"The Only Way to Lose is To Give Up": An Interview of Rob Blackwell by Paranormal Reads
I was fortunate enough to have Paranormal Reads feature "A Soul to Steal" for an entire day on Feb. 1. If you don't know the site, they are very supportive of indie books and are well worth checking out.
One of the administrators, Tif Borka, interviewed me about the book and gave me permission to re-post it here:
PR: Whatmakes A Soul to Steal so unique?
Rob: It's a lot of different genres rolled into one. It startsout a mystery, becomes a thriller and includes elements of urban fantasy,gothic novels, journalism procedurals and even paranormal romance. It's funnyto me when people say that this book isn't their normal genre but they enjoyedit anyway – because I'm not even sure what genre the book is. I really thinkthere is something there for everyone. A lot of people try to figure out whothe killer is, while others focus on the love story between Kate and Quinn, mytwo protagonists. Others are more interested in the Celtic myth that ties thesetwo plotlines together. It works for different people for different reasons. Plus it has the Headless Horseman in it but doesn't repeator retread "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," which I think people really enjoy.
PR: Didyou wake up one day with the idea for your book or did it build in your headtill you wrote it down?
Every story I've ever had just builds in my head. Sometimesit's the beginning of a story, but more often it's the end. In the case of "ASoul to Steal," I had an image of what became the final two chapters. The trickwas figuring out how we arrived at that point and what happened to make itpossible. That process built over months in my head. Honestly, and you can check with my wife on this, I walkthrough a lot of my life inside my head. There are always stories playingthemselves in my head and I'm always adding to and revising them. "A Soul toSteal" was just the first one I committed to paper.
PR: If youcould sum up A Soul to Steal in three words what would it be?
You Are What You Fear
Okay, that was five words. Boiling it down further istricky but I'd go with this: Fear Defines You. Or maybe it should be: FearDefines You?
PR: Canyou tell us a bit about where you call home?
I grew up in Great Falls, Virginia, which is a suburb of Washington, D.C.When I was a kid, there wasn't much development out that way, so you had thesewonderful old, spooky forests that my friends and I used to play in. It'spretty easy to see why I developed an unhealthy obsession with the HeadlessHorseman because I always imagined him suddenly coming around the corner. I still live nearby, but unfortunately the area is a lotmore developed now. I have some wonderful biking trails near my house, but it'snot quite the same. Part of the reason I set the book in Loudoun County,which is still near D.C. but further west, is because it has some of the samelandscape. Leesburg has recently expanded, but towns like Waterford and Aldie still resemble theirpre-Civil War days, complete with thick forests, rolling hills, etc.
PR: What'sbeen your most memorable moment so far in your writing career?
The most memorable moment was just two weeks ago. I madethe book free for a single day and it just took off! The highest number ofbooks I had ever been able to sell in a single day was 34. When I made the bookfree, I started watching it jump by 20 and 30 books at a time. Later that day,it started going up by 100 or 200 every five minutes. It was an amazing feelingto know that my book was being downloaded by so many people in a single day—iteventually was downloaded by about 6,500 people. I don't know how many willactually read it, but even if 10% did, that's a lot of people that now have mybook. I was over the moon.
PR: Howlong did it take for you to come up with your character names? Did you ever goback and change them or just stick with them?
I'm absolutely terrible with character names! Other thanQuinn, the main character, every single name in "A Soul to Steal" was changed,sometimes several times. It actually got pretty confusing for me at somepoints. Honestly, picking names is my least favorite part of writing.Frequently, I lift the names of friends or people I know. I don't usually taketheir whole name, just their last name. This isn't always a compliment as insome cases the character might turn out to be a jerk, or worse, die. I have toexplain, "I don't really want to kill you, you just have a cool name."Hopefully they believe me.
PR: Whatwas your writing process for A Soul to Steal?
Almost the entire first draft of "A Soul to Steal" waswritten on an old Handspring PDA (like the original Palm Pilot). I had a25-minute subway ride into D.C. at the time and would pull out the Palm Pilotand a folding keyboard, hook them up and get to work. This was great forproducing copy quickly, but it didn't give me a lot of time to plan or thinkahead. As a result, the first draft was a mess. I put it away for two or threeyears before I even looked at it again.When I returned to it, I really rebuilt it from the groundup. I took a lot more time, but I focused on removing anything extraneous andensuring the narrative really made sense. It was a chapter-by-chapter affair.Interestingly, this has been my approach to writing the sequel, which I'm doingnow. I focus on writing each chapter the way I want it, and then moving on.It's tough because you can't linger too long—you have to get the story out oryou'll get distracted and forget what you need to be doing—but you also can'tjust write without purpose. You get a lot of extraneous copy by doing that.
PR: Do youhave a favorite place to write?
