Interview With Author Charles O'Keefe

Today I'd like to share an interview with fellow Penumbra author and friend, Charles O'Keefe. I will be reviewing his debut vampire novel here at Paranormal Wire in the very near future. Enjoy!

Q: Who are you, and why should readers read therest of this interview?

A: Wellthat’s an easy one, at least the first part ;). My name is Charles Rex RenoufO’Keefe, I prefer Charles O’Keefe, my parents gave me two middle names but likemost people I don’t use them. I am hoping that readers will read the rest asI’m someone who loves to meet new people, both online and in person, especially if they have similar interests and not to brag but I have been told that I’mfascinating ;)

Q: Tell us a little about the work you are herepromoting.

I havealways loved vampire books/stories/movies and about 10 years ago, I had an ideafor one. Life got in the way but in 2010 I finally got serious and the resultis my first vampire book that will be out in April of this year. It is aparanormal/romance/horror novel where I put my own spin on vampires and imaginehow my own life could have turned out if I had become a vampire at 23.

Q: As awriter, do you have plans for world domination, or do you have a day job aswell?

Worlddomination would be fantastic but for now, I do hold down a mundane day job as an inventory manager. Maybe someday I will be able to write/gamble full timeand spend my winters somewhere warm.

Q: Self-published, traditional, indie or part of anindie collective? If not yet published, what are you doing to make it happen?

As youknow I am with Penumbra Publishing, I signed a contract back in September of2011 and I will be published in April of this year. For me I think semi-traditional publishing was the way to go (as you know Penumbra is asmaller company that specializes in Ebooks) because I just don’t think myediting skills are good enough to make a book publishable and I wanted ajumpstart with promotion (and I didn’t want to pay for printing).

Q: How do you handle bad reviews? If you have nothad one...would you be willing to grant me permission to trash your writing,just to see if you cry?

I haven’thad a bad review as my book hasn’t come out yet. I imagine I will take thefirst couple a little hard. I give you permission but I know you won’t trash mywriting (at least not now), you were kind enough not to do it when you had thatfirst ARC copy of my book.

Q: Are you nervous yet and do you prefer white orwheat bread.

Hard tobe nervous when I do these questions ahead of time (and we are already friends). Whole wheat certainly please, I am something ofa health nut. It serves me well as I have not been sick more than once in almost 4 years.

Q: Do you blog? If so, don't you wish you were ascool a blogger as I?

Yes I blog and yes I wish I was as cool as you or more precisely had more guest bloggers, just kidding. My blog is http://p45crok.wordpress.com

Q: Ah yes, most bloggers wish they were as cool as I ;) What is your favorite creature, monster, orfantasy based thing you write about?

Come on now Tasha you know this one! ;) But since the readers may not it’s vampireswithout a doubt. For me the idea of living forever, with powers, eternal youthand the ability to make others like you is worth any price…or so Joseph thought, you’ll have to wait to find out more (well YOU won’t but everyone else will).

Q: I did know that but asked the question to humor everyone else. Any advice for aspiring writers?

Yes, work hard and do not give up. Also be prepared for criticism both constructive and otherwise, finally be ready to revise and edit A LOT. For other detailed advice please visit my blog (above) or yours at http://paranormalwire.blogspot.comI’ve been known to do a few guest posts there.

Q: Tick off a few indie authors you look up to.

I’m stilla little unsure exactly what “indie” means but first you, Natasha Larry, a friend of mine DarrenHann, another friend ShannonPatrick Sullivan, and Joanne-SoperCook another Newfoundland vampire author (though her style/setting is much different than mine).

Q: Awww, its sweet and unsettling that you look up to me. That might be dangerous. :)

Are you, or are you not a douche bag? Heh, youdon't have to answer that. That's just for my enjoyment.

A friend of mine once said “everyone is an asshole sometimes” and I think that is verytrue. I would think about 80% of the time I am not a douche bag, the other 20%...:)I am fairly certain I’m OCD (though not diagnosed) so that can lead to some annoying behaviour on occasion.

Q: Sell your book, right now, to your host withoutonce mentioning your book, blog or twitter handle.

Easy,imagine you had sex with the man/woman or your dreams and discovered a few dayslater you had been turned into a vampire. How would you cope with that? More importantly what would you do with your creator/sire and how you would dealwith other vampires in the world? I answered a question with a question buthey, that’s just how I roll.

Q: Alright, where can readers find you on the web?

Easy-peasy,www.charlesokeefe.com. This includes buttons/links to my blog,e-mail, Twitter, Facebook and Skype.

