Author Spotlight: M Flagg, paranormal romance

Please welcome Michelle Flagg a good friend and peer paranormal romance author. Her series is AWESOME! I've read Retribution! and look forward to the next book.

Thanks for having me here, Dayana. It’s always such a pleasure to visit with you.

Tell me about yourself. What makes you angry, happy, sad, snoopy dance?

I’m a left-handed Virgo who loves chocolate. That just about covers it! Been blessed with a wonderful family who brings happiness and joy to my life. I tend to snoopy dance a lot, and the only thing that truly ruffles my feathers are mean-spirited people. I don’t tolerate bullying, either in the classroom or out of it.

How many books have you written?

3 – Retribution! is my first release. Consequences is also contracted with TWRP, and Inheritance, Book 3, has not yet been queried. All are full-length novels.

What are some traditional methods of marketing you have used to gain visibility for you and your book(s)?

I’ve done pens, postcards – the usual. Also, I spread the word about my work on blogs, Facebook, and anywhere anyone will listen.

What are some unique methods?

Recently, I was interviewed on blog talk radio. Now that was a very strange feeling. Taking out ads, even short news releases to a local paper have worked really well. The latter led to a fantastic invitation for a book signing at a busy coffee house. I sold well over 30 copies of Retribution! I’ve been invited back there for a Halloween book signing, but this time, I’ll be joined by Noble Blood’s author, Linda J. Parisi. Two Black Roses in costume! I’m so looking forward to it J

Oh blog radio is strange. I had an interview with Paranormal Palace last year and was so nervous, but you know? The host was so warm and friendly we ended up talking like we were longtime friends. BTW I listened to your interview, Micky, and it was great:)

When do you write (daytime, nighttime, on your lunch hour, before the kids get up, after everyone is asleep? In large chunks of time or stolen snippets?)

My two children are in their 20’s, and I totally give kudos to authors with little ones around. I don’t believe I could have written one sane word while my two were small. I usually write on nights and weekends. Some Saturdays, I’m so involved in the characters that the day fades to black before I realize it. Being a teacher, snow days have me jumping for joy and raring to write. The ambiance of a blizzard just thrills me!

Now that is something I truly miss from my life in New Jersey. Snow days were always the best.

Do you write every day? Or when the muse strikes?

Nope – I’m strictly a ‘when the muse strikes’ kind of gal. I can edit most anytime, but the creative process of writing only happens when the muse makes an appearance.

Ditto, Micky. Me too!

Where do you write?

Ah, I love this question! There’s a small eating room at the back of my home. The table becomes a perfect desk, the view, an entire wall of window. My laptop faces open space full of greenery. There’s a really neat forest on my left. Deer, fox, groundhogs, bunnies, chipmunks, and various species of birds are often present. I love the feeling of solitude in the midst of Mother Nature when I write.

Oh that sounds wonderful. I am so jealous. I grew up venturing through forests and loving nature. I miss it. The flora and fauna is so different in the tropics.

Do you put pieces of yourself or your life in your stories?

Yes. I think most writers do. I also put pieces of my family’s lives in the characters as well.

Again, I tend to do the same thing. My first book a crime suspense has a lot of my father in it:)

What is your least favorite thing to do as an author?

Jeez, can’t I have more than one?? Making the query letter perfect, penning a thrilling synopsis, shameless self-promo… The uncomfortable tasks one must accomplish if we choose to entertain others with our creations. If it helps, writing the book is what I like best.

Tell us about your Hero. Do you have a favorite, if you’ve written multiple books?

Michael Malone is a tall, dark, and handsome vampire with moral conscience and tons of depth. Reclaiming his soul after 200 years of lusty kills changes him. Michael’s complex disposition makes him fun to write. His arrogance hides a very caring (but metaphorical) heart, and devotion to Alana, my heroine, never wavers.

As I've told you on numerous occasions, I love Michael and Alana. They are just amazing. And the strife they muddle through is so well written. All your characters are so very well fleshed out, I felt as if I knew each one of them. You guys really must read this book.

Are any of your characters modeled after people you know?

Bits and pieces of the good people in my life show up in each of my characters. Thorn, the empath who helps Michael, is a combination of three wonderful men that I have the pleasure of being related to. I love each one of them in a different way, and Thorn is a tribute to their persistence and importance to me.

What do you do for relaxation?

Very little. No lie… I’m wound pretty tight.

What TV shows do you watch? I never miss Bones, The Closer, or Mad Men. I’m a sucker for drama and complex characters.

Oohhh, I love Bones as everyone already knows.

What type of music do you favor?

