Guest Post: A Paranormal Pit-Stop Interview with Barbara Dole Pt 1

A good friend of mine, from the magical land of Canadia, has written a book, The Watchtower. She's self-publishing this paranormal mystery, which means I won't have to wait for it to come over to this side of the lake to get my hands on it! Thankfully, I'm not Barbara Dole. In what is sure to be a fantastic book from Darke Conteur, some people aren't just people. This interview will give you a taste of that, I'm sure. Details on part two can be found below.

Story Blurb:

His first day of work wasn't what Martin Cunningham expected. A sultry boss, a classy receptionist, the drama-queen foreigner, and a painfully shy techie who prefers hiding to human interaction, was the oddest group of characters he'd ever met. When an assassination attempt is made against his new boss, Martin comes face to face with the stuff of nightmares.

Now he and his new co-workers must race to prevent another attack, but where do they start? There's very little to go on, and the only solid piece of evidence escaped through the u-bend in the toilet. By the end of the day, Martin becomes one of the privileged few who really understands what lies in the shadows, and what it means to work in THE WATCHTOWER.

Take it away...

Thanks for the intro, Paul!

Welcome Humans, to another addition of The Paranormal Pit Stop. Your one-stop E-zine on the Ethereal-net for everything in the paranormal world. This week, we're privileged to have the other woman in the line-up at Terin Global. Psychic, and personal secretary to Jezryall--Barbara Dole.

Paranormal Pit-Stop: Hello Barbara, so nice of you to join us!

Barbara: Thanks, I think.

P.P.S.: So tell our human friends a little about you?

Barbara: Well, I was born in Nice, but my parents came to Toronto shortly after I was born. We lived in Mississauga for a few years before moving into right into the city.

P.P.S.:  Living right in downtown Toronto is expensive, but you're family has money, don't they?

Barbara: My father had the money, not me. He reminded me of that every time I asked him for something. Even if it was something for school.  

P.P.S.: Is that why you ran away at eighteen?

Barbara: I didn't really run away. I was an adult. I had every right to leave home, but yeah, that was a big part of it.

P.P.S.: When did you first realize you could receive information by touching things?

Barbara: I'm not really sure. Seems like I've been able to do it all my life. I'd touch people and learn who they were, what they were like. Do that a few times and you learn how to act like them. I used to do it all the time when I was a teenager. It was fun pretending to be someone I wasn't. Then I realized I could travel through their life. See places they'd visited and things they'd done. Now that was cool.        

P.P.S.: Is that when you decided to become a criminal?

Barbara: I didn't do it on purpose. Wasn't like I made a conscience effort or anything. I kinda fell into it.

P.P.S.: You kinda fell into scamming rich, old men?

Barb: I wasn't scamming them and I didn't force them to give me anything. They're the ones who offered to give me stuff. I never asked them too.

P.P.S.: Too bad the cops didn't see it that way. What were they going to put you away for? Ten years? Good thing you were able to cut a deal as a witness in the de Jont murder trial?

Barbara: I thought it was a good idea. If I testified against Louis de Jont, they would reduce my charges to timed served and put me on parole. The cops were desperate. They needed me as much as I needed them. I tell you, I was never so scared in all my life. He kept staring at me the whole time I testified.

P.P.S.: It was your run-in with him that changed your career path?

Barbara:  Yes. He thought I was a rich debutant and was going to kill me for my money. At least I think it was for my money. When I touched him, I traveled down his time-line. All I saw was blood and death. I never felt so much anger or hatred.

  

P.P.S.: You saw the killings through his eyes. What was it like watching those people die?

Barbara: Horrifying. I can still see their faces when I close my eyes, but the worst was that I could feel what he felt too. He enjoyed killing them. Fed off the power it gave him. He knew he held their life in his hands, and he took pride in torturing them.

P.P.S.: Did you know he escaped?

Barbara: What? Are you serious? When? Why didn't you tell me sooner? I gotta get out of here…

Well, that's all the time we have for this week's interview. We would like to thank our host Paul Carroll for allow us to post this interview on the human internet.

If you'd like to learn more about Jezryall and her staff, you can find more information at the links provided below.

More Character Interviews:

http://darkeconteur.wordpress.com/paranormal-pit-stop-blog-tour/

Novel Information:

http://darkeconteur.wordpress.com/novels/

Join us next time when we invade the blog of foodie Marlene Dotterer, with the second half our two-part interview with sexy Barb Dole.  So, until next time, this is The Paranormal Pit-Stop saying; just because it's dead, doesn't mean it's not alive!

