1. Have you received any further
feedback about the first “adobeDreams” novel?
“Some people found empowerment in the story and loved it, others struggled with the violence and erotica. I know of at least one person who couldn’t handle the lesbian relationship, and stopped reading. And that’s okay. People are where they’re at. If I don't accept them because they don't accept other people--if I hate the haters--then aren't I just doing a different version of the same thing?
“A few thought the romance happened
too quickly. I considered that, too, as I finished the novel, but for me, the
relationship wasn’t the heart of the story, no more than the sexual orientation
of the characters. As a friend commented after reading the book, ‘The story is
not about the story, is it? It’s about life.’ For that reason, Abigail is
almost immediately smitten, and then we’re off and running into a series of
metaphysical adventures.
"I also suppose that not everyone has experienced an infatuation that pulls you toward another person like opposite poles of a magnet. Read carefully and you'll see that the basis for Abigail's same-sex attraction is already there, and then it's a 'love at first sight' situation."
"I also suppose that not everyone has experienced an infatuation that pulls you toward another person like opposite poles of a magnet. Read carefully and you'll see that the basis for Abigail's same-sex attraction is already there, and then it's a 'love at first sight' situation."
2. What can you tell us about
adobeDreams II?
“adobeDreams II takes off where book one ends. The women are in Paris and things start going wrong as Abigail’s guilty conscience begins to manifest in a very tangible way. That opens the door to a whole new series of adventures, and as you might expect, Abigail doesn’t always follow divine guidance. Consequences follow, but that leads to one of the best lines of the entire series: ‘This is who I am. This is what I do. Imagine the worst. SCREW YOU.’ [Laughs]”
3. Is that you talking, or the
character?
“That's vintage Abigail, but what inspired me to write it are public figures who try to dodge responsibility for their indiscretions. Wouldn't it be refreshing if at least one of them would stand up and say, ‘Yeah, I did it, and it rocked my socks off! Now mind your own business.’ It'd also be helpful if our news media was more interested in substance than noise.”
4. Book one left a few unanswered
questions. Does book two close those loops?
“Yes, the second novel completes the story begun in the first. Now that I have both books in front of me, I have begun to realize that the whole thing is subject to metaphorical interpretation. For example, to get back to the beginning of book one for a moment, what does it mean to stand on a street corner waiting for an unknown person to take you to a place that may not exist? [Laughs] I think that is a matter of searching for unknown aspects of Self, which, in itself, is a quest for completeness. What does it mean to look into a reflection and wonder if there is another you on the opposite side of the glass, staring back? I think that’s a case of asking: Who am I? What is my true identity? Is there more to me, behind the façade? Again, I think it’s a quest for wholeness."
5. Is the relationship between Abigail and Caroline also a metaphor?
“Absolutely. What does it mean to be smitten with someone of the same sex? I think the other person is an idealized projection of Self, and the relationship is about achieving union with that greater whole. Again, it’s a quest for completeness, but perhaps that’s true of all relationships.”
"But even beyond that, Abigail's experiences are a metaphor for the human experience. It's evolution, it's reaching deep down for the will to survive in a hostile environment, it's struggling with the consequences of the evil we allow ourselves to create, it's love-making (love creating) through the expression of sexual attraction, and ultimately it's about the possibilities of human transformation. How far can you go when you're pushed beyond anything you've ever experienced?"
6. A lot of anger from Abigail’s past comes across in the first book. Does that continue in book two?
“No. In the second book the consequences of Abigail’s anger catch up with her. She also learns the fuller extent of her tuning abilities, and that’s why the subtitle is, ‘The End of Karma.’”
7. Can you talk more about that?
“What is karma? In a manner of speaking, karma is unfinished business carried over from the past. And where is the past, really? If there is only the now then the past is nowhere, it doesn’t exist. It’s only a thought—an energy pattern—we keep re-generating in our minds, in our bodies, in our auric fields, or whatever. Release that, and karma is gone. Think of it like this. What if, one day everyone woke up and said, ‘The wounds and prejudices of the past no longer serve us, how can we work together to build a better now?’
“Is it really that simple? No, but
the basic idea holds. This is what happens, I think, when a natural disaster
lays everyone low. The tornado comes through and wipes out the town, and then
some group consciousness—common humanity—kicks
in and everyone helps everyone dig out of the rubble. I wonder if global
warming is the great disaster that will put
all of us on the same level, so that we finally become united.”
8. Has your writing process changed?
“The mechanics are getting easier, but the overall vision is still a mess. I ‘see’ how the story begins, how it ends, and some of the things that happen along the way, but have no clear outline of everything that is going to happen or how it all fits together. For that reason, the story and the characters begin to write themselves and I really don’t know how it’s all going to integrate. I write myself into horrible dead ends and stay stuck for weeks or months until I see the way out. It’s an inefficient, sloppy way to write, but that’s sort of how my mind works—scattered all over the place, yet, somehow it gets the job done.”
9. Will there be an adobeDreams III?
“The seeds for a third novel are there, but for the moment the first and second books stand together as a complete story, and I’m working on other projects.”
10. What can you tell us about these
other projects?
“I am currently writing a non-fiction book, but it’s too early to say much more than that. In terms of fiction, I have ideas sketched for a horror story, a crime thriller, a romance, and a space opera. I’m a huge ‘Star Trek’ fan, and if I could do something like that—albeit with a harder edge—then that would be a total turn on. Some of the other ideas might become short stories, rather than novels.”
