INTERVIEW and GIVEAWAY
Love on the Run
by Dean C. Moore
Love on the Run is currently on tour with Goddess Fish Promotions. The tour stops here today for my interview with the author and a giveaway. Please be sure to visit the other tour stops as well.
Description
Husband and wife thieves are on a mission. Just not the same one. He’s out to pay for her cancer therapy – at any costs. She’s out to humanize him, and make him less of a self-absorbed jerk.
The fast-talking, fast-acting, adrenaline seeking duo pick up a few on-again off-again sidekicks along their way, despite staunch protests from Zinio. But with all they’re up against – not the least of which being one smart, hound-dog of a lady detective – the question is: Can love conquer all?
Excerpt
“Any big ideas, bright guy?” Delaney said, holding the broken rearview mirror in her hand to check out what was going on overhead, to avoid giving those inside the chase helicopter the satisfaction of her looking up.
“Just drive straight into the ocean.”
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
“Why would I be joking at a time like this?”
“Okay, fine, I’m sorry for picking on you so much. I know you’re doing the best you know how. There, I said it. You happy?”
“I’m not depressed, Delaney. I just need you to drive into the ocean.”
“A psychotic break? Is that it? You picked now for a psychotic break? Why not all those times I chewed off your male appendage, metaphorically speaking—not to make myself out as a man-eating black widow?”
“You dragged along the equipment I asked you to, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So, you get it now?”
“Yeah, duh. God, that just makes so much more sense in context.”
***
Kerry looked up from the photos of the couple to the big screen again. Her jaw dropped as she watched Delaney drive the convertible Thunderbird straight into the ocean. They made no attempt to get out of the vehicle; they let the sea swallow them up along with the car.
“Are we finally rid of them?” Carter said.
Kerry started chuckling slowly. The guffawing grew into a geyser of loud laughter, which finally subsided. “No, Carter, not yet.” She glanced back up at the screen. “God, that’s clever.”
Praise for the Book
"The story is smart and funny." ~ R. D. Hale, Sky City: The Rise of an Orphan
"For the booklover that doesn’t like having his or her time wasted." ~ Jack Heath, Remote Control
"This would make a brilliant movie or TV series." ~ Demelza Carlton, Ocean’s Gift
"Reminded me of The Thomas Crown Affair, down to the whip-cracking humor, the snazzy plot turns, and the character dynamics between the leads and the hotshot female detective on their tales." ~ Rhys Jones, The Whispering Void
"Only if you want an action packed read with fully developed and interesting characters." ~ Victor Longshanks, One Big Problem
Interview With the Author
For what age group do you recommend your book?
Most of my books are very family friendly and in film terms would be classified as PG-13. Love on the Run definitely complies with those guidelines. Sticking with the film analogies, this one is closest to The Thomas Crown Affair with Pierce Brosnan. But other films come to mind, such as Fun with Dick and Jane, After the Sunset (also with Brosnan), and Bandits (with Bruce Willis and Billy Bob Thornton.)
What sparked the idea for this book?
I guess I’m a bleeding heart liberal and human rights activist at heart, and it bothered me that there are people out there suffering from all sorts of maladies that will be terminal without proper medical attention, care that should be on a list of expanded human rights, to my thinking. And then there is what we’re doing to the elderly… You’d think with axes to grind like this that the book would be fairly dark and depressing. But it’s just the opposite. It’s probably one of the most wickedly funny stories I’ve ever penned, and about as light-hearted as I get. Factor in the fact that the global economy had just tanked at the time I was editing Love on the Run, and well, I had a few choice reactions to that too. So if social injustice bothers you, but you’d much rather be entertained than educated on the matter, you might find Love on the Run pulling at your heart strings, and for more than just the roller coaster ride of emotional ups and downs and romantic turns between the husband and wife thieves.
Which comes first? The character's story or the idea for the novel?
The character’s story definitely comes first. Scenes just start popping into my head in no particular order. Eventually they get shuffled into the right arrangement, and I begin to get a better sense of what the story is about, what my leads and the rest of the ensemble cast are trying to say to me through their interpersonal conflicts, their trials and tribulations. Once I have a better bead on that, I can begin to work with my characters more closely to help them tell the story they want told. It’s a collaboration. If I let them have their way entirely the stories would lack the structure they need to ever make it to the top of a bestseller list. I guess we need each other, and what this really is, is a very advanced form of co-dependency.
What was the hardest part to write in this book?
