Howdy folks! Today is an exciting day, as it marks the launch of a new, recurring column I’ll be posting — The SciFi Rock n’ Roller Coaster Author Q&As. Seeing as how I’m a SciFi Guy, love me some rock n’ roll, and have loads of author friends, I figured it was time to have a little extra fun and check in with my fellow creative maniacs. But rather than just your standard ‘what are you to questions’, we here at SFRRC are going to push the boundaries a bit. And to kick off the inaugural column, I recruited my good pal and fellow author Patrick Thomas, who, quite frankly is a heckuva good writer, and maybe the sweetest guy I know!

I hope you enjoy the new column. So here we go!

Patrick Thomas has had stories published in over three dozen magazines and more than fifty anthologies. He’s written 30+ books including the fantasy humor series Murphy’s Lore, urban fantasy spin offs Fairy With A Gun, Fairy Rides The Lightning, Dead To Rites, Rites of Passage, Lore & Dysorder and two more in the Startenders series. He co-writes the Mystic Investigators paranormal mystery series and The Assassins’ Ball, a traditional mystery, co-authored with John L. French. His darkly humorous advice column Dear Cthulhu includes the collections Have A Dark Day, Good Advice For Bad People, and Cthulhu Knows Best. A number of his books are part of the props department of the CSI television show and one was even thrown at a suspect. Fairy With A Gun was optioned by Laurence Fishburne’s Cinema Gypsy Productions. Drop by www.patthomas.net to learn more.

SciFi Rockin’ Roller Coaster: Hey Pat! You strapped in? Let’s have some fun! Have you ever, or would you ever go sky diving? Details!

Patrick Thomas: Nah. I’m afraid of heights. I went rock climbing once just to prove to myself I could do it. There was much screaming on my part, but I made it to the top so I never have to do it again. So, sky diving not likely without a good reason or a large cash payout.

SFRRC: We have a magic kitchen, which can prepare any meal you want. Cost and prep time are not an issue. You can either eat alone, or invite guests from anywhere in time and space, fictional or real. What’s your ideal, one-time only menu? Who joins you? And what’s the venue?

Pat:  A buffet with everything from shrimp scampi to chocolate soufflé to lobster bisque –pretty much every good food I can think of. Most definitely guests. Lots of guests. Besides family and friends, I’d bring back passed loved ones like my Dad and grandmother, aunts and uncles, friends, even my childhood dog – you didn’t say they’d have to be human.

I’d invite the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, Elvis, Humphrey Bogart, Mark Twain, Gandhi, and Jesus to start with. I’d have friends that were lost along the way. I’d bring most of the cast of my Murphy’s Lore Universe. Be nice to finally hang with the gang from Bulfinche’s Pub. And the main cast from Exile and Entrance, my first novel. And a host of literary characters – Sheeve and Ahaz, Rincewind and the luggage, Carrot, Granny and the Discworld witches, Spenser and Hawk, Miles Vorkosigan, Garrett, Archie and Nero, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Superman, Batman … oh heck, the entire Justice League and Avengers, Ford and Arthur, the characters from the Princess Bride. And that’s just the start, depending on how many the venue could hold.

SFRRC: Speaking of appetites, when it comes to fiction, what three books would you most like to read that you haven’t gotten to yet?

Pat: The Shepherd’s Crown, the *sniff* last Discworld by Terry Pratchett, Marathon Man by William Goldman, and Genius De Milo of course.

SFRRC: What book, in any genre, has stayed with you the longest after you read it?

Pat:  Tough one. The first ones that pop to mind are Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy by Doulas Adams, The Princess Bride by William Goldman, and The Mysterious Stranger and other stories by Mark Twain. And Tales of Time and Space which I read in about 4^th grade.

SFRRC: Star Wars or Star Trek? Why?

Pat: Before Phantom Menace, Star Wars. After, it’s a toss -up. Love the epic action of Star Wars Episodes 4-6 and the weekly adventures and optimism of Star Trek.

SFRRC: Favorite character from any SciFi movie?

Pat: H. Phil Lovecraft, PI from Cast a Deadly Spell

SFRRC::  There’s been a resurgence over the last decade, bringing SciFi back to TV. Favorite SciFi show that’s debuted in the past ten 10 years?

