BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--AN INTERVIEW WITH AUTHOR GUY D. OGAN

Today we present everything you ever wanted to know about author Guy D. Ogan and then some:

Author name(s): 

Guy D. Ogan

Website and/or blog links:

http://www.amazon.com/author/guyogan

http://immortalrelations.blogspot.com/

Genre/genres you write in:

Paranormal-Romance with very heavy military and political action. The first book has a great deal of "explicit togetherness" not to be salacious but to show that even the guardian vampires who protect humans and animals from the evil vampires/human criminals/ and (most dangerous of all) would be dictators in government, don't live (or love) according to human mores.

When did you realize you wanted to write novels?

Being somewhat shy I've always felt that I could express myself better in writing than in speaking. While I'd written a lot of articles and professional works, first while in the military and later in a second calling in psychology, I never thought I  would ever write a (somewhat) fictional book until I found the photograph (a copy of which is on the second page of my first novel, Immortal Relations.) It proved something my mother had said many, many years before about my father's exploits while stationed overseas at the end of WW-II (he had a tryst as the picture proved.) That night I couldn't sleep and went to my keyboard and typed out what seemed to come to me as if I were "channeling." A rather cathartic experience under the circumstances and then the second, Immortal Relations, Love and War, and third, Immortal Relations Coming Out, both continuing the story. 

How long did it take you to realize your dream of publication?

I'd had many articles published while in the military and while working in psychology as well as submissions to long-distance running magazines and automotive magazines. My first (professional) non-fiction work published was a treatise on helping children, adolescents and adults with ADHD, titled "Can Anyone Help My Child?" 

Are you traditionally published, indie published, or a hybrid author?

Traditionally with my articles, but Indie with my novels.

Where do you write?

When my father-in-law passed away, we invited my mother-in-law to come live with us, and we added on to the house with a bedroom on the first floor for her as well as a small sewing nook and bathroom. Both were amazing people, much loved and sorely missed. Now, I use the small sewing room as my writing area. It is just a few feet deep and a few feet wide, but is more than sufficient for my writing.

Is silence golden, or do you need music to write by? What kind?

Silence when I'm writing or reading is not a common occurrence, but is GOLDEN and much appreciated when found!

How much of your plots and characters are drawn from real life? From your life in particular?

The novels' main character is Gary Logan vs. Guy Ogan, that should give you a clue that there isn't a whit of difference. My military background and knowledge, as well as the life lessons I put into the books, are all from my own real-life experience and education. Of course, since I haven't had the pleasure of meeting my guardian vampire ladies, that is from the "channeling" and a very vivid imagination. I've never had "Writer's Block." 

Describe your process for naming your character?

Having spent a good deal of time in Europe while in the service, almost all the names just came to me; however, I did look up common names for Czech females for the main female characters of Magdalena (Maggie) and Eviana (Evy.)

Real settings or fictional towns?

Real world setting for the most part, including cities and towns in The Czech Republic, England, The Russian Federation, China, Japan, Germany, Canada and the U.S. The majority of the action takes place in Europe (including Russia) in books one and two with a little in China and Japan in book two. The third book's action is primarily in Canada and Russia with some in The Czech Republic and a little in the U.S. and Germany.

What’s the quirkiest quirk one of your characters has?

My main male character Gary Logan, after conversion to a vampire (a guardian vampire) still retains a beating heart –unheard of before Gary. Also his progeny continue that trend due to his quirky DNA. There are other quirks revealed in the stories including his ability to sire children with his full vampire mates. On the distaff side, a quirk of full vampire childbirth in less than a month of pregnancy is of interest (the single human-vampire hybrid birth takes about three months) but either way sure sound easier on the females than what human females go through for nine months. (Anyone who considers women to be the "weaker sex" is crazy; no way we men could handle that!)  

What’s your quirkiest quirk?

I can actually dream in character when I've been writing my novels before going to bed. Sometimes I will just get up and start typing my dreams because I don't want to forget that particular part of the action. It (ab)normally only happens when I've been working on the book before going to bed. I added (ab) since some may see it as abnormal, but I've heard it said those who've worked in psychology are in most need of treatment. LOL

If you could have written any book (one that someone else has already written,) which one would it be? Why?

