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Tag Archives: greatest weakness

Interview with Neelima Vinod

09 Sunday Jun 2013

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Guest posts

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

books, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Dracula, good poems, greatest weakness, guest blogging, guest posts, Interviews, Neelima Vinod, paranormal romance, poetry books, sense of rhythm, Unsettled, Vampire Month, Vampires, writing, Yakshi


Today we are back with Neelima Vinod, author of the recently released novella, Unsettled. Neelima was originally supposed to be contributing this interview to Vampire month but circumstances conspired and instead she sent us a piece of fiction. I promised her the chance to answer the Vampire month questions when her book finally came out and so here are her answers…70112929-019 copy

1) What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

I remember writing  letters to my grandparents on blue envelopes that doubled as writing paper. I wrote to them at great length about the things that I did and the books I was reading. I wrote poems a great deal as well. When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step? After my sons were born. It’s been seven years since I made that decision. I had always chosen to do jobs that had a lot to do with language like editing, and literature, like teaching. But  it was not enough. I needed to write more. So I wrote for magazines and blogs. I worked on writing fiction and poetry that I would like.  I searched a long time for my voice. When I was presented with an opportunity to write a novella last year, it happened easily.

2) What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

My strength has to be my love for poetry- that gives me a sense of rhythm when I write. The amazing part of the digital age is the immense access you have to poetry. Although poetry books are not flying off the shelves, there are archives and archives of good poems and readings. This ability to read almost any poem out there has opened my world.  My weakness is that I keep editing what I write. That slows my pace. What I try to do now is write continuously without being overburdened by the possibility of change. Yet I keep faltering….

3) Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

Well my ebook ‘Unsettled’ is straight out of the place where my ancestors lived. The same hundred roomed house, no ghosts though! I’m romantically attached to Kerala in southern India,  especially my mother’s ancestral homeland. I visit Kerala often and  the images of the sunny green palm studded landscape seem to have seeped into my heart and mind.

4unsettled-200x300) Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

Wuthering Heights is a book that I love- it’s the first book about haunted love that held my undivided attention.  The Victorian writers set the stage for the paranormal excesses that we see today.

5) What drove you to write about Vampires?

The story ‘Unsettled’ has a vampire seductress- what is called a yakshi in subcontinental literature. I grew up listening to stories about yakshis- my mother and grandmother are good story tellers. As they spoke about their lives, I lived those lives too and the idea of a yakshi appealed to me a great deal.  A yakshi is normally pictured as insensitive in stories and movies, though she is also worshipped in some parts. The female stereotype irked me a great deal- the idea seemed absurd that a beautiful woman would hang on a tree and devour innocent men who could not help being tempted by their delicious floral scent. The yakshi will make a night of it and then devour the innocent man and leave his nails and hair like trophies for all to see. Why is she so angry? I often wondered. So I decided that my yakshi would be less woman, though she is terribly attractive, and more human.

6) What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

There are so many people in one person- a part of each of us is fascinated by negativity as it is as much a part of life as all things bright and beautiful. People read vampire fiction for thrills- it makes you feel terribly alive when you read it.

7) In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

You can’t beat Count Dracula….he’s a precursor of all the fanged blood suckers that come after.

8) What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

I’m hoping Thathri, my yakshi would win that one Her kohl drenched eyes and lustrous hair give her a slight advantage.

9) How well do you think one of your characters would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

Well the Count may just get smitten by the yakshi…she’s far too seductive to ignore.

10) Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

The story is about a search for love. When a couple who fall out of love go in search of the scrolls of love, they come face to face with a paranormal reality. A yakshi guards the scrolls at the hundred roomed house- she has been haunting the Big House for centuries. Although the book is about an outward search, it is a psychological drama of a seductress who is angry at the deck of cards called life she’s been given. The story goes back and forth in time- there is the present disillusioned Indian couple and there is a story that happened five centuries ago.  We all search for love but suppose our search is the very basis of the existence of someone else’s memory? What then? That’s what I wanted to talk about.

[Vampire Month] Dianna Hardy Interview

20 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by D.A Lascelles in Guest posts

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

A Silver Kiss, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Demons, demons and angels, Dianna Hardy, Eric Northman, greatest weakness, guest blogging, guest posts, poetic things, Poetry, professional writer, Spike, The Witching Pen, Vampire Poetry, Vampires, Witches, writing


This week we take a close look at author (and Vampire poet) Dianna Hardy as she suffers the probing questions of the interview…

Dianna Hardy is a multi-genre author of paranormal things, dark things, poetic things, sexy things, taboo things, and sometimes funny things. Writes about witches, demons and angels. All info can be found on her website DiannaHardy.com

What is the earliest memory you have of writing? What did you write about?

