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The Book

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Check out the trailer to Seller's debut novel in the Detective Wade Jackson series: The Sex Club!







What inspires you to write?
Even as a young student, I was one of those nerds who liked to write reports. Pouring through encyclopedias and library books was a pleasure. Then pulling the information together in my own words was an enjoyable task. So it made sense when I started college to enroll in the journalism school. Why not get paid to do something I enjoyed? I loved reading fiction even more than encyclopedias. The occasional short story assignment in high school and college was fun too, but it was harder for me than nonfiction. I struggled to come up with short creative narratives. I never thought I could write a novel until I was almost thirty. One day I was reading a book that was so bad, I threw it down in disgust and thought, I could write a better story than that. Then I decided to see if I really could craft a whole novel. I’d certainly read my share and thought I understood story structure well enough to give it a try.

Jeffrey Dahmer was in the news then and I was raising three little boys, so I wrote about what I feared most: pedophile killers. Crafting the story was therapeutic…and addictive. I loved plotting and creating characters and writing from the POV of the antagonist. As soon as I finished the first story, I started brainstorming the next. And it’s been like that since. What inspires me to write is the joy I experience in telling stories, crime stories in particular. But I’ve also written five screenplays, three of which are comedies based on amusing things in my life (quitting smoking, obsessing about shoes, and traveling with adolescent boys).

I’m a storyteller now, and I’m not truly happy unless I have a work in progress. I also believe writing novels is about control and having the ability to make things turn out the way I want them to, at least on paper for awhile. Writing is also a great way to work through my fears and to process the unpleasant things that happen in life.

Where do you find inspiration to create your stories?
The inspiration for my crime novels comes mostly from news stories that surprise or confuse me or stick in my brain for some other reason. I’m fascinated with people who on the surface seem normal to their friends and neighbors, but then they commit some heinous crime, often for some minor reason. I start thinking about how they got to that point, and from that, a story will develop.

I’m also inspired by passion. People who are fired up and committed to their causes—even the misguided ones—fascinate me. They make great characters. For example, my first novel, The Sex Club, was inspired by the Bush administration’s decisions about access to birth control and abstinence-only sex education. (And yes, I consider the Bush era to be an unpleasant thing that happened in my life.) I worried about the consequences for young people. A news story about a group of promiscuous middle school kids was also on my mind. Throw in a passionate, but misguided anti-abortionist, and it all came together in a complex, action-packed story.
The novel I’m working on now is inspired by the economic downturn and how devastating it is for many families. I’m usually writing, on some level, about whatever social issue weighs most heavily on my mind.





From novel, Secrets to Die For...



Chapter 1

Wednesday, February 13

Raina shut off the motor and glanced up at the puke-green doublewide with a chunk of plywood over the front window. The near dusk couldn’t hide the broken dreams of the trailer’s occupants, Bruce and Cindy Gorman. Raina wasn’t here to see them. She was here for Josh, their eight-year-old son.

As a children’s support advocate, Raina had been assigned to monitor Josh six months ago, when the state of Oregon had taken temporary custody and placed the boy in foster care. Her primary responsibility was to stay in touch with Josh and to ensure the system did not fail him. During that time, the Gormans had danced all the right steps–anger management for him, parenting classes for her, and a rehab program for both. So now Josh was back in their care, and this was Raina’s last official contact…for now.

Her heart was flip-flopping, just like it did on her last day of high school. She was happy for Josh, but she despised Bruce and would be glad to never see him again, even though she knew it was petty to feel that way. Raina wished she were more mature, more objective, like the other CSA volunteers. At twenty, she and Jamie were the youngest in the group. Raina had become quite fond of Josh and would miss him terribly. She loved their long walk-and-talks along the river path, with Josh pointing out every bug he saw. It had been like having a little brother. Her counselor had been right when she’d advised Raina to do some volunteer work. Giving was the best way of receiving.

Raina stepped out of the Volvo and pulled in a quick breath of frigid February air. The smell of dog shit assaulted her senses. So much for her lofty ideals. She hurried to the door, hoping the dog, a Boxer named Brat, was either locked in the bathroom or deep in the woods behind the trailer. Raina shivered in the cold foul silence. The house was at least a half mile from the nearest neighbor.

