Just sat down with my first cup of coffee of the morning. Seattle's Best – Level 4. A dark, rich brew. So good. A little bit of Splenda and some half-n-half, my iPod playing Hellbound Train, and all is right with my little corner of the world. So, good morning everyone!
I'm never really sure what to blog about, which is why I don't do it very often. I mean, what could I possibly say that anyone would to hear? I'm a writer. Most of my time is spent sitting on my butt in front of a computer doing one of two things – writing or researching for the next thing I'm going to write. It's a solitary lifestyle for the most part. I live in my head. This is not to say that I don't have friends but most of them are writers too, so most of our interactions consist of brainstorming or critiquing.
Then there's the addiction to people watching. A lot of what I do as a writer is observation. Sometimes I sit on a bench at the mall and just listen and watch. Or I'll take a booth or table in the middle of an IHOP and enjoy a nice leisurely meal. People are interesting and it never ceases to amaze me what we're willing to discuss in public. The other day I witnessed the drama of a guy breaking up with his girlfriend at the local Denny's. Bad move on his part. I was thinking, dude, did you think just because you were in public she wasn't going to come unglued all over you? Man, did she ever. That little drama will wind up in one of my books very soon. Not verbatim, you understand but the essence will be same. Like I said, it never ceases to amaze what people do in public. Of course, if people weren't so interesting, writers wouldn't have anything to write about.
So, yes, I draw a lot on my personal life experience when I write, especially when it comes to character development. I was a psychiatric social worker for years. I worked in addictions for a couple of years, then worked in child welfare for a number of years. The heroine in my book The Gladiator and The Thief was an amalgam of the children I worked with over the years…the broken, throw away children nobody wants to see. Like a few (unfortunately too few) of my teenage clients, she managed to rise above the circumstances of her life and fought against the system in the only way she knew. She was brave and strong and loving and I adore that character to this day. In fact, it's my favorite book. Probably my best. Yellowstone Wild's heroine was me in high school. To this day you couldn't get me to a high school reunion if you held a gun to my head. Doesn't matter how successful you are, when you go back there, you're still seventeen. At least that's how Libby Wild felt.
My two most recent releases, Eternal Soulmate and Pirate's Slave were written purely for fun. Yeah, they're a little dark in places but do tend toward darkness sometimes. Eternal Soulmate is a vampire story set in New Orleans. I confess that I'm more than a little obsessed with New Orleans. I love that city. It fascinates me with its old world charm and badass dark side. It's the perfect setting for a vampire novel and I'd be hard put to want my vamps to live anywhere else. As for Pirate's Slave…two words…world building. There is nothing more fun for me than world building. It can be any kind of world I want it to be. A parallel Earth. A terraformed planet. It can be burning hot, freezing cold, or pastoral…populated by any species I want. Wold building, the ultimate control. There ought to be a bumpersticker.
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