MILENA GOVICH, Actress - Interview

And here I am with part two of “Beautiful Women Week” on the site. I am proud to know Milena Govich, and I’m so happy she was able to take some time to stop by and chat.

Milena Govich, Actress

Milena Govich has performed on Broadway (in Chicago), on television (Conviction; Rescue Me; K-Town; Law & Order) and in the movies (the upcoming A Novel Romance, among others). She’s also one hell of a Scrabble player.

ANTHONY:  Hi, Milena! Thanks for taking the time to chat with me.  It’s no secret we’ve known each other a long time now, so the most important question I can ask is … what’s your favorite memory of me? haha

MILENA:  Empire Coffee shop on 9th Ave. in NYC.   It was the first time we got to sit down and chat and I got to see why the Cornue clan is enamored by you.  

 ANTHONY:  Let’s talk about your latest project first. A NOVEL ROMANCE is out, and you co-star with Steve Guttenberg. Tell us a little about the movie.

MILENA:  The film is a romantic dramedy set in NYC.  It follows two people who have each just gone through a life-changing crisis–my character’s fiancee has just died, and Steve’s character is fired from his job in a humiliating way.  With the pressures and expenses of living in NYC, the two acquaintances decide to move in together to help each other out.

 ANTHONY:  What was it that initially drew you to director Allie Dvorin’s script?

MILENA:  I really loved the character of “Jenny”, and the film portrayed a kind of unique relationship.  I was also itching to do some comedy, and who better to star opposite than Steve?  To top it all off, Allie had studied acting with my teacher many years ago, so we both knew there would be a nice shorthand between us on set.

 ANTHONY:  What was Allie’s directing process like? Was there a lot of rehearsal before shooting or did you jump right in?

MILENA:  Since this was a smaller budget feature, there really wasn’t much rehearsal at all.  I think we met for two days, but rehearsing a film is not like rehearsing a play.  Most of the time was spent talking about the script, asking questions, and reading scenes at the table.

ANTHONY:  How long was the shooting schedule and where did you film?

 MILENA:  I believe we shot the film in 19 days–which is remarkable.  All the locations were in NYC, and our crew was wonderful.  It was clear that everyone on set wanted to be there.  No one was resting on their laurels and just collecting a paycheck.  It was all hands on deck every minute which made for a fun and energetic atmosphere.

 ANTHONY:  About a year ago you made the jump from being NYC-based to LA-based. What are the biggest differences you’ve seen in terms of the job market on each coast?

MILENA:  The biggest difference in my day-to-day is driving.  Ack!  It took me a bit to get used to braving the LA traffic and searching for parking before my appointments.  But aside from that, my work is pretty much the same.  I’m very fortunate to have excellent agents and an incredibly loyal manager who work for me on both coasts.   As for the LA market, there are many more productions shooting here versus NYC, but there are also many more actors.   Even though there are more opportunities, it shapes up to be a very competitive market.   But as you might imagine, I’m the kind of girl that has never shied away from a challenge!

 ANTHONY:  On television, you’ve had multi-episode runs guest-starring as a hooker with a heart of gold on Rescue Me, starring as a cop with something to prove on the original Law & Order, and as two very different district attorneys on Conviction and K-Ville. Which side of the law was more fun to work?

MILENA:  Well, carrying a gun and doing stunt fights was a ton of fun as a cop, but the wardrobe is much better on the lawyer side.   As for the criminal world, playing “Candy” the con artist on Rescue Me was one of the best gigs I’ve had.  The set felt like I was hanging out with my brothers, and I had most of my scenes with the amazing actor, John Scurti.

ANTHONY: There’s a cool story about how you ended up on Law & Order.  Can you tell us about that?

MILENA:  The way I ended up on L&O was really a dream come true.  I had been hired to do another series that Dick Wolf produced called Conviction.  We actors on the show affectionately gave it the tag line, “young lawyers in heat.”  It was a really good show (check it out on DVD!), but we didn’t get the ratings that NBC wanted, so they pulled the plug after 13 episodes.  The very next day after we got the ax, Dick called my agents and offered me the role of the first-ever female cop on the original L&O.  I have to say, this is the kind of positive feedback that every actor dreams of receiving.  To me, there is no bigger compliment than to have someone you worked for hire you a second time in an even bigger role.  

 ANTHONY:  You’ve worked with some great casts. What were some of your favorite moments?

 MILENA:  Shooting in NYC, you always get great moments, often from the people who aren’t part of the shoot.  As you can imagine, it’s pretty hard to block off a street, or even a sidewalk from pedestrian traffic.  No New Yorker thinks the barricades are for them.     One of my favorite moments was on the set of A Novel Romance.  We were shooting in Noho and the shot was a super romantic kiss where the camera revolves around us creating that swept-off-your-feet feeling (we didn’t actually end up using it in the movie, however).  Anyway, some guy, probably on his way to work, made it past the PA’s who were trying to keep the foot traffic at bay.  As he passed us kissing–right behind the camera–he looked at what we were doing and yelled, “Bullsh*t!” and kept right on walking.  Gotta love the New Yorker perspective.

 ANTHONY:  How do you personally prepare for a role once you’ve been cast?

MILENA:  Obviously, there’s the grunt work of the memorization of the lines, but most of my work centers around imagining my character’s relationships with all of the other characters in the play.  I find that if I have a strong point of view about everyone I encounter in the script, things start to pop.  I also like to play off of the other actors, so I try to never get set in a “way of doing things” in order to stay flexible and spontaneous.

 ANTHONY:  I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing a lot of young actors and singers and I know read my interviews. Any advice you’d like to share with them?

MILENA:  Dream, and dream big.  Really imagine the details of what you want your life to look like.  Don’t let anyone else’s doubt cloud your view of who you can become.   That said, as far as an acting career goes, if there is absolutely anything else you are passionate about, go do that instead.  I know that sounds a little harsh, but my husband loves to say, “This is not a career, it’s a calling.”   This business is brutal.  An actor, no matter their status, receives more blatant rejection in one year than most people will ever experience in a lifetime.  Unfortunately, that’s not hyperbole.   Even though you may work hard, make great grades in school and do everything “right”, there is no guarantee you’ll ever make a dime in this business.  Now on the other hand, if you feel that you absolutely MUST give it a go, then by all means, give it everything you’ve got.   Learn everything you can: read, watch tons of movies, quality TV and plays.  Get on stage as often as you possibly can: join your community theater, do the school play.  Even if you’re just in the background you will be a part of the process.  Make your own opportunities: go sing for the Lion’s Club or at a nursing home, ask for a solo with the church choir.  Make your own videos: with today’s technology, it’s easier than ever.  Write a short film (can be as short as you want), get your friends together to practice and then shoot it!  Take every class you can and develop into the best artist you can be.  I don’t think the passionate pursuit of anything is ever a waste.  Even if you never book a professional job, we all learn so much about ourselves through the journey.   And who knows where those lessons might take you.

ANTHONY:  IMDB says you’re working on the next Resident Evil installment. How’s that experience been? Do you get any kick-ass action scenes?

 MILENA:  So here’s the thing about IMDB: it’s not run by anyone in the industry.  Their information is usually accurate, but it comes from non-industry people who scour the trades and re-post the info they find.  Occasionally, they are incorrect.  And unfortunately, this is one of their boo-boos.

ANTHONY: You mean everything we read on the internet isn’t true?? Aigh! Alright,then, what else do you have coming up?

MILENA:  As far as future projects go, my philosophy is to walk through the open door.  I never know what is coming next, and that is one of both the most thrilling and most terrifying things about what I do.  But a couple of things on the horizon are the DVD release of A Novel Romance at the end of January, and a recurring arc on an ABC Family series called Make It or Break It that will air in the late spring.  And this summer I will travel back to my home state of Oklahoma to play the title role in Sweet Charity at the Lyric Theater.  I’m really looking forward to getting my dancing shoes out!

If any of your readers would like more info on these, they can join my Facebook fan page where I post details on all of my upcoming gigs.

ANTHONY:  And my usual final question:  What is your favorite book, and what would you say to someone who hasn’t read it to convince them that they should?

The book that had a real impact in my life is Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand.  I read it when I was 16 years old and it was the kind of positive reinforcement that rang blaringly true to a young, passionate, and ambitious girl like myself.  The theme of “man is capable” still inspires me today.  I truly believe that ANYONE has the capacity to make herself into the person she wants to be.  The process may not be easy, and the goal you achieve may not be the one you set out for, but passion and perseverance in everything you do will take you far.

As mentioned above, you can find Milena’s Fan Page on Facebook,  and you can also find her on IMDb. If you’re a fan of Milena’s work, please stop by both of her pages and leave some favorable comments!

