Werewolf Week + read my interview at Dun Scaith

Chris Kelly, the mastermind behind independent U.K. publisher Scathach, has declared the week of August 1st through August 7th to be Werewolf Week! Who am I to argue?

Head over to his blog, Dun Scaith, for werewolf goodness. You will also find an interview with your favorite not famous yet but slightly interesting author of werewolfery. Care to guess who it is?


No, not her.


Or him.


Her either.


What? That guy doesn't even write!



I'm talking about me, chowderhead.

Just go read the fucking interview already. :)

Author Interview: Zoe Winters Part 2

Zoe Winters's first novella, Kept, has become a mainstay in the top ten gothic romance titles on Amazon.com’s bestsellers list. The follow up, Claimed, is receiving rave reviews and quickly climbing up the list as well. The third novella in the trilogy, Mated, is now available and also racking up glowing endorsements from satisfied readers. Recently I had the opportunity to conduct the following interview with Zoe via chat. We had so much fun that I had to divide the interview into two parts. This is the second part.

Part Two

MTM: The Anthony character really develops from Kept to Claimed. He seemed to be just another evil vampire in Kept, but shows another side in Claimed. Did you have that planned for the character all along?

ZW: As soon as I finished with Kept, I got the idea for Charlee and Anthony's story. And Anthony IS an evil vampire. He's the same dude. He just loves Charlee. Love can make men into puppies.

MTM: Nuh uh! … Okay, yeah, that’s true.

ZW: You did it in Lucifera's Pet. Your werewolf was a total badass, but he loved Lucifera and showed her that softer side. But I hadn't planned for Anthony and Charlee as a couple from the very very beginning, not when I was writing Kept, because originally it wasn't going to be a series. It just sort of sprawled out that way. You can bet the side Anthony shows Charlee is not the side almost anyone else ever sees of him.

MTM: Do you find that makes the softer scenes carry even more weight?

ZW: I think so, yes. A reader also commented to me that she thought given the circumstances, that a sex scene would have weakened the romantic aspects. Sometimes it's hotter when a guy shows some restraint. I think that's part of what makes Anthony a likeable hero people can get behind even though he's so morally gray.

MTM: For an evil character such as Anthony, restraint is a surprising trait.

ZW: Well he's actually got a ton of self-control. He's restrained himself from biting Charlee for so long. It was the drugs that screwed his record up, lol. Combined with werecat blood.

MTM: Of course, but when it was revealed that he hadn't fed from her before even though he could have, that brought a level of complexity to the character for me.

ZW: He doesn't want her in this world. Doesn't want her to see the monster in him because he's afraid he'll lose the banter they have. She makes him feel like a person.

MTM: So, supernatural beings exist outside of "normal" society, but they still have their own problems and hang-ups?

ZW: Of course. Doesn't everyone? :P

MTM: Humanity within the monster ... are any of the characters in their world beyond redemption?

ZW: I'm really not sure. I think many "won't" change. I'm not sure that means they "can't." Actually Linus is kind of beyond redemption but that's a moot point. I can't really see Callie changing either. (villains in Claimed.)

MTM: On your writing in general, I would describe it as "all killer no filler." Have you always written that way or did that develop over your writing career?

ZW: Well Kept is the first thing I put out, so I feel weird calling anything before that a "career." Hell, I feel weird saying "career" now. I have quite a way to go for career, I think. Maybe in ten years I can call it a career. But, I've always tried to skip the boring parts. It was a revelation to me when I realized I didn't have to write super long fiction if I wrote better at a shorter length. I figure if I can't still be entertained by a section on the 50th reading, a reader doesn't need it the first time.

MTM: The novella concept worked really well for the Blood Lust stories. Will you continue that trend for future books in this series?

ZW: I think the future work will be shorter novels. The world is starting to expand out to the point where I need a little more space to work so to speak. But they won't be super long novels. We're talking probably around 65k words where Claimed and Mated are each around 35k. I "may" write some novellas in this series in the future, but if so they will probably be extra material and not the main story.

MTM: I asked this question in my blog and several readers got a kick out of it. Hollywood comes knocking on your door and wants to make a movie version of one or all of the Bloodlust stories. What is your dream cast and/or director for the big screen version?