Authorbio:

CharlesO’Keefe currently lives in the beautiful province of Newfoundlandwhere he works as an Inventory Manager at O’Keefe Agencies.He is happily married and has two furry children named Jude and Esther . Heenjoys many hobbies such as walking, Pilates, writing, reading, movies, gaming, television,pokerand of course vampires(not the sparkly kind!). Lately he has been very focused on writing blogposts and his first book “The Newfoundland Vampire” which will be out April2012. He believes in animal rights and has been a strict vegetarian for many years. He also believes in helping to save ourplanet and trying to helppeople whenever he can. He would also describe himself as Agnostic.He has a BA in English along with Masters in education that provided him with abrief teaching career.

If you could read my mind: What a tale my vampire's would tell

Hi all! :) I know you've missed me but I have been busy on vacation, (sounds like an oxymoron huh? ;) with editing and on a cruise (where I had to pay for internet time by the minute) so my absense wasn't without it's reasons. As you may have guess this time I'll be spaking about telepathy and mind control (with a nodd to the great Canadian singer Gordon Lightfoot) First off though (as always)

Shameless plug: My book The Newfoundland Vampire will be on in April 2012 (with Pat's very skilled and gracious help) and Tasha’s books (I've read both and highly recommend) are out now.

When a lot of people think of vampires a power that often comes to mind is hypnotisim, mind control or some kind of telepathy. A vampire's gaze is often used in novels and movies as a way to control a human, even if it's just long enough to take a nibble on their neck ;) I didn't bother with the gaze part and I don't mean crushing someone's will but just the ability to make people act just a little different than they may have otherwise would be an incredibly usefull tool. For my book I took it a few steps further but first a few questions. What would you do if you could read someone's mind? What behaviours would incourage or discourage in others?

I'm a poker player (very much an amatuer sadly) and I can only dream of how this would help at the table (especially since I pretty much lost steady for 4 nights on a cruise). Just the ability to see someone's card or make them fold at just the right moment could make you a fortune and eventually piss a lot of people off :-) Just imagine though the simple things like waiting in line, getting into a sold out show, getting away without a parking ticket, life sure would be easier with a little mind influencing action.

But I'm way off topic. What I saw for vampires is that they could not only influence people's action but also animals. How useful would be to quiet an annoying barking dog? Or stop a cat from spraying the furtniture? For a more extreme situation nothing would be better (or more surprising) than having a crocodile or other large animal show up to fight for you when the going got tough. Furthermore I thought that one vampire who creates another would have a special bond and could communicate telepathically over any distance and could read weak-willed or young vampires minds. Vampires though would also have the ability to shield their thoughts from anyone, it would just take time and skill to do so. (hey you can never be too careful right? :)

The temptation to control human behavior would always be present (and could also be a ton of fun at parties ;) and the ability to communicate without words to another vampire would be incredibly convienent and useful. Well I'd go on but I've got this funny feeling in my head, kind of like a sexy female voice almost whispering for me to finish putting away the dishes ;-) Until next time dear readers I am...

Creating a Mythology for your world

Hi all :) A little over a week I know but ideas take time to form in my head. So this week I'd like to talk about vampire myths, powers and the fun/struggle of creating creatures for story but first these messages.

Shameless plug: My book The Newfoundland Vampire will be on in April 2012 (Pat is hard at working editing now :) and Tasha’s books (I've read book and highly recommend them) are out now.

I think one of the things authors who write in the fantasy/paranormal/science-fiction/horror/YA genre (among others) enjoy the most is creating powers for their creatures/heroes. Most geeky people imagine what it would be like to have super-powers and write you write characters you get a chance to live out that thrill vicariously :)

For me I wanted to develop the powers of my characters (who are vampires of course :) with detail, consistency and still have some fun along the way. For me the challenge was that vampires have such a long history in book/films/history (myths rather..or are they? ;) that it was tricky at time to not muddle the powers I thought of with those already done.

For example as my esteemed editor Pat and Penumbra Publishing pointed out, if vampires are unholy why would they only be affected by Catholic symbols such as crosses and holy water? If vampires existed thousands of years ago (as mine do) they would have to be affected by other holy symbols that the Romans would have used. As usual she was right and I decided that my vampires (since they don't "die" to be made a vampire) were not strictly unholy at all and therefore symbols and devices of faith did nothing to them.

