I am delighted to have my Twitter friend, Richard Goodship, with me today to talk about his supernatural forensic thriller, THE CAMERA GUY. Author of 4 books, Richard is a retired Police Officer/Forensic Investigator.  He spent the last five years of his career with the Attorney General’s Office travelling the countryside investigating scenes and attending autopsies. Now he lives in a small village north of Toronto, writes novels (big honking ones) and take lots of pictures (mostly things that are alive). Storms are his favorite and he has some doozies on his blog http://thecameraguy-richard.blogspot.com/. In addition to sharing his experiences and latest teasers, Richard has generously agreed to provide a free e-copy of THE CAMERA GUY for one reader. All you have to do is comment or ask a question at the end of the interview to be entered to win. And don’t forget, this month to celebrate KISS OF THE SILVER WOLF’s first birthday, one commenter will be chosen at random each week up until October 31, 2011 to receive a free e-copy of my werewolves meet X-files story. So there are two chances to win an e-book this week!

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Richard, what made you want to be an author? At what age did you start telling stories and then writing them down?

I think deep down I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I was reading well above my age when I was 6 and started re-arranging the stories to include either me or some character I made up.  Later in high school I began writing short stories.  It was in high school that I began reading everything and anything I could get my hands on.

What do you like best about being a writer? What do you like the least?

What do I like best?  The hours, lol.. Actually I like that I am creating worlds and characters that I can control.  Or at least control some of the times.  I’ve found that they tend to take on a life of their own after a while.

What do I like the least?  The hours, lol… As a writer you cant ignore your muse and she’s not only fickle but has no sense of time what so ever.  3 am comes along and you’re deep in sleep and then ‘BAM!’ you wake up with a thought and it needs writing down.  I now keep a digital recorder near my bed.

Also, those moments when you know what you want to say, you ‘see’ it in your mind, but for some reason, the path from brain to fingertips gets crossed and you end up sitting in front of your computer staring at a blank page.

I think what I dislike the most is the waiting.  Before I published The Camera Guy as an ebook I spent months waiting to hear from agents and publishers.  I used to tell other writers that the waiting is the purgatory we all signed up for but it’s a hard pill to swallow when after all that waiting you’re greeted with a rejection email.  That for me was the most frustrating.  The agents would have great things to say about the book, ‘loved the storyline’, ‘loved the characters’, but because it crossed so many genres they didn’t know how to market it.  No matter how well worded a rejection letter is, it’s still a rejection and it sucks.

With you extensive police procedural background, when and why did you decide to write a supernatural forensic thriller? What do your former colleagues think of your new career?

My first book, The Staff is actually a modern day science fantasy and had nothing really to do with police.  I was still ‘on the beat’ when I wrote that and on nights when it was quiet I’d spend my lunch in the report room making notes.  Seems like such a long time ago now.

I began The Camera Guy after going over to the Attorney General’s office.  I was in the Forensic Section with 8 other officers all from different police forces.  It was an excellent environment to work in. The training we received was far more advanced and almost continuous.  The hours were crazy, spending sometimes 30 and 40 hours before seeing a bed.  I was coming up on 17 years in forensics and I knew that at some point I might burn out.  It was then that I decided to write The Camera Guy.  The idea itself was born while I was still on the police, but the story came together during my last 2 years before finally tossing in the towel.  I received a huge amount of encouragement and interest from the guys which made it a lot easier.

You write “big honking novels.” How do you manage to be so prolific? What’s your favorite time management tip?

When I say ‘big honking ones’ I mean nothing under 110,000 words.  The Staff was just under 140k and The Camera Guy came in at about 110k.  The Trilogy I’m working on will be huge.  I’ve finished the first book at 145k and the second looks like it will be about the same.  I don’t plan the size.  The story pretty much controls how many pages/words.  I like to think that my books don’t contain ‘filler’ and each page has something for the reader.

