Getting To Know Ally Blue

Hi all I’m Baaaaaaack  And today Ally Blue who writes one of my favorite paranormal series “Bay City Paranormal Investigation” as well as many other great romance stories, is my guest. We’re going to take a little break from the norm today as I have so many questions I want to ask Ally… So many questions so little time lol

Welcome to International Heat Ally thank you so much for being here today!

Thank you for inviting me! I’m happy to be here

Before we get started on the getting to know you part, would you like to tell us about your new and upcoming releases?

Sure thing! My latest release is Dragon’s Kiss, a short story from Samhain which came out June 5th. It’s the first in a new series I’m starting, a futuristic sci-fi-ish deal titled Mother Earth. I thought the world of Dragon’s Kiss was so intriguing and so much fun to play in, I wanted to explore more of it. That’s why it is becoming a series.

More info about Dragon’s Kiss on my website:

http://www.allyblue.com/DragonsKiss.html

And on the Samhain website:

http://samhainpublishing.com/romance/dragon-s-kiss

I haven’t started on the next story in the series yet, but I have an idea of what I want to do with it. I’d like to follow Bear and Dragon from Dragon’s Kiss and see what happens to them. After that, I’d like to write a book for Lynx, the secondary character from Dragon’s Kiss. After that? We shall see…

In other news, I just finished writing Love, Like Ghosts, the latest episode in the Bay City Paranormal Investigations series. This one is Adrian Broussard’s story (Bo Broussard’s oldest son), and is pretty much a stand-alone tale. It’s set in the year 2015, so Adrian is twenty-one in this book. I don’t have an exact release date yet, but it’ll probably be late fall/early winter. I have to say, I really like this one, which is kind of unusual for me after I’ve just finished writing something. I generally HATE my stuff right after I finish it. LOL.

Anybody who’s not familiar with the BCPI series, you can read more about it here:

http://www.allyblue.com/BCPI.html

I have to ask because I know like me, readers will want to know when they hear about Adrian’s story. Will we get to get see and catch up with Sam and Bo in Love, Like Ghosts??

Yes! Sam and Bo do make a couple of brief appearances in Love, Like Ghosts. I just couldn’t write a whole book about Adrian and not have Sam and Bo in there someplace

Who are some of your must read authors and why?

I’m kind of a horror / sci-fi fan. Bet you can’t tell. Hey, there’s a romance author in here too! I have other romance authors I read, but I wanted to keep the list short. Here’s a few of my favorites:

-    Clive Barker, because his brain comes up with some of the most jaw-droppingly original ideas I’ve ever read.

-    Stephen King, because he is the King (har har!) of character development.

-    H.P. Lovecraft, in spite of all his, shall we say, unsavory personal problems, because NOBODY else has ever managed the same level of over-the-top, royal purple cosmic horror while mostly leaving the actual horror part up to the reader’s imagination.

-    Robert A. Heinlein. Not everything he ever wrote, because he could certainly be preachy and repetative. But selected works from his early years on through his later ones can be… very interesting.

-    Willa Okati. She writes gay romance. I absolutely adore her voice and her style, particularly in her more fantastical books. Speaking of which, see below for a rec of one in particular…

Name a few of your must read books and why.

I could go on all day, but I will spare you. These are a selected few of my favorite reads:

-    Wild Hunt, by Willa Okati. To me, this is Willa at her best. I love the wild, feral, magical feel to this book. She has a way of putting words together that can take your breath away, and I think this book shows that.

-    Stranger In A Strange Land, by Robert R. Heinlein. A divisive book, and a lot of people will not agree with me about it being such a wonderful read. But I loved this book, and still do. It completely changed my world view the first time I read it.

-    Jacqueline Ess: Her Will And Testament, by Clive Barker. This is a short story, part of his Books of Blood collection. There are three volumes and I always forget which one this is in. Doesn’t matter, it would be easy enough to find out The point is, this story, to me, has always been one that really spoke to me because I recognized myself in so much of it. I loved how powerful the title character was, and how she embraced that.

