Interview with Sheila Lowe, Author of 'Written Off'

Like her fictional character Claudia Rose, Sheila Lowe is a real-life forensic handwriting expert. As the mother of a tattoo artist and a former rock star, she figures she’s a pretty cool mom. Sheila lives in Ventura, CA with Lexie the Very Bad Cat, where she writes the award-winning Forensic Handwriting series. But despite sharing living space with a cat, Sheila's books are psychological suspense, definitely not cozy. So if you are offended by profanity, some violence and a sprinkling of sex, they are probably not for you. On the other hand, if you enjoy delving deep into the psyche and motivations of the main characters, give them a try.

Sheila also writes non-fiction books about handwriting: The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Handwriting Analysis, Handwriting of the Famous & Infamous, and Sheila Lowe’s Handwriting Analyzer software. Stop by the dedicated website and sign up for notices: www.claudiaroseseries.com. For information about handwriting analysis: www.sheilalowe.com

Find out more on Amazon.

INTERVIEW:

Mayra Calvani: Please tell us about Written Off, and what compelled you to write it.

Author: It’s the seventh book in the series. I start with a title and build a story around it. This time, I wanted to write about a female serial killer in prison and what brought her there. I decided to set it in Maine in winter, which seemed to be an appropriately bleak setting to tell the story of Roxanne Becker.

M.C.: What is your book about?

Author: In the dead of winter, handwriting expert Claudia Rose journeys to Maine to retrieve a manuscript about convicted female serial killer, Roxanne Becker. While searching for the manuscript written by Professor Madeleine Maynard, who was, herself, brutally murdered, Claudia uncovers a shocking secret: the professor’s explosive research into a group of mentally unstable grad students selected for a special project and dubbed “Maynard’s Maniacs.” Was Madeleine conducting research that was at best, unprofessional—and at worst, downright harmful, and potentially dangerous? Could that unorthodox research have turned deadly?

Claudia finds herself swept up in the mystery of Madeleine’s life—and death, soon realizing that Madeleine left behind more questions than answers, and no shortage of suspects. The professor’s personal life yields a number of persons who might have wanted her dead—and her academic success and personal fortune clearly made her the envy of fellow faculty members.

The University anticipates being the beneficiary of Madeleine’s estate—but when a charming stranger, claiming to be Madeleine’s nephew, turns up, brandishing a new will, all bets are off. The local police chief prevails upon Claudia to travel into town to examine the newly produced handwritten will. Later, rushing back to Madeleine’s isolated house to escape an impending storm, Claudia becomes trapped in a blizzard. With a killer.

M.C.:  What themes do you explore in Written Off?

Author: The underlying theme seems to be what happens to children who have had a bad start in life. There are so many paths an abused child might follow. Despite similar backgrounds, one might develop a multiple personality, another becomes a serial killer. Yet another might use their bad experiences to propel themselves into success.

M.C.:  Why do you write?

Author: Writing is a compulsion. When people say, “oh, that must be fun!” It’s sometimes hard to answer politely. They often don’t recognize that writing is a job, like being a doctor, lawyer, or, yes, a handwriting examiner. So, I am lucky enough to have two careers. I can’t say that I like writing, but I do love having written.

M.C.:  When do you feel the most creative?

Author: Honestly, I don’t feel creative at all. But I guess making up characters and the world they live in is a form of creativity.

M.C.:  How picky are you with language?

Author: I can be very picky when it comes to word usage. I go into my editor mode when I’m reading a book that uses wrong words or spelling. But here’s an irony—I came to the US from England when I was fourteen, and many of the word choices I make even now tend to be Britishisms that my publisher asks me to change.

M.C.: When you write, do you sometimes feel as though you were being manipulated from afar?

Author: I wish! Actually, now that you mention it, there are times—not very often—when I’ve written something and wondered “where did that come from?” I would love for it to happen more.

M.C.:  What is your worst time as a writer?

Author: Time, as in time of day? Or process? I tend to write late at night, after I’ve done the paid assignments for my handwriting examination practice, and then frittered away the rest of the day on Facebook or other websites. It’s often ten pm by the time I think, Oh! I’d better get some work done on the book. Hey, maybe I’m improving, it’s only 8:30 tonight.

If you mean process—the worst time for me is the beginning—coming up with the right plot. I wish I were like my friend, Raul, who can churn out ten ideas in an hour. For me, I need to get A Big Idea, and then work it out in my head until I finally, weeks or months later, get it down in an outline.

M.C.:  Your best?

Author: Process-wise, it’s writing The End, and then going back to edit and expand and make sure everything makes sense.

M.C.:  Is there anything that would stop you from writing?

