The Unholy Cause is a stand-alone “episode” but with ties to the overall apocalypse arc, and takes place in Civil War country with the war as a backdrop. Not my favorite subject, and yet Joe managed to craft a tightly plotted, fast-paced and true-to-the-show ride I thoroughly enjoyed!

So…here he is!

1. Please tell us a little bit about yourself — writing background, biography…whatever you like!

Born 40 years ago in Flint, Michigan, but my father’s restlessness nature carried me to Alaska, California and Wyoming before it eventually totaled his marriage and infected his kids–my siblings and myself– with the same nomad virus.  I’ve lived in everywhere from New York to Portland, Oregon, with stints in Hollywood, Chicago and Martha’s Vineyard.  Been writing seriously since I was thirteen, doing everything from travel guides to screenplays to ghostwriting Jesse “The Body” Ventura’s wrestling memoir, I AIN’T GOT TIME TO BLEED.  Getting married saved my life and having kids saved it again, re-introducing me to the pure pleasure of storytelling and play.  Nonsmoker, too poor for drugs.  Big drinker until recently when I decided to quit.  Favorite band of the moment: The Hold Steady whose new album HEAVEN IS WHENEVER is a work of genius.

2.  Unholy Cause is your first Supernatural tie-in novel, but you’ve written others. What was different (or the same) about writing for this world versus the others? And can you tell us a bit about your other media tie-in work?

I love the Supernatural world because it always seems bigger than it actually is, like you could hop in the Impala and drive right out of the scene into something just as big, scary and American as what’s going on in front of you.  If I could do it again, if I wasn’t writing in such a blind deadline panic, I think I would have let myself get seduced into a few more diversions off Sam and Dean’s mission just to show a little bit more of that universe.  What’s the place in New Hampshire that has Dean’s favorite cheeseburger?  What does the Supernatural version of New Hampshire even look like?  I imagine the boardwalk is a salty marvel of warped post-Labor Day planks and sea spray with mostly empty storefronts from which Led Zeppelin faintly plays.

Other media tie-in work — I guess that’s Star Wars.  It’s a big sandbox, and the more I played in it, the more cool toys I dug up to play with and disfigure.  Imagine being given the keys to the biggest pop culture machine of your generation and basically being allowed to paint it day-glo red and supercharge the engine.  Big fun.

3. You also write your own fiction — do you approach it differently than you do the other work?

Not really.  I approach all fiction with the fear and trepidation of a man coming home to find a stranger sitting at his kitchen table drinking his beer.  Either that guy turns out to be your best friend with a great story to tell, or you kick him out and wait for the next guy to show up.

4. You’ve stated that the idea for Unholy Cause, which centers around a Civil War theme, was your least favorite, and yet that’s the one that was chosen. How did you feel after writing it? Did it come out better than expected, or how were you able to get excited about the idea that originally wasn’t as appealing to you?

Gunpoint enthusiasm is, I believe, the phrase I’m looking for here.  Basically, I didn’t want to have to go research the Civil War, which in my ignorance, I assumed wouldn’t be interesting.  It turned out of course that the more I read about that period of American history, and the living historians who commit astonishing talent and energy into their re-enactments, that it was actually fascinating, and I was the dullard for not bothering to learn a little bit about it.  By the time I was done I had to force myself to leave parts out.

5. You wrote Unholy Cause pretty fast — is that your usual pace?

I do tend to write quickly, but I also find that I’m spending more time rewriting.  It’s pretty project-dependent.  At the moment I’m helping a friend out with a screenplay for Disney, and we’re turning out pages every day, but when it comes time to start another novel I’ll probably slow my pace considerably, just to see what happens.

6. Can you describe a typical writing day?

Get up.  Make coffee.  Run with the dog.  Return home.  Regard the blank screen.  Do the kids want to play?   Try valiantly to find some aspect of research that will require me to go online and surf the web.  Confront the inevitable and type three pages of current work in progress.  Delete.  Repeat.

and for the rapidfire portion…

Black or white? black
Up or down? down
Left or right? left
In or out? heh-heh-heh
Front or Back?  oh ho ho
Chocolate or Vanilla? yes please
Wars or Trek? really?
Picard or Kirk? kirk
Kirk or Spock? kirk (JJ Abrams’ version, when his hands are all puffy)
Han or Luke? Han
Ocean or Lake? Danny Ocean.  Veronica Lake.
Coffee or Tea? Coffee
Mac or PC? PC, although I can’t really defend that choice.  It’s about as sexy as my old funeral and wedding shoes

and finally…you stand in front of three doors. What colors are they, what is behind each, which do you choose, and why?

The first door is blood-red and shaped like a gigantic vampire bat.  Something back there keeps scratching and crooning and I keep my distance.  The second door is a normal door, perfectly rectangular, absolutely unremarkable in every way except that its brass knob is sculpted into a perfect replica of Rondo Hatton, and when touched, it vibrates ever-so-subtly, to the rhythm of Abba’s “Take a Chance on Me.”  Rumor is that it goes directly into the past, perhaps 1914.  The third door is an eight-foot-thick oxydized iron slab on massive hinges who dimensions are just small enough that, although it seems like I should be able to fit through it, no amount of contortion and manipulation will allow me to pass without scraping my head.  I persist, however, over and over, until I am tired and it’s time for bed.

Everyone, check out Joe’s blog. And check out the book, too!

M

Scene: The alley scene from Dangerous Intentions

Denise A. Agnew
Ellora’s Cave

A woman searching for the perfect man.…

Wealthy magazine editor Kiley Chapman lives with the frightening memory of her kidnapping ten years ago. When she advertises for a man for a hero profile article, she soon discovers bodyguard Scott Danger lives up to his name. Charismatic and confident, he erodes her resolve to stay cool and uninvolved, and the wildfire sexual attraction between them guarantees sparks she doesn’t want to acknowledge.

A man in serious peril of losing his heart.…

Security specialist and ex-Special Forces soldier Scott Danger prides himself on having impeccable restraint—a man who disciplines both mind and body. It’s questionable how long he can resist his powerful and heated attraction to Kiley—and all bets are off when he must protect her from a deadly stalker bent on destroying all they hold dear.

**

Kiley didn’t know how long she’d walked before her feet protested. Sandals like these didn’t work well for “shopping-until-you-drop”. She’d take her aching feet to the office and then back to Susan. She turned around swiftly.

And ran smack into Scott Danger.

“Oof.” The air rushed out of her as their bodies came together, and she released a gasp. His big hands gripped her arms.

“What the—” she started.

“Don’t say it,” he muttered, his voice deep, hot, and irate.

His hair fell about his shoulders in a wild tumble. His jaw was clean-shaven, and he smelled spicy and warm. The antagonism in his eyes, though, made her step out of his grip. Scott took hold of her upper arm and marched her back toward her uncle’s building.

“Let me go,” she said.

“Not on your life.”

“I’ll scream.”

“Go ahead.”

She trotted to keep up with his long-legged stride. “Would you slow down?”

“We’re heading for the parking garage.” He threw her an icy green glance. “Then we’re going to your place and you can explain to me why you ran off this morning.”

“Because I had better things to do than sit around like a little damsel in distress. I went to see Susan and then my uncle.”

“I know. I’ve been following you.”

Her mouth dropped open in surprise. “When I left the house you weren’t following me.”

“I heard you take off. And I caught up with you at the hospital. I’ve been watching you ever since.”

“Right,” she said doubtfully.

“I saw you get a cup of coffee at the cafeteria and take exactly four sips before throwing it out. I saw how you looked in the window of the lingerie shop.”

Amazement shot through her and froze her blood. He had followed her without her being the least aware.

Scott’s gaze softened. “Kiley, if I can follow you without you knowing it, imagine what one of Thorson’s henchmen could do.”

Humiliated because he’d gotten the best of her, and stunned by the truth, she didn’t know what to say.

Kiley saw the black limousine coming down the street about the same time he did, but his reaction took her by surprise. Scott yanked her into the alley next to them and ran.

She stumbled over a trashcan and sent the metal nuisance flying. She cursed under her breath, gritting her teeth against the pain.

Deep inside the alley he stopped. She pulled against his hand. “What the hell are you—”

“Quiet.”

His hand clamped over her mouth as Scott wrapped an arm about her waist and brought her against his body. She gasped, surprise rolling through her stomach. Damn if she wasn’t having déjà vu.

He looked down the alley toward the street, his mouth drawn tight. Kiley experienced every inch of his hard muscles with intimate detail. His hips rammed her stomach, and a funny ache throbbed where he squashed her. Though he wasn’t hurting her, his chest mashed her breasts.

Oh, hell. That felt way too…intimate. Exciting in a deep, primordial way she couldn’t stop. She shifted against him in protest, a sound echoing from her throat.

The scent of threat seeped into her pores. She shivered against him. For what seemed an eternity, he trapped her like an insect on flypaper.

Suddenly Scott removed his hand from her mouth and his arm from about her waist. She staggered back a step and came up against a brick wall.

She licked her lips. “What—”

“Thorson’s limo was coming down the street.”

“How do you know it was his limo?”

“The license plate. Stay put.”

He walked to the edge of the alley and scanned the area, then came back to her. “It’s clear. I don’t think he saw us.”

Kiley started around him. “Then I can leave.”

He grabbed her arm. “No.”

