Rogue's Angels Present: Mortal Thoughts by T. J. Park

Please welcome T. J. Park author of Mortal Thoughts.

The author will be awarding an eCopy of Mortal Thoughts to 3 randomly drawn winners via rafflecopter during the tour.

Mortal Thoughts

by T.J. Park

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GENRE: Supernatural Thriller

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INTERVIEW:
1. What or who inspired you to start writing? 

Very early on, maybe when I was seven years old. I learned the power of the scary story. I was at a neighbourhood BBQ in the small town where I grew up – this was the 70s when parents were blissfully relaxed about leaving their kids totally unsupervised at parties. The kids started telling ghost stories, trying to freak each other out. Someone told the old chestnut about the couple who broke down near the old lunatic asylum and the girl stays in the car while her boyfriend goes off looking for gas or a phone, she falls asleep and sometime later awakes to hear a rhythmic thudding and scratching on the roof before there’s flashing lights and cops telling her to get out of the car and run to them and most importantly to NOT LOOK BACK!!! Of course she does and sees a lunatic kneeling on the car roof thudding and scratching the severed head of her boyfriend on the metal. Now it’s not much of story to a grown up but to first-time ears it was the most frightening thing we’d ever head. Kids were running around in crazy circles, screaming and crying – I personally thought I was going to pee my pants – but to this day I’m not sure whether it was because I was terrified or excited – maybe it was a bit of both. All I knew from that night on was I wanted to tell stories that did THAT to other people. The next time I sat down with my pencil and notebook in primary school I was no longer writing about things I did on my holidays – it was sea monsters, giant spiders and murdering lunatics all the way. At least that was Second Grade. I diversified from there…

2. What elements are necessary components for this genre?

Writing in the crime, horror and thriller genres is at once simple and very challenging – there are certain expectations that the reader has that you have to deliver on. If it’s a crime novel there has to be a crime, a criminal and someone who’s after their arse to make them regret the crime in one form or another; in a horror novel there has to be some form of “other” – whether that’s human or inhuman that poses some kind of threat and of course has to have some decent bloody scares in it. However, those genres are very well-mined and the readers/fans of those genres are generally voracious in their consumption of them so they’ve largely read it or seen it all before – so they want some of what they’ve had before but served up a little differently. You have to both adhere to and refresh the various conventions of the genre. Show them a monster they haven’t seen before – or at least in that way. Beyond that I think it’s really down to showing a genuine passion for the genre you’re writing. You can’t fake that. Readers will spot it instantly and suddenly the meal they were looking forward to gets scraped in to the rubbish bin.

3. How did you come up with your idea for your novel? 

It began with something very simple and innocent. I was walking down an ordinary suburban street and heard the tinkling of windchimes – which is at once a beautiful and lonely sound – and looking for the source of the sound, saw a quaint, almost storybook cottage – very pretty. The combination of the pretty little house and the eerie sound of the windchimes got me thinking about what might be happening that very moment behind those curtains and closed doors. And of course my imagination told me it was something brutal and bloody and that, whoever lived, they would be coming home to a slaughtered loved one. Then I got thinking about who that loved one was – and who that person coming home to a shattered family was and, ultimately, what they might be capable of doing to avenge the death of their beloved.

4. What expertise did you bring to your writing?

Before I was a novelist I was a screenwriter, still am in fact. So the expertise is in creating a cinematic story that has a visceral impact on the reader. When I write, I see the story as a movie in my head and so I want to impart that to the reader. Beyond that, I’m a lifelong fan, reader and viewer of the kinds of stories I like to and want to write. That’s probably the best kind of expertise there is.

5. As far as your writing goes, what are your future plans?

At the moment it’s more screenplays – that’s the bread and butter at the moment and I’m making inroads into Hollywood so it’s time to capitalise on that. Of course, depending on how UNBIDDEN goes with the readers I’ll return to novels sooner or later. It’s a sad fact that screenwriters lose a bit of their sexiness to the movie industry at a certain advanced age (unless you’re writing worthy dramas and who wants to write those?) but there’s no such ageism when it comes to novelists so no doubt there will be more if not only novels at a certain stage.  Give me a beer or a coffee, a keyboard and someone to read what I’ve written when I’m done and I’m happy – whatever the medium.

6. If you could be one of the characters from this book, who would it be and why?

Honestly, I wouldn’t want to be any of the characters in UNBIDDEN because they all go through such hell and various levels of suffering if not extinction. It’s that kind of book – that’s not to say there aren’t any victories or redemptive acts at the end but I’d be lying if I said anyone has a smooth ride. But if I’m pushed (there’s a in-joke there for anyone whose read the book), I’d be Fat Boy (again, there’s a double-in joke once you realize he’s named after one of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan in World War 2), he’s a literally larger than life bikie – a total hedonist who lives fast and doesn’t give a flying fuck about anyone or anything – he lives to party – eats too much, drinks too much, tweaks too much and thinks too little. There’s an attractive freedom in that kind of reckless, insane abandon. Plus he goes out in a big way – fittingly enough for a big man.