As far as being ‘prolific’ I guess it’s just that I have a lot of stories rolling around in my head.  I’ve done more things, learned more and seen more than most people would have in 3 lifetimes.  Most of it dealing with the worst humanity has to offer but not all of it negative and even the bad stuff has been a positive influence on me.  The funny thing is I can’t keep myself tied to just one genre.  I mean The Camera Guy crosses at least 4, my first book was a modern day fantasy and the trilogy I’m working on now, The Ostiary is a historical fiction/fantasy.  I really suck at writing love scenes so anything romantic is safe. lol.

Are you a plotter or a pantser, i.e., do you outline your books ahead of time or are you an “organic” writer?

Ah, well a bit of both.  The Staff was done by the seat of my pants.  The story was in my head and I just (pardon the analogy) barfed it onto the pages.  The Camera Guy was a bit of both.  The story was there but I needed to go over my old case files, make the necessary changes to fit the storyline and plot where each one would fit into the story.  The Ostiary trilogy is almost purely plotted because of its size.  The amount of research involved took 6 months because it’s a historical piece in the beginning and the Latin and Celtic languages needed to be exact for that timeline as well as places, names and clothing.  Each book of the trilogy takes place 500 years after the last and the first book starts in the year 1157 AD.

Have you ever felt as if you were being dictated to while you wrote a book–as if the words came of their own accord? If yes, which book did that happen with? Do you hear dead people? (FYI, I do have clairaudience, so I ask this without tongue in cheek!)

I felt that way for all of my books.  The stories are there inside my head generated by that none physical part of us and for the most part, brooks no compromise.  You can make small changes but that’s about it. The story is the story is the story.  Just go with the flow.

Now we come to how The Camera Guy came to be.  I don’t hear dead people but they do talk to me.  In the physical sense.  The positioning of the body, blood pooling under the skin, evidence found either on the body or near all speak to me and tell me a story.  I do however talk to them.  Literally.  It was my way of dealing with all the death and destruction of life that was a huge part of my life.  I would make the victim a promise, a promise to do the best I could to find out what happened.  Now it happened one day that I was in my lab with the skeletal remains of a male.  I had spent the last 2 weeks in the bush doing a forensic dig and now had him laid out on my lab table with his skull on my copy stand.  I was examining some bone fragments under the microscope and chatting the skull up as was my want over the days I was examining him.  I got a funny feeling and I turned and there was my Chief of Police standing in the doorway to my lab.  He had gone pale and just turned and left never to return to the forensic section.  Later that day I got a note from him giving me a week off once I was done the investigation.  When I got back, the rumor of The Camera Guy that talks to dead people was born.

Do I believe is spirits?  Ghosts?  Yes I do.  When you become so entwined with death its hard not to.  I’ve heard the whisper behind me in the morgue at night.  I’ve seen a light when there should be dark.  We don’t stop existing after we die.  What happens after that, who knows?  Even Bill, the main character leaves that on a faith he doesn’t really have.

If you had one take away piece of advice for authors, what would it be?

Never stop writing.  Even if you’ve come to a temporary impasse with your story, write about something else just to get the juices flowing again.  You haven’t lost the story, just stepped off the path for a bit.  The golden rule of course, ‘write what you know’ and if you don’t know, learn it.  Research it.  You need your characters to feel comfortable enough in what they do to keep the reader comfortable while reading it.  I fall back on a lot of my training and expertise even with the other stories.  I used to teach fencing and yes, I bounce around with my swords choreographing sword fights and what moves to make.  That leads me to another piece of advice.  Your characters have to come to life on the page.  Do what you are making them do.  If a character is crouching behind a bush, go and crouch down behind a bush.  Note what is happening to your body.  The muscles, your breathing, what the bush feels like on your skin, what you’re seeing from behind the bush.  This is what makes your characters live.

