Hola folks! I hope this Sunday finds you happy and inspired. Here at Ink & Angst we’re pleased to bring you an interview with April Tucholke, a Lucky 13er whose book BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA is slated for publication in August 2013!

From her website: I currently live in Bend, Oregon, at the edge of the Deschutes National Forest. I can see the stars, all of them. The air smells like pine, and I hear coyotes howling at night. I dig classic movies, redheaded bullies, big kitchens, and discussing murder at the dinner table.

And here is the description of her book on Goodreads:

Violet’s grandmother had warned her about the Devil, had talked about him often, as though he were a best friend, or an old lover. But she never told Violet that the Devil could be real. She never told Violet that the Devil could be a dark-haired boy in vintage clothes who takes naps in the sun and likes old movies and has a deep sense of vengeance.

River West is the seventeen-year old stranger renting the guesthouse behind the rotting mansion on the sea, where Violet lives. And as eerie, grim things start happening in Violet’s town, she begins to wonder about the boy living in her backyard. Is River just a crooked-smiling, coffee-loving liar with rascally eyes and a mysterious past? Or could he be something else? Something…evil?

Violet’s already so knee-deep in love she can’t see straight.

And that’s just how River likes it.

1. If you had walk-on music (a song that plays when you enter a room), what would it be? Why?

Hmmm…probably something dreamy and calming, like that O Brother Where Art Thou Skip James song, Hard Time Killin’ Floor Blues. That song does it for me.

2. How does living near a national forest affect your writing process?

I think it helps the imagination to be near wilderness. My writing seems to improve in direct relation to how detached I am from civilization. Howling coyotes and circling ravens and great horned owls looking down from tall pines—that’s pretty atmospheric.

3. What do you feel is your greatest strength, craft-wise?

I’m concise. I love plot. Plot, plot, plot. I write a good sexy scene. I can get pretty dark.

4. What do you have work harder on to get right?

Initially? It took me a long time to get the rhythm, the cadence, of writing a book. I had to figure what needed to be said, and when, and how long I should take saying it. And then, once I had the melody of writing down, I had to figure out how to change it, and make it my own. I still get bored easily, and want to skip descriptions, etc and just jump from intense bit to scary bit and back again.

5. What draws you to horror and fantasy?

Well, I like a lot of genres—I have a deep soft spot for westerns. Fantasy can be hard to write, because there is so much world building. But that’s the cool thing about, too. Horror—well, Stephen King taught me that if you can scare people, really scare them, they’ll love you forever. So I’m seeking that kind of love, I guess.

6. Your website gives an article from 1954 as the inspiration for BETWEEN THE DEVIL AND THE DEEP BLUE SEA. Could you elaborate on how you came upon the article and what about it sparked this story?

This is an awesome question. I stumbled upon this article (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/8574484.stm) when I lived in Edinburgh, and I just couldn’t get over it. I love it when truth is stranger than fiction. Hundreds of kids stalking a vampire in an old cemetery. How did it begin? Did it trace back to one particularly charismatic liar? Who was that kid? What was he like?

7. Tell us about the genesis of Violet and River.

Yeah, Violet and River. Strange boy comes to town. He’s mysterious. He lies. The MC is a lonely ex-wealthy bookworm missing her grandmother. She’s a goner from the get-go. Violet might be a bit like me. But then, River has some of me in him, too. One or two characters I based on real people, but most are just aspects of myself, I think. Who I want to be, who I don’t want to be, who I actually am.

8. Did you plot out the novel before starting to write or do you like to start without much structure? Or perhaps something in-between?

Other than the kids in the cemetery article, I had nothing. I just jumped in. The WIP I’m working on now has a very basic outline. And that’s working all right, too.

9. Expected publication has listed in August of 2013. At what point in the process are you now?

Just finished my 2nd round of edits. I still have to get copy edits and a cover and ARCs, etc. 2013 feels a million miles away.

10. What was your path to publication like?

Well, I wrote 3 manuscripts in 3 years. Got some editorial attention on the first, none on the second, sold the third. All right ups, deep, deep, downs. I studied writing in college. I never really thought it would go anywhere, though. But it did. So that’s pretty cool.

My dad’s getting old.

I know this, not because his hair is thinning or his beard silvering, but because of his television habits. He watches the news like some people watch football. He sits on the edge of his chair, dinner turning cold at the table while he shouts at a newscaster who can’t hear him and frankly doesn’t care. When he turns it off, he spends most of his meal complaining about the score — unemployment, the crooks on Wall Street, and elected officials texting pics of their man-parts. “The country’s going to hell in a handbasket!” he yells from the backseat, wishing he was behind the wheel of Congress so he could fix it all. At least, I think that’s what he’s saying. I usually have my fingers in my ears because I can’t stand the bitching.

