Tell us a bit about your latest book, and what inspired you to write such a story.
How far back do I need to go to set up the prologue? I’ve been scribbling down stories since I was a very small child, drawing pictures to go with them, and binding them into books. When I was seven or eight, television shows were often too intense for me to watch and I would turn the program off at the halfway point and write my own endings for the story.
I remember very clearly watching Captain Kirk battle the Gorn captain on Star Trek and deciding that Kirk was in serious trouble and needed me to rescue him. I turned off my grandmother’s television set and went outside to compose my own alternate ending to the story. Almost a decade later, I came across Arena by Fred Brown in a science-fiction anthology. I fell on it eagerly to find out how the story really ended. By that point I was already a voracious reader—I read sci-fi, murder mysteries, non-fiction science and natural history, and just about anything else I could get my hands on. I preferred stories with plot—romance was an added fillip—but stories that were solely romance-based tended to make me roll my eyes and invent some drama for the main characters to overcome.
As I grew older, I continued to make up stories in my head. If I loved a book or a movie, I wrote myself a role so that I could also take part in the adventure. I spent hours inside my head ‘filming’ scenes in loving detail when I should have been studying in school or doing my chores. I tried my hand at some fan fiction—dreadful stuff for which I am relieved no hard copies exist. I never submitted any of it anywhere. There was no Internet back then and I was too shy to contribute to the fanzine mailing lists.
I do remember reading an anthology of fan-written Star Trek stories and thinking they were some of the best short stories I’d ever read.
I graduated from high school and moved on to college. I told myself I needed to put the ‘games’ of youth aside. I concentrated on my studying and my career. I put my entire creative being in stasis. I told myself I’d grown up and moved beyond such things.
A few years ago, a friend introduced me to a new sci-fi show and the fanfic that went with it. What an eye-opener. There were literally thousands of people, just like me, who wanted more stories about their favorite characters and if they couldn’t find the story they wanted to read, they wrote it themselves. Fanfic became my new obsession, and I spent hours reading and absorbing it. Eventually, I began writing and posting my own stories.
Writing fanfic for me is all about the characters—making them stay as true to themselves as possible within the context of the story you choose to tell. I write fanfic because I enjoy those characters and want to spend more time with them and their world. I want to continue their adventures beyond the material we’ve already been given. I can think of no greater compliment than to hear that my characterization is dead on target or that the story I wrote would have made a terrific episode. That means that I got it right and that the voices and characterizations ring true to the reader, even if I place the characters together in ludicrous situations or pairings never meant by the original creators.
I joke sometimes that writing is an addiction and that I wish there was a 12-step process to kick it. The reality is that, if I have a choice between writing and doing just about anything else, most days I will choose to write. It’s hard for me to believe now that I let decades pass in which I refused to acknowledge this joy, this passion.
Original characters are yours from the ground up. They introduce themselves to you and before you know it, they’ve moved in with you. They share your meals, reaching over the newspaper to snag the jam. They ride with you to work and explain why they refuse to follow the plans you’ve laid out for them. They speak from the heart and reveal things about you that you’ve forgotten or issues that you thought you’d resolved long ago. They remind you that everything you’ve ever experienced is grist for the mill. Even while you are in the middle of an emotionally painful event, they will whisper in your ear how this would be the perfect scene for a story someday and you just know you are going to use it.
Writing original fiction is one of the most intimidating, yet fulfilling and satisfying things I’ve ever done.
The characters from Unspeakable Words, John Flynn and Jerry Parker, hold a special place in my heart. They marked my first real departure from fan fiction . It was fascinating to watch them evolve and grow from a mere concept into the reality that they are today. They began as flat, two-dimensional characters and grew into people as I spent more time with them. I learned that Flynn punishes himself in small subtle ways on a daily basis because he can’t forgive himself for his role in his sister’s disappearance when he was a teenager. Jerry finds the rituals of cooking soothing and an antidote to the stresses of his work. I’m not sure how that happened, to be honest. I’m a dreadful cook myself!
