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Book Trailer https://youtu.be/vmmgq1MeTBc
“You’re really going to make me do magic, aren’t you?”
“Yes. I can’t believe your story otherwise.”
He reached out to some fresh roses that were in a vase on my desk. “Watch,” he said.
No magical energy came from his fingers, and nothing felt or looked any different. He was just... touching them. But he looked at me as if he’d done something. “...You didn’t do anything,” I said.
“Touch the petals.”
As I reluctantly reached out to the petals he’d been touching, his fingers, drawing away, touched my hand. “C’mon, they won’t bite you,” he said. Then he reached out again, and guided my hand across the petals of the flower.
The roses had been real that morning—I’d put them in fresh water.
But now they were fake flowers, made of silk. “You have nice hands,” he said.
I took back my hand. “What did you do to my flowers?”
“Magic,” he said.
“Slight-of-hand magic, you mean. You could have just distracted me...”
Zach sighed and raised his hand, showing me his palm, the fingers splayed out like he was about to start pointing to it and lecturing me about palm-reading. Then he lowered it down until his hand was laid out flat on my desk. I watched his hand lower, then I watched it sit there, waiting for something to happen. His hand didn’t move... nothing seemed to move... though there was some slight change I couldn’t put my finger on.
After a few seconds, I looked more closely around his hand at the desktop. The top of the desk was transparent.
My desk had been made of wood. Now, however, the entire desk was made of glass.
It was still exactly the same shape. It was at least the same weight, since it didn’t budge when I pushed at it.
I pulled out a drawer. A glass drawer slid out, on metal wheels turning on metal rails screwed into the glass by metal screws. I hadn’t really needed to pull out the drawer—I could already see, somewhat, what was inside: regular-old, boring white envelopes, some staples, paperclips, pens.
All faintly visible through see-through glass, glass with a woody brown tint to it... and a sort of vague wood grain set into it somehow...
“Don’t worry, it’ll only last a few hours, then it’ll change back to wood,” Cutter assured me.
What. In the world.
I stared at him for almost half a minute. He looked at me patiently. It was as if we were trying to “read” each other, trying to figure out... I don’t know. Each other, I guess.
I looked away first. “I’m sorry, Zach, but you’re not a client of mine yet... I can’t... until I get to know you... I don’t just give out sleeping pills... I’m sure other doctors might, but...”
“I don’t want another doctor. I want you, Cynthia.”
Great. The first handsome, smart guy I’d met in a while, and not only did he have to be a potential client, he was some sort of... magician...? “I’m not sure that would be...” I said, “I mean...” On top of everything else, I found that I was blushing.
“What if I told you that...well, uh... I actually... it’s not just sleeping pills... seriously, I do have some real problems...”
“What sort of problems...?”
“...Repressed memories.”
“Oh? When did that start?”
He smiled weakly. “After Celeste died. The time right before that is very fuzzy. And the time right after that is pretty much lost to me. I lost months... probably a lot more time than that.” He glanced at a clock on the wall and grinned a winning smile. “But I imagine my time’s up for today...”
“Yes, I suppose it is...”
“Unless you’d like to go out to dinner with me...?”
“Mr. Cutter, if you’re to be my client, I can’t... we can’t meet socially...”
“I’ve always liked women who have a bit of an authoritarian side to them...”
I took out my appointment book. “Let’s get you an appointment for next time. I don’t really appreciate walk-ins, and...”
“—Argh, I hate sticking to appointments. Being a magician isn’t exactly a 9-to-5 job...”
The Book Junkie Reads . . .Reckless Dreams Interview with . . . Barb Lien-Cooper . . .
How would you describe your style of writing to someone that has never read your work?
Barb: Wow, great question. I honestly don’t know. My writing style is informal and direct, since many of my stylistic influences— such as Raymond Chandler, Georges Simenon, Robert Bloch, and Richard Matheson— have deceptively simple writing styles. But I’ve always said, “If I’m writing like someone else, why would I bother writing in the first place? I write like me and no one else.”
I sometimes have a hard time even explaining my genre. I use mainstream and genre elements in my work, but I don’t identify with the “slipstream” subgenre. I’m not a magical realist, really, even though there’s some magical stuff in my work
I’m influenced by horror, dark fantasy, hard-boiled detective novels, and urban/dark fantasy, but my work doesn’t exactly ape those genres, so...
I just call myself a writer of supernatural tales or what the Japanese call the kwaidan or kaidan genre, which means "ghost story," but the literal translation is “weird tale.”
So, I guess I’m just a Weird Tales writer of sorts.
Do you feel that writing is an ingrained process or just something that flows naturally for you?
Barb: It’s not an either/or. Writing is a skill that it takes a lifetime to truly master, as well as an extremely exhausting thing to do on a regular basis. But it is also more fun than Six Flags, Disneyworld, and the world’s best waterpark put together. I call it “the hardest job you’ll ever love.”
The better you get at writing, the more the ideas flow. But the more you write, the more you get to know what a good story idea looks like. You get more and more picky about what you want to write about, or at least that’s true for me.