ZW: LOL, man I have no idea, but dream director would probably be Joss Whedon. Though then again his vision would try to usurp my vision and then... yeah. I'm too much of a control freak. I don't see a movie being made, LOL. I know it's completely wrong. I know people dream about their book being made into a movie, but all I can think about is how they'd try to totally change everything so it was more like fanfic than what I wrote and then I'd be pissed and fans of the books wouldn't like it.

MTM: If Joss Whedon were at the helm, half of all your couples would end up pushing up daisies.

ZW: OH I KNOW. He'd break everybody up.

MTM: Hollywood doesn't have a great track record for novel adaptations.

ZW: No, they don't. Except for Rowling and that's only cause she was already famous. She had script approval. So it's a nice idea but unless I "really" needed the money, I can't see it. It pisses me off too much what Hollywood does to perfectly good stories. If they don’t like what's there they should make up their own story without using someone else's name.

MTM: Is there any argument for someone throwing himself or herself into the grind of traditional publishing today?

ZW: LOL, that's a big can of worms! If I say no, then a hundred trad pubbed authors will suddenly appear out of a purple mist to tell everyone exactly why I'm wrong :P But honestly, and I can only go on my personal beliefs here... but I truly believe digital publishing is the future. I believe being well-positioned now for when things really explode is the smart thing to do. A trad publisher will mismanage your e-rights and use agency pricing models and just generally make it impossible for you to get high sales rankings in E unless you're already famous. Already famous people are in an awesome position. Brand new people? Not so much. It's just… 7-10 years is a long damn time to be unable to control your digital rights not worth it to sit on the Titanic deck chairs just to hear the last songs played.

MTM: Great analogy.

ZW: Thanks.

MTM: I have never been a fan of the advice given by old school writers that you must wallpaper an entire room with rejection letters before you are "ready" to put your work out for the world to see. What advice can you give a new author on making sure their work is as good as it can be before they self-publish?

ZW: I agree that's pathologically masochistic. I think they need to get the most brutally honest critique partners and editors they can find to help them. Not friends and family. People who can write. Who understand the genre. Because you can't judge the quality of your own work. That's true even as an indie. There is always stuff I don't catch or don't see. So you HAVE to surround yourself with wise council. Those people will make or break you. If you don't take this vetting process seriously you're going to have your underwear on your head. I'm just saying.

MTM: Personally, I have a friend from Slovenia who pulled no punches on my manuscript, and I appreciate her for that. Is it sometimes difficult to find a brutally honest beta reader?

ZW: It can be. people don't want to hurt your feelings or get yelled at. And sometimes there are those who just want to rip you apart and cut you down. You have to find people who can be honest with you without being verbally abusive or making you otherwise feel like poop. Sometimes it's an intentional thing, and sometimes just a personality clash.
 
MTM: Cary Town sure feels like a real place. Those of us from the south can spot certain things that really bring it to life. I live a half mile from a Piggly Wiggly grocery store myself. Is the setting for your trilogy based on any town in particular?

ZW: Not Cary Town, no. Cary Town isn't in the south, though Anthony has been in the south. Which is why his Piggly Wiggly reference doesn't make sense to Paul. They aren't in the south and Paul doesn't know what a Piggly Wiggly is. Golatha Falls, the setting for Save My Soul, is an imaginary town in Georgia and parts of it are like an alternate universe version of my town. And the house from Save My Soul exists. Sometimes I walk past it and say, "There's where Luc and Anna live." LOL.

MTM: Thank you for letting me pick your brain. I’d love to do this again sometime down the road.

ZW: Thanks for having me! And sure. Sorry I talk so much that you had to break it into two interviews!

MTM: No worries! It will give me the chance to pretend that I interviewed you twice. ;)


~The novellas that make up Zoe's Blood Lust Trilogy, Kept, Claimed,and Mated,are all available on Amazon.
 