I’m already planning to tell more stories about them. There’s so much in Flynn’s past to explore, as well as the progression of the relationship between him and Jerry. I have plans for them, she says evilly, rubbing her hands together with ill-suppressed glee.
I love stories with a hook. So while my stories are usually about relationships and character growth, I like putting my characters in unusual situations and seeing how circumstances stretch them. In Unspeakable Words, I take two men who would normally be antagonistic to each other and force them to work intimately together due to a bizarre situation. They are forced to depend on each other and this brings them closer together in unexpected ways. I love the juxtaposition of the everyday with the unusual, but you have to know how your characters would behave normally before you can know how they would behave under stress.
What are you working on now? Anything you want to tell us about?
I recently complained that I have too many hares and only one hound. Normally I work in a very systematic plan: one story ready to submit, one work-in-progress, one story in the planning stages. That seems to have gone by the wayside recently. At the moment, I’m preparing a novel for submission about a Vampire who is tired of the Life and seeking to make a new existence for himself. He longs to be normal, even though he knows that’s just crying for the moon. He’s friends with a pack of misfit werewolves (another black mark against him), has an old lover who might not take no for an answer, and is trying to quell his attraction for his sexy new neighbor. I’m particularly attracted to Tate myself for that matter, so I can see his dilemma.
I have another WIP about a gargoyle statue that comes to life every night. A chance meeting with one of the tenants of his building turns into an unlikely friendship and more, as the gargoyle manages to teach the human about life and love while daring to seek the same for himself.
I’m planning a story about a would-be author with a bad case of writer’s block, whose car breaks down in a town where time has stopped in the 1940s—and he has to find the person who is stopping time and convince him to start living again.
While working my horse the other day, I came up with this idea for a story in which an ad exec inherits a horse farm from his estranged industrialist father. He sees it as an intentional slight on his father’s part—as close as he can get to being cut out of the will without actually being disinherited. However, Andrew discovers his true calling (and his true love) out there in the stables. The story laid itself out for me as I watched my horse trot on the lunge line. I love it when those moments happen for me and they happen most often when I am walking the dog in the woods or doing mindless barn chores.
I’m also planning a sequel for Unspeakable Words, in which Flynn and Parker seek a solution to the strange powers Flynn has developed, only their attempts to return Flynn to normal make things much, much worse (insert maniacal chuckle here).
If one of your books were to be made into a movie, which book would you choose and who do you see playing your characters and why?
Oh, that’s a fun question! In fact, it’s so interesting that I asked my friends to tell me who they’d cast for Unspeakable Words and why. I also asked them to supply me with pictures to make their case. It was terrific fun to see the answers they came up with—especially because I think they made better choices than I would have made myself!
The leading contenders for the role of Special Agent Jerry Parker were Colin Ferguson (Eureka) and Robert Sean Leonard (House). Colin Ferguson physically matches my mental vision of Jerry, and his character on Eureka is often out of his depth as he deals with freaky occurrences. Robert Sean Leonard was nominated because a) he looks good in a suit and b) he does uptight and long-suffering so well.
I got some interesting suggestions for John Flynn. My favorite choices here were Gerard Butler (rawr!) and Dylan McDermott (Dark Blue). Both men have that dangerous edge to their looks and I believe they have the ability to carry off that sense of tightly controlled vulnerability that we get from Flynn as well. I have to say, I think Dylan McDermott comes a bit closer physically to my mental image of Flynn here.
Oddly enough, Michael Weatherly (NCIS) received nominations for both roles. I can see it… the actor can do both comedic dorkiness and dangerous sexiness very well. I suspect that I would cast him as Parker over Flynn however.
I think this is a game I’ll have to play again in the future!
What are your favorite pizza toppings?
Ah, pizza. I knew thee well. At the moment, pizza is on a Do Not Touch list while I try to figure out some food allergies. Cheese. Tomato sauce. Bread. Pepperoni. These are the four food groups, right?
Which do you prefer: Mac or PC?
