R. K. Clark is a late comer to the notion of writing for reasons beyond immediate distraction. Apparently, he used up all of his early getting born three months ahead of schedule and has been late ever since. He currently resides in Louisville, KY and is working on his third novel. His first two novels: "The Dreaded Day Job" and "The Quietest Heart" are available on Amazon. When he's not playing video games or yelling at those kids to get off his damn lawn, he works in a call center muttering at people to get off his damn line.
In the spirit of the holidays, I'm doing things a bit Christmasy. With me today is R.K. Clark. He is a writer who is that. A writer. He lives life like anyone else. Wanting to do what he loves.
1. Alisha: When did you learn that you enjoyed writing?
R.K: I've always been writing -- since I was seven, I've been writing stories to keep myself entertained. It wasn't until a good friend told me that what I wrote was good that I thought I could make a living out of this. Of course, the self-publishing explosion helped.
Alisha: Was it a difficult process to get your book published?
R.K.: Not really, I had written a couple of books prior to this, so I had a good idea as to what steps to take. I made a couple of small mistakes afterward that were easily correctable after I submitted everything. The good thing about self-publishing is if there is a mistake, I can fix it immediately. The downside is that when there's a mistake, it's completely on me.
Alisha: What was your inspiration for The Dreaded Day Job?
 |
| $9.50 @ Amazon http://amzn.to/1HFm6AX |
R.K.: My real (and very much dreaded) job and I've been working on the first novel for the main character (called Cat, Rabbit and Clover) for a while, but I wanted to have something along the lines of a prequel to try to develop him and the other characters.
Point of trivia: the calls that are in the book are calls that I have taken -- the names are changed to protect the guilty (me).
Point of trivia: the calls that are in the book are calls that I have taken -- the names are changed to protect the guilty (me).
Alisha: Do you write in one specific genre?
R.K: No -- I try to mix genres. The Dreaded Day Job is an urban fantasy/workplace comedy/heist novel. I don't want to be known as the "horror guy" or the "fantasy guy"...just the "writer guy".
Alisha: Where do you want to see yourself in 5 years?
R.K.: Making a living of this. An award or two would be nice (I'm not going to lie).
Alisha: Any upcoming projects you can tell your readers about?
R.K.:I am getting ready to work on a fantasy novel called The Marvelous and Malefic Doomsday Medicine Show and I hope to have it out by mid-2016. The sequel to The Dreaded Day Job called Cat, Rabbit and Clover should be out by 2017.
Alisha: What do you enjoy most about writing?
R.K.: The creative aspect. The world as a blank canvas. Getting into it with both hands and making the idea a living and breathing thing.
Alisha: What do you despise most about writing?
 |
| Not R.K. Clark |
R.K.: Editing! You take your charming little novel -- that chubby gap-smiling baby you worked so hard to bring into the world...and now you appraise it with all the coldness of buying a used car.
Alisha: When writing do you just go with it, or do you plan?
R.K: I have a loose outline and some 'ice cream' scenes that I try to work in. I know if I just go with it, I'm going to chase down every little plot bunny like an ADD struck German Shepherd. I need the structure of an outline.
Alisha: If a fan came up to you in the street and acknowledged you what would you do?
R.K.: Probably panic at first. I don't put my picture on the books because well...I have a face for radio as the old saw goes. After I calmed down, I would probably offer to sign something, but no pictures. Radio face and all that.
Blurbs from The Dreaded Day Job
You've read the comic books, right? Man has super power, decides to use it for the good of mankind?
Yeah -- let me tell you what really happens.
Man discovers he has the superpower of bad luck, gets found by a company and is hired out to sabotage other companies above and beyond the objections of his own conscience just to put food on the table.
It's The Dreaded Day Job and I am up to my eyeballs in it.
Yeah -- let me tell you what really happens.
Man discovers he has the superpower of bad luck, gets found by a company and is hired out to sabotage other companies above and beyond the objections of his own conscience just to put food on the table.
It's The Dreaded Day Job and I am up to my eyeballs in it.
*****************************************************************
"It's 'The Dirty Dozen' meets 'Office Space' while standing next to Hogwarts."
I'm Evan and I hate my jobs. I work at a call center, so you can imagine what I have to go through in the course of the day -- the crying, yelling and cursing. That's before I get to work, after that it's all downhill after that. At least the people I work with are good company.
That makes my second job much worse: I get hired out to sabotage companies like the one I'm at now with my new friends by bad luck. I walk in, lay the whammy down on something and leave. The pay's good, but all the money in the world doesn't help me sleep well at all. My less than sympathetic co-workers and boss don't help matters.
How do I keep my sanity and a roof over my head?