Bruce pulled the door open a few inches before she could knock. “Josh is in bed, so come back tomorrow.” His voice was raspy from a lifetime of cigarettes, and his hairline had gone north on both sides. Bruce should have been a big man, but years of slouching took inches off his height and an old meth habit left him scrawny in a way that rehab couldn’t fix.

“I just need a few minutes with him, so I can make some final notes.”

“I told you, he’s not feeling well,” Bruce said through clenched teeth.

“Then all the more reason I should see him.”

“Not now.” Bruce started to close the door.

Raina stood her ground. “The custody order isn’t final yet. They’re waiting for my report. And it’s not convenient for me to come back tomorrow. I have classes.” She sounded braver than she felt.

“Don’t threaten me, you snot-nosed little–”

Cindy’s voice boomed from the kitchen. “Let her in, Bruce. Might as well get it over with.”

Raina wasn’t sure she still wanted to enter the trailer. She needed to know that Josh was okay, that the boy hadn’t changed his mind about going home to his parents. He had been quite excited on Sunday when she and Josh’s caseworker had picked him up to bring him here. The image of him standing on the ramshackle porch with his faded duffle bag, looking uncertain, haunted her. Raina had not slept well since.

“Josh, come out here for a minute!” Cindy yelled down the hallway. Raina cringed. Her mother had been a screamer too.

Bruce kept the door blocked. He turned his head and hollered, “Stay in bed!” Then to Cindy, he yelled, “Goddammit, woman. Don’t contradict me. That little bitch is not coming in, and Josh is not coming out.” Bruce turned back to Raina and growled through the partially open door. “You better forget you came out here tonight. And this conversation better not end up in the file.”

Then it hit Raina. The paranoia, the anger, the need to dominate. She knew all the signs. She had witnessed them plenty as a child. Bruce was using again. He was high on meth right now. Oh dear God.

Raina took a step back. Every muscle in her body wanted to run for the car. It had always been her instinct as a child too. It was a mistake. Meth dopers often had predatory responses. If you ran, they attacked. Raina still had the scars. Her mother had been quite quick on her feet.

Raina coached herself to stay calm. Just nod and move away slowly. Don’t make eye contact. Get to the car and lock the doors.

She took a step back. What about Josh? Was he okay? Panic pushed out of her stomach and into her throat. Had they already abused him? Is that why Bruce didn’t want her to see the boy?

Without thinking, she called out, “Josh, are you okay?”

Oh shit. Why had she done that?

“Fuck you.” Bruce leaned out the door, no longer caring that she could see his hugely dilated pupils. “You don’t know a fucking thing. Get the fuck out of here and keep your fucking mouth shut.” Spit flew from his mouth with every f. “If we lose Josh again, I’ll fucking kill you.”

Raina inched back, a half step at a time, feeling for the edge of the porch with her toes.

“Move, you little bitch.” Bruce lunged through the door.

Raina turned and ran.

It was only thirty feet to her car, but every step on the dirt path felt sticky and treacherous in the near dark. Heart pounding, she reached the Volvo, yanked open the door, and jumped in. Her knee slammed into the steering wheel, but she didn’t have time to process the pain. Eyes watering, Raina hit the automatic door lock and started the engine. Only then did she look up. Bruce was barreling toward her, about ten feet from the car. Raina shoved the gearshift into reverse and hit the gas. As she cranked the wheel left, aiming for the gravel turnaround tucked into the trees, Bruce slipped and went down hard. Raina let out her breath, jammed the transmission into drive, and sped down the gravel road, bouncing through every pothole instead of taking the time to go around. For a fleeting second, she wished she had run over Bruce while he was down.

Raina cursed herself for coming out here. She had been advised to see Josh only in neutral settings. She cursed herself for handling the situation so badly. Drug addicts! Disease or not, sometimes she hated all of them. Dead mother included.

Raina checked her rear view mirror for headlights but didn’t see anyone coming behind her. Maybe Bruce had hurt himself when he fell. Or perhaps he’d decided to take out his anger on Cindy because she was closer and easier. Raina desperately hoped he would leave Josh alone.

She decided to go straight to the police. She couldn’t prove that Josh was in immediate danger, but Bruce had threatened to kill her. That had to be against the law. The bastard. He’d better not hurt Josh. As soon as she was on the main road, she would call Mariah Martin, Josh’s caseworker at Child Welfare Services. Mariah would get a court order and get Josh out of that hellhole by tomorrow.

