Hello, all! Even during NaNoWriMo we like to pick a brain or two. This week say hello to author Lindsey R. Loucks, who works as a school librarian in rural Kansas. When she’s not discussing books with anyone who will listen, she’s dreaming up her own stories. Eventually her brain gives out, and she’ll play hide and seek with her cat, put herself in a chocolate induced coma, or watch scary movies alone in the dark to reenergize. I love me a chocolate coma. Now to the questions:

Renee: I firmly believe that every author has a character she’s secretly in love with, whether it’s one of your own, or one created by another author. Give us a name, and what makes him/her so fantastic?

Lindsey: Oh, man! That’s a tough question! Can I cheat and say I have two? One of them would definitely be Peeta from The Hunger Games. He’s such a sweety, and he had my heart hooked from the beginning. The other one is Callum from my Grave Winner series. He’s a bit of a bad boy, but in the second book he really starts to grow as a character.

Purple prose is kind of annoying. All those heaving bosoms, moist caves, and gloriously pulsating love clubs can overwhelm a reader. Some authors can add purple and create a pretty cool effect, though. Describe your favorite food in a purple way.

HA! Pulsating love clubs? Purple prose or no, that is awesome! Okay, let’s see if this will work: Gooey morsels of tender chocolate chips surrounded by a devastatingly rich, moist cookie really pleases my pallet. Yummmmm. Now I’m hungry.

**Me too. I love cookies.**

Writing routines are recommended by the “experts.” I have some things I always do before and while writing that help me focus. For example, there must be coffee and an ugly housecoat involved. Music is also important. What’s the most important (or strangest) part of your writing routine?

Well, I’m usually in my pajamas while I write. In fact, I’m wearing my pajamas right now. They’re just so comfortable! I have to have something to drink nearby, whether it be some kind of caffeinated beverage or water. It has to be deathly quiet. Probably the strangest part of my writing routine is that when I’m struggling with how to phrase something or when I’m wondering what should happen next, I’ll start plucking out my eyebrows with my fingernails. I’m going to have to start wearing some kind of protection because I have a little bald patch now!

**Oh my, I shouldn’t be laughing, but I am. **

What sentence best describes your work ethic? Seriously. Yes, I want to know. Mine? It’s all fun and games until you get an email. Because I’m easily distracted. Okay, now it’s your turn.

Hmmm. Probably slow and steady gets the story done. I’m a ridiculously slow writer, which is why I’ve signed up for National Novel Writing Month to help speed me up. I’m crazy nervous about it but we’ll see how it goes!

**I’ll look you up. I’m terrible for getting distracted by new ideas. NaNoWriMo forces me to stop that nonsense.**

Khan, the Goblin King (aka: David Bowie), Darth Vader and Dr. Who walk into a bar. What happens next?

I’d love to see that! I can see them all getting so toasted that the Goblin King starts dancing, singing, and throwing some babies up in the air. Dr. Who thinks that the bottom of a tequila bottle is a portal to another dimension so he sticks his sonic screwdriver into it and can’t get it back out again. Khan cries into his beer while he laments about Captain James T. Kirk, his only love and the one who got away. Darth Vader would console him for a time, then he’d get bored, whip out his lightsaber and reduce the glowing neon signs hanging on the walls to dust because they somehow remind him of Obi-Wan Kenobi and he feels “smothered” by them. The other bar patrons record the whole thing and post it on YouTube.

**Bows. You are the queen of improvisational writing. Love this.**

The apocalypse has arrived. You have one hope of survival, and his name is Dean Winchester. *swoon* What’s the plan?

Be still my heart! I’ll help Dean in whatever way I can, and then as soon as we’ve saved the world, I’ll jump on him, I mean thank him.

**I’m with you on the jumping—er—thanking. Sigh. Dean… **

What’s the worst piece of advice you’ve ever been given about writing? 

I’m not sure if this counts, but I once announced that I wanted to be a writer. Someone I was with said, “Good luck with that.” I sometimes have the overwhelming urge to tell them, “What’s up now, sucka?!”

** I hope you added them to The List. Sometimes people like that are useful, because they make us try that much harder. **

The supers have been getting restless, and somehow they’ve created a vamp-zombie-fairy hybrid. If you had to write this character, what would it be like? Which “powers” would it have and would it be bad or good?

It would definitely be bad because I like my vamps villainous, not sparkly. Zombies aren’t always hungry for human flesh (at least in my books); they can be very secretive and sometimes downright off their rockers. Fairies have been known to be deceitful. So combine a lust for blood, something that’s ten straightjackets past crazy, and a nasty little liar and you have a vamp-zombie-fairy hybrid. Which sounds totally awesome! Note to self—put vamp-zombie-fairy hybrid in next book!

As far as powers go, each vampire fang would have little tiny fairy wings attached to it. I’m not sure how that power would help, but it could!

*Oh! Flying fangs! How awesome would that be? They could hunt without leaving their coffins. **

Thanks for participating, Lindsey. You’re keeping the answer bar high. We should start a Dean stalker—um…Fan Club. We’re not stalkers, right? Right.

Anyway, if you all want to know more about Lindsey or her books, she’s on Twitter, Facebook, Goodreads, and she has a website. Check out her books as well; The Grave Winner (Published by Crescent Moon Press) and Haunted Chemistry (Published by Entangled Publishing). Like book trailers, check out Lindsey’s for The Grave Winner here.