-    Boy’s Life, by Robert R. McCammon. Love love LOVE this book. It’s one I read over and over as a comfort read. There’s magic, mystery, nostalgia, adventure, love, comedy, tragedy. A bit of everything, really. One of the most beautiful stories I’ve ever read. The end always makes me cry, every single time. Happy, smiley tears, btw

-    Dune, by Frank Herbert. Just the first one, I didn’t really get into the rest of them. I have kind of a thing for political intrigue in a book, and man, this one has it in spades. I think that’s why the movie didn’t work so well. It’s impossible to cram all that familial and politial history, backstabbing, etc etc ad infinitum into a single movie. You’d need a mini-series, and even then I’m not sure it’s doable. I love the complexity of Dune, and how well everything is interwoven.

-    Lord Of The Rings. Hopefully I do not have to explain this *g*

If you could meet any author/s in the world who would it be and why?

Hm, that’s a tough one. There are a LOT of authors I’d love to talk to. But we’d all be here for years, LOL so I’ll keep it short and just pick Lovecraft. I’m dying to know what kind of personal nightmares were in his head that made him such a recluse, so very afraid of people who were different from him, and so terrified of the world. I’m convinced that’s where all those horrific story ideas came from—pure fear of the world and everyone in it. When someone is that afraid, I always want to know why.

What book(s) are reading right now?

OMG, I haven’t had time to read anything but my own stuff (for galleys, edits, etc) in AGES. I’m sick of it! LOL. But, I have a nice new copy of Rick Reed’s Face Without A Heart all set to take to the beach with me. That’s going to be my reading material for the next week or so. I also have The Fog by James Herbert. That was recommended to me by the assistant manager (hi Brandon!) at the Waldenbooks in Columbia, SC, which is now a different bookstore and I can’t remember which bookstore chain it is now, oh well. Anyway, he knows I love the scary so he said I needed to read that one. I’ve started it, and so far, yeah, it is indeed scary!

If you could choose one author to co-write a book with who would it be?

I don’t think I could co-author with anyone, no matter how much I like them personally. I totally suck at working that closely with other people O_O

I just love Sam and Bo they are so right together. Where did you come up with the idea for the Bay City Paranormal Investigation series?

Thank you! Sam and Bo are pretty special to me

You probably won’t be too surprised to hear that the basic idea came from the Ghost Hunters TV series on Sci-Fi channel. NOT the manlove part! LOL. No, the actual ghost-hunting part. Their scientific process of “debunking first” fascinated me, because it’s so different from the other ghost-hunting shows you see on TV. I thought that backdrop would be a perfect one for a book. Thus the idea for Oleander House was born.

Originally, Oleander House was going to be a stand-alone story. It also had a pretty dark, gory, ugly ending at first. Everyone died except Sam and Bo, and they weren’t exactly happy with each other O_O Then I talked with my Samhain editor, Sasha, about the story, because I wanted to do something with it, I just wasn’t sure what. She read it, and suggested turning it into a paranormal romance series with a HEA. So I have her to thank for what BCPI has become. Have I mentioned that I HEART Sasha?

If BCPI was optioned for a movie, who would play your characters?

Wow. I don’t know. Never really thought about it, to tell you the truth. Let’s see. Hmmmm….

Maybe Casper Van Dien for Sam:

http://www.starpulse.com/Actors/Van_Dien,_Casper/gallery/CSH-046990/

His face is more or less how I pictured Sam as I was writing him. For Bo? I’m not sure. Nobody looks quite like I have Bo pictured in my head. He has Antonio Bandaras’s coloring, but not his bone structure, and I always pictured Bo’s features as more sensual. I dunno. Suggestions are welcome!

For some reason, I pictured David Cross (yes, the comedian!) as David Broom right from the start. LOL.

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm2606925824/nm0189144

I’ve always seen Michael Dorn (Lt. Worf from Star Trek) as Andre, even though I think he’s a bit older than Andre:

http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3018364928/nm0000373

I don’t really have anyone in mind for any of the other characters. I need someone for Dean in particular, though! Well, Dean and Bo, of course. LOL. Y’all have to help me out here!

Why m/m romance?

The simple answer is, it’s what speaks to me. I just can’t get into writing het romance. I lose interest every time I try. I don’t have any problem reading it, I just can’t write it. I’ve always identified more with the male point of view. Go figure. I think it’s because I’ve never been much of a “girl” myself. My best friends growing up were boys. Even now, generally speaking I get along better with men than women.

