Kate: 0:18
Hello and welcome to The Gale Hill Radio Hour. I'm your host, Kate Jones, here with Bibiana Krall and Veronica Cline Barton, prolific writers both on their own and as collaborators on The Haunted Series. Welcome to the show, Bibiana and Veronica!
Bibiana and Veronica: Thank you. Thank you, Kate.
Kate: So happy to have you here. We’re doing this interview in late October, so we must talk about The Haunted Series, otherwise known as “Haunting Stories that Take you Places.” What do you mean by that?
Bibiana: 0:55
“Haunting Stories that Take you Places.” Basically, the concept is that when you read one of these collections or hopefully all of these collections, you will immerse yourself in stories so deeply that you will feel taste, sense, smell and everything where we're taking you in these stories. And these stories are written around the world in all sorts of cool, sometimes exotic, sometimes not so exotic locations. But you are going to be haunted, you’re going to experience mysterious things and you are going to travel the world with us in these stories.
Veronica: 1:37
Well, I think from our travels I mean, Bibiana has traveled quite a bit and I have too and we thought, when we put the series together, it was right as the lockdown started with the pandemic and really there was no traveling or very limited traveling at the time, and so we just felt it important. We wanted to at least share some of our travel experiences and kind of twist them in the Haunted stories, of course, but we just felt that was an important element to bring out during the times.
Kate: 2:10
No kidding. So let’s move on to your other projects, if you don’t mind. There are quite a few of them. I noticed that you both have other series in addition to the Haunted. Who would like to start talking about your other projects?
[Slight pause.]
Kate: You’re so polite!
Veronica: 2:33
You know I can start. Thank you, Bibiana. One thing I’m very proud of, Kate, is I didn’t start writing until I was 59 years old. And I published my first book, “The Crown for Castlewood Manor,” the first story in my cozy mystery series. I published it in February of 2018. And I was 60 years old. I just I bring that up because I come from an engineering and more business background and always was a reader during my lifetime, but had never written anything. And so this, I was really proud of. What I guess kind of spurred me into getting into launching my writing career was “Downton Abbey” ended in 2018. And it was like, oh my gosh, what am I going to do on Sunday nights now? Because I can't go to Downton Abbey, you know. So I was thinking about it and thinking and thinking, and I decided to come up with my own version, if you will, and so I have my story. I asked the question: would you let a television series be filmed on your estate? And that kind of is the premise for the whole series, and my character, Gemma, goes to the family estate in England and they go through a set location competition, and my fictional show is called “Castlewood Manor,” so each of the books in my series has the Castlewood Manor tie. So it's about the trials and tribulations, I guess, that this family has on their estate as this television series is being produced. And so I’m now writing book nine in the series, so just in a short time, I’ve had the pleasure of exploring my cozy mystery side, I guess.
Kate: Prolific!
Veronica: Yeah, it is very prolific actually, pretty amazing stuff. But I can’t imagine, you know, now in my retirement, that I would be doing anything else. I mean, for me, the creative energy is just phenomenal and I’ve really found my voice. I know my storylines now, I know my characters and it’s just really a treat for me each year I write. I guess I was a little bit more prolific in the earlier years, but now I’m pretty much launching like a book a year in the mystery series and it’s really fun for me to be back with the characters each time and kind of see how they’ve grown and get them on the new adventure. So that was a lot of fun.
Kate: 5:37
Are you sometimes just going about your day and then a plot comes to you for the characters, a storyline comes to you? Does that happen, like pop into your head?
Veronica: 5:50
Oh yeah, all the time. A lot of times, you know, right in the middle of night. I keep very, very strange hours in our household and my husband is very accommodating with that. But I always have notepads or my phone where I send myself a text or whatever, because you never know when the inspiration is going to strike. But that’s just been a really fun experience with the cozy side. And then I did have two books with my character Rikkhe St Claire, the Hygge & Bisous Holiday Mysteries. And that kind of was an experiment that I started to during the lockdown. I really love Christmas. There’s nothing like a ghost at Christmastime for me. I love all the not-too-scary but just something, you know, that pulls in the memories and the holidays and that kind of thing. So the two books there, “Christmas Bizarre” and “Novel Noel” are, you know, just short stories just to get you in the mood for Christmas and the mysteries, I guess.
Kate: 6:58
Sounds great. So Bibiana?
Bibiana: What was the question?
