Gathering Storm – Victoria Danann® – Artist. Author. Musician.

An Interview with Deliverance

Victoria: Thank you for taking the time to give an interview. Your fans will be happy to hear from you.

Deliverance: Of course they will. What a shame I can’t give them all an ‘interview’ (air quotes) in person.

Victoria: Yes, well, they’d love that, I’m sure.

Deliverance: They would. (smiles) Guaranteed.

Victoria: (sigh) Whatever.

Deliverance: (frowns) I don’t get it. Why don’t you like me?

Victoria: What makes you think I don’t like you?

Deliverance: (smirks) The way I know how to read women, what do you think are your chances of hiding your feelings from me? Take, for instance, the way you keep clenching your teeth between questions.

Victoria: (I try to relax my jaw.) Just pre-release day stress. Nothing to do with you.

Deliverance: Bull. Shit. (says it in a very metrosexual sing song way)

Victoria: Fine. Let’s start with this. Disrespect. You’ve come to my interview wearing nothing but doeskin pants, which look incredibly soft and comfortable and luxurious by the way. You don’t even have on shoes.

Deliverance: (looks at his feet and admires his stretching toes) Is there something wrong with my feet?

Victoria: No, demon. Even your feet are beautiful. You know it. I know it. (He smiles wickedly.) That’s not the point.

Deliverance: It’s not?

Victoria: No.

Deliverance: Well, I didn’t know this was a no shirts, no shoes, no shit interview.

Victoria: It’s not! Obviously. Since I’m talking to you.

Deliverance: If we agree that my feet are nice to look at, then why would I want to cover them up?

Victoria: Why are you wearing pants?

Deliverance: Because I get too much of the wrong kind of attention in your dimension if I display the uncensored version of glory. But since it’s just the two of us… (stands and reaches for his waistband)

Victoria: Stop right there! I’m a married woman.

Deliverance: (stares before throwing his head back to laugh) And you think most of my fuel isn’t provided courtesy of married women? You still haven’t given me a reason why you don’t like me. (sits, pants on)

Victoria: Because I pride myself on multifaceted characters and you’re pretty close to one-dimensional.

Deliverance: One-dimensional Funny.

Victoria: (grins) It was. It is. I need to make a note and use that in a book. (I look around for something to write on.)

Deliverance: I’m not one-dimensional. I have a family.

Victoria: That’s the only thing that keeps you from being completely one-dimensional. Except for that, your entire existence is nothing but sex.

Deliverance: What’s wrong with that?

Victoria: What’s wrong with that is – sex is not everything!

Deliverance: If I put you someplace where there’s no food for two days and then ask if food is everything to you, my bet is you’d say yes.

Victoria: Okay. You have a point there. I’ll give you that. But that’s not all. There’s the fact that you are completely self-absorbed and as irresponsible as a fifteen year old. It’s a waste of eight hundred years.

Deliverance: (laughs) Okay. I get it. You hate me because I’m beautiful, live for sex, never age, and may live forever. You’re jealous!

Victoria: I am not!

Deliverance: Are too.

Victoria: Not!

Deliverance: Look. You’re holding the pen. You don’t like me like I am. Write me different.

Victoria: (pouting)

Deliverance: So. Are you gonna do that?

Victoria: No.

Deliverance: (smiles) Fine. Then let’s move on to something more pleasant.

9/19/2013 Gathering Storm Release Day

By vdanann|2019-03-25T18:04:42-05:00September 24th, 2013|Black Swan Series, Gathering Storm, Knights of Black Swan, paranormal romance series, Victoria Danann|0 Comments

Interview with Ram #3

An Interview with Ram

Victoria: Well, Sir Hawking. Always a pleasure.

Ram: So you say.

Victoria: Come on. For once could we just have a quiet and cordial conversation? Can I make you tea?

Ram: (slouches in chair and gives me a look of incredulity, which is distracting because the slouch posture is very sexy and I’m supposed to be concentrating on the interview and not another woman’s husband) ‘Tis your best plan for makin’ up to me? Fuckin’ tea?

Victoria: Well, uh, I can’t say that I actually had a plan per se. Did you have something else in mind? Something you wanted?

Ram: You know perfectly well what I want.

Victoria: I know it probably seems that way, but it’s not entirely true. I suspect that you want to go back to your little bit of Irish heaven with Elora, Helm, and Blackie and raise Alsatian dogs in quiet familial bliss.

Ram: Could no’ have said it better myself. Like I said, you know perfectly well what the fuck I want.

Victoria: Yes, but are you sure? I mean you lived a pretty tumultuous life as a vampire slayer. You’re the most celebrated Black Swan knight of the last hundred years. That’s a lot of excitement to trade in for life on the farm.

Ram: Aye. And I can no’ wait to be doin’ precisely that. You, mistress, have the power to make that happen with a simple stroke of the pen. Or click of the keyboard or whatever.

Victoria: I could, but here’s the thing. I saw the little smile and the dark twinkle in your eyes when I was just talking about you as legendary hunter. I know you love the recognition. Remember how you felt when Elora gushed all over you, repeatedly. “Oh, Ram, your portrait is so handsome, your beauty captured for all time here, where you belong, in the Hall of Heroes. You’re perfection personified. So special, so unique, unlike any other.” (I delivered this paraphrase in an exaggerated mock-Elora voice.)

Ram: (laughing) Aye, you have me there, mistress. Who would no’ fuckin’ crave hearin’ such thin’s from his beautiful mate?

