Author Interview - Skhye Moncrief on Ancient Musings and Forbidden Eternity

Emma: Today, I am featuring an interview with author Skhye Moncrief on her Song of the Muse story Ancient Musings currently available from The Wild Rose Press.

Blurb:

Disgusted with her lack of purpose, Calliope is learning all too well the warning in be careful what you wish for. She challenged Zeus and landed in Hades. Now she needs to reach Gaia’s pool to save herself from the Land of the Dead’s darkness. Little did she expect a psyche to reveal the path to tomorrow.

The soul of archaeologist, Jake Genoese, is bored to tears until he finds the beautiful Calliope, intriguing and bearing the token he needs to jumpstart his day-excursion on the afterlife’s cruise to nowhere.

One’s light brightens the other’s future as Olympians vie for power by toying with psyches in the Kingdom of Hades, for nothing more than the simple whims of ANCIENT MUSINGS.

Welcome, Skhye!

Skhye: Thanks for having me over again! I hope your pregnancy is treating you well today.

Emma: Pregnancy is going well, thank you! And, thanks for putting in a second appearance! A brief recap from your first interview reveals the fact that you’re an anthropologist and scientist. Jake is/was an archaeologist. What is the proper tense for a soul, I wonder?

At one point in the story, you talk about jokes using archaeological terms. Your stories show you have a wicked sense of humor. Do you have any funny jokes or riddles for us?

Skhye: Honestly, those jokes just don’t lurk, waiting for the willing. :) Jokes in my work are usually contextual—dependent upon a character’s perception of reality and his/her current pickle. :) Or the joke would be cliché. However, everyone needs to experience a good smudging. ;) In real life, I tend to freak people out with what I think funny. They obviously haven’t taken geology or anthropology. :-/

Hmmm, the proper tense for a soul would depend upon whether we consider one alive or not. Christianity’s “living” Christ may help readers connect with Jake’s almost-corporeal self. And I’m fortunate I write paranormals. Paranormal readers are open to looking at things outside the box.

Emma: My vote is for the present tense! All of your work is very complex. You incorporate mythology from a variety of cultures, making the reader comfortable and teaching them new lores all at the same time.. Is world building your favorite aspect of writing?

Skhye: Oh, yes. That’s the challenge I find in writing. I read to crack an author’s world—to descry where his/her ideas came from. I’m certain that’s what you’re picking up on. I also love sexual tension and cultural relativism (culture shock) that gives me a good laugh. The culture shock is about world-building though. So, it’s one in the same. A second challenge that haunts me is writing a solid romance amidst all the cultural flotsam and jetsam. This point leads to how I managed such a feat in Ancient Musings...

As for the mythology in Ancient Musings, I researched the ancient Greek’s ideas of death/dying/life/afterlife to the literal death for this tale. Everything you read in this novella is rooted in an extinct ideology that carried over into the present in works like The Odyssey. The ideas are second-hand information filtered through language translation as well as our Post-Industrial thought process. My point is we can never truly know what any extinct culture thought. ;) However, once I patted down the foundation for the general ancient Greek ideas about life and the underworld, I had to add a few details. But an author’s poetic license allows for additions. Or, we’d just get the same old story over and over.

If you’re reading to get a firm grasp on ancient Greek ideas of life and death, you will definitely walk away from with a strong understanding of what’s available to literature and archaeology students in academic circles. But I wouldn’t say that the story is dry. Would you? I’m a big fan of showing instead of telling. I want to plunge into the world and experience what the POV characters experience in real time whenever I read. Hence, I want to write what I enjoy reading.

Emma: Well I know you have readers out there who enjoy what you write!

Skhye has other works available to include He of the Fiery Sword, The Spell of the Killing Moon, Naked on the Staircase, Vow of Superstition: Dragon’s Blood, and Sacrificial Hearts also available through The Wild Rose Press.

We’re also celebrating the release of Forbidden Eternity today! Congratulations, Skhye! Do you want to share a little about your latest release?

Skhye: Sometimes the forbidden proves the only cure…

In present-day Scotland, a shape-shifting shaman and a Druid embrace the forbidden to safeguard history from renegade gods bent on sabotaging history by kidnapping the Goddess of Time.

A woman Cochise despises is his only hope for a future. He has no choice except to swallow his pride and protect Druidess Mairi from a man who is blackmailing her into breaking time-travel Code by kidnapping her sister. But his presence tempts Mairi into risking her sister’s life in falling in love. A fairy hairball and a pack of Hell Hounds force the duo to hide on an astral plane where there is no resolution beyond facing their FORBIDDEN ETERNITY.

“Hairball?” you’re thinking… That hairball is a goddess’ secret weapon. Go with your imagination. ;) But Cochise and Mairi are two of those characters I like to consider open-minded. Well, Cochise can be when he isn’t ticked off. Now, each character must have a flaw, right?

Emma: Sounds intriguing! Well, I don’t want to keep you too much longer, but I have to ask what we get to look forward to next.

Skhye: Swordsong is in edits. It’s my most traditional Time Guardian romance set in present-day Scotland. I hear the kilted hero is the most valiant Time Guardian… Everyone who has read his story says they want one of him! Me, I’m not picky. I like all of my heroes.

I’m also almost finished writing a werewolf space opera and hope to start typing the first words of a dragon-hunter tale by Sunday. :)

CONTEST:

Everyone swing by http://blog.skhyemoncrief.com/ to get in on a huge month-long contest. There's a prize to be won today!

Emma: Thanks for the heads up on the contest and thanks so much for dropping by. Good luck on your future works!

Skhye: Thank you for having me over, Emma, and for reading Ancient Musings. You always ask the best questions to get to the root of a story! But don’t forget to write some during your pregnancy. Trying to steal time to write after D-day is very tricky. ~Skhye