Interview withR.J. Merle for Savage Winds

Author R.J. Merle stepped out of the realm of Top-Secret documents (shh, don’t tell…) to write sci-fi and paranormal fiction.

 

R.J. survived and escaped both the entertainment field and the government-contracting environment, craves the Walking Dead, and entertains what-if tidbits about “supposed” technological and biological advances.

No stranger to the goings on in the city of Oak Ridge, Tennessee, R.J. Merle blends a down-home flavor with a former in-the-know—hypothetically, of course—technical background to craft the twists and intrigue of Secret City Adventures.

 

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1. At any given time do you work on only one story at a time and maybe plot out the next one or are there many ideas racing around your head? YES! (Most definitely in all caps with an explanation point, then times three.) At any given time, while I am plotting one book, I first draft a second, while polishing a third. Always there are ideas racing, so I jot them down so that I can maintain focus on current projects.

2. Is there a genre you haven't written in but would like to? Or wish you could write in? While Savage Winds and the Children of the Elements is YA Science Fiction Adventure with horror elements, my next series is YA Horror focused and is about psychically gifted teens on a ghost busting TV show and their haunting adventures. The first book in the is scheduled for release this spring.

3. Do you add an element of romantic suspense in your stories? The Children of the Elements Series features suspense and action of the science fiction/paranormal/horror kind.

4. Say you have unlimited funds: What kind of writing office/cottage would you create for yourself? Honestly, after years of being under the impression that I had to have big chunks of time set aside to write, I’ve trained myself to write anywhere at any time, even on a Canadian floating fishing lodge and in the Australian mountains. Anytime I can claim 15 minutes, I write.

5. If you could turn your novel into a TV show, which novel or series would you do? Where would it be set? Network TV (ABC, NBC, CBS), Cable (AMC, BBC, Lifetime) or Premium Cable (HBO, Showtime, Starz)? The Word-o-gram for the Children of the Elements Series would include descriptions such as Psychic Powers, Telekinesis, Apocalypse, Electro-Magnetic Pulse, Zombies, and Mutants; therefore, AMC, since AMC most awesomely hosts the Walking Dead.

6. Finally, tell us about your latest release!
A dangerous conspiracy unfolds...

In Author R.J. Merle’s whirlwind start of the Children of the Elements series, a clumsy teenage techno-geek struggles to protect kidnapped children from a covert government organization responsible for creating their abilities to control the five elements.

A mighty wind…

Eighteen-year-old Stedford Thackett’s conspiracy theorist brother ensnares him in a real life children-as-weapons plot, while a determined scientist grooms happy-go-lucky five-year-old Darcie Lynn Carpenter to use the wind as a deadly weapon.

Out of control...

Despite the firm hand of Scientist Nora Hicks, Stedford struggles to rescue the kids and escape, even as Darcie Lynn fights to gain control of the surging power of the savage winds.

 

 

Where to Buy: Please Note Savage Winds is FREE!

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Excerpt:If only Stedford could spend his Saturday afternoon working on projects. Nowhere near as lucrative or fun, keeping track of Cantrell was a honking full-time job.

Up ahead, a left-to-right movement shifted among the towering tree trunks.

He choked out a loud whisper, “Cantrell?”

 
A coyote howled. Behind him. Too close.

 
A rush jolted through Stedford’s veins. He shoved the phone into his back jeans pocket and dashed into the brush.

 
Branches slashed and snapped.

Briars grabbed, snagged, and snatched free.

The pounding smash of his high-tops bulled through the scrub. Grayness reduced the reach of his eyesight. As dusk fell toward nightfall, he wouldn’t be able to see squat.

Zero night vision.

 
Zilch.

After pulling up to a halt, like a tree among many, he stood stark still.

What had he been thinking coming out here like this?
 

That maybe he might keep Cantrell from getting into trouble, all the while protecting his own chances to contract for a special project. Nothing wrong with looking out for both their futures.

If Uncle Merv’s contacts worked out, the brothers would be set money-wise for life.

 
Not a bad deal for a geeky eighteen-year-old.

 
Except Stedford would soon be wandering the dark.

 
He retrieved his phone and gauged the average power usage. Three and a quarter hours of battery life. Tops. Way before midnight, his flashlight app would die with the phone, and he would flounder in total darkness.

 
Ominous shivers goosed his chill bumps.

A stick snapped atop the hill.

About the Children of the Elements Series:

When nature refuses to be controlled, can mankind endure? Brainwaves altered by a covert government project based out of the Secret City of Oak Ridge, the Children of the Elements are brought together and tested as weapons of mass destruction. Their struggle to free themselves and survive in the hostile East Tennessee Mountains creates massive chaos and threatens to bring about an apocalypse.

Five full novels, one huge story.

Savage Winds (Book 1)

Dire Rumblings (Book 2)

Raging Inferno (Book 3)
Unrelenting Tide (Book 4)
Merciless Void (Book 5)  

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Interview with Supergirls author @MavSkye

When Mav Skye isn't turning innocent characters into axe murderers, refinishing old furniture, chasing around her spring ducklings, or reading the latest horror novel, she's editing at the almighty Pulp Metal Magazine.

She adores puppies, pirates, skulls, red hots, Tarantino movies and yes, Godzilla.

Especially Godzilla.