Now this is tricky because I have no recent experience with any Apple products other than my iPod. I had an Apple II E back in the day, and had to get special permission from my college professors to submit papers printed out on a dot matrix printer. Today’s Mac seems so hip, so funky, so desirable in many ways. I find myself craving an iPad and an iPhone, despite having a perfect serviceable Blackberry. I don’t know that I want a Mac so much as I want their advertising and marketing firm.
What’s the first thing you did when you received word you’d sold a book?
I emailed everyone who had read it and encouraged me to submit it for publishing. Then I bounced around in my chair a little and wondered who else I could tell that would get it, who would really understand why this was such a big deal for me.
What do you read and why, especially if it's different from what you write?
Recently, someone asked me what two books I’d take with me on a desert island. I chose Gaudy Night by Dorothy Sayers and Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen. I added as an aside that anything else I wanted to read, I’d write myself. Cheeky answer, I know, but given that I spend so much time writing stories in my head, it is the truth.
Two books… only two books. I had to narrow down the choices. Gaudy Night is a masterpiece of writing. Sayers involves you deeply in Harriet Vane’s return to her old college to solve the mystery of a Poison Pen within the community. We soon realize that the nasty prankster is not the only dilemma she faces, as Harriet is at a turning point in her life. She must choose between a life of scholarly research and cloistered study verses the life of a worldly novelist with all its messy complications. One of the choices Harriet also faces is whether to accept the next (and last) offer of marriage that Lord Peter makes.
It just so happens to contain one of the most intensely erotic moments between two characters that never actually have physical contact together in the scene. I try to remember that when building sexual tension between characters. Hot isn’t always about physical contact. It is about the emotions and tensions created between the two characters in the scene.
Pride and Prejudice is simply fun. It is my comfort book; the book I turn to when the world is proving to be a bit too much for me and I long for a simpler time. Austen’s observations are pithy, cutting, and deliciously devastating. I love reading about the trials of the Bennet family and Austen’s keen, understated commentary on the idiosyncrasies of humanity that still hold true today. Cleverly told, well-written stories never, ever get old.
I grew up reading all the writers from the Golden Age of Mystery: Sayers, Christie, Tey, Marsh, Allingham, Wentworth. I read every science fiction book I could get my hands on: Asimov, Heinlein, Clarke, Bradbury, and so on. I’m a huge David Weber fan—I love his Honor Harrington series. I love the Harry Potter books, the Belgariad by David Eddings, The Lymond Chronicles by Dorothy Dunnett, Laurie R. King’s Sherlock Holmes and Mary Russell series, Sue Grafton’s mysteries, the Amelia Peabody books by Elizabeth Peters… I could go on endlessly here. My idea of the perfect way to spend a Sunday afternoon is to take the dog for a hike in the woods and stop by the bookstore on the way back home. I think it is fundamentally necessary for an author to be a reader as well. Reading gives you an inherent feel for dialog and sentence structure, as well as storytelling itself.
I love stories of adventure and mystery, with kick-ass heroines and heroes with issues. I believe in heroes, however. My heroes might be flawed, but in the end, they will do the right thing, even if it is the wrong thing for them personally. My own stories tend to be a quirky blend of humor and angst, with a dash of emotional and physical trauma (as well as some hot sex!), but they generally turn out well. I recently read a description of a novel (not mine) that ended ‘hopefully ever after’. I really liked that concept. Because if things end all neat and tidy with the principles riding off together in the sunset, then where is the scope for future stories about them? I like the idea that I can revisit my characters at some future date and still find they have stories to share with me.
Which of your covers is your favorite?
To date, Unspeakable Words is the only story that has an individual cover, as my other published works are short stories. What I love about this cover is that it captures one of my favorite scenes in the novel—when Jerry is making breakfast and Flynn comes wandering in barely wearing a towel. At that point in the story, the characters don’t know each other that well and are still testing each other in various ways. I think that comes across in this cover, from the Jerry’s surprise at the sight of Flynn and Flynn’s deliberately casual state of undress. I love the way that Flynn is in the act of wrapping the towel around his waist and how low it is slung on his hips.