***********************************************************
**If you like what you've read so far don't forget to check The Dread Day Job @ Amazon**
**And Always remeber its the time of year to BRR**
**If you like what you've read so far don't forget to check The Dread Day Job @ Amazon**
**And Always remeber its the time of year to BRR**
B-Buy
R-Read
R-Reveiw
* * ********************************************************************************************************************
J.S Frankel was born in Toronto, Canada and grew up there, receiving his tertiary education from the University of Toronto and graduating with a double major in English Literature and Political Science.
After working for Gray Coach Lines a grand total of three years, he came to Japan at the age of twenty-six and has been there ever since, teaching English to any and all students who enter his hallowed school of learning.
In 1997, he married Akiko Koike. He, his wife and his two children, Kai and Ray, currently reside in Osaka. His hobbies include weight training, watching movies when his writing schedule allows, and listening to various kinds of music. The Tower is his first novel, published by UntreedReads.com. His other novels, all for the YA set, include Twisted, Lindsay Versus the Marauders and it's sequel, Lindsay, Jo, and the Tree of Forever, all three courtesy of Regal Crest Enterprises. He has also written Death Bytes and Catnip, courtesy of DevineDestinies.com.
Alisha: Today I want to welcome J.S. Frankel to the ASL on Love and Deception: Recipe for good reading. He is our first, Thank you for joining me today J.S. Tell us what made you pick up a pen?
J.S.: I started writing very late, at the age of forty-eight. I had a dream, believe it or not—and if that isn’t a cliché I don’t know what is—and the dream, wacky as it was, gave me the impetus to write.
Alisha: I have been looking at your work and it’s mostly Sci-fi and young adult. Is there anything in particular that draws you to that genre?
J.S.: I like the immediacy of it as well as the uncertainty. By immediacy I mean that the situations seem to unexpectedly arise and the hero or heroine is suddenly thrust into a situation they’re not prepared to handle.
As for uncertainty, there are always choices to make in life. At any age, we all have to make choices and a certain amount of uncertainty accompanies those choices, but when you’re fourteen, sixteen, or on the cusp, so to speak, of adulthood at the age of seventeen, those choices seem to take on greater importance. As we get older and look back, we may think those roads we took weren’t so important after all, but at the time, yes, they were life-and-death situations…and we sometimes didn’t make the right choice.
Alisha: So J.S. tell us how you come up with your books. Is it easy writing Sci-Fi? Or does it take a lot of planning?
J.S.: Coming up with the idea is half the battle! Fortunately, so far, I’ve had little trouble thinking of ideas…but getting them down on paper, getting my narrative to flow, getting the dialogue right…getting everything right, well, that takes a lot of hard work and late nights.
Sci-Fi for me is fun, as I get to let my mind drift. I always think “What if” and take it from there. The one thing is to be consistent. By that, I mean if your alien world has rules, then keep those rules and don’t just
 |
| $4.99@ Amazon 26 Reviews |
As for planning, yes, for me I have to research. For novels such as the Catnip trilogy, they involved transgenics, the science of transposing animal genes with human ones. It’s not a new idea by any means, but I had to look at the hows of it all. That meant checking on what kind of machines they used, the terminology employed, and so on. Again, it had to play right in my mind.
Another novel, Star Maps, deals with aliens living on Earth and it takes place in Rachel, Nevada, a real place, so I had to research where it was in relation to the Interstellar Highway, the geography, the other real-world locations (such as Edwards Air Force Base) and so on. I wanted people to think I actually lived there, and one person who does come from Nevada thought I did live there. He was a little disappointed when I told him I live in Japan…
Alisha: Out of all your books do you have a favorite? And Why?
J.S.: I loved writing them all, but I’d have to say the Catnip trilogy, Star Maps, and Mr. Taxi. They’re all YA, dealing with action, adventure, and they include a little romance, and they all take our main characters in directions they never thought possible. I love using the old fish-out-of-water scenario, and Catnip and Mr. Taxi use that scenario and in my opinion, bring it off in style.
I loved writing my other novels, too, because they took my mind in different directions, but those three have resonated with me the strongest.
Alisha: You’ve been in the business for 2 years what advice would you give new writers trying to make it in the writing world?
J.S.: I haven’t been writing very long at all. I started writing at forty-eight, got published (digitally) a year later, and only got around to writing seriously when I was fifty-one. I’m fifty-three now, so it hasn’t been a long time, but it has been a good time.
 |
| $5.99 @ Amazon 11 Reviews |
Advice…hmmm…I guess I’ll echo what everyone else has said. There are no secrets. You have to get your idea, sit down, and write! You have to make time to write. You have to accept failure at one point or another, accept the frustration that comes with it, accept rejection by potential publishers and you have to keep going.