Tell me more about THE CAMERA GUY. Life was not easy for Forensic Investigator Bill Walters. His ability to see the spirits of the victims at his crime scenes gave him an edge, but it kept him isolated from his fellow Officers and gave him the reputation of being a ‘Nutbar’ on the force. Bill could live with this. He could even live with the family of ghosts that haunted his apartment, the loss of his friends and religion and the estrangement of his daughter, Eryn. What Bill couldn’t live with was the Demon that came to town hungry for those spirits. And his own.

How about an excerpt from THE CAMERA GUY?

Bill drove through the streets, his eyes continuously glancing from the road to the manila envelope that lay next to him on the passenger seat.  He had his proof, now all he needed was someone to show it to.

A thought came into his mind and he turned the car around without even realizing he had done it.  He pondered the wisdom of what he was doing and almost changed his mind several times during the short trip.

He pulled the car over to the curb and shut the engine off.  He gazed out the far window of the car, his eyes taking in the huge, crenelled towers of the cathedral.  The white limestone that made up the outer walls glowed in the afternoon sun giving the structure an even holier look to it.

Bill swallowed hard and grabbed the envelope.  It had been years since he had been inside and spoken to the man he had come to see.  A man who at one time had been as close to him as an older brother.  His eyes hardened at the sixteen year old memories and what he considered a betrayal that had driven a wedge between the man and the church he represented.

“Dad?”

Bill jumped in his seat, his head whipping around at the sound.  His daughter stood next to the driver’s door, books in her hand looking at him.

“Eryn,” he said, winding the window down.  “You startled me.”

Eryn nodded her head at the church.  “This is the last place I thought I’d see you.”  A sudden look of worry flew into her face.  “You’re not here because of work are you?”  she asked.

Bill shook his head.  “No,” he assured her.  “At least not for what you might think.”  He looked at the envelope in his hand.  “I just wanted to ask some questions of Father McClellan.”

“You mean Father Steve,” Eryn corrected.  “Are you thinking of coming back to church?”

Bill grunted, “Your mother would like that,” he said sarcastically.

“Dad!”  Eryn said reproachfully.

“Sorry.”

“If you want to know, I don’t think mom wonders about how you’re doing very much these days.”  Eryn shuffled her books uncomfortably.  “So why are you here?”

“How is school?”  Bill asked, avoiding the question.  He took a closer look at her.  “You look tired.  Are you getting enough sleep?”

Eryn shrugged.  “Just been having some bad dreams last couple of nights.”

“What kind of dreams?”

Eryn glanced around as if she was looking for an escape.  “Just boogey man stuff,” she answered at last.  “Guess you’d know more about that.”

“Guess I would,” Bill responded quietly.  He looked away not sure what to say next.  Things had always been strained between them, but now that she was getting older, he found it harder and harder to find neutral topics to talk about.  “Do you see Father Mc,, I mean Father Steve a lot?”

She nodded.  “He comes in to listen to our choir practice and he still does high mass on Sundays.”  Eryn shuffled her books again.  “He doesn’t ask about you if that’s what you wanted to know.”

Bill shook his head.  “How are things in the choir?”

“Maybe if you came to listen you’d know,” Eryn said bitterly.  She stepped back from the car.  “I have to go now or I’ll be late.  Are you going in?”

Bill looked at the envelope again and shook his head.  Suddenly it didn’t seem that important that the priest should see the photographs.

“Well, bye then.”  Eryn half ran half walked away.

Bill watched her climb up the stairs and disappear beyond the huge doors of the cathedral.  “Bye,” he said.

 

Tom entered the diner ten minutes earlier than the Detective had told him to meet.  He found Bill already sitting in the same booth, the smoke from a cigarette curling in the air around his head.  He sat down on the opposite bench.

“You’re early,” Bill said, taking a drag from his cigarette and a sip from his coffee in rapid succession.

“Hey first day on the job and all that,” Tom said lightly.  “Must make a good impression on the boss.”

“I’m not your boss.”

