Meet Dana Donovan

I have the pleasure of interviewing Dana Donovan today, author of Bones of a Witch. Before we get to the interview, here's a bit about Dana:

Dana Donovan grew up in New England where folklore and superstitions can mold a town’s history as much as its people. As a boy, he loved reading Sherlock Holmes mysteries and tales of adventure by Mark Twain. Later, he became a big fan of Stephen King, and when he started writing his own mysteries, influences of all his literary heroes began echoing in his writings. In his blended style, Dana exploits small town phenomena, perpetuating the enigma of its people and the belief in all that dies is not dead.

 

http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/bones-of-a-witch/6000914

 

www.Smashwords.com/books/view/6073

 

www.DanaDonovan.com

Lea, first off, let me say thank you for hosting me today, and thanks to all of you who stopped by for a cup of cyber coffee and to sit in on our little fireside chat.

1- Where does your inspiration for your books come from?

Awesome question, Lea, thanks. Truth is I find inspiration almost anywhere. Books like Resurrection, Skinny and Abandoned are often sparked by fragmented thoughts or flashes of SAMs (Spontaneous Absurd Musings.) Once that spark is lit, a wild fire races through my head until either I figure out a story or it burns itself out for lack of fuel.

2- If you could step into any famous author's shoes, who would that be and why?

Oh, that’s easy, Stephen King. I mean, here is a guy who literally wrote the book On Writing. He writes whatever he wants and gets away with it because he is King. Who else would go about spelling the word picture in dialogue, pitcher, just because the character speaking would likely have spelled it wrong too? It’s classic, really. King doesn’t just break the rules, he makes them.

3- What do you find have been the most difficult obstacles in your writing process? Why?

I may be more fortunate than most in that I really don’t have many obstacles keeping me from the writing process. I do hold down a day job that leaves me with little time during the week to write. But I have figured out long ago that writing takes discipline. Although I enjoy it, I know I have to “make” the time to do it. Between books, I am a slacker, and I don’t write much at all. That usually only lasts a couple of months though. During that time my SAMs are very active, and eventually I take the hook and then I am consumed by the very urgent sense that I must write now! And so I do.

4- Did you start Bones of a Witch as a single book or had you mapped out the series?

Well, Bones is the fourth in a series. When I wrote “The Witch’s Ladder”, I left the ending open to a sequel, hoping I might build a series out of it. But then something happened on the way to book number two. I wrote Shadow Games, Abandoned, Skinny, A Talisman’s Tale and Death & Other Little Inconveniences. Six years later came books two & three of the series, Eye of the Witch and The Witch’s Key, respectively. Resurrection was a break from the series before Bones, and then finally the fifth book Witch House. Whew! Anyway, to answer your question, no I did not map out the series. I’m just winging it, letting the characters dictate what they want to do next. 

5- With a multitude of point of views, how do you keep each one pointing toward the main plot of the series? Or do each of the characters have their own stories that shape the plot?

For the record, Bones is the only book in the series with multiple POVs. The story is lineal, and what you have is a passing of the narrative baton among a handful of characters. The fun comes in the overlap, where one picks up the narration, sometimes contradicting the previous POV of what had just transpired. Usually, I let Detective Marcella tell the entire story first hand. After the first three books, however, I felt like the other characters had something to say and that Marcella could not say it for them. As would be the case in real life, not everyone sees a given situation in the same light. So the plot unfolds as it would anyway, only with unique glimpses contributing to a fuller, richer experience.

6- What advice would you give to new writers on the writing process?

Funny, you know I have a friend at work who wants to write. He has been struggling for over two years to start something. He plots out a story line, trips over the first chapter or two and then trashes what he has written and starts over. My advice for new writers is the same advice I give him. Just write it, damn it! Don’t worry if it sucks. It’s gonna suck. If it didn’t, you couldn’t get better at it. Harsh, I know, but it’s true. If you want to be good, it’s like anything else. You have to practice, practice, practice. You have to make the time, but most of all you have fun with it!