Along with the keep-going concept is the keep-learning concept. When I started, I had no idea of how to write. I just had an idea. My narrative was poor, my use of grammar worse. But my stories sold because of the idea. However, I also realized that I had to improve in every facet of my writing, so I looked at what everyone else did, how they did it, and developed my own style. And I’m still learning!
There are no out-of-the-gate wonders. Sure, there are writers who became overnight sensations such as J.K. Rowling, but many people seem to forget how hard she worked at becoming that sensation. She put in her time. She struggled for years before achieving success. Even though the Harry Potter phenomenon is somewhat akin to lightning in a bottle, she still worked hard for it and deserves her fame and fortune.
 |
| $5.99 @ Amazon 8 Reviews |
I’ve been rejected by publishers and agents before and I will be again. That hasn’t deterred me. It’s simply made me more determined.
Alisha: I am so happy you were able to stop by L&D, before we close can you give your fans any sneak peeks of work you’re doing now?
J.S.: Hmm…let’s see. First off, thanks for having me as a guest! I feel honored and I love your site. I think authors, especially the up-and-coming authors, have to support and encourage each other as much as possible. Sites like yours give us more exposure and I’m very grateful for it.
As for my sneak peek…well, right now I’ve just finished Separation: Catnip 4 and am in the process of editing it, but…here’s an excerpt. It’s very rough, but it might give someone out there a good idea of how I write. This scene is from the first chapter, and the main characters, Harry and Anastasia, both transgenic cat people (yes, you have to read the first three installments!J ) are going to be on a talk show.
 |
| $5.99 @ Amazon 12 Reviews |
 |
| $4.99 @ Amazon 10 Reviews |
Early morning or not, a number of people stopped to gawk and immediately, Harry felt the stares. Anastasia strode ahead and deigned not to return the looks of admiration or disgust, or those that fell in between those two extremes.
Once inside the studio, a young woman with a head of frizzy blonde hair and an officious manner came over and introduced herself as Melinda. “I’m Mr. Baskin’s assistant. I’m here to help you get set up. Do you need anything to eat or drink?”
“We’re fine, thanks,” answered Anastasia with only the faintest trace of annoyance in her voice. It was too nice a day to get annoyed, but Harry also felt a trace of apprehension.
Melinda nodded. “Follow me.”
At least she didn’t gawk. Invariably, people stared, but Harry was pleasantly surprised when she didn’t. Melinda merely waved her hand in the general direction of where they were going and ushered them into the studio. There, they took their seats on a stage, two simple wooden chairs side by side, and a larger, more luxurious leather recliner off to their right. “You don’t need any makeup, I take it?” she asked.
What did they expect, hair brushes or personal grooming? Harry started to toss off a snarky answer, but decided to let things play out and answered, “We’re fine, thanks.”
Melinda nodded, fitted them with mini-microphones, and gave the cue to the cameraman. He gave her a thumbs-up and a few seconds later, the audience filed in. He swung into position and a fat man in his forties with thinning red hair and a pasty complexion, walked out from behind a curtain at the side of the stage and onto the platform.
“I’m Peter Baskins,” he said in a rather high-pitched, reedy voice. “It’s so good of you to make it.” He did not offer to shake hands with either of them.
Harry replied, “Happy to be here,” and attempted to maintain a neutral tone. He immediately got a bad vibe from this man. Pleasant or not, as his wife had already mentioned, Baskins had a reputation of going for the jugular in interviews. Previously, Harry had watched a few videos of him and Baskins’ manners were, in a word, sordid, always looking for the negative. Be careful around this guy was his most immediate thought.
Once the host had taken his seat—luxuriating in it like a potentate—the intro music played and the audience dutifully clapped as the cameras began to roll. “Show time and we are live,” a technician called.
The interview began and the questions started off decently enough—how they’d met, the adventures they’d had—and Harry answered as well as he could. Farrell had cautioned him beforehand not to say anything about foreign countries’ politics and he didn’t, but at the very least, the audience responded by clapping in the appropriate places.
However, the mood took a U-turn into the sleazy when Baskins, true to form, got around to the ‘S’ question. “So do you two have sex?”
A few people in the audience laughed, but Anastasia didn’t find it very amusing and let out a soft growl that indicated disgust. “We’re married. Does that answer your question?”
This time, her response provoked a general round of laughter from the attendees, but Harry got pissed. This was stepping over the line. Baskins then followed up his initial salvo by asking, “And will you two be having any children? I’m wondering what they’ll look like, human or,” he turned to the audience, “freak?”
If he’d wanted a reaction, he certainly got one as a few people in the audience murmured and Anastasia leaned forward in her seat, her eyes shooting off danger signals. “What is your problem? We’re members of this society, or haven’t you heard?”
Baskins didn’t seem fazed at all. The look on his face resembled that of tofu. “The State Department may have granted you American citizenship, but you’re still a Russian to me.”