She backed out of his grip and came up against the wall again. Residual anger broke forth. “I suppose you found the note I left you telling you that I wouldn’t need your help any longer?”

Scott glared. This man had the facial expression down to a science. He could scare puppies and little babies. He could frighten her, if she let him.

“Cat got your tongue?” she asked.

He took a step forward. “You deserve a good—”

“Spanking?”

If he was shocked by her word choice, he didn’t show it. Instead Scott took another step toward her, until he almost touched her, and Kiley was forced to tilt her head back to look at him.

He put his palms down on the wall next to her about shoulder height. “Something much worse. I’m taking you out of here, and you’re not going to give me trouble.”

“In case you haven’t noticed, you’re fired.”

“Your uncle hasn’t fired me.”

“I have.”

“You don’t pay the bills, sweet thing.”

Sweet thing. Barclay had called her that all the time. She hated it. Hated it. Hated it.

Kiley didn’t care for his Neanderthal attitude. Pissed, she pushed with both hands against his chest. It didn’t budge him. “Don’t call me that again. I ought to kick you in the balls.”

“But you won’t.”

“You just expect me to go along with this shit without question?”

“For the moment.”

“A woman could get bruised being around you.”

“Better bruised than dead.”

Though light wedged its way into the alley, the darkness still hung here, cloaking Kiley like a shroud. Fear warred with a primitive feeling she couldn’t ignore. Somehow, despite his barbarism, she knew he would shelter her against any threat.

She could trust him with her life.

Rallying against the flutter deep in her belly, she said, “Well, don’t do me no favors.”

He grunted. “Sounds like a line from an old movie.”

“Lethal Weapon.”

“What?”

“Lethal Weapon. Danny Glover says to Mel Gibson—”

“Yeah, I remember.”

His gaze focused on her mouth, and suddenly the air changed. Like a lightning bolt it hit Kiley, hot and fierce and unprecedented. His heart beating against her fingers, and the rise and fall of his breathing called to her body in a rhythm that recognized him as all man. Her heart pounded, her body aflame as he pressed his chest and hips closer. Closer yet. His erect cock pressed her belly, and she opened her mouth to—

What?

Protest that their encounter apparently turned him on?

She had to acknowledge the deep, insistent ache that centered high up in her pussy, the relentless tingling that built within her clit. Her nipples tightened into sensitive buds. She squirmed against him the tiniest bit, and a breath hissed between his lips.

When she looked up into his fire-intense eyes, she saw one thing.

He wanted to kiss her.

Or kill her.

She wasn’t sure.

“You’re the most exasperating woman I’ve ever met. A true pain in the ass.”

“If you dislike me so much, why are you holding me so close?”

His emerald eyes sparkled with an overwhelming passion that called to her on levels she didn’t understand and had never encountered.

“Who said that I dislike you?”

“You said I was a pain.”

His mouth turned up for a second in a quick show of amusement. “Yeah. But you’re more than that. There’s something about you that fascinates me.”

She didn’t know what to say. In fact, his clear admiration and his honesty threw her off guard.

“The question is, why do you hate me?” Scott asked, his voice husky and soft.

She licked her lips, and his gaze landed on her mouth. “Why do you care?”

“I care because you’re under my protection. I made a big mistake letting you out of my sight, and I won’t make it again.”

He traced the side of her neck with his index finger, and the shock trembled through Kiley like a mini earthquake. “You may think I’m a cold-hearted son of a bitch, but I’m damned good at my job. Your uncle paid me to protect you, and that’s what I’m going to do.”

Caught between a fierce blazing anger, and the sensation that something hot and unbidden flared between them, she took a deep breath.

His eyes turned wolf on her. Mysterious. His gaze took in everything about her, and she could have sworn he could read her mind.

Lord, he ought to bottle it and sell it. He could make a fortune seducing women with that look.

“What do you care about?” she asked. “Winning the next verbal battle? Making your point?”

Scott dropped his hand back onto the wall. One corner of his wide mouth turned up, and Kiley pinpointed her stare onto the spot, unable to look away.

“I haven’t made many points with you.”

Her gaze flicked to his again. “Try Andrea in the magazine accounting office. She’s single, available, and not as picky as I am.”

“Picky? About what?”

“The men she sleeps with.”

With his other hand, he touched the hollow of her throat. She sucked in a slow breath as the heat from that delicate, single touch spilled hot across her skin. “What kind of men do you sleep with, Kiley?”

She rallied against the arousal tightening with hot coils inside her. She sighed. “You’re crude, you know that?”

“Add rude and lewd and you’ve got all the clichés down.”

She made a scoffing noise in her throat and pushed against his chest again. When her fingers landed on his hard torso, the sensation tantalized Kiley as nothing had in a long time. She imagined Scott’s chest and powerful arms naked for her touch. Dark hair peeked from the open collar of his shirt. Did he have a hairy chest, or did that bit of masculinity tease her unnecessarily? Blond head. Dark chest hair. A delicious combination. Almost against her will, her hand smoothed over his red polo shirt. She wanted him bare under her exploration, and the realization startled her.

He tilted her chin until she gazed up at him. She quivered under his gentle touch as his hand came up and caressed her cheek. “You sure as hell don’t want rescuing.”

Her throat felt dry and aching with tension. “I never said I wanted to be rescued.”

“You wanted a hero for your magazine article. Instead you got involved with something a hell of a lot nastier than you expected. Now you’re in over your head and you don’t want help when it’s right here in front of you. Isn’t that a little twisted?”

“A little twisted is us in this alley having a conversation like we’re on Park Avenue or something. Can we get out of here?”

“Not until we get a few things straight. You aren’t going anywhere without me from now on, is that understood? I’m glued to your hip.”

“But—”

“You aren’t to put one pretty, painted toenail out the door unless I tell you.”

“For your information, I don’t paint my toenails. For a hotshot you sure aren’t very observant.”

His brows drew together and his mouth dropped open. She almost smiled. It felt good to see this big, confident man lose street audacity. Scott looked down at her short hemline and took in the length of her bare legs and her sandal-shod feet with a long, hungry perusal. His salacious grin set warmth into her belly that burned steady. His fingers traced over her throat again and into the hair at the back of her neck and her eyes almost closed at the exquisite sensation.

“Forgive me,” he said. “You’re not to put one beautiful, naked leg, or toe, outside a door without me going first. Got that?”

She simmered, but not from anger. Did this man realize what he did to her? She didn’t seem to have control over her reactions to him and her frustration level escalated.

“Okay, that’s enough. I’ve got enough material for the entire hero article just from the last two days,” she said. “The magazine spread is yours. Jackson Cole can kiss it goodbye.”

“You think getting a dumb-assed magazine spread changes anything? Do you think I’m not serious?”

“No, Mr. Danger.”

“Would you please just call me Scott? You called me Scott before. Why is it so hard for you?”

His voice went soft and husky. Intimate. It reminded her of last night when he’d gazed at her over the dinner table and tried to stare her down. He’d won the battle then because she couldn’t handle the crystal warmth in his eyes that knocked her breath away. Scott was right, though. She had broken down more than once and called him by his first name. But that didn’t mean she would continue in the same vein.

“This isn’t the fifties. I’m not Ozzie and you sure as hell aren’t Harriet. You can call me by my first name.” Scott shifted.

“Great. We’re standing in a stinking, grimy alleyway discussing movies and television shows.”

He shrugged. “All in a day’s work. You should see what I was doing last week.”

“You hole up in alleys with women every day?”

That smile came across his face and stupefied her. God, didn’t the man know his grin gave off megawatts of virile charm?

“Only with beautiful women with stubborn mouths they can’t keep shut.”

“That’s a first. I don’t think I’ve ever been complimented and insulted in the same breath.”

“Call me Scott,” he said huskily.

He could do what he liked with her, to her and at her. She wouldn’t budge on this item. “Bite me.”

He angled his head closer, his breath warm on her face. Sensual heat rolled through Kiley. “That can be arranged.”

She swallowed hard. “I don’t think so, Mr. Danger.”

“You even call your enemies by their first names.”

“If I want to call you Rumpelstiltskin or Harry Houdini, I will. Or maybe you don’t like strong women with a mind of their own.”

“Yeah, right. My boss for the last few years is a woman, and I don’t have a problem taking orders from her. She knows what she’s doing which is a lot more than I can say for you. Why are you so determined to fight me?”

“Because you’re pushy and stubborn and—”

“Jesus,” he muttered.

“And don’t curse.”

“What? Real heroes don’t curse?”

“Well, at least they don’t have gutter mouths.”

“Gutter mouth? Who has a gutter mouth?”

“You’ve done a hell of a lot of cursing in the last few hours.”

“Yeah, more than I’ve done in months. And you know why? You. You’re a pain in the ass,” he gritted out, his eyes blazing. “And you have nothing to talk about. I’ve never heard a woman curse as much as you.”

Inexplicably, tears of anger surged into Kiley’s eyes. Damn it. Double damn it. More than anything she wished her worst anger would come out in shouting, or anything but tears. All her life she fought this propensity, and she hated that it reared its head now, in front of this man.

“Back off,” she said, her voice sounding raspy to her own ears.

“What?”

“I said…back away from me.”

