Mike Johnson’s e book, “Blonde to the Bone,” has simply been launched this week (2/27/06). We’re proud to have the opportunity to interview Mike in all his pleasure. Welcome to Reader Views, Mike.
Irene: “Blonde to the Bone” was simply revealed this week. That is thrilling information. Inform our readers the gist of the story.
Mike: Leo Calvet, a vogue magnate, disappears. Daniele and Michele, his feuding, stunning twin daughters, embark on a baffling journey to discover him, following surreptitious clues. Issues usually are not as actual as they appear when Michele’s fiancé, Rick, vanishes proper earlier than their eyes and the solar stands nonetheless. The search takes the sisters, Rick and Jack – Daniele’s “date” – on a rare quest from Washington D.C. to Paris the place they uncover a terrorist conspiracy to topple the Eiffel Tower. In the course of the journey, the sisters uncover the fact about their rivalry whereas every falls in love with the different’s man.
Irene: “Blonde to the Bone” is your second revealed novel. What impressed you to write it?
Mike: I might say that it was the full moon on a stupendous August evening in San Diego. That evening in the yard I had already determined that I used to be prepared to start one other challenge, and whereas gazing the moon Blonde to the Bone simply got here to me – of course it was a take-off on George Thorogood’s tune, Unhealthy to the Bone. I simply favored the title. Sounded enjoyable. So you would say I reverse-engineered a narrative that I believed would match the title, however with sufficient depth to maintain it out of the slapstick comedy enviornment.
Irene: Though this e book is entertaining, it additionally provides a novel strategy to familial downside fixing. What was your mission to embody this strategy in the e book?
Mike: No actual mission there. My major intention for the e book was leisure. One thing to give the reader a mini-vacation. Simply enjoyable. Past that, I suppose you would say that I wished my characters to be “good” and “loving” folks. The world won’t ever have an excessive amount of of folks caring for one another, and in my novels I espouse these virtues. However anybody who reads the e book will know that the strategy introduced is not possible contemplating the present state of know-how. I would really like to assume that Leo is appearing like every loving father: prepared to go to any excessive to guarantee his daughter’s happiness and well-being. I really nervous fairly a bit that many readers would maintain his strategy towards him. Personally I wouldn’t advocate spying on one’s grownup youngsters so as to be taught the fact – however it positive would really feel good, wouldn’t it?
Irene: How did you create the characters in your e book?
Mike: I create them on demand. A author has to ask, “Who wants to be on this e book?” With Blonde to the Bone for a title, I believed I wanted a stupendous younger naïve lady (isn’t that who we’d usually affiliate with such a phrase?), and thought the concept of equivalent twins could be way more enjoyable to work with than one character. Thus Michele and Daniele got here to life. They’re really the identical individual with a juxtaposition of inside choices about two believable paths to be taken in life by the identical particular person. Michele selected a technique and Daniele the different, from principally the identical Tabla Rosa. Naturally, any mild, entertaining story wants some romance, so Rick and Jack got here round. However what was occurring? The characters wanted issues to be solved.
Though I wished the e book to be enjoyable, life is full of severe issues. I feel Daniele’s downside might be pretty widespread at one degree or one other, and one thing that an incredible many feminine readers would perceive at a depth of expertise past my very own. I had no intention of making mild of what I’m positive are very severe points for a lot of girls, however I do consider that the skill to snigger at life’s issues, even the severe ones, makes for a extra wholesome psychological state. And I like to assume that the majority males, as they age and have youngsters, are loving like Leo, and would really like to discover a means to resolve their daughter’s points. Thus Leo was the catalyst to resolving the battle. Different characters come and go as wanted – although I feel I fell in love with Valerie! (Don’t inform my spouse…)
Irene: How a lot of “real-life” is there on this e book? Is there a lot of you in “Blonde to the Bone?”
Mike: How can there not be? Writing, particularly novels, comes from one’s personal expertise. Even in the event you’re writing one thing utterly unknown to you, you could embrace it earlier than you’ll be able to write convincingly about it. Due to this fact, it turns into an element of your individual expertise. Whenever you specific your self in writing, your character will, by definition, come out. On the different hand, it’s a novel, and utterly fictional. None of what occurs in the e book ever occurred to me or anybody else I do know, aside from minutia, these little issues that assist to deliver life to a scene, or these character traits that outline a personality.