Then you get into other details like how does sunlight affect them, how exactly does their telepathy work, can they sense others of their kind and so on. The fun part was taking a very well know creature like a vampire and adding some twists to it (some of which I've already discussed in a previous post). One of my ideas was to have vampires be able to control any animal (not just rats or wolves as in Bram Stoker's Dracula) to a much stronger degree than they could a human.

The other challenge was to establish a set of guidelines that the reader can learn and then stick with them throughout the novel. That doesn't mean there can't be some freak/super-vampire that defies a few of the rules but he/she/it certainly still needs to abide by most of them.

Finally it's funny how little details matter so much, initially I wrote that my vampires front teeth became fangs. This would have made them very comical bunny-rabbit type monsters =) What I meant of course was the traditional cuspid or canine teeth.

What challenges/fun aspects do other people face when they create a world? I'll admit I took it a little easy with just one supernatural creature. How do authors handle create many different types of powers/creatures? I'll leave you with these questions, I've got some packing to do. My next post will be from sunny Florida. Now that I've made some of jealous ;) until next time dear readers I am..

You'll be the death of me

Hi all :) I know I'm late this week (or nearly for next week, depending on how you look at it) but here I am with another post. As Monty Python once said "and now for something completely different!". Today I'd like to talk about role-playing games and in particular how my characters seem to keep getting killed but first these messages.

Shameless plug: My book The Newfoundland Vampire will be on in April 2012 (Pat is hard at working editing now :) and Tasha’s books (the second one I’ve read and highly recommend) are out now.

So I have had a love of role-playing games (RPG) for over 20 years now. I think Vin Diesel said it best when he called them "the training ground for imagination" (and no I don't think much of him as an actor but I have to admire his choice of hobbies :-) I won't go into a long discussion of how RPG's work. I'll just reccomend this book or you can look it up on Wikipedia.

In my look role-playing career I've played many different types of characters. Wizards, gladiators, gamblers, cops, Tarzan, Zorro, professors, bug-men, zombies, vampires and many other kinds. When you play a character it means that you build up skills, powers, get tougher, stronger but most importantly you start to feel a connection with a particular character, for me the longer I play one the stronger this connection gets.

For me role-playing is a chance to act out and explore behaviours and actions that I never would (or even possibly could) in real life. As a consequence I tend to play people who are often morally gray or sometimes just downright evil bastards :) Just the other day I had a nice chat with my friend about a character I played for over 3 years who died in a session on Feburary 18th (yes this is the session I promised to talk about =) He was a huckster (a type of sorcerer that uses playing cards and binds a demon to his will to gain powers) and he was pretty well insane and evil to the core. With that said he was usually an immense amount of fun to play and since he never acted any of his friends (i.e. the party or group) he somehow always managed to make it out alive. Huck had been near death so many times that he had picked up a number of phobias including, dismemberment, dead bodies, inclosed spaces and trains (when you get runover by one it's understandable ;).

Deadlands is a brutal world where the U.S. civil war never ended, law is non-existent in many places, magic ghost rock is mined and used to power all sorts of things, strange science makes robots and other gadets and monsters like vampires, zombies and dragons are all too real.
So Huck (original name I know ;) got in a huge bar fight this particular session, got beaten to a bloody pulp, blew off a ship and almost drown and then was finally killed by a massive water dragon (it didn't help he was tied onto the ship at this point either :)

I always feel sad when a character dies, the connection I have is gone. All the time building up skills and getting new powers seem wasted and I have to come up with a new name :) Seriously though because of the type of characters I usually play it happens to me quiet often, I've also been know to have a few drinks while playing and this can lead to some poor game choices. It's all in good fun though and I do enjoy making up new characters as well.

In conclusion perhaps you've heard of Dungeons and Dragons, if you've never tried it I would highly reccomend it. It's a great way to make friends and have fun and I believe many comic book stores offer D&D night once a week. Well that sums up in for me, until next time dear readers I am . . . .

Another stake in Buffy: The Vampire Slayer Comics

Hi all. Well I decided to take a break from more serious writing concepts and ideas to get back to my love of Buffy: The Vampire Slayer. In particular the next 3 volumes of Season 8 I read, 5-7 but first these messages.

Shameless plug: My book The Newfoundland Vampire will be on in April 2012 and Tasha’s books (the second one I’ve read and highly recommend) are out now.

Ok so as you know I loved Buffy when it was on TV and I enjoyed the ending. The comics pick up where the show left off and these three finally reveal who the big baddie is this season, mysterious "Twilight".

