Guest blog: April Morelock

Thank you Lindsay for letting me take over your blog today. There are so many great things to talk about… but let’s see… can we make it controversial??? LOL… Heck yeah… (Lindsay, you may not realize what you’ve gotten yourself into here. LOL… Whooheee… let the games begin.)

Summer is flying along – days in the sun, swimming and hanging out with my kids …. Yeap, it’s all coming to an end and my mind turns back to the task at hand – writing that next novel (or finishing my daughter’s quilt… hmmm… which will it be?).

But as school goes back into session, my mind always goes to what might have been or what could be. Possibilities open up and all my old could-have- beens haunt me. Could have been a professor, could have been a book store manager, could have been… well, anything.

While I do love my day job (auditing computer systems is fun?? Heck yeah it is :> I know things. *insert evil laugh here*), I love to moonlight. To wax and wane about … everything. That’s what’s fun about being a writer. I get to be anyone, a top level white hacker that secretly works undercover for the government OR a quantum physicist falling in love with a sexy construction worker at the back of a Laundromat that is actually at time machine OR a sexy cop who falls in love with a jewel thief.

I get to explore it all, learn about new and interesting things and take those side trips that we only reserve for summer and holidays.
But what enthralls me and really causes me to take pause (and wonder at my own mental health) is the ventures into the human psych – The Dark Side of human nature.

I’m talking about Villains!

Is it sad I love creating them? I mean the dark, forbidden recesses of the mind are murky things to peek into. All of us have those corners, places we’re afraid to look into and explore because they might reveal the potential monsters we could be if our own brains and lives weren’t balanced.

People always joke about what it’s like to live in Stephen King’s home but in reality, all he does is dig into his own psych and pull out all the awful things that we ourselves won’t air about our own minds.

When you play with villains, you get to do that. You start asking the questions that we all ask of high profile crimes: How do you take a mother completely devoted to her children and turn her into a killer? How does a normal, everyday guy go from law abiding citizen to top ten most wanted cyber criminals?

How would one single event destroy a sane man, a scientist, and turn him into a drunk that hangs out at the local coin operated laundry, stealing lingerie?
These are all the deep, dark questions I get to ask. Sometimes they’re eternally sad; sometimes they’re revolting, sometimes you find out things about yourself you never wanted to know…

Have you ever had to look that deep? What are the scary things you’ve found. Comment below to enter my blog tour contest to win The Best Little Spin Wash in Texas, available now at http://www.loose-id.com/Best-Little-Spin-Wash-in-Texas.aspx :

Introverted, timid quantum physicist, Molly Timmons, knows her way around a twenty-first century lab; but give her a hot, sexy male capable of turning her world upside down, and she's all thumbs... Until she meets a sexy stranger at the local Spin Wash and Go.

When the lights go out, John St. James is happy to oblige the sexy scientist and fulfill her every fantasy. For a few brief hours, he can grab hold of a moment of happiness before going back to the reality of his daughter's desperate illness.
The Spin Wash has secrets that could keep them apart. Secrets that could save his daughter and make Molly's career, or destroy their relationship. Time is running out... Can they unravel the secrets, save his daughter, and their love? If a government agency has its way, time and space may separate them forever.

Remember to comment below with something scary you’ve learned about yourself. It’s okay if you know a friend of a friend who has this and you would NEVER be hiding this dark secret about yourself and your own psych like the fact that you secretly stole the last M&M from the jar or ate the last cookie at the family reunion last summer and *gasp* didn’t offer it to the kids.

How dare you??? LOL… share your worst. They can’t be as bad as mine. Mwhaaahahahahahaha…. Oops. I'll stop the evil laughing now. IF it’s uber evil, you can email me at april.morelock@gmail.com and get a free read from my short story collection :> You’ll still be entered to win.

People do scary things...

By scary things, I mean not nice things, dangerous things - evil even. And we writers capitalize on those nasty doings.

Whether it is fictional or about real-life, we write tales involving murder, theft, assault, espionage, and super-natural beings that have an axe to grind (sometimes literally) and our readers buy these dark stories over and over again. We invent monsters and twisted minds all in the guise of entertainment.

Is it that we enjoy misery and fear?

These dark stories can cause an adrenaline rush similar to the high many people get when riding a roller coaster. It's a rush that leaves you feeling alive and tingly. Evil doings also force us to think - what would we do in that situation, how would we outmaneuver the diabolical masterminds? Reading a well-written book allows a person to live vicariously as they are absorbed in the words and driven to turn the page to see what happens next.

All but one of my books to date has been romantic-suspense with the anticipated and requisite happy-ever-after ending; my one mystery suspense featured pure evil and a twisted mind. I've used art theft, rape, murder and murder attempts, arson, sexual deviants, corporate espionage, and international terrorism in my plots. Scary stuff, but I really am a good girl.

Sometimes a writer will use the ugly and scary things in life as part of a character’s past so that the reader will feel sympathy for him. I did this in my upcoming novel (due out in print this month and already available on SmashWords), A Chaunce of Riches when I explain how my hero and heroine first met:

(excerpt)
Sam had already been in the foster home when Ben came to live there. Her parents had died in a car accident. She had been rescued, orphaned, from the wreckage. There was no family to replace the loving parents she remembered. She had been the only child of two only children. There was an ailing grandmother halfway across the country but no one else. Her grandmother sent what money she could for the few years she lived but she couldn’t take care of a child. Samantha had just started kindergarten when her world was destroyed.

It was a little more than a year later when Ben, already eight, the same age as Philip, was taken away from his drug addict mother. She had tried to sell him for drug money when she came up short but he had kicked the pedophile she was bargaining with and ran away. It angered her and she sent him into the streets to fend for himself. He was scared, homeless and hungry for almost two days when Baltimore cops picked him up and child services got involved. Ben was brought to the foster home; there were six other kids including Sam and two more birth kids belonging to the couple. It was a relief not to have to hide in the closet while his mother turned tricks to get drug money. But the child in him still felt resentment that his mother had tossed him away like garbage. And the child in him was terrified that he would lose the new-found comfort his foster family provided him with. He couldn’t relax, he couldn’t trust. Sam was the only one who could get through to him. She was the only one who made him feel safe.

He had come to the foster home early in the fall, just in time to start the school year. He was lacking in education because his mother never made sure he got to school each day and he was embarrassed. Even though Sam was younger than him, she helped him study and eventually catch up to his grade level. Then, when the excitement of Halloween drew near, he was terrified when the other kids talked of donning costumes and going door-to-door for candy. He refused to go, he was afraid he would have to do more than just ring doorbells. But when the other kids came home happy and laughing and with sacks filled with candy, he felt left out. Sam dumped her bag of candy in front of him and said it was too much for just her, he had to help her and eat some of it.