Scott’s hands went to her waist. The heat of his fingers made her jump, his touch sparkling in Kiley’s blood like little electrical jolts.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice tinged with a strange tenderness. He slipped his hands up to her shoulders, smoothing her skin with a gentle caress. “I’m not usually this…what you do to me is unreal—”

“What I do to you?”

“I can’t keep my hands off you. Can’t stop wanting to touch you.”

His gaze went lambent, filled with a craving so carnal she felt its touch through her skin, in every sinew, every bone. Amazed at his admiration, she also found deep satisfaction in knowing she could move him to such heights. Whether she wanted to or not, she loved and hated his attention.

Her anger disappeared as if the last few minutes had never happened. Heaven help her, this man was unbearably sexy. When he turned on the soft gaze and husky tone, her heart increased to ramjet speed. When he looked at her like he wanted to kiss her, to do more, she lost control, lost the anger she needed to keep him at a distance.

Smooth and without force, Scott slid his arms around her waist, bringing her against his body again. She left her hands on his chest, stunned. Thumping like two instruments beating a wild song, her pulse and her heart danced in her chest until she felt dizzy. His thick, fully erect cock pushed against her stomach. Oh, yes. No doubt he wanted her. Her nipples tingled, moisture gathering between her legs. She shifted her legs, wanting something to take away the ache building with tremendous force inside her. She needed more of his touch, more of his sensual caresses. As if on cue, his palms slid up and down her back, resting first on the bare skin at the top of her sundress, then lower to just above her ass.

“What’s wrong?” he asked softly.

“I’m mad as hell.”

“You don’t look mad, you look unhappy. Like a girl whose doll just got broken.”

“Don’t patronize me, Mr. Danger.”

“Scott,” he said with a sexy drawl that made her stomach tremble.

And she knew exactly what that sensation meant. “Why is it so important I call you by your first name?”

Was Scott closer? His lips seemed not so far from hers now. “Because it sounds sexy coming from your mouth.”

Suddenly he changed directions and his lips touched her right ear. Kiley gasped as pinwheels of excitement darted through her breasts and down into her stomach. Then she felt a tiny, almost featherlight sensation on her lobe. Oh. My. God.

“What…what are you doing?” she gasped.

“Biting you,” he whispered.

Chapter Eight

Kiley’s eyes closed as Scott gently nibbled her ear, then traced the lobe with his tongue. She gasped again and trembled in his arms, surprised by his action and her reaction. His cock pressed even tighter to her belly, and the long, thick bar of male sexuality made her shiver against him in delight. The world around her dissolved as sensations too exquisite to withstand raced across her body. She sank into another world, one populated by the two of them and no one else. The alley disappeared from her mind, until his touch stayed with her and became the center of her universe. His hands traced her back with caresses both bold and light.

As her hands drifted over his shoulders, then slipped around his neck, one of his hands cupped her ass cheek. Sensations bombarded her. Gone was the smell of the alley…the traffic noise. Gone was all discord. Heat spiraled through her breasts and headed straight for her belly. It didn’t stop there but settled deep between her thighs and took up permanent residence.

“Please,” she whispered, unsure why she pleaded.

Before she could open her eyes, his lips trailed across her cheek and his mouth covered hers.

Scott’s mouth moved over hers with ravenous attention, leaving out preliminaries. While her brain had tossed with chaos moments ago, now everything pinpointed down to this man’s body entangled with hers. His was so big, so wrapped around her. Never in Kiley’s life had she experienced a man’s powerful presence like this. She’d seen him move. Seen the strength that rippled through his body.

Now she experienced the sexual, male animal within him seeking her…wanting her. She could have been frightened. Instead his arms felt protective, cherishing, cradling and wildly sexual.

Explanation:

This scene illustrates extremely high sexual tension ready to explode. Dangerous Intentions was one of the first romantic suspense novels I wrote, and in the original version it was hot but not erotic. When I sold it to Ellora’s Cave, I upped the tension and realized this was one of the first stories where I really let my inhibitions go and allowed the characters to lay it out in bald, not so nice terms. It shows the hero and heroine battling within themselves to ignore the tension and losing in the end. They don’t like each other for certain reasons, but other reasons make them a perfect pair. To me the danger of the scene also heightens the sexual tension, the conflict between them. The alley is dirty, dim, and forbidden in some way, sort of like their raging attraction.

Learn more about Denise at her website!

Scene:

A plow had cleared Wells Street perhaps an hour ago, but the sidewalks were thick with untouched snow. They walked on the side of the street, because there wasn’t a car in sight. The ”L” tracks over their head and the high-rises gave them a small measure of protection against the swirling, stinging snow for the first part of their trip, but north of the loop they were more fully exposed.

They finally turned right from Dearborn Avenue onto Oak Street. Sean grabbed her hand to keep her steady as the brutal Lake Michigan wind cut through her wool coat as though it were made of tissue paper. The wind came off the lake at Oak Street Beach and zoomed between the buildings, creating one of the most unpleasant wind tunnels in the city.

While shoppers patronized Michigan Avenue for the more famous stores, the block on Oak Street between Michigan and Rush was prized for smaller, high-end fashion boutiques. When Genevieve’s father had passed away, she discovered that he’d named both her and her mother as the beneficiaries on his modest life insurance policy. Genevieve had used it as start-up money for her business.

She’d wanted to succeed in her own right, but part of what had propelled her manic hard work in those early days was the desire to show her father she’d made good on his legacy. She’d burned to make his life worthwhile . . . to make the ghost of him that resided in her brain proud.

She noticed as they plodded along the snow-laden street, their shoulders to the wind, that very few shops were open. She shivered and squinted at Sean. Snowflakes clung to his eyebrows and whiskered jaw. His dark blond hair had been streaked with white. He looked resigned to his frozen discomfort.

“Whose idea was this, anyway?” she asked.

He threw her a dry glance. “Had to have been some crazy girl from Gary, Indiana. Boys from N’ Orleans are too fragile to go out in a blizzard.”

Keeping up with Sean’s long legs in the thick snow had got her heart pumping. She snorted between pants. “Fragile, my ass.”

“Too smart then,” Sean added with a rakish grin that told Genny she’d been forgiven for her foolishness.

Explanation:

The reason this is one of my favorite scenes in RELEASE is a very personal one. It gives me some satisfaction to know that I’ve had life experiences that can give me accurate information for a scene. I’ve lived in downtown Chicago for more years than I care to admit, and the little details in this bit sort of highlight some of my true-to-life-experience in the city. I’ve endured several blizzards and can attest to the fact that a bad snowstorm in an urban environment is a unique experience.

I lived on Oak Street for years. Once, when walking around the corner from Michigan Avenue to Oak, the winter wind coming off the lake/beach area made me stumble and slide on ice—completely out of control—for about ten feet and come very close to being thrown on the pavement before I finally righted myself. I must have looked hysterical. I’ve never experienced wind tunneling down a street like I have on Oak.

It’s little stuff, and most people wouldn’t be aware of whether it’s accurate or not, so I suppose there’s a good argument that it doesn’t matter much. For my own part, though, it really does give me a smile when I write something and I know for a fact there are only a handful of people who would know those little details.

******

Find out more from Beth at her website.

Aiden’s songs make me listen.

Welcome Aiden, to The Meaning Of…! Thanks so much for agreeing to be here on my blog, sharing the meaning of your songs with my readers.

Today we’re going to talk about one of your recent releases, On the Run.

The lyrics:

I never wanted it to be like this
pulling away from each other’s kiss
someone will always be watching you
all of the time

As a listener (and, well, an author of romance!) this song is pretty clearly about a breakup. Pulling away from each other’s kiss is a poignant and also very vivid description of what it’s like at the end of a relationship when you haven’t yet broken up and yet you can’t quite stomach kissing each other. But the lyric “someone will always be watching you all of the time” doesn’t quite fit with my imagination of the story the song creates.

Can you tell us about the story behind the song? Where you got your inspiration for it, the meaning behind it?

Well that is a loaded question. Haha. Well. It’s a break up anthem. All the big diva’s have them and I wanted one too. Haha.

The lyrics you referred to above for instance, the person I was seeing had trouble being affectionate in public to a detriment. It’s never something I thought I would be faced with in a relationship. I am very comfortable with who I am, and how I act, everywhere I go. I was touring out west in san francisco & wasn’t sure if I was going to stay in the relationship I was in when I got back home.

A lot of people don’t realize that the chorus of the song is everything I needed to hear from him.That he would be “ok” if we parted ways. It’s written from his perspective. Like singing it to me.

The video for it On the Run is so good, but so sad to watch. I love the house the couple’s looking at, but the reminders that whatever happened there has ended is so sad! Of course, I love it, because I’m emo that way.

Can you tell us about making that video and what it was like? How was it different from simply creating the song, and different from other videos you’ve done? How did the story the video tells match or differ from the one you had in your head when you wrote the song?

Well the video is entirely 100% independently done. I could not have done it without the help of my friends. It’s really a dream come true and I’m so happy with it.

There is a lot that goes into a huge production like this. It was a huge learning experience for me on a major scale. Not to mention having to buy make up! LOL, you know…for shine

Before that video was released to the world on August 8th, I did a series called “Satellite Sessions” — an acoustic video blog of songs away from home (See them here:) I would do a song from each city I toured to that month before the video came out. Sort of a teaser if you will…but i don’t strip tease. I did wear a tank top though i think…haha!