Bio:

Darke Conteur is an author at the mercy of her muse. Writing in several genres, she prefers to write in paranormal and science fiction, and has stories published in Brave Blue Mice, Bewildering Stories, and The Absent Willow Review. When not busy writing, she looks after one wannabe rock-star, one husband, two cats, and one ghost dog. 

Interview with The Moceans

  

Last Tuesday, I ventured out to Swords to meet up with Indie Rock band, The Moceans. We sat in Cafe Libro while I hosted the band’s very first interview. In true fashion, Eoin Walshe and Rob Brennan began to make jokes to lighten the mood. While they may have been kidding around a bit, from the sounds of their EP, Warmth of the Shade, they’re very serious about they’re work.

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Eoin Walshe and Rob Brennan

Me: First thing’s first: who are The Moceans?

Eoin: I’m Eoin, one half of The Moceans, some would say the better half, others would say the better half.

Rob: I’m Rob, lead singer of The Moceans. I’m actually learning guitar at the moment, so hopefully I’ll be able to touch up on that and add something more to the band, but for the moment I’m just the singer. I can talk a bit better than Eoin.

Me: *laughing* But he does everything else.

Rob: Well, we work well as a team, I think Paul, you know, when it comes to song writing and everything.

Eoin: Eoin’s the lead guitarist and singer in The Moceans, lead song writer as well. Next question.

Me: Eoin’s talking about himself in the third person here! *laughs* What brought you together as a band?

Rob: First day of college, I knew his face, ‘cause Eoin was in my primary school. I did know him before. Not as friends, more as enemies – the different classes, and the stupid childish rivalries between classes. I was in a different secondary school. And it was just, “You’re Eoin, aren’t you?”, “Yep”, “I’m Rob.” And the rest is history.

Me: What was the first time playing on stage together like? And where was it?

Rob: Well it wasn’t on stage, it was in the oratory in college. We were asked to organise a prayer service, and I obviously couldn’t play guitar, I was singing.

Me: Well, first time on stage.

Eoin: Eh, Pint Pub on Eden Quay. It was open about a week. We thought it was going to be the biggest gig ever, and about five people from the college football team showed up, and my girlfriend and a friend of Rob’s that’s a girl. That was it.

Me: Do you ever argue about the songs you play?

Eoin: Yeah, all the time.

Rob: *joking* Eoin comes up with the real kind of poppy songs, like Busted and the likes, and I’m more Oasis.

Eoin: What?!

Rob:  You kind of have to draw a line. Year Three Thousand was one that we did, but that’s it.

Eoin: This is quickly becoming one of the most inaccurate interviews of all time.

Me: Who are your biggest influences in terms of what you play? And who do you compare yourselves to most?

Eoin: Well, I’d be very well influenced by Oasis and the Verve

Rob: *whispers* Busted.

Eoin: And, eh, Busted...

Rob: My favourite band growing up was Red Hot Chilli Peppers, so I was very into them and I’ve kind of moved on to Oasis and a little bit back. My dad was a great fan of Queen, so I started listening to them, and like that, real 70s-80s rather than the 90s.

Me: So it was older music rather than the modern stuff.

Eoin: Queen and Bon Jovi would be big influences of mine as well, yeah.

Rob: Yeah, Oasis, Queen, Bon Jovi – they’d be the three big ones.

Me: In terms of what you play, who would you compare yourselves to?

Rob: I think the songs are different in ways; The Cycle is very Oasis-y, you know a laid back kind of song, Only You Know has a bit of a Verve sound to it.

Eoin: Yeah, we’ve been compared to Brit Pop sounding. No one in particular.

Me: According to each other, what are your best and worst traits when it comes to The Moceans.

Rob: *joking* Mood swings, they’re the worst.

Me: So Eoin has mood swings.

Rob: Yeah. I suppose his best qualities would be his ability on guitar, ability with the aul voice and he’s a genuinely nice guy. Can’t fault him really. Just the mood swings. It happens.  And I’d be like, “We’re playing this song” and it doesn’t go down too well. Just little disagreements.

Eoin: *joking* Eh... Rob’s worst aspect would have to be mood swings.

Me: So you’re both quite moody.

Eoin: We’d be quite moody, quite hormonal. Quite manstrual. Ah no, he’s a great singer, I suppose. It has to be said. His song writing’s come up tenfold since my tutoring, coming along good. I’m proud of him in a lot of ways like that, you know? And his guitar’s getting better!

Me: That’s good to hear! So, it’s still early days for The Moceans – your EP has just been recorded. What would your ideal gig be like?

Rob: Hundreds of people.

Eoin: Thousands.