Author: I’m 67 and so far, nothing has.

M.C.: What’s the happiest moment you’ve lived as an author?

Author: Opening a box of my first published book from Penguin. And even better than that, opening a box of mysecond published book! Seeing them on the shelves at Barnes & Noble was pretty cool, too.

M.C.:  Is writing an obsession to you?

Author: Writers have to write. Is that an obsession? Maybe. It’s just something I do. Because I have a day job as a forensic handwriting examiner I don’t work on my books all the time, but I am always writing something.

M.C.:  Are the stories you create connected with you in some way?

Author: My character’s work mirrors my own. Claudia is not me, but she takes the same kinds of assignments that I do. Of course, I’m not as brave (or foolhardy in some cases) as she is. In the first four books, the stories do have some connection to actual events in my life. They are not about those events, but they started with a kernel of truth and grew out of that.

M.C.:  Ray Bradbury once said, “You must stay drunk on writing so reality cannot destroy you.” Thoughts?

Author: I only wish I had a scintilla of Bradbury’s talent. I’m unfortunately far too pragmatic to allow reality to destroy me—and trust me, it has tried. I do become very involved with my characters in my head and heart, but in the life I live, I have to maintain some separation. Otherwise, it would be difficult to get on the witness stand and testify in court!

M.C.:  Do you have a website or blog where readers can find out more about you and your work?

Author: Yes, and I would love readers to visit and sign up for my infrequent—once or twice a year—newsletter:www.claudiaroseseries.com or contact me with comments: sheila@sheilalowe.com

Guest post: "An Author’s Reflections" by Thriller Author George A Bernstein

In 1990, when I was able to semi-retire fairly young, my wife asked me how was I planning on filling my time.

“You don’t love golf or playing cards that much. You were always a great storyteller. Why don’t you write a novel?”

She was right, so I started writing Trapped, and managed to finish the first draft in probably 6 months. The idea for the main character, Jackee, came from remembering a beautiful young neighbor when we lived in North Suburban Chicago. She suffered an anesthetic accident while undergoing plastic surgery, condemning her to a vegative state for the rest of her life, which was no life at all.

I imagined Jackee in a similar coma-like state, but being sentient, still sharp of mind and able to move her eyes. I knew nothing of “Locked-in Syndrome” at the time, not realizing I’d “created” a real condition. Since Jackee was immobile, I decided to create a side plot involving her conniving husband with the Chicago Mafia … something to engineer some physical action and external tension.

I submitted the story to Dave King, an independent editor, and he recommended I remove my side plot in Trapped because it detracted from Jackee’s story, but resisted. I had slaved over that, building tension and danger, and weaving the climax into the ending of the novel. But then later, a top literary agent at William Morris gave me the same advice, also feeling  it was a distraction. So I pulled it out … but it’s not a total loss. Writers never discard any work, so I’m using that story in my in-progress 4^th Detective Al Warner novel, changing the venue from Chicago to South Florida.

Trapped ran the gauntlet of rejected query letters, rewrites, and more rejections … until it was selected by small indie publisher, TAG Publishers, to be their “Next Great American Novel.” Their editor suggested I convert the entire story to Jackee’s First Person point-of-view. That took a considerable amount of work, because every scene occurring somewhere out of Jackee’s purview had to be deleted. New scenes had to be developed to fill that void. In the end, however, this made Trapped a book that quickly became an Amazon Top 100 Novel. It’s now also available as an audio book.

From rejection to success – and it only took 22 years! Meanwhile I had attended numerous writers’ conferences and some seminars, and through those classes, I learned a lot about writing novels. It takes more than raw talent to do it well. And I started my second novel, A 3^rd Time to Die, a romantic suspense centered on Past Lives, rebirth, and champion horse jumping. I’d read Dr. Brian Weiss’ first book on the subject and I was captivated by the idea of souls reborn to deal with thing left undone in past lives.

Wanting to fully understand the phenomena, I decided I needed to experience the process of regression. I found a “facilitator,” who had worked with Dr. Weiss, to regress me if possible. I entered the project strictly as research for the novel, but came out a believer.

One precept of the belief is souls often bring learned skills from past lives into their current existence. When I was twelve my father brought home a bow-and-arrow set and a large straw target. What little I knew of archery was from watching Western movies, but I nocked the bow and set up the target as if I knew what I was doing. Then I walked off about 100 feet (not realizing that was an extreme distance, especially for a novice) and started shooting bulls-eyes … one after another. While practicing, a large crow flew by, high above, and without thinking, I shot it out of the sky. Later, while walking in a nearby forest preserve, I knocked down a flushed pheasant. I entered an archery contest for 12 to 14-year-olds, and shot 297 out of a possible 300. The one miss was ¼” outside the “eye.” I was always a deadly marksman with any sort of weapon … with no training. How was this possible?

