Say Hello To...

Suki Michelle and Carlyle Clark, authors of the intriguing novel The Apocalypse Gene. They've generously stopped by for one of the quirkiest interviews I've seen to date, so without further ado:

Please tell the readers a little about yourself:

Carlyle: I am diametrically opposed to myself. What does that mean? I like mixed martial arts, and I like the symphony. I love Jay-Z & Chopin, football and musicals, going to events filled with people but only the ones where the point isn’t to socialize (movies & concerts), talking to myself and answering myself (normally in the voice of our insane cat who is of the species Impus Demonicus).  

Suki: Half the time I have no idea what I’m doing. The other half I’m trying to undo what I did when I didn’t know what I was doing. That leaves, let’s see . . . one more half. That last half is divided into three halves, one for working, one for writing, and one for asking the mother of all rhetorical questions . . . WTF?

How about your latest release?

The Apocalypse Gene takes place in Chicago in the not-too-distant future. With Pandemic ravaging the globe, fifteen-year-old Olivya's psychic Sight compels her to see 

auras riddled with the colors of despair as she and her mother care for the dying in a their home-based hospice. When her mother becomes infected, Olivya turns to Mikah.

Mikah, a boy Olivya has been crushing on in virtual-school, is a powerful Empath who claims the Pandemic is linked to his clan, the Kindred and its leader, the brooding immortal, Ashmodai. With Mikah's aid, Olivya races to unearth Kindred secrets, desperate to find a cure, only to discover the Pandemic is far, far more than a mere disease . . .

What was your primary inspiration for this book?

Carlyle: This is always the tough question because telling what inspired The Apocalypse Gene is a spoiler. By day, Suki is a medical transcriptionist, The inspiration came after a long day typing medical reports and Suki playing the what-if game. What if the world was is in the grips of a Pandemic and the cure had nothing to do with medical science? I came on board because Suki was struggling with the plotting. I thought it was a brilliant idea. In fact, I was jealous I hadn’t thought of it myself, so it was a no brainer for me to team up with her.

Do you have any muses?

Carlyle: Suki, is both my muse and my editor, which causes equal amounts of inspiration, trepidation & perspiration.

Suki: Carlyle’s alter ego, Brain Creature, is my muse. When BC writes, the concepts and prose are brilliant. Motivated by jealousy, I write.

Do you control your characters or do they flog you into shape?

We flog them, they flog us into and out of shape. Our characters insist on being themselves and refuse to act in a particular manner just to make it easier for us, so we bandage up our bleeding whip-wounds and do their bidding.

When you write, is there a special routine you follow?

Suki: Nothing rigid. Carlyle is a mad man when he writes, intrepid, happy to lay it out fast and free, knowing he will go back and fix things, what he calls the “spray and pray” technique. By contrast, I can spend hours tweaking a single sentence. With this wide range of writing styles and complimentary skill sets, The Apocalypse Gene couldn’t have been written this well by either of us alone.

If you could be one animal, person, or at a place for a day what/who/where would it be?

Suki: I’d be a cat so I could finally learn the mysteries of the creation while simultaneously gaining first-hand understanding of the true psychopathic mind.

Carlyle: I’d be a sperm whale because the depths of the ocean are a fantasy world. I’d get to mix-it-up with giant squids and go all Moby Dick on whalers with my big bulgy forehead.

Five random facts about you:

Suki:

I’m a people-person with a low tolerance for people (a frustrating irony).

Cashiers, waitresses and toll booth clerks find it impossible not to tell me their life story.

My super power is asking a question about a TV show and having it be answered precisely one second later IN THE SHOW - an uncanny yet completely useless skill.

I suffer from odd-number phobia. (Note: This is #4.)

I love Sookie Stackhouse even though she both pronounces and spells our name incorrectly.

Carlyle:

I am one of the few people in the world who was literally paid to watch concrete dry.

I caught the Lake record bluegill at Poway Lake, but I ran away without giving my name for the announcement because I was supposed to have been in school at the time.

Our bed once collapsed under my weight alone, long after Suki left it, proving that I can defy physics by weighing more by myself than I do with another adult.

I think I’m funny.

I didn’t do it (no matter what the video shows).

Are you working on any new releases later this year?