Pat: Firefly was a bit longer than 10 years so I’d pick The Flash and Doctor Who.

SFRRC:: We love Rock n’ Roll here at SFRRC. What’s your favorite kind of music? And if you could go on tour with any solo artist or band, for one year, all expenses paid, from any time in history, who would that be?

Pat:  I love lots of music, but favorite would be the Blues. I even wrote a few songs back in the day and got to sit in with Eddie Shaw and The Wolfgang twice. They used to play with the legendary Howling Wolf. While a number of acts spring to mind – Alice Cooper, The Blues Brothers, The Beatles, Weird Al Yankovic, Harpo Marx, Josie and the Pussycats (c’mon, living in a cartoon adventure and going to outer space for a year would be kind of cool) – I’d have to go with Elvis, but the young one. Although if Harpo was doing a music tour with Groucho and Chico, then I’d be stepping over Elvis’ blue suede shoes to go.

SFRRC:: In our bag of tricks is a single wish, granting you one, specific super power — which you can use at your discretion for one full week. You have to pick now. One-time only offer, and your power can’t be that you can give yourself more powers. What’s your power, and why?

Pat: The most fun would be flying or teleportation, but if I only had a week the one that would make the most difference would be the power to heal. Maybe combine them – the power to make myself and others fly and heal them in the process.

SFRRC: Now that your powers are used up, we can now send you to a magical realm filled with wonders and dangers with almost unlimited possibilities, where you’ll encounter all sorts of creatures, friendly and otherwise. If you go, there’s a 50-50 chance of you making it back to the life you know now. If you do make it back, you’ll be filled with stories to share that authors can only dream of inventing. But if you don’t make it back — whether dead or alive, thriving or not — you can’t ever return, and the people you know in this life will have no idea where you’ve gone or what’s become of you. Would you go?

Pat: Tempting, but not now. After my kids are grown and on their own, I’d probably have a different answer.

SFRRC: When you writing career is over, how would you like to be remembered, both as a person, and as an author?

Pat:  As a good man, a fun and funny guy, a loving father (and grandfather. And great grandfather – I’m not planning on stopping anytime soon.) As a writer who brought readers some joy, gave them a laugh and created characters and worlds that felt like they were a second home with characters they think of as friends.

​SFRRC:: OK. We’ve tortured you enough. You’re a writer. What are you working on​ now? Promote away!

Pat: Constellation Prize (the 2^nd Startenders book) just came out as did the trade paperback edition of The Assassins’ Ball mystery I wrote with John L. French to follow up on the hardcover last year.

I’m working on a BIG blast for the 20^th anniversary of Murphy’s Lore to see how many books I can get done in time for 2017. Hex will be getting his own collection in 2016 and a novel for 2017.

Hopefully there will be a Murphy’s Lore novel for 2017 as well a bunch of collections including young Terrorbelle’s time as a Daemor in Faerie. There is another Dear Cthulhu collection done. I’m working on a podcast humor show, which I’m hoping to premier 4/1/16. I have a middle reader out, finishing up a re-write on a paranormal romance, and I’m shopping an urban fantasy.

www.patthomas.net

https://www.facebook.com/PatrickThomasAuthor

http://astore.amazon.com/patrthomauth-20

This interview was originally posted on As the Page Turns:

Q: Can you tell us what your new book, Genius De Milo, is about?

Russ: My debut novel Finders Keepers is a scifi backpacking comedy … think American Pie meets Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s loosely based on a series of backpacking trips I took through Europe and New Zealand, set against a quest for a jar that contains the Universe’s DNA.

My newest book, Genius de Milo, is the second book in the trilogy, where our bumbling backpacking heroes Jason Medley and Theo Barnes are once again tasked with retrieving a radioactive jar filled with the Universe’s DNA … before it wipes out the galaxy.

Genius de Milo (and Finders Keepers) is for fans of authors such as Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett, and Christopher Moore, and movies and TV shows such as Harold and Kumar, Bill and Ted, Hot Tub Time Machine, Time Bandits, Quantum Leap, Groundhog Day, Northern Exposure, Third Rock from the Sun … and Midnight Run.

Q: Can you tell us a little about your main and supporting characters?

Russ: Visual! Check out these great character illustrations and backgrounders!

https://russcolchamiro.com/books/finders-keepers/character-illustrations/

Q: Do you tend to base your characters on real people or are they totally from your imagination?