Victoria: Everyone longs for that sort of attention, Ram. The point is that you don’t get that sort of attention down home on the farm.

Ram: Perhaps ‘no. But as was pointed out in Book Five in a tussle over whether or no’ Storm and I would be playin’ rugby, I’m no’ gettin’ younger. Will you be gettin’ me sliced up in bar fights when I’m ninety then? Give the others their fair chance at sheet time.

Victoria: But you’re my favorite, Ram.

Ram: (gaping) And bein’ your favorite means always bein’ one fuckin’ step away from catastrophe?

Victoria: Well… yes. Fact is, slogging about in Wellies feeding chickens and watering wolf-dogs is not novel-worthy because, well, because it’s not novel.

Ram: For the moment, let’s be leavin’ me out o’ the discussion. What about my wife? The injuries you’ve visited on me are paper cuts next to what you do to her. Great Paddy in the Mornin’. The way you punish her is beyond… (stops abruptly, narrows eyes, then pins me with a glare) So I’m your favorite, am I? Are you jealous of my wife?

Victoria: What? Of course not!

Ram: Jealous enough to be punishin’ her in unspeakable ways?

Victoria: No! Ram! Do you hear yourself? That’s crazy talk.

Ram: Oh? ‘Twas you who’s so fond o’ sayin’ the simplest explanation is probably the correct one. And that is, without a doubt, the simplest explanation.

Victoria: This is an exception to that rule.

Ram: After everythin’ she went through to reach my world, you would think a writer with heart would be seekin’ to brin’ her only happiness.

Victoria: Again, happiness without incident? Not interesting.

Ram: Cold-hearted bitch. Tell your husband I said ‘tis unbelievable you snagged a mate.

Victoria: If that was true, the cold-hearted bitch part, shouldn’t you be trying to suck up to me instead of insulting me?

Ram: Well, then I would no’ be the hot-blooded rash personality you’re so hot for, would I?

Victoria: (nothing to say to that)

Ram: So here’s my proposition. If you want me to continue cooperatin’ with your farfetched ridiculous pain-in-the-ass stories that no one in their right mind would be believin’, which – by the way – says quite a lo’ about your readers, then you will lay off my wife. AND my child.

Victoria: First, my readers are perfectly sane. They have excellent taste in literature and marvelous creative imaginations.

Ram: (smirks)

Victoria: You may be my favorite, at least you were before this interview, but the Black Swan saga is Elora’s story. I can’t make promises about the entire future of the tale, but I can promise you that Elora and Helm pass through Book Six without injury. How’s that?

Ram: (considers) How ‘bout me?

Victoria: (seeing the opportunity for pay back, smiles wickedly) You, my love, will have to wait and see.

Ram: Paddy.

Victoria: Exactly.

9/19/2013 RELEASE DAY GATHERING STORM

By vdanann|2019-03-25T18:04:42-05:00September 24th, 2013|Black Swan Series, Gathering Storm, Knights of Black Swan, paranormal romance, paranormal romance series, Victoria Danann|2 Comments

MUSIC FROM GATHERING STORM

The Attack on J.U. Playlist.

Music from Spazmodoc, The Voice of the Fray.

1. DANCE HALL DAYS (Wang Chung)

2. STAYIN’ ALIVE (BeeGees)

3. HANGIN’ TOUGH (New Kids on the Block)

4. MAMA TOLD ME NOT TO COME (Three Dog Night)

5. LOSING MY RELIGION (Scary Kids Scaring Kids)

6. SHOOT TO THRILL (AC/DC)

By vdanann|2016-04-06T21:51:23-05:00September 19th, 2013|Black Swan Series, Gathering Storm, Knights of Black Swan, Victoria Danann|13 Comments

Like Water for Chocolate…

Twenty years ago I saw a Mexican movie (with subtitles) entitled Like Water for Chocolate. It is a story of unrequieted love, maternal malice, and the courage necessary to quietly endure. One of the things that made an impression on me was the folklore principle that the emotions of the cook are mystically transferred into the food she is cooking.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pg_Mr4lIoY Like Water for Chocolate video clip

Perhaps there is some truth to the idea that the cook’s emotions become part of the recipe. And perhaps it works the same with writing.

Beta readers for Gathering Storm are reporting that this installment has left them with emotion hanging on for some time after the last word is read and the book is closed . Nothing could be more pleasing to an author because, when all is distilled down to the core, writers should be aiming at one of two targets, the evocation of thought or emotion. While I confess to going for both, I see my principal task as drawing forth emotion. Isn’t the prospect of feeling our motivation for reading? That reminder of aliveness?

If you received an early readers’ copy of Gathering Storm and you are one of those who has mentioned tissues, be assured that the writer is in that with you. During the writing of this book, there were several times my spouse came in to find me red faced and wrecked because of a scene I was writing or had just written. These incidents weren’t always about sorrow. Some of them were simply an emotion so big and full my body couldn’t contain it and had to find release in some way. There were a couple of times during the writing of A Summoner’s Tale when I cried to the point of having to stop because I couldn’t see the monitor screen.

Five books into my latest job – writing fiction – I recognize this as part of my process. If something makes me laugh, it’s probably going to get that response from some of my readers. If I shed tears, chances are that emotion is going to transfer to the story, rise from the page and have a similar effect on my sensitive readers. (And I use the term “sensitive” in a totally good way.) All this is to say that I share more than words on a page with you; when reporting on events in Loti Dimension, I am a third party observer but not a dispassionate one.

– Victoria