Well, in one of my regressed lives, I had been a 16^th Century forester, shooting game with a long bow for an English duke in Lincolnshire Forest. Four hundred years later, I still maintained that skill! Doubters usually jibe me, asking who’d I’d been in my past lives: Napoleon, Alexander, King Richard, etc., expecting the process to be just self-aggrandizement. But in only one life was I anyone of even moderate importance, and that was the chief of a Polynesian village, probably in the 12^th Century – the oldest of the nine lives I discovered during my “research.”

Anyway, I used what I learned in my voyages through time as the basis for A 3^rd Time to Die, and like Trapped. It quickly began garnering 5-Star reviews, with readers comparing me to Dean Koontz and Stephen King.

I began to realize that to gain devoted fans, I might benefit from writing a series, so I started Death’s Angel, the first of my Detective Al Warner suspense novels. In it, a psycho was first seducing, and then killing off some of South Florida’s most beautiful young women, and no one had a clue as to his motives. I wanted my Warner novels to be character driven, all about the detective and the things that motivated, drove, and haunted him. I wanted these not to be “police procedural” novels.

I’m often asked about my procedure in writing a novel. The first thing, of course, is to come up with the concept. For Trapped it was a woman trapped in Locked-in Syndrome, seeking unlikely retribution against those who wished her ill. For A 3^rd Time to Die it was murdered lovers, being reborn, murdered again, and now reborn in current times – and their killer had returned, too.

For Death’s Angel, it was a tough, moral cop, haunted by PTSD from glancing bullet wound off his skull during his last case, trying to keep his demons at bay while hunting a clever psychopath. In Born to Die, the 2^nd Warner novel, readers were anxious to learn how Warner had survived another head wound, and while on medical leave, was helping a beautiful nurse look for Motive and Opportunity for a rash of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) deaths of 6-month-old infants. In my latest Warner novel, The Prom Dress Killer, Warner is after another serial killer who is abducting and then killing lovely young redheads, leaving their bodies adorned in frilly prom-style dresses.

Once I have a unique story idea, I imaging the characters, listing on 4 x 6 cards their physical appearance, their likes and dislikes, the cars they drive, and every other detail about them or their lives that comes up. Then I do a chapter-by-chapter outline of where the story is going. Just a sentence or two for each, as guidance.

Now I begin writing, limiting any editing to being sure where I am and fixing any glaring errors. My style is to write the story and edit later. But the strangest things always happens, usually about a quarter of the way into the plot: the characters start taking over!

First they speak to me, usually at night while I’m awaiting sleep. They tell me things about themselves– things they’ve done (often horrific acts) I never imagined. And they suggest actions and scenes never in the original outline. I often find myself “going where no man has gone before,” to paraphrase Star Trek. New problems and solutions simply evolve as I’m writing, often to my utter surprise. It’s totally exciting.

In every case, the villains become more diabolical, the problems become more insurmountable, and the ending become more dramatic and a bigger surprise. And I’m gaining renown as an author with unique plots and surprise endings no one could pre-guess. None of my editors ever have.

All my novels are available at: http://amazon.com/author/georgeabernstein or you can visit my web site: http://georgeabernstein.com  

George A. Bernstein is the retired President of a Chicago appliance manufacturing company, now living in south Florida. Able to retire early and looking for something to do besides play golf, he leaned on a life-time flair for storytelling and turned to writing novels. He spent years attending writing seminars and conferences, learning to polish his work and developing a strong “voice.” Bernstein is acclaimed by his peers as a superb wordsmith.

His first novel, Trapped, was a winner in a small Indie publisher’s “Next Great American Novel” contest, and received high praise, gaining many mostly 5-star reviews at Amazon (reaching their “Top 100”) and Goodreads. His 2^ndnovel, A 3^rd Time to Die (A paranormal Romantic Suspense) has also garnered mostly 5-Star & 4-Star reviews, with one reader likening him to the best, less “spooky” works of Dean Koontz & Stephen King.

Bernstein works with professional editors to ensure his novels meets his own rigorous standards, and all of his books are currently published by small indie press, GnD Publishing LLC, in which he has an interest.

The Prom Dress Killer is the third of his Detective Al Warner Suspense series, with the first, DEATH’S ANGEL,and the second, BORN TO DIE, already garnering rave reviews. Bernstein has the next Warner novel already in the works, to be published in 2017. Readers have likened Bernstein’s Detective Al Warner to Patterson’s Alex Cross.