WORKER PRINCE by BRYAN THOMAS SCHMIDT, Author - Interview

I’ve interviewed author-editor-TwitterChatMeister Bryan Thomas Schmidt before, and we recently posted a Dialogue Between Writers. Bryan’s visiting us again as part of his month-long blog tour promoting the release of his novel THE WORKER PRINCE, the first installment of the Davi Rhii Saga.

The Worker Prince

ANTHONY: Welcome back, Bryan! This time around we’re going to concentrate more on your upcoming novel release, which I was honored to receive an ARC of. So first let me say how much I enjoyed it. I’ve been talking it up to friends who like good solid SF.

BRYAN: Thanks, I appreciate that.

A: You started the story as an intentional reworking of the Moses story set among the stars. Davi Rhii is sent off by his natural, slave-born, parents and inadvertently adopted by the sister of the High Lord Councilor of the ruling society. As an adult, he learns of his background and has some hard decisions to make. One of the things that interested me is how your main characters map onto the Biblical originals in terms of their story function but also their personalities. Can you talk about your decision-making process as to when you opted to stick close to the originals and when to move a character in a different direction?

B: Well, I think a lot of that was sub-consciously done, to be honest. Obviously, between the Charlton Heston film, the Dreamworks film, and the oft-told Biblical story, some of those things are iconic, so they kind of just become tendencies when telling the story, you know? For example, the High Lord Councilor (aka Pharaoh) character, Xalivar, is obviously going to be strong willed and “an evil dictator” type. In this case, I decided to show his genuine love for Davi (aka Moses) and how his emotions tear at him a bit. It makes him more well-rounded and human and far more interesting that he’s conflicted. I’ve had readers tell me they really didn’t know whether to like or hate him, which is good. The Davi character (Moses) is also complex in similar ways with less obvious evil tendencies, although he’s imperfect. I did avoid things like the siblings Aaron and Miriam, but used Miri as Davi’s mother’s name in tribute to Miriam. I also skipped the whole father-in-law with beautiful daughters desert escape sequence. Davi’s love interest, Tela, has no father figure around really. And they meet in a more conventional way. Part of that is done because departing from the familiar is the only way to keep such an oft-told story fresh. And part of it because, frankly, it was more interesting for me than rehashing what’s been done before. But making Tela a strong-willed, independent fellow pilot, for example, also allowed for some relationship dynamics which are far more interesting. And it allowed for another strong female character. I have four strong major female roles: Miri, Davi’s mother and Xalivar’s sister; Tela, his love interest, trainee and fellow pilot; Lura, his birth mother (a supporting role) and Kray, a member of the Council of Lords (supporting). There are other women characters, but those are the ones who portray the kind of anti-damsel-in-distress women I grew up with in my family and which often don’t appear much in space opera. Also, because I was not writing a religious book but just a book with religion as part of its worldbuilding and because it was more science fiction rather than fantasy, I stayed away from the plagues, signs from God, etc. aspects of the story. They are important and great parts of the biblical story but hard to make work in a believable way in the context of what I am doing. Since these people are descendants of Earthlings, anyway, that’s actually part of their past history anyway, from a Biblical perspective.

A: Orson Scott Card tells the entire life story of Moses in STONE TABLES, embellishing some parts of Scripture and condensing others to fit the whole story into one book. Your story is intended to be a trilogy. How have you handled parceling out the Biblical story over the course of three novels?

B: Well, originally it was conceived as a giant TV mini-series or one long book. But once I got into it and started “playing” around with the story and departing a bit, it became obvious the story I had would go in some different directions. I wrote it as if it could stand alone, and I think “The Worker Prince” really could if need be (I hope there’s no need though). When I started considering how to write the rest of the story, I then realized there were two more books, one which deals with the aftermath of the fight for freedom and developing culture clashes as the workers/slaves are being mainstreamed as citizens against the desires of some others, and the other which deals with the exodus itself.

A: Authors often talk about characters “taking them by surprise.” Supporting characters suddenly come to the forefront because they can provide something to the narrative the main character can’t, etc. While your characters do map onto Biblical equivalents, as we’ve discussed, you’re also telling a large story with lots of supporting characters. Have any of these characters’ paths taken you by surprise either in Book One or as you’re writing and plotting Book Two and Book Three?

B: Oh definitely. And part of that is my trying to keep the cast from getting too big by finding ways to work the supporting characters I’ve already introduced back into new parts of the story. But in Book 2, I wound up killing some characters I never would have anticipated. It serves the story and character development very well, but they would not have been the ones I expected to “knock off,” originally. Also, some of the characters took divergent and interesting twists and turns in their journeys which surprised me. Farien’s journey, in particular, is really interesting in Book 1 but especially over the course of the three books. Some of the supporting characters who are minor in Book 1 take on interesting, larger roles in Book 2. Manaen, Xalivar’s majordomo, a couple of the Boralian military leaders, Bordox’s father Obed—several examples.

A: Another thing that intrigues me about THE WORKER PRINCE is the cultural history. Even though this is taking place in a far-away solar system and far in the future, there are references to “old earth,” and to the colonization of this distant system. The history of, and the animosity between, the races now known as the Borallians and the Vertullians clearly stems from our own time and place in the universe. That history is largely in the background of this first book, but can you tell us anything about how these planets came to be colonized and how one came to be enslaved by the other?

B: The Boralians are a group of colonists formed from mainstream Christian churches, Muslims, Hindus, new agers, and other Earth groups. The Vertullians are Evangelicals. Both groups fled Earth after years of conflict between them to start over. Unfortunately, the Vertullians’ ship broke down and crash landed on Vertullis before they even realized who their neighbors were. The Boralians had already settled the next planet over. When the two discovered it, the Vertullians tried to make peace but the Boralians enslaved them instead. That’s basically what I tell in Book 1. The other history is an animosity toward Evangelicals developed in society because of their conservative views and a gradual domination of more liberal ideologies on Earth. As such, the Evangelicals became marginalized and persecuted. Outcasts in their own society, they find themselves more and more maligned, which leads to their decision to flee Earth. The Boralians who also fled were a portion of those on Earth who just grew tired of the fighting and wanted a peaceful fresh start, or so they thought. Obviously they don’t end up living that out. There are a series of post-colonial incidents, like the Delta V slave revolt, which are referred to as well but not really explained. I actually plan to do a short story on that one. And I have plans for a YA early life series about Davi and his friends now as well. If the books are well received enough anyone is interested, that is.

A: The last time we talked, you gave a little bit of background on how you came to write THE WORKER PRINCE 25 years after having the initial idea in your teens, and how the current cultural climate (try saying that ten times fast!) regarding religion influenced the way you’ve told the story. I’d like to step back from the plot, characters and cultural influences for a moment to ask a more general question I didn’t ask you last time: which writers have influenced you the most, both in your writing overall and for the Saga of Davi Rhii particularly?

B: For world building, my hero is Robert Silverberg. Majipoor has always been one of my favorite series, starting with “Lord Valentine’s Castle” which remains one of my all-time favorite books. Silverberg built that world in amazing depth I couldn’t even begin to aspire too, but, at the same time, he also taught me a lot about the necessity to think through details I never would have imagined. I admire Lewis and Tolkein too, of course, and others as well, but Majipoor is the world I have the most passion for that I’ve read and know in most detail because of just loving spending time there so much. Losing myself. For action, Timothy Zahn especially but also Kevin J. Anderson were big influences on me. Kevin even gave some suggestions and answered questions as I went through revisions. I kept Zahn’s original Thrawn Trilogy handy as I wrote action sequences for pacing and just ideas and inspiration. I later did a blog entry on how to write action based on all I’ve learned. http://bryanthomasschmidt.net/2011/07/17/10-tips-for-writing-good-action-scenes/ I also used Nicholas Sparks, whose love stories move me deeply, in writing the subplot of Davi and Tela as well as Sol and Lura. Those two are the great love stories in this novel and I wanted sections of real passion and emotion captured in words which no one does like Sparks can. For thriller pacing, John Grisham and WEB Griffin are inspirations. They know how to keep books moving. Griffin also is great with political twists and turns which I threw a lot of into the books to keep the readers guessing (and myself as I wrote, actually).

A: How soon can we expect to see Book Two of the Saga of Davi Rhii, and can you give any hints about it without spoiling the end of Book One?

B: Book 2, “The Returning,” is almost done and scheduled for publication next spring. In Book 2, the workers are free and full citizens but protest movements and hardliner sections amongst the Boralians are protesting it, accusing the workers of getting governmental favoritism, stealing all the good jobs, etc. In the meantime, Davi and Tela’s romance has hit some road bumps. Then someone is killing off workers and Davi, Farien and Yao get involved investigating. Meanwhile, old enemies are seeking revenge. Does that whet the appetite a bit?

A: Since I’ve already asked you the usual “what’s your favorite book” question and I doubt your answer has changed in the past month, let’s vary it up a little: what’s currently on your reading table, and what upcoming releases are you most looking forward to?