The story for the video you see now wasn’t the original treatment actually. The relationship I was in at the time ended a week or so before the video was shot, and I had to scramble to find a leading romantic counter part ASAP! Me and the awesome director Marquise Lee had to sit down again and walk through the house we were going to shoot in & come up with a different scheme altogether. A big reason for that was, over the course of a year I had collected home movies of me and my boo being all couple-y. Halloween, Christmas, long weekends, mornings laying in bed and so on. All that, unusable. However in the end, the final version for the video, treatment, actors, location and so one worked out stronger than its original fabrication.

That summer it was featured at Qfest, the international gay and lesbian film festival held here in Philly. It was part of the Philly shorts program and the very first music video ever featured. The program was voted a festival favorite that earned an encore performance.

As a singer and musician, what do you feel is important about creating a video for your songs? (Back in the olden days of MTV showing videos, they were super important!)
Video today has changed the face of the music industry I think. Even though MTV hardly shows music videos anymore, it’s another facet and creation that can take your composition to new heights and generate a different reality people can escape into.
Video is big. I can sum it up in one word. Youtube.

The video’s been featured on MTV, Logo and Vh-1 – aside from being totally cool, how has this impacted your music? Are you discovering a broader audience from your work appearing on these mainstream sites? How’d you end up getting your video shown there?

I was out touring in the Caribbean and when I got back home I saw a TWEET (www.twitter.com/aidenjamestour) that MTV sent out about my video! haha I thought it was fake a first. But sure enough, there it was on the front page under new indie video, next to taylor swift! Tooo cool. I almost wet my pants.

It also had its television broadcast premier on Logo NewNowNext PopLab this month. I personally don’t get LOGO on my basic cable so a local bar agreed to play it that very night for me and a small group of friends. Of course my video gets on tv and we proceed to have the biggest snow storm in 100 years. Oops. Sorry eastern seaboard. Haha. So, when I was walking to the bar that night my iphone was on shuffle and ON THE RUN popped on as I was turning the corner downtown. I teared up a bit.

One of my other favorites of your songs is Josiah…I can’t decide if it’s about a lover or a cat. I’m not sure which I’d prefer! But the last line haunts me: “Greedy, selfish, Josiah, I am stained.” It makes me think of yearning and longing and all that good stuff I love so much as a writer (unless it’s about a cat, in which case I take it back about the longing and yearning!)—but what DOES it mean?!!! Tell me the story!

That’s too funny. OK. I’ll tell you the story.

Josiah is two songs in one. How I wish things had gone between me and my crush. Then, what actually happened.

Two years ago, I met this crush for a coffee date in Rittenhouse Square Park, Philly. Things were going really well and the connection was magnetic. Not to mention the incredible gorgeous factor. There was hair tossing, eye batting, he’s getting the green light. Then an hour into our date, “Josiah” leans in and says “I have to tell you something. I’m in a open long distance relationship with my boyfriend in Boston. That’s not a problem is it?”

Oh great. I was a bit crushed and thought oh well, so I wrote it off and would define it as a wam bam kinda thing. So that’s exactly what we ended up doing. Cut to us at “josiah’s” apartment on 9th and Pine, getting it on. Shirts were ripped open and it was hot. What I didn’t expect was to be rushed out the door before his roommate got home. She was unaware of “Josiah’s” little arrangement with boyfriend in Boston and I would be the beans spilling out of the can, not to mention a conscience check on the gorgeous Josiah from the park. I left feeling alot of things. Later that very summer, without realizing, I moved in to a new apartment three doors down from the scene of the crime. Oh life.

How do you, as an artist, feel about the interpretation of your work? Do you try to leave your lyrics open so the listener can form his/her own interpretations? Do you ever get surprised by what people think your songs mean? (Umm…like if they mis-hear the lyrics?)

Kinda like how you thought my lyrics were for on the run? (note: I totally butchered them trying to transcribe them by ear!) Haha. It was so cute. You were very close with them. I think most people tend to align a personal experience with the songs they hear. I do the same thing when I listen to music. For instance, Ingrid Michaelson’s song “Mountain and the Sea.» I imagine myself in a mini video of my life along with the words. Or with Brandi Carlile’s song “If There Was No You” I think of my best friend, and it got me through a tour I was traveling alone on.

Gosh, I sound really sappy in writing haha. I’m really fun and animated in life, I promise. So, am I ever surprised at what people might think or interpret my songs to mean? Well. I’m just happy they are listening. It can mean anything you want it to. However, I write from a very specific place usually.

How long does it take you to write a song, generally?

Well, I have come to do what I call the purge and prune method. I puke out all this stuff onto paper or my iPhone memo recorder, usually with my guitar in hand. Then, go back and prune it down so it makes some sort of sense. I don’t really have an answer for you on this one. It’s taken anywhere from 2 hours… to 1 year!

When writing from life, what’s it like to then perform those songs you based on what might’ve actually been a very private moment, and then it’s put out there for the whole world to hear, to make judgment on, to even take for themselves?

It’s liberating and rewarding. I use it. The moments I have in my life or the friends’ lives I do up in song, and I mend the spaces and tie the loose ends up, where real life tends to not be so gracious. It’s therapy really. Cheap, inappropriate, balls out therapy.

From Aiden’s website
With humble upbringings in a struggling working class family, becoming something other than ordinary was not celebrated or encouraged. Aiden refused to accept that and fled to Philadelphia where he embraced urban life, not to mention the local music scene. Currently living in downtown Philadelphia, this talented twenty something is making great strides for a self-taught musician.

Find his music on

and on Amazon

And of course from his site:

See…writers, whether it’s a novel or a song or a poem…well, I’m going to guess that most of us use things in our work that have meaning. I don’t necessarily mean symbolism — you’ll never quite convince me that the color of the wallpaper in someone’s short story is a symbol of the character’s emotional issues with his father — but I do believe the author might’ve chosen a certain color of wallpaper because it’s what he had in his childhood bedroom (hey, and therefore, might actually represent his OWN issues with his father…)

Bottom line, writing is an intensely personal business, and it would be silly to think that the choices we make in colors, names, situations, etc. don’t have some meaning to us, the authors. I know I add personal bits and pieces, trivia, really, to my work as I write it. Pretty much whatever I’m eating, watching, reading or listening to is likely to end up in whatever book I’m working on.

So, here it is: The Meaning of Dirty…

Dirty — The title. I had an idea that I wanted to write a book about a woman who meets a man who just takes her on this sort of wild, sexual journey and they do all this stuff, and it was all really DIRTY, and I wanted to write a book called DIRTY that pretty much summed it all up. Of course, as I started writing it, I realized that’s not what was going to happen, and it wasn’t really going to be that book…and that it wasn’t about being “dirty” at all.

This is what happened. – The first line. Also happens to be the first line of Stephen King’s The Mist, and I remember reading once why he chose to start HIS book that way, that it was the same or similar to someone else’s first line. I tried a lot of other opening lines — including This is how it started. But none of them worked and I ended up with that. I’m not sure why — by the time the book was finished I’d gone through several versions, and made no connection to The Mist until later, reading something else, realized, there it was.

I met him at the candy store. He turned around and smiled at me. Yeah, just like the song. Not intentional. I was surprised enough to smile back.

This was not a children’s candy store. This was Sweet Heaven, an upscale, gourmet candy store. No cheap lollipops or chalky chocolate kisses. The kind of place you went to buy expensive imported truffles for your boss’s wife because you felt guilty for fucking him when you were both at a conference in Milwaukee. If you pay attention, this becomes an important detail later in the book.

He was buying jellybeans, black only. He looked at the bag in my hand, candy-coated chocolate. Also in one color. I’m fascinated by the fact you can buy M &Ms in only one color, or jelly beans in only one flavor, and they cost three times as much as if you buy them pre-mixed.

“You know what they say about the green ones.”  The rakish tilt of his lips tried to charm me, and I resisted.

“St. Patrick’s Day?” Which was why I was buying them.

He shook his head. “No. The green ones make you horny.”

I’d been hit on plenty of times, mostly by men with little finesse who thought what was between their legs made up for what they lacked between their ears. Sometimes I went home with one of them anyway, just because it felt good to want and be wanted, even if it was mostly fake, and they usually disappointed.

“That’s an urban legend made up by adolescent boys with wish fulfillment issues.”
His lips tilted further. His smile was his best asset, brilliant and shining in a face made up of otherwise regular features. He had hair the color of wet sand and cloudy blue-green eyes, both attractive but when paired with the smile…breathtaking. Dan, in my head, looks like Ewan McGregor. There. I’ll just say it.

“Very good answer,” he said.

He held out his hand. When I took it, he pulled me closer, step by hesitant step, until he could lean close and whisper in my ear. His hot breath gusted along my skin, and I shivered. “Do you like licorice?”

I did, and I do, and he tugged me around the corner to reach inside a bin filled with small black rectangles. It had a label with a picture of a kangaroo on the front.

“Try this.” He lifted a piece to my lips and I opened for him although the sign clearly said ‘no samples.’ “It’s from Australia.” It’s Kookaburra licorice, which is the BEST FREAKING LICORICE EVER MADE. I’ve bought it online in 5 lb boxes and had it shipped at an exorbitant, outrageous cost to me, that’s how good that licorice is. Also, black licorice is *my* favorite.