What mindset or routine do you feel the need to set when preparing to write?
Barb: The idea comes first. It’s the one percent inspiration. I hate writers who tell writers that it doesn’t matter if you have an idea that’s inspired, just go write...which is why we have so many uninspired stories and books out there that read like they were churned out only because “a writer writes no matter what”. So, I do take the time with my ideas.
As a side note that sort of illustrates my point, there’s a bit from the movie “The Shining” that always makes me roll my eyes:
Jack: I suppose I ought to try to do some writing first.
Wendy: Any ideas yet?
Jack: Lots of ideas. No good ones.
Wendy: Well, something’ll come. It’s just a matter of settling back into the habit of writing every day.
It’s at that point that I always feel like screaming at the TV: “No, Wendy! It takes more than just writing every day to get a good idea! Good ideas take time! Bad ideas lead to badly-written books! Oh, for goodness’ sake, leave the poor man alone to think!”
It wasn’t until I became a writer that I started feeling any sympathy for Jack’s character. I don’t know what that says about me, except, do not interrupt me when I’m writing!
Anyway, back to what I was talking about. I let the idea sit awhile in my subconscious mind. Dreams and wishes like shooting stars show up. An outline shows up through some miracle.
And then, I do the 99 percent perspiration.
Do you take your character prep to heart? Do you nurture the growth of each character all the way through to the page?
Barb: F. Scott Fitzgerald once said something about how he wrote to find out how he felt about a subject.
I write because I want to find out what my characters feel/say/do about a matter. I have a vague idea what the characters are like, then I write the stories to see how they respond to situations.
I can’t imagine character-prepping first. I once had a proposal in at a manga company, and I was told: “Don’t write the story, just give us a detailed plot outline and an outline of every character in the work.”
I just shook my head. The idea of giving a detailed plot outline and character sketches when I haven’t written the actual story yet? But that’s how I come to understand the characters and what they’ll do!
It wasn’t a pleasant experience, and it eventually all fell through (the company went out of business very soon afterward, before anything could be decided).
Do you people watch to help with development?
Barb: I have never once used a person from my real life in my work. I would feel like I was committing identity theft or something like that. I do every so often look at an actor in some show or something, and say, “Hey, that looks like how I think my character (that I’ve already created) would look,” but that’s about it.
Do you have a character that you have been working on for a long time that’s not quite ready, but fills you with excitement to work on the story?
Barb: No, honestly. I am working on finishing a series based on a character that I haven’t been able to let go of, though. I can’t let go of characters until I feel satisfied that I have tied up all psychological loose ends.
Have you found yourself bonding with any particular character(s)? If so, which one(s)?
Barb: Well, personally, the characters that I write that I like the best are the eccentric, highly gifted, highly individualistic characters. The more unusual they are, the more I can use them, because they can and will do anything.
But I also look at the characters my husband likes—I use him as my beta reader. In The Talking Cure, Park liked the shape-changing car (it counts as a character because it has a mind of its own), so I started writing it into stories more often... That car was a one of a recent reviewer’s favorite characters, too.
Then later on in the same series, there’s an eight-year-old ghost kid that just about steals the show, but the readers will love when it happens.
Can you share your next creative project(s)? If yes, can you give a few details?
Barb: I am just finishing the novel series that starts with a novel titled Song to the Siren. It’s an ambiguous supernatural tale about a gifted young musician named Reed Sinclair, who died under highly mysterious circumstances. He claimed that he was pursued by a supernatural being all of his life. But was he, or did this this ideefixéexist only in his mind?
I can’t wait for that book to hit the stands. It’s a deeply personal book for me.
What are some of your writing/publishing goals for this year?
Barb: Publishing goals? To get The Talking Cure out there in front of readers, as well as Song to the Siren.
Writing goals? To write the works I have lying around in outline form. I’ve neglected some really good shorter works because I’ve been writing novels so much lately.
If you could spend one-week with 5 fictional characters, who would they be and where would you spend that time?
Barb: I can’t think of five fictional characters to hang out with, really. Fiction requires that the characters go through many challenges and hardships; hardships that I don’t wish to share, except as a reader. For instance, I like Frodo and Sam, but I’m not going to leave the Shire for love or money.
I would, however, hang out at Jay Gatsby’s house. It’s not because I’m so very fond of the character, but his house, its location, and the fact that you could just be there for days appeals to me.
“Hey, Jay, I’m here with my bobbed hair and my flapper outfit. Where’s the lobster thermidor and the bootleg gin?” Sounds like a perfect vacation to me.
Where would you spend one full year, if you could go ANYwhere, money is not a concern? What would you do with this time?
Barb: A beach house, somewhere near a city, if possible. As for what I’d do with the time, well, I’d swim, watch the waves, walk along the beach, talk with my husband, and dream up story ideas. Then, when the winter came, I’d write and write and write! Then when the spring/summer came, I’d go back to walking, swimming, and dreaming up ideas again.
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