I think the first “book” I ever wrote was Little Miss Rainbow, when I was around eight years old. I drew pictures in it and stapled it all together, but don’t ask me what the story was actually about because I have no idea – I can’t remember! Possibly something about how Little Miss Rainbow got her colours, or shares her colours to make people happy.

When did you decide to become a professional writer? Why did you take this step?

I thought I was going to be a professional writer at around sixteen and seventeen, when I was heavily into my poetry phase, and also writing a few short stories, some of which I managed to get published in small press magazines (before the days of eBooks!). Those ideas were quickly stifled by people that scoffed at the idea, and by a general disappointment in the education system at the time (I was doing my ‘A’ Levels). So I sort of brushed it aside for other stuff. More recently, it was giving birth – almost three years ago now – that had be going insane with boredom, and wondering what the hell I could do with myself. There’s something about being a mother that really asks you to tap into your creativity, and I refound my love of writing again. Only now, digital books exist and self-publishing is accessible. I never looked back.

What would you consider to be your greatest strength as a writer? What about your greatest weakness? How do you overcome this weakness?

Greatest strength: characterisation (that is, getting inside a character’s head).

Greatest weakness: procrastination. The solution? I have no idea I’ll let you know when I find it!

Tell us about the place where you live. Have you ever derived any inspiration from your home or from anywhere you have visited?

I am not inspired at all by where I live at the moment. I like countryside, or at least being within 20 minutes walking distance of a good country / woodland walk, and at the moment, I’m living in a town that’s sort of grey and a little urban, and … ugh … I’d love to move away. Countryside and natural things around me inspire me: rolling hills or mountains, trees, woodland, etc.

Which book, if any, would you consider to be your greatest influence and inspiration?

I do not even know where to begin with this question – there have been so many over the years. More recently, it was reading Heather Killough-Walden’s Big Bad Wolf series that inspired me to write paranormal romance, not least because that was a self-published series that hit the Kindle bestseller list (and has since then gone way beyond that). I loved her writing style and the story, and it motivated me to write my own paranormal romance series – The Witching Pen Novellas. (This one’s not about vampires.)

What drove you to write about Vampires?

Vampires have always been a huge love of mine. They’ve always represented a shadow to be embraced; monsters in which you can find beauty within ugliness. It was this concept that inspired me to write A Silver Kiss (Vampire Poetry). This is a gothic collection of dark, freestyle and rhyming poetry that studies the above idea of the shadows within human nature, using the vampire as a tool for that study.

I’m also a third way through a novel called Project Veil (working title), which is my own brand of vampire mythology. There’s no release date yet, but keep an eye out!

What do you think is the attraction for Vampire fiction? Why is it such a popular topic?

Everyone is looking to find beauty and acceptance within their darkness – that is what vampires represent, and that is why I feel they are popular.

In a fight between all the greatest Vampires of fiction, who do you think would come out on top?

Oh God, I don’t know! Probably Spike from Buffy, because he handles his torture with tongue-in-cheek humour and is forever the optimist. That smacks of ‘winner’ to me.

What about in some other contest such as sexiness or dress sense? Who would win that one?

Eric Northman for sexiness (when he’s being a bad boy, not when he’s being a drooling romantic).

How well do you think your character would fare against the winner(s) of the above?

Oh, my main guy in the upcoming Project Veil would win hands down. Even I’m drooling over him, and I wonder if that’s the real reason why I had to stop writing the novel for a bit 😉

Tell us the basic premise behind your latest novel.

 I can’t really talk about Project Veil yet, as it’s so new and still being written and plotted out. But I can talk a little about The Witching Pen Novellas and its spin-off novel The Last Angel. I touch – just touch – on vampires in the third book of the series, The Demon Bride, and they’ll be mentioned again in The Last Angel, although vampires will not play an active part. They are intertwined with my mythology involving ‘bloodthirsty angels’. From this mythology, comes the book Project Veil. So although there will be no direct link between my current series and Project Veil, there will be that mythological tie that is touched on in The Demon Bride and The Last Angel.

 Current info can be found here: http://www.thewitchingpen.co.uk and anything about Project Veil will be updated on my main website, or my Facebook Page.

 

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