I had the opportunity to interview a fellow peer of mine, who happens to write some of the most intriguing paranormal horror stories I've come across in quite some time. His name is LaTorre Mays. His books are The Darkened Soul saga. (Photo above) As part of our effort to cross promote, I decided to interview him, and so come and join us for this interview and get to know him and his books!
AT: So LaTorre, what made you decide to become an author?
LaTorre: Ever since I could read and write, I kept to myself. Other than Saturday morning cartoons, you were most likely to find my nose in a book. Narnia. Neverland. Oz. Prydain. Those were the places I wanted to be. Those were the things I loved. Then around 4th grade, I got into the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and it just took off from there with me writing these little scripts that my librarian let me display in the school library.
AT: Describe your writing process. Are there any rituals or routines you go through before hitting the keyboard?
LaTorre: Ooooo...where do I even begin? LOL!!! For me and writing, usually it depends on what I'm working. I tend to let ideas fester in my head for a while...whether it is months or even years...because I start to put it to pen. I begin with characters sketches to get me more of a feel for some characters. I also mentally start to plot out where the story is going. I have the plot points, but my characters take over along the way. If I feel that I am having a hard go at it, I still start to outline to get a stronger structure to work with. When I am working on a novel or short story, I write when I can. When I'm on the trolley heading to work, on break at work, on the trolley home from work. Definitely, like my coffee so it's not unusual to find me either at Starbucks or a coffeehouse with fast internet. Then I tend to sit for an hour minimum writing. I don't do a set word count when I write, but I do like to write 10 pages a day or barring that a chapter a week. Did I mention coffee? That's usually all the routine I need before I sit and start writing. That...and a good pencil. I'm old school so I write down what I am writing before I type it up on my laptop, different genre of music in my ear. Trance. Pop. Progessive house. Rock. Ballads. Soaps.
AT: What advice would you give to any aspiring writers out there?
LaTorre: Follow your bliss. Whether it is just one sentence a day, do what makes you happy. You will be surprised how just one sentence a day can translate over a period of time to a novel.
Just write.
AT: What inspired you to create the Johnathon, the main character of your Darkened Soul saga?
LaTorre: Uh...I just need to make a brief correction. While Jonathan is definitely the focus of the next book...a novella...I am working on, my main character of the saga is Daniel Westberg. What inspired Daniel? Well...he came to me one day while I was working on another novel that was just a coming-of-age YA novel. I saw this man standing on a ledge, wanting to kill himself. And while I tried to ignore the image in my head, focus on the novel I was working, it was so strong and I was so curious about why he would be on a ledge, that I stopped. I stopped what I was working on...and listened to the story he was trying to tell me. There are several of my friends who had read the first few drafts of Darkened Soul who felt that Daniel was me. One even apologized because she thought that I was brutally harassed in high school. In a way, I guess there were parts of Daniel that were me. I definitely in my life have known loneliness and isolation as well as dark times so that is a natural draw to me. The parts of the self that are hidden. The undercurrent.
Now to just mention him since I do mention him a lot as of late, Jonathan is a secondary character in Darkened Soul. In fact, he says my favorite line in the whole entire novel. It's a line which resonates with me very much. As did his conversation that he has in the novel with my villain Ursula. It was due to that exchange that I wrote a short story She Walks in Shadows (which is on www.facebook.com/darkenverse ) as well as started to write a novella Jonathan's Tale due to there was such an undercurrent to him that drew me. This jolly Nosferatu who in these small moments showed there was a sadness to him involving Ursula and I wanted to see what it was that ultimately separated them.
AT: So what can we expect from LaTorre Mays in the future?
LaTorre: Wow. For now, I'm working on Pieces of a Darkened Puzzle which my novella Jonathan's Tale will be the main part for. It's going to be a short story collection that hope will get readers used to this little dystopia world I created. It will have old short stories that I already have posted online as well as new stories made for the collection that flesh out the world. One of them is even a sequel to a short stories I posted called One or the Other dealing with magicks in this world. I hope to have the ebook out in December...and maybe hardcover as well.
I also am working on having Darkened Soul out in hardcover around the same time as well.
As far as writing beyond that, there's the Darkened Soul sequel Darkchilde that I am going to work on for Spring 2014 dealing with a character very close to Daniel. I like to mix my genres and which it will still have some of the themes in the first book, it will have a love triangle of sorts at the center and a slightly different story structure from Darkened Soul.
I also want to try my hand at a fantasy trilogy, one of the books I want to try at Nanowrimo in a few days. Unless I change my mind...LOL.
AT: Well LaTorre, I really enjoyed having you on my blog, you seem like a very passionate and talented author and I thank you for being a guest on my blog. I wish you all the best on your endeavor and I hope to read more or your work in the future!
For any of you out there reading this, be sure to check out LaTorre's websites below, as well as the links to his books!
LINK:
AUTHOR PAGE: www.facebook.com/writerguygothic
BOOK PAGE: www.facebook.com/darkenverse
BLOG PAGE: http://www.tumblr.com/blog/someplace-that-is-else
DARKENED SOUL ON AMAZON: http://www.amazon.com/Darkened-Soul-ebook/dp/B00DY5JMIE/
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