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Title: The Unholy
Author: Paul DeBlassie III
Publisher: Sunstone Press
Pages: 200
Language: English
Genre: Psychological/Paranormal Thriller
Format: Paperback/Kindle
Purchase at AMAZON
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
Book Excerpt:
“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.
PAUL DeBLASSIE III, PhD, is a psychologist and writer living
in his native New Mexico
His latest book is the psychological/paranormal thriller, The Unholy.
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Interview
Can you tell us a little about the background of the writing of your book?
The story comes out of over thirty years of treating patients in psychotherapy who are survivors of the dark side of religion…have been used and abused and cast to the side. I’ve seen that when this happens people, those around the victim, to include family and friends, often turn a blind eye and deny what has happened. Rather than writing a self help book I decided to approach this realm of human suffering in fiction. To tell a story moves the reader into a deep and unconscious dimension that bypasses conscious defenses, leaving us open to truths that otherwise would be blocked. So, dramatizing the dark side of religion, pulling what can be the most vile and evil, and pivoting it against an innocent and sincerely searching soul leaves the reader on edge, hopeful, but unsure as to what will happen and who in the end will survive…a truth conveyed symbolically and dramatically. To have written out a list of what to do or not to do in the midst of religious abuse might have helped some individuals, but would have left many people stone cold because there is no emotion is such guidance. In The Unholy, the story is pure emotion, fear and rage and hope and challenge, that inspires and frightens and causes us to stay up late at night in order to finish the story. Dream and chronic nightmares plagues people who’ve gone through the horror of being abused within a religious system. It could be emotional, spiritual, physical, or sexual torment---or all of the above---a true encounter with the unholy---that people undergo during childhood or adolescence or adulthood. They become anxious, depressed, or suffer a terrible emotional breakdown. I’ve treated them, helped them, and they helped to inspire the story of The Unholy!
How do you balance 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 you get your ideas 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.
Do you have any advice for writers?
If you’re feeling the impulse to write it’s because you have writing in you so do not stop no matter what inner or outer critics have to say because it’s not about going down a dead end road and then giving up so much as taking turns in the road as they present themselves. Write and never stop. I read a famous horror writer state that each writer needs to know when they should just give up. Completely, totally, and utterly I disagree. There is no giving up for the authentic writer, one inspired, called by the gods. Writing is matter of sanity and life. To not write for a writer is no more possible than to not breathe. Writers everywhere keep on writing. Never has there been more opportunity to write and be published. Even being published is secondary. Write and never stop because at some point and in some way you’re going to hit a stride that will catch a publishers eye and they’ll want to take you on. So, as far as advice for writers, stay with it, never ever give up, catch your stride and without question you will one day meet up with your publisher and audience. Lastly, when despair comes over you as a writer, take it as a good thing since usually behind all things shadowy there is a truck load of potential. That potential eventually reaches consciousness providing that despair is understood as a fallow time and nothing more or less than that. It’s not a dead end. It’s a turn in the road or redirection of sorts that sends the writer deeper so she or he can listen with greater sensitivity and ultimately discover fresh inspiration.
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