The licorice smoothed on my tongue. Soft, fragrant, sticky in a way that made me run my tongue along my teeth. I tasted his fingers from where they’d brushed my lips. He smiled.

“I know a little place,” he said, and I let him take me there.

* * *

The Slaughtered Lamb. It’s also the name of the pub in An American Werewolf in London. Awwww, yeah. Love that movie. There is a place in NYC called The Slaughtered Lamb, too. A gruesome name for a nice little faux-British pub tucked down an alley in the center of downtown Harrisburg. Lots of my books are set in Harrisburg because it’s familiar to me, though I do not live there any more, and it’s a big enough city to have “stuff” but also rural enough to have other “stuff” and frankly, how many books are set in Central PA? Not many, at least that I’ve found. Compared to the trendy dance clubs and upscale restaurants that had revitalized the area, the Lamb seemed out of place and all the more delightful for it. I once read a review of Dirty, back in the day when I  read reviews, that said I didn’t know what I was talking about, as Harrisburg was made of strip malls and had no “urban crime” or some such nonsense. Yeah, well, golly, since I’ve actually BEEN to the pubs and dance clubs in downtown Harrisburg, and I can tell you there actually ARE neighborhoods that are not “good” neighborhoods, I think I know what I’m talking about. So there, reviewer who maybe drove past Harrisburg once in 1987.

He sat us at the bar, away from the college students singing karaoke in the corner. The stools wobbled, and I had to hold tight to the bar. I ordered a margarita. Personally? I drink margaritas, if I drink, which is not often.

“No.” The shake of his head had me raising a brow. “You want whiskey.”

“I’ve never had whiskey.”

“A virgin.” On another man the comment would have come off smarmy, earned a roll of the eyes and an automatic addition to the “not with James Dean’s  Ohhhh, James Dean. Mmmmmm, James Dean! prick” file.

On him, it worked.

“A virgin,” I agreed, the word tasting unfamiliar on my tongue as though I hadn’t used it in a very long time.

He ordered us both shots of Jameson’s Irish Whiskey,When I was in Ireland, I toured the Jameson factory, which is the first place I ever really heard of it; therefore, it’s what my characters drink and also what I drink (when I drink, which is rarely, and if I’m not having a margarita.) and he drank his back as one should do with shots, in one gulp. I am no stranger to drinking,This, however, is NOT me, as Elle is quite the boozer and I’m not even if I’d never had whiskey, and I matched him without a grimace. There’s a reason it’s also known as firewater, but after the initial burn the taste of it spread across my tongue and reminded me of the smell of burning leaves. Cozy. Warm. A little romantic, even.

So, there you have it. The “meaning of” The first couple pages of Dirty. Interestingly (to me, anyway) while I was looking this stuff up, I found 15 pages of a short story called “One Two Step” that was a sort of precursor to Dirty, featuring the scene in the dance club when Dan asks Elle to dance for the first time, only they had different names (Reese and Elise) and it wasn’t told in first person. You can see it here.

–M

So, before I go take a shower and get started on the day, here is a blog post to get me situated back in the reality of WORK and not PLAY.

Review of No Greater Pleasure

SWITCH is up for pre-order and wow, look at that price!

NEWLY FALLEN — available now!

Get 25% off DEEPER!

For audiolovers — — Woooo! Reason Enough, Layover and This Is What I Want on Audio! If you like that sort of thing. Sorry I can’t get a pretty linky type thing with a graphic and whatnot, but iTunes won’t let me.

And thanks to everyone who helped make THIS possible!

Ummm…LOL!!!

Buy this album:

Also, buy these albums.

Also:

FORON = “f-ing moron”
I’m not sure, but I believe I might have invented this word. Take it. Use it. Spread it throughout the universes and beyond.

Also:

I love my living room.

So, now I’m going to take a shower, get some coffee, some oatmeal, and get past the halfway point on COLLIDE.

M

You’ve been writing stories since childhood and started publishing novels in your late twenties – was writing something you always knew you’d make a career from, or did you think it was just something fun to do?

I always felt I was a writer, whether I ever had a career or not. I started writing at age 8, and just never stopped. I was a middling student in school, but every now and then I’d write a short story and it would jump me into some accelerated program. I went to some great schools as a kid — well, great for me.

But I must be honest: I never did well in classes in which I had no interest and in which the teacher couldn’t reach me in some way. But writing and literature were my passions as a kid and in college.

So, I hoped to make a career from writing but I had no real indication that it could be done. I’m still never sure — I feel it can all end tomorrow. But I’ll keep writing stories, regardless.

Your first novel, Goat Dance, appeared in 1989. The eighties experienced a surge of popular horror fiction. What were you reading in the eighties and did those books affect your decision to write Goat Dance? Where did the idea come from?

I had been thinking about the book that became Goat Dance for at least five years before I sat down to write it. I was preoccupied with mating, work, and other things and I never really thought I’d sell anything I’d write at that point. I just didn’t think it would happen. I wasn’t depressed about it — I wrote stuff and I just kept it to myself, mostly.

Goat Dance was bought by Pocket Books in 1987 — about a year after I’d finished its final draft — but they didn’t bring it out until 1989, and by then I had two more books nearly done. I would write the books — back then — fairly quickly and then spend months doing other things, discovering places and people and enjoying life a bit too much.

The horror market actually was pretty much kaput by ’89 when the book came out, but it still had a little steam left in it. I’ve been very fortunate. I find it unbelievable that I’ve had all these books published over the years — and the books are exactly what I wanted to write at the time and they all found homes with major publishers. I could not have predicted any of that.

In fact, I doubt I could’ve predicted my life from indicators in childhood. I would’ve thought I’d be living in a box on the side of the road by now.

What scares you?

Normal life. If I told you more, I’d have to hunt you down.

Do you try to write about what scares you, or what you think might scare someone else?

As odd as it will sound, everything I’ve written is autobiographical, only twisted and hidden and hyper-exaggerated and prevaricated and turned around and made upside-down so that the metaphor of some experience is all that’s there.

So, to me, I don’t write “scary,” I write “what this really meant or means to me, taken to some fantastical nth degree.”

Do you have a typical writing day?

Never. But every day, I write, whether I put words down on paper or not. My entire orientation to the world is as someone who is constantly storytelling, one way or another. And by that, I don’t mean “lying,” but I mean, I’m always reshaping experience and outlook and whatever understanding I have into a story.

My current book, Isis, while ostensibly a throwback to the gothics of the late nineteenth century, is genuinely from experience — but not a supernatural experience. Again, it’s hyper-exaggeration of an experience I’ve had, turned around, twisted, undone, stripped down to a metaphor.

The Priest of Blood, my vampire epic, is purely a re-telling of an aspect of my experience through a filter of a supernatural tale. And no, I’ll never tell.

At this point, your career’s spanned about two decades. How has your writing changed from when you started? What publishing differences have you experienced?

My writing’s changed insofar as my understanding of what I’m doing and what might be done in fiction has changed. Despite having a marketable storytelling ability, I’ve never thought of a market when I write (or when I have, it didn’t matter — I always ended up telling the “Doug Clegg” story). I’ve always written from experience, with my twists.

But what has changed is I now understand craft more deeply and can see where and why a story of mine has gone wrong, and where I can now go back and fix it, editorially. There are aspects of storytelling that create a narrative dynamic, and there are aspects of character that are important to create so that the effect of the story becomes more powerful.

Those are the things I’ve spent the past three years slowly studying and working on. It has helped to revisit classics, re-read great Greek tragedies, re-visit Shakespeare’s work, go to the great movies and novels of the 20th century that have unbeatable stories that hold up years later — essentially, the modern classics of storytelling. Turning to the world of art also helps — the great artists also have these characteristics in their work.

So I keep studying craft and keep learning from masters. It has both slowed my output a bit and re-energized my love for story.

Regarding publishing differences, well, one of the big differences is co-op in bookstores. It has changed the way marketing is done for books, which used to reach out more to the consumer outside the bookstores. Now, the bookstore itself is the front line of the marketing and promotional budget for those books that get displayed.

When I started, it was indie stores and Waldenbooks and B. Dalton. As big as a B. Dalton might be, it never reached the physical space of B&N and Borders or the unlimited spaces of Indiebound.com, BN.com, Amazon and Borders.com. This changed how many books could be shelved, which I think transformed how publishers put books out. Publishers adapt to the bookselling and book-buying environment, and as those have changed, publishing has followed.

On the other hand, I don’t think publishing changes fast enough — the internet has turned things upside down in terms of bookselling and reader attention and patterns of consumer behavior. It takes a keen mind to keep up with it, and luckily there are a few publishers who have kept pace with the changes. But not all. I think constant innovation is the future of any business with an online component, and I think people need to be hired in those companies who have these kinds of creative, innovative minds.

On the other hand, a lot has remained the same in publishing, too. Since I’m not on the other side of the wall with the publishers, I don’t know enough about the changes or lack of them. I just know it from my side of the wall, as a writer.

You were on the forefront of epublishing and utilizing the Internet to get your work in front of readers. Now you’re a writer who uses social networking to connect with readers often, with your Ask Me Thursdays and Tell Me Fridays. So tell me the truth: Facebook, huge time suck or valuable promotional tool? And how have you resisted playing Farmville all day instead of writing books?!

I never play games online, unless it’s the Isis Game.

