Ellen Byerrum on Tour: The Dollhouse in the Crawlspace

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Ellen Byerrum will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

 

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Author Interview

1. Woohoo! You are a published author. Describe a strong character trait you possess, good or bad, and how it helped you become a published author. For good or ill, I suppose that trait is determination. Possibly stubbornness. (pigheadedness?) After working so hard for so many years to write, I couldn’t stop for fear of failing while my friends were making wonderful strides in their chosen careers. Knowing when to quit is important, but I didn’t want to quit writing on the chance it was the day, week, or month just before I might succeed.

  1. Sometimes an author begins writing a story before they are aware of its genre. Did you choose your genre, or did it choose you? The mystery genre has always called to me. Before I wrote my first book, I was constantly reading mysteries and I still do.  I like books where something happens and something is at stake, and I also love crime stories because the best ones evoke a time and place like no other. Just as a personal note, when I travel, I like to check out mysteries that are set in the locales I visit.

3. The plot thickens, or does it? Which one are you, a pantser or a plotter? A bit of both. I always know where the story is headed, as well as the key plot points and characters. But I never want to strangle myself with a preconceived outline or narrative, because the most interesting writing happens when you least expect it. Too much outlining can really suck the energy out of a story, to the point where I might not want to write it anymore. I’m very cautious of plotting the spark right out.

4. Fear 101: As writers it is our duty to make our characters face their fears. Have you ever included one of your own fears in a storyline? Writing about crime is the act of dealing with hypothetical fears I may never have to face. When I write, I’m always coming up with a solution to a fictitious problem that involves a real fear, such as dealing with the police, disarming a criminal, or talking a crazy person down from the edge.

5. Fear 102: Yes, deadlines are terrifying. Have you conquered the juggling act between writing and the rest of your life? What do you do when it feels like the balls are dropping all around you? Does anyone conquer the juggling act?  It would probably be a lot easier to juggle everything with a housekeeper picking up the messes and cleaning the house. Even better, a nanny for adults, who would clean the house, do the laundry, put out your clothes, fix your lunch, and make you take a nap. Seriously, the only thing I can do is concentrate on one thing at a time. It’s calming to be able to cross things off the list. Writing has to come first. If that means the laundry has to be ignored, so be it.

6. Switch positions with one of your main characters in a scene. What is the outcome, disaster or divine intervention? It’s hard to theorize something different than is on the page, because I always take the place of my characters when I write them. When I write dialogue, I even tend to speak aloud in their accents if they have one. Southern, Russian, New Jersey, whatever. Makes the dialogue more interesting.

7. Where is your favorite place to write? Add that one comfort food that you can’t do without. My favorite place changes all the time. I have to change my location, depending on where I am in a book. In the early part of a book, I like to leave the house and go write at the library, or a coffee shop, or a book store. Other times, I work at my desk, or in a chair in the living room, or on the daybed in the boudoir. Comfort food? Chocolate, with a side of chocolate.

8. Writing inspirations? Almost anything can inspire, whether it’s a news story, say about the science of blocking memories, or a dream where a fragment sticks with me until I use it. For example, I once had a dream about the ghost of a young woman strolling up the sidewalk with a giant bowl of fresh strawberries. I know the story, I just haven’t had the time to write it yet. Locations can inspire me. Middleburg, Virginia, was a huge inspiration for The Dollhouse in the Crawlspace. People-watching is fun and individuals can morph into certain character types. Some years ago, while I rode the Metro to work in D.C., I would regularly see a guy I called “Boxhead Man.” Honestly, the man must have been afraid of aliens (or the government). Boxhead Man wore a contraption that looked like part of a motorcycle helmet duct-taped to a wooden box, which he wore over his head with support straps over his shoulders. You couldn’t see his face. I was dying to know what on earth he was thinking, but a little too afraid to approach him and ask. (I never saw anyone else approach him, either.) I haven’t used him in a story as of yet, but the option remains open.