Being a music teacher, I find different types of release in different genres. I’ll escape into my thoughts with Bach’s Cello Suites or anything Chopin. But I get equal satisfaction out of Santana, Janis Joplin, the Beatles, or Louis Armstrong.

Quite diverse taste, Mickey. I tend to do Alternative and Classical which totally on two different ends of the scale, LOL

Do you use music as a motivational source when writing?

Nope. Never. My head starts analyzing the piece and I slip into the musician and out of the writer. I prefer total silence when I write.

Fun question (possible blackmail material down the line, LOL) What is the most uncharacteristic thing you have ever done? Please, no censoring? I have no qualms about placing a content warning on my blog!

I gave up a tenured teaching position to study acting in London and traipse around Europe when I was 26. For five months, I lived without a plan, without a care in the world. Anyone who knows me will attest to that being the most uncharacteristic thing I have ever done!

It's been a pleasure having you here today, Micky. I look forward to reading Consequences and please do get Inheritance submitted, woman!

More about M. Flagg:

Mickey brings the joy of music to hundreds of students every week in an urban K-8 school. Named a Distinguished Music Educator at the 2009 Yale Music Symposium, she also accompanies a church choir on Sundays and writes paranormal romance. Retribution, her debut novel, was released in 2009. Book 2, Consequences, is also contracted with The Wild Rose Press. Living in northern NJ, she shares her home with her children, a rescued, bright-orange Main Coon who only bites her ankles, and a very sweet JRT who doesn’t know he’s a terrier. Her novels can be purchased at http://www.thewildrosepress.com/ as well as various sites on the web. You can contact Mickey at http://www.mflagg-author.com/

Here's Mickey! Please welcome Parnormal Romance Author, M Flagg:)

Hi, Mickey! Thanks so much for coming over to blog today. I read Retribution! and got totally lost in Michael and Alana's struggle to come to terms with the purest love possible. An amazing story of selflessness and true worshipful love between two people. Michael is the true Champion over the darkness.

Hi, Dayana. I am so happy you enjoyed Retribution! and thank you for your kind words. I'd like to discuss how at times life-memory ends up on the page.

Have you ever written a scene with one particular item stuck in your mind? For me, it was cherry cheesecake—with chocolate cookie crust. Just to be clear, chocolate goes with everything under the sun. But you need to be clever and a bit sneaky.
Let me not digress too far. While writing Retribution! an off-beat mini-vision hammered at my brain. This set up the “big rescue” scene. Why cherry cheesecake? The thought had come out of nowhere to steal my attention. But before snappy dialogue filled the page, I sat back, let a memory play out.

Growing up, food had a starring role in our family. Check out some old movies, like “Moonstruck” and the hilariously sweet “Fatso” with Dom DeLouise if you have any doubts. My Mother was Italian, and most of those characters could have been relatives. Every holiday meant multiple courses that took hours to eat through. It was a ritual. Peasant dishes, nothing fancy, graced the family table. Once married, our home became the gathering place. Plan for eight but be ready to serve eighteen. My sister helped with the cooking. Since I loved to bake my most memorable part of any meal was dessert. One Easter, a friend who was preparing for Passover suggested I make a cheesecake. Hmm… Dare I shake up tradition?

Had there ever been a homemade cheesecake at our dinner table? Fresh ravioli or melt-in-your-mouth gnocchi, zucchini cake or biscotti could be found, but cheesecake? Never. Cheese is cheese. Cake is cake. Nothing “cheese” goes well with perked coffee after a meal. For decades, the family’s iced Italian cookie recipe ruled our dessert menu. My mother and her favorite sister could whip them up with their eyes closed and bake enough to feed several city blocks. But a scrumptious cheesecake topped with cherries?

Never!

Fear crept into my fingers while I cracked the eggs. This recipe wasn’t engraved on my grandmother’s mind when she came to America’s shores. My aunts, 10 just on my mother’s side, often withheld one special something. This recipe didn’t look like it had that infamous wiggle room. So goes another tradition.

Cheesecake had to be precise or it cracked and crumbled! Could there be a patron saint of cheesecake? No such luck… I’d be doing this alone. Carefully measured ingredients went in without an extra dollop of this or that. Just to be authentically ethnic I hand smashed chocolate cookies into a thick crust. Two pans baked side by side—with love and a litany of prayers. Only one had a huge crevice running through the center. Potholders wedged the oven door ajar for an excruciating hour. Heavenly aromas of vanilla and cream cheese wafted through every room.


Eventually, fresh berries drowned in store-bought cherry filling topped them off. I whipped up six dozen Italian cookies just in case.

No pun intended, but success was sweet. Full of pride, my mother took two pieces home.