Any of Tom Clancy's works (probably his Hunt for Red October is his most known) but for me Debt of Honor, Executive Decisions and The Bear and the Dragon are his seminal novels What a master story teller he was! 

What was the worst job you’ve ever held?

Back in my teenage years I served as a part-time janitor at a beauty shop. After they closed for the day, I would clean up the place and the noxious fumes lingering in the air from the stuff they used on the hair would almost knock me unconscious when I breathed. When I went into the service, they put us through a room full of teargas and while everyone else was coughing and tearing up, I had no problem as I'd gone through far worse surviving the fumes at that job.    

What’s the best book you’ve ever read?

Oh, that is a tough one! It all depends upon the genre, and I've already remarked on Tom Clancy's action novels. There are some really outstanding young authors in my vampire genre coming along that I enjoy reading, such as Michele Drier's The Kandesky Vampire Chronicles and Augusta Fern's Morte' Series: Revelation of Cian and Babet's Epiphany. These authors show that while there certainly are evil vampires, they also show there are vampires who have evolved and can behave in a civilized manner even protecting humans from evil. I do shy away from the old Bram Stoker type of vampire books where the vampires lurk in shadows waiting to attack young maidens to drain them of their blood. These are the type of vampires MY vampires are dedicated to destroying!

Ocean or mountains?

While I've spent a good deal of time on and around beaches and enjoy them, mountains are so majestic that if I could, that is where I'd want to live.

City guy or country guy?

While I can appreciate the style and sophistication of the city, I prefer the down-to-earth common sense can-do attitude and strength of those from the country. I married a country lady and am glad I did. The Army used to have an advertisement that said something to the effect that in the Army they do more by 6 am than most people do all day, and I'd turn that around and say, "By 6 am most country gals have done more than most men will do all day!"

What’s on the horizon for you?

At my age I don't buy any Green Bananas, but if the Good Lord lets me hang around, I'll write a few more in my Immortal Relations series. But my current writing assignment (self issued) is to finish a book on time-travel back to the age of dinosaurs.

Lily, my five year old Granddaughter LOVES dinosaurs so I'm writing a book, and she is one of the main characters along with her Pop-Pop (me) as well as a friend who is curator and owner of a Museum of Pre-History with various dinosaur skeletons. We construct a time machine and the title is, Lily and the Time Buggy. After saving our friend’s life along with keeping the Time Buggy out of the hands of would be terrorists, we are propelled back in time (that's about all the teaser I'll give, other than there are close encounters of the running and screaming kind with dinosaurs.) 

For those who like their action a little closer in time, my fourth novel will be Immortal Relations, Revenge. The teaser for it is the mates of the evil vampires we helped destroy are none-too-happy with us and seek revenge. Were that not enough of a threat, the regime in Washington D.C. is also not our fan because we helped foil the Chinese Communist invasion of Siberia (probably preventing a nuclear war in the bargain.) Had China succeeded they'd have gained huge oil and tracks of minerals, including huge gold reserves. The Marxists in Washington, who were in collusion with the invasion hoped to get a break on the massive debt owed to China if the invasion was a success.  

Immortal Relations Coming Out

the third book in the Immortal Relations Series

Having saved mankind from a nuclear war and the results of terrorist acts as well as potentially catastrophic ecological nuclear disasters, our guardian vampires consider "coming out" to the human world so as to form a stronger symbiotic relationship with them. A young shape-shifter werewolf, who had only just found out what he was, helps the vampires as they assist his own development (and love is in the air). Realizing the threat to world stability by the perceived collapse of America, the good vampires establish a new coven in Cayuga, Canada in order to monitor efforts by the power-mad politicians seeking to destroy the Constitution and Bill of Rights in order to gain ultimate power. This isn't the only threat to world peace, as a huge asteroid is heading toward Earth, yet one of the major powers seems totally disinterested and the resources for such a long range mission to change the trajectory of an object the size of India seems lacking.

Buy Link