I have an office in my house where I can look out at thewoods behind me. It's not a very big room, but it's very homey. Truthfully,though, I will write anywhere and sometimes be surprised how I can shuteverything out. The other day I pulled out my laptop on a plane flight,assuming I really wouldn't be able to get in the groove of writing. I waswrong. I banged out a chapter in less than an hour—which is not easy for me todo—and really felt like I was hitting all the right notes. Sometimes I can sitalone in my house for that amount of time and not be able to write a thing. I'mnot sure why sometimes it comes easily and other times it doesn't.
PR: Who isyour biggest supporter with your writing?
My wife, Maia. She didn't see "A Soul to Steal" for years.I had kept talking about writing a novel and then when I finally did, I lockedit away because I knew it wasn't any good. I didn't want her to read it thatway. Once I revised it (rewrote it, really), I finally showed it to her and Iwas so nervous. If she hadn't liked it, the novel would have gone back in thedrawer, likely forever. Worse, I would know if she didn't like it. We've beentogether since we were around 19, so we really don't have secrets. Fortunately,she really enjoyed it. She laughed at the right parts, and didn't want to putit down at the right parts. Just knowing that she loved and believed in thebook was a huge relief for me. But it didn't stop there. She made the novel significantlybetter. Maia is a very talented writer and editor in her own right and she wentthrough the book page-by-page improving copy, suggesting changes, askingquestions, etc. I didn't make every change she suggested, but it was anincredibly helpful process that improved the characters and descriptions andclosed holes in the plot.Since then, every time I have doubted if the book is anygood, or whether I should publish it, Maia has been very supportive. Withouther, there is no way I would have made it this far.
PR: Whatis some advice you would pass along to an up and coming writer?
Write what you want to read anddon't give up. Authors have to be careful not to just try and write somethingthey think is popular versus what they really care about. I didn't set out towrite in a particular genre, but I just picked the story in my head that seemedthe most ready to be a novel. It's important someone doesn't think they have towrite dystopian YA novels because that's what's popular. If they like thatgenre, by all means try and write your own. But if you'd rather read somethingelse, go write it. The first reader is you. If it doesn't sound too odd, Iactually like my own book. I've had years to put it away and then re-read itand think, "This is good." That's really important. Secondly, you have to persevere.Very few will be able to write a single novel and watch it become a bestseller.If you are serious about being a writer, you need to get out there and go doit. There's never been a better time. You don't have to apply for an agent orpublisher anymore. All you have to do is write a good book, get itprofessionally edited, hire a great cover artist, and start selling it. If thatfails, write something else. The only way to lose is to give up.
One of the administrators, Tif Borka, interviewed me about the book and gave me permission to re-post it here:
PR: Whatmakes A Soul to Steal so unique?
Rob: It's a lot of different genres rolled into one. It startsout a mystery, becomes a thriller and includes elements of urban fantasy,gothic novels, journalism procedurals and even paranormal romance. It's funnyto me when people say that this book isn't their normal genre but they enjoyedit anyway – because I'm not even sure what genre the book is. I really thinkthere is something there for everyone. A lot of people try to figure out whothe killer is, while others focus on the love story between Kate and Quinn, mytwo protagonists. Others are more interested in the Celtic myth that ties thesetwo plotlines together. It works for different people for different reasons. Plus it has the Headless Horseman in it but doesn't repeator retread "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow," which I think people really enjoy.
PR: Didyou wake up one day with the idea for your book or did it build in your headtill you wrote it down?
Every story I've ever had just builds in my head. Sometimesit's the beginning of a story, but more often it's the end. In the case of "ASoul to Steal," I had an image of what became the final two chapters. The trickwas figuring out how we arrived at that point and what happened to make itpossible. That process built over months in my head. Honestly, and you can check with my wife on this, I walkthrough a lot of my life inside my head. There are always stories playingthemselves in my head and I'm always adding to and revising them. "A Soul toSteal" was just the first one I committed to paper.
PR: If youcould sum up A Soul to Steal in three words what would it be?
You Are What You Fear
Okay, that was five words. Boiling it down further istricky but I'd go with this: Fear Defines You. Or maybe it should be: FearDefines You?
PR: Canyou tell us a bit about where you call home?
I grew up in Great Falls, Virginia, which is a suburb of Washington, D.C.When I was a kid, there wasn't much development out that way, so you had thesewonderful old, spooky forests that my friends and I used to play in. It'spretty easy to see why I developed an unhealthy obsession with the HeadlessHorseman because I always imagined him suddenly coming around the corner. I still live nearby, but unfortunately the area is a lotmore developed now. I have some wonderful biking trails near my house, but it'snot quite the same. Part of the reason I set the book in Loudoun County,which is still near D.C. but further west, is because it has some of the samelandscape. Leesburg has recently expanded, but towns like Waterford and Aldie still resemble theirpre-Civil War days, complete with thick forests, rolling hills, etc.