B: “Spellbound” by Blake Charlton, “City of Ruins” by Kristine Kathryn Rusch, Silverberg’s Majipoor anthology—I have two of them, waiting for the third. They are authors I admire, two of whom are friends, and whose series I loved before. So I can’t wait to know what happens next. Much of my reading time is consumed by SFFWRTCHT reading– a book a week, and I have some huge epic fantasy authors booked this fall and their books are as big as their names. Then I have the magazines I subscribe to, especially Locus, Asimov’s, and Analog. I am perpetually behind reading them. And then I am still learning craft whenever I can so I read that stuff too. So I am looking forward to the next good read, obviously, but perpetually drowning in options and reading at the pace required to manage what I need to with chat and reviews first, everything else second.

Thanks for stopping by again, Bryan! Good luck with the rest of the tour!

Speaking of which, Bryan’s next Blog Tour Appearance is on SFSIGNAL tomorrow, October 3rd Oct. 3, discussing 15 Science Fiction Classics With Religious Themes

LAWRENCE BLOCK, Author - Interview

This week I get to interview one of my heroes. What can I say about Lawrence Block that hasn’t already been said elsewhere?

In his own words: “Lawrence Block’s novels range from the urban noir of Matthew Scudder (A Drop of the Hard Stuff) to the urbane effervescence of Bernie Rhodenbarr (The Burglar on the Prowl), while other characters include the globe-trotting insomniac Evan Tanner (Tanner on Ice) and the introspective assassin Keller (Hit and Run). He has published articles and short fiction in American Heritage, Redbook, Playboy, Cosmopolitan, GQ, and The New York Times, and 84 of his short stories have been collected in Enough Rope. In 2004, he became executive story editor for the TV series TILT. Several of his novels have been filmed, though not terribly well. His newest bestsellers are Hit Parade, his third Keller novel (July 2006 in hardcover), and All the Flowers are Dying (April 2006 in paperback), the sixteenth Matthew Scudder novel. Larry is a Grand Master of Mystery Writers of America, and a past president of both MWA and the Private Eye Writers of America. He has won the Edgar and Shamus awards four times each and the Japanese Maltese Falcon award twice, as well as the Nero Wolfe and Philip Marlowe awards, a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Private Eye Writers of America, and, most recently, the Cartier Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the Crime Writers Association (UK). In France, he has been proclaimed a Grand Maitre du Roman Noir and has twice been awarded the Societe 813 trophy. He has been a guest of honor at Bouchercon and at book fairs and mystery festivals in France, Germany, Australia, Italy, New Zealand and Spain, and, as if that were not enough, was presented with the key to the city of Muncie, Indiana. Larry and his wife Lynne are enthusiastic New Yorkers and relentless world travelers.”

Lawrence Block

ANTHONY: I have to admit I’ve been dragging my heels on this interview because I’ve been a bit daunted. Everyone has those folks they’re just star-struck around. I’d be equally as tongue-tied if I had the chance to interview John Glover (even after having met him twice), or Neil Gaiman, or Michael Emerson. So that got me to wondering: who gets Lawrence Block star-struck?

LAWRENCE: Hmmm. There must be someone, but I can’t come up with anyone offhand. I think age is a factor here, along with life experience. You reach a point where you don’t have heroes anymore, and no longer get star-struck. I’m not sure that’s a good thing, but it happens.

ANTHONY: Part of my problem was in trying to come up with questions you’ve never been asked before. And then I realized with a career like yours there probably aren’t any questions you’ve never been asked. I don’t have to be original, I just have to be interesting! Is there any single interview question you just dread hearing? And am I about to ask that question in this interview?

LAWRENCE: I don’t like hypothetical questions about my characters. “What would Bernie do if he met a werewolf?” That kind of crap. I also don’t like to be asked what I’m going to write next, because I don’t know.

ANTHONY: You’ve covered a lot of genres in your career: the light, comedic mysteries of Bernie Rhodenbarr, the more noir-ish Scudder books, Jill Emerson’s lesbian erotica and literary novels. I’d even go so far as to categorize Killing Castro as alternate history. Is there any genre you haven’t tried yet that you’d like to take a crack at?

LAWRENCE: No, I’m not really looking for new worlds to conquer—or to be conquered by.

ANTHONY: In Afterthoughts, you talk extensively about the reasons for using pen names and how your career has really moved beyond that now. Last month, you brought the “Jill Emerson” name back for Getting Off. Any chance that your other pseudonyms will make similar comebacks?

LAWRENCE: I wouldn’t think so. The others were just names of convenience. Jill has been something rather more than that, though I’m not sure I can put my finger on it. (And if this were one of those LB/JE dialogues, she wouldn’t let that last line pass without a comment.)

ANTHONY: Do you think there’s more of your early pseudonymous work still out there “undiscovered?”

LAWRENCE: Well, not undiscovered. In fact, people are forever discovering books that weren’t mine at all, convinced they’ve unearthed a previously unacknowledged pen name. Lots of luck.

But there’s old work I haven’t brought back yet, and probably will sooner or later, avarice and ego being such powerful motivators. In fact, two old books of mine, 69 Barrow Street (as Sheldon Lord) and Strange Embrace (as Ben Christopher) will be Hard Case Crime’s #69 sometime next year, produced in hard cover by Subterranean Press as a double volume, bound back to back or belly to belly, as you prefer.

ANTHONY: Getting Off is the first hardcover book from Charles Ardai’s Hard Case Crime imprint, and along with new work by Christa Faust and Max Allan Collins the book is the face of the HCC relaunch. Was there any extra pressure associated with that?

LAWRENCE: No, hardly that. Charles really got Getting Off, and his unqualified enthusiasm was a key factor in my decision to do the book with Hard Case. If there was pressure, it was temporal; I had to hurry it in order to be done in time for his fall list.

ANTHONY: What is it like working with Charles? How does the relationship differ when you’re re-issuing an old title versus publishing something completely new?

LAWRENCE: It’s a pure pleasure. I’ve had good luck with editors over the years, esp. in that the right editors have often been linked to just the right books. Joe Pittman edited the Burglar books at Dutton, and had such a feel for them that I wasn’t surprised when he went on to write London Frog. Many fine folks have edited the Scudder novels, and John Schoenfelder was a joy to work with on A Drop of the Hard Stuff. I worked particularly closely with Charles, and showed him work as I went along, which is something I never do; it would seem to indicate a high level of trust, and it was in this instance justified.

ANTHONY: Okay, last HCC question, I promise: If Charles ever decides to bring Gabriel Hunt back for another set of books, would you consider writing one? I’d enjoy seeing your take on Gabe’s womanizing, globe-trotting, modern Indiana Jones ways.

LAWRENCE: No, I don’t think so. I like the books but I don’t want to write one.

ANTHONY: You make it clear in Afterwords that you’re not really a fan of going back and rereading your early work to prepare it for re-issue. Between HCC and the e-books, there’s a lot of older material available again, but certainly not everything. Has there been, or will there be, any kind of organized “roll-out” of older titles? You’ve come close to refusing re-issues for a few titles, I know — are there any that are on the “absolutely not” list?

LAWRENCE: The only books I know I don’t want reissued are ones I didn’t write in the first place, books that were ghostwritten under a pen name of mine. With that exception, my feeling is a paraphrase of an old T-shirt: “Publish ’em all and let the readers sort ’em out.”

ANTHONY: Okay, time for some questions about craft. (Maybe I can learn a thing or two?) You’ve said that you rarely know what you’re going to write next, hence not being able to predict when a new Rhodenbarr or Scudder or Keller book is going to come out. Does that mean you’re also a “seat of your pants” writer once you’re into a project, or do you outline heavily before beginning?

LAWRENCE: Haven’t outlined in years. How much I know about a book before I begin is variable. Sometimes quite a bit, sometimes next to nothing. And I’ve always liked a maxim I’ve heard attributed to Theodore Sturgeon: “If the writer doesn’t know what’s going to happen next, he needn’t fear that the reader will know what’s going to happen next.”

ANTHONY: Have your writing habits changed over the years, other than changing writing locales?

LAWRENCE: Oh, probably, but I’m not sure how. Very early on I’d put on a stack of records, jazz or classical, and have music playing while I wrote. Now I cannot imagine why anyone would do something like that.

ANTHONY: Do you approach the creation of a short story differently than that of a novel?

LAWRENCE: I don’t think so.

ANTHONY: What’s your self-editing procedure? Do you edit as you write, or do you put out a full draft and then go back and tear it apart?

LAWRENCE: Well, I try to get it right the first time. And when I type THE END, I mean it.

ANTHONY: Okay, this one’s a little morbid, but I have to ask. Mickey Spillane left instructions for Max Allan Collins to complete his unfinished manuscripts. You once put the finishing touches on an incomplete Cornell Woolrich mystery. How do you feel about other authors completing any work you leave behind?

LAWRENCE: Well, if I keeled over fifteen words from the end of something, I wouldn’t mind if someone supplied the fifteen words. But I would hope that any old crap lurking in the corner of my office or some back room on my hard drive will be allowed to decompose.

And I certainly hope no one comes along and writes about any of my series characters. Just because readers would like to have another book about this one or that one is no reason to pander to them. Fuck ’em, I say.

I’m quite certain Bob Parker would find a continuation of his series by other hands perfectly appalling, but the man’s dead, and the living can almost always find ways to rationalize acts that bring them money.

OTOH, who cares what the dead want? Being dead means it’s no longer any of your business. Personally, if there’s no afterlife, what do I care? And if there is, am I really going to spend it giving a rat’s ass what happens to some moldering old books down here on this godforsaken planet? What kind of an afterlife would that be?

ANTHONY: Getting Off is out in hardcover. The Matt Scudder short story collection is available. What releases do we have to look forward to in the near future?

LAWRENCE: There’ll be a new novel from Mulholland sometime next year if I ever finish the damn thing. I told you about HCC #69. I’ve got 20+ sex-fact books by John Warren Wells waiting in the wings, and might bring them out as eBooks. I’ve got two years worth of my monthly column for Linns Stamp News, enough material for a book if I think anybody might want to read it. What else? Beats me.

ANTHONY: And my usual final question: What is your favorite book, and what would you say to someone who hasn’t read it to convince them that they should?

LAWRENCE: I don’t know that I have a favorite. For many years I’ve acknowledged John O’Hara as my favorite author—so many years in fact, that I have to wonder if the statement’s still true. But all I’d suggest to anyone is that they pick up one of the books and read a few pages. Either they’ll like it or they won’t—which, come to think of it, is true of just about anything, isn’t it?

ANTHONY: Thanks again, sir!

LAWRENCE: You’re welcome!

You can find more of Lawrence Block’s discussions of his writing on his website, his blog, his facebook and his goodreads discussion group. You can also follow him on Twitter as @LawrenceBlock.

ALLAN WOOD, Webcomics - Interview

This week, we catch up with webcomics creator Allan Wood.

Allan Wood

Allan Wood writes and draws webcomics. He’s also a college student, a musician and an all-around nice guy I’ve had the pleasure of knowing through social media for quite a few years now.

ANTHONY: Allan, thanks for joining us this week.

ALLAN: Nice place you’ve got, here, Anthony!

ANTHONY: You started out in the webcomics world with an autobiographical eponymous daily comic on Drunk Duck, when you were in your mid-teens. What inspired you to start chronicling your daily life?

ALLAN: It was probably The Office. When I think back on it, now, I was drawing quite a few parallels between the Jim and Pam relationship, which lead me to want to write about my own life. Couple that with some research and I realized that the Journal Comic was way underdone (at least in my opinion). To me, reading about peoples’ lives in detail is fascinating (both for the included and the excluded information), and I made Allan as a means of exploring that fascination.

ANTHONY: Yours was one of the first comics, web or print, I’ve encountered where the panels run vertically instead of horizontal. The only other comic I can think of that used that format consistently was the classic “Little Nemo in Slumberland” over 50 years ago. Why did you choose that format, and have you ever considered switching Allan to a more traditional form?

ALLAN: Little pieces to my comics, such as layout, composition, writing styles, etc., are usually products of my own preferences and experimentation. Personally, I prefer scrolling to read things. Not sure why—it’s possible that it’s in the same vein as newspaper articles reading “faster” when they are wrapped into tight confines.

As for changing the layout, I have considered it. In fact, I’ve made some unpublished Allan strips recently that have branched out of my vertical layout.

ANTHONY: Being a chronicle of your life, Allan isn’t always “work-safe” but it is always truthful. You’ve opened up about relationship problems, losing your virginity, even the car vs. bike accident you had. Is there anything you regret making public? Or anything you’ve left out or glossed over that you wish you had taken the time to draw and include?

ALLAN: I don’t regret a single thing I’ve drawn. I’ve tried to make it all as accurate and honest as I could. Do I regret letting some of it happen?—sure, but creating a timeline that in 20 years I can look back on and laugh at how stupid I was is surely nothing to apologize for!

ANTHONY: Allan isn’t a daily comic anymore … adulthood has brought more constraints on your time, but you’ve also branched out a bit with other webcomics projects. Before we talk about those projects, one last Allan question. Do you foresee a time when you’ll discontinue Allan in favor of other creative endeavors?

ALLAN: Allan’s always been my “time-killer” comic. If I have an idea, I can draw a strip in under an hour. Because of this, Allan’s toughed out all the slumps I’ve come across with my other comic endeavors. It’s easy to pick up, accessible, and just plain ol’ fun (from an artist’s perspective). Having said that, I could see Allan “ending” around Day 1000. I’m not saying I’ll ever stop drawing journal comics, but with trends in comics I’ve noticed lately, the Formatted Comic isn’t necessary for success. Expanding on that, people seem less interested in comics and more interested in the people who create comics they read. It’s an interesting phenomenon, but creating a bond between your readers and yourself is probably one of the best things any webcomic artist can do, and having that bond with my readers, I couldn’t just see myself leaving them without any kind of continuation, regardless as to whether it’s on a site called Allan or not.

ANTHONY: Your other currently-running webcomic is Blue Circus. Definitely NSFW! Tell us what it’s about, who the target audience is, and where it can be found.

ALLAN: I grew up drawing a lot of men. Dragon Ball Z was a big influence when I young. Akira Toriyama’s understanding of the male physique sprouted my own appreciation for the muscles that make up our bodies. However, I never really “got into” drawing girls. They’ve always been a difficult enigma for me to craft accurately, stylistically, and femininely.

Blue Circus began as just an art project. I wanted to draw girls. The problem was, I was having a hard time thinking up girls to draw and at the moment I had no reference photos or anything like that (I was home for a weekend visiting family). As I struggled to draw the female figure in different positions I realized that I wasn’t attached to these drawings. So I began thinking up a backstory, and as I did, I found myself becoming more and more attached to this girl I was drawing. Her name was Amy (Amy is now one of the main protagonists in Blue Circus).

So once I decided on one character, the rest kind of all fell into place. It’s definitely not a comic I expect commercial success with or anything, so I never planned on an audience. Rather, it’s a means for me to stretch my artistic wings when it comes to cartoony females and to practice my story plots on the side.

ANTHONY: You’ve never been shy about sexual topics, but you’re a bit more …. detailed, shall we say, in BC than you’ve been in any other project. So what made you decide to really “work blue,” as the Vegas comedians used to call it?

ALLAN: Blue, indeed. I think it’s a well-established fact that I like sex. A lot of people do. I can understand why, too. Sex is fun, funny, and fascinating. It’s intricate and detailed, and it reveals a lot about people. Consider the explicity of it to be an experimental character device (you can learn a lot about a character through their dreams). Blue Circus is not about sex, but rather the people who do sex, and I’m working trying to find a good balance. It should be noted that the nudity in Blue Circus is not gratuitous. I draw boobs and penises for reasons. I don’t just shove them into the panels so people can beat off to them.

ANTHONY: I definitely wouldn’t describe BC as “pornography.” Now, let’s talk creative process for a minute. There are plenty of differences between Allan and BC: real life vs. fiction, vertical vs. horizontal page layouts, etc. For BC, how do you decide the composition of each page, the length of each story arc, etc.?

ALLAN: Blue Circus story arcs begin with an idea. How well-thought out that idea is varies, but that’s its beginning point. Earlier in production, I would think up the dialogue in my head, draw the characters, and try to match the events together. Now, I kind of create one strip at a time, writing the dialogue (which usually has changed by the time I’m done drawing) to strips and then drawing them. It seems to be working better.

Other comics I’ve done, such as Red Future, I’ve written in their entirety. The problem was, the comics themselves took too long to make and I got bored with it, trying to rush to the “good parts.” Personally, I find myself more entertained with my works when I surprise myself with each update.

ANTHONY: Since we’re both LOST fans, you know I have to ask: Does BC have an intended end point, or are you just making it up as you go along?

ALLAN: Right now, the latter. The final moment hasn’t been decided upon. The girls are all in college, so the easy end would be graduation. However, that’s boring, and personally, I’d want to go out with more of a bang.

ANTHONY: One more blue question: Whatever happened to the Blue Squire?

ALLAN: That’s like asking Star Trek what happened with Tribbles. The Blue Squire was an in-joke pertaining to a Medieval Times experience I had when I was younger. Later he became a bit of a mascot for Allan, and at one point I was in the process of creating a storyline for The Squire, himself. Things fell through, though, and time got away from me. I don’t know if you’ve figured this out, yet, but I stop a lot of projects before fully completing them!

ANTHONY: See what I did there? And since I mentioned the Squire, you know I’m going to bring up two other unfinished projects of yours: whatever happened to DandE and Red Planet? Any thoughts about going back to either one?

