I’m here today with Julia Dudek author of Pieces–a psychological thriller set in New York City.
Me: Hi Julia, thank you so much for joining me today on this beautiful Friday morning. I’m gonna start off simple, how long have you been writing?
Julia: Thanks, Al!  I believe sometime in ’87 I learned how to properly grip a pencil…its been nothin’ but gold ever since.
Me: Wow 87′ huh, I was into full-blown Bic’s by then. So I have to ask who is your favorite author?
Julia: I myself jumped right from pencils to glitter gel pens. Anyway, that’s a tough question if you’re making me choose just one..so I reject your question and will instead choose four. My favorite poet/short story writer is John Updike. Read his short story âA&Pâ⌠itâs amazing the profoundness one can conjure from the meager and commonplace happenings of Americana. My favorite non-fiction writer is Quantum Physicist Michio Kaku. The man is genius. And he wraps it all into a tight little layman package that minds like mine can unwrap with ease. Love him. For genre fiction, itâs got to be Stephanie Meyer. She knows what grips the modern psyche â love and forbidden romance and paranormal actionâŚawesome. For literary fiction, Alice Sebold is my deity. Her words are paint on a canvas. Like from The Almost Moon⌠âWhen all is said and done, killing my mother was easy⌠My motherâs core was rotten like the brackish water at the bottom of a weeks-old vase of flowers.â The words are haunting and ugly and beautiful all at once. She makes emotions visual. When an author can do that, it gives me chillsâŚ
Me: Oh Julia you rebel, quantum psychics huh, you just blew my mind wide open. So what was the message you were trying to convey in Pieces?
Julia: Pieces happened by accident on purpose. Iâd always wanted to write a book, and my grandmother â years before â had helped me brainstorm this particular story â minus the lunacy. So the message wasnât apparent to even myself at first. But in hindsight, Iâd say that the story has a lot to do with âfinding oneâs selfâ. We all have a little darkness in us, and Angelique (the main character in Pieces) almost loses herself to it. She needs to search inside to save herself.
Me: I love when things happen accidentally on purpose, for me that’s a good hair day. I’m wondering, since you graciously gave us several authors you love, are there any new authors that have piqued your interest?
Julia: First of all, thank you for using the correct spelling on âpiquedâ. For that I will continue this interview. Okay, so you mean other than Allison B. Levine? Well Iâm a little out of practice in the indie book world â though Iâm working on my comeback â but I always have to give props to Joe Perrone Jr., author of the Matt Davis mysteries, for his work.
Me: I’m blushing a little. Back to the story at hand. Angelique is very unique, where did you get the inspiration for her character?
Julia: It was 7th grade, and I came home after school and ran across the back yard to my grandmotherâs house (our houses were back to back) to show her my âSnovel Awardâ for my short novel âA Knock at the Doorâ. I was already an avid writer at 12, and she could relate, having been something of a writer herself (she attended NYU for Journalism until her brothers were sent to war and she had to be home to help her mother with her sister.) My grandmother envisioned two best friends, âAngelique and Bernadetteâ⌠one darker and more mysterious, and the other vibrant and beautiful. I framed Angelique on that basis, but I also drew from a few characters on television that I felt embodied her personality.
Me: I think Buffy the Vampire Slayer without the Vampires, but that’s just me. đ I must ask, your concept was very fresh and new; where ever did you come up with this story line?
Julia: Without giving too much awayâŚI think the general plot is relatable â the loss of a close friend brings the darkest parts of a person to the surface. The thirst for revenge is hardly a new motivation. The feelings of hopelessness are a recurring theme in life. But I wanted the execution of the plot to be different. I didnât want to do the typical super human reactionary thing where my main character conquered all with ease. I wanted Angelique to stay human and vulnerable and relatable. I thought hard about the kinds of things a person might fantasize about if they were in similar situations as Angelique, faced with the challenges she was faced with. Also I might be a little crazy. đ
Me: I have to tell you if anything happened to a close friend of mine I would not be held responsible for my actions so I can say that it was totally relatable. And yeah you’re crazy, crazy like a fox! Speaking of sexy…Do you or have you ever owned a red corset?
Julia: Yes. Next Question.
Me: Interesting. Mysterious. Evading…I like it. Reading Pieces the devil is in the details, your book is so exquisitely detailed, how much time did it take you to write it? Did you have any collaborative help on the editing, cover art etc.?
Julia: Thank you. I like details for my writing â I like to paint the scene with words. If people can visualize what I can visualize, Iâm satisfied. I wrote Pieces in five months, but it was a labor of love that I dedicated many of the wee hours of the night to when my two young children were asleep. Editing I did myself, but prior to that process, I was very lucky to have the guidance of other self-published authors. The cover I did myself, as well.
Me: You certainly are a jack of all trades (not in that condescending way) I have to say I’m impressed. Has anything in your own life ever led you down a path you would never fathom taking?
Julia: Yes and no. My life has had many twists and turns that some might see as complications, but where I am now I always knew Iâd end up. Is that odd to say? I remember ripping the cover off of a parenting magazine with a picture of a little girl that I envisioned my daughter would look just like one day, two years before she was born. She looks just like that picture. I guess what I mean is everything I am now, feels like home to me.