Russ: Usually … they are completely original characters, but from time to time I use someone I’ve met as a baseline, and then I try to make that character distinct from the person I know. I find the more I veer from the real person the better the character becomes. Trying to write a character that’s true to someone you know can be quite restricting. The character you are creating — this fabricated person — needs to think, act, and feel in a way that is true to whomever he or she needs to be within the context of the story, without feeling tied to the “original” person.

Q: Are you consciously aware of the plot before you begin a novel or do you discover it as you write?

Russ: A combination of both. By the time I’m ready to clack the keys I’ve already plotted out a decent chunk of the narrative, but I always find that the story expands, twists, and turns organically during the writing process. My approach is to let the story unfold as it needs to and fill in the blanks as necessary, rather than trying to force what I “think” is right, but doesn’t “feel” right. It’s important to me that the narrative holds up — that the foundation and its interlocking parts are rock solid. But there also needs to be a rhythm and flow.

Q: Your book is set throughout the United States.  Can you tell us why you chose this country in particular?

Russ: Whereas Finders Keepers was set predominantly in Europe and New Zealand, the action in Genius de Milo has shifted mostly to the U.S. And, of course, there’s lots going on in Eternity, the ‘cosmic’ realm where the Universe is created.

Q: What would you do with an extra hour today if you could do anything you wanted?

Russ: Sleep!

Q: Which holiday is your favorite and why?

Russ: Passover. Because it’s the one instance — to my limited knowledge, anyway — where we celebrate the fact that the Lord kicked some butt in the name of the Jews. I’m not particularly religious, but when the plagues and such are being chucked down on the Pharaoh’s people … it’s like this awesome action movie and the bad guys are getting whupped … big time.

Q: If we were to meet for lunch to talk books, where would we go?

Russ: The park. I love to be outside on a sunny day, yet in the shade, leaning against a big tree.

Q: What do you like to do for fun?

Russ: Spend time with my kids. But if it’s totally just for me: go to the movies, binge watch TV, travel, watch baseball, listen to music, and read.

Q: What kind of advice would you give other fiction authors?

Russ: Write because you love it, write for yourself, and write every day. And if you can make money at it … all the better.

On a more technical level, work with beta readers and editors who will give you actionable feedback that helps you improve the story you’re working on —

and your craft — in very specific ways.

If you’re getting feedback like, “oh, I like that” or “eh, I didn’t get it,” then they’re not really helping you.

Be highly selective, choosing people who will tell you what you actually need to hear, not what you want to hear. And keep your world of trusted ‘advisors’ on the small side. Feedback from too many people will distract and confuse you.

Ultimately … only you can decide what having “success” means to you. There’s lots of disappointment and rejection in being an author, so having a healthy sense of self-worth and realistic expectations will go a long way towards keeping your sanity.

Remember that once you’ve finished your novel and, if it’s published, you are no longer in ‘author’ mode, but in ‘retailer’ mode. You’re trying to sell your books, and that’s an entirely different skill set and experience than writing.

That’s why it’s important to try to manage your expectations and define how you define success.

Being an author is a lot of work, so try to have as much as you can along the way.

– See more at: http://www.asthepageturns.blogspot.com/2015/04/talking-books-with-russ-colchamiro.html#sthash.qGd0NLjZ.dpuf

Hey Gang!

Thanks so much for all of the enthusiastic support for my latest novel, the sci-fi comedy Genius de Milo!

If you like what I’m putting down — and by your responses, you are! — then here’s a chance to check out the first chapter — for free!

How can you beat a deal like that?!

So as the old vaudeville showmen used to say … “And away we go!”

Chapter 1

Fill My Snifter

It began with a flicker.

Eternity, yes, of course, because that’s where all of Creation originates, where even just a single idea, a notion—a tickle in the back of the brain—alerts you to the possibility that something is brewing. Something delicious. Strange. Alluring.

You’re not quite sure what that glimmer might be—that flicker, that tickle—but whatever shape and form it takes, whatever it eventually becomes, well, you know you’re onto something.

But this was a different kind of flicker.

As the Minder of the Universe—the presence overseeing the Cosmos—it was Brigsby’s job to notice these kinds of things.