ALLAN: DandE was a comic I created in the midst of making The 600. I drew it at school during math classes because apparently I didn’t already have enough comic projects going on (even though I very much did). I stopped it early after publishing it online because of time restraints. Unfortunately, I didn’t feel attached to the project enough to pick it back up. I still may include some of those old strips in an Allan anthology or something, but for now, it’s done.

As for Red Future, I became bored with its process. Personally, I do more than just draw. I have to write, produce, create, and once I had finished writing RF, all I was doing was copying down the info.

ANTHONY: Are your comics hand-drawn and then scanned, or done completely on the computer? In either case, what are the tools you prefer to use to create the art?

ALLAN: Usually my strips are hand-drawn with some kind of fancy pen (no pencil sketching) then scanned into the computer and cleaned up just a tidbit. Occasionally I will make a digital strip (that is, a strip drawn into my computer through the means of my Intuous 3 Wacom Tablet), but this is usually for convenience (or lack of materials). An Allan page looks best to me when it visually represents a journal comic, and you just don’t get the same feel with digital processes that you get with pen on paper.

ANTHONY: And for my usual final question: What is your favorite book, and what would you say to recommend it to someone who hasn’t read it yet?

ALLAN: I’m not much of a book person. I should be, because I like learning, thinking, and imagining, but currently I find investing the time impossible (I like getting things done fast). However, Fahrenheit 451 is my favorite book. The world Bradbury weaves of his own volition frighteningly predicts what the world could become (and even stranger—what it already has),

ANTHONY: Thanks again for agreeing to be interviewed, Allan!

ALLAN: Thanks for having me! And thanks for being so patient.

You can follow Allan Wood on Twitter, find his page on Facebook, and read Allan and Blue Circus on the web.

ZACK TREMBLAY, Actor - Interview

One of the first folks I met on Twitter that I didn’t already know in real life was Zack Tremblay. Zack was just starting to make a name for himself as an music interviewer and reporter. In the past year he’s exploded, interviewing everyone in his age range from Justin Bieber to Allstar Weekend. He’s an authentic guy, truly passionate about the performers whose work he loves. I owe Zack a big thanks: if I hadn’t seen him tweet about Burnham, I’d not have gotten to know their music and more importantly the entire Burnham family.

Zack Tremblay

I conducted this interview with Zack a few weeks ago, and then dropped the ball and didn’t run it as quickly as I’d intended. So here it is. Thanks for being patient, Zack!

ANTHONY: Hey, Zack, thanks for letting me turn the tables and interview you. We’ve chatted on Twitter and Facebook informally, but this is our first “official” chat. So first off: you’re making quite a name for yourself as an interviewer. How did you get started down this road?

ZACK: I got started about a year ago! I actually inteviewed one of my good friends Ayla Brown from American Idol. After posting it people just kept asking if I had more interviews and I just decided to keep it going. I landed my first big interview with Hollywood Records recording artist Jesse McCartney which really kicked off my career in the entertainment industry.

ANTHONY: What’s been the biggest factor in your growth as an interviewer?

ZACK: I watch a lot of my interviews back, I always find an area that need improvement! If you were to watch one of my first interviews from a year ago and then watch one of my interviews now you can see the growth and my improvement in some areas.

ANTHONY: You’ve interviewed a lot of interesting up-and-coming musicians, so let’s play some word association. First word that pops into your mind when you think of:

Justin Bieber – Swag lol
Burnham – Brothers
KE$HA – the dollar sign
Allstar Weekend – Good Friends
Katelyn Tarver – Big Time Rush
Christina Grimmie – Piano & Selena Gomez
Zack Montana – Radio Disney
Jesse McCartney – Had It All

ANTHONY: Who are your dream ‘gets,’ the folks you’re dying to interview?

ZACK: I’d love to sit down with Taylor Swift!

ANTHONY: Tell us a bit about “Tremblay Tonight.”

ZACK: ‘Tremblay Tonight’ is my new series that premiered earlier this month! I have been planning this for quite some time and I have some exiting things in the works!

ANTHONY: How often will we be seeing new Tremblay Tonight episodes?

ZACK: You can catch ‘Tremblay Tonight’ every Sunday Night at 8/7c on my Official YouTube Page! One last thing: you can catch the 2011 ZMT Awards Presented by ‘Tremblay Tonight’ on December 18, 2011 at 8/7c! Special guests, performers and more TBA!

ANTHONY: You started up a charity group a while back. How’s that developing, and what can people do to be involved?

ZACK: ‘Tremblay Wings’ has been going really well! I kicked things off last month with a Charity event for Hasbro Children’s Hospital and ended up raising over $1,000! I have some big things in the works and I am currently planning something special for the Make a Wish foundation! And opportunities to help out with ‘Tremblay Wings’ will be coming real soon.

ANTHONY: You know I have to ask: are you related to mystery/noir author Paul G. Tremblay?

ZACK: No. lol

ANTHONY: And my usual final question: What is your favorite book, and what would you say to someone who has not read it in order to convince them that they should?

ZACK: I have to be honest, I don’t read very often but I have read the twilight series and all I have to say about that is: if you enjoy the movies you will like the books 10000 time better!

Finally I would like to say thank you to all my fans #TeamZackTremblay you guys are amazing and I would not be doing what I’m doing without the love and support you guys give me every day! I have some very exciting things coming up that I can’t speak of just yet but trust me you guys are going to be in for a wonderful surprise and thank you Anthony for always supporting me! You’re awesome –Z

ANTHONY: Thanks, Zack! Best of luck, and let’s talk again soon!

You can find Zack on Facebook, follow him on Twitter as @ZackTremblay, view Tremblay Tonight and other interviews on Zack’s Youtube channel, and visit his official website.

JENNIFER HOLLIDAY, ACTRESS - Interview

It’s Beautiful Women Week here on Rambling On. Today, I talk to the incomparable Jennifer Holliday.  Jennifer is a woman who needs no introduction, but I’m going to give her one anyway. She shot to the top with her Tony Award winning role as Effie White in the original production of DREAMGIRLS, a role she’s reprising for the last time later this year. After lots of personal struggles, 2012 is poised to be a break-out year, as you’ll see in the interview below.

Jennifer Holliday and Anthony Cardno, Photo by Meg Radliff

Jennifer Holliday, still beautiful. Photo by Meg Radliff.

ANTHONY:  I was excited when I found out you were on Twitter and we struck up an on-going conversation. I remember seeing you in DREAMGIRLS during the original run and being absolutely devastated by “It’s Over” and “I Am Telling You I’m Not Going.” We were sitting in the highest balcony seats and it felt like you were standing in the row in front of us. I’m sure you’ve been asked this a million times, but can you tell me a little bit about what doing the show was like, and share a favorite moment or two?

JENNIFER: Being involved in creating a show and being a part of something that is new and innovative. Nothing had been done like this at the time and of course I was young and you know you’re making something happen. You don’t know you’re making a hit that’s going to be around for generations to come, making history, that sort of thing. None of that came to mind.  It was a lot of hard work, and I was doing another show during the night while working on DREAMGIRLS during the daytime, so a lot of it was work and building something.  My memories are kind of in a big ball tied up from the time we put it together: out of town tryouts in Boston and opening and boom I was the star really overnight. A lot of it my memories are not the kind of memories people would think you would have of creating something. A lot of them are melancholy because it was so overwhelming. I try to look back and see where they are from that time, but I have a hard time trying to gather those up. That’s why I think I’ve haven’t written a book about it, because a lot of it was just so much that I’m still sorting through it after 30 years, I can’t find the happy moments out of it. Not that there weren’t happy moments, there were.

ANTHONY: What was the other show you were doing?

JENNIFER: A lot of people forget that DREAMGIRLS was not my first Broadway show. I was doing YOUR ARMS’ TOO SHORT TO BOX WITH GOD at night while DREAMGIRLS was developing during the day.

ANTHONY: You mentioned not writing a book about DREAMGIRLS. Have you ever seriously considered it?

JENNIFER: Well, you know, Sheryl Lee Ralph has a book coming out in March (Redefining Diva: Life Lessons from the original Dreamgirl) and I thought maybe it’s time for me to write something.

ANTHONY: Would it be more of a memoir, a self-improvement book, or … ?

JENNIFER: More of a book where people can take help from it. So I think it will concentrate on overcoming depression. It will be about working on the mind to get through depression. There was a government report recently that said 1 in 5 Americans suffered from mental illness in 2011. I think that’s what I want to talk about and how it was intertwined with my life and my career.

ANTHONY: On Twitter, you are so supportive of everyone who talks to you. I know you’ve had a lot of personal challenges, including the depression you mentioned. What’s gotten you through the tough times?