Regarding Facebook and Twitter as timesucks, they can be, but here’s what I do: my husband set up an exercise bike in our TV room. On it, he created a desktop where I can take my laptop and a water bottle.

So when I go on Facebook or Twitter, I’m usually doing about 3 miles of exercycling. That way the timesuck is lost to “exercise time.”

Additionally, I go on Facebook and Twitter when I’m waiting in the car (not driving) with my iPhone or when I’m standing in line somewhere. That way it’s more “filler time.”

I like communicating with people. When it gets to be too much, I just don’t go to Facebook or Twitter. But I like the people on there and learn a lot about what people are reading and doing — and I like answering questions about writing, since it’s been my entire life.

And when the internet gets to be too much, I use my Alphasmart Neo, which you recommended to me. It’s a great device, I can get a ton of writing done on it because it provides zero distraction and I can even go up to my roofdeck, sit in the sun, and write.

Your website is amazing, including free downloads, games, serial stories…did you ever imagine having such a hands-on, immediate connection with readers when you began? What’s the best part about having that connection?

Megan, I really love the internet. Before I was aware of the internet much (back in the late ’80s and very early ’90s when I only went on GEnie occasionally) it always felt like deathly silence when a novel of mine came out. Now, I get to hear from readers, I get to communicate with other writers, I get to email manuscripts to my editors, I get to see upcoming cover art right after it’s been created, and I never have to stand in line for movie or theater or train tickets again. I never have to spend hours in a mall (I’m not a fan of malls) to buy something. I just go click and buy it.

Publishers have found me via the internet and have become aware of my fiction that way — as have readers. I love it. My neighborhood is not just the people who live on my block — they’re the people I communicate with online.

Tell me about your bunnies!

Okay, well, there’s a whole saga. Years ago, when Raul and I were biking out in Jersey City at Liberty Park, we saw a furry little thing at the side of the road. I thought, from a distance, it was a Himalayan cat. Turned out it was a bunny. Now, I wasn’t a rabbit person. I saw them as cute rodents. (They’re not rodents at all, I discovered.)

So this little rabbit had been dumped by someone. She was eager to be picked up and taken home. There were feral dogs and cats all over this one area of the park, plus owls and other predators. We called this part of that park the Buddha area, so we named her Buddha. And she became a Buddha to us. We fell in love with her — she had a remarkably social personality with us, and she taught us a lot about the prey animal. I mean, how could something so wonderful and fascinating be the meal for every predator out there?

Years later, Buddha sadly died (she was at least 7 or 8 by then.) We decided we’d honor her by adopting another bunny, who was sadly sitting in the local Humane Society — surrounded by yowling cats and howling dogs. This was Luka, and he came home but barely moved because he’d had no real stimulation. So we adopted Rosemary from a rescue group, and she was feisty and even up for fights. Eight months later, wedding bells (no babies — they’re both fixed.)

They’ve pretty much taken over half a room in the house, and have two three story condos as well as the floor. They’re remarkable.

And you haven’t even asked about the mouse (rescued from our cat, the mouse came up to us for help. She now has three aquariums to choose from, with tubes running through them — and like Buddha, is the most personable of little mice. She’s been with us about six months.)

What’s your favorite book by you?

Hard to say. Neverland and Isis are up there, but so is The Hour Before Dark and The Priest of Blood and The Queen of Wolves.

What’s your favorite book by anyone else?

Too many. But my favorite writers are Guy de Maupassant, Isak Dinesen, Herman Hesse, Ford Madox Ford and Ira Levin. Among many, many others.

Do you listen to music while you’re writing? If so, what kinds? Do you use playlists or soundtracks?

I don’t listen to music much. Sometimes when I write, I listen to Loreena McKennitt or some movie soundtracks or even Francoise Hardy.

Do you have a dedicated office space or do you prefer to roam while you’re writing?

I have all of the above. My office and library are fantastic — a room-long table for a desk with two computers (one for internet stuff, one for writing) and tons of books — about 20 bookcases in all.

I have to add, my husband Raul is half the “Douglas Clegg” business — he is the first proofer, brainstormer, research-checker, “business-stuff” person and more. We have an LLC together. We’ve been together for my entire 20 year career.

Please tell me a bit about your newest release, ISIS. It looks absolutely gorgeous – and for me, personally, part of the joy in reading a book is often the presentation. Is ISIS your first illustrated novel, and how did the decision come about to illustrate it? How closely (if at all) did you work with the illustrator?

The illustrator is my friend Glenn Chadbourne. He’s a genius. We were fortunate to get him for Isis. My publisher at Vanguard, Roger Cooper, and the team there, really felt that Isis needed illustrations. I brought Glenn in, and he wowed all of us with his stunning illustrations.

Glenn has recently collaborated on a Stephen King project, the illustrated Secretary of Dreams.

In my opinion, Glenn should become famous and in-demand once people see this book. From the cover alone, you can see his genius. He is a genuine artist — he has done this since he was a little kid. Pen-and-ink, those drawings. Beautiful. He just goes at it.

We spoke on the phone every day and went back and forth on the drawings for the book. I wanted to bring him the love of the story and I think he translated this beautifully into his drawings. They’re breathtaking.

But a lot of credit goes to Roger Cooper at Vanguard, as well as Georgina Levitt and Amanda Ferber. They saw the potential with this little book and the art that Glenn produced.

ISIS is part of your Harrow saga. Did you know you were going to write this story, which occurs before the others, all along or did the idea come to you later?

Isis is only slightly part of it. Harrow, as a series, is not a series. It’s the idea that a house was once built for the potential of infinite hauntings. Then I just began world-building around it. Isis herself, in the book, never sets foot in Harrow. We never really know her in the other Harrow books other than as a psychic who wrote a book about Harrow later on.

But in ISIS, she is a girl growing up in Cornwall, and her adventure has to do with her family and the beginnings of her psychic ability. It’s a tale of “Be careful what you wish for,” and also a story about the potentially destructive nature of family.

Authors get asked all the time, “where do you get your ideas” – can you describe to me the process of “getting an idea” and how you decide if that three-second snippet of dialogue or that jumbled scene is worth turning into a novel?

All of my ideas come from life. I’ve either directly or indirectly experienced something, and then I take it to the nth degree, I wrap it in fiction, I clothe it with another point of view. A lot of my writing is to get at the truth of something that I have found mysterious in life. I think life itself is difficult and even hostile at times, and yet at other times, it’s wondrous and surprisingly gentle. I bring my ideas of this in, then from the filter of my imagination, I recreate and reinvent it through story and my sense of story.

I just love storytelling. I did it before I could write. Before I could read, I used to sit down with the funny pages and make up each line of dialogue in the comic strip for my dad and mom. I think storytelling is innate in all of us, but those of us who become writers maintain equilibrium by getting it down on paper and recreating experience into something more permanent and structured than reality can ever be.

Rapid fire portion!

Up or down?
Up!
Plotter or pantser?
Both.
Right or left?
Left
In or Out?
In AND out.
East or West?
South
Front or back?
If I answer this, it will lead to a bad joke.
Chocolate or vanilla?
Ginger.
Sam or Dean?
Sam.
Kirk or Spock?
Neither. That Romulan Nero.
Kirk or Picard?
Picard.
Trek or Wars?
Wars.
Facebook or Myspace?
Facebook.
Beach or lake?
Beach.
Roller coasters or merry go rounds?
Hate them both. I choose the House of Horrors.
Fangs or claws?
Claws.
Ghosts or ghouls?
Ghosts.
Onions or carrots?
Onions!

Learn more about Doug including information about his new release, ISIS, at his website, Twitter and Facebook.

Christopher Dallman’s first album, RACE THE LIGHT, debuted in 2004. The album was nominated for Best Debut Male in the 2005 Outmusic Awards, and featured the song Over my Head, which was also featured on MTV’s “The Real World”. In 2009, look for Christopher’s next releases!

Five years between albums – that’s a long time. Is it difficult to promote and play the same music for so long without having something new? How do you keep it fresh while performing? Did you continue writing music in the interim?

5 years is a long time, indeed! Sometimes, I look back and think I must not have been working hard enough. But other times everything happening right now feels soright that I think that it just needed to go this way.

You know, it IS difficult to promote and play the same stuff over the course of a few years! Particularly when you are dealing with pretty heavy subject matter, like I was with the songs on Race the Light.

After spending years with those songs living inside of me, 6 months recording the album, and then 2 years devoting every waking moment finding a way to have it reach new ears, I was just done. I was spent and broke and really tired of singing those songs. But once I had decided that I was ‘done’ promoting that album, new songs weren’t really coming out of me. So I basically took a break from music without consciously choosing it. The break chose me.

I am always KINDA writing, even if it’s unfocused and slow moving. I always have some point in my day that I pick up my guitar just to find out what happens. I rarely traditionally ‘rehearse.’ But I’m always goofing around on the guitar.

How do you decide it’s time to commit to another album? Is it a creative decision, financial, spiritual…? Do you write all new songs for it, or revisit music you already wrote?

Well, I’m not actually making another album. I’m making a series of 3 EPs that I will release a few months apart from each other . For those who are unfamiliar with the term, an EP is a shorter album, usually 3-5 songs.

I decided to do it this way for a bunch of reasons. The most important is that, while I suddenly found myself sitting on a big pile of beautiful, unrecorded songs, it didn’t seem like there was a thru-line unifying them all into one album. Race the Light was a journey with an arc and I don’t think the same could be said of the songs I’m recording right now.

