Sunday, January 17, 2010

Guest Blogger: Kate Austin

Kate's winner is: Becky. Congratulations, Becky! Thanks to everyone who participated.
Never say never…

I happen to love paranormal and I read it all the time – from vampires to witches to psychics and on to demons and ghosts. I love it all. But I’ve, over the years, thought of myself as a women’s fiction writer who writes a little magic realism into her books, the word realism being the key to the magic for me. So in Awakening, the heroine ends up in an alternate reality – kind of along the lines of the great old Gene Kelly movie, Brigadoon. In Seeing is Believing, the heroine has the gift (or curse) to see death in photographs. But these characters, and their worlds, are pretty normal in every other way. They live their lives in a way that you would recognize.

Paranormal, though, for me is a whole other ballgame. Werewolves don’t live their lives in a way that’s similar to our lives. Nor do vampires or demons or angels or even, for the most part, ghosts.

So I read paranormal writers for the same reason I read romantic suspense. I’m never going to write either of them – romantic suspense because you have to be able to plot a book and I can’t and paranormal because my characters basically live in this world – so my voice isn’t affected by the books I’m reading when I’m working on a book of my own.

Never say never.

If someone asked me (and they did, still do, because I read so much of it) what I would write if I wrote paranormal, I’d say if I wrote paranormal, I’d probably write about witches. Or maybe some kind of shapeshifter – though not a wolf for some reason. A cougar or a mountain lion. Definitely not demons. Too much Buffy, I think, for me to get into a demon as a romantic hero.

Never say never.

One day I was sitting with my partner on a deck next to the Pacific Ocean, the sun was shining and the water was as blue as the Pacific can get. And I asked him – he’s Persian – whether demons were something that showed up in Persian stories. Yes they do. So we started talking about demons and I wondered, out loud, what it would take to transform a demon into a good guy.

I added Ali and his story to a story a friend had told me a few days earlier about the boy who had once taken her to her high school prom and then disappeared from her life. He’d showed up after forty years, having followed her through friends and on Facebook and the Internet for almost five years before getting in touch with her.

Never say never.

I’m a writer who never brainstorms a book, never knows what’s going to happen in the next sentence, let alone the next paragraph. But after several hours and a few glasses of wine, I had the outline of the first Demon Next Door book. Ali, once Lord of all the demons, sprang into this world pretty much complete and all I had to do was write him down. Now Ali has a pretty active sex life – and his world demons don’t have sex – with the girl who lives next door to him and he needs to rescue her from – you guessed it – her high school prom date.

And for me the even weirder thing was this. I knew right from the start that there would be more than one book, that there would be many stories of demons following Ali into the human world. Morteza – a little bit of whose story shows up in the Pleasure Club series story called The Demon – is going to have a book of his own in the next couple of months.

So I’ve learned my lesson. Never say never. Because the world is just out there waiting to make you eat those words.

www.kateaustin.ca

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Kate will give away a copy of her e-book to one commenter. Her winner will be selected and posted on Tuesday evening. Check back to see if you won.

9 Comments:

Blogger Cecile Smutty Hussy said...

Oh welcome Ms. Austin!!
Hey Ms. Linda! Ms. Linda, you never cease to amaze me to bring new authors my way.

This books looks very yyummyy... Oh I meant it looks like a very interesting read. LOL!!! I love the contents of this book. Please drop my name in the hat!

PS... Ms. Linda, how is Dev coming along??
Hope everyone has a great week!

6:41 PM  
Blogger Unknown said...

Hi :)
Thank you for introducing me to Kate Austin and thanks to Kate for sharing here. I really enjoyed this heartfelt post!

6:44 PM  
Blogger Lynda Hilburn said...

First, welcome to Kate! Happy to have you here.

Hey, Cecile! Great to hear from you. I'm madly working on the third Kismet book. Dev is fine and dandy! He's ready for his next adventure, and his next romantic encounter with Kismet. LOL

6:48 PM  
Blogger Becky said...

I really enjoyed reading this post. This book sounds really interesting.

7:09 PM  
Blogger elaing8 said...

A new author for me.
I agree Cecile,it looks like a very yummy book

7:21 PM  
Blogger Kate Austin said...

Cecile - you're right. I hadn't thought of this book as yummy, but it is. Really. And Ali is very yummy too. I've been blessed all along by the cover gods and goddesses and this is one of my favorites.

Kate

12:32 PM  
Blogger Kate Austin said...

RKCharron, thanks so much for your comments. I think the "never say never" for me really happened (I'm going to give away my age here) a couple of years ago. I've been single pretty much all of my life (I'm 53 now) and I LOVED it. Loved first dates, loved having friends and traveling. But a couple of years ago I said to my friends, I've finally figured out my life. I was meant to be single. Within two days I met my new partner. Never say never.

Kate

12:34 PM  
Blogger Kate Austin said...

Becky and Elaing8 - thanks so much for commenting and I'm glad you're here. I love Lynda's blog and it's now on my TBR pile. The good news? The online pile takes up way less room in my apartment, though no less time in my reading!

Kate

12:35 PM  
Blogger Rosie said...

Hi Kate, welcome and thanks for the great post. This book sounds great since I'm a paranormal junkie. Just can't get enough!!! :-) Thanks again.

10:51 AM  

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