Tom pursed his lips together.  It was going to be a very long day he thought.  “So am I staying on as your partner?”  he asked, thinking he might as well get it over with.

Bill’s radio began beeping.  He pulled the radio from its holder at his belt and keyed the mic.  “Walters here.”

“You’re required at McIntyre East and John, over.”

Bill gave Tom a long look before answering.  “Watson and I are heading over now.”  He replaced the radio at his belt and finished off his coffee.  Both rose from the table and Bill fished into his pocket and pulled at a five-dollar bill and threw it onto the table.  They headed out of the restaurant and jumped into Bill’s Ident van.

“I guess I’m staying?”  Tom asked as they pulled into traffic.

“I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

Tom nodded.  “What are we heading to?”

“Homicide,” Bill answered.  “That’s all I do.  Homicides.”

They didn’t talk the rest of the trip, which even though was short felt long to Tom.  He braced himself using the door handle as Bill sped around corners and around slower vehicles.  A weird feeling began in his stomach and he put his hand there.

“You’re not going to puke or pass out on me are you?”

Tom swallowed trying to control the feeling growing inside him.  “I, uh, I don’t think so,” was the best he could answer.

“Just think about what you’re there for,” Bill advised.  For me, it’s about answers.  Why, who, how, when.  The when’s the hardest.”

“Thanks, I’ll try that.”

Bill grunted.  “When we get there, you’ll have to stay outside the line for a while.  I don’t let anyone, officer or chief into my scene until I’m satisfied that nothing is going to get fucked up.  Understand?”

Tom could only nod.

They arrived at the intersection and Bill observed that an alleyway running off McIntyre just south of the intersection had been taped off and several officers were standing around.  He looked for stripes and found the Sergeant in charge of the scene.  Out of the corner of his eye he saw a plain car with two suits inside.  He breathed a silent sigh of relief to see that Brian wasn’t one of them.

He reversed the van into the opening of the alleyway causing the officers to move and put it in park.  Tom could see the officers leaning their heads together talking and pointing at Bill.  He looked over at the Detective to see if there was a reaction but Bill was either oblivious to the others or ignoring them.  He couldn’t tell.

Bill got out and spoke briefly with the Sergeant before heading towards the plain car. Tom hurried to catch up with him.  They reached the car and Bill bent down to look into the passenger window.  “Rick, Ron,” he greeted them.  His eyebrows rose slightly at the color of their faces.  Tom looked in and blinked.  “Jesus,” he said out loud.

Rick and Ron looked at each other then back at Bill.  Rick’s face was spattered with purple as was his hands.  Ron’s face had an almost perfect brilliant orange handprint on the left side of his face.  The skin on both looked as if they had spent a lot of time scrubbing.

“That’s not contagious is it?”  Bill asked casually.

“You’re a real fucking riot.”  Rick growled.  “You know God damn well it’s not.”  He shook his finger at Bill.  “You’re just lucky I cant prove you’re the one who dusted our car doors with that thief powder.”

“Payback’s a bitch, you know,” Ron said quietly as he flipped through the pages of his notebook.

“Hmmmm.  What have you got for me?”  Bill asked.

“Young female,” Ron answered, “maybe twenty.  No ID on her yet.  No one’s gone near the body except the old wino that discovered her.”

“Where is he?”

Rick nodded his head towards a cruiser.  “We got a quick statement from him before you got here.  Says he was leaving his apartment to get some smokes and found her lying in the alleyway.”

“Did he touch her or go near the body?”  Bill asked as he looked over at the cruiser, his eyes squinting in the bright morning sun.

Ron shook his head, “He says no.  Scared the shit out of him and he ran back to his apartment.  Drank half a micky of cooking sherry before he could work up the courage to check again.  He called the police from that payphone over there.”

Bill nodded.  “Give me a bit while I check the scene out.”  He motioned towards the cruiser, “Keep him for a while.  I’ll want his fingerprints and photos of the soles of his shoes before you turf him.”  Bill checked his watch, “Time in?”