Lea, thanks again for hosting me; and to everyone who stopped by, I want to offer you a copy of Bones of a Witch in your favorite e-format, (Kindle, e-pub, Sony Reader, Palm, PDF, etc.). Simply link to http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/6073 and check out using the coupon code NM48E

Excerpt from “Bones of a Witch”

Ursula’s rebirth

© Dana E. Donovan 2009

I caught up with her about another thirty yards in where the vegetation graciously gave way to an open circle of flat grass and firm ground. And there, behind a crouch of dogwood shrub, I hunkered low and watched her.

By the time I took up my position, Lilith had already laid out what looked like bones onto the ground in a pattern resembling a human form. A few days earlier, Tony told me about her claiming her Aunt Ursula’s bones from a city excavation site down at the cemetery, and so I guessed those were them. I hoped so anyway, otherwise they were Tony’s and that meant I’d have to take back all the bad things I had ever said about him not appreciating Lilith. Man, I hate eating crow. Still, I suppose that would mean that she’d be free to date again. Hmm….

After completing a few final adjustments in bone placement, Lilith stood erect, raised her hands to the sky and began chanting something in Latin, or maybe Greek, or some Aboriginal monkey speak. I don’t know, but it was bizarre. I know I heard the word Grimoire spoken. I recognized that word from some of the stories Tony told us about his rite of passage ceremony. Whatever the words, I know they held some powerful influences over the skies above. Almost immediately upon uttering them, a low dark cloud formed directly over Lilith and her collection of bones. The wind around her picked up in a spiral, spinning slowly at first in a counter-clockwise motion, stirring up the grass and leaves and collecting them in a train like a ribbon trailing in the breeze.

I watched in awe, stooped on knees and wanting so much to stand and applaud her mastery of kinetic manipulation. But I dared not, and before long the spinning vortex around her increased in both mass and velocity, at times blurring her out of focus for the curtain of debris trapped within its walls. It was then I sensed the true threat for her safety. I remembered Tony telling me how a similar phenomenon had wiped Lilith’s house completely of its slab, and if not for the fact that he and she were alive today to testify to it, I might have run to Lilith then and tried to stop her.

At that moment, the cloud overhead began churning in colors, morphing from dark grey and black to deep purple with streaks of cobalt and crimson, the cyclone’s grip below squeezing ever tighter, constricting like a python to barely an arm’s length in either direction. Tiny sparks like fireflies flickered all around its perimeter, snapping and crackling in static electric charges that seemed to increase in number and intensity with the growing tempest. Lilith, the conductor of this great orchestra, bowed on one knee, making a fist over the bones. She then opened her fist, allowing what looked like ordinary beach sand to cascade over her palm, into the wind. A clap of thunder erupted instantly. The swirling wall of wind turned a crisp ocean blue, then yellow and then finally, in a brief flash, white, with a blast of heat so harsh it pushed me to the ground.

When I rose it was gone, all of it: the cloud, the wind, the ribbons of grass and leaves. Everything. But in its place stood a miracle of science, nature and whatever other affinity of Cosmo-creations one can accredit if he so believes. I rubbed the scratchy bits of dirt from my eyes. My jaw hung slack. My throat narrowed to a tiny straw-sized opening that allowed just barely enough air to tunnel through it so that I might not pass out from lack of oxygen. But none of that did I notice at the time, instead it was all I could do to wrap my mind around the sight of two preposterously gorgeous women standing before me: one, of course, was Lilith, the other her stark double, the near spitting image of perfection personified. She stood facing Lilith at comfortable ease and totally nude. Her hair, silky long and thick fell across her shoulders like an ebony tide, splitting symmetrically down her back and front and covering her nipples just barely. She smiled at Lilith with a teasing sort of grin, suggesting familiarity in acquaintance and finality in acceptance. Her body shape and tone mirrored her maker exactly. Their bewitching eyes, haunting and beguiling, shared a seductive allure unmatched by any siren or fairy temptress. Even that sassy stance that defines Lilith so keenly found compliments in this other woman’s posture.

In the still of early morning, with the faint whisper of falling leaves still settling from the sudden absence of spiraling winds, I heard Lilith say, “You look well, Ursula, all things considered.”

Ursula approached Lilith and the two hug. “And thou,” she said, “hath thou waited long?”

Lilith shrugged lightly. “Only sixteen and three hundred.”

“Years?”

“Yes.”

“Blessed. How came this tardy spell?”

