I want to welcome Kally
Jo Surbeck. First I’d love you to
introduce yourself.
Hi Barbara. Thank you for having me. I’m horrid at introductions, please pardon
me. I have always written. My mother was
an English teacher and from my earliest memories, she instilled a love of
literature and reading. I have been writing
‘professionally’ since 2000. My history has allowed me to write for several
genres and houses. I am a multi award winning, International selling author who
has been blessed in being not only a solo writer but also having been included
in several anthologies and other publications. A
few of my accomplishments are Colorado Author of The Year, the EPPIE
(Excellence in electronic publishing) Action category. I was, at that time, the
first woman to have written and won in said category. I am also the winner of
the Daphne duMaurier in thriller/suspense. My poetry was my first writing sale
at the age of twelve. My works are in several different anthologies,
commemorative additions, and one is even in the Holocaust Museum.
Tell us about your
latest release.
This looks horrible, my being so far behind. When The Awakening released, I was in the
hospital and remained there for all of last spring and summer, into early
fall. This story came from a short that
was part of the Tempting Fate
anthology from Phaze/Mundania Press with Melissa Schroeder, Michele Callahan,
Rena Marks and myself. Several readers
had written me asking for an expansion. As soon as my rights returned, I did
just that.
If you know much about the Fates, my favorite was/is Atropos
aka Attie, Death, Bearer of the Shears. She’s fascinating to me and I felt she
deserved more depth. The Awakening
is her personal story and self-awakening.
Now I have a few
questions for you – I have found readers do like to know fun things about us
writers.
1.) Who is your
favorite villain – it can be from a book (even one of yours), movie or TV show.
And why?
Oh, wow! Villains are probably my favorite characters, when
well crafted. And many have done this.
I’m a huge comic fan. They were some of my first collections and
obsessions. That said, Negan in The
Walking Dead is an incredible character.
Won’t give any spoilers, but the dynamics of his character are
intriguing. I just finished Mary
Burton’s The Shark, and the villain is so cold. It gave me chills. I think Misery
by Stephan King may have my favorite villan just because there is so much to
her. I could list ones I love all day long, but I’ll stop here.
2.) Who is your
favorite character out of your books? Why?
Again another hard one.
They are all so different. If I can choose only one, it’s a coin toss
between Attie in any of the books she is in and Mac in For the Love Of… They are
both strong, competent women who feel the true them is unworthy of love. And
they both learn that true love, be it friends, lovers, family simply love you.
All of you. Your flaws and imperfections are part of you and that is
acceptable.
3.) What do genre do
you write? What made you pick that one?
I write in several genres, but sub-category romance. I have
been very blessed to be allowed to write in all, from high fantasy, to action,
to historic. When I first started writing one of my siblings was also writing.
I believe there is room for everyone, but did not want there ever to be said
there was a competition or even the assumption of one. That said I picked, a
category as far from theirs as possible. Romance appealed to me because you
have the most broad spectrum possible, from sweet to the most erotic. Though
most of my titles are under the erotic venue, it’s a misnomer. There is very
little if any actual graphic sex in my writing. But at its base romance is
life. It’s hope. It’s potential. And I thoroughly support that!
4.) What are you
working on now?
I have a couple projects in the works. As I stated earlier,
my health has severely put me behind. We also moved from Wyoming to New
Orleans. I have been editing on the side and am really excited to see those
authors’ stories hit the shelves. But I have more planned for Attie’s Legacy. Paths Chosen is the second. It is
available now. And there are three more books to the Yadderwal series but until
more is known about what will happen at that house the line is on hold.
5.) What got you to
start writing?
I use to do forensic accounting but I was severely injured.
There is long-term fallout and I could no longer work my job. I tried several
different things. Acquired more degrees. But I couldn’t find anything that I
could do on my schedule. No one wants to hire someone who may or may not be
debilitated without warning. I was reading a book when another scene flashed
into view. I thought, I can write. I can tell stories. So I pursued it. I wrote
for myself and my friends and family anyway. It seemed the logical choice.
6.) Where do you get
your ideas from?
To me, it’s like watching television. My characters do not appreciate my input.
They have stories to tell. I listen. I only hope I can do them justice.
7.) What would people
who read your work be surprised to find out about you?
How incredibly honored I am to be able to be active behind
the scenes and in front of this industry.
There has been a lot of negative press of late, but over-all the writing
(while the writing itself is solitary) community is a very supporting,
encouraging, loving one. At least the one I am a part of and foster.
8.) Do you have any
special talents?
Many. We all do, so I’m uncertain on how exactly to answer
this.
9.) What was the one
piece of advice you received when you were an aspiring author that has stuck
with you? Why?
It’s a toss up:
Always keep writing – because you must.
Never give up – Because the person you are truly letting
down is you.
There will never be a book everyone loves or everyone hates.
You’ll have someone who loves this but hates that. Just write what is true to
you and then trust that the people who read it either get it and you or, take a
deep breath and realize it wasn’t for them. And that’s not a bad thing. You’re just not their cup of tea. Don’t take that personally.
