About The Author
Paul DeBlassie III, Ph.D., is a psychologist and writer living in Albuquerque who has treated survivors of the dark side of religion for more than 30 years. His professional consultation practice — SoulCare — is devoted to the tending of the soul. Dr. DeBlassie writes psychological thrillers with an emphasis on the dark side of the human psyche. The mestizo myth of Aztlan, its surreal beauty and natural magic, provides the setting for the dark phantasmagoric narrative in his fiction. He is a member of the Depth Psychology Alliance, the Transpersonal Psychology Association and the International Association for Relational Psychoanalysis and Psychotherapy.
Author Links:
Website pauldeblassieiii.com
Blog pauldeblassieiii.blogspot.com
Twitter https://twitter.com/pdeblassieiii
Balancing
life and writing; It’s
a matter of listening to the energy coming from self, family, and
friends so that nothing tips more one way than the other and the
creative juices stay flowing rather than being depleted by excessive
writing and are therefore constantly in a state of being
replenished. I had a music teacher who once told me to practice or
play up to the point that I feel bored, that the energy for it has
been spent, and then to stop for the day. That’s what I do with
writing. I stay with it, hit the page running each day, and go for
as long and with as much intensity as I have for the scene that I’m
writing. Then, I stop. And, if I don’t stop I’ll have nightmare
that night that I’m being seduced and used by the muse and that
such a thing could lead to utter ruination. There are horror stories
about this. Writers in the stories feel the tug to write, the muse
senses that someone is taking the bait and then the writer is hooked
and reeled in. So, if I let myself be hooked and reeled in then I
lose my balance. There is something to being hooked and reeled of
course, but the true and balanced thing of it happens when it comes
from a hook and a reeling that is my own and not one that causes me
to be possessed by something other than my own common sense. After
all, what matters is the living of life, and living a good one to
the best of one’s ability, writing only a part of that.
Where
do your ideas come from?
Ideas come from the deep repository of the collective unconscious
mind that inspires images and symbols during the fantasies of waking
life and during dreams and nightmares. Mainly, it’s the nightmare
stuff that bodes best for writing psychological thrillers and dark
fantasy such as is in The Unholy. When I wake up in a cold sweat with
the characters of the novels threatening me (I remember when
Archbishop William Anarch, sinister prelate in The Unholy tormented
me for nights on end, demanding that I not write the story) that’s
when I know that real inspiration is flowing and that to listen to it
and follow the images and symbols that emerge from my deep,
unconscious mind during sleep and during the reverie of writing the
story will end up in the development of spine tingling realities that
jettison both me as the writer and the reader into phantasmagoric
realms that have a way of shaking up conscious mindsets and get our
heads blown out in a very, very unsettling but ultimately useful way.
My writing, in other words, comes from an inner place of torment that
needs to be let out so it can be set right. When mind stuff is set
right inside me I can feel it by sensing a quality of being at peace,
that I’ve written to the best of my ability and been true to the
deep, archetypal energies swirling through my mind during the
narrative. It really is a trip to listen to ideas, let them become
images, and suddenly have them take over a page. It’s like the
pages catch fire and everyone has come to life and things become
disorderly, fraught with conflict, and danger looms.
10
things most people don't know about you: Those
ten things will remain ten things that most people don’t know
about me. But, the other ten things that I’m willing to share
concern The Unholy itself, the fact that it was a story twenty years
in the making. It’s held up over such a long period of time
because every time I wanted to put it away my wife would encourage
me. It was rejected well over one hundred times…so there’s one
hundred things people didn’t know. If it wasn’t my wife, then my
dreams would say not to give up on it, even though I had shelved it
and moved on to other novels. People don’t know about the dreams
about The Unholy that I had. They said to leave it in the kiln, to
be fired some more, and then one day when I least expected it would
be ready to be removed from the kiln. That’s when Jim White from
Sunstone Press and I met up and he was on fire for the story. This
is stuff people don’t know about me. Years, and despair, and
patience, a plethora of dreams and nightmares, struggles,
encouragement from my wife and family, and synchronistically meeting
the right people went into publishing of The Unholy…dreams,
nightmares, patience, despair, my wife, my family, encouragement,
the phantasmagoric kiln, Jim White and Sunstone Press…all things
some people know but many people do not. So, these ten things are
hidden emotions and relational encounters and The Unholy and how it
was woven into the fabric of my life for twenty years before
publication in 2013.
Lessons I learned from my
hero (heroine/villain). Claire
Sanchez, 25 year old medicine woman, curandera, is a young woman who
has lost her mother when she was five years old, witnessed her
murder at the hands of a black robed man. She is a woman of
tremendous courage and resolve. Fear tries to get her by the throat
and squeeze the life out of her. There are so many times that she
fought not to give up, to surrender to despair. I find her so human
here, the draw to give up and make oneself disappear when confronted
with evil. Evil, the real thing, can be so overwhelming, big and
mysterious, and appear to be way out of our influence or control.