7. Can you give us a sneak peak into this book?

I don’t want to sound like I’m copping out because given the opportunity I’ll sit you down and read you the whole book but UNBIDDEN is one of those books that the less you know about it the better – it sneaks up on you and just when you think you’ve got a handle on what genre or what kind of story it is, you’re in dark, surreal territory and in a delicious zone where you’re almost too scared to read on but too thrilled to stop. Having said that, there is a bizarre heist, a bloody murder (or three), an unspeakable violation, an unnerving deception and terrifying reveal… If that sounds like something you’d like to peel back the covers of and have a peek inside then come right in…

8. When did you first decide to submit your work? Please tell us what or who encouraged you to take this big step?

As a screenwriter, it’s all about getting your story on a desk or on a screen (be it a computer or cinema screen) – and you learn two very important things – that there’s no such thing as a perfect script (or manuscript) and that your best guide is your own honest appraisal of the readiness of the work. Of course, I wrote the book then I rewrote and rewrote til it was in a state where I felt confident that it would hook and impress a reader – then I sent it to my agent who sent it to Harper-Collins and they dug it. I was also aware that I was never going to be as great a writer as some of my heroes but I was already better than some people (who shall remain nameless) who were published. I certainly couldn’t have done worse. And I didn’t.

9. What is the best and worst advice you ever received? (regarding writing or publishing)

Best advice came from a self-realisation – an epiphany of sorts – write the kind of stuff you personally want to read. Easy as that. Bring into existence a story that doesn’t yet occupy a shelf or a small bit of memory on a laptop or Kindle or whatever e-reader you use but deserves to. Worst advice? Don’t write a certain story because that genre doesn’t sell – you can’t second-guess the marketplace or the reader. By the time you write something that you think the market wants (based on a trend or fad) chances are it’s already too late – the time has past and they’re probably onto the thing you were told not to write in the first place.  

10. Do you outline your books or just start writing?

Outline always. In screenwriting it’s called a treatment – a detailed outline of the plot. Get the story and plotting right first then you can relax a little in the writing and concentrate on making the prose elegant (or lean and brutal depending on your aim – and of course they don’t have to be mutually exclusive), the characters come alive and the dialogue sing. That stuff is challenging enough without having to worry about what happens next. 

11. How do you maintain your creativity?

This is the hardest question to answer because I don’t know. It’s not a question of maintenance. It’s not an effort for me. My mind is made to conceive stories – and sadly not much else. It’s as automatic as breathing to me. Has been that way since I was a kid. I actually have several notebooks filled with concepts and ideas – some are pretty detailed and others are just titles or phrases or ideas for a character. But there are literally hundreds of them. I’ll never live to write the stories I’ve already got but it doesn’t stop me from coming up with more. It’s a beautiful curse.

12. Who is your favorite character in the book. Can you tell us why?

Cutter Collins was the most fun to write because he’s utterly evil – a sadistic sex criminal and pure animal. A brute. You wouldn’t want to meet him – ever – but he offered an opportunity to really tap into my dark side and unleash the beast so to speak. But I think Doug Mulcahy is my favourite. He’s the protagonist but not necessarily a hero although he does some heroic things. He’s a flawed, tragic figure with a lot of depth and dimension. You get to know him as a real person – understand him and feel for him – even if those feelings are mixed. I think a lot of people will fall in love with the bastard like I did. The fools.



Thanks the Angels

BLURB:

The heist is cursed from the start. Doug Mulcahy and his gang hijack a mining plane and a fortune in black opals - gemstones with a rep for being unlucky. Following a brutal shootout on a remote airfield, the hijackers flee in the crippled plane only to crash-land soon after. Shaken and battered, they stagger through the outback until they stumble upon a strange little house and an ethereal woman. Taking the woman hostage, the thieves wait for her husband to return with his truck. But it all goes to hell when a rogue gang member forces himself onto the woman. The house is drenched with blood, the husband returns, and the men realise nothing in this place is as it seems. And the horrors are only just beginning...

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EXCERPT:

Doug Mulcahy always wanted another smoke before he’d finished the last one, more to feel a cigarette between his lips than nicotine in his lungs. An oral fixation, his ex-wife used to call it, usually earning herself a smack. The only oral fixation he ever admitted to suffering was how to shut her smart mouth.

Gripping the wheel with both hands, searching for the turn, he saw a black snake standing on its tail in the distance down the road, swaying like a charmer’s trick in the midday rising heat.

Getting closer, the snake became a pair of black, stretch denim jeans, long blonde hair, a backpack – and the potential for female company. But then sharper focus revealed scrawny shoulders wider than the hips, a lack of arse and an unfeminine stride.

The snake stuck out a thumb.

“Good fucking luck,” growled the man seated beside Doug.

The truck didn’t slow. In the rear-view Doug saw the hitchhiker hawk and spit in their direction, never breaking stride.

Enjoy the walk, smartarse.

A sign ahead showed their destination writ large in faded letters: Mirribindi Aerodrome. As Doug slowed for the turn, an oncoming white Ford Falcon hurtled past back toward town. Sporting an ostentatious bullbar and radio antennas like fishing poles, it was the kind of vehicle endemic in country areas, favoured by the landed gentry. Its tyres kicked up a stone which cracked hard against Doug’s windscreen.

Doug thought he disguised his reaction, but his passenger chuckled.

Prick.

Both knew he’d never enjoyed the loud, sudden bangs that punctuated their line of work.

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AUTHOR Bio and Links:

The book is $0.99.

TJ Park is an Australian novelist and screenwriter. He was raised on a steady diet of Stephen King novels, British science-fiction television, and the cinema of John Carpenter and Sergio Leone. Not much else is known about him. That's just the way he likes it.

http://www.harpercollins.com/9781460706305/mortal-thoughts-unbidden-part-one

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/mortal-thoughts-t-j-park/1123045407

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B018PXCCJU/

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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION and RAFFLECOPTER CODE

The author will be awarding an eCopy of Mortal Thoughts to 3 randomly drawn winners via rafflecopter during the tour.

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/28e4345f1581