Shelly's Therapy Hour: Heather Cashman

Welcome to Shelly’s Therapy Hour. Today we have with us Heather...

Thanks, I need to get some of these things off my chest. Can I lay down?

Um, just don't fall asleep. Today on the couch we have Heather Cashman, author of Perception and a blogger. Blogger, huh? Aren’t bloggers rather narcissistic blabbermouths? **scribbles on paper **

I suppose I've been rather self-absorbed lately. I like to talk about myself all the time, but doesn't that make me more like Paris Hilton or Lady Gaga? Don't people love narcissists?

The kind of people who watch reality TV, perhaps. What drives a rather sane-looking person, like yourself, to write?

Sane-looking is the key. I hear voices in my head all the time. I can't even do laundry without seeing these continual movies play on the stage of my mind. The only way I can get them to stop is to write it down. But then the voices start again with another problem they have to solve, another adventure they have to overcome.

Do you think you can make it stop? I've written an entire book about these people!

You wrote a whole book? Interesting. What is this “book” about?

I wrote a book about a girl from the future. I think she's warning me about what's going to happen, but I don't want to say too much or the CIA might want to find out what I know. Is that paranoid? Do you think I'm paranoid?

**removes glasses** Yes.

Anyway, I wrote the story of this girl exactly how she told it to me--her adventures from the future. Here's the description.

** hands over paper **

Why did you chose to write Perception?

This is everyone's story in some way or another. Ardana is a brave soul trying to find her place in the world. Like so many of us, she feels like there is no way out, like there is no freedom of choice if she wants to do the right thing. Instead of giving up, she depends on the love of her tiger to see her through. It is a story of loyalty, sacrifice, and the internal battles we all fight.

These characters in your book, they talk to animals. This is not a sane thing to do. Do you talk to animals?

Well, of course I can't exchange thoughts with animals like Ardana and so many humans in Calem can. But they are from over five-hundred years in the future. Ardana has told me that right now, in the middle of Kansas somewhere, there is a secret military facility where the government is doing research on test-tube babies and animals to create super-human soldiers. Mixing DNA has consequences that the scientists of today can't see. It will eventually allow the human and animal to link mentally--a human companion and their animal ingenium. That is where her race evolves from. But I'm still avoiding checking out the facility in Kansas. I really think the CIA might know I'm on to something. **glances over shoulder warily**

I visited your blog, Heather, and I am rather concerned. The apple, on your blog, looks like it is going to kill me. Is this depiction of fanged fruit something deep seated from your childhood?

I love my bad apple. It might be a deep-seeded apple, but isn't from my childhood. It represents my quest for knowledge which I satiate through reading. This is the explanation from my blog: [Eve's] thirst for knowledge some consider a sin. I consider it the best thing that could have happened in the history of man. What better tribute to her than the depiction . . . of an insatiable thirst for knowledge?

**exaggerated sigh** Did someone talk you into becoming a writer? You know that you choose to be a writer, don’t you?

I chose to write the stories I wanted to read. My family talked me into publishing them. The rest has been a roller-coaster that seems to be exponentially increasing in speed.

Well since I have no actual medical license to administer counseling, I guess you are free to continue being an author. I cannot prescribe crazy pills but I offer my condolences to your husband. Have him take two pizzas (since I know you’re not cooking dinner and writing at the same time) and call me in the morning.

Isn’t Heather a good sport?

Thanks for playing along J

For more ACTUAL information about Heather visit her at

http://www.heathercashman.com/

Blog http://heathercashman.com/better_off_read/

Buy her book at http://www.heathercashman.com/perception/perception.html

Twitter https://twitter.com/#!/HeatherCashman