What is your name, where were you born and
where do you live now?
My name is Patricia Mason and I write young
adult urban fantasy and paranormal romance under the name P.R. Mason. I also
write steamy romance as Patricia Mason. My home is the weird and wonderful city
of Savannah, Georgia. I was born and raised in the Midwest. I had friends,
family and an established career there, but once I'd visited Savannah in 2001,
I couldn't resist its siren call. I'd always dreamed of completing a novel and
Savannah just seemed to be the inspirational muse I needed.
Do you have a pen name?
My most
recent two releases, Entanglements and Fated Hearts are under the name P.R.
Mason.
Did you always want to be a writer?
Yes. One of my earliest memories is of regaling
a group of my childhood friends with a story I’d created. I believe it featured
an excessive number of dragons. My love of story telling continued through my
teens. However, my teenage writings were much too angsty and featured
characters who whined a lot. I finished my first novel about five years ago, A
GIRL, A GUY and a GHOST. That book does not feature any dragons, but does have
a somewhat whiny, discrimination-obsessed, vampire.
What is the name of your latest book, and if
you had to summarise it in less than 20 words what would you say?
Okay, here goes: ENTANGLEMENTS - Opening a
vortex sucks! Kizzy Taylor must enter a dangerous dimension to save her
stepsister, but will she get home?
Twenty words exactly!
Do you have plans for a new book? Is this book
part of a series?
A sequel to Entanglements is in the works. RESISTANCE takes up
the story of a fighter in the human resistance who, along with her
alchemist/vampire hero, must defeat an army of soul sucking golems. I
expect to release the sequel in March of 2012.
What genre would you place your books into?
Urban fantasy and paranormal romance. I enjoy
exploring "real" issues in a surreal world.
Where do you get your book plot ideas from?
I get a lot of inspiration from my hometown of
Savannah. For one thing, Savannah is beautiful and has an enormous amount of character.
As the 13th colony, it was established in 1733 and therefore has a historic
downtown that is architecturally rich and a delight to the conscious senses.
But Savannah has strangely wonderful layers underneath the surface that appeal
to my love of the unusual. This town is home to a plethora of quirky
characters, odd places and weird historic happenings that provide fodder for
fictionalization. Even after eleven years here, every day in Savannah feeds my
artistic core.
Savannah, for instance, was voted the most haunted
city in America by a parapsychology group. Ghosts, as evidenced by orbs, EVPs
(electronic voice phenomenon), moving objects and full apparitions, are as
plentiful as the Spanish moss here. My sister and I once owned an antique shop built
over one of the old burial grounds. We regularly allowed paranormal
investigations with fascinating results such as an EVP of a panting ghost dog
and a child's voice saying, "he likes you".
But there is more to Savannah than just the
hauntings. For example, we have a "magic" square in the historic
downtown that reportedly grants wishes to those who visit it and use the
correct wish-making technique. Vortexes are also plentiful here, allegedly. One of
my friends swears he observed a figure pop up out of the ground in the middle
of a square. And since my friend isn't mentally ill, I have to give his
personal experience some credence. Another historic oddity is the reported
hidden Masonic treasure, which continues to interest hunters. This is just to
name a few of the oddities I love around here.
What/Who is your inspiration?
Lately I've been exploring how music can act as
an inspiration for certain scenes or sequences in my books. I recently created
an unofficial soundtrack for Entanglements. You can click HERE (http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL745351B74DD5A166&feature=mh_lolz) to see
and listen to the playlist via Youtube.
Do you have a certain routine you have for
writing? ie You listen to music, sit in a certain chair?
My daily
writing routine usually begins in a local coffee shop. If I can get out of the
house and away from the temptation to sit and read (or do household
chores...although that's more like a nagging impulse rather than a temptation),
I find it much easier to concentrate on the story I'm writing. Plus, I have to
contend with a couple of demanding feline taskmasters at home. One in
particular loves to sit on the computer keyboard and demand treats. At home I'm
just the human subjected to mind control experiments by my feline overlords. So
getting out of the house to write is critical.
Are there any hidden messages or morals
contained in your books? (Morals as in like Aesops Fables type of "The
moral of this story is..")
As I was working on the sequel to my urban fantasy
novel, ENTANGLEMENTS, I became obsessed
with the concept of predestination and the line between fate and free will.
My father always came down on the side of 100%
predetestination because he often had vivid dreams that foretold future events
in his life. Some of these occurred years after the dream. For instance, when
he was married to my mother he had a dream about visiting another woman in the
hospital to visit the baby they'd had together. Nice, right? So he thought
every event in his life was "fated" to happen and his choices made no
difference.
I argued that choices had to matter, arguing that
his dreams were precognitive of an event that would happen only if he continued on the path on which he was
traveling at the time. And those dreams of events that never happened were
forgotten because he had changed paths. Anyway, these issues came to the
forefront of my mind in relation to an idea about two characters and so I felt
driven to write their story. FATED HEARTS is the
result. Here's the blurb:
EVE has
always played by the rules, afraid to take chances. HOLDEN wants to change
that. She's certain they've never met before...or have they? Holden seems so
familiar, but who is he? What is he? Yesterday her biggest challenge was trying
not to bomb on her SATs. Today, paranormal forces have transformed an ordinary
high school dance into a test of fate vs. free will and loving Holden could be
Eve's end.
Where can readers follow you?
Thankyou for taking the time to take part in this Interview!
Thanks so much for having me on your beautiful blog. P.R. Mason
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