For me, the ending, because I knew it would mean being away from these two for a while, and I’d really miss them. But before I could justify jumping into the sequel, I had to see how the book did in the marketplace. As it is, it’s kind of an orphaned duckling. Most of my novels fall into the sci-fi and paranormal fantasy categories. I’m really not known for this kind of stuff. Accordingly, I’m keeping my fingers crossed readers will give it a chance. And if they do, then I’d like to take their comic hijinks on a tour of the Caribbean next. Setting the sequel in that part of the world would definitely get me back to my roots, as I spent my childhood in Trinidad.
Of course, to truly know how the story will be received by the public, I first have to let them know it exists! Initially I just threw it atop the largest slush pile of books in the world on Amazon and hoped for the best. That turned out not to be the best marketing plan. I’m hoping with this book tour that Love on the Run will finally start to get some of the attention it deserves.
How do you hope this book affects its readers?
I hope it’ll forever change them, of course. Writing is a form of alchemy. If I work my magic well, we all arrive on the other side, writer and reader alike, more enlightened, more heroic, more emboldened to take control of our lives and make the world a better place. Fiction is an amazingly transformative force, perhaps the most powerful one in the universe. Though I’m more spiritual, per se, than religious, I think there’s a reason the Bible is written in parables. If you want to transform people from sinners into saints, so you can get them to walk on water, and perform any number of other miracles in the service of a higher power, you don’t lecture them, you don’t simply engage their rational minds. As much as any of us is capable of logic, it’s rare that we can say our lives are governed by it. This is why a story only requires a suspension of disbelief. The real power comes from fiction’s ability to align the right and left hemispheres of our brains, to bring into sync as well our superconscious, conscious, and unconscious minds. When we can recruit that much mind power, we can do anything. I don’t recommend you try this at home, expanding your mind unassisted, that is; it’s just too difficult. That’s why those Zen monks are often found in caves decades after the fact with their fingernails growing through their palms as they pressed their hands together in meditation. No, by far, the easy, short route to enlightenment is to just pick up another book.
How long did it take you to write this book?
That’s a tough one to answer. It went through numerous incarnations as a screenplay first. And then I finally decided, nope, I can’t give the ensemble cast of quirky characters the attention they need from me in one hundred and ten mostly white pages. So I started converting the screenplay to novel form where it went through numerous additional drafts. In between, some years lapsed where I was writing other things, and allowing life to get in the way (always a fatal mistake.) No matter what’s going on in a writer’s life, he has to discipline himself to not let it get in the way of the writing, otherwise, life always will. I started this one when I was younger and, well, less disciplined.
Back then no one saw the greatest global economic downturn since the Great Depression coming until it landed. When I went to dust off the manuscript, I found that it was curiously more relevant than ever, as the hardships experienced by the characters had become a far more global phenomenon. Suddenly it wasn’t just a curiosity, or something to pull at your heart strings if you’re empathetic to the plight of others; it was something most of us were living in one way or another.
The short answer: years and years. But rest assured, now that I’m older, wiser, and more mature and disciplined, I expect the sequel will be accomplished within a year without breaking a sweat, provided there is a demand for it.
Let's hope there is! What is your writing routine?
I find I have to keep changing it up. What works fabulously at first starts to feel a bit claustrophobic after a while; the routines and the rituals cease to liberate and start to suffocate. I used to jump on the computer first thing in the morning. I tend to be more energetic in the early part of the day (early bird syndrome.) Now I find if I dedicate the morning to my workout and jog for an hour or do my P90X routine, then I’m that much more charged up when I do the writing. There’s more blood pumping to the brain, and with that, less effort to connect the dots, even within an intricate storyline.
How did you get your book published?
I tried the traditional route. But they live in a completely different time zone. I felt I was constantly having to take my mind out of hyperspace to get stuck in ordinary space-time, like the Star Trek Enterprise when its warp drive engines fail. With Star Wars, I recall Hans Solo screaming when the hyperdrive engines failed at the worse time and having to run back there with the wrench to procure a fix to get him out of an impossible situation. With me that fix was self-publishing. That way I didn’t have to wait a year to land an agent, another year for the agent to land a publisher, and a couple years for a publisher to sit on his duff hemming and hawing, perhaps requesting some changes, only to decide, "Sorry, great story, we’re just not sure comedy drama is in fashion today." Add to that the wasted year in every five spent writing query letters, synopses, and I finally said, who can endure this? What kind of masochist exactly?
Hell, even if the system were working for you, and you were making tons of money at it, why do this to yourself? If it’s just about the money, get a day job. And with the publishing industry basically in upheaval now, more and more writers, even long established ones are arriving at the same conclusions. They get more freedom and control over the quality of their product on their own, making it easier to hold on to artistic integrity, as opposed to neutering every part of the story to make sure it couldn’t possibly offend anyone anywhere (as if “art” wasn’t meant to push buttons on some level.)