She is the author of Supergirls and The Undistilled Sky. Look for her wicked horror romance, Wanted:Single Rose, this fall and the second book in the Supergirls series, Night without Stars, early 2015.

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1. At any given time do you work on only one story at a time and maybe plot out the next one or are there many ideas racing around your head?

If I’m writing/editing a short story, I’ll do several at a time. When I’m writing a novel, I’ll break occasionally and write a short story or poetry to give my brain a rest. When I’m editing a novel, I do my best to rip through it as fast I as can, because I get easily distracted.

Like right now, I’m trying to get through the third edit of my horror/romance novel Wanted Single Rose. I braked to write on other stuff, and now I’m having a hard time getting back into it. So frustrating—Argh!

2. Is there a genre you haven't written in but would like to? Or wish you could write in?

I try to write romance. I honestly do. The problem is, people just start dying right and left and before I know it, the book is horror.  Erotica on the other hand, I like to write that. There are quite a few metaphors between death and sex; perhaps that is why it comes easier.

3. Do you add an element of romantic suspense in your stories?

That depends on what the story calls for. If the tale in question contains a romantic element, there will definitely be romantic suspense. But in Supergirls, there is no romance. There is definitely suspense, and love, and erotic, but no romance. Go figure.

4. Say you have unlimited funds: What kind of writing office/cottage would you create for yourself?

Hmm…I’ve always imagined writing in a little beach house on the Pacific Ocean.

5. If you could turn your novel into a TV show, which novel or series would you do? Where would it be set? Network TV (ABC, NBC, CBS), Cable (AMC, BBC, Lifetime) or Premium Cable (HBO, Showtime, Starz)?

Eeek! Well, the Supergirls series would definitely be intriguing. After I wrote the first book, I thought, if it ever became something, I would love Tarantino to direct it. But sticking to your question, I think Netflix would do it right.

That being said, there’s a story I wrote a long time ago called WildCard about a librarian, Margo, who deals drugs on the side to pay for her grandmother’s nursing home bills. However, her conscience is greatly affected by the horrendous crimes she becomes involved in. This leads to serious insomnia, so her doctor prescribes Ambien, (which can cause all sorts of weird sleep walking episodes. Trust me, I know.) Margo starts fighting crime and saving lives in her sleep to balance the wrongs she commits during the day. She doesn’t remember any of it. She thinks she’s finally sleeping through the night. But when people start recognizing Margo as a real life superhero, her life suddenly becomes very complicated.

When I wrote this story, I was totally thinking of prime time TV, probably AMC. Which is funny, because Breaking Bad, which is sorta similar, came out shortly after I wrote this story.

6. Finally, tell us about your latest release!

Supergirls is what happens when two sisters born into dismal and dire circumstances grow up believing what they see on TV. They’ve had no parental guidance. No adults to trust. There was nothing but television to define their reality, nothing but superhero comics to set their expectations. They watched Superman and believed it, they watched Leave it to Beaver, I love Lucy, Goonies and believed it. They read Treasure Island and Supergirl Comics and Stephen King’s It, and believed it. As teens, they watched Pretty Woman, Kill Bill, Austin Powers and believed it.

Now, the only thing that stands between their current miserable existence and their Little House on the Prairie dreams is one “Fat Bastard” named Frederick Bells. Dispensing justice upon him, and stealing his money, should be a piece of cake…except younger sister, May, is a schizophrenic, Bells is a serial killer, and this isn’t a Disney movie. 

Supergirls is the about the great gulf between what is and what should be.

Blurb:

Sisters Jenn and May have finally found their golden ticket out of the slums. Pervy sugar daddy, Frederick Bells, promises to be an easy score with a big payoff—millions are hidden within his mansion.

The plan is simple: tie up the pig, steal his cash, and skip town. But fate has a different plan, including a villain with a wicked imagination. The sisters resort to playing their childhood game SUPERGIRLS to battle their fears in Bell’s den of horrors.

Will the SUPERGIRLS find their prize or will their heads join the pile behind the black cellar door?

 

Excerpt:

Old folks say the world is simply made of black and white. There is no gray. How is that true? How does that sum up reality? Right now, this second, I could toss the dagger, grab May’s hand and escape through the white door, white like heaven, and what then? We’d have zip. Nada. We can’t return to the studio. Fat Bastard and Leroy know where we live. All we’d have is our miserable, crappy (and psychotic) lives.

And each other, something whispers or does it whistle? I don’t know anymore. Through the white door—it’s running away. Running away from the one thing May and I have always wanted: peace.

No, the only way to peace is through darkness, the black door, through the cellar to the money.

I turn and face the black door, place my hand on the bolt. There is a monster in the dark to confront.

Perhaps I’ll die, perhaps May will. This is where the gray area lies, the future. Why can’t there be a clear-cut way of what to do and when?

The moaning creature pounds the door.

Fat Bastard. I grit my teeth and draw my eyes away from the tree with gems. Black, white or grey: if you want something you have to go for it, the consequences be damned.

The monster pounds the door harder.

May startles and turns to me.

I motion to her and breathe, “When I unbolt the door, I’ll drop to the floor and you shoot.”

She says nothing, but stands back and aims the pistol.

I say, “One, two, three…”

Supergirls is available in print or ebook at: Payhip (50% discount at Payhip if you "share" the book) & Amazon US 

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