PHANTASM FRIDAY

ANIDA ADLER STIRS UP

A HOT CELTIC BREW

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Writing as Nadia Williams, Anida Adler is the author of The Pebble, a spicy paranormal romance published by Amira Press, and the author of, Offering, a paranormal romance published by The Wild Rose Press. Ms. Adler’s newest book, The Ancient, is a celtic mythology/shapeshifter paranormal erotica, which was recently released by Loose, Id.

To learn more about Ms. Adler, drop by her website at: http://www.anida-adler.net/home.htm

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It’s a pleasure to have you with us today, Anida. October is a month long paranormal event for us Moonlighters, so we’re delighted to have you with us. Let’s start with some trivia about you:

1. Do you have a movie that you must watch every Halloween? What's your favorite scary movie? Do you have a favorite scary character or character type?

Aaargh! Scary movie! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH! I am incapable of watching scary movies. One of two things happens:
a) I get really involved with the whole thing and I’m petrified, have nightmares for days to come. I jumped from a standing position over a double bed to get to a door once from a scary scene in 1988’s The Blob. Yes, that’s right, The Blob.
http://blog.mycology.cornell.edu/wp-content/uploads/2007/10/the-blob-eats-a-jock.jpg

Once, at a video night (this was in the days when owning a video machine was still unusual, which was not as long ago as you might think), I was trapped at the far end of a carpet of teenagers and couldn’t get away. I had to watch all of the 1987 film The Curse, and developed a lifelong fear of rotten vegetables.
http://media.photobucket.com/image/curse%201988/udar55/curse1.jpg

b) I use humour to distance myself from the film, making fun of every single thing in it. This unfortunately spoils it for everyone else. This technique didn’t work for The Omen. Not at all.

http://api.ning.com/files/vpVxQeNmkOZO72HghjvmP3pUJr7ea6ZHkEqn6xOhIv7auQMYFM10shDRXv3pmCcUeNk-j5gBr*E-gLU8bKM-pC7qM90e4-Mr/omen1.jpg

2. Do you have any Halloween traditions like decorating your house, having house parties, wearing costumes, etc.?

In South Africa, Halloween is not traditionally celebrated. Strange, I know, but there you have it. It was surprising to move to Ireland and find quite a big deal made out of Halloween. My family agree that I look scary enough when I wake up in the mornings to not need a costume.
http://comps.fotosearch.com/comp/ARP/ARP115/medusa_~Medusa.jpg

Also, as the resident mild eccentric in the neighbourhood, I think people are wary enough of me.

3. If you do you dress up for Halloween, what will you be dressed up as this year? What was your all-time most favorite costume that you ever wore? Why?

Not having dressed for Halloween doesn’t mean I don’t have a fond memory of dressing up as something scary. I did a monologue for a yearly talent competition, in which I portrayed a witch. I can still remember the first few lines, and apparently I did a mean cackle. So much so that I was asked to perform the monologue again at the school concert. My dad, who’d dabbled with amateur acting as a younger man, did an excellent job with my stage make-up. I even scared myself, when I looked in the mirror. That was really awesome.

Choosing now, I’d die to celebrate Halloween with the characters from The Big Bang Theory, one of my favourite television shows. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J43lAESftPs&feature=related

4. Are you superstitious? Do you find yourself knocking on wood or throwing salt over your shoulder? If not one of these two, what is your superstition?

Superstition is fascinating, especially when you start looking at its origins. Sometimes it’s logical: don’t open an umbrella in the house, as it brings bad luck, the people hereabouts say. Well, I don’t know about bad luck, but have you ever tried going through a door with an open umbrella? Don’t walk under a ladder - someone is usually up on the ladder doing stuff like painting or drilling. Something could fall on your head.

But something like knocking on wood… apparently, in ancient times, people believed deities often lived in trees. So if they spoke of something they hoped for, they knocked on wood to probably wake up the darn deity so s/he could hear the request and get working!

Tossing salt over your shoulder, I was told when I was a child, sprang from the belief that spilling salt brought bad luck, and tossing some of it over your shoulder got salt in the devil that resides there.

I myself am not superstitious, but I love doing something at the stroke of midnight on New Year’s eve that embodies what I hope for in the year ahead. This last New Year’s Eve saw me cycling, with my laptop in a knapsack on my back to represent the writing I hoped to keep devoting my time to.

5. Do you believe in ghosts? If so, have you ever had a ghostly encounter and tell us about it?

I don’t, though I believe we don’t just cease to be when we die. I get the eeriest feeling when I visit an historical site, such as Roche Castle just down the road from us http://iol.ie/~scphadr/roche.html It’s as if I can hear the echoes of the people who had lived and died there.