Rob: Billions of people! *laughing* But seriously, you have to start small, work hard – we’re all about hard work. We knew it wouldn’t just be a matter of recording a CD and that’s it. We’re putting together packets at the moment to send to record labels. We’ve to get professional photos done, we’ve a few interviews with papers this week and we’ve to record a professional video for one of the songs, Only You Know.

Eoin: Just on that gig one: it doesn’t matter whether it’s The Ambassador or Slane or Croke Park, just to have a group of people knowing the words and singing it back would be great, a dream come true.

Me: If you could play with any other artist, who would it be and why? We’ll assume they’re still playing.

Rob: It’s a pity Oasis aren’t still playing...

Eoin: Bono? Maybe Shakira. I think that might work well. I think we’d work well musically.

Rob: Well, Oasis broke up, Queen... Freddie Mercury is dead.

Me: Yeah, that’s definitely a downside!

Rob: A modern day band... I mean, we went to see The Script. Maybe the Script. That might work. For me that’d be good.

Eoin: I wouldn’t want to play with bands, I don’t think that’d work. But when it comes to idols, Brian May from Queen – he’s still playing. I’d play with him.

Me: Where do you see yourselves in five years time?

Rob: The big time. Eh, we’ll be teachers hopefully, both of us.

Me: Eoin doesn’t look like he agrees!

Eoin: No, I see ourselves sitting in Hughes and Hughes, five years down the line. Perhaps, they’ll open up maybe in somewhere like South America, sitting opposite Paul Carroll, we’ve all come so far, we’ve a tour and you come over, guest interview. It’d be savage.

Me: What about more short-term plans? You’ve just done your EP; when will it be released and how can people get their hands on it?

Eoin: Well, at the moment, the short term – the very short term – with the EP is, it’s basically just through gigs and through our Facebook and Myspace if people mail us with interest we can arrange more informally how to send it out to them, or meet up. We’re looking to set up a PayPal account, we’ll be able to post out CDs, and in the next few weeks hopefully sort out the iTunes situation.

Rob: Which may be the best solution.

Eoin: But for the time being, come along to a gig.

Me: Which actually leads me on to my next question, will you be playing during the summer?

Rob: Yes, we play local on Monday night at Gibney’s, it’s acoustic sessions, Friday in Oscar Taylor’s, that’s also an acoustic session.

Me: They’re both in Malahide, are they?

Rob: Yeah. We have one on the 25^th of June in the Pint Pub on Eden Quay, and there’s a couple of other bands playing. Slow Motion Getaway are playing that one as well, I think. That should be a good one. Beyond that, we’ll be sending the EP - obviously to the labels -and to hotels and pubs to try get some gigs.

Eoin:  I mean, the main plan is to have an official EP launch, but we’re trying to spend the next month building up a fan base to make sure there’s people actually at the EP launch, try make it as successful as possible. We haven’t been gigging much because of college exams, so we’re going to get the ball rolling again.

Me: Cool. What makes you different from other bands?

Eoin: *joking* Talent.

Rob: I’d say, in terms of our sound...

Eoin: Honesty would be key. There’s a lot of honesty in them.

Rob: I think people could relate to our songs.

Eoin: In a lot of ways there’s stripped back. We’re not too concerned with gimmicks, with lyrics or with the music itself.

Me: And for new listeners, hopefully there’ll be some, what one of your songs would you recommend to give people an idea of what you sound like?

Rob: Only You Know.

Eoin: Yeah, there’s a video for that on YouTube. There’ll be a proper video for that as well, soon, and it’s the number one track on the EP as well. And it’s on Myspace and Facebook. It’s our first single. It’s our “Hello” from The Moceans to the world. “Hello, how are you?” actually!

Me: Do you have any more remarks? Anything else you’d like to add?

Eoin: On a serious note, we actually do have self-belief, and we’re just trying to get people to actually listen to the music, because we believe if people listen to it they will like it. It’s just that initial stage of getting it into people’s hands. So hopefully that’ll go well.

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The Moceans can be found at the following sites. Be sure to Subscribe, Follow, Like and Friend them!

YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheMoceans

Twitter: http://twitter.com/themoceans

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/themoceans

Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/themoceans1

Thanks again to the lads for taking the time out for the interview. Keep an eye on this spot for a review of The Moceans’ first EP, Warmth of the Shade.

Opportunity Knocks

As some of you may know, I have a habit of buying writing magazines. Mostly I don't read them. Today, I bought two. I know, bold of me. Still, I went through them and marked all the things that are immediately of interest to me. I might read the rest, but for now I'm focusing on these parts. I don't buy them unless I can find at least one thing of interest in them to me. Normally if I find that one thing, I find another thing, too.