Me: It’s good to see good things happen to good people. Ok, you’ve been out of the game a little what I’m dying to know is there any new news happening in Angelique’s world? Is there a sequel on the horizon? *anticipated excitement*
Julia: ABSOLUTELY. Angelique is back and better than ever in the sequel Falling in Two. The book is 90% complete (for personal reasons, it needed to be shelved for a while, but Iâm working towards completion for a release this year.) In this book, Angelique faces her demons once again, but nothing is what it seems. I honestly believe the sequel is even better than the first and I am so excited to release it.
Me: I cannot even contain how excited I am to hear this. I’ve been holding on for a bit till I get to see what happens! Reading this book made me want to study medicine, how time-consuming was it to get so much technical detail?
Julia: It took a while to do the research, but I was pretty focused and had a lot of momentum. I think the second book probably took a bit more time to research, but I always appreciate a level of technical detail that adds a level of realism to the story, so I felt it was worth it.
Me: Must be that quantum physicist in you! Ok I have to talk about the male hottie of Pieces. Ben, beautiful charming, no-nonsense Ben. Did you dream him up or was there a special someone who was the catalyst for him?
Julia: Oh BenâŚmy Ben⌠the man of my dreams. I always pictured him as a young Nathan Fillion, but less Canadian. Itâs awesome when you can invent a man, but Iâm sure you know that đ When Iâm an elderly dementia patient, Iâm sure him and I will spend many afternoons together.
Me: Oh he is a cutie patootie! All the Firefox fans are swooning right now! Obviously Ben was a fun part to writing the book but what was the hardest part to writing this book? What was your biggest hurdle?
Julia: The biggest hurdle was the beginning. I knew how it would end, and I had already outlined the middle before it was written, but the beginning was tough. The beginning is crucial â it needs to grip the readerâs attention, and it needs to get to the action quick, but not without robbing the plot of the detail and foundation needed to make the rest of the story believableâŚ
Me: So true, you must have that cohesive balance of drama and action to grip that reader tight. Not to mention that your visual description of the surroundings of the story leads me to ask have you ever lived in New York City, I felt like I was there?
Julia: I have not. Believe it or not, Google and Google Earth helped me a lot when it came to descriptions of some of the streets and areas I wasnât too familiar with. Thatâs the beauty of writing in the age of the internet, I suppose. I have definitely visited New York City before and spent a lot of time there as a young adult â and I knew it would be a great setting for this story.
Me: It’s always good to have some kind of knowledge of the setting, I, too, went with NYC because itâs close to home, it’s familiar. You’ve been around the block already (no pun intended) what advice would you give a new author like myself?
Julia: I would say there is an immense amount of opportunity for authors to find success in self-publishing due to the internet and social media. A lot of times âand Iâm hearing this more and more â self-published authors find more success than those who go through the trouble of finding agents and nabbing book contracts. Small contracts will only market you so much. This way, an author can market themselves as much as they want. I have a bunch of friends who are doing amazing too.
Me: That is good advice. I probably should have asked this when I asked about NYC but I like to throw caution to the wind. Where did you grow up?
Julia: The Jersey Shore â born and raised. * fist pumping while answering question*
Me: GTL baby G.T.L. Before I become a woower, let’s get back to serious. What was the first written work you’ve ever done?
Julia: Wow, thatâs a tough one. Like I said, Iâve been writing since I could hold a pencil. But I guess my first organized, edited work would be a comic book series I wrote in grade school I wrote and illustrated called âThe Adventures of Boogieâ ⌠I also wrote and edited my elementary school newspaper called The Tomahawk Press (the Principal gave me a staff and access to the computer lab. It was fun).
Me: So you were almost like a child prodigy, almost. You should talk to my nephew his first work was “The Adventures of Mr. Bacon.” Since you’ve been writing since the womb you must have some idea of what you hope to accomplish in your writing future. What would that be?
Julia: My immediate goal is to release Falling in Two. Then I have another novel about halfway complete Iâd like to finish before the end of the year as well. Long term, I hope to reach more readers with my writing. Itâs what I love to do and I love that no matter what else is going on in my life itâs something I can always work on.
Me: Being one of your readers I can say that you’ve reached me, you’ve inspired me and you’ve been a mentor to me and for that I thank you. Did you learn anything from writing this book and did you learn from it?
Julia: I learned a lot about grammar. đ Since I edited myself, every time I ran into something I didnât know the answer to, I had to look it up (e.g., sunk vs. sankâŚthat kind of thing among many others). I wanted it to be perfect. This might be a good place to suggest Grammar Girlâs blog for any authors self-editing â she helped a lot.
Me: I feel I’m so far gone I just have to rely on the kindness of others to take on that task for me *cause I’m so self-important* not really, just really stinking bad at grammar.
That concludes my first interview ever with one of my favorite authors. I encourage you to check out Julia Dudek’s Pieces available anywhere books are sold. But I’ll give you direct links to Amazon.com just to make it easier.
Here’s a little blurb…
Angelique isnât a killer, not trulyâbut witnessing the cold-blooded murder of her best friend, and discovering that the killerâs identity is mysteriously missing from her memory, sends the beautiful medical studentâs moral compass spinning wildly out of control.
To bring the murderer to justice, Angelique needs to remember, and she uncovers a dangerous way to do itâpiece by piece. Now her biggest challenge is completing her precarious mission before the benevolent detective, Ben Marsden, learns that the person behind the cityâs string of bizarre killings, and the woman he has fallen helplessly in love with, are one and the same.
A Lost Writing Soul 