To say what these issues are particularly, I’d have to return web page by web page and see which one’s got here from my private expertise and which one’s I projected into characters based mostly upon observations of actual folks. One does come to thoughts: In a single scene, one of the principal characters says he thought the CIA was in a special half of the D.C. space. That was really me. Whereas on enterprise, I’d pushed by Langley a pair of occasions on my method to Patuxent River, and thought the facility was positioned there. It wasn’t till I used to be researching that I discovered, in a worldwide satellite tv for pc picture program, that the CIA is in a special Langley.
To reply your query extra immediately, I suppose I’d have to say I’m a mixture of Jack and Rick, leaning towards Jack. Possibly sometime after I develop up, I’ll be Leo.
Irene: When studying your e book, I discovered that you simply arrange the scenes very properly. I felt like I used to be “proper there” with the characters. Would you inform our viewers the way you arrange these scenes in order that the reader looks like they might tackle the character and be half of the plot?
Mike: I’d say it’s a mixture of creativeness and looking out. I think about myself in each scene and turn out to be each character. From there I simply go searching and write down what I expertise, attempting to have interaction all 5 senses, and search for these particulars which can be frequent to everybody. For particulars that may not be so frequent to a median American reader, I make a painstaking effort to describe them such that the reader will perceive, and thus, share the expertise. For instance, in an motion scene I attempt to really feel what the character is feeling in order that I can put these sensations in the writing. If a automotive is pushed off of a pier, the driver would have a sense of weightlessness. The vicarious expertise turns into way more actual, and gratifying, if when the character is feeling it, the reader is feeling it as properly.
Irene: What type of analysis did you do earlier than you wrote the e book? Did you really go to some of the locations you point out in your e book?
Mike: My spouse and I did go to Paris on trip, and I did go with the intent of researching places for the thriller. I used to be pleasantly stunned at some issues I discovered, and with out giving freely an excessive amount of of the plot, a sure line from a sure monument really did level to our lodge room. Most of the Parisian scenes had been based mostly upon places that we visited – together with a plethora of sidewalk cafés. However Blonde to the Bone was so much of enjoyable to write as a result of I didn’t want so much of analysis. In the age of the Web, analysis is at the ideas of our fingers – or primarily the grip of a mouse, in my case.
Most of what I wanted to know got here from websites – like the CIA instance in your earlier query. To make the know-how in the e book believable, I researched DNA computing – each the present state of know-how and projecting the potential out into the future. I’ve additionally been to Washington D.C. many occasions on enterprise. And the authentic cowl artwork for “Blonde to the Bone” was bought from a Parisian artist midway throughout a bridge over the Seine close to the Louvre.
In a bit of facet notice, I work for an organization referred to as Pc Sciences Company, who was the sponsor of the Lance Armstrong Tour de France workforce. Our journey to Paris simply occurred to coincide with the ending of the Tour de France, and Lance Armstrong was up for his record-breaking seventh Tour de France win. Our return flight was on the morning of the last day of the race. At round eight o’clock or so, we left our lodge (the Hilton Paris) and circled the Arc de Triomphe on the Champs Elysees on our method to the airport. They had been already organising the boulevard for the last race. We had been midway throughout the Atlantic when the race ended, and the pilot introduced over the PA system that Armstrong had received. So I’ll perpetually have the opportunity to say that I used to be on the Champs Elysees the day Armstrong made historical past in the Tour de France. I simply didn’t occur to see him do it.
Irene: Thanks Mike. Is there anything that you want to the readers to find out about you or your e book?
Mike: First of all, many thanks for offering me the alternative to seem on the Reader Views web site! I actually respect it! “Blonde to the Bone” is revealed by Suncoast Publishing. Readers can go to Suncoast’s web site to learn the first chapter and get a glimpse into the story at [http://www.suncoastbooks.com] “Blonde to the Bone” may be ordered at your native bookstore, however can be out there at the following on-line shops.
I hope you take pleasure in it!