I only recently learned that the artist who illustrated my cover is Paul Richmond. When I went searching online for his work, I discovered that he’d made a video for the “It Gets Better” project and in it, he talks about his art and how various pieces reflected how he felt at certain times in his life. His work is amazing and his story very moving. I’m honored to have had him illustrate my cover.
How do you world build?
That’s a good question. I can tell you that though I adore research and believe in researching a topic thoroughly, I am not a big fan of detailed outlines—the more I outline a story, the more it seems to suck the life right out of it for me. I used to diligently prepare outlines and by the time I’d finished, I’d felt on some level that I’d written the story already and never jotted down a single word. Without an outline, my mind is free to scroll through scenes and images, until the bits and pieces suddenly coalesce to form the whole of the puzzle.
Most stories start with a single image or idea in my mind: a character leaning against a World War II Spitfire, a vampire who wants to be ‘normal’, a character sent to an alternate reality where he must live up to the reputation of his other self. Often the entire scope of the story will lay itself out for me in great, broad strokes (like the barn story I mentioned before). I’ll jot down those ideas—just enough to remind me what I was thinking, but not so much as to smother my will to tell the tale. If the idea takes hold, a title usually comes to me shortly afterwards—a good title is my best indication that I have a decent grasp of the story I want to tell.
I also love to start from the standpoint of ‘what if?’ What if my protagonist got stuck in a time distortion field… and didn’t know it until someone from outside showed him how much time had passed? What if my hero never lived up to his potential… until he was pulled into an alternative reality and he had to play the role of himself as a better person? What if you force two characters that don’t really like each other into a situation where they must depend on each other for survival?
Before I started writing fan fiction, I used to get bogged down in minutia. My characters would get stuck for hours in the bathroom or kitchen. I believe in adding a wealth of detail; I want the reader to be able to see what I am picturing when I write the scene. There is a difference, however, between rich descriptive background and taking the character minute by minute through his day! Fan fiction taught me the mechanics of storytelling. I learned that I did not have to tell my stories in a linear fashion—that I should write the scene that I saw vividly in my mind at that time—and worry about stitching together the scenes in the correct order later. It sounds most haphazard and dysfunctional, doesn’t it? I swear to you though, before I learned I could do this, I never finished a story.
If I can see it, I can write it. If I can’t see it, I can’t make it work. Quite often, when I get an idea, I take great care not to read similar works by other authors in order to avoid being unduly influenced. I recently tried my hand at a Vampire novel. I haven’t read anything in the genre; what I know is strictly what I’ve gleaned from watching horror movies over the years. I have to admit, at one point I was sorely tempted to run out and read some Anne Rice to make sure I wasn’t too far out in left field, but I decided as long as I had a plausible explanation for why everything worked in the manner I’d described, there wasn’t a problem. Who’s to say that one person’s view of a mythological being is more ‘right’ than mine?
I spend a lot of time in my worlds. I re-read what I’ve written repeatedly, so I can pick up the threads of an idea or theme (sometimes not even previously recognized by me) and weave it further into the story. I think about how rooms look, how things smell, and the play of light and shadow. My goal is to write that one sentence that makes you not only recognize on some visceral level what I have described but also makes you see the entire scene in Technicolor detail. When you tell me that you love my characters and you could clearly picture them, you have made me one very happy camper indeed.
Tell me about some of your heroes and heroines:
Oh goody! I mean, who doesn’t want to talk about their characters? They become friends that you invite into your homes, after all. Where to start… Well, I like my heroes a little damaged, so I usually hurt them in some way. Um, that sounds bad, doesn’t it? I guess I think that people tend to be more interesting with baggage. So there’s Jeff Hawkins, who witnessed the murder of his family at a young age and has been protecting himself against emotional attachments ever since. Special Agent John Flynn also fits that description, having lost his sister to a serial killer that has never been caught. Rodney the Gargoyle reads Dickens and the Bible, and knows more about living than the human tenant in his building. Peter is avoiding his sister because she disapproves of his lifestyle, not because he’s gay, but because he’s a werewolf.