That’s why I had to make cherry cheesecake part of my first novel. It would surreptitiously spark a hero’s rescue. Perhaps I not only craved that particular confection. Perhaps I wanted my mother and her favorite sister with me once again.
Real-life shapes the writing process. So do memories. Whether we create paranormal fantasy or inspirational romance, who we are appears on the written page. Do you agree? If so, will you share a memory that crept across your page?

One poster will receive a copy of Retribution! The Champion Chronicles: Book 1. And of course, you can find the family cookie recipe at http://www.mflagg.blogspot.com

Retribution! Excerpt
Night Shift

“You did good, Phil, and half the night’s over.” Denny Kim laughed. “Jeez, for all that fluff in your head, you really got this down faster than even Big J did—and he’s one hell of a smart guy!”
“Thanks a whole bunch, Mr. Kim,” Philip said with a huge grin. “I went home and my friend helped me study. We just moved to this fab condo in Fort Lee. Oh, I almost forgot, I brought you a slice of cherry cheesecake.” He pointed to the plastic container on Denny’s desk.
Denny scratched his head. “It’s my favorite. Isn’t that something?”
Denny ate it at 3 a.m., got up from his desk, and Philip caught him before he hit the floor, down for the count. At the same time, the “temporary” security supervisor checked his watch. At 3:15 there’d be a pre-recorded CD confirming that everything had been routine during the dead man’s shift. Philip would only have three minutes before the back-up alarm showed an elevator door open.
Philip ran down the cell list on the clipboard, charting statuses and times until he got to Number 5027. Next to “Second Rotation” he noted: Rapid Deterioration. He replaced the clipboard on the desk and got the metal gurney. After unsealing 5027, the ex-Guardian lifted Michael onto it and wheeled it down the hall.
As the elevator reached “Loading Dock”, he placed a piece of duct tape over the motion sensor. When the doors opened, he started the countdown.

Short bio: Mickey spends her days bringing the joy of music to hundreds of children. She has recently been named a Distinguished Music Educator at the 2009 Yale University Symposium on Music in Schools. The itch to write a paranormal novel occurred while finishing her second masters, a degree in Educational Leadership. The journey to publication led her to The Wild Rose Press where a talented editor, Callie Lynn Wolfe, entitled her series: The Champion Chronicles. Consequences, Book 2 continues Michael Malone's road to redemption. Learning more about the craft of good story-telling each day, Mickey is putting the final touches on Book 3, Inheritance.

Thanks so much for having me today, Dayana. It's always a pleasure to visit with you. I'll be checking back after a morning of summer school antics. Now that's a whole 'nother story completely!!

Wow! it's way too quiet. Where is everyone?

Well as many of you have noticed, I have been very busy with visibility. Something that for us fledgeling authors is so very important. Without the funds for broad advertising, agent representation, or that dreamed of sale to a large New York house we are at our own mercy.

So what do we do? We put our name and brand on any and every venue we can. We collect people as 'friends' and resources to utilize and keep our names in the proverbial limelight. We help each other by doing blog visits, interviews, and just plain word of mouth advertising.

I am not the highest skilled computer techie-type person but I can eventually figure my way around most venues. If I can't I have Catherine! LOL But I will warn you, everything takes time and patience. As many of you know I recently signed up for Twitter(easy), My Space(full day project for me), and Facebook(not complicated).

Now while we're busy trying to get aboard all these networks, other venues are
slipping by the wayside. I have slacked the last couple of weeks on the loops, blogs I frequent, and writer forums. Yikes! It all takes so much time and effort to keep visible, when does a writer take time to...write?

Well, remember a few months ago I did some time management blogging? Well, here is where scheduling your activities, updates, writing time, real life all come together. Maybe not as good as on paper but you can tick things off as you accomplish them and feel good about it. I make lists and notes all the time containing things I need to do or did do so I know where I left off. I have a household day planner and and writing day planner and index cards and even spreadsheets coming out the ying yang. Yeah, I know sounds like a chaotic mess but it is an organized chaotic mess *grin*

Today I plan on mapping out all the projects I need to deal with and handle and I will whip out a completed short titled, A Jersy Tale, and get it submission ready. It needs some reworking and lots of heat:) Started out as an imagery project for a class I took and turned into a story long ago. Blew the dust off it last year and did some revising and now I will finish it. I'd like to have it out and hopefully sold by fall. Perhaps even released next year for Halloween. Now all I have to do is make it happen:)

Wanted to remind you all that Michele Flagg will be hanging out here tomorrow so please drop by and visit with her. She is the author of Retribution! the very hot vampire series, The Champion Chronicles. Don't miss Michael Malone. He is one stacked vampire.