She is one person, a very young and inexperienced person at that, up
against a veritable force not only of society but of nature gone
bad. To feel the odds stacked against you and yet know that you
can’t be true to yourself, to your life, and to go on with life
without getting answers and doing what you need to do to find those
answers, no matter what, is sheer inspiration. Courage is courage
only when it is face to face with one bad ass enemy…Archbishop
William Anarch! If she dies then she knows that she has done what
she has needed to do. Death is a real possibility for her. She knows
this and yet has to risk it in order to be true to herself as a
woman. To risk everything, life itself, in order to be true to
self…that is courage and this is a lesson to be learned.
One of the most terrifying
things about being a writer: If
I’m going to write a true story that resonates with my audience I
have to live it out. It has to have been a part of my life. Since I
write thrillers and dark fantasy, that means that dark forces that
have been at play in my life or are presently in the works can be
quite overwhelming. This is not a hands off enterprise. Writing cuts
to the core of my life and life experience, relationships,
profession, dream, and nightmares. If I could only research stuff
from a distance and then write in a compelling way about that, that
would be one thing; but as it is I have to live this out. The story
is a living breathing thing within my life before it hits the page,
and then once its on the page, and then on from there. The Unholy is
about terrifying religious encounters. This is something that I was
raised with, fought my own battles about, treated people for
clinically, and finally found that I was smack dab in the middle of
writing a story that could not be stopped. It had to come out.
Frightening, very frightening to live this close to one’s work.
There were times that it effected my family, and I had to wonder
whether I should withdraw; but we all talked and I had their
support. I have it now. The arms of creativity stretch long and
influence oneself and others who are in the emotional and psychic
vortex of one’s existence. The energy, the psychological amalgam,
of this is so intense and persuasive that nothing short of
challenging and amazing can be said to even faintly describe it.
About The Book
Book Genre: Psychological Thriller
Publisher: Sunstone Press
Release Date: August 2013
Book Description:
A young curandera, a medicine woman, intent on uncovering the secrets of her past is forced into a life-and-death battle against an evil Archbishop. Set in the mystic land of Aztlan, "The Unholy" is a novel of destiny as healer and slayer. Native lore of dreams and visions, shape changing, and natural magic work to spin a neo-gothic web in which sadness and mystery lure the unsuspecting into a twilight realm of discovery and decision.
Excerpt
Prologue
Lightning
streaked across a midnight dark sky, making the neck hairs
of
a five-year-old girl crouched beneath a cluster of twenty-foot pines
in the
Turquoise
Mountains of Aztlan stand on end. The long wavy strands of her
auburn
mane floated outward with the static charge. It felt as though the
world
was about to end.
Seconds
later, lightning struck a lone tree nearby and a crash of thunder
shook
the ground. Her body rocked back and forth, trembling with terror.
She
lost
her footing, sandstone crumbling beneath her feet, and then regained
it;
still,
she did not feel safe. There appeared to be reddish eyes watching
from
behind
scrub oaks and mountain pines, scanning her every movement and
watching
her quick breaths. Then everything became silent.
The
girl leaned against the trunk of the nearest tree. The night air
wrapped
its frigid arms tightly around her, and she wondered if she would
freeze
to death or, even worse, stay there through the night and by morning
be
nothing
but the blood and bones left by hungry animals. Her breaths became
quicker
and were so shallow that no air seemed to reach her lungs. The dusty
earth
gave up quick bursts of sand from gusts of northerly winds that blew
so
fiercely
into her nostrils that she coughed but tried to stifle the sounds
because
she
didn’t want to be noticed.
As
she squeezed her arms around the trunk of the pine tree, the scent of
sap
was soothing. Finally, the wind died down and sand stopped blowing
into
her
face. She slowly opened her eyes, hoping she would be in another
place,
but
she was not; in fact, the reality of her waking nightmare was more
obvious
than
ever.
Wide-eyed
with fear at the nightmarish scene playing out before her,
she
clung to the tree. In the distance, she saw her mother raising a
staff with
both
hands, her arm muscles bulging underneath her soaked blouse. Directed
straight
ahead, her mother’s gaze was like that of an eagle, her power as
mighty
as
the winds and the lightning. The girl loved her mother and, through
her
mind,
sent her strength so that she would win this battle and the two of
them
could
safely go away from this scary place.