Rick checked his watch and wrote down the time on a separate sheet of paper.  “Oh-nine hundred good for you?”

“Yup,” Bill said as he turned and walked away.  “Let me know when the Coroner gets here,” he called back.

Tom remained at the side of the car staring at the two Detectives.

Ron turned his face towards him, his eyes sharp and hard.  “Fuck off!”

Bill was rummaging around in the back of the van when Tom caught up with him.  “What happened to their faces?”

Bill glanced back at the car and allowed himself a brief flash of a smile.  “Just a bit of schooling.”  He took off his sport coat and threw it into the van in a heap followed quickly by his tie and began unwrapping a plastic bag.  He pulled out something white and folded.

“What’s that?”  Tom asked.  He saw Bill grimace slightly, “I know this is probably going to annoy the hell out of you but I’ve never done this before and I’m going to ask you a lot of questions.”

“It’s a bunny suit.”

“Okay..,”

“A clean suit,” Bill answered.  “Helps to keep contamination and cross contamination from spoiling the scene.”

Tom nodded.  Bill pulled the suit on over his clothes and grabbed two white slippers and shoved them into a pocket.  He snapped on a pair of surgical gloves and drew the hood of the suit over his head before grabbing his camera.  Tom watched as Bill ducked under the tape and pause while he put on the slippers before continuing down the alley.

Bill stopped about ten feet in and raised his camera, snapping off a frame before continuing.  His eyes scanned the cracked pavement and brick walls of the buildings on either side looking for anything that didn’t belong or looked like it had been moved recently. The pavement under his feet was littered with trash and dirt.  The width of the alley was maybe twelve feet across.  Wide enough for a dump truck to drive through he noted.  He stopped again and took another photo.

Further down, maybe thirty feet, he could see that the alley widened out into a courtyard of sorts.  His eyes continued to scan as he moved forward.

He stopped just short of the courtyard and raised the camera again.  He took a photo and lowered the camera, his breath quickening.  He could feel her.  Bill was about to take another step when that realization finally sunk in.  He could feel her.  He still couldn’t see the body but he knew that she was there.  Standing beside her corpse, waiting for him.  He had never felt their presence before and he suddenly found it hard to breath, as if the muscles in his torso were locked in some vise-like grip that was slowly tightening around his chest.  He shook his head trying to dislodge the sensation.  There was a thickness in the air he was trying to force into his lungs and it left a bitter taste on his tongue.  It was fear.  She was afraid.

Bill hesitated.  It was bad enough he could see them, could relive the last moments of their life and the moment of their death but to feel it, to know intimately what it felt like to have your life violently stolen was almost too much for him.  A sense of panic began to rise up and he fought it down with curses growled from between clenched teeth.

He took a deep breath and walked into the courtyard and staggered.  She was standing where he knew she’d be but he wasn’t prepared for the tidal wave of emotions that rolled over him.  Fear and confusion slammed into him, whirled his mind around and around until his direction was lost.  Anger pushed him back till he was leaning against the brick wall behind him.  He fought to regain his balance but the waves kept crashing into him threatening to down him in a sea of emotions stronger than anything he had ever felt.  His hands began to shake violently and he almost dropped his camera, his fingers losing strength.  It had never been like this before he thought again.

She stood there looking at him with eyes that pierced his soul with a pleading that made him weep.  Bill groaned, trying to force himself to speak.  To say something that would stop the onslaught before he passed out.

Without realizing it, he had sunk to his knees before he could groan out a plea.  “Stop, please.”