I like my heroines to be clever and independent. They don’t play games; they say what is on their minds. Paige decides she’s going to take advantage of that chance encounter with her favorite actor, despite having been rude to him initially. Tish stands up for herself as the only woman in Nick’s misfit pack, ignoring the unwritten rules governing werewolf behavior.
My characters often find themselves faced a choice: remain as they are or live up to their full potential. I like seeing my characters grow and evolve within a story. I’m all for passionate, explicit sex, but I like to know how my two characters got to that point and what is in store for them afterward. That means I have to know them as people, and if I am going to spend that much time with them, they have to be people that I like.
Do you use a pen name? If so, how did you come up with it?
Yes, I do. I’ve always liked the name Sarah (much better than my given name). My parents did not give me a middle name when I was born. Madison is a common family name and I chose to use it as my middle name when I was in high school. It was the first name that came to mind when I thought about writing under a pseudonym. It wasn’t hard to put the two names together when I needed a pen name—only I wish now I’d googled it first. Apparently there is an American actress by that name, which makes it a little confusing when you google me.
Where can readers find you on the ‘net for more information on you, your books and other fun stuff?
I’m on twitter: http://twitter.com/akasarahmadison
On Live Journal: http://akasarahmadison.livejournal.com/
You can find my stories at Dreamspinner Press: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/index.php
Story Excerpt from Unspeakable Words:
Available on Dreamspinner Press: http://www.dreamspinnerpress.com/store/product_info.php?cPath=55_305&products_id=2058
He sensed Flynn’s presence behind him before he heard him speak.
“Something smells good in here.”
Jerry turned to say something offhand but then completely lost track of what he’d intended to say. Flynn was standing in the doorway to the kitchen, wearing a towel slung low around his hips so that his hipbones showed. The hair on his chest was not too much, just right in fact, tapering down his long torso until it disappeared beneath the towel. He was drying out one ear with another towel, his hair standing up in startled spikes. On the chain around his neck, he wore a simple, tiny silver cross, the kind that a preteen girl might wear. His left shoulder bore the ugly, puckered mark of a bullet wound, the shiny scarring of skin suggesting that the wound wasn’t all that old. Jerry knew from his record that Flynn had been shot in the line of duty about six months ago, but the record didn’t say much more than that.
Flynn had shaved, but his jaw still held the suggestion of a beard. It was probably as close as he ever got to being smooth-cheeked. A hint of soap and the smell of clean, damp skin and aftershave wafted in Jerry’s direction before being lost to the smell of coffee and bacon. The combination of odors struck Jerry viscerally with a little bolt of lust that surprised him.
“Breakfast will be ready in a minute,” Jerry said tersely, turning away to get a second mug down from the cabinet.
“You didn’t have to go to all this trouble,” Flynn said, slinging the towel in his hand around his neck.
Jerry shot him a look. He wondered what kind of game Flynn was playing here. He obviously was aware that Jerry had checked him out; it was evident in the little smile that played around his lips. Was this his way of saying he was so secure in his sexuality that it didn’t bother him? Jerry suspected that was the case.
“Oh. Right. Never mind. This is how you always start the day. What’s in the oven?” Flynn looked amused, something subtle in his eyes that suggested it was at Jerry’s expense. He also looked completely comfortable there in his stupid towel with his hairy legs and his bare feet.
“Frittatas,” Jerry said crisply. He blamed the heat of the oven for the flushing of his face.
“That’s some egg thingy, right?”
Jerry found his gaze drawn to a single bead of water dripping from one of Flynn’s sideburns, making its way in a crooked line over his collarbone. He swallowed before speaking. “Philistine. Yes, some egg thingy. Best eaten hot. You’d better get dressed.” He cleared his throat.
Flynn gave him a little half smile and left the room. Jerry watched the way the damp, soft terrycloth of the towel clung to his ass as he walked away. He took a sip of coffee and made a face as he realized he’d forgotten to add cream. Yep. It was going to be a long day.
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