J.D. TUCKER

This Portion of my Blog I would love to take the time out to shine light on other Authors that I read and become a fan of.
J.D. TUCKER
J.D is a friend of mine and a wonderful author. His stories pull you in, lock you tight and hold you to the very last word. I am honored that he accepted my invitation to do his interview, and would love for you to give your time, your eyes and your mind as he opens himself up and explain about his novel, himself and his works to come.


SUMMARY

The Connors are your All-American dysfunctional family. Carolyn, the matriarch, is a hard-drinking single mother with no desires to be a 'sitcom mommy." Elizabeth, her seventeen-year-old daughter, is a Goth dressing, snarky teenager who lives to protect her baby sister and to find love. Precocious Emily, twelve, is the peacemaker of the family saddled with issues of her own. Enter Dennis Rask, a charming rogue who insinuates himself into their family and brings them together as a self-appointed messiah - becoming loved by Carolyn, idolized by Emily, and accepted with reservations by a suspicious Elizabeth. Little do the Connors know, Rask has united three families before them, with every unit destroying themselves from within by his hellish machinations. Rask views the Connors as a hobby - a game - which has left no survivors in the past.

Divisive starts the reader off at the end of their story. Detective Frank Bostick attempts to unravel the reasons behind a tragic event in the Connors house, resulting in a 'supposed' death, a 'questionable' overdose, and a brutally 'perceived' attack of Rask by one of the members. Switching back between the past, and the present, Divisive ensnares the reader in a thriller that goes back several years in the life of Dennis Rask until ending in a grim battle for the soul of the one he has hand-picked to be his 'Queen."




Lucky for me, JD agreed to let me interview him and share a bit of his story about himself, and let his readers - me included - in on a little bit of his head space.

To begin this interview, the readers need to know just who person behind Divisive is.

JD Tucker is forty-nine years old, married with two sons. He worked his way up to an Editor of his high school paper called The Riverdale Raider Review, and dabbled in a few short stories at the time. His final push into the writing world did not come until twenty years later. After the repose of writing, JD Tucker finally sat down and began to write his first full novel.

Five books later, he's about to publish his second one: The Little Girl you Kiss Goodnight, followed by, and heavily retooled, Romancing the Fox. 

Okay, there's the peek into the world of this fine Author. Let's continue on with his interview. Please, open your eyes and give him your attention.

 Who/What inspired you to pursue a writing career? How long have you been writing?

I guess my middle-age-crazy was a part of it.

I had been thinking of writing for a few years before and at the age of forty-four, sat down at my computer and started banging away on the keyboard. I ended it after 300,000 words.

Yes...I know.....wayyyy too long. :-)

I retooled it and broke it into two shorter novels -- Romancing the Fox and Chasing the Fox. Since then, I've averaged two novels a year and have actually finished three in a row under 85,000 words.

How do you manage to balance your day job life and/or family life and still be able to create your work? 

From ten to three a.m., I write.  It's quieter, no distractions, and soooo gratifying.

When a person thinks of J.D Tucker, what are the first three words that comes to mind?  

Personally --- witty, helpful, and devoted.   In the 'Literal' sense -- Dark, Fatalistic, and irreverent.

After reading "DIVISIVE", I noticed it wasn't a fast read by any means. What was your over all theme that you wanted to achieve within the story?

I make no apologies; it's a long book. But, I feel the character development, especially in the early chapters, far outweighs the density of the novel.

By the seventh chapter, the reader will know the six major characters well enough to have an opinion about them. After that, the remaining twenty-two have been likened to an episode of television -- each with an exciting or gripping event, a strong to medium cliffhanger, and plenty of reasons not to put the book down.

I noticed there was an overwhelming count of women characters in Divisive and two strong male characters. Which sex (male or female) did you spend the most time  developing and why?

The big bad of the book - Dennis Rask - was the first character I sat down and planned out.

He's much like a chameleon, adapting to every circumstance. Whether learning the Bible in order to court a religious woman, talking in a country bumpkin accent when dealing with a North Carolina trailer-trash gal, or finding out what his teenaged prey likes and dislikes before using it to his advantage.

As far as the major women characters, I found it very easy to create a pre-teen (Emily), a teenager (Elizabeth), a middle-aged mother (Carolyn), and two not so bright blondes I labeled greedy dumb blonde and slutty dumb blonde ( Brei and Annie). You'll see each one is very different in temperament, attitude, and levels of emotional accessibility.

While I hope none of my readers are exactly like my characters, I do believe they'll know somebody just like them.