The sensations began to ease slowly, the emotions less intense and Bill was able to regain his feet.  He still leaned heavily against the wall as he tried to clear his mind.  He looked at the woman and saw that she had not moved.  As soon as he made contact with her eyes, the feelings began to rise again, but they did not attack his senses as they had before, and he was able to control them by looking away.  He could still feel the strong sense of fear coming from the victim and this kept him slightly off balance.  It was the fear that he couldn’t understand.  Anger and confusion at what had happened was understandable, but the fear.  Its reason eluded him.  Why was she afraid?  The act had been committed, the deed done.  Was she afraid of what was coming next?  For the first time in his life Bill wondered if there really was a hell.  His eyes strayed involuntarily back to her.  He had to lick his lips before he could speak.  “Is that what you’re afraid of?”  he asked out loud.  Her fear rose again and he winced, his hand coming up to hide his eyes from her.

Bill pushed himself away from the wall and forced his hands to steady themselves so he could take some more photographs before it began.  His hands still shook a little and he kept the lens at its widest setting to help keep the images from appearing blurry.  He took more photographs than was necessary but he knew that once he was done he’d have to deal with her.  Would have to let her lead him through the events of her death and he wasn’t in a hurry because now it would be complete.  He would feel it with her and the thought made his stomach clench itself into a fist.

He took another photo and the camera began making a beeping noise letting him know that the batteries were low.  He reached into his pocket and fished out a fresh one.  His back was to her and he was grateful for that small favour.  After changing the battery he found a spot on the ground and placed his camera down.  Bill closed his eyes and concentrated on getting himself under control, tried to get his breathing more even.  When he felt as ready as he could be he turned back to the woman.

“Show me,” he whispered.

An image erupted in his mind.  Nighttime, the alleyway from the angle he had walked down.  It moved and bounced.  She was running.  Again the fear, growing inside her, inside him but it was a different fear.  Another image, this time of the courtyard and the pavement coming up fast.  She had tripped in her fear.  He felt the pain in her right knee where she had skinned it in the fall and his own hand cupped his knee out of reflex.  Another flash and this time her thought took form in words inside his head.  The dumpster, “He pushed me here,” he could see her shoved against the metal container, her head snapping back.  He winced at the pain in the back of his head as he felt the skin of her scalp tear from the contact with the rough metal.

“He dragged me here,” the image was of her dragged by the hair, her high-heeled shoes flopping off her feet.

Bill had to fight now to keep the fear from taking over completely.

Another image of her attacker, this time seen through the woman’s eyes.  A man, silhouetted against a light on the far wall.  He was small but his strength was incredible.  More sensations pulsed through Bill, anger, hatred, and exhilaration.  He groaned through gritted teeth.  These were the feelings coming from her attacker.  He felt the man’s hands on his throat as he choked her and his own arms came up to protect his neck.  The image began to fade as the oxygen to her brain ceased and her life began to end.  Bill almost soiled himself as her body finally let go.

Another image; she was standing beside herself now, looking down, grief and anger and confusion welling up inside her, inside him.  He watched through her eyes as the attacker released her throat and pulled out a large knife and began to plunge it into her chest again and again and again, his own hands coming up instinctively to ward off the blows.  He watched as blood from the knife blade flew out in little droplets spattering against the brick wall.  Her chest and breasts were a mass of shredded meat and skin.  He stopped stabbing her and brought the knife up to her throat and drew the sharp blade across the surface of her skin.  He watched as the edges of skin peeled away from each other.  The attacker did this several times before he stopped and rose to his feet, his face still towards the body.  Bill could almost feel the sense of satisfaction coming from the man as he surveyed his handiwork.

The man turned his face to her, to him.  The action took Bill by surprise.  He could see her!  Then he spoke and her fear, the other fear welled up inside him.  “Now you are mine.”

It was more than he could handle. His knees gave way as he crumpled to the ground and fainted.

Where can readers find more about your book and you on the Internet?

The Camera Guy can be found on Amazon.com here’s the link http://www.amazon.com/The-Camera-Guy-ebook/dp/B0057X7RM4/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1308963701&sr=1-1 and my author’s page is there as well.

Richard, thanks you so much for being with us here today. I know my readers will enjoy your work and your interview.

I had a great time, Sharon. Thanks for having me.