Distracted by her scattered thoughts, Raina almost missed the single curve in the quarter-mile driveway. She braked and pulled hard on the steering wheel, barely keeping the car from smacking into a giant Douglas fir. It was dark now, and she was anxious to get back into the bright lights and safety of Eugene city streets. She didn’t want to die in one of those mysterious single-car accidents, so she kept her speed reasonable. Raina checked the rearview mirror again. No car lights behind directly her. With Pine Grove Road only a hundred yards ahead, she started to relax.

Out of nowhere came a loud popping sound. Not quite like a gunshot, but loud enough to jumpstart her heart into frantic mode. Instinctively, Raina pressed the gas pedal, but the car didn’t respond well. It pulled to the left and made a grinding sound. Oh no. She’d blown a tire and was riding on the rim. She had probably run over something sharp. Shit, shit, shit! Of all times.

Raina tried to keep driving, thinking it would be better to reach the road, but the grinding was unbearable, so she coasted to a stop. Now what? She knew how to change a flat tire; her grandmother had made sure of that. Yet the sliver of moonlight wasn’t enough, and crazy Bruce was still back there somewhere. Be smart, she told herself. Call for help.

Raina reached into her purse for her cell phone, thinking she would call Jamie first. Jamie would bring her dad. Mr. Conner would have a spotlight in the back of his truck and make short work of changing the tire.

The call wouldn’t go through. Damn! Seven miles out of town, and she couldn’t pick up a tower. She tried again. Dead air. Raina decided to step out of the Volvo just long enough to try the call again. After a quick glance back down the road, she unlocked the door and pressed speed-dial #2. As she reached for the handle, the door flew open and a powerful force yanked her from the car.

Raina started to cry out, but her head smacked against the hard metal at the top of the door opening. Searing pain paralyzed her voice, and all that came out was a pathetic mewing sound. A calloused hand with an odd metal smell clamped over her mouth. Raina struggled, but a big arm squeezed her like a python holding its next meal. Fingers plunged into her hair, then slammed her head against the side of the car.

More searing pain. Oh God, he was going to kill her.

Bam! Her head smashed into the car again. As she passed out, Raina’s last thought was, I love you, Jamie.


Chapter Two
Thursday, February 14

Kera was talking, but Jackson wasn’t listening. He couldn’t stop thinking about sex. After two years of near celibacy at the end of an angry marriage, he had met this incredible woman and now he was obsessed. He was sharing Valentine’s Day and a plate of tasty beef tournedos with a gorgeous intelligent woman–and all he could think about was getting to her house and getting naked.

“I’m sorry, this isn’t interesting to you.” Kera looked concerned for a moment, then laughed. “But you really should try to hide it better.” Her green eyes twinkled with amusement. In the short time he’d known her, Jackson had been surprised again and again by how resilient this woman was.

The Books

What inspires you to write?

Conflict that results from life's dilemmas and problems, both mine, and the ones with which I witness others struggle.

On a deeper level I seek to answer the perennial question, "Why?"

"Why did she do this? Why did he do that?"

These questions usually center on why an individual acted in a manner that left another person or persons feeling hurt. Why would person A say that to Person B when Person B is crying, doubling over with pain, their eyes full of tears, their hands shaking. And these are not instances where Person B has acted in a way to deserve the response they are getting.

In short, my stories seek to answer the question Why does Person A hurt Person B, whom other characters in story and you the reader can see is, while not a person, has done nothing for Person A to treat them this way.

Since my stories involve families and center on family conflicts, they see to answer the question, why did she treat her family member that way?

I'm particularly taken with why parents treat their children as they do.

Yet the focus of my stories usually begins with a conflict affecting and/or separating spouses.

Interestingly, and quite different from what pop psychology teaches, I have found in the experience of my work as a psychotherapist that our same-sex parent and the relationship with that parent heavily influences our intimate relationships with spouses and significant others.

How a father treats his son sets the stage for the nature in which that son will or will not relate to women and/or his adult partners. The same goes for women and their significant others and spouses.

The relationship we have with our same-sex parent is what we call twinning. By the nature that we share the same gender, the activities and things we do with our mothers, if we are daughters, and with our fathers if we are sons, directly shapes how we view ourselves. How we view ourselves shapes the way we perceive and interact with the world.