JENNIFER:  I think that the toughest part of the depression, and I actually tried to commit suicide when I was 30 years old, coming through that, working through that, was about having the right type of therapist and the right medication at that time, and “staying the course” (I know that’s from the Bush era but I just love the phrase). If you make progress even just a little … you keep going. Just be consistent, it will bear results and get you to where you want to go. I have lots of people who I’ve lost, people I knew who just gave up. Depression just wasn’t talked about a lot back then.  Phyllis Hyman in 1995 was supposed to be at the Apollo and took her life just hours before her show, and that was the first one that made me want to talk about it more, that’s when I became an advocate for mental health and suicide prevention. And then Susannah McCorkle, another a jazz singer, leapt to her death in 2001 after years of fighting depression and relapsing, and that was traumatic to me as well. People who give up right before things turn around, and that’s why I say you have to be careful talking about these things.

ANTHONY: Careful about how you talk to folks with depression?

JENNIFER: Careful about how you talk about finding the right help. I’ve dealt a lot with alternative, holistic methods for some of the problems I’ve dealt with. I still believe in doctors and medicine and treatment, I just think you sometimes have to go further. But stopping your meds and thinking you’re alright for a little while is sometimes the problem so I’m careful in how I talk to people about self-treating themselves. Find a doctor who understands your concerns about your meds and will work with you. There are still doctors who care, who take time and make time to listen. For me to be able to have clarity on that, it was a long time before the voices of darkness cleared away for me. One of the reasons I moved from New York City to Atlanta was NYC is a fast paced place and I couldn’t figure out how to slow down. Even getting from airport to apartment was stressful for me. I sleep better in Atlanta and that, sleeping, has a lot to do with our health. I was finally able to do that without taking anything. Things are quieter down here, things are not bustling after 10pm here, so that helped me a lot. I’m always revaluating: what can I do to get more peace, the kind of peace I’m looking for? That’s why 2012 will probably be more a year of prep than a year of performing. I don’t have a desire to be everywhere, but I do have a desire to do great things. I don’t want that at the expense of the peace I’ve found. I do want to have a balanced life.

It’s sad, but depression still has a stigma attached to it. A drug or alcohol problem is far sexier, especially if you go to rehab and “fix” it. Depression is still viewed as horrible, even with more discussion and acceptance.

ANTHONY: People still get that “why can’t you fix yourself, why do you need help” reaction.

JENNIFER: Exactly. Every situation is different. Mine was clinical depression; manic-depression needs to be handled differently, so do the other types. And you need the right professional help.

ANTHONY:  It’s also so true that we never know what’s going on in someone’s head; just because they’re so energetic and social on-stage doesn’t mean they go home happy with themselves. You know I’ve struggled with that, too. Speaking of being on-stage, though:  I just watched your duet with Jennifer Hudson again via Youtube, and of course I got to see you in concert in Chicago back in December. I’m always amazed by singers whose voices don’t falter, and you’re as much a powerhouse as you were in the 80s. What kind of vocal workout regimen do you follow to keep your voice so strong?

JENNIFER:  Discipline always. No vocal warm-ups, exercises, etcetera, outside of performance. That comes from the theater, doing eight shows a week. No drinking, no excessive talking, no smoking; being very strict about how you treat the instrument outside of the performance. That’s why my speaking voice is so different from the singing voice. People are sometimes shocked at the difference. My singing voice became the main voice, so everything goes into the performance: 200 percent. I’ve had no formal vocal training, never sought any. A lot of it I had to just learn for myself. Doing DREAMGIRLS eight shows a week, with one day off, having to be wonderful, to create magic: I had to take care of my instrument in a different way. No partying, no speaking before 3p.m. each day until the show each night.

ANTHONY:  So it’s really more about maintenance than further training?

JENNIFER: You know, even if your voice is trained, that doesn’t train you to perform every night. You have a legit voice, but it still doesn’t enable you to do eight shows a night. You still need the discipline. That’s why opera singers do less shows a month, to rest their voice. I’m grateful I started in theater first. If I’d started as a recording office first, my voice might not have held up as well, might not be the clear powerful voice it is.

ANTHONY:  We’ve had a “Jennifers” Duet. Now, what are the odds we can get the GLEE producers to cast you as Mercedes (Amber Riley)’s mother for an episode or four?

JENNIFER:  I think Glee would be a fun thing to do.  I don’t know how we could get that done. The wonderful thing about Hollywood is you can just happen to meet somebody and boom you’re there, then if you’re not out there in that network you may not get thought of for something like being on Glee even if people know I may have influenced some of what they do – “let’s not get Jennifer Holliday, let’s get someone who sounds like her.” But anything can happen. Dreams are still made and things that seem impossible can become possible.

ANTHONY:  It’s tougher not being in Hollywood or even New York, isn’t it?

JENNIFER: Yes. You know, Atlanta is a place that is becoming connected but a lot of people don’t even know that I live here, and I’m not a networker. But connections still happen. I did meet Amber through Sheryl Lee Ralph.

ANTHONY:  Speaking of Sheryl Lee, How often do you see the DREAMGIRLS cast?

JENNIFER: They’re mostly actors. I’m mostly a singer fulltime, earning a living just from singing. So our paths don’t cross a lot.  But I do see Sheryl Lee Ralph quite a bit because of her activism for AIDS and our relationship with the gay community. And I hardly ever  run into Loretta Devine but the three of us were all together for Sheryl Lee Ralph’s Divas Simply Singing AIDS benefit concert in LA this past October.

ANTHONY: Earlier in your career you did a lot of benefit concerts, especially for LGBT causes. What causes are important to you these days?

JENNIFER:  The same causes are there in terms of the gay community. It all started with HIV because AIDS pretty much cleaned out the Broadway community in 1981-83, around that time. And at that time it didn’t even have a name, it was the “gay white man’s disease.” People were just dying, there was no help for them so it took out a great deal of the Broadway community and had a large toll on our cast at DREAMGIRLS: Michael Bennett, Tom Eyan, Michael Peters, other creative staff and male cast. Both Sheryl and I were thinking about that early on and that’s been our mainstay in terms of activism ever since. And now it’s becoming one of the leading killers of African-American women because of so many men not being truthful and still being on the “downlow.” So that’s something that will still remain because of that connection I have.

Of course with my own problems with depression, that’s an important area for me too. And even though I have Multiple Sclerosis, I have never been a spokesperson.

I think I’m known to be a philanthropist because I help people with a lot of causes that aren’t as public. I’ve done charity performances, etc. “Everybody’s condition is my condition,” as far as I’m concerned. I don’t think I have to be personally touched by that cause or illness in order for me to give help. If I’m available and the timing is right, I’ll be there.

ANTHONY: I didn’t realize you had MS.

JENNIFER: People forget I have it because I am so energetic on stage, and I can walk, etc. It’s no secret but people kind of forget it because I don’t dwell on it, and because I’ve taken the stance that my depression was far worse than my MS was for me in terms of life-and-death. That’s how I’ve always looked at it. I think that’s because the medications that are out there, I’ve been waiting for them to get better. I have been unable to walk and been blind due to the MS. I’ve been taking care of myself, in fact I’ve undergone several controversial types of treatment to get help for my MS. That’s not for everyone.

You know, trying to figure out how to speak about a disease they don’t know a lot about is difficult. You don’t want to give people false hope, and when people are searching for an answer they don’t want to hear certain things. So if people see me out working through the pain, then they can try to draw from that. Even thought they have to take the meds and they’re in a particular situation that’s different from me, they can take inspiration. I’m working with a woman now who also has MS and is also a singer but is in a wheelchair, and I tell her I can’t promise you’ll walk or sing again, but I do you want you to take your medicine, etc. It’s hard when you’re a person like me who grabs life; how do you talk about a cure that worked for you but you know is controversial that might not work for everyone?

I do believe prayer works, too. I think everything starts in the mind. I was diagnosed seventeen years ago, and by the time they narrowed down my symptoms I couldn’t really walk. They did a spinal tap and other tests, to say conclusively “yes, it’s MS.” I asked them “Why can’t I walk?” and they said “Because your brain can’t send a message to your legs.” I thought, “My brain already can’t send a message to anything because I’m clinically depressed and take meds for that! So the depression has to go so I can put my energy to fighting a disease no one really understands and gets misdiagnosed.”  So I started working on my mind, my outlook. And then they put me on the MS meds and one of the side effects is depression and suicidal thoughts! So I had to get off of that medication, and that’s why I explored the alternative methods I mentioned earlier.

ANTHONY: How did you go about that?

JENNIFER: You do your own homework and your own research. Doctors may not tell you the alternatives. So you have to go and research. I had to take myself off of the medicine because it was bringing on the depression and heavy thoughts of suicide! And I hadn’t read the paperwork to know that’s why I was feeling worse.  So I did that and now here I am, and I still suffer greatly with the illness and I was last blinded for almost three months in 2007. But I continue to use all alternative meds and procedures that have allowed me to be my best self. As a performer I’m way better than I used to be before, but a lot of this is me telling myself that this is how I want it to be.

