Muse: Raven, first of all, Whispers of the Muse welcomes you and Quest to the site. Tell us a little about yourself. What part of the world do you live in? Tell us about your background?
Dane: I am known throughout the cyberverse as the Gothmother and as a writer of dark fantasy, I am happily accepted at the school gate in my Goth velvet long skirts and witchy silver bling! My family kept Aer Lingus and the ferries across the Irish Sea in business as I grew up giving me a background in both Irish and British culture. Childhood memories of the medieval city of Kilkenny with its narrow winding streets, castle and ancient towers are definitely an early influence. I followed by father and grandfather into journalism but had no desire to be a hot-shot reporter and meandered into feature writing. A serious road accident and long recovery brought me to working with my great lifelong love, horses. I met my husband while training to be an instructor and we have now a small stud of pure bred Spanish mares nestling in a valley in the glorious Chiltern Hills. Paradise!

Muse: Who are your favorite authors?
Dane: Ray Bradbury, Stephen King, Dean Koontz, Phil Rickman, Anne McCaffery, Helen Hollick, Robert MacCammon.

Muse: Why do you write?
Dane: Someone called writers ‘possessed scribblers’ and that certainly applies to me. I have always written.  As a child, I was encouraged and embarrassed by my wonderful English teacher Miss Currie who read out my stories to the rest of the class.  I have an innate need to create worlds and tell people stories.

Muse: What is your writing regiment? How often do you work on a novel? Do you set daily time or word goals? What keeps you meeting your deadlines?
Dane: Like many women, I have to fit my work around everyday domestic life. I have a wonderfully supportive husband and son who turn a blind eye to undusted shelves and microwave ready meals when I am at the frantic creative stage of starting a new novel. Then they get on my case when I procrastinate over the endless tedious re-editing stage.
The animals are not so patient and their needs have to be met, even with exciting plot twists filling my head, demanding to be written down...Now!

I do my best to write every day. Quest was written very quickly as was Blood Lament, which features my favorite Dark Kind bad boy, Jazriel.  Blood Alliance however, was a tough, uphill slog of a book to write. It was very stressful and a relief to finish. My background in journalism helps me to keep to deadlines.

Muse: Raven, in Quest, your unique, fantasy characters have a very interesting outlook on life, sparked with humor and tongue-in-cheek observations. Are you anything like your characters? Does the way you personally look at life reflect in your writing style?
Dane: Oh what a fun question!  I do love to have a laugh and see the funny side of life. Especially in the company of friends. Perhaps it is a survival mechanism as I do suffer from severe anxiety and OCD, luckily under control with medication. My father and brother have an amazing sharp and quirky sense of humour so maybe there is a genetic link.  Descended from a line of medieval court jesters?
The only character I may be like is Morven The Unwise Woman. There is a lot of me in her. Including the being a white witch bit.

Muse: What are the creative jumping off points for you? Are you inspired by dreams? Music? Nature? What triggers your imagination?
Dane: Gosh, probably all of the above.  A chance conversation, an image, some evocative music.  Vivid dreams falling asleep during the day has given me inspiration too. I haven’t a clue where Quest came from; it just poured out of my head onto the PC is a continuous stream of consciousness. Bizarre.

Muse: Tell us about the story in Quest.
Dane: Quest starts as the separate tales of a mismatched group of people and beings living in an unnamed fantasy world. When danger threatens their dysfunctional lives they are thrown together to form an unwilling Fellowship.  Destined, perhaps, to save the land from the invading evil army from the Land of Darkness and Despair.

Quest takes on and subverts every high fantasy cliché and trope in an affectionate but irreverent way.

Muse: What was your inspiration for this story?
Dane: I seriously haven’t got a clue!  It just arrived from the labyrinthal depths of my brain.

Muse: What is your favorite scene in this wonderful novel and why?
Dane: I love one scene that still makes me laugh out loud every time I read it. The mighty, invading Army of Darkness and Despair are suddenly stalled outside a dark forest on their march towards the Land of Goodness and Light. Their leader, the demonic Prince Rafial demands to know what is causing the hold up. Out of the woods lurch a terrified zombie and scary clown. Rafial’s attempts at interrogating them is doomed to failure, what with the zombie’s tongue having rotted away and the panic struck clown accidently releasing evil doves, strings of dirty hankies etc etc!

Muse: Have you written other books?
Dane: I have three of my dark fantasy series, The Legacy of the Dark Kind already published. They are Blood Tears, Blood Lament and Blood Alliance.

Muse: How do you feel about the current publishing marketplace?
Dane: A madhouse! Britain’s satirical magazine Private Eye occasionally publishes a worst seller list. Big publishing houses giving vast mega bucks advances for books, usually z list ‘celebrities’ that only sell 500 copies.  Yet they ignore great, well written and highly commercial books that people actually want to read. Insane!

The self publishing phenomena has given a useful outlet to good writers but also flooded the market with badly written, unedited dross.  The JK Rowling effect has a lot to answer for; so many people think churning out some derivative rubbish will be the road to riches and fame.