Circle Dark Publishing is proud to bring you a short interview with CDP author Angel Sparrow. Ms. Sparrow is the author of “S is For Succubus” in the Circle Dark anthology Twilight and Thorns and the Circle Dark novel Nikolai.
1. When did you start writing?
I started writing stories almost as soon as I learned to write, around age four or five. The first piece I really recall writing was a short play about a battle between the Navajo and Pueblo tribes over some stolen corn. I had overheard the third grade teachers talking about how they had to do a February program for the monthly school assembly and had nothing. My teacher was rather surprised when three days later I handed her a spiral notebook and said, “I wrote the play for the assembly.” No, it was not actually performed. I started writing Star Trek fanfiction at 15 and serious erotica at 19, because I had just thrown a John Norman book across the room and said, “I can do better than that.”
2. Where do you get your ideas for stories and characters?
Anywhere and everywhere. My first professional story, “Prey,” came from seeing an abandoned hospital on my way to work every day. “Serpents” was a direct result of too many Kipling audiobooks. Music provides the occasional bit of inspiration. “Rock Us All Down” is directly inspired by “Mummy Medusa” by SJ Tucker (Skinny White Chick), and “Rewriting Old Songs” is exactly what it sounds like: a lesbian version of truck driving songs.
Legends are also pretty common sources of ideas. “Tuition Fees” is a modern take on the legend of the Thirteenth Scholar, and my werewolves started out because I remembered that children born on Christmas Day are werewolves.
Characters turn up almost fully blown. I have a “stable” of characters, as every writer does, who can fit a story line. Sometimes a new one will turn up and start talking and I have to go with it
3. When writing for “real” and complex characters, have you ever encountered a scenario where one refused to do something, thereby altering the storyline?
Oh, yes. Some get into moods where they're good for nothing, so I have to go write on other stories until they're willing to cooperate.
4. What are your favorite books by other authors? What are some favorites you have had published? Why are they favorites?
The Stories of Ray Bradbury will top any list of favorites. What that man doesn't know about the short story hasn't been discovered. Also, Julian May's future history series, especially Magnificat. She has created a brilliant alternate future and makes psychic powers very sensible. Harlan Ellison is master of pulling you into the ambiguous story. His Strange Wine collection is his best, in my opinion. I also like Mary Janice Davidson's Queen Betsy series and Stephen King, but I think Needful Things was his last really good book. Brian Daley's Han Solo books were a tremendous influence on how I write action.
Asking a writer which of her stories is her favorite is like asking a mother which child she loves best.
Of my own, I think “Singing Up the Moon” in the Shifting Again anthology is one of the best. I love my cranky old Irish werewolf and his half-sidhe lover, as well as Paul and Dan, my Gay Christmas Werewolves. I set it in the same slightly-off-kilter Memphis, that I did “S is for Succubus” in Circle Dark’s Twilight and Thorns. D.J. Admire has been a long-standing fixture in my head, and I love her and the Memphis I created for her. “Captain's Orders” from the Men in Uniform II anthology is another one I just love. It's set at a science fiction convention, and anyone who has been, who has wrestled a difficult costume or been bored by programming, should be able to identify.
5. What do your family and friends think of your writing? Do you encourage them to read your stories?
Mom's my biggest fan. She loves the werewolves. One of my younger sisters is fannish and has been reading my stuff since it was Star Trek fanfic. My husband helps me out with world building. My oldest daughter would read it if I let her. She makes an appearance in “Singing up the Moon.”
6. Anything interesting about your day job? How does it fit in or conflict with your writing?
I drive a semi on a delivery route. Three hundred miles a day, through some very unusual country-side not only gives me time to think and work out plot-lines, it inspires the occasional story. Cypress sloughs, abandoned houses and churches and cotton gins, and oddly named little towns pepper my day.
7. What is the general history of Nikolai?
Once upon a time there was a Live-journal based role-playing game called Fandom High. Han Solo got tangled up with Frank Donovan (from “The UC: Undercover”). When Frank's player left the game, we continued playing by AIM. When National Novel Writing Month, 2005, turned up, I scrubbed off the serial numbers and slapped five coats of scarlet liqui-gloss on some of the role-playing ideas.
About a week into Nano, I realized I had a really good original novel in the making. The rough draft was done and weighed in at 50,852 words. Many revisions have since occurred, making the characters more complex, the plot a little thicker, and the world more real. I worked out the book's timeline and did most of the world building through the winter and spring of 2006.