He then turned to the audience and related Anastasia’s past, complete with her work as a prostitute. Some of the people in attendance who weren’t in the know let out the expected gasps of shock and surprise, while others muttered something about Euro-trash and the company they kept.
“You knew about all that, didn’t you, Harry,” Baskins stated in the smarmiest of all voices once he turned back.
Flabbergasted at how this man knew something so personal, for a moment Harry didn’t reply. Yes, he knew about his wife’s past. She’d been a prostitute before her transformation. He loved her anyway and what was done, was done. “I knew,” he finally managed to say. “It doesn’t matter to me. It didn’t then and it doesn’t now.”
“You were also in jail for illegal genetic research,” the host continued, his eyes beady and predatory. For a fat man, he moved swiftly, and got to his feet in a quick, circular turn, a move only a figure skater would have attempted. He addressed the audience in familiar, almost fatherly terms. “So we have a hooker and an ex-con, and you want them to be part of this great society of ours? I see only monsters and freaks.”
Whether it was the word or his attitude, Harry didn’t know, but it ignited something in Anastasia. Jumping to her feet, she strode over and grabbed Baskins by the collar of her shirt with her right hand. The razor-sharp claws on her left hand extended a good two inches which she deftly positioned only a hair’s breadth away from his fat throat. “It seems the only freak around here is you,” she ground out. “Now I’d like an apology.”
The members in the audience, some of them on their feet, cried for a little order, while others yelled out “Waste him!” Right now, Harry didn’t know what his wife was about to do. Her eyes radiated pure violence.
“As I thought,” Baskins choked out. “You are a freak.”
With that comment, Harry’s initial thoughts of asking Anastasia to stop all but disappeared. This slob had gone too far. Still, this could be resolved peacefully—or as peacefully as possible. “I think we’re done here,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Not yet,” she growled and lashed out with a closed fist. It connected with Baskins’ jaw and he sagged to the ground, out cold. “Now we’re done here,” she stated in the flattest of all voices. She took her mini-microphone off and stamped on it, then walked out.
As the audience erupted in hoots of laughter as well as shouts of outrage, a few of the members, large, male, young and presumably stupid, started to hurl insults. Some of them charged forward, but security stepped in and held them back. One guard, wearing a faint smile, jerked his head toward the exit. “You’d better get going, sir.”
“That’s the plan,” Harry agreed as he tossed his mike aside and followed his wife to the open spaces.
On the street, she stood grousing about attitudes and vendettas. Pedestrians passed by, shouting greetings. A few people came over, notepads in hand. A young boy, perhaps ten years of age, thrust his notebook at Anastasia and asked in a piping voice, “Could you sign my book, please?” His parents hovered in the background, wearing smiles.
Anastasia quickly wrote her name which elicited a grateful “Thanks” from the boy. He ran off to join his parents, who waved and exited stage left.
“See, at least you’ve got one fan,” Harry said.
She turned around with a faint grin. “It’s better than none.”
More people then crowded around, some snapping pictures while others asked for autographs. Harry obliged them by posing with Anastasia and things seemed to be going well…
Until Baskins, holding a bloody handkerchief to his mouth, strode over and screamed in full view of the crowd, “Do you see what this…this thing did to me?” He followed up his question by pointing an accusatory finger at Anastasia. “I’m going to sue you, you…you animals!”
With a look of fury on her face, she started forward, but Harry put out his arm and blocked her way. “I’ve got this.” Turning to Baskins, he leveled the man with a single shot to the jaw. Bending over the unconscious blob, he added, “Count on two animals doing this to you.”
Anastasia lingered long enough to throw a look of contempt at the now out cold show host. She then took Harry’s hand and they moved off in the direction of Farrell’s car, parked conveniently a few feet away.
Their handler was leaning against the driver’s side, looking at his cellphone intently. “Are you going to say anything?” Anastasia’s voice cut through the air.
“No.” With a slow, deliberate motion, he stowed his cellphone away in his pocket and his voice came out quietly. “I was watching the show. You did right.”
“Did we?” queried Harry, feeling suddenly bereft. This gig was supposed to have smoothed things over. In the end, it seemed that the host had gotten what he wanted. “I guess we can rule out appearing on any more daytime talk shows.”
His comment got a laugh out of Farrell, but there was no humor behind it. “We’ve got other matters to worry about. Get in. I’m taking you both to FBI headquarters. We have to talk.”
****For more information about J.S. Frankel you can find him @ these links****
Facebook
Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/J.-S.-Frankel/e/B004XUUTB8/ref=dp_byline_cont_book_1#
Devine Destinies
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.devinedestinies.com%2F&h=3AQEvF-dT
****Don't forget, the best way to make an Authors day is in what I like to call "BRR"****
Buy Their Book
Read Their Book
Review THeir Book
No comments:
Post a Comment