Especially for those of us who can get out more than a book a year, owing to better time management skills in part, and in part to writing for so many years, going the indie author route means that many less books stacked up in the closet just waiting to get looked at. CreateSpace was a revelation and a liberation of the soul.
Very insightful, Dean! What advice do you have for someone who would like to become a published writer?
Take full advantage of the renaissance happening in publishing and the arts in general with the new tools and technologies that take control and vested interests out of the hands of the top one percent and liberate the other ninety-nine percent of us. For whatever you think of the Occupy Movement protesters, they had that much right. There’s far too much centralization of money and power going on in the world to do anybody any good. With that in mind, use these technologies to empower yourself. And remember to pay it forward. If you wish others to take the time and the risk to discover a new writer, then you have to be willing to do the same. The new Renaissance Age is a come one, come all age, where there really can be no one on the sidelines. If it’s just a culture shared by a few, then it’s something quaint and esoteric, and it fails to be part of a global shift in consciousness. That’s why I set up my blog on my website dedicated to promoting indie writers, not just anyone, but the gems I find along the way.
Aside from changing your reading and writing habits, the most important thing to change is yourself; as Michael Jackson said, "if you want to change the world, start with the face in the mirror." Lucky for you, writing is the most transformative force in the world and your shortest path to enlightenment. Which gets us to the most important part of all - at the risk of borrowing from Nike - just do it.
Do you hear from your readers much? What kinds of things do they say?
I have readers who just read paranormal fantasy and who don’t ordinarily stray into sci-fi tell me that they loved even my books which are a hybrid of the two. I think that’s because I don’t get carried away with the technical jargon and concepts that might be great for sci-fi fans but merely entice fantasy readers to skim.
I’m also frequently thanked for portraying women in my novels as more than just love interests. They’re empowered, strong characters, co-protagonists and co-antagonists, with equal weighting and equal chances to determine the outcome of the story.
Fantastic. What can we look forward to from you in the future?
You can find what’s on the drawing board for 2015 at my website, get a flavor of the stories from the covers and the blurbs. 2015 is shaping up to be a year for sci-fi and hi-tech paranoid conspiracy thrillers with a hefty dose of paranormal fantasy. Think of genetically enhanced folks or robots with telepathy, telekinesis, and teleportation capabilities, along with the capacity to shape shift.
That said, I would love to get feedback from folks on which of the new titles interest them most, as that might well influence my priorities. In the same way that I’d like my readers here to buy all of my existing books so they can weigh in with their big picture view on which franchises are closer to their hearts and which they’d like to see a sequel from first, I’d like to know these kinds of things in the early developmental stages as well. Crowdsourcing my priorities strikes me as a valid approach to helping me decide how to better use my time! Needless to say I love all my children equally, which makes these unassisted decisions a bit maddening at my end without these kinds of handholds.
Thank you for taking the time to stop by today, Dean. Best of luck with your future projects.
From the Author
I write sci-fi, fantasy, action-adventures and thrillers, or some combination thereof - usually with a strong vein of dark humor. Though, my works are dramas first; the humor is there to take the edge off as with the Raiders of the Lost Ark, Transformers, and Jurassic Park franchises.
I wrote screenplays for a while, and while enjoying them, I found them a bit confining. After a while you just need the extra page count to flesh out characters better and do additional world building, especially when considering doing anything epic in scope. I also took a run at future forecasting and trend tracking, being as I always had my head in the future, things like Alvin Toffler’s Future Shock. I also relished this, and can certainly see myself releasing a few titles accordingly in the nonfiction area. But since delving into novels, short and long, I’ve definitely found my home and my voice. For the first time I feel the restraints have been taken off of my imagination. I suppose all mediums have their limits, so I may end up doing a mix of things, but I suspect I will continue to spend most of my time with novels. Series add an additional dimension, allowing for even more depth and development both in the character and world building departments. But I remain at heart a divergent thinker, so, no surprise, I seem to have more series going than follow up installments at this point. That too may change over time; we’ll see. Until then, it may be best to just think of these books as one-offs if you’re fond of my writing style and some of the themes I work with.
My current catalog of twelve books represents a little over five years' worth of work. I'm currently averaging a couple books annually. Of my existing franchises with multiple installments, The Hundred Year Clone books can be read in any order, while the five books of Renaissance 2.0 must be read in sequence as they form part of a singular story arc (much as with A Game of Thrones).
I live in the country where I breed bluebirds, which are endangered in these parts, as my small contribution to restoring nature's balance. When I'm not writing, or researching my next book, I may also be found socializing with friends, or working in my organic garden.
Giveaway
Enter the tour-wide giveaway for a chance to win a $20 Amazon gift card.
Links