Volume 5: Predators and Prey, this was a fun volume. A clever idea (and one that would probably happen if vampires were real) for vampires to become popular and slayers to become hated. I love the "Andrew" character, used to be evil, now works for Buffy and super Geeky. It was also fun to have Harmony back, for an evil vampire she is always good for a few laughs :)

Volume 6: Retreat, another excellent entry in the series. Buffy and the gang decide they have to use less magic (which is tough when your powered by demon energy ;) and go to hide out in Tibet with Oz (the Seth Green werewolf character). One of the best parts of this comic for me has been that Joss can bring back all the characters, Faith, Giles, Andrew, Spike, Oz, Dawn, Willow they all make appearances. So Oz has found a way to give his power to the earth and Buffy and the slayers (along with Williow and the magic users) do the same. Twilight finds them anyway and with no magic they fight a traditional war with tanks, guns and torpedoes! (you'll have to read it). Also Dawn and Xander finally get together and Buffy gets superpowered.

Volume 7: Twilight. Okay I can see what people were talking about when they said the story starts to go downhill. This has some strange stuff in it. I didn't mind the fact that Twilight was Angel, he's done some bad stuff as Angel (not Angelus) before but it's not explained how he became "invulernable" and having a whole issue focusing on Angel & Buffy having sex was odd (though stimulating of course :) Making Buffy & Angel "gods" of some sort and Adam and Eve, well it's something that never would have been shown on cable TV and is not one of Joss' best ideas. Despite that I still enjoyed this volume and was glad to see Spike come back, I'm looking forward to reading the end of Season 8.

On a technical note I have to praise all of the artwork, these volumes looked fantastic and overall I would certainly reccomend it for any Buffy fans. So until next week dear readers I am . . .

Make it real

Hi all :) Well it's time for another weekly installement of ...well whatever I come up with :) So far it's been vampire/writing related. This week I'd like to talk about characters and how to a writer they become almost like real people that demand to be heard.

First though a message from our sponsors (namely me and Tasha): My book The Newfoundland Vampire will be on in April 2012 (exact date to be determined) and Tasha’s books (the second one I’ve read and highly recommend) are out now.

So this is something I thought of a while ago, last September when I was on vacation in Cuba but only came to the fore front of my mind tonight. As a writer (well technically aspiring but that will soon change) I think that one of the greatest pleasures is creating characters that feel real to you. Characters that almost take on a life of their own and speak to you in quiet whispers and needle your subconscious.

For me when I wrote my book the main characters are Cassandra and Joseph, for the second one in particular as I said before he is really a chance for me to imagine myself having a totally different path in life and he gave me the chance to speak on issues that mattered to me. I idenitifed with a lot of the emotional events he goes through in the book (obviously not all of them) and ultimately I tried to imagine what Joseph would do in a situation rather than exclusively what I would do.

With Cassandra, well she is a woman of fantasy certainly. I don't know any actual woman like but that didn't make her any less real to me. It might sound strange but when I write her it felt like she would sort of tell me what to say. A female character is a little harder for me to do but still her personality always seemed very strong to me.

To followup on what I said before, like most people when you're on vacation you have a lot of time to think (and drink, and read and do whatever :-). When I was sitting on a chair by the pool (Cuba was hot!) I thought that there has a be a book 2, my characters have more to say and hopefully next year (or late this year possibly) there will be another. I think one of the joys of writing is creating characters you love and following their journey down the twisted, sometimes dangerous path your imagination will take.

Until next week my fair readers I am...

The dangers of putting too much of yourself in a story

Hi all :) Taking a little break from editing to write this. Another busy week for me at work and lots of shoveling, winter sucks :( (at least here way up north in Newfoundland) but I digress. Tonight I thought I'd speak about a writing issue/subject I've thought on a fair bit lately, namely writing what you know and in particular putting yourself in your stories.

First though a message from our sponsors (namely me and Tasha): My book The Newfoundland Vampire will be on in April 2012 (still working hard on editing) and Tasha’s books (the second one I’ve read and highly recommend) are out now.

So when I started writing my book seriously about two years ago (I actually started it way back in 2002) I decided to base the main character, Joseph, largely on myself. I know it's been done but I couldn't resist. You're supposed to write what you know and what better do I know than myself? From the time I was thirteen I imagined what it would be like to be a vampire, so naturally when I wrote a vampire book the easiest way to write the main character was to imagine how he/me would act as a vampire.