“It’s a long story. Don’t ask.” She turned suddenly, catching me off guard but luckily did not see me. Then she bent over and reached into the box that she had carried in with her, removing a small bundle of clothes and handing them to Ursula. “Here, put these on,” she said. “They’re not exactly what you’re used to, but I think you’ll find them most comfortable.”

Ursula unfurled a pair of blue jeans and held them out at arm’s length. “Breeches?” The pitch in her voice made her sound young and naïve. “What costume have thee presented me that I should dress like a man?”

“Not a man,” said Lilith, “a woman. We have come far in three hundred years. We dress as we please now. We are emancipated. Women in this century vote. We hold jobs of all sorts: doctors, lawyers, warriors and politicians; there is no position barred to us these days.”

“None?”

“Not in America.”

“Have we a woman pope?”

“A pope?”

“Yes.”

“No, that’s not America, but check back in another three hundred years. Maybe the church will give in a little on that. In the meantime, come on, get dressed.”

Ursula stood in silent contemplation, scrutinizing the garment with a level eye and a curious grin. She seemed especially amused with the zipper, which she figured out quickly and delighted in repeating the function of zipping it up and down a number of times. She then looked at Lilith, only now realizing how complementary the jeans looked on her. “You wear no shift below these?” she said.

“Shift?”

“An undergarment.”

“Oh, right.” Lilith smiled with hesitance. “No, no shift. I’d have brought you a thong, but I didn’t do the laundry yesterday, what with the witch’s trial and all.”

“Pray tell, you have been to a witch’s trial?”

“Been to one? I was the guest of honor at one last night. I’d be hanged had I not killed Putnam and Hilton?”

“Putnam?”

“Yes, do you know him?”

“Aye, the name. He is the devil, for ought I know. At my trial, he did cause the children torment. In my presence they fell into fits uncontrolled, to which he put blame unto me.”

“So you think, Ursula, but that was not entirely Putnam’s doing.”

“Oh, but it was. Had I not seen with eyes my own I might not believe, but his powers are strong and affright me most grievously.”

“I know, but you see it was all a sham. And in your case it was not Putnam’s doing alone. It was the children’s, too. They only pretended to be possessed by your specter so that they could see you hang with the others. The attending adults, most of them, simply got caught up in the hysteria. But a few, like Putnam, went along to settle old scores and to profit from the fallout. None of it would have been possible without the presumed innocence of the children, however.”

The thought of that brought Ursula nearly to tears. I watched her gaze drift away, her thoughts with them, perhaps back to a simpler time when good and evil were perceived easily as black and white, and where all children were considered blessed unless tainted by agents of the devil, to which evidence would be obvious and no blame could they know.

Lilith reached out for Ursula’s arm and shook it gently, drawing her back from the past. I watched (ashamed, I must admit) from a crouch behind the dogwood brush, as Ursula finished getting dressed, stepping first into the jeans Lilith had given her, and then putting on a bra, a blouse, stockings and boots. She stepped back, posing with arms splayed for Lilith, as if modeling in front of a mirror. “What thoughts have you now, sister?”

“Wow,” said Lilith, smiling as brightly as I have ever seen her smile. “You look hot, girl. Not bad for an old bag of bones. Don’t you think?”

“I do,” she said. “I should think the devil himself hath dressed me in sin for all I know. But if I must tell you, I will. It doth pleaseth me.”

“Good. If it pleases you, it pleases me, too. Now come. We have some business to take care of in Salem before the day is through.”

“This day?”

“Yes.”

“But are we not still in New Castle?”

“Yes. Why?”

“Salem is a half night and a day away, even with a horse of strong and good nature, a carriage can only travel so swiftly.”

Lilith placed her arm around Ursula’s shoulder and started her down the path toward the gate. “Yes, but you see I have a carriage with a couple of hundred horses to spare. It’s called a Mustang and I feed it high-test.”

“Pray tell, have things changed?”

“Oh, my, yes they have. What once we thought impossible even through witchcraft is now common occurrence through our understanding of everyday science and nature. Why, we witches hardly want for anything anymore.”

“Uh, except for men,” Ursula joked.

To which Lilith returned, “No, we even have a good substitute for that. It starts with something called batteries. Let me tell you about it. First you….”