Another reason is that releasing less content more often allows the opportunity for each EP to build momentum off the one before it.

The plan right now is to release Anthem, my song for marriage equality– which just came out. Then in the fall release a bunch of songs for free download, all setting the stage for the first EP to be released in December. But the plan is ever evolving. Don’t hold me to it

Do you feel each album should have an overall theme, or is that how your songs feel to you when writing them?

I’m not sure if I need an album to have an overall theme, but there should be something that helps it all hang together properly.

As you work on new songs, do they tend to come in themed groups or is each one separate and a surprise?

Every song is a surprise. It’s exhausting.

How long does it take to write a song?

Sometimes 5 minutes, sometimes 5 years It’s such a mystery.

How do you know when it’s finished? Is it ever?

I think there comes a time in the growth of every song where it is ‘ready,’ but my songs are never finished. And if I’m going to be stuck performing them for the rest of my life, they will for sure change and grow in order to keep them emotionally fresh and true.

When you perform live, do you sing the songs the same each time, or do the words sometimes get mixed up? ☺

Oh, I mess up all the time But I keep it fun.

You grew up in Wisconsin and now live in L.A. – what’s the best part about living in L.A., and the worst? How does it compare to living in Wisconsin?

The best part of LA. Hmmmm. I have a weird journey with this town. While I grew up in WI and now live here, there were 5 years spent in NYC between the two. Adapting to NYC from LA was really difficult for me and for the first few years, I kept dreaming about living anywhere but here. But something in the last year just clicked and now I love it. I hate to be so cliche, but the weather is really just perfect and is probably the best part of LA.

How do you decide which songs to cover, and do you try to honor the original artist or find your own interpretation of the music? How do you take the words of someone else and make them your own?

I never actually pick a song to cover and learn it. I always just stumble upon it accidentally and then be, like, ‘Oh that’s cool, I should do it!.’ The performance and arrangement always needs to strike a balance between honoring the original song and at the same time making it your own. If you aren’t going to actually interpret it, what is the point of doing it?

When you perform live, do people sing along? What’s it like to look out into the audience and hear people singing your own words?

Sometimes people sing along and it’s amazing. Totally thrilling. It’s better than applause.

If you’ve written a song based on experiences with a partner or someone close to you, perhaps a love song or a breakup song, what’s it like to sing that song when that person is no longer in your life? Does it “twinge” each time, do you get past it, does it become just another song…do you retire it?

It’s different for different songs. Even if they are about the same person! RTL is written about the end of one single relationship, and there are some songs on it that I happily perform at every show… others I am just over. I doubt it’s permanent… most likely they just need to rest and then I can revisit them revitalized.

It’s a pretty interesting phenomenon that you can be fully healed from a life experience and still revisit the essential emotion of it when performing.

Do you write every day?

I play and sing and explore every day.

“In the bathroom I comb my face with water” is a lyric from your song Brand New Lover. I can’t adequately describe to you how much I love this song without sounding like a giddy 15 year old girl, so I won’t even try. OMG I LOVE THIS SONG SO MUCH IT’S LIKE FIYUH!!!
Ahem.
That’s not a question, I guess, I just had to put that in there.

Thank you!

What instruments do you play (aside from the guitar?)

That’s really it! I took piano lessons for 8 years from very mean catholic nuns. I don’t really play anymore. But I’d love to start again.

What’s your favorite song, by any artist?

Amelia by Joni Mitchell.

What’s your favorite song by you?

It’s always the last song I wrote. Right now, it’s a new one called ‘Everything to Everyone.’ I’m also really digging the song I’m recording right now with George Stanford. It’s called ‘Subterranean.’ It’s really dark and vibey. My friend Sean calls it my Vampire love song! We’re almost done with it and then I think I’m going to release it as a free download.

Your new album is in production right now (if that’s not right, please feel free to correct me.) Can you describe a typical day in the studio? Tell me a bit about the album.

Well, I’m working in 2 different recording situations, and they are very different. One producer I work with is George Stanford and we work right in his house. He has his pro-tools computer in his bedroom and I perform in the living room. We work Thursday nights after 6pm, spend 4 or 5 hours and it mostly feels like hanging out. I will lay down my guitar and then a scratch vocal. Then we just dive in an add whatever instruments feel right. He plays most of them. He’s amazing and it’s so incredible to watch him work. When we have rounded out the sound of the song, I add my vocal, then harmonies, then we’re done. With George we move quickly.

The other situation is with a producer named Barrie Maguire and an engineer named Rachel Alina. Rachel was the assistant engineer on my first record years ago, so I walk into that situation with a great deal of comfort. Barrie, Rachel, and I record at a studio in Silverlake called Redstar. It’s a really special place with tons of vintage instruments and gear. Our approach there is different. Rachel and Barrie are very in tune with sounds and we try out lots of different mics to find the one that shapes my voice best for the song. We record the vocal and guitar live and then add the other instruments later. It takes a lot longer for the songs to develop at Redtar.

They are different approaches, both yielding great results, but the two approaches is another reason for separate EPs and not a full album. I don’t think it would do either producer service to smoosh their respective visions together onto one cd.

You’ve just released a new music video OVER MY HEAD, which is one of my favorites! Tell me about the video – was it your first official music video? What’s that like? Is making a music video a milestone for a musician? (I’m a bit older than you, grew up during the height of MTV mania – videos were THE sign a band had made it)

Making the video was really great and the response has been awesome. It has taught me the value of the visual in what I do. It’s given a whole new life to the song.

Growing up with what MTV USED to be, it certainly was a milestone for me. It was very surreal making the video and even more surreal seeing the finished copy. I have to give big props to the director Kevin Thompson. He did a great job of capturing the mood and colors of the song.

What’s your favorite part about what you do?

Performing. It’s relentlessly terrifying, but when you CONNECT it’s like nothing else.

If you weren’t playing/singing/writing music, what would you be doing?

I really don’t know. Sometimes I think I would be a good teacher. I can see myself writing.

When you AREN’T playing/singing/writing, what do you do? Other hobbies? What do you like to read or watch?

I’m a big reader. FIction. I like to run outside in the hot sun. I like red wine. I am heavy into True Blood and am sad there are only 2 episodes left this season. I’m a big fan of TV on DVD.

Rapid-fire!

Front or back front
Up or down Down
Left or right Right
In or out OUT
Black or white Black
East or west East
Chocolate or vanilla Chocolate
Earth or sky Earth
Lake or ocean Lake
Coffee or tea Coffee
Sam or Dean Sam
Kirk or Picard Picard
Kirk or Spock SPOCK!
Trek or Wars Trek
Hero or villain Villain
Oboe or clarinet Oboe
Major or minor Minor

Right now, ‘Anthem’ is available exclusively for download at http://www.christopherdallman.bandcamp.com and half the proceeds of its sale benefit the Human Rights Campaign.

Find out more about Christopher at his website,Twitter, Facebook and Myspace.

Buy his songs!

or from CD BABY, iTunes

Bonus videos!

Be one of the first 15 to feature the book trailer for Pleasure and Purpose on your blog or website! That’s it. Easy.

Here’s what you do: embed the code for the trailer (find it at http://blip.tv/file/2473582) and send me the link to your entry at readinbed AT gmail.com with CONTEST in the subject– I’ll reply with what number you are. If you’re in the first 15, you get a copy of Pleasure and Purpose and I’ll send it to you when I get my copies. (I don’t know when it will be, probably sometime in September.)

If you’re not in the first 15, don’t fear. For everyone who features the video on their websites or blogs after the first 15, you’ll be entered into a drawing to also win a copy of Pleasure and Purpose.

Contest ends one week from today, September 4th, and I’ll let you know if you won a few days after that!

So remember: feature the above trailer on your blog or website. Send me the link before Sept.4th. First 15 get a copy of Pleasure and Purpose.

BONUS! also feature the information about this contest in your blog or website and you’ll be entered to win a copy of No Greater Pleasure, out in October!

BONUS BONUS: retweet (or tweet) this blog entry with @Megan_Hart in the tweet and you’ll be entered to win a copy of BOTH BOOKS! (you must include @Megan_Hart in the tweet or else I might not see that you did it.)

All entries must be submitted before September 4th at 3 pm EST.

Good luck, and thanks for spreading the word!

M

OMG I TOTALLY LOVE YOUR BOOKS OMG THEY ARE MADE OF AWESOME!

*ahem*

An introduction: Chelsea Cain, author of New York Times Bestselling novels Heartsick
and Sweetheart
lives in Oregon. Before starting on her career writing thrillers, she worked as a journalist for The Oregonian as well as writing several non-fiction books.

On to the questions…

Heartsick was your first published novel, but not your first published book. How has the experience of launching what many call a “first” book with such success, including NYT Bestseller-dom, national acclaim and lots of media attention, been different from or the same as your experience with your first few books?