Yet as the host of Breakfast with Brigsby, the top-rated talk show in Eternity, Brigsby was an entertainer to the masses, hidden in plain sight. He needed to interact with Eternitarians at least enough so that he could gauge their response to his grander endeavors, but even the good folks of Eternity weren’t ready to know just who and what he really was.

So talking to them through their TV sets about food, fashion, and relationships made it a heckuva lot easier to conceal the fact that he was also responsible for the creation of the Universe and everything in it.

“Larry! The TV’s fritzing again. I thought you took care of it.”

“Yes, yes, keep your shirt on. And it’s not fritzing. It’s just a flicker.” Larry swiveled the massive flat screen and looked in back. “Here. See. The plug is loose. Here we go …”

“Oh, my dear, Lawrence. You always have the lugubrious tonic that soothes my achy temperament. You’d think I would’ve had my fill of LOST by now, but I just love that Sawyer. A bit of a temper on that one. But he’s feisty. I like that.”

“LOST made me crazy. Too many dead ends. And don’t get me started on that ending …”

When entertaining guests, Brigsby drank blue martinis, always a blue martini. But when he needed to unwind, nothing did the trick like sitting on his couch, in a silk bathrobe, with a snifter of chocolate milk. His slippered feet rested on the coffee table.

“Now-now, Lawrence. Don’t be such a Whiny McWhinerson. It was twisty and fun and set on a crazy tropical island with beautiful people in compromising positions. Sometimes that’s enough. And how could you not love Hurley? He’s the best. So funny!”

“My apologies, sir.”

“And don’t call me, sir! You know I hate that!”

When entertaining guests, Brigsby drank blue martinis, always a blue martini. But when he needed to unwind, nothing did the trick like sitting on his couch, in a silk bathrobe, with a snifter of chocolate milk. His slippered feet rested on the coffee table.

“Now-now, Lawrence. Don’t be such a Whiny McWhinerson. It was twisty and fun and set on a crazy tropical island with beautiful people in compromising positions. Sometimes that’s enough. And how could you not love Hurley? He’s the best. So funny!”

“My apologies, sir.”

“And don’t call me, sir! You know I hate that!”

Brigsby may have had power and influence beyond the scope of comprehension, but his appearance was that of a frail, wrinkled, middle-aged man who could be easily floored by the flap of a butterfly’s fart. He shuffled in his seat so that his chocolate milk sloshed within the snifter, peaking over the lip, spilling into his lap.

“Oh, will you look at that …”

Lawrence let out a wry smile. Not only did he serve as Executive Manager of the CBM Warehouse—the storage facility securing Cosmic Building Material, the Universe’s liquid DNA, the building blocks of all Creation—he was also Brigsby’s personal attaché.

As such, he gave Brigsby the business now and then just to keep him honest, Minder of the Universe or not.

Brigsby wiped his robe clean. “Ha … ha. You are quite the jokester tonight, aren’t you? I think you’ve done enough. Now let me get back to my show. It’s the one where Desmond keeps flashing back and forth through time to find Penny. So romantic. Tell me you didn’t just love that one!”

“Yes, of course. That was pretty good. But before I go …”

Brigsby offered a exasperated sigh. “What now?”

“Have you seen the flicker?”

“Lawrence. Really. I just want to watch my show. Yes. You fixed it. You’re a peach. What would I ever do without your keen ability to jiggle the wire in—”

“No. Not the TV. Out there. Earth. It’s …” Lawrence stepped up to the window so that his reflection mirrored back at him. The distant sky was black, peppered with stars too numerous to count. The magenta pinwheel of the Andromeda galaxy swirled in the distance. Nearby was the permanent nothing of Milo’s Smear. “… Flickering, B. It’s twitching, it’s …”

“Fluxing?”

“Yes. Fluxing. Exactly. It’s fluxing.”

Brigsby sighed again. “I know, Lawrence. I know.”

“Oh. Well … should we look into it?”

Brigsby lifted the remote, paused the episode. He swirled his snifter and took a healthy swig. “First thing tomorrow. I just don’t have the strength right now. I decommissioned thirty-four star systems today. Breaks my heart sometimes …”

There was a look on Brigsby’s face—it wasn’t the good look. Lawrence turned to the fluxing Earth, and then back at Brigsby. “Might I ask …? How bad?”