10.) If you could talk
to any famous figure (present, past or fictional) who would it be and what
would you talk about?
I’d love to have a drinking session with Edgar Allen Poe.
Get his thoughts and personal version rather than just the nasty trash talk so
many have heaped on him.
11.) What song would
you say describes your life?
I’m Still Standing – Elton John
12.) If you could come
back as any animal – what would it be?
A Gryphon. Then I would have the best of both worlds. Run
with the speed of the lion and fly like and eagle.
The Awakening Blurb:
A Balanced Choice
Some say she dances too close to Hades, controlling life and
death. She laughs at those fools. Why dance with a god of the Underworld when
it’s her power that determines when humans pass?
Her sisters call her morbid, again she laughs. Two of her
sisters are called artists--a weaver and a mixer. That's what they are. Her
third sister left them all hanging.
No. Atropos believes it is she who is the true artist. The
knowledge of life and death gives humans their ultimate passion and ultimate
drive. Therefore, with her shears she breathes passion, hope, sadness, sorrow,
drive, and determination, all that and more, she breathes into the human with
the snip of her shears.
But, what if she miscalculates a life? What if a time is cut
too short?
The Awakening Excerpt:
The sky had long ago faded from the brilliant peach of an unseasonably late
Seattle, Washington, fall sunset to the dark, star-spattered tapestry of night.
Even though chilled drizzle fell from the sprawling heavens coating the roads,
the buildings, and the earth, there were no clouds cluttering the sky. Not a
single one marred the grand expanse. The stars shone brightly in the heavens,
twinkling with hope and promise. It seemed like such a contradiction to Atropos
as she stood high on the metal fire escape in Downtown, gazing upward.
Clear skies—rain.
No matter how many times she looked to the firmament, its glory still made
her breath catch. It was beautiful and awe inspiring. A shooting star raced
southbound, first brilliant gold, then faded from sight. Only its memory
lingered. Attie shivered. One more angel fallen. One more life consumed by the
elements surrounding it. She sighed softly.
The sparkling stars that remained anchored in the dark heavens shone down
enticingly on those innocent enough to still believe in their ancient power.
People,
en masse, made wishes upon stars every night of the year, yet
they had lost faith in the gods. It didn’t make sense to her.
She shook her head at the functioning of the complex and complicated human
mind. She was one of the lingering but generally unseen forces that to this
very day touched human lives, affected them. She and her sisters crafted life,
yet it seemed the only time the Moirai were remembered these days was in some
ancient philosophy or mythology class at university. Perhaps a rare child with
a still open mind who had the mystery of the ancestral herald pulsing through
his veins tossed a coin into the waters of a pool, praying to the sisters,
pleading for luck, or life, or mercy without even knowing exactly what they
were doing, who they were calling to. Even then, in the most rare occurrence,
when a child had heard the lore and had remembered, called out with knowledge,
the child didn’t really understand to whom he spoke, or knew that one of the
sisters stood beside him to hear his uttered prayer.
The general populace still, at times, uttered their names. Occasionally in
blame. Fair enough accusation, Attie conceded. Often enough they were to blame.
It was all incredibly sad. The way of things. People forgot. Memories faded
as the generations slipped quickly past. The stories of the gods, the teachings
of the ancients stopped being repeated, or the tone in which they were told
shifted from reverence and awe to that of some fable and flight of fancy. Once,
years ago, she had sat in on a mythology class in England. The professor,
snooty nose jutted high in the air, spieled on and on about the truth of the
gods. His version was so twisted and polluted Attie cried. She’d walked out of
that class and never returned to another. That was over two centuries ago. She
could only image what time had now done to the tales.
Mortals forgot. Gods remembered.
Indeed, it was the way of things. She’d seen the pattern run its cycle time
and time again. But to what end? This? Her gaze scanned the horizon, taking in
the honking horns of quickly moving automobiles, the absent-minded chatter of
people having their inane conversations about nothing as they hurried from one
busy work task to another. It was slow tonight, here in the city. Most people
were indoors or encased in vehicles, or on public transits hurrying to get back
to their private little boxes they called home. People were just inches away,
yet whole worlds apart. Totally unaware of each other, they worried their
worries and carried on with their plights thinking their lives, their concerns,
were unique among the masses. Perhaps that was one reason she liked to be among
mortals. Her aloneness seemed…universal.
Attie walked among them, had since she had been banned from Olympus, yet
mortals never saw her unless she purposely showed herself to them. The gods,
herself no exception, remained veiled, watching the creatures they loved and
protected throw their lives away, yet not truly being of affect any longer.
Effect, indeed. Affect, no.
Or more so, as the case was nowadays, the gods gave up faith and turned
their backs, knowing that humans’ time was so much shorter than their own. Even
she had been tempted to look away, to run from her decree. Time, so fleeting,
slipped for those in despair. Generations could pass in the blink of an eye. If
she blinked right. But mortals’ lives were lives, too. Any life demanded
respect, no matter how fleeting. And over the centuries, millennia, much to her
amazement Attie had witnessed those mortal lives do wonderful things. Greater
things than even those endowed with the power of Olympus. And humans, while
shrouded with incredible, unfounded egos, still worked for an end result of
significance. They worked for a cause and with purpose. The gods had simply
believed things should be handed to them. At least, that’s how it was the last
time she was there, Attie amended.