The Connors family explored many taboo subject matters. The subjects were all different but what was the core matter of their existence and did that make them fail like they did in the story? 

Carolyn, the mother, never wanted children. When her husband died, she grew to hate her daughters more with every passing day. At one point in the story, Carolyn is driven by jealousy, hate, and drug abuse to cross the line with one of her daughters.

Elizabeth drifted into a Goth-flavored existence once her dad died, going from one relationship to another because of her 'daddy issues' and high emotional maintenance lifestyle. When she and her best friend Brei drift into a lesbian symbiosis, her problems continue because of peer pressure and self-hatred.

Emily, the stable peacemaker of the Connors family has her own personal demons that she keeps inside. She struggles with her burgeoning thoughts and actions about sex, becomes emotionally attached to the villian (Rask) because he treats her like a real father would, and loves the attention from her older next-door-neighbor because she's starved for affection.

Rask is a character in your book that displays that of many faces. While reading your story, I truly hated him - he's the bad guy, the monster, the antagonist, yes, all those things, but there's more to him then his evil intentions for the Connors family. Could you explain your reasons behind creating such a character and what you wanted your readers to understand from him and his actions?

Rask was loosely based on Ted Bundy - charming, attentive, and appealing - until he starts to exert his malevolent influence on the characters.

With Carolyn, he concentrates on her lust and self-worth issues to seduce and corrupt her.

With Emily, he's at his best, giving her as much love as he can produce with his black heart, until it comes to a choice between her and his 'game.' In the past, he goes into every family unit with one mission - to destroy everyone in it - and in the three previous families, he succeeds - three families - six corpses.

With Elizabeth, he decides to make her his 'queen' and sets out to make her fall in love with him.

By the end of Divisive, you'll see if he succeeds.

The story started out with Bostick, a cop with a need to solve a case no matter if he was supported or not. I got a pang in the direction that this was typical cop drama, a puzzle to a case that we (the readers) would see being solved, and the tales of everyone POVs was to answer Bostick's questions. Was this your direction for the book?

I wanted a strong opening to the book. In chapter one, after giving the reader a tour of the Connors house and the violent aftermath, Bostick is questioning Rask about the events of the previous night. Carolyn has assaulted him with a knife and is ensconced in the city's psych ward.

One of the daughters is in a coma after an unsuccessful overdose, and one is found hanging in her closet. Since the readers know how the story almost ends, now they'll read to find out what led the family to those desperate acts and what Rask had to do with it.

The book goes back and forth between the past and the present - one timeline featuring Rask meeting the Connors family and the weeks that pass - and the second follows Bostick's investigation after the crimes were committed.

The timelines eventually meet in the explosive chapter -- The Truth. The End. That Night -- and everything after that is Bostick's pursuit of Rask and Rask's actions to evade the law.

The book also spends a chapter introducing each of Rask's previous three families and the backdrop of how he arranged their untimely ends.

We were talking about possibilities of a sequel, will there be one and what can readers expect from it?


There is a sequel that should come out by the end of the year (2013) and the primary focus is Elizabeth's life and emotional fallout after the conclusion of Divisive.

Anything else would be telling too much.  :-)

 What should we be on the look out for in regards to future products from you?


I'll be e-pubbing The Little Girl You Kiss Goodnight by the end of 2012.
It's about a teenager named Steph who wants to be a 'policewoman' when she graduates in 1980's Atlanta. When her estranged mother is murdered in Steph's hometown of Woody Pines, she uses the ruse of spending a week with her grandmother and uncle in order to find the culprit. There, she finds a hunky teenager who had intimate ties to her mother and three disreputable co-workers who all have an unsavory history with the woman. 

She also deals with a crusty sheriff, a way too friendly librarian who had a bad history with Steph's mother, and a collection of townspeople who view her as an outsider looking for trouble.
The next offering, probably in Feb of 2013, will be my first novel - Romancing the Fox. It's about a screenwriter / fledgling producer who decides to cast a porn actress for his movie. 

The novel deals with the problems they face in their professional lives, and the sticky situations they come into when they become romantically attracted to the other.

ALRIGHT GUYS!!! That's all the time JD Tucker had for us. We will be on the lookout for his upcoming novels, and I will personally see that he continues to spend a little time with us here or there, to keep us updated on his progress.

Thank JD for giving us your time, your thoughts and your words. 










  

2 comments:

  1. Great interview! Kudos to both of you!

    ReplyDelete
  2. I found the interview very interesting, offering good insights into the novelists' minds.

    ReplyDelete