/
Blog: http://writerchristophfischer.wordpress.com/
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6590171.Christoph_Fischer
Amazon: http://ow.ly/BtveY
Twitter: https://twitter.com/CFFBooks
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/christophffisch/
Google +: https://plus.google.com/u/0/106213860775307052243
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=241333846
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/WriterChristophFischer?ref=hl
All Facebook links:
http://www.facebook.com/WriterChristophFischer?ref=hl
http://www.facebook.com/TheLuckOfTheWeissensteiners?ref=hl
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Sebastian/489427467776001?ref=hl
http://www.facebook.com/TheBlackEagleInn?ref=hl
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Time-To-Let-Go/257989361049799?ref=hl

I hope you’ve enjoyed meeting one of my favourite Indie authors.