The
girl turned to follow as her mother’s gaze shifted to an area
farther
away
and so dark that only shadows seemed to abide there. To and fro her
mother’s
eyes darted before fixing on a black-cloaked figure who emerged from
behind
a huge boulder surrounded by tall trees whose branches crisscrossed
the
sky. He was much bigger than her mother, at least by a foot, and his
cloak
flapped
wildly as winds once again ripped through the mountains.
Swinging
a long, hooked pole, the man bounded toward her mother like
a
hungry beast toward its prey. His black cloak looked like the wings
of a huge
bat
as they reflected the eerie light of the full moon. As his pole
caught the
moonlight
and a golden glow bounced back onto the figure, the girl saw his
face
with its cold blue eyes that pierced the nighttime chill. He seemed
to grow
bigger
with each step, and the girl’s heart pounded so loudly that she was
sure
he
would be able to hear it.
The
stranger stopped a short distance from the girl. Crouched low
between
rows of trees, trying to make herself disappear, she saw him clearly
as
he
threw his head back and let out a high-pitched cry like a rabid
coyote. The
air
crackled. Thunder struck. Lightning flashed. She was blinded and then
could
see again.
Quick
as a crazed coyote jumps and bites, the man struck her mother, his
black
cape flapping wildly in the wind.
The
girl leapt to her feet, her legs trembling, her knees buckling.
Straining
to see through the branches, she was terrified.
The
moon vanished behind dark clouds rolling overhead. Then came
a
scream of terror that cut to the bone. Now the night was lit up again
by
lightning
flashing across the mountain range, and the girl could see the
blackhooded
man
hit her mother again and again.
Her
mother crumpled to the ground and stopped moving.
The
girl’s hand flew to her open mouth, stifling a scream.
The
man stood over her mother, his long pole poised in the air, ready to
strike
again.
A
twig snapped in the forest, and the girl spun toward the sound,
holding
her
breath. Then she saw three gray forms slowly creeping toward her
through
the darkness and recognized them as wolves. She was not afraid as
they
encircled her, their warm fur brushing her skin. One after another,
the
wolves
lifted their snouts and looked into her eyes, each silently
communicating
that
she would be protected.
Her
mother cried out again. The girl turned and saw her rising to her
feet,
then striking the man’s chest with her staff.
As
he batted his pole against her shoulders, her staff flew out of her
hands,
landing yards away in a thicket of scrub oak.
Her
mother screamed and blindly groped for it.
The
girl jumped up, then stopped when the black-hooded figure looked
her
way. Tears clouded her vision, and all she saw was darkness. Tears
rolled
down
her cheeks, dropping into the tiny stream of water running beneath
the
tree
she was clutching. She looked down and saw the dim reflection of her
frightened
self.
As
she peered through the trees to catch sight of her mother, a wailing
wind
blew the man’s cloak into the air, making him again look like a
monstrous
bat.
Once more he swung his rod high and smashed it against the back
of
her mother’s head. She saw and heard her mother’s body thump
against the
hollowed
trunk of the lightning-struck tree and slump to the ground. The evil
man
bent over her mother’s limp body and howled.
Suddenly,
the girl felt arms encircle her waist, and she was swept away,
deeper
into the forest. She sobbed and at first let herself be taken because
she
had
no strength. But then she became angry and started pushing against
the
arms
carrying her, trying to escape and run back to her mother. She wanted
to
make
her mother well, and then this nightmare would stop and they could go
away.
“Hush
now, child,” said a voice she recognized as that of her mother’s
closest
friend. “The man cannot harm you, mijita,
as
long as you are with us.
We
will make him think you are dead. But you must be very quiet. Ya
no
llores,”
the woman warned, raising a finger to her lips.
The
woman then carried her into a dark cave illuminated by the light
of
a single candle. The cave was frightening, with shadows of what
appeared
to
be goblins and demons dancing on the red sandstone walls. “I will
return for
you
soon. You will be safe here,” the woman said. The girl watched the
woman
walk
away, shivering as a breeze blew through the cave’s narrow
passages.
Closing
her eyes, she rocked back and forth—imagining herself safe in
her
mother’s arms—then opened her eyes to the light of the full moon
shining
through
the mouth of the cave. The shadows on the walls were just shadows
now,
no longer goblins and demons. As she slipped into a trance, images
flickered
in her mind. She saw the woman who had brought her to this place
scattering
pieces of raw meat around the open mesa where her mother had
struggled,
helped by two other women the girl could not identify.
Suddenly,
the scene shifted to a stone ledge jutting over the mesa, and
she
heard the pounding footsteps of a man running toward the women. The
girl
felt
her heart race and her breathing quicken, afraid that the bad man
would
spot
them and kill them. Then the image shifted again, and she now saw on
the
mesa
three gray wolves circling the raw meat and the man walking away from
the
granite ledge. As he left, she heard his thought: The
child is dead.