On the whole, it’s been pretty fucking awesome. I get to see my book in airport stores next to gum and neck pillows! And I have this great publisher full of great people whom I actually truly like, and they spend money to market me and to market the books, which is huge. I get to travel all over the world. I’ve been to Oslo. Oslo! (Can I just say how much I love the Norwegians?) Financially speaking, my life has changed completely. With my other books – mostly illustrated humor books – I wrote them for the process, and because they afforded me a little bit to live on. But I never actually considered the fact that I could make a good living writing – you know, be “successful” – because how many people actually get THERE? I’ve always just written to entertain myself. I wrote HEARTSICK because it was thick into a thriller faze and I had finished reading all the thrillers I loved, and it seemed easier to write one than to find one that somebody else had written. What’s the quote? “I’ve never understood why someone would write a book, when you can easily buy one for a few dollars?” I’m sort of the opposite.

On the other hand, there have been a lot more demands on my attention. I spend a lot of time doing marketing because people are interested, which is awesome. But it changes the ratio of writing time. It’s a constant challenge, because if I don’t write, I won’t have anything to promote, and if I don’t promote, people won’t find the book in great numbers, and then I won’t have the opportunity to write.

One of the reasons I picked up HEARTSICK (actually, I requested it as a birthday gift and got it, SCORRRRE!) was because I’m fascinated by the premise of a female serial killer. You’ve said “in real life, there aren’t that many violent female serial killers. We tend to kill quietly, suffocating our babies or poisoning our husbands, and we tend to get away with it. But I wanted to explore a woman who killed violently, like a man, because she liked it.” (via Chelsea interviews Chelsea for the Oregonian on your blog)

The idea seems to be that female serial killers most often don’t do it violently, or get a sexual charge from it, the way traditional male serial killers do – yet you created Gretchen Lowell, one of the most fascinating serial killers AND women I’ve ever read.

Did you worry at any point while writing the book you wouldn’t be able to pull it off? That you couldn’t make her…well…believable?

God, yes. I totally worried that she wouldn’t be believable. Because I did a lot of research. And the thing about psychopaths is that real textbook psychopaths are not very interesting. And there haven’t been a lot of violent female serial killers, so right there I was stretching people’s believability meters. But one of the things I did, in writing HEARTSICK – and a HUGE liberation to me as a budding thriller writer – was to say, the hell with it. I’m going to write the book I want. I’m not going to worry about avoiding stereotypes or clichés or being authentic all the time. I’ll just tell the story I want how I want to tell it, and I’ll hope that I can bring something to the narrative that elevates it enough that readers will come along for the ride. HEARTSICK, in many ways, is a kind of fan fiction. Because I took characters and situations I loved from books and TV shows and movies that I loved and I threw them all in a big stew and tried to tell my own story.

Did you think about how your novel and characters might be compared to another popular novel – Silence of the Lambs? Did it matter?

About halfway through HEARTSICK, when Susan and Archie go to visit Gretchen in prison, I was like, uh oh, this is SO Silence of the Lambs. I even put that line in where Gretchen calls Susan “Clarice,” so readers would know that I knew. But even so, I was surprised at how that comparison came up in every single review of the book. Because while there are similarities, they’re not huge. But I think that Silence of the Lambs is such a pop cultural touchstone that it’s hard to avoid. And it’s a great book, so I appreciated being compared to it in any way.

Hannibal Lector, the “villain” in Silence of the Lambs, is arguably as much the hero of that story as Gretchen is the heroine of Heartsick and Sweetheart. Why do you think readers love to love these characters who do the worst, most awful things – acts that nobody in their sane minds would find compelling, much less sexy – and yet we loooooove Gretchen on the page in a way I hope I wouldn’t if I met her in real life. Why???

That’s a complicated question. I think that we’re attracted to people with power who are good at their jobs. (Even if their jobs are serial murder.) We’ll also attracted to wit and charisma. I also think there’s something really compelling on our lizard brain level about people who are able to cross that social barrier that prevents the rest of us from committing murder. As for Gretchen, there aren’t a lot of strong female archetypes in fiction, especially thrillers, so think that readers enjoy seeing a woman who is so totally in charge.

I write romance and erotic romance and love to read thrillers and horror – imagine my twisted and somewhat shameful delight when I read Sweetheart and Archie and Gretchen’s relationship got the spotlight. You’ve said Heartsick is about the violence and Sweetheart was about the sex. Did you find writing the books different with those “slants” — is writing sex/emotion different or the same than writing violence/emotion for you?

I think of these books as their own sort of twisted romances. I realized early on that Archie and Gretchen’s relationship was all about the intimacy of violence. So it seemed natural to explore both sides of that. The “slant” is the same. Intimacy. It’s the power that shifts. Every scene between Archie and Gretchen is about these tiny and colossal shifts of power – who has it, and who doesn’t.

Which do you think Gretchen likes more? Killing or having sex?
I think the two are totally entwined to her.

You wrote Heartsick while pregnant and with a small child in the house, without a contract in hand. How was writing Sweetheart a different experience for you? How about Evil at Heart, a third Archie/Gretchen book coming out in September 2009 (OMG I CAN NOT WAIT! I CAN NOT WAIT! I CAN NOT WAAAAAITTTT!!)?

It was weird, because when I was writing HEARTSICK it was to not get a job. I kept thinking if I can just finish this book and sell it then I won’t have to get a job. That’s a real motivator, let me tell you. But when SWEETHEART came along, it was my job. I’d been given money. And a deadline. We were suddenly very comfortable. So I found myself not writing for myself anymore, but for all of the people counting on me – my editor and agent and publisher, the marketing staff, my husband and daughter, etc.

How do you resist the siren song of Twitter and Facebook long enough to get any writing done? Or actually…I’m not sure you do…

It’s hard! Social networking is such a distraction because it pulls me out of the zone. It may just be a moment – a quick update, an attempted witty rejoinder – but then I go back to the work and I’ve lost the momentum. On the other hand, it’s an important way to keep in touch with readers and stay on people’s radars. And just touch base with friends. I’m still negotiating it, obviously. I need to start making rules. One hour in the morning. One hour at night. Did I just write that? That will never happen. But it sounds like a good idea, right?

Something that just occurred to me: Archie and Gretchen both have a strong “ch” sound in their names. How did you choose their names? Do you have a special method for choosing character names, do they have to have a special meaning, or is it always just crazy random happenstance?

That’s very insightful of you! I liked the way that their names sounded together – that hard consonant sound in the middle – like even their names belonged together. Names are always fun. And curiously hard to come up with. I have this terrible habit of getting sounds stuck in my head, so that I’ll write a scene and realize that I’ve given everyone names that start with A, which is really confusing to the reader. Or I’ll name a character after someone famous without realizing it. These days I like to work my friends’ names in. Just their first names or last names, never both. There are lots of things like that in my books – in-jokes for me and one or two other people.

You’ve compared yourself to Susan Ward rather than Gretchen Lowell, and it’s obvious from your website you like coloring your hair, a trait Susan shares. Do you ever color your hair crazy colors, say…oh…blue or purple? And do people stare at you in the grocery store or say “what color were you trying for, hun?” And do people say stuff like “oh, right, you’re that ‘creative’ type” as though that were the name of a disease? Or…is that just me?

I’ve done many shades of red (from natural to magenta), pink stripes, platinum, blonde, brown and black. Black lasted five days. I looked like a Goth seventeen year old. Even worse: I looked like a thirty-something mom TRYING to look like a Goth seventeen year old. Color is funny. There are always some people who love it, and some people who don’t. I’m not good with hair compliments, though. When someone tells me they like my hair, I immediately change it. I don’t know why.

You write thrillers. What do you like to read?

I’m a very loyal series reader. I still read everything that Robert B. Parker puts out. Ditto Jonathan Kellerman. I love Val McDermid’s thrillers. But my taste is all over the map. Mostly I go for the funny and sublime. Give me a smart-ass with a lyrical prose voice, and I’m yours. The narrative vehicle is secondary. TV. Comics. Books. Poems.

What are you working on right now?

Book four of the “heart” series. Let me know if you have any titles with the word “heart” in them, that aren’t totally irritating.

**Editor’s note…Heart of Glass?

What’s the book you haven’t written yet but would love to write?

I’m planning on starting a new series soon, and I’ve got a story knocking around in my head that I’m anxious to get out on paper. Every time I get to steal away some time for it, it’s a treat.

What’s the book you will NEVER write?

I will never write a children’s book.

Rapid fire portion!

Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate.
Back or front? Back.
East or West? West.
Up or Down? Down.
In or Out? Out.
Left or right? Left.
On or off? Off.
Sam or Dean? Dean.
Kirk or Picard? Picard.
Kirk or Spock? Spock.
Sex or violence? Sex.
Sects or violins? Sects.
Wars or Trek? I can’t decide this one.
Mac or PC? Mac.

You stand before three doors. What colors are they, what’s behind each, which do you choose and why?

Black – past
Red – present
Pink – future

I choose the red door, because I live too much in the past and future and not enough in the present. It’s something I need to work on. Plus, red is my favorite color.

Thanks so much for answering my questions, Chelsea, and good luck with your next release. (OMG I CAN NOT WAAAAIIIITTTTTT!!!!)

And one last question: when will Archie and Gretchen come out with an episode 2?

Three words: Labor Day episode.

Find out more about Chelsea Cain and her fabulous and delicious Heartsick, Sweetheart and Evil at Heart at her website. Find her on Twitter, too!

Thanks for the interview! (I ordered Evil at Heart and can’t wait to read it. Srsly.)

M

New book trailer!

And don’t forget to pick up a copy of Evil at Heart from your favorite bookstore. Comes out Sept. 1!