ANTHONY:  I know fans are hoping/wishing for a full pop album. Is there any chance we’ll see one soon?

JENNIFER:  I do want to record this year, but I don’t know what I want to do. I was thinking of doing an album of love songs: some cover tunes and some original tunes as well. I will make a decision this month.

ANTHONY:  Regardless of what genre your next album is, I’m interested in knowing how you decide what songs to record or add to your concert repertoire.

JENNIFER:  It depends on whether I want to try something new, maybe a favorite song that I’ve never performed before. A lot of stuff sounds new to me that I want to try, a jazz standard, a pop song. That’s how I’ve been looking at putting the concerts together. A lot of people think I’ve recorded lots of cds, but it’s only been five albums and two “best of’s,”, so it’s not a lot of material to use in a 90 minute concert unless there are the diehard fans. I had someone tell me “oh I loved Love Story” and I said “oh what album was that on? Oh, 10 people bought that album…”  In a way it’s good that I don’t have lot of material because as I move forward (hopefully singing for another 20 years or so), it gives me a realm of possibility. I can keep recording and it’ll be new to me and new to my listeners and fans, and I’m excited about that.

ANTHONY: Where will you be appearing in the early part of 2012?

JENNIFER: I’ll be in San Diego with Marvin Hamlisch and the San Diego Symphony Orchestra on February 10th and 11thdoing the “Romance with Broadway’s Best” show. I’ll also be doing a number of private performances in the first part of the year. And you know, the recording industry has changed so much that I’m not sure I can get a label deal, so I’ll have to do an independent release with this album.

ANTHONY: Some of my favorite performers are independent artists putting their own releases out there. My friend Casey Stratton had one major label album and went back to producing and releasing his own stuff. It’s not the easiest way to get your music out there, but it gives you more creative control. To bring our conversation full-circle: You just announced that you’ll be returning to the role of Effie White in a special week of DREAMGIRL performances at The MUNY in Saint Louis. Does playing that role ever get old?

JENNIFER: I have played Effie every five years or so in revivals, but I am pretty sure that at 51 years old, this will be the last one. I don’t want to turn into Norma Desmond! I’ll be playing to 11,000 people a night in the oldest and largest open-air musical theater in the country. It’s another dream come true, so it just goes to show it’s never too late to dare to dream new dreams.

ANTHONY: I am going to make every best effort to be there for a performance. And now for my usual final question: What is your favorite book, and what would you say to convince someone who hasn’t read it to convince them that they should?

JENNIFER:  There are so many to choose from. I love The Purpose Driven Life by Rick Warren.  I think it speaks to me now, to where I am and I think it can help people. It’s a Bible-based book; if someone is searching it’s a great support.

I also love Love Leadership by John Hope Bryant.  Another deep one!  Not a Christian book but more about how you do business and work with others and involve loving yourself and others.

ANTHONY:  Jennifer, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me, and for your friendship and support on Twitter!

Don’t forget, you  can find Jennifer on Twitter as @jennifersspot, and you can “Like” her Fan Page on Facebook as well!

ANDREW P. MAYER, Author - Interview

This week my guest is Andrew P. Mayer, author of the steampunk-meets-superheroics trilogy THE SOCIETY OF STEAM.

Andrew P. Mayer

Andrew Mayer was born on the tiny island of Manhattan, and is still fascinated by their strange customs and simple ways. When he’s not writing new stories he works as a videogame designer and digital entertainment consultant. Over the years he has has created numerous concepts, characters, and worlds including the original Dogz and Catz digital pets. These days he resides in Oakland, CA where he spends too much time on the internet, and not enough time playing his ukulele. (from the author’s website)

ANTHONY:  Andrew, thanks for taking the time to chat with me.

ANDREW:  Thanks for having me!

ANTHONY: With The Falling Machine, the first book in The Society of Steam trilogy, you were described as basically the closest thing we’ve got to “What if the Silver Age of Comics happened in the 1800s?”  Did praise like that (Clay and Susan Griffiths even compared you to Stan Lee) put any pressure on you during the writing of the second book?

ANDREW:  Writing on the second book had been completed by the time the first one came out. Between January and May it seemed like everything was happening almost at the same time, with copy edits, and whatnot. It was all a blur to me, especially since I’d never published a novel before.

But the pressure on the third has been huge. I definitely read my reviews, and as a game developer I’m always trying to figure out how I can respond to my audience.

A lot of writers say you should ignore all that, but it’s interesting when you find someone has a criticism of your work that you find yourself agreeing with, and it makes me want to respond.

Ultimately though, it’s all about finishing.

Hearts of Smoke and Steam (Society of Steam, Book 2)

ANTHONY:  Hearts of Smoke and Steam, the second book, is now available. Where does the action pick up in relation to the end of the first book?

ANDREW:  It starts out a few months after the events of Book One, with Sarah Stanton trying to pull together her life and figuring out how to rebuild the Automaton after she’s run away. Unfortunately for her the consequences of looking to find someone who could rebuild Tom have left her more vulnerable than she realizes.

ANTHONY:  From the way The Falling Machine ended, it was pretty clear that Society of Steam is a fully intentional trilogy, rather than what Jay Lake recently described as an accidental one (where a book does so well, the publisher says, “let’s give the public a couple more”). Was your publisher on board from the beginning for a first book that ended with a cliffhanger, or was there any discussion of making it work as a stand-alone just in case sales weren’t good enough to support a sequel?

ANDREW:  It’s funny but I get a lot of people complaining about the cliffhanger. For me it seems thematically clean—Sarah has made a journey. But I can see why some folks are upset that it ended the way it did…

The series was originally intended as two novels. Honestly I had never completed one before I started, so there was some hubris in thinking I’d even be able to write two. But then, near the end of 2010 I called Lou and asked if we could do a third one, as I’d written four fifths of the novel, and had only just reached the big battle at the end. He was all for it, and lo, a trilogy was born!

ANTHONY:  Did you take any kind of break between writing books one and two? And if so, did you work on anything else in between?

ANDREW:  I took a sort of break. I had fully intended to work on some other things during that time, but my life as I knew it was sort of collapsing, so that ended up taking a lot of my time. I did manage to start putting a plan together for what I wanted to do next, and I’m hoping to start working on those things the moment book three is wrapped up!

The Falling Machine (Society of Steam, Book 1)

ANTHONY:  I’ve described The Falling Machine to friends as a mystery with two detectives: Sarah Stanton has the more straightforward search for Dennis Darby’s killer, and then there’s the Sleuth’s back-alley attempt to pull the bigger picture together. Does Hearts of Smoke and Stone have a similar structure?

ANDREW:  Hearts trades in the detective mystery for more of an action/romance plot. In the first book Sarah was looking for trouble, and in the second book she’s found it!

But there are some similarities. I’d say that Anubis picks up the baton that the Sleuth drops in book one, and he gives us some insights into the Children of Eschaton.

ANTHONY:  Speaking of The Sleuth, I absolutely adored the little glimpses we got of the relationship between him and Dennis Darby.  Is there any chance we’ll see their history developed throughout the second and third books?

ANDREW:  You’re not the only one who has told me that he wants to see more of them. We do get some more glimpses into their past, but not to the same degree. It really becomes the tale of the next generation going forwards.

That said, I’m not done with Darby and Wickham yet. With a little luck, I’ll be putting out more of their adventures before the end of 2012.

 ANTHONY:  How long do you anticipate it will take to complete the final chapter? And will that be it for these characters and this fun world you’ve created? Or is there the possibility of more stories beyond the trilogy?

ANDREW:  Forever? No, wait… Two or three months.
I’m writing furiously, but the story has been wanting to grow even as I’m heading towards the finish line, so I’ve needed to replot a little bit to get it to where I want it.

The goal now is to get a draft down as soon as possible and have the manuscript in the my editor’s hands sometime in March.

As for more: yes, definitely.

ANTHONY:  That makes this reader very happy.  In general, what is your writing process like? And how, if at all, has it changed over the course of the books?

ANDREW:  Outline, write-write-write, revise outline, write-write-write, revise outline, etc until done. That worked really well for the first two books, but I experimented with some different tools and methods when I started book 3, mostly because I wanted to see if I could improve things a bit. After a few months I realized that it wasn’t working out for me, and I went back to my previous process.

I also think that getting a good ending demands that I replot. I always want to be expanding, and at some point to get to the end you need to start drilling down. It’s been an interesting challenge.

ANTHONY:  It seems you’re rising to that challenge, though! Now for my usual closing question: What is your favorite book, and what would you say to someone who has never read it to convince them that they should?

ANDREW:  One book I absolutely love is Anthony Burgess’ “A Clockwork Orange.” It takes you into a believable near-future and at the same time casts a burning light onto our own culture. That’s something I think that all great sci-fi should do.

It’s not an easy story to read because the protagonist is basically a monster. But understanding why such a terrible creature can be sympathetic is one of the joys of the book.