Have a wonderful end to your weekend.

D~

Please welcome Michele Flagg, author of Retribution! Book I, The Champion Chronicles.

Hi Dayana! Thanks for inviting me as a guest blogger. I’m a Black Rose author with The Wild Rose Press. My first series, The Champion Chronicles includes Book 1: Retribution! and Book 2: Consequences. Book 3: Inheritance is still wrapping up. Please visit my web site, www.Mflagg-author.com to learn more. Since it is paranormal peak season, I’ll offer some words about “good” vampires who leave a lasting impression. So it’s back to the 1960s. We can certainly time-travel, right? If you weren’t around then, think of this as a previous life experience!

I went to a strict, all-girls Catholic high school. Imagine the surprise when one of our assignments was Bram Stoker’s Dracula. Required reading!? Good literature aside, it’s a demon! I’ll be saying Hail Marys until 1970! Well, Stoker’s words sent chills down my spine. So much so that I closed the book at page 10 with my heart racing and took a failing grade. Unthinkable if you know me, but true!

A year later, enter Barnabas Collins on Dark Shadows. That vamp had mystery, as well as a bit of good in him. Hmmm… After conning my sister Linda into taking me and my best friend into Manhattan, we met the actor who played him, not once but quite a few times. Maybe that’s where the fascination with good vampires starts.

During a particular low point in my life, I stood in a bookstore searching for something to take me away from hideous reality. A woman approached, saying “Read any Anne Rice?” A blank stare and a slow shake of my head was the answer. She thrust a book in my hand, which was over a decade old, whispering, “Trust me…it’s really good.” While watching my children swim like crazy fish in the pool, I devoured Interview with a Vampire. Thank goodness for the pizza delivery man!

Louis intrigued me. That vamp had passion, mystery, and sorrowful good in him. Did the desire to create my own vampire begin here? Nope. Keep reading.

In 1999, my teenage son introduced me to another vampire. Wait a minute? Don’t vamps lose their souls? Zoom to 2005. Laboring through completing a second masters in two years while teaching full-time, I vowed that as soon as this was over, I’d do something different. Call it a whim, but I decided to create my own vampire…and maybe I’d redeem him, just for the heck of it!

My son and I discussed vampire lore. “Write it, Mom,” he said. Okay, I thought, maybe ten pages of run-on sentences. But I had my own surreal drama churning. Linda listened to depressed ramblings as only a loving sister would. “Forget it all…just write,” she said. I did. My daughter echoed the mantra. I got so involved with my paranormal love story that I didn’t even realize I’d given my parents’ names to my main characters. Embarrassing, but totally true! Other people from my life morphed onto the pages. When I stopped, 120,000 words filled a file on my laptop entitled, Retribution!

Michael Malone, my good vampire, is mystically enhanced (Hey…it’s my paranormal world and I can do what I want). He reclaimed his soul in 1890. In 1990, the vampire sees a girl with her father just before dawn. Years later, he realizes that she is his salvation. But Alana’s now a Guardian of Souls who destroys demons that lurk in the night. To further complicate Michael’s undead life, he has fathered a human son, tricked by a dark seer. The newborn is taken away from Michael and raised in safety. Alana turns 21, and Michael cannot contain love for her anymore. He sleeps with the innocent woman, who breaks a timeless vow. But more importantly, the beast within Michael resurfaces. They never speak again until… Michael’s road to redemption turns bumpy. His son is made to pay for the sins of the father. Lukas, at 13, hunts his undead parent. Alana moves to Portofino. Michael makes a deal with Evil on earth to save Lukas. He calculates revenge. When vengeance is served, Michael is thrown into the depths of near-insanity and begins to weave a tale of redemption with the angel Helena. Only Alana can save him. Thus, Retribution! begins.

Why did I write about a vampire? It’s fun! The creation of a paranormal world offers plenty of wiggle room for interesting characters and supernatural twists rooted in reality. Of course, I can also guarantee the happy ending. Book 2: Consequences takes up Michael’s quest for redemption. Book 3: Inheritance reveals Lukas’s destiny. I love a “good” vampire story. Let’s hear it for the vamps that take us out of this world and into theirs!

I am eternally grateful to my editor, Callie Lynn Wolfe, for her guidance and belief in this new writer, and to The Wild Rose Press, for allowing me the chance to share my stories.

So if you know a “good” vamp, let’s hear from you! Leave a comment and it may entitle you to a Wild Rose Gift Certificate, which you can use now—or for the release of Retribution! The Champion Book Chronicles: Book 1. I know…shameless self promotion! Thanks again for having me, Dayana.

It’s been an interesting new “first” for me!

Mickey Flagg