I wrote the book initially as a sort of wish fullfillment/diary of what I had done in my life and how I imagined things could have turned out differently. The biggest problem with this idea (that I discovered much later on) is that like most people I don't have a very exciting life. So when you write a vampire's story and not much happens to him for the first 13 chapters or so, well it's not the most exciting read.

I see that now but for a long time I didn't. It's a strange phenomennon that when you write something so personal it feels good (I guess a little therapeutic even) but it takes the perspective of an objective reader to make you realize this does not make an engaging story. (Thanks Pat, I know you're reading this :-)

I became very personally invested in Joseph because so much of him was me that I lost objectivity, this was a mistake I can see now. I wish I had an exciting life like Hemmingway or William Shanter (give the guy credit, he's over 80 and still acting! :) or even Oscar Wilde.
("Picture of Dorian Gray" is amazing) but I'm not like those people (well maybe Shanter a little ;) and I had to make Joseph's adventures exciting and thus gave him some adventures I wish I had (and others I'd never want anyone to experience.)

But hopefully my life will get a little more exciting (I did have a car catch on fire last month) and in the meantime Joseph and my other vampire creations can be vicarious thrills for me and hopefully bring excitinment to those who read them. Until next time dear readers, I am . . .

TUESDAY TIPS AND TIDBITS - 3 Days and HOLDING...

Three FREE days of Jamie Wasserman's newest vampire tale, HOLDING BACK THE DAY on Amazon Kindle, starting Wednesday, February 1.

HOLDING BACK THE DAY
Jamie Wasserman
Paranormal Vampire

By the author of wildly popular BLOOD AND SUNLIGHT comes a new vampire tale. Claire's best friend and inspiration is her courageous and forthright grandmother Millie. Claire wants to be like her, but that's not such an easy task. When a charismatic boy named Jack comes to town, Claire realizes there's more to her grandmother than she'd ever guessed. Millie's harboring a big secret, and Claire suspects that secret is perennially mysterious Jack.

Who wants to live forever? Vampire immortality

Well I'm a couple of days late but it's been a busy week. Of course I can't forget about my loyal fans :) So continuing to think about vampires and their powers I wanted to discuss one of their biggest, immortality/eternal youth.

First though a message from our sponsors (namely me and Tasha): My book The Newfoundland Vampire will be on in April 2012 (working hard now on editing) and Tasha’s books (the second one I’ve read and highly recommend) are out now. Tasha also recently said on Twitter she's working on a handbook and I've already started book 2 of mine, so expect lots from both of us in the future.

Live forever? HELL YEAH! At least that's my initial reaction. Most everyone has at least some fear of death and would love nothing else than to avoid it entirely but what lengths would you really go to for life eternal? Would you be able to drink blood from the living? Would you kill other vampires? Would you kill humans? Friends? Relatives?

In my book I give the vampires the traditional eternal life/youth power but not without it's price. Joseph, the main character, is turned into a vampire without his knoweldge or permission and while he does find great comfort in the notion that he will live forever, he comes to realize that his normal human life is quickly coming to an end. He learns that vampires don't always get along and that he has to fight to survive. More importantly to sustain his life he must drink the blood of the living and while he often settles for wildlife (or livestock) the temptation of the exquistite human blood gnaws at his resolve. Regret and the knowledge that you killed someone would never go away but you certainly find ways to cope with them, especially with superhuman abilities.

I think the worst part of immortality would be knowing that you will outlive everyone you know, they would get old and die and you would remain the same. Of course that leads to the other dilemma, who would you turn? Sure some friends and realtives would love you for it but what about if you significant other hated you for all eternity? What if you made an enemy that would hunt you down or torture you for all of time? Cassandra (the other main character in my book) faces a very similar situation to this.

Obviously there would be a best part to life eternal. Aside from the superficial fact that you would never have to look older, the incredible benefit of being to take as much time as you want to do anything would be immensely satisfying. Imagine taking 5, 10 even 20 years to write the perfect book (some writers actually do this, or at least try to ;) and knowing that you could master this formula forever. Or any skill/hobbby/past-time you could literally spend an eternity on. Imagine knowing that you coudl travel the world/universe and experience every important event in history from now until...

I think that ulimately if the blood list didn't change you than the longer you lived would make you immensely detached from soceity/human nature. Unless you had some kind of immortal partner it would become an incredibly lonely life. The thought of being with someone for hundreds or more years though would be the ultimate test of any relationship.

For me I still answer yes, it would be tough I'm sure but eternal life/youth is a price I'd pay. Now I just need to find a vampire...;-) Have a nice weekend everyone, I better get back to editing =)