: What came first, Raylene's character or the concept behind Bloodshot?
: They went hand in hand, really. One day I was thinking about vampires and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder - that is, how many vampires from many different cultures had this particular built-in problem. According to a number of legends, you can escape them by throwing a handful of rice, or grain, or sand ... because the vampire can't chase you until he or she has stopped and counted every single bit of it. And I just felt like this was one aspect of vampirism that had gone largely overlooked by modern lore ... but I didn't just want to write about a counting vampire. (As an aside, it's worth noting that Sesame Street beat me to that particular handling, anyway.)
I often enjoy treating frivolous subjects with deadly seriousness - for example, zombies - and I thought it'd be interesting to write a vamp who has actual, serious, even crippling OCD. As it turns out, severe OCD runs rampant in my mother's family; I've been watching relatives wrestle with it my whole life, so I had a lot to draw from. Therefore, Raylene evolved rather naturally, rather quickly - once I'd decided what my take on the whole thing was going to be.
: Vampire fiction is as hot as ever, what did you find to be the biggest challenge in coming up with a fresh take on the genre?
: Once I had the OCD angle in my sights, the biggest challenge for this book/universe in particular was to present the condition convincingly, without making too light of it. Raylene is from the same planet as the TV character "Monk," but she's far less self-aware - and she goes out of her way to be funny ... and that was the balance I had to strike: presenting a funny character whose condition I don't make fun of.
: You seem to delight in exhaustive research in your Clockwork Century novels, what was the most interesting piece of information you dug up while writing Bloodshot?
:Probably the most interesting and - frankly somewhat alarming - piece of info I turned up was with regards to the CIA. I don't want to give away any spoilers, so I'll say instead that all that stuff Raylene learns about CIA employees and their capacity to moonlight in problematic gigs ... is true.
: I've always been impressed with the sense of place that you impart in your writing. What do you look for in a city before you sit down to write about it?
: Why thank you! And I'm not sure how to answer this, except to say that it requires a measure of familiarity on my part ... and that's pretty much it. I hate writing about places I've never been before; and I love digging into local history, wherever I may be. Local history is usually the weirdest reading in the world - far weirder than anything I could make up. Lucky for me, I've traveled quite a lot - and I have at least a passing familiarity with a good number of cities.
: Finally, can you give our readers a little hint about what's next for Raylene and the cast of Bloodshot?
: Three words, dude: Magical. Penis. Bones. That usually gets people's eyebrows up.
| Categories: buzz, SciFi & Fantasy, Horror |
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