Today... a grand total of 16 pages marked for reading. Okay, pages means the double-page, not a single page. And it doesn't necessarily mean I'll read the whole thing. These are just places where there could be just one tiny section of interest to me, highlighted again. But other times there are a couple of articles on these pages that are of interest. It was kind of worth the money, this time!

What I hope to do, as a result of finding a few of these things, is take advantage of the opportunities available in them. There are competitions and submission opportunities highlighted that I want to actually do something about. I just felt the need to tell people about this. And really, bothering my friends with texts that are only of interest to me feels a bit weird. (Especially since about three people would get the same text, and one of them might reply...)

In other news (that was news?), I've begun to bother the people of Twitter for my new feature - I'm looking to "interview" people every Friday. This will entail a discussion of 1. them, personally (who they are, where they live, what they do for a living, etc.) and 2. the creative thing they do that has me getting in touch with them in the first place. I'm more drawn to writers, but as I'm also a fan of music I won't turn that down. This is to replace my Friday Friend feature from last year. Well, it's to change it. The old archive is about people I know, with nicknames I gave them for this blog. This new feature will have people's real names - if they use them online - but I won't specify if I know them or not. It occurs to me I'll be able to bother some people I do know, but that's a different matter.

So, why am I doing it? Well, firstly I want to network. I figure the best way to do that is to get a chat going. Through the personal discussion, I'll get to know the person better (and may continue to talk to them privately after the post) and through the other discussion I'll be showcasing new and interesting people to my readers (it feels weird to say I have readers, when it's mainly friends from college who aren't sick of my blog posts). The hope is that the people I interview will also link to the interview they're in, and maybe come back to see who else is being interviewed.

Secondly, I want a feature on my blog that actually interests me and won't dive into people's privacy without their permission. Bold Paul was bold last year. This new idea has me excited already, and I'll be bothering people who I think are suitable for this pretty soon!

Thirdly, I want the practice. As I plan on writing for a living, doing interviews and stuff like this early on will show that I'm fully capable of doing it later in life. I'll be working around college, too, so things will be a little bit busy for me throughout the year. And I'll have basically nothing to do in the summer...

So, if you're interested in being interviewed, please get in touch - if you comment, make sure that I can follow a link (either by including it in the comment or submitting it with your name when you post) so that I can see how suitable you are, and please have some way of being contacted through that - even a Twitter page will do! What I ask in return is that you answer the questions, keep in touch, link to the post (it's showcasing YOU anyway!) and maybe suggest other people afterwards (so I can keep the feature going).

Now, time for me to start answer the door to opportunity. It's raining tonight... must be soaked!

The Day Before The Music Began

Tomorrow is NaNoWriMo. Or at least, Day 1 of NaNoWriMo. Alarm set for 8 am, I'm ready to tackle a month of extreme novelling; The Wedding Singer will follow up Meet Sam, with less of a main-character-hearing-the-narrator feel to it. However, I liked the narrator last year, how I wrote with her voice in my head, so I'm going to write like that this year too.

I have my first sentence, which will be posted here tomorrow night. I'll tell you this though - Sophie Byrne will wake up at the same time as me. She'll live in the house across the street, sing her heart, break it a few times, fall in love, love a dog (but in a different way) and follow the ChartJackers. Yes, the ChartJackers.

Now, onto business. Darren Shan (AKA my HERO!!!) agreed so many months ago that I could Interview him. We tried to offer it to the public... they essentially said no. Soooo we're letting the public ask questions instead! I've announced it on Twitter, on Bebo and on the forum (better mention it on Facebook too!) - follow the hashtag #q4shan on Twitter to see the fans' questions! I'm super excited about this one, and will even try get to Limerick to see him for the Interview.

Please ask questions! ^_^

Fantastic!

Well, I'm back from Barcelona. It's a great city, had a great time, yadda yadda yadda...

That's actually not what I'm talking about today. No, "Fantastic!" is the catchphrase of the first of the new Doctors in Doctor Who (played by Christopher Eccelston). The reason for the catchphrase invasion? Well, I've just watched the entire first Season of the new DW. It's amazing!

I first decided I wanted to watch Doctor Who when I started listening to Chameleon Circuit (interview with Charlie McDonnell who helped put it together here). I was like, "That sounds like fun." And it was! I fell in love with the quirkiness, the originality, the genre! I can't wait to buy the second Season!!

Doctor Who has always inspired my own little time travelling story. It's still in the mental workshop at the moment, all the details being smoothed out, but I should be able to start planning it soon!

Aside from all that, I've not been doing very much. Well, I've been helping two writers with their books (my friends Sam and Aimee), working as an editor of sorts for them. Rachel Phipps from the Den also wants someone to help her, and I've volunteered my services. I don't charge. I just like doing it.

Take care!