Suki: Not this year, but we’re busy drafting the sequel to The Apocalypse Gene.  Also, Carlyle’s noir-meets-thriller novel, The Black Song Inside, is almost complete, and he’s putting the finishing touches on his epic fantasy, The People’s Champion.  I’m working on a YA speculative fiction piece called The Simpleton.  

Anything else you’d like to say?

Thanks to you, Lindsay, for giving us this forum and to your readers for making it through our nonsensical answers and, hopefully, for giving out novel a try. The first chapter is posted at our website. We wish you and your readers peace, love, and wonderful fantasies.

Contact info:

www.theapocalypsegene.com (Primary Website)
 www.facebook.com/TheApocalypseGene (Olivya’s fan page)
www.facebood.com/MichellePlusClark (Co-author FB page)
www.theapocalypsegene.com/cy-chi (Blog)
www.Storymavens/wordpress.org (Author blog)
www.Parker-Publishing.com
www.Twitter.com/@Suki_Michelle

AND, check this out: A giveaway! WOW! Just click on the picture to be taken to the entry form.

You can visit these two at their next stop, http://theawesomemagicattic.blogspot.com. I'll have a review of this one posted on the 22nd of this month, so be sure and drop back by!

Tuesday's Maniac Story

Yesterday, I asked for two random words on Twitter. The words flooded in, and I now have a sufficient amount to make devious stories every Tuesday for three months. Here's the first one. It's a lot darker than my typical writing, and likely slightly disturbing. Hope you don't take offense! The random words are in bold.

drip The singular sound reached the young girl’s ears as she came out of a sleepy haze with her head spinning. drip She blinked hard, trying to bring her surroundings into focus. drip The vague memories of the night before tried to filter through the pounding hammer tapping on her skull. drip

She struggled to sit up, but suddenly realized her hands were bound behind her back with some sort of hard, rough plastic. drip As the panic set in, she struggled against the bonds and rolled off the hard metal bench jutting from the wall. thud The floor met her face and she whipped her head into the air. drip drip drip drip drip Her face was coated in a slimy substance that reeked of urine and cow shit. It fell from her chin in a steady stream as she struggled to spit it from her mouth. drip

The girl steadied her breathing to allay the offensive odor and thought intently for a moment. Her forehead hit the floor, intentionally this time, to give her leverage and force her to her knees. drip Her eyes adjusted to the dark room slowly. The bench was to her back in the windowless space and straight ahead was a door with a tiny barred window, providing only the smallest strip of flickering light. drip She struggled to her feet and looked out of the window. “Hello?” she called tentatively. The only reply was the steady drip and a moth that fluttered out of sight.

“Shit,” she whispered and turned back towards the room. A figure standing in the far corner watched as she gasped and fell backwards against the door in shock. She screamed loudly, but still no one came from the outside.

The tall and bulky figure approached slowly and murmured a quiet, “Shut up, bitch,” before he stuffed a ball gag into her open mouth and sealed it quickly behind her head. The girl stumbled away along the damp wall towards the bench again. She had no idea what was going on, but she knew she had to distance herself from this man-beast, or create a diversion to make a possible escape.

But there was no way out. drip The water drop landed on her hair and streamed down her forehead as the man approached again. A glint of silver reflected off a long sword as he unsheathed it from a cover attached to his belt. He turned to look at it, and she caught his profile just long enough to make a connection. drip An image flashed into her mind: Her car, careening madly on black ice, and a man staring down at his dead dog under her tire.

Fear struck through her, a long chord of black and grey and everything that goes drip in the night. He chuckled softly, as though sensing the change in her. drip “You remember, don’t you?” The girl could do nothing but shake fearfully and slide down the wall in an effort to protect herself. “That was my dog you hit,” he said softly, and twirled the sword in the light. “He was my friend, my only friend, and you killed him.” The man knelt down close to her and ran the sharp blade along her cheek. drip She felt a trickle of hot red blood make a free fall onto her shoulder.

He laughed, a soft and maniacal sound from deep in his stomach. “Since you killed my only friend, it’s only appropriate that you pay.” The sword drove deep into her thigh and the girl made an attempt to scream. drip The pitiful sound was blocked by the ball gag.

drip He turned and walked to the door quietly. “Welcome home, Fido.”