How long have you been writing and how did you get to this point in your career?
I began writing my first novel when I was fourteen; finished it when I was sixteen. It was no masterpiece but that’s how I learned to write, simply by doing. I’ve written many unpublished novels over the last twenty-six years. I used to handwrite them, type them up, send them to the copyright office and then not really know what to do with them. With this one I determined I wanted to publish it, and then somehow everything just fell into place. My sister-in-law, an editor, offered to edit the novel and an old friend offered to do the cover.
I have a keen interest in dark fiction. Tell me how you would classify this book and what’s dark about it?
I would classify it as a historical dark fantasy I suppose. Cameo, the main character is an assassin who seems to possess a certain, otherworldliness. She has a master that she works for at a place called The Association, which is a company of assassins, and a secret master who is a vampire. She’s sort of stuck between a rock and a hard place, she hates working as an assassin but she’s afraid if she breaks from the company they’ll kill her, and she has a vampire master who seems to delight in tormenting her by killing the people she loves. Up to this point in her career she has steered clear of any sort of friendship entanglements, until she meets up with two somewhat charming highwaymen.
It’s set in a sort of faux 18th century, so it’s pretty gritty. The characters have scars and bad teeth from clay-pipe smoking, and hang out in dirty taverns. Death comes pretty quick and dirty, I don’t generally let characters with grievous wounds survive my novels. I try to stay fairly realistic to the medicine of the time except for an element of the supernatural and some magic. I really enjoy history so I try to inject odd bits of history into the story.
What made you choose to go the Indie route when publishing?
I really hate the "machine" that traditional publishing has become. I don’t want someone to determine whether or not I should be heard and I don’t want someone to tell me what to write. I want to have the freedom of my own creativity that all artists yearn for.
Sometimes we have to be ruthless in writing/editing. We cut scenes, eliminate characters or even kill them off. Tell me what was the hardest of these in this book.
This novel has several intertwined plot lines and as I was going along in the writing process I realized one had just hit a dead-end, so I had to go back in and remove and rework that particular plot which spanned something like four chapters at that point. That was pretty miserable.
The blog is called Random Musings so give us a random quote from the book- something you’re particularly fond of.
She looked up at him with her dead eyes. The coach was dark, and she could only make out the indistinct shape of his face in the shadows. "Stop talking to me."What can we expect from you next?
He laughed, "You’ll feel better after we kill someone."
"I’ll feel better after I polish off a bottle of wine."
"Whatever vice you prefer."
Well, Cameo the Assassin is the first in a series of undetermined length as of yet. The second book in the series, Cameo and the Highwayman is due out this fall. Probably around October.
Where I can be found on the Internet?
Most of my information can be found on my website: www.dawnmccullough-white.com Although I have my novel listed for a more reasonable price (than the links on my website hint to) here for Kindle and here on Smashwords.
Any final comments or thoughts?
I’d like to just mention that the person who does my covers and website is Kurt Hanss, a very talented artist. And I’d like to thank David Burton for this interview.
Dawn, I love gritty story telling and although I’m not into historical fiction, I think you may have grabbed me with this one. Thank you very much for dropping by and answering these questions! Good luck with the Cameo series – I’m sure it will do well!
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