I also adore the way Burgess unapologetically played with language and idiom, and I always tried to put a little of that into my work. In the society of steam I think it’s there with the accents, and the cadence that I use with the Automaton.

ANTHONY: “Clockwork” has been sitting on my TBR pile for a while now. I’ll have to get to it and see if I recognize any of Burgess’ influence on you. Thanks again for agreeing to be interviewed, Andrew!

You can read more about Andrew Mayer and the Society of Steam (including an excerpt from THE FALLING MACHINE) on www.andrewpmayer.com. You can also follow Andrew on Twitter as @AndrewMayer, and he has an author page on Facebookas well. In fact, The Society of Steam has a page of their own on Facebook!

DON DELILLO's MAO II - Book Review

Don Delillo is one of those writers I feel like I should have read long before now. Somehow, he did not come up in any of my Lit courses in college, and I have not sought him out since then. Two years ago the owner of my local independent bookstore recommended MAO II.  Dave’s recommendations have always been spot-on before and as is my habit when recommendations are made while I’m in a bookstore, I immediately purchased the book, put it on a shelf at home, and promptly forgot about it.   But lately I’ve been on a “clean out the bookshelves” binge, and this was one of the books I decided I wanted to read before trading in at the used bookstore.

Plot-wise, the back cover tells us MAO II is the story of reclusive author Bill Gray who, stuck for years now on a failed novel, is inspired to leave his reclusive life and become involved in a group’s attempts to get a French poet released from hostage captivity in Beirut.  Bill’s sudden change in attitude is brought on by an encounter with a world-renowned photographer, and his actions leave his obsessive-compulsive assistant Scott and Scott’s girlfriend Karen at a loss for what to do while waiting for Bill’s return to what they consider normalcy.

That’s the plot, but the book is “about” something larger. It took me a few days after reading the book to figure out exactly what that larger thing is. Ultimately, I think, the book is about the Cult of Personality. DeLillo litters the book with references to Andy Warhol, to Chairman Mao, to the Ayatollah Khomeini. Anyone who fails to draw at least a surface connection between Bill Gray and J.D. Salinger just isn’t paying attention. Scott is concerned that Bill’s reputation and reprint rights are based on what people think he is up to in his seclusion, and that if he publishes this latest novel (failed or not, we never really get to see the contents) people will no longer be intrigued. The French poet is held hostage by a Communist terrorist building a following in Beirut, whose followers give up their own identities to be a part of his. Even the photographer, Brita, builds her career around a sort of cult: she travels the world photographing writers almost exclusively.

The opening section of the book, which focuses on Karen and takes place at the Mass Wedding lead by the Rev. Moon at Yankees Stadium, almost lost me. DeLillo bounces between at least three (that I could count) distinct points of view, sometimes in mid-paragraph, and the feeling I had by the end of the section was that this work was going to be too pretentious, too arty for me. Had the rest of the book continued in that vein, I might not have been able to finish it.  Happily (for me), the remainder of the book is written a bit more traditionally. Actually, it becomes a bit heavy on the dialogue side for a while — characters jumping on various soap-boxes and rambling, dissembling, reminiscing, pontificating. At first, the penchant for characters to spout non-sequiturs bothered me, but ultimately that’s what real conversations are like, aren’t they?  So DeLillo does capture that aspect of real life, even if some of his diatribes go on a bit long. He also does a nice job of allowing we, the readers, to see where all of the characters ultimately end up even if the characters themselves have lost track of each other.

I can’t say that MAO II has inspired me to rush out and start reading everything Don DeLillo has ever written, but I am glad I made the effort to read the book.

READING HABITS - Anthony R Cardno

I made the decision not to post book reviews here on www.anthonycardno.com anymore because I felt like it was a conflict of interest with advertising my own writing.  That doesn’t mean I can’t discuss books I’m reading, though, right?

My reading tastes are all over the map. I keep it varied for a number of reasons:

1. I burn out easily. Too much of any one author or in any one genre makes me antsy and bored. If I’ve read 5 books in the same genre back to back and I’m not enjoying the last one, I start to feel guilty that I’m not giving the book a fair shake because I’m watching for the tropes (if the titles are all the same genre) or the author’s tics (if I’m reading a lot of one author).

2. I feel the need to expand outside my comfort zone. I’ve challenged myself to read more non-fiction (and to read more non-fiction than just memoirs), and to read more fiction in genres I don’t ordinarily visit. Expanding my horizons can only help my writing, right?

3. I keep meeting interesting new authors on social media like Livejournal (Jay Lake) and Twitter (Jeremy C. Shipp, Bryan Thomas Schmidt) and that extra contact increases my urge to sample their work sooner rather than later.

4. Book Clubs. I joined my office’s book club to help me read more “literary fiction,” and I joined Shara’s book club on Livejournal to read more fantasy and SF, as I’ve largely been concentrating on mysteries and urban fantasy in the past year or so. For the office book club I just finished Robert Goolrick’s A RELIABLE WIFE, and for Shara’s book club I’m in the middle of Octavia E. Butler’s FLEDGLING.

5. Being a Paid Reviewer. Last year I sold a book review to ICARUS magazine, published by Lethe Press. They’ve offered me the opportunity to do more for them. They want reviews on books in the LGBT horror/sf/fantasy realm, an area I’m not all that well-read in. Just finished my first review for them: LYNX by Joely Skye.

I tend not to read books that sound too similar to my current WIP though. So I’m avoiding college-set mystery-thrillers at the moment so they don’t influence what I do with Ambergrin Hall.

I’m wondering, fellow writers, what you read and how far-ranging your reading is and how it influences your own writing.

REUNIONS, Illusion - Anthony R Cardno Blog

It was pointed out to me a while ago that there are two themes that seem to crop up consistently in my writing. I can’t say that either of these is a conscious choice. I don’t sit down to start a story and think “oh, the theme for this has to be…” I get intrigued by a character or an image or a piece of dialogue and the story goes from there. But in looking back over my published and unpublished work, I can see that these two themes do seem to be prominent.

One is a search for self, or an exploration of personal identity.

The other is the idea of Reunion, of people long separated encountering each other again.

In Christmas Ghosts, one of the current works-in-progress, both themes are present. Sixth grader Colin McCann is trying to figure out who is in the aftermath of his older brother’s sudden death; he also seizes upon the possibility of a Christmas Eve reunion with his brother thanks to something he reads in a book.

Despite the presence of the idea of reunion in much of my writing, I actually have attended very few reunions in my adult life that weren’t officially a part of my job. When I was a kid, every summer we’d attend a family reunion on my maternal grandmother’s side of the tree; a decade or so ago we had a string of years where my father’s side of the family held well-attended reunions of which I managed to show up at just one.  I’ve missed my high school graduating class reunions (Mahopac High School Class of 1984, coming up on 30 years now), and my college graduating class reunions (Elmira College Class of 1993, coming up on 20 years).  My former job held annual winter reunions for their summer camp program; while I enjoyed attending those, it was also part of my job so there was no chance of not knowing when or where the event was happening.

Thanks to a change in travel plans for my current job, I found myself able to attend a reunion this weekend at my old high school. Back in 1984, I was lucky enough to be chosen as a vocalist for music department’s “rock ensemble” Illusion.  Illusion had started in 1981 as part of a “jazz-rock ensemble” before splitting off to find its own identity in 1982. Thirty years later, now under the direction of an old friend (and former drama student) of mine, it is still running strong and pulling in packed high school auditorium houses. The tenor of the show has changed (in our day all 8 vocalists were on stage the entire time and background-harmonizing on most songs, and we had a horn section; now the vocalists rotate and the horn section is long gone) but the spirit and drive are still there.

The reunion itself was held before Saturday night’s performance, in the high school library. I was one of the first to arrive, but not by much. Two hours brought a lot of familiar faces, and a lot of peeling off into smaller groups to catch up or to tour the high school. I saw people I never thought would remember me (Rich Lucchese! Tracy Smith! Matt Schoenberg! Bob Huott!), the shy underclassman when they were the group’s stars. I saw several of my fellow band-members (Deb Schwartz! Joey Apicella! Tom Huott!) and a lot of folks who were involved in the plays I directed and stage-managed at the school after I graduated (Jon Lobell! Jay Dalupan! Jude-Ann Esposito! Mike Rizzuto! Michelle Laubin!).  There was a pretty clear demarcation between the “Oldsters” (circa 1992 and earlier) and the younger crowd, but there was some mingling.

I’m pretty sure there was a smile on my face the whole night.  Because of the extensive traveling for my current job, I don’t get to attend a lot of events like this, but I’m glad the forces of the universe aligned to get me to this event.

And I’ve been thinking about Rich Lucchese’s idea of putting a history of Illusion together in book form, tracing the way it morphed from ensemble to almost-Glee-like show choir to genuine rock band.