8. Concerning Nikolai, how do Nick and Ligatos know each other? Without giving away too much, is there some sort of prior history between the two?
There is no prior history, exactly. David watches promising young criminals in all of the ten countries, always on the lookout for new protégés for specific roles. As they are needed, he brings them to the attention of Ligatos, who chooses the ones he wants. They've been watching Nick since he was thirteen.
Later we will see more of the protégé selection, as well as a couple of failed protégés. They pass their big test, but just don't fit the team.
9. In Nikolai Ligatos is a man of great power. How did he become so powerful? How does he maintain that power?
We see more of the world power structure in Niko-Chan. The religious handbill at the beginning of Nikolai has it almost exactly right. The Eight, a secret cabal, managed a world take-over when the United States started the Disunification. They guided the formation and shapes of the new countries, and held the more tumultuous parts of the world together while things changed. Padma Rambarrass, in particular, had a rather rough job in the Middle East after the troops left New America and let it go back to being Iraq.
Ligatos is one of the Eight. He maintains the power by keeping the head of the group pleased with his work. The North American man on the street has heard vague rumors about the Eight, but dismisses them in the same way we dismiss the Illuminati, the Tri-Lateral Commission, the Elders of Zion and all the other conspiracy theories. In other places, the Eight or their second tier leaders are publicly known. For example, in Scandinavia, Signi Berasdottir (a second tier leader) is well known to the people, who think of her as a high-level advisor to their heads of state from the leader of the EU.
10. In Nikolai does Nick ever feel remorse for his actions, either directly or indirectly, that may have harmed others?
Nick doesn't really have the capacity for remorse. He's a sociopath, by all clinical definitions. He feels guilty for actions that have direct repercussions to him, but otherwise, he doesn't really care about other people.
11. How much of Nikolai’s future world is based on lessons of history? Why?
A lot of it is based on the fall of Rome. More is an extrapolation of some of the uglier political and cultural trends active right now. By basing it on reality, it becomes a more logical future.
The Confederated States in particular are based on both the Christian Exodus movement, which seeks to secede from the US and form a Christian nation in South Carolina, and on the feudalism that followed the breakdown of Rome. I drew from Christian Reconstructionist and Constitutional Libertarian ideals in creating the world, and tried to back-pedal race relations to the Jim Crow era, basically creating the imaginary 1950s idyll that a lot of people seem to long for.
12. Nikolai is just the first in a series. What is in store for future books?
All sorts of things. Niko-Chan, the second book, is finished. We go to Italy with the Ligatos Group to report in at headquarters. We see more of the world politics and meet the rulers of the various regions, from the insane Chester Gibbs of Australia and the islands, to the wise Elena Esosa of Africa. Not to give too much away, but there is a lot of sex (some of it very kinky) a lot more heterosexuality, a good bit of violence, and even a pink furry tail and kitty ears. We learn more about Ligatos and his background. And Nick grows up a little more. We see a very different side of Steven, and learn why David is called “The Butcher of Cairo.”
13. How have the Internet and technology changed the way you write?
In many ways. It introduced me to my co-author, Naomi Brooks. It made finding a publisher infinitely cheaper and easier. And research is as fast as a couple of search terms instead of an all-day library project. Not to say I don't still end up reading lots of library books, but I can walk in with a better sense of what I need, rather than plowing through half a dozen books that aren't quite pertinent.
14. In particular, what is your view of e-books?
I have mixed feelings. I like the instant gratification of them. Many publishers will put out individual short stories very inexpensively, and this is great.
However, I don't find them portable since I don't have a laptop or e-book reader. This is a huge drawback, since I do most of my reading in waiting rooms. With four kids, I spend a lot of time in doctor and dentist offices.
15. Lastly, any words for aspiring authors?
Write. Write something every day. It doesn't matter what it is or how bad it is. You will improve. Write and finish it. Find a couple of people whose opinions you trust and have them read it. Submit it. I know if feels like you're Wiley E. Coyote and just ran out of cliff, but feel the fear and do it anyway.
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The staff at Circle Dark Publishing extends its most sincere thanks to Angel Sparrow for participating in this interview. You can easily purchase her two Circle Dark products, “S Is For Succubus” in the Twilight and Thorns anthology and Nikolai on our site. For more information about the author and her other works, please visit her online “Den of Debauchery” at www.angelsparrow.com.
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