6. Tell us 3 funny or strange things that happened to you, or someone you know, on past Halloweens.

We’ve only celebrated four Halloweens so far, so there’s little to work with. Beyond the everyday odd things such as that dismembered hand which always passes you things from the kitchen drawer and the headless man next door, I haven’t had any strange experiences on Halloween. Yet.

7. If you could be any paranormal creature, what would it be and why?

I’d be one of the Tuatha De Dannan as I envision them, because I love life (they’re immortal) and I think being able to do magic would be cool.

Now, let’s get to your writing:

8. Why the paranormal genre? What was the draw for you?

I’ve been a fan of fantasy since I was a child. I am most intrigued by the problems people would face if they had supernatural abilities, how it would influence their personalities and the course of their lives.

9. If you could describe your paranormal writing with a word or phrase, what would it be? Please be creative and look beyond words like vampire, werewolf, etc., and delve into the core of your writing to tell us what word or phrase you want readers to take with them when they've finished reading your story.

Delighted fascination. I absolutely adore writing, I live for it, and if my readers can come away with just a fraction of the awe and rapture I feel when I create a story, I will have achieved something really special.

10. Do you prefer playing tricks on people or bestowing treats? Does that show through in your writing? If so, how?

I prefer bestowing treats, though they may look like tricks at first. I sometimes feel like a sadist, as I love throwing a character into a near impossible situation. Yet my goal is always to bring him or her through to the other side a better, more fulfilled person who has a deeper knowledge of self and the world.

11. Who decides what creatures you write about, you or your muse? What kind of influence do you have over your story, or is the muse always the one stirring the cauldron?

My muse is an absolute bitch and I hate her. And I love her, adore her, worship at her feet. I am her slave, but a willing slave, an addict who runs from the drug that is writing in vain, who always comes back for another fix, allowing the pleasure-pain of her cruel ministrations to drag me through hell into heaven.

I also tend to be a bit melodramatic.

Stories come and reside in my skull. They live there until I know them like I know the face I see in the mirror every day. I know where they start, and vaguely where they will end. From there, they do what they like, and I am no more than a medium for them.

12. What was the creature that you had the most fun creating and why?

I loved taking Irish mythology and filtering it through my mind to produce something fascinating. I loved creating this race and seeing what effects their particular abilities had on their psyches.

13. If you had the opportunity to meet just one of your characters in real life, who would it be and why? Which of your characters would you never want to meet under any circumstance and why?

Oh, dear, this is a difficult one. I would love to befriend Tadhg from The Ancient, because I think he and I would get along like a house on fire. I am particularly fond of Ronán from The Pebble, but I’m afraid he would probably not get along with me very well.

I would rather not under any circumstances meet Dian Cecht. The man is truly evil, he killed his own son because he was jealous of him. How mean is that!

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BLURB - THE ANCIENT:

What would you do if you fell in love with the goddess of death?

Tadhg Daniels’ gift of days is at an end. When Morrigán, goddess of death, visits him to announce his impending death, she sees something in his eyes which she has never observed in any of her charges. She wants him, in every sense of the word. But can he handle the consequences of sex with an Ancient?

A part of Tadhg accepts his fate, but there’s another part of him that wants to live at any cost. How can he die, when he has just met a woman who sparks a consuming need in his soul?

There is a way for him to gain eternal life. Tadhg will have to face hidden desires, needs he has always denied. The shackles are waiting, and time is running out.


EXCERPT - THE ANCIENT:

Tadhg glanced at Morrigán and hesitated. Her gaze rested on him, and he saw eternity in her eyes. “No, Morrigán. No.” And with that he followed Mark, lifted his body from safety -- and felt the bullets slam into his chest as if time had slowed to a trickle. He fell and slid back into the shell hole, stared up at the blue sky in stunned disbelief.

Sound receded until he lay in utter silence among screams of pain and anger, in the midst of pounding boots and rattling guns. He felt no pain, but it was difficult to breathe, and something wet bubbled on his lips.

Morrigán crouched beside him. Why did she look angry? “You want to live, poet? You want to live no matter what?”

Again he felt that odd sensation of a part of him accepting, looking forward to entering the land of shades. He could blend with the power of running horses, exist in the steaming joy of early-morning gallops across dewy fields. Yet inside him, another part rebelled, struggled for life, even as he sensed the last few grains of sand sink to the narrow waist of the hourglass of his measure of days. And as he lay dying, he rested his gaze on Morrigán’s beautiful, pearl white face, and the part that wanted to live grew, filled him, became all of him.

“Tadhg, answer me. Do you want to live, no matter what the price?”

He couldn’t speak. Dear God, she offered him a chance, and now, because his lungs were filling with blood, he could not force his voice to reach out for what he craved with his entire being. Blackness tinged the edges of his vision; he fought to hold the receding image of her face. He nodded his answer, and she reacted in an instant, flicked her cloak over his body, and Tadhg felt himself falling, falling into a landscape of terrible dreams