Kate: 7:03
Oh, the question was talking about your other projects, which you have quite a few of.
Bibiana: 7:17
As far as other series, I have the Irish Phantom series and that's four books in total. It starts with a very gothic ghost story called “Corvus Hall.” I never even planned to write this series at all, but it was inspired by a very strange event that I experienced after Hurricane Matthew, and it was so weird and so bizarre that it actually kicked in some memories of when I was in Ireland with my family and I met this very strange little boy named Nigel, and they all kind of merged together in my brain and I was like, okay, you know, I gotta do something with this. So I finally did. And “Corvus Hall" is extremely gothic and the second book in the series, “Loftus Hall,” continues with the gothic, but it starts moving a little bit more into sort of myth and legend. So the series is different in the fact that it’s not all what I would say the same genre, but it tends to use a lot of magical realism because of the fact that you really have to leave your reality to believe some of the things that are happening. Some of the things happening are folkloric or mythological, and so when those things happen here in broad daylight and you see, I don’t know, we’ll say an eight-foot raven sort of hopping down the middle of the road but that raven is sentient and can say things to you or can do things to you. Well then, you have to kind of sort of let that reality part of it go. But that is because of really weird experience also in Ireland. I was staying at the Guinness. The man who started the Guinness beer factory had a very wealthy brother as well that was doing something else entirely, and outside of the city he had this gigantic mansion. Well, it is now a bed and breakfast, and I stayed there for a couple of days when we were visiting some family who live in Dublin. And I woke up the first morning and kept hearing scratching on window, all black birds, all ravens, crows, just every kind of black bird you can imagine. So I go down the hallway trying to get away from my family for five minutes because we’ve been on planes, in rental cars, etc. for days, and I open up this door, just like, you know, I wonder what’s in here, because it’s this weird old building. And it goes onto a rooftop, but the rooftop has walls, there are drains in the floor and there are ravens and crows everywhere. I mean hundreds, hundreds, all sitting on the drainage, and I was like, oh my, and I turned around to go back to the door and they started kind of flying down and I was like, oh no, no, no, like I got to get out of here. But it was freaking me out so bad that when we finally left and I saw some of the ravens and crows or whatever on the water spouts, I was like I’m not going back there. But it stuck in my brain. And when things like that stick in your brain when you’re a writer, you can do something with that, and so “Loftus Hall” certainly has that. And then “The Rage of Danu” is really about this goddess, the Danube. So Danu is the goddess of the Danube. But a lot of people don’t realize that Danu is also part of the magical family that supposedly are the fairies that got chased off and went underground, and that’s the reason Ireland is the way it is now versus the magical days. But she’s also part of that family as well. So I was drawing on mythology, imagination, crazy crows in your hotel, you know just all kinds of stuff. And the final book “Mont Pelier,” is about this really spooky, ooky place. I’m not exactly sure what has gone down on this hill, but it’s outside of Dublin and when I say hill it’s really more of a mountaintop. But Mont Pelier Hill has a lot of dark magic history to it, and I decided to basically conclude the book with a struggle between good and evil on Mont Pelier Hill. And there are people in the book, like Bridget, who is 100% aware of what’s going on but she doesn't necessarily tell everyone because she’s the typical wise, you know, older Irish woman who just kind of figures you need to figure it out for yourself. But she’ll come rescue you if you really screw it up. And that’s kind of how it goes in the book because she’s always the one who kind of knows, but she doesn’t get in the way of it because she understands, perhaps, that you can’t necessarily change someone’s fate. But she is willing to clean up the messes that are created from the dark magic that are sort of popping out because of the history of the house that they all live together in. So I have a lot of different projects going on, but you know, totally different. Away from all this spooky, ooky, magic, ghost stuff, I have a series called “Aether” that is super hyper modern and absolutely does not relate to anybody who would like any of these other books whatsoever. And it’s really about the digital world, about artificial intelligence, about a world that has basically left its humanity behind and is so controlled by technology that it loses its way. And so I take you on 20-year increments through time forward in the future to show you what the world could potentially look like if we keep following the trajectory that we’re on at this current moment. So, it’s a really interesting short story series that is written for really smart people who want to think about things beyond what’s easy, beyond what’s been discussed already. It’s really, really experimental, but it’s things I think about and it’s things that I hope people who have good intentions for humanity are also thinking about.