“It’s that fakakta jar again.”

“What … you mean … the Jason Medley jar? The Theo Barnes jar?”

“That’s the one.”

“I thought the boys took care of that. Ira. Howard. They said not to worry. That we were all set.”

Brigsby sipped his chocolate milk. “Yes,” he said. “They did. They used to be a lot more reliable …”

Lawrence stared into the great expanse. Of the countless celestial bodies in the Universe, Brigsby had taken a special liking to Earth. When he commissioned the planet’s creation, he had it written into the design blueprints that the inhabitants be fashioned with the innate ability to evolve into beings far greater than their consciousness would allow them to initially perceive. If they were to ever reach their true potential, Earthlings would need to survive their own self-destructive impulses long enough to strip away their ego and realize that their very existence was only the first step toward a much grander design.

“The flicker,” Lawrence said. “The flux. I admit, I hadn’t noticed. How long has it been like that?”

“A while now. It hasn’t resolved. So like this damned TV, it’s going to need a manual adjustment. A loose wire, I suppose.”

“How much time do they have?”

On the surface Lawrence had asked a seemingly straightforward question. But as applied to the standards of Eternity, time was not a simple conceit. The passage of time could speed up or slow down. It could leap ahead or jump back. It could travel in loops. It could bend (but not break). It could twist, flatten, knot and gyrate, as well as oscillate, pendulate, undulate and rotate. It could also whirl, purl, revolve, slant, spin, expand and retract, and—when it really got going—whiz, shimmy, shake, buckle, tangle, tremble, tread, roll, flip (although not flop) and even completely reconfigure. And it could all happen simultaneously or in any combination.

Brigsby clarified to the degree that was possible. “The flux is … sporadic, but the pace is picking up. If they don’t get to it soon …”—rare for Brigsby, he looked genuinely sad—“… Earth will flux right out of existence.”

“I’m sorry, B. I know how much you like that little planet.”

“Yes, well … I am rather fond of it. But that’s not my biggest problem.”

When Brigsby said he had a problem, Lawrence never knew quite what that meant, given the countless cosmic issues that arose on a rolling basis. But in this case, he understood this to be aProblem, with a capital P. “B? What is it? What’s out there? What else?”

Brigsby finally got up, and in his pink bunny slippers, shuffled to the window. “Milo,” he said. “He’s back.”

“Oh, not that miscreant. I thought we had more time. How did he reconstitute so quickly? That’s way too fast.”

Though the fate of Existence was summarily at his whim, Milo was one irritant Brigsby could, at best, contain, and then only for short durations. Even Brigsby didn’t know how or why he himself was the Minder of the Universe, where that power ultimately came from, or what fibrous tissue ran through the grand Consciousness. He had always been and, as far as he knew, would always be. Until his time was up. And until that occasion presented itself, Milo would remain his eternal foil. The Jester to his ultimate court.

“No idea. But he’s out there mucking up my Universe. And I’m not having it.” Brigsby slurped down the remainder of his chocolate milk. “If Milo’s back this soon it means he’s up to something. And I’ve spent way too much time and gone to way too much trouble to let him ruin Earth for me now. There’s no telling how much damage he’ll cause or what else he has in mind.”

Brigsby refastened his robe tie and stared out into the Universe. He motioned with his snifter. “Hit me again, Larry. It’s going to be a long night.”

Howdy gang!

The fine folks at The Writer’s Life eMagazine did a Q&A with  yours truly about my new book Genius de Milo, and my thoughts on the life of a writer.

If you want to take a peak at what’s squirreling around inside my brain … here goes!

Q: Welcome to The Writer’s Life!  Now that your book has been published, we’d love to find out more about the process.  Can we begin by having you take us at the beginning?  Where did you come up with the idea to write your book?

Russ: My debut novel Finders Keepers is a scifi backpacking comedy … think American Pie meetsHitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. It’s loosely based on a series of backpacking trips I took through Europe and New Zealand, set against a quest for a jar that contains the Universe’s DNA.

Genius de Milo is the second book in the trilogy, where our bumbling backpacking heroes Jason Medley and Theo Barnes are once again tasked with retrieving a radioactive jar filled with the Universe’s DNA … before it wipes out the galaxy.

For the complete interview, click here