The other answer is, I like the dynamics of the male/male relationship. It’s different from the male/female relationship in a way that’s difficult to describe. I’ve heard some people say that the m/m romantic relationship is on more equal footing, but I don’t think that’s necessarily true. I think equality in a relationship is very individual and doesn’t have much to do with the sex of the partners. I just think the way two men interact with each other is different from the way a man and a woman interact, and I find that difference interesting. Probably because since I’m a woman, I’ll never get the chance to be involved in a m/m relationship myself. We’re always most fascinated by what we can’t have…

Where did your most unusual plot idea come from?

Hm. Well, the plot idea for Eight Arms To Hold You came from a very strange bumper sticker I saw on the back of a car one day on the way to work. This bumper sticker had on it a drawing of a bluish-gray stylized octopus. It had words across the bottom, but they were so small I couldn’t read them even though I was right behind the car in slow traffic (as in about ten miles per hour, so I was on the guy’s bumper, and I STILL couldn’t read the words). The bumper sticker was the strangest thing I had ever, ever seen. I gave me the idea for an octopus shapeshifter. The stylized octopus on the bumper sticker actually showed up as well, in the form of the crystal idol that Luke and Austin—Our Heroes—had to find in the book.

Of course there’s also the plot for The Happy Onion, which came from me seeing a cartoon orange on the back of a grocery store delivery truck and thinking, from a distance, that it was an onion. It was all smiley and happy, and I thought that The Happy Onion sounded like the name of a vegan restaurant. And I thought, hm, what a great premise for a book! By the time I caught up to the truck enough to realize it was an orange, not an onion, the plot was half-written already and it was too late

If you were to make a bumper sticker for your car that had to related to your stories, what would it say?

Using my hubby’s suggestion:

“I Can Haz Ghey Secks?”

He said it should be the title of my next book (yes I’m a LOLcat addict, I admit it…) but somehow I can’t see the pubs having a big old girl-fight over that one. Still, you never know. Don’t be surprised if you see it on the shelves one day LOL

Do you listen to music when you write if so what music inspires your writing?

I always listen to music! In fact, every book has its own iTunes playlist that I listen to while I write. Each playlist is put together based on the type of book I’m writing. For instance, Adder’s playlist was full of quirky, upbeat indie songs. Love, Like Ghosts has a playlist with more introspective songs on it. I gotta have my music! LOL. I listen to a little bit of everything, but the musicians/bands that inspire me most are Radiohead, Patrick Wolf and Sigur Rós.

Do you have a favorite book of yours?

Probably Untamed Heart. I love all of my books (eventually; I have to get some distance from the writing process, usually). But yeah, Untamed Heart is my favorite, I think. I like the characters, I like the complexity of their relationship and basically I like the way the book turned out

Which of your characters is most like you?  Why?

Oh, definitely Adrian Broussard from Love, Like Ghosts. Y’all haven’t read that yet, obviously LOL. Adrian is very confident in some aspects of himself—for instance, he’s a physics major in college, and he’s quite sure of himself when it comes to academics—but he’s extremely insecure in other ways. That is EXACTLY like me. Adrian feels very awkward in social situations, and he frequently feels like he doesn’t fit in with other people. This isn’t me all the time, but it is me in a lot of social situations. If I’m comfortable in a situation, I will talk for hours and have a blast. But if I don’t feel immediately comfortable in a group, I’ll pretty much feel like a space alien and want to Get The Hell Out. That’s Adrian all over the place

Funny, I never realized exactly how much Adrian was like me until I started thinking about how to answer this question. LOL.

Where can your readers find you?

My website,

www.allyblue.com

I also blog every Tuesday on the group blog, Fiction With Friction:

www.fictionwithfriction.com/

And I blog every other Sunday on the group blog Slash & Burn:

www.slash-and-burn.blogspot.com/

And, you can hook up with me on Twitter too

http://twitter.com/PopessAllyBlue

Note: The internet gremlins have been busy today so if any of the above links don’t work, just copy and paste to your browser.

Once again  it is that time to say good-bye, I want to thank you so much for the interview Ally.

Thank you for having me! I’ve enjoyed answering your questions and I appreciate the opportunity to be here