Kate: 14:12
Yeah, I was wondering about that series. It is so incredibly timely right now with the discussions going on with AI just, you know, exploding into our consciousness and it’s everywhere. So it’s very, very interesting. When did you start this series?
Bibiana: 14:35
I believe I started that series about about two or three years ago, and it was right before people were actually really discussing AI. It’s when AI came out, but no one was talking about it unless they were actually like in the software business. You know, ChatGPT didn’t exist yet, so it was still in its infancy and people were like, well, this is what it can do, and I’m like, but you haven’t even seen it, it hasn’t even been available to us. How do you know what what it can do? So in this sort of future-mindedness that I’m doing, what I’m looking at is how the world is in its scope of how it sees problems to solve, or problems that aren’t worth solving, depending on who’s looking at it. And how AI or how technology or how the future world could be affected by either lack of paying attention to the importance of what this can do or completely withdrawing and putting people in these very contained sort of situations where their emotions are so overpowering that they’re forgetting their logic, they’re forgetting their common sense and they’re giving all of that power to these machines. And these machines don’t necessarily have what’s best for people at heart, because they don’t have a heart. They’re machines, and the machines exist for themselves. So it’s like really kind of a picture of an extreme narcissist if it was a machine. And what does it do to the world? What does the world look like? And in the last book I wrote, the human race eradicated ourselves. Nobody else did it, we did it to ourselves. And the machines scraped up the goo and rebuilt human beings, but not because they wanted to save humanity, but because they needed something lower than them for entertainment. So that’s completely extreme and it’s pretty unlikely it would happen. But if AI was given full reign, if AI was given complete control over all systems, I mean, if human beings can build it and we use machines to do things, AI could potentially train machines to do the things it can’t do. If it’s inside of a box, we’ll say. So I like to think that way because it’s the most extreme, it’s the most far out and it’s that much possible at this point, but enough possible to make you think that maybe we need to be more mindful of what we’re giving these machines.
Kate:
Pay attention.
Bibiana:
Right. We need to be the ones who are in control of this technology and not allowing this technology to make those choices for us, because that is an ender’s game. It’s not a good idea.
Kate: 17:56
My goodness. I have a question I really want to ask you. In your writing careers, what have you both learned and how have you grown?
Bibiana: 18:07
Do you want to start, Veronica?
Veronica: 18:10
Well, I think, you know, kind of being the new kid on the block here, it’s been a tremendous learning experience for me. Not only just developing a cozy mystery series, switching from a novel to short stories, everybody thinks, oh, it should be a lot easier. It’s not like 90,000 words and now you’re 5,000 words per story. Well, that’s wrong. And I think, particularly working with Bibiana, I mean, I learned so much in terms of the structure of a short story and how to get your concepts around in that, and so that really kind of shifted my whole perception of writing. And you have to be very succinct. You have your start, middle and your ending. You’ve just got to make it work. And so I think collaborating these last few years with Bibiana with the short stories has really, I think, enhanced my writing for sure and has made me grow as a writer and as a person too, because when you’re collaborating on a book it’s not just your call. We have timelines, we have concepts that we try to stick to for each of the books and even though our stories are very different, we still have to coordinate that. So if you do decide to work with someone and do a collaboration like this, just make sure that you have common, I guess, work ethics and vision of how this thing’s gonna look at the end, you can support the timeline that you've set and then just go for it. Plus, we have really great conversations too. So every single day with Bibiana, we’re usually on the phone or texting and I just have to say it’s been a real honor and privilege to work with her and especially to have these four award-winning books. All four have won awards and it’s unlike anything else that I’ve done, and I am just so proud that during these uncertain times we came up with a pretty good gig, I think, together.
Kate:
Yay. Yay, you both.