Connect with Zoe Winters here:
 
http://www.zoewinters.org/
http://zoewinters.wordpress.com/
http://twitter.com/zoewinters

Author Interview: Zoe Winters Part 1

Today, I am honored to welcome independent author and self-publishing guru Zoe Winters to Werewolf Kibble. With electronic books growing in popularity at an exponential rate, Zoe stands at the front of a wave of talented self-published authors who are breaking into the game that has belonged almost exclusively to the big publishing houses.

Her first novella, Kept, has become a mainstay in the top ten gothic romance titles on Amazon.com’s bestsellers list. The follow up, Claimed, is receiving rave reviews and quickly climbing up the list as well. The third novella in the trilogy, Mated, releases today. Recently I had the opportunity to conduct the following interview with Zoe via chat. We had so much fun that I had to divide the interview into two parts. Here is part one.

MTM: Zoe, thanks for taking the time for this interview. Since Mated is novella three of the Blood Lust trilogy, what characters from the first two stories are appearing in this one?

ZW: Jane, a side character from Claimed, is the heroine and Charlee and Dayne and Greta all make brief cameos. Anthony "sort of" does but he's "off camera."

MTM: When we last saw Jane in Claimed, she was in the arms of fledgling vampire, Paul. What happens between the end of that story and Mated?

ZW: Charlee and Anthony get immediately wrapped up in the politics of running the coven. Paul being a fledge still can't really contribute in any meaningful way so he's sort of pushed to the fringes. He's got this irrational hatred toward Charlee or "that human Anthony's with" because it's changed the dynamic of his friendship with Anthony. He's figured out Jane can take more pain than your average human, and so he's been taking his anger out on her. So basically Jane is in an abusive situation, which is exactly where she was before Gregory rescued her.

MTM: Did her experience with Gregory the vegetarian vampire change her in any way or is she still desperately seeking a vampire who will turn her?

ZW: She just wants to survive. And becoming a vampire is the only way she knows to get them to leave her alone. She needs something that will take her out of this victim space, but given her peculiar situation of being able to sense vampires and having some of that blood in her veins, she's somewhat perpetually trapped.

MTM: Tell me a little bit about the main players and what we will see in Mated.

ZW: Jane ends up with Cole, the alpha of the werewolf pack because of a gambling debt her abusive vampire... I hesitate to say 'boyfriend'... has accrued. Cole takes Jane in lieu of ten grand

MTM: I'm sure Jane appreciates being bartered for a marker.

ZW: LOL. Oh she's freaked the hell out. But personally I think what Paul was going to do otherwise was worse. He was planning on passing her around to the other vamps to raise funds. Classy guy, huh?

MTM: Wow. I agree. Boyfriend isn't the right word unless she is used to dating ogres.

ZW: LOL Unfortunately "ogres" are all she's ever really known due to her particular gift. She's really more his pet. And not in a positive cutesy way. But she can't help it. She can see/sense vampires because she has their blood in her veins. They pretty much make it their mission in life to punish her for that. She's wanted to be turned in order to be safe, but they won’t turn her. They've basically enslaved her instead.

MTM: No mind tricks for her then?

ZW: Nope. They can't thrall her, another reason they hate her. They could just kill her, but vamps like playing with their food too much. They're more amused by the prospects of keeping her alive. So she's basically been passed from sadistic psycho to sadistic psycho except for the brief reprieve when Gregory was protecting her.

MTM: My favorite character of the series so far is the vampire, Anthony. He is about as far from the typical “tortured vampire with a heart of gold” as it gets.

ZW: Thank you! I don't care for sparkly vampires. Vampires are supposed to be bad. Is it wrong that I LOVE when Anthony says all nonchalant-like, "Well, she's mine now"?

MTM: I did catch that and it was cool! He strikes me as being along the lines of badass Spike from the second season of Buffy The Vampire Slayer. Is that a fair comparison?

ZW: Oooh! yeah I hadn't thought of that, but you're right. He is definitely in the same category as season two Spike. He's very morally gray. As becomes clear in later books, sometimes he'll be hero-like sometimes villain-like.

MTM: The men of your universe seem to fall into those gray areas a lot. Are there any "goody two shoes" guys floating around in there?

ZW: Oh good lord no. I don’t find that sexy at ALL. I could never bring myself to let one of my heroines sleep with a pussy. I think Dayne was about as wimpy as they get, though Cole is a very gentle alpha but he scares the crap out of Jane at first cause the wolves have a worse rep than the vamps. But that's all political BS.