Bernstein is also a “World-class” fly-fisherman, setting a baker’s dozen IGFA World Records, mostly on fly-rods, and has published Toothy Critters Love Flies, the complete book on fly-fishing for pike & musky.

Connect with Berstein on the web:

http://suspenseguy.com

http://amazon.com/author/georgeabernstein

http://facebook.com/georgeabernstein

Guest post: "Murder most Foul" by Harley Mazuk

What’s inside the mind of a mystery author? Murder most foul. Why murder, you ask? Are there not many crimes a writer can hang a plot on? There are many nefarious schemes out there, but most crimes seem worst when murder or the threat of murder accompanies them. In the case of robbery, for instance, your money or your life. Or kidnapping—your money or your wife!

For my money, murder, the unlawful killing of another person, is the best crime for a mystery, be it a police procedural, an amateur sleuth, or a private eye story. Robbery, for instance, might be mitigated by the need to eat—stealing a loaf of bread—or by the Robin Hood syndrome—rob the rich. And robbery is only a crime against property. Murder, the taking of a human life, is unequivocal and final. It has the most potential to arouse emotions in the reader. Always on the lookout for plot material, I made a list of reasons to commit murder:

1.)   In the commission of a robbery—Bonnie and Clyde were robbers. They preferred rural stores and gas stations, but robbed banks too. When confronted or cornered, they were more than just robbers. Bonnie and Clyde were killers. (Nine lawmen.)

2.)   Jealousy—Seduction, betrayal, love triangle, murder. Consider the tragic hero, Othello. Or consider a crime of passion—Pierre returns home from a hard day of drinking wine and finds Jean-Paul, his motorcycle mechanic, in bed with his wife, Marie. Enraged with jealousy, Pierre kills Jean-Paul. (Or perhaps Pierre kills Marie. Good motorcycle mechanics can be hard to find.)

3.)   Revenge/vengeance—a perennial favorite. From Hamlet to Death Wish, revenge or vengeance is a great motive for a killing. Revenge could be considered the motive for most gang killings.

The Harvard Crimson reports that these first three, robbery, jealousy, or revenge are behind most murders. But as the detective pursues the truth in the original murder, the writer may introduce a second killing. If you kill once, you may kill again . . .

4.)   To cover up a crime/to prevent the discovery of a crime—Subsequent murders may be necessary to eliminate witnesses. Do the crime yourself, or in secrecy. If a criminal involves another person in his crime, he may eventually have to kill again to keep the accomplice or witness from going to the police.

Throughout history, there have been many other reasons to commit murder that the inventive writer may use in his plots. For example:

5.)   To gain power—think Shakespeare’s Richard III

a.     Ambition—see Macbeth

6.)   For pay—the hit man, something of a modern invention?

7.)   Political assassination—Shakespeare again—Julius Caesar

8.)   Greed or avarice—this brings to mind the classic, Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

9.)   Insanity—from the days of Jack the Ripper to Hannibal the Cannibal or Buffalo Bill, insanity covers the popular modern sub-genre of serial killer novels.

10.) Hatred, anger—I like this. To me it suggests a murder done in the heat of the moment. I tend to use this sort of crime in my stories because I believe a murder of opportunity is harder to solve than a meticulously planned murder, in which so much can go wrong, or in which the killer can leave many clues. A murder committed out of hatred or anger is similar to a “crime of passion.” But it’s not that kind of passion.

11.) Land, Gold, Women—Somewhere I read, “There are three things to kill over--land, gold, and women.” For some reason, I associate this with B. Traven, but I can’t find it. 

12.)Sport—The idea for this comes from “The Most Dangerous Game,” a short story by Richard Connell, in which a big game hunter hunts and kills human game, for sport.

13.) Initiation to a gang—Is this real? Or is the idea an urban legend? Random killings invite a massive deployment of police resources to solve, and it seems unlikely that gangs with profitable illegal businesses would want to draw that attention to themselves. Yet recent killings of teenage women in Houston and Baltimore may have been part of gang initiations.

I would end with an unlucky thirteen reasons to commit murder on which you or I or any writer could hang the plot of a mystery novel. But I can’t leave you until I mention just one more, kind of a favorite, for which I’m indebted to Alan Orloff [http://alanorloff.com/],author and friend, and to the Man in Black:

14.)In Reno, just to watch him die

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Harley Mazuk [http://www.harleymazuk.com/] is a mystery writer living in Maryland. His first novel, White with Fish, Red with Murder [http://www.drivenpress.net/white-with-fish-red-with-murder] is out now, from Driven Press. [http://www.drivenpress.net/]