While parents are our first teachers, our spouses and significant others serve as our last teachers. Those to whom we bid farewell when leaving this life. And in various cases, hope to encounter during the next.

Whether we are agnostic, atheist or a believer, the psychological essence of our marriage contracts in the West that are based on Christian teachings that emphasize the act of leaving our parents who have raised us and cleaving to our spouse and partner. Yet, what we achieve psychologically, spiritually and materially rests upon what has or has not taken place during the first 15-18 years of life with or without our parents.

Orphans and children of foster care have difficulty trusting. Children of the wealthy often struggle with separating material ownership and achievement from love. Those whose parents have given them what some consider a charmed life, and in that no life contains perfection, often find it a challenge to develop patience with those persons who see their life as charmed.

"All I have to offer is my difference."---an existentialist quote.

And yet we live in a culture bound ironing out differences and creating homogeneity.

But is those who are so vastly different from us that provide the backdrop, if not the very fuel that boosts us into awareness of the far reaching aspects of our own personalities, the galaxies that lie within us. Astrology teaches that we can certain dimensions of our character are accessible to us only through interaction with another.
The psychology of Christianity teaches that our spouse is ideally that person who brings us into contact with these other aspects of our personality, that wife is to husband and husband is to wife, that special Other who brings us into relationship with The Other that lives within us.

The union of that which we know of ourselves, and our Other is termed the inner marriage. Thus the external marriage in which we live as husband wife, mirrors the internal married of heart and mind, soul and body.

Theses various dimensions of interaction with self and spouse create the stepping-stones and foundation for encountering God.

Hinduism states, "Blessed is the householder."

Our interactions with various members of our family mother, father, wife, husband, brother, sister, grandmother and grandfather bring us into consciousness of who we are and what we are becoming as deemed by our the desires of our hearts working in tandem with universal divinings.

I am. You are. And thus, We become.

My stories depict who we are, you and I, and show when working together, who we can truly become.

Inspiration

Even in the laundry.





From My Winter with Stanley

My name is Maisie Day and people will tell me anything.

My mother calls it "the gift of openness". Anyone, whether I know them or not, will tell me any truth about themselves, whether I ask them or not. And I rarely ask. This sort of thing is fine with family and close friends, awkward and uncomfortable with acquaintances and coworkers, and down right terrifying and boggling with strangers. It’s a bus, not a confessional.

My mother calls it a gift; I call it a pain in the ass. Mom has repeatedly lectured me on using my power for good. I think she meant that I should become a therapist or a journalist or an interrogator. Expose the truth, catch bad guys, help people.

I don’t think she meant for me to become a writer and use what people freely tell me as fodder for stories. I think she’d call that exploitation. I call it my fee, the price someone pays for assaulting me with their life against my will. It’s not like I’m getting rich off of it; just making a living.

Some people may argue that it’s not very creative, that it’s lazy writing. Believe me, it takes a lot of creativity and work to make reality believable enough for fiction.

There’s a place I go when the idea pit is running dry or I’m in need of some stimulation. It’s an out of the way, yet busy café buried in LA, not too far from my apartment. I take a notebook, get a tea, grab a table, and just soak myself in the human experience.


One particularly busy day, I found myself setting my tea down on the last available table, one outside with a green and white umbrella to shield me from the winter glare. I doodled and scribbled, catching bits of conversation, interesting fashion choices, appalling social rituals.

I was just finishing an amazingly childish drawing of an ice cream cone when someone cleared their throat to my left. I looked up at the most eye piercing Hawaiian shirt I’d ever seen, bright green with big red parrots everywhere. I looked up to the owner of the monstrosity and found a stick figure with a vulture’s nose, Buddy Holly glasses, and black straw that was supposed to be hair.

"Can I help you?" I asked, knowing he was really beyond my help.

A plastic surgeon and a fashion guru couldn’t fix that mess.

"Would you mind if I sat with you?" the stickman asked. "There’s no tables left. I promise, I won’t bother you."

He held up a book and an iced coffee.

I shrugged. "Sure."

Stickman sat down across from me, setting his drink on the glorified patio table.

"My name’s Stanley," he said. "Stanley Ivanov. There, I’ve identified myself. No worries that I’ll be attacking you later."

I snorted. "Thanks for that.

Read the rest of "My Winter with Stanley" at Firefox.org.

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Inspiration

Excerpts

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On Young Adult Fiction

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