MTM: I think most people would agree that morally ambiguous characters are much more interesting. Personally, I prefer it when the leading lady has some badass in her as well.

ZW: I think my heroines have got some fire in there, though they also are in messed up situations and I HATE when females in fiction act totally unlike real females because it might look "weak." Well um, if he could crush you easily you're not going to be too brave until you know you're safe.

MTM: I like that about your females. They don't turn into Ripley from Aliens just because they are the protagonist.

ZW: There are different types of strength and I like to think my female characters are strong, intelligent, and sassy, but they aren't unrealistic. Even though Greta was stronger physically than Dayne, she wasn't kicking his ass all the time.

MTM: Dayne was very much about how others perceived him. He was widely regarded by the Therians as dangerous but it seemed as though he may have been much darker before Greta came along. Had his character mellowed some by the time of the events in Kept?

ZW: Well he was never really a badass, not to his reputation's degree anyway. He'd fallen in love with Jaden (Greta's adoptive mother) and she'd been a part of a plot to hurt him and get him out of the way. He went in thinking he was saving her and really he had to save himself, but all the werecats he killed in self defense gave him this reputation. So in order to protect himself from further betrayal, he just withdrew and let people believe it. Basically a lot of it is a protective wall because Jaden really hurt him, and here he thinks Greta is there to do the same thing.

MTM: After Blood Lust, will you revisit any of the same couples?

ZW: Actually yes. There will be future books where some of these characters will play pivotal roles in what happens, and one of them will be a romance between a previous couple as they go through a challenge their love has to grow stronger for. Right now I'm setting up a lot of the power structure, such as with Dayne and Anthony and Cole and Cain (he's an incubus you meet in Mated). A lot of these men because of their positions of power will play major parts in future books.

MTM: Can you tell me a little more about Cain? Does he protect Jane?

ZW: Cain is too much of a serial killer to be protecting anyone at the moment.

MTM: Sounds like my kind of guy. LOL

ZW: Haha. Well, Cain kills his food. He's evil. (Since there is reincarnation in my world and Cain knows that, he doesn't see it as "ending" someone, just inconveniencing them and sending them back to start.) Though he gets his own book later. He's also quite charming when he wants to be. And he's ultimately redeemable.

MTM: Redeemable? How so?

ZW: Actually, yes. When you find out Cain's history it will make a lot more sense. But let's face it... if you watched Buffy, Spike killed humans for freaking EVER before falling in love with Buffy. So did Angel. And yet we let them be heroes of their own stories. We don't stop to think about the fact that they are basically reformed serial killers.

MTM: Save The Cat!

ZW: Haha. What?

MTM: LOL. It’s a book by Blake Snyder. He suggests if you put a villain in a heroic situation, the reader can forgive all.

ZW: YES. LOL. It's much more interesting when you can make a reader have sympathy for the devil, but I have an unholy crush on Cain. It's so wrong. But he knows he's getting his own book

MTM: How many books do you currently have in your mind for this series?

ZW: At least 10, but 8 are semi-planned already. I'm creating a big world that I can play in endlessly. Because we aren't following every single character through every book, hopefully it will stay fresh way past the point a series usually starts to get blah blah.

MTM: That’s a great way to keep breathing life into it and avoid the dreaded Anita Blake syndrome.

ZW: Oh, we'll also have some books set in "the future" about 20 years from now when everybody knows about vampires and therians and such and everything is crazy. Then for the next book, we'll hop back to the present where people don't know. One of the heroines is going to be Charlee and Anthony's daughter.

MTM: Spoilers!

ZW: So, see? Anthony and Charlee have sex!

MTM: HA!

ZW: That wasn't TOO spoilery though. Just a little. I also like throwing out little easter eggs, so people following and paying attention catch them.

~Stay tuned for Part 2 of my Interview with Zoe on Friday. Claimed and Mated are both available now.
 
Connect with Zoe Winters here:
 
http://www.zoewinters.org/
http://zoewinters.wordpress.com/
http://twitter.com/zoewinters