Bibiana: 20:51
Oh, the things that I’ve learned. I’ve learned so much. To just kind of piggyback on the collaboration, you know I’ve collaborated with more than a few people. And the collaboration with Veronica, I think, two of the biggest reasons it was a successful collaboration is we respect each other. And we also did have this understanding that something that I was good at was going to be what I was gonna be doing and something she was good at was something she would be doing, so the work balance was divvied up fairly, instead of one person doing all the work or one person doing all the grunge, you know. I really think that’s a respect thing, that whole thing, and I would caution people if you get like a little niggle niggle when somebody says let’s do something together, take a step back, take a deep breath and think about it, because creatively, when you make these collaborations with people, you’re spending a lot of time together. You’re basically making a baby together and you’re not married, but you’re making a baby together and that baby is always gonna be out there and so you’re always gonna be connected with each other too. So it’s really, really important that you have that same work ethic, because I have a friend right now who is suffering that collaborating, trying to collaborate with somebody who’s actually really brilliant. But this brilliant person has no concept of time, has no concept of deadlines, and it is creating a massive amount of stress for the person on the other side of that. So it’s unfortunate because it doesn’t matter how brilliant or amazing you are, if you can’t get it done when it needs to be done, the business doesn’t happen. The business side doesn’t happen and your readers wanna see your book. They don’t wanna hear about you for the next five years talking about writing your book. They wanna see the book, they wanna hold the book, and that doesn’t happen unless you move through what I call kind of the sludge part of it, which is the tail-end after the final edit, when you really have to make some hard decisions about when it’s gonna publish and how it’s gonna look. And you know there’s a lot of moving parts to this kind of stuff. But as far as learning things about writing, I have learned that there’s a difference between a passion project and a viable business proposition or project, and so you really need to make a decision as a writer right from the get-go when you're writing your book. Is this going to be traditionally published? Is this going to be self-published? Am I going to use a boutique publisher? Who do I want to handle those parts of it? And also whether or not you’ve got the money to do it. It is not inexpensive to be an author, even an indie author. Veronica and I both are indie. I’m a hybrid, so I’m traditional and indie, but I’m basically publishing indie. She’s publishing indie and it costs money to do this. It’s not free to have an editor, it’s not free to make book covers, so you need to start socking money away so that you can put together a beautiful project. So if you’re completely flat broke, I’m not sure if writer is the best gig for you, because so far I’ve been doing this for about eight years and I’m just finally starting to see it arc upwards, and that is a very long time to wait for that payout. And, you know, I would see an average book — what would you say, Veronica? About $3,000 for a book cover, editing?
Veronica: 24:58
Probably so yeah, with editing everything in there.
Bibiana: 25:02
So right, and that’s indie level. Of course, you know, in traditional it’s a lot more because you have so many more people. But I have definitely learned that there’s a big difference between how you’re going to look at a book as a passion project or how you’re going to look at a book as a business proposal, and making those decisions and sticking to those decisions. But I’ve also learned that you could have a million people tell you it’s terrible, or tell you it’s wrong, or tell you not to do it, and if your heart is really, really in it, you know, I think that maybe you should. And the reason I say that is, in the world we live in, there’s all kinds of stuff going on and if you look at the books that are in the top 100 and, not dissing any of these authors, this is what the market wants right now. The majority of the fiction is very commercial, which means a lot of people can read it, a lot of people can get it, but the story lines aren’t really deep, the emotions of the characters aren’t really extended or complex. Well, the only reason I ever started reading in the first place was because I wanted complex characters. I wanted deep thoughts, and so if that’s the way you want to write, I say do it. Eventually the market might come back and people might want that. But even if it doesn’t, turn it into a passion project and get it done that way. But don’t expect to become the next Stephen King from your passion project, because only one in a billion that might happen for. But do it for yourself. If you do it for yourself and anything else happens after that, it’s golden, it doesn’t matter. So I’ve learned to follow my heart. That’s what I’ve learned.
Kate: 26:51
Great lesson. So is there anything else either of you would like to say? Why don’t you give your websites?
Bibiana: 27:01
Okay, well, my website is my name. It’s bibianakrall.com and I’m also on YouTube at Black Calyx Books. And I make book trailers for every single book and story and they’re cinematic and they’re extremely different than anything else you’ve ever seen. They are very cool. And I’m on Goodreads, BookBub, Amazon, Twitter. And Instagram as Ghost Girl.
Kate:
Ghost Girl!
Veronica: 27:39
Well, let’s see, my website is veronicaclinebarton.com and you’ll see, well, the three series that I write and co-write. So we have the Haunted Series, I have my Hygge and Bisous Holiday Mysteries, and then my American, Almost Royal Cousin Series. I'm also on YouTube. You can reach me at cozymysteryvcb, so that's my ID there on YouTube, and then I’m at vclinebarton on X, so that’s my primary social media platform right now.
Kate: 28:37
OK, and I’ll put everything in the show’s descriptions. It really, really has been a pleasure having you both on. Thank you so very much. This is Kate Jones with The Gale Hill Radio Hour. Until next time, thanks for joining us. Please share this episode with anyone who loves a good tale.
