Melisse Aires' Confessions of a Speculative Writer

So uber excited right now, folks! I've got a fellow SFR Brigader, author Melisse Aires, on the blog today to -- *gasp* -- give us some confessions. I didn't even have to play good cop/bad cop with her either. (Though, I always felt like I would be a really awesome bad cop...unless I started laughing that is.) So give some time to my friend Melissa.

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Sometimes you hear about authors who start writing a nice romance and all of a sudden their characters are stumbling over dead bodies. They end up writing a romantic suspense.

I'm kind of like that. My settings tend to morph into something not at all Earthlike--a water world planet with dome cities, or a fantasy Northpole cabin in the woods, or a cozy tree root home, or a nearly deserted space station. Now I have written a couple stories set in a bar in southern California, but in those cases the setting was detailed for me by the Aspen Mountain Press Del Fantasma bible. And then my characters morphed into otherworldly beings--a white tiger shifter and his love interest who sees ghosts and turns into a yeti shifter, or the half human daughter of an ancient god.

I have tried to write a straight contemporary romance story but no matter what I do either sci fi, fantasy or paranormal elements seep in there. I am, at heart, a speculative romance writer. I feel very fortunate that I am writing in the ebook age, when publishers will take chances on unusual speculative elements. Yay e-publishing!

Sometimes I am asked where my ideas come from, and I am not sure. I'm one of those weirdo global-abstract type thinkers and I read a lot. I like paranormal/fantasy/scifi tv and movies, also. I have three teenagers who keep life interesting. My mind is like Jiffy pop, a million things happening at once and then it's done. And often the best ideas come to me when my hands are busy with a visual task that takes no thought like washing dishes by hand, crocheting a known pattern or folding clothes. My solution for writer's block--read a good book or two and clean house.

I like to write stories of good and decent people in extraordinary circumstances-- people who don't deserve to be stranded in space, or born with the need to suck soul life from others to live.

And I have to write romance. I want everyone to find their true love, to find passion.

My latest release involves and magic weight loss spell, a gorgeous guardian angel and a devious famine demon. Also an angelic realm and a tropical pool. Her Accidental Angel is now for sale at: http://www.aspenmountainpress.com/new-releases/her-accidental-angel/prod_306.html

Check out my blog (http://melisseaires.blogspot.com/) for my contest! Thanks for having me, Amber.

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No problemo, Melissa! Good luck on your newest release. Keep us posted!

Stalked by Horror

I'll admit it with a "No Duh" response from my hubby and kids…I'm a chicken. Huge, loud clucking chicken of the worst sorts. I haven't been able to watch a real scary movie in decades. I can only read my favorite authors like Stephen King in the day light, starting in the morning and stopping well before sundown. Thereafter, I must watch something like Bill and Ted's Bogus Adventure or Weekend at Bernie's to push out any remaining horror thoughts before sleepy time. Yes, Gigantore of the Scaredy Cat Club.

Go ahead. Laugh, hoot, and holler. Get it out of your system and then you'll have the normal question I get all the time. "Why are almost all of your short stories and flashes horror or darker speculative fiction?"

Gather around and let me tell you…because they're my nightmares, and, I'll keep having them repeatedly until I write them down.

My flash fiction, Night Visitor, haunted me for weeks. "It" came every night. My blood curdling screams woke my family every night. I remained awake from that point on every night.

Every. Night. For. Weeks.

It wasn't until I wrote the darn thing out and tucked it in my laptop folder titled "Flash Stories" did I get a nights rest. It took several months before I could gather the courage to pull it back up, edit it, and send it off to Pill Hill for their 365 Days of Flash Fiction anthology.

Want to know an even deeper secret? I never read them again once they're completed and published.

Ever.

I've bought all the anthologies my stories are contributed in. I've even read my fellow contributor's stories (during the day light of course)…but I've never read my stories in them again.

Pfft!!!

They might come back out of the recesses of my mind and haunt me. Then what would I do? I've already written them, so can't rewrite them. I'd be stuck with them….forever.

*shakes off chill*