Your
journey is as interesting as that of Shonna Wells, your heroine in Fire.
Even at a young age, adults labeled me a dreamer and made it sound like a bad word. Perhaps I was living in a dream
world…retreating into my fantasies while my parents battled through an ugly divorce. I was constantly creating new
fantasy realms and mysterious characters arriving on the scene in ballgowns,
masks, and top hats with antenna…all to accompany my artwork. I once
whimsically illustrated an entire cast of characters before I even wrote one
line to my story.
This
combination I call visual writing was perhaps the best brainstorming contrivance
I had in my toolbox as a child. At the time, I was not aware just how important
this tool would become in my writing and art. When
my husband and I moved to California in 1979, I started a photography business
while attending classes at Palomar College, as an Art and English major. I also
worked on the school newspaper and magazine and held an office in two major
honor societies. Yet, it wasn’t until my husband suffered a major stroke that I
donned my top hat, mask and scurried down the rabbit hole…back into my wonderland
dream world. That’s when I really began to explore writing at a different magical
level.
I love Fire -- is this part of a series and, if so, what's next for Shonna and Company?
Yes, I consider Ancient Fire, The
Chronicles of Shonna Wells the first book. However, I wrote another smaller
book about the younger Shonna, when she first received the power. It sold
roughly 300 copies before going out of print. It’s not my best work. I wrote Ancient Fire, Book 2 in less than two months. It was the easiest book to write. I thought I must have done something
wrong, so I kept going back over it, only to discover it was exactly how it
should be.
This next volume picks up after Jake has
graduated and is leaving for Colorado. While Shonna starts her senior year and
struggles to exist without Jake, Rick Steel returns to New Bedford with motivations
that are even more mysterious and perhaps still connected with the occult. Shonna’s
battle is beyond psychological facing an enemy she cannot kill with her sword,
learning the truth about her father and the business he was tangled up in that
connects him to the house on Pine Street. The same house that Rick had taken her
to the night of the fight with her mother.
What other projects are you presently working on?
I find myself writing more and more short stories
between novel projects. I never considered the possibility it would open up for
me. I feel as if I’m acquiring a wealth of knowledge, priceless guidance that
people like you, Gregory, offer without veiled motivation. Currently, I’m working on five novels and
six short stories, as well as designing book covers for the next installment of
Chronicles of Shonna Wells and a middle grade chapter book titled Leaving
Holland Glen.
You're also quite the accomplished artist -- what's the Judi Calhoun method?
Other than the visual writing I mentioned earlier, I find self-disciplined, self-motivation to be key factors I believe I’ve
got going for myself. I’m up at 4:00 or slightly later every morning, grabbing my cup of tea
(me and Captain Picard) and I'm off to my work space to start writing or
painting. Sure, I’m passionate about what I’m doing and that is what drives me.
I’ve heard people say they cannot create
artwork without being inspired. I have to shake my head when I hear that kind
of crap, because as a human being you have this incredible imagination to draw
from, everyone does, unless you’re my third grade teacher, who stifled all
artistic expression -- she claimed art was a waste of good paper. Not true of
course. We are creative beings and we can create anything. Art is a learned process, like
learning to play an instrument. Sure, there are people born with gifts, and
everything comes natural to them, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have to
develop it and it also doesn’t mean you have to be born with abilities in order
to follow creative dreams. That’s like saying that because you are not gifted
you can never play the violin.
I don’t really have a set process in
writing or art other than what I’ve already mentioned. Most artists see beauty
in almost everything, even a dead leaf floating in a puddle, just as most
writers see a story in faces they pass by on the street. We draw from our inner
resource, our pain, our suffering, and our life experiences. We might identify
with our characters without making every protagonist and antagonist carbon
copies of ourselves. When I
wrote Ian Corbet, the evil, demonic familiar spirit in Ancient Fire, I had to think about
soulless creatures and what motivates them to hurt and destroy. How could I
make Shonna’s life a living hell? Of course I included my own personal pain
somewhat contrived. I’ve had a lot of pain in my life, which helps me to
understand the human condition. I want my reader to identify with Shonna’s
pain, disappointments and sorrow. No doubt,
you’ve heard it said that writers spend far too much time in isolation, and
need some social aspect. While that is very true, I find I have this wonderful
time with my believable characters. You can try to label me crazy, but I enjoy
being with my characters almost as much as being with friends. To me, they are just
as real and the more time I spend with them, the more I know about their habits
and what makes them tick.
Judi, you and I share a mutual love of '60s classic Science Fiction TV -- particularly, Lost in Space. How has that love influenced your work?
I have always loved classic fantasy and
most all Science Fiction. Television was a new medium when I was a kid. It
quickly became the family thing to do, watching shows like The Twilight Zone and later on Lost in Space and the original Star Trek. They not only inspired me on so many
levels, but as much as I enjoyed them, they caused me to ponder the possibilities. Lost in Space had some unbelievably complicated plots, sure many offered
predictable outcomes, but a few caused me loss of sleep. I would get frustrated with the plots and
think I could have ended this differently. I would grab my journal and write a
new ending; one I thought mirrored the beginning, giving the story more
strength. I did this all in secret, because I didn’t want to suffer ridicule.
According to my teachers I was astutely a lost cause.
One particular episode of Lost in Space, "The Golden Man", stayed with me for years; I couldn’t get it out
of my mind. This may sound completely unrelated, but it
really isn’t…one day standing in the flower fields in Carlsbad, California near my former hometown of Oceanside, I was staring transfixed at flowers. Row
after row of beautiful flowers and my imagination went back to that episode.
I began to develop a plot for my story, which later on, much later, developed
into a book, one of those novels currently in the process of truncation wonderfully titled, The Andalorian Bloodstone.
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