All of that to contend with, people and their egos, gods and their
superiority complexes. Then there were the Fates. Cursed to duty, bound to
honor a code long forgotten to humans of an age long passed, that was how the
Fates existed.
Though they were many a time badmouthed and often noted only for the sadder
results of their calling, most missed the beauty of the Fates. She and her
three sisters were the centurions of hope. They gave life and love. They made
certain there was happiness and equity. They maintained the balance and justice
of the ages from generation to generation. Yet who stood on the battlefield for
them, defending them? Who cared about their wants, needs, and desires? What
happened when the Fates lost hope? Those were questions that weighed heavily on
Attie’s mind and soul. They had always, but each day now seemed to compound the
pain, the pressure, the sadness more so than it had in the past.
In succession, her sisters’ faces flashed before her. Instantly, Attie’s
heart warmed. The sisters. The sisters stood together and helped each other.
They always had. They were all they had. There was solace in her sisters and
their solidarity. And they had managed. Pretty damn well, in fact. Just look at
them now. Chloe and Chesis had found love. And not just heart beating,
twitter-paited lust, but full in head over heels love. Once again, the mountain
fairly sizzled with their zest for life. That was good. That was enough. Maybe
Lu and she were the balance of not having love. Maybe that was how the scales
equalized life beyond the Fates. Half ‘n half. If that were the case she would
accept it, sadly, of course, but she’d do it just the same.
Her sisters had noted her recent melancholy and tried to help where they
could. That meant a lot to Attie. She didn’t always know how to tell them or
thank them. She knew they each fought this same battle, just on different
fields, in different times. They all had their own crosses to bear, but they
each certainly dealt with it in just as varied a manner as their duties called
for. Miraculously Chloe and Chesis had made it work. They had tilted the scale,
accepted love, and continued to perform their duties. That had not seemed
possible to Attie. She thought it had to be one or the other.
She shook her shoulders slightly, watching the water slough off the
waterproof material. It wasn’t that she didn’t want love. Actually, she craved
it, but was scared of it as well. As
the death dealer, she witnessed
death and loss every day. How many people would understand her occupation or
the struggles she dealt with on a regular basis? It was a hard, solitary life
she led. Being a god was difficult enough for mortals to accept, to comprehend,
but the fact that she was Death, Attie figured, might be a little much. Attie
tried not to complain. As a matter of fact, she generally kept to herself.
There were a few demi-gods she spoke with on occasion. Mortals she had
befriended over the years. And, of course, the sisters. She had all of that,
but for safety—hers and theirs—she kept a defined distance and not sought out
love or accepted even a faint foreshadowing of possibility. Not in a long, long
time.
At times like this, when she stood in the world but not of the world, she
acknowledged she had created the reality she lived in. She was alone by choice,
not force. She had always been attractive. Whenever she didn’t like her eye
color, or hair, or weight, she modified it. With the snap of her fingers, she
could change her voice and her height, but what she could not change was who
she was on a core level. The Attie of old. Daughter of Zeus. Sister of the
famed Moirai. It meant nothing. She was, after all was said and done, just
Attie.
Her life, excluding the fancy little spin ball thrown her by Zeus when he
condemned her to be an orphan and a Fate forever, was shaped by her choice
alone. The Fates were above reproach, their decisions not allowed to be
questioned. That had always meant a great deal to Attie. Even if people had
forgotten about the gods and their ways, she had not. She knew her job. She
knew how important her role was to the world and therefore she held herself to
a high standard.
It was the fall of the year. Time for the old to pass away, regenerate, and
start anew. In that vein, she felt she had to be truthful. Alone in the alley,
she solemnly acknowledged how she had pushed away almost every single immortal
and mortal alike because of a single truth. It hurt too much to lose.
Attie sighed. With the exhalation she sent her sisters a burst of love,
wishing them happiness for as long as it was theirs to experience. She also
sent a special little prayer for Lu, wherever she was.
They thought Attie had lost her ability to care, her sisters had. The cruel
irony was, they were wrong.
It was not that she no longer cared, but that there
was so much out there in the universe to care about—she’d gone numb. She had
spent so long distancing herself, stepping back from connections, lying to
herself that she didn’t need or want those bonds—so very long. For the majority
of her life she’d justified her lonely existence and actions. She’d justified
herself right into her current despised state of numbness.
Her curse, her plague, was to determine the length of time each mortal was
allotted. It was a power she had neither wanted nor craved. There was a time,
long ago in her youth, she had hoped for no more than a playful existence. But
with Zeus’ decree she become a Moirai, that hope had vanished like a puff of
smoke on a windy day--gone before it could even be fully conceptualized. Her
job was cruel, but life was cruel. She had for centuries performed the best she
could, showing no partiality, not for the elderly, the kind, the wicked, the
young, or the strong. Never once had she played favorites. Everyone was
allotted a period of life. It was up to them how they lived it.
Links:
