Thank you for
stopping by my blog, Peter!
Thanks for inviting me. It’s a pleasure to be here.
For those who haven’t
heard about your book could you give us a quick rundown?
Well, since I wrote the blurb, I might as well just quote
it:
What if you suddenly
discovered you had a sense—and powers—that almost no one else in the world did?
When Amanda Lindner
Nichols, a 24-year-old graphic artist living with her husband in Queens, New
York, is revived from a near-death experience, she discovers she perceives everyone
around her as points of light—but not with her eyes. She soon learns she can
not only perceive the life energy of others, but she can give and take it. With
the help of others like her, she brings her husband Chris to the brink of death
and back to bestow on him the same remarkable faculty, and they're the happiest
they've been.
But not for long. All
over the world, people who've been revived from their own near-death experience
at just the right moment discover themselves with these same unusual powers.
They find ways to use them—some for good and some for evil. When Amanda and
Chris encounter a ruthless group of gangsters with the same faculty, tragedy
follows—and Amanda faces the greatest challenge of her life.
How would you
describe your main character, Amanda?
Amanda is a young woman living in Queens, New York, who
finds herself with an extraordinary sense and extraordinary powers. Before the
events that transform her, she’s a normal person living a normal life.
Is Lightpoints going to be part of a
series? If so, what do you foresee for the series?
I didn’t conceive of it as part of a series. I started a
sequel that followed Amanda about a year after the end of Lightpoints, but I wasn’t happy with the way it was going, so it’s
on hold. A few readers have expressed interest in finding out what happens
next. If there’s enough demand, I suppose I’ll have to return to it. As far as
a series is concerned, I don’t see one. If other people want to write stories
based on the same premise, though, I’d be happy to talk with them about it.
Can you tell us about
the paranormal world you have created? How does it differ from our own?
It differs quite a bit, I hope—although several readers
wondered if what I described could be real, and at least one reader asserted it
was real.
In my world, under very exceptional circumstances (if you
have a near-death-out-of-body experience and are resuscitated just at the
moment you touch the Light but before you merge with it), you come back with a
new faculty, which includes the ability to perceive the life energy of those
around you, and to transmit and absorb that energy. Your ability to transmit
and absorb life energy is especially acute with people who also have the same
faculty.
Are there any authors
that have influenced your work in any way?
Every author I read influences me in some way, even if it’s
only to be more conscious of something I want to avoid in my own writing. But
in terms of someone I admire, I’d say Anne Rice’s Interview with the Vampire was probably the most influential.
How did the initial
idea behind Lightpoints come about?
I had had the vision of someone who could perceive others as
points of energy a long time ago. When I decided to write a paranormal novel,
that image came back to me as a starting point.
Do you ever draw
inspiration from real people or situations?
Some of the characters in Lightpoints are based on real people, but only as a starting point.
And I’ve long been interested in the phenomenon of near-death-out-of-body experiences.
I also drew on my familiarity with Tibetan Buddhism and several other subjects.
Overall, however, the entire story was a work of imagination.
What was the last
great book you read?
It depends on what you mean by great. If you mean important and enduring, it’s been so long since
I’ve read one of those I’d have difficulty naming one. If you mean terrific, it’s
not all that recent, but I loved Alice Seybold’s The Lovely Bones. I admired the originality of her conception of
heaven and the way she described her protagonist’s extraordinary experiences
naturalistically. I also thought she had a masterful control of tone. There
were no false notes.
Is there anything you
are currently working on that you could share with us?
I’ve just started working on the first installment of what
I’m planning as a trilogy based on the same premise as Lightpoints. It’s set on the West Coast, with an entirely new cast
of characters, including a new protagonist. It takes the premise in a different
direction, though. To give you a hint, the working title is The Zombie Problem.
Combining my love of writing with my interest in computer programming, I became a technical writer for several software products companies, eventually becoming a minority shareholder and executive vice president of a small, privately held company. There, I wrote and managed the writing of everything from software design documents to marketing literature.Twenty-five years later, after it was sold to a large computer company with a three letter name, I became one of those celebrated risk-takers we’ve heard so much about. I started a company based on what I thought was a bright idea of mine. Within a couple of years, I’d crashed and burned, and discovered myself in financial ruin and without a job. Trying to find a job in my industry or to establish a consulting practice, I learned it was no industry for old men. Mostly to keep myself sane, I decided to write a novel based on the germ of an idea I’d had in my twenties. That became Lightpoints.
To find out more about Peter, visit his website.