Lately, I’ve been watching my kids’ public school like my dad watches the news. I sit on the edge of my seat, hollering about long school days focused around multiple choice tests. I complain to no one in particular about the deterioration of the Arts in school. My dinner gets cold while I interrogate my children… “What did you do in art today? Did you have music this week? What kinds of creative writing are you doing in school?” And then I grumble to myself about the demise of my children’s education.

I’m passionate and curious, but I’m just bitching from the back seat, trying to turn a bus, even though the no U-turn sign is right in front of me. No amount of screaming at the television is going to reform education for my children.

So instead of grumbling, here’s what I did about it. And if you’re sitting in the backseat losing your voice over the same thing, you can do it too.

I approached my kids’ school as a volunteer and offered to teach a Creative Writing program.

“No time during the school day,” they said. They offered to give me twenty minutes with a computer generated book-making program and lots of clip art. “No thanks. I want this to be something the kids can be proud of. Something they put time and thought into, with real art supplies and real paper.”

I offered to do it after school. To provide the materials. To donate the time. To manage it myself.

They scratched their heads. “We don’t really see kids wanting to spend their free time on something like this,” they said.

“Something like what?”

“You know. Something… artistic.”

Clearly, this bus wasn’t willing to make a U-turn. And no amount of yelling was going to change their opinion of their students or the arts.

No one said changing the system or getting involved was easy. But I was determined to be part of the solution. I took my volunteerism to my local YMCA and my local public library. I told them I wanted to offer a Creative Writing Program for kids.

And that’s exactly what we’re doing. 

This fall, in cooperation with my local YMCA and public library, I am mentoring a group of young authors. We will spend four months learning story elements, brainstorming, writing and illustrating our entries for the Scholastic Kids Are Authors Contest. We’ll have fun and create something these kids can be proud of. Shake off some of that Number 2 pencil dust. Learn something. After school. Because we WANT to.

In addition, we’re starting a Creative Writing program for teens. A place where teen writers can stretch their minds outside the multiple choice bubble.

Are you screaming from the backseat, wondering what happened to the arts in your child’s school?

Then ask yourself, ”What are you gonna do about it?”

For about a month I’ve been on a self-imposed blackout. I cut all unnecessary things in my life. No Twitter, no blogging, no critique groups, no phone calls I didn’t have to make, no events I didn’t absolutely have to go to. You may be thinking, what was left to do? This was one thing: How We Roll. And SHE was another.

About the time I started my other blog, joined this one, started Tweeting, joined critique groups, sent my MS to agents, and generally dove head-first into advancing as a writer; when all of that happened, she stopped taking naps. You have to be a mother or a nanny to really understand the severity of that sentence.

Fast forward six months. The agents have responded, the blog is getting traffic, the tweeting is well, whatever it does, and I’m so strapped for writing time I’m taking rough drafts to critique group. One day, being the decisive, action-oriented person that I am, I decided to do the blackout.

I was like Alice in Wonderland when she falls down the rabbit hole and everything is upside-down. I fell from the ceiling and the world righted itself again.

When I reemerged a week ago and went to a critique group, Lisha asked, “Where have you been?” I told her I was reading books, writing, doing the occasional exercise video, taking my daughter to the park. I said, “You know what I learned? I like my daughter. She’d kinda fun.”

By the grace of God I checked my calendar and saw I was supposed to post today. And I’m okay with that. But truth be told, I’m not ready to end my blackout quite yet. (Partly because of this: Dancing) Social media is wonderful, great, irreplaceable. I wouldn’t have the writer friends I do, the critique partners, this blog, or half the knowledge I have without them. But every once in awhile it’s nice to get perspective. I’m in a different stage of things right now, I need that gold pond to sit and think, I need a room of my own to write, and I need to make castles in the sand with a three-year-old. These are the things that are making me a better writer.

What about you guys? What’s working for you? What are you doing to grow this month?

Today is an homage to a spiffy iPhone app that I use as a motivational tool:

  Bloom*  is a reminder app. But it’s not just an alarm clock.

Bloom*’s messages are slideshows with soundtracks–a full media presentation. There are many alerts to choose from, including “Live With Enthusiasm”, “Walk The Dog” and “Expand My Network”.

The Bloom* Shop–which is free–is broken down into categories such as lifestyle, career, health, finances, style, etc. Each category offers quite a few pre-made “Blooms” to deliver to yourself, featuring music by U2 or Lady Gaga, or sometimes by unknowns.

Fun. Big stress reliever when you’re trying to figure out how to make your query stand out.

Also, a non-threatening way to remind yourself to work on a task you HATE to do.

But here comes the really fun part.

You can make your own Bloom*s.

All you have to do is throw in some photos–taken on your iPhone camera, downloaded from wallpaper, from the internet…anything you can save to your iPhone photo album. Pair them with songs from your library or iTunes. Bloom* will spit your efforts back to you as a rolling slideshow.

AND EVEN MORE AMAZING.

You can send Bloom*s to your pals.

If you don’t mind, I think I’ll take a one-minute tropical vacation now. Courtesy of Bloom*.