The blog tours continue…this time with fellow Damnation Books scribe Su Halfwerk who released her collection Intricate Entanglement on March 1.
Take it away Su:
Why Write About Them?
I’m talking about people with mental disorders, the ones who crossed over to the other side with their minds while their bodies remained trapped on our plane. The seven (or eight) stories that make up Intricate Entanglement are their stories, told by them as they lived them.
People ask me how I came up with the idea for the book, and they inquire about the research I struggled with; only one person asked, “Why write about the crazies?”
My answer to that question was, “why not write about them?” Like Gene, in Intricate Entanglement, the word “crazies” offended me. I might not have reacted this way before writing the book, but now I sympathize with them. They are people trapped in a land where no one speaks their language and no one sees what they see. Picture yourself in that situation…did you do it? Do you feel their dilemma?
It’s a given that they have psychological and mental illnesses, some are even dangerous, but that doesn’t make their problems any less important. If anything, that actually makes them interesting. We don’t know what goes on in their heads, or how they view things. As one character in Intricate Entanglement indicated, do we know what a color blind person sees when he looks at the color red? He calls it red, but what does he see? Will he be able to describe it to us?
The stories in Intricate Entanglement explore the fact that people with mental disorders have different views of every day’s events, actions, and tasks. Even our appearances are distorted, perhaps even replaced by some other looks, or appendages! They see, feel, and react differently.
What if it was, in reality, the other way around? Maybe we are the ones trapped in a mundane materialistic world, and they are the ones roaming free, mentally, in it. I guess it depends on which side of the mirror we stand.
We meet different people everyday, some strike us as odd, while others okay. And then one day one of us, the sane ones, wakes up to find her husband having a serious conversation with the power socket. Freaky, huh!
Of course, there are signs that a person is about to cross over to the other side, these signs are not always read right, sometimes even ignored all together.
I’m not trying to justify or explain insanity, that word is too general to even mention. However, I do attempt to understand people and their motivation, failing that, I let them be.
The stories in Intricate Entanglement are fictitious, except sometimes reality is more outlandish than fiction. The research I did and the stories I wrote made me look at people with mental disorders from another perspective. Each is living his or her story the way he or she sees it. Some of them are telling their versions in Intricate Entanglement.
You can watch the book’s trailer here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7j9YWnLhMA
And you can get a glimpse of these character’s worlds here: http://www.damnationbooks.com/book.php?isbn=9781615723393
Greg, thanks for the opportunity to guest blog on Darkscrybe.
Author Bio:
Su Halfwerk writes in the horror and paranormal romance genres. From a tender age, the written word left a strong impression on her, later on terrifying, blood-chilling books became the object of her interest. Su’s style in horror combines shuddery terror with elements of surprise; some would even call it an enigmatic twist. In the world of paranormal romance, she transforms the desire to scare into a quest to seduce and tantalize.
When not writing, Su is designing book trailers for herself and other authors.
Intricate Entanglement is Su’s latest release from Damnation Books, a mix of a thriller with an overlay of maddening darkness.
You can find Su online in any of these places:
Darkscrybe 
Greg,
Thank you for hosting this stop of my tour.
Su
Looks Awesome.
http://www.authorcvhunt.com
Thanks, C.V.
Su,
I read somewhere a while back that there are so many more mentally ill people in the world than we realize…because they have different levels of mental illness, from light gray to total black. Your friend, mother or next door neighbor may be one of those on the light gray end and seem to function fairly well in the world, but they aren't totally sane. They have their quirks or look at their/our reality in a different way than we do. I, myself as I'm sure most of you have, have known many of these on-the-fringe people (my mom and my one sister are two I've known…they didn't/don't live in the real world at all!). So mental health comes in all shades. Good post, Su! Good luck on your new book. Fellow DB/EP author, Kathryn Meyer Griffith
Intriguing interview, cover and book trailer, well done, Su!
@Kathryn: I'm sorry to hear about your mother and sister
Yes, I agree with you; mental health comes in different shades and levels.
If only there were a fail-safe method to detect the symptoms and nip them in the bud.
Thanks for stopping by, Kathryn.
@Conda,
Thank you so much for your kind words 🙂