PR: What'sbeen your most memorable moment so far in your writing career?
The most memorable moment was just two weeks ago. I madethe book free for a single day and it just took off! The highest number ofbooks I had ever been able to sell in a single day was 34. When I made the bookfree, I started watching it jump by 20 and 30 books at a time. Later that day,it started going up by 100 or 200 every five minutes. It was an amazing feelingto know that my book was being downloaded by so many people in a single day—iteventually was downloaded by about 6,500 people. I don't know how many willactually read it, but even if 10% did, that's a lot of people that now have mybook. I was over the moon.
PR: Howlong did it take for you to come up with your character names? Did you ever goback and change them or just stick with them?
I'm absolutely terrible with character names! Other thanQuinn, the main character, every single name in "A Soul to Steal" was changed,sometimes several times. It actually got pretty confusing for me at somepoints. Honestly, picking names is my least favorite part of writing.Frequently, I lift the names of friends or people I know. I don't usually taketheir whole name, just their last name. This isn't always a compliment as insome cases the character might turn out to be a jerk, or worse, die. I have toexplain, "I don't really want to kill you, you just have a cool name."Hopefully they believe me.
PR: Whatwas your writing process for A Soul to Steal?
Almost the entire first draft of "A Soul to Steal" waswritten on an old Handspring PDA (like the original Palm Pilot). I had a25-minute subway ride into D.C. at the time and would pull out the Palm Pilotand a folding keyboard, hook them up and get to work. This was great forproducing copy quickly, but it didn't give me a lot of time to plan or thinkahead. As a result, the first draft was a mess. I put it away for two or threeyears before I even looked at it again.When I returned to it, I really rebuilt it from the groundup. I took a lot more time, but I focused on removing anything extraneous andensuring the narrative really made sense. It was a chapter-by-chapter affair.Interestingly, this has been my approach to writing the sequel, which I'm doingnow. I focus on writing each chapter the way I want it, and then moving on.It's tough because you can't linger too long—you have to get the story out oryou'll get distracted and forget what you need to be doing—but you also can'tjust write without purpose. You get a lot of extraneous copy by doing that.
PR: Do youhave a favorite place to write?
I have an office in my house where I can look out at thewoods behind me. It's not a very big room, but it's very homey. Truthfully,though, I will write anywhere and sometimes be surprised how I can shuteverything out. The other day I pulled out my laptop on a plane flight,assuming I really wouldn't be able to get in the groove of writing. I waswrong. I banged out a chapter in less than an hour—which is not easy for me todo—and really felt like I was hitting all the right notes. Sometimes I can sitalone in my house for that amount of time and not be able to write a thing. I'mnot sure why sometimes it comes easily and other times it doesn't.
PR: Who isyour biggest supporter with your writing?
My wife, Maia. She didn't see "A Soul to Steal" for years.I had kept talking about writing a novel and then when I finally did, I lockedit away because I knew it wasn't any good. I didn't want her to read it thatway. Once I revised it (rewrote it, really), I finally showed it to her and Iwas so nervous. If she hadn't liked it, the novel would have gone back in thedrawer, likely forever. Worse, I would know if she didn't like it. We've beentogether since we were around 19, so we really don't have secrets. Fortunately,she really enjoyed it. She laughed at the right parts, and didn't want to putit down at the right parts. Just knowing that she loved and believed in thebook was a huge relief for me. But it didn't stop there. She made the novel significantlybetter. Maia is a very talented writer and editor in her own right and she wentthrough the book page-by-page improving copy, suggesting changes, askingquestions, etc. I didn't make every change she suggested, but it was anincredibly helpful process that improved the characters and descriptions andclosed holes in the plot.Since then, every time I have doubted if the book is anygood, or whether I should publish it, Maia has been very supportive. Withouther, there is no way I would have made it this far.
PR: Whatis some advice you would pass along to an up and coming writer?
Write what you want to read anddon't give up. Authors have to be careful not to just try and write somethingthey think is popular versus what they really care about. I didn't set out towrite in a particular genre, but I just picked the story in my head that seemedthe most ready to be a novel. It's important someone doesn't think they have towrite dystopian YA novels because that's what's popular. If they like thatgenre, by all means try and write your own. But if you'd rather read somethingelse, go write it. The first reader is you. If it doesn't sound too odd, Iactually like my own book. I've had years to put it away and then re-read itand think, "This is good." That's really important. Secondly, you have to persevere.Very few will be able to write a single novel and watch it become a bestseller.If you are serious about being a writer, you need to get out there and go doit. There's never been a better time. You don't have to apply for an agent orpublisher anymore. All you have to do is write a good book, get itprofessionally edited, hire a great cover artist, and start selling it. If thatfails, write something else. The only way to lose is to give up.
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