9. You are introduced to your favorite author. Who is it, and what is that one burning question you must ask them? Favorite author this week? I would love to have conversations with Raymond Chandler and Elizabeth Peters, among many others. The question for everyone is: How do you hang on to the dream when things look bleak, when you think you’ll never make it or get that book deal or the recognition you seek?

10. I’ve gone mad – why don’t you come with me? Some people just don’t understand us writers. Name a quirky, writer-thing you do that friends wish you didn’t. 
Most of my friends are writers too, and they have their own quirks. We mystery writers tend to say things like, “That would be a great place to find a body,” or “What an interesting way to kill someone!” I try not to say those things in front of people who wouldn’t understand.

Thanks so much for having me here and asking such great questions!

 

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The Dollhouse in the Crawlspace

by Ellen Byerrum

GENRE: Suspense/Thriller

 

 

Blurb:

If you lost your memories, would you lose your soul?

“In my memories, my eyes are always green.”
After a devastating accident, a young woman finds herself recovering in a memory research facility. Her eyes are brown; her memories are broken. Years of her life are blank, yet she remembers being two very different women, one called Tennyson, the other Marissa. If she can’t trust her memories or her own eyes, who can she trust? To save her sanity and her life, she begins a secret journal between the lines of Homer’s Odyssey—and her own harrowing odyssey into madness and murder. Lost among her shattered memories, can she find her true self?

 

Excerpt:

The nightmare came again last night.

The cast-off thoughts of an incubus haunt me and press me and smother me while I sleep. Recurring and mutating, but always returning to taunt me. It calls me out of the Fog.

In the dream, I am running. It is very dark and the only thing I can see is the dim outline of a house. It resembles the home I lived in growing up. The home of one of me, anyway. It’s a little two-story white Victorian cottage with green shutters and trim, only three feet tall. There are lights on inside and the tiny door swings open for me. With every step I take I shrink, until I am almost small enough to fit through the front door. Something is hard upon my heels. Someone calls my name. This time, I can’t quite remember if the voice calls for Tennyson or Marissa. I’m almost home, almost up the front steps and through the door. But I never quite make it.

My face was wet with tears when I woke up, my heart beating like a drum in my chest, a sour taste in my mouth. Despite feeling like someone was in the room watching me, I was alone. I was conscious of the ever-present camera, but it was dark. I put my hand on my chest and willed my heart to slow down.

The first time I had the dream, weeks ago now, Giles was there beside me, suddenly turning on the bedside lamp. The glare hurt my eyes. “Tennyson, are you all right?” He reached for my wrist to take my pulse. He wore a T-shirt and silk boxer shorts. “What is it?”

 

AuthorPhoto_TheDollhouseInTheCrawlspaceAuthor Bio and Links:

Ellen Byerrum is a novelist, playwright, reporter, former Washington D.C. journalist, and a graduate of private investigator school in Virginia. The Dollhouse in the Crawlspace is her first suspense thriller, which introduces Tennyson Claxton, a woman with two sets of memories from two very different women.

Ellen also writes the Crime of Fashion mysteries, which star a savvy, stylish female sleuth named Lacey Smithsonian, a reluctant fashion reporter in Washington D.C. (“The City Fashion Forgot”).Two of the COF books,Killer Hair and Hostile Makeover, were filmed for the Lifetime Movie Network and can occasionally be seen on odd dates and odd times in the middle of the night. The latest book in that series is Lethal Black Dress, but there will be more to come.

She has also penned a middle grade mystery, The Children Didn’t See Anything. She occasionally writes a newsletter that contains her latest publishing information.

 

You can find more about Ellen on her website at www.ellenbyerrum.com

Twitter https://twitter.com/EllenByerrum,

Facebook https://www.facebook.com/EllenByerrum

Facebook Author Page https://www.facebook.com/EllenByerrumBooks

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