An Honest Lie Volume 2 is in production. The final edits are being … finalized by M.E. Johnson, the formatting headache is in the very capable hands of our Publisher Debrin Case and they have left me in charge of keeping you all updated on our progress. Progress is, as ever it does, progressing and at a phenomenal rate. We are all very happy with what we’ve selected and we are certain you will be too.

In the interest of keeping you titillated about what you can expect from AHL V2 we are offering up a glimpse inside the minds of the Authors you’ll be reading. Over the next few weeks we will be bringing you Artist Interviews from each of the featured Authors in AHL V2.

So, without further adieu I want you to help me welcome C.B. Calsing. C.B. graced us with a great tale, “Gran’s Prophecy” , in An Honest Lie Volume 1 and she is back in volume 2 with “Martina Gets the Last Word”. She is also working with Open Heart Publishing to publish her short story collection “All Along the Pacific”. When asked what her inspiration was for the collection here is some of what she had to say.

The first story I wrote that became part of “All Along the Pacific” was “A Common Whore.” I had heard a story from a fumigator about a brothel in Pismo Beach, California. I thought at first about fictionalizing this, but then the character of Lydia just sort of came up out of the soup of information I was dealing with. She’s a complete fabrication, not based on anything historic I had heard, but she really did appeal to me. The story of an abused woman on the run is not a new one, and back in the 1920s, there weren’t a lot of options in that type of situation, so prostitution seemed like a logical place to end up. But I didn’t want it to be a normal story, so I threw in the son, but then realized it would be even more interesting if it were a step-son instead of a biological son that she steals.

I am excited to see what else is in store. There is much more to that story. Stay tuned for much more from C.B Calsing. We asked C.B. a few other honest questions and here are her honest answers.

Open Heart Publishing: Thank you for taking the time to do this interview for us. So, the anthology is titled, “An Honest Lie: Delusions of Insignificance”. I want to ask you a two part question. First, what is an honest lie?

C.B. Calsing: An honest lie or An Honest Lie? Because there is quite a difference, don’t you think? An Honest Lie is a great series of anthologies, each with a different central theme, that is sure to entertain readers. They feature talented up-and-coming writers that are enthusiastic about what they do and eager to share their work with the world.

An honest lie, on the other hand, is a fib designed to make someone feel better, like when we tell a sick friend she’s looking great, or a parent how cute his child is when in fact that baby looks like a shrunken old man. These small fibs lube the gears that make up society and civilization. That reminds me of the movie The Invention of Lying. Can you imagine if everyone were brutally honest like that? The individuals wouldn’t be able to keep society together. It would fall apart. So what if sometimes our bosses tell us “Good job” and then turn around and roll their eyes. It doesn’t matter so long as we don’t see it. We think we did a good job and with a smile on our face we go about our day. We want to believe these lies to be true, and because more often than not they are subjective lies, it’s easier to convince ourselves of that.

OHP: Great answer! Now on to the second part; what is a delusion of insignificance?

C.B.: A delusion of insignificance is feeling that we are worthless. Self-deprecation, self-pity when in fact we are loved, intrinsic in someone else’s life, and completely necessary. I think most people live with these delusions. Otherwise they are over the top in the opposite direction, like egomaniacs. It’s hard to find a balance between confidence and modesty, and a delusion of insignificance goes a long way in the modesty column.

OHP: For some of us writing isn’t a job or even a serious career path, we write because we can, we write because we love it. Why do you feel the need to write?

C.B.: Pashaw. I don’t need to write. I can stop anytime I want. I’ve done it before. I think I went weeks one time with writing a single word. You don’t believe me? I can stop right now. Watch. There. I did it. What? Well, I only started again because I wanted to. I didn’t need to. It’s not like a compulsion or anything. Besides, it’s not going to kill me so long as it’s in moderation, right? Yeah, I know: signs of addiction, blah, blah, blah. Does it affect my work? I’ve only missed, like, one day ever to write. Relationships? Well…

OHP: I lolled at that one. I can relate to the passion for writing and a tempering of that with a little humor. Why did you decide to submit your work to An Honest Lie?

C.B.: In the C.B. Calsing School of Professional Writing, the first rule taught is “Money flows to the writer.” I particularly like royalty paying markets because even at my age, I’m thinking about retirement. That little bit coming in every month or quarter or year… That’s beer money right there.

OHP: Many great writers are very practical people. I believe it comes from the preservatives in ramen noodles. Yet we write anyway. Most people have two stories for doing anything… a plausible excuse and the real reason. Why do you really write?

C.B.: I didn’t really give a plausible excuse to the above answer, did I? I write because I’ve always written. I started when I was three, and my mom and dad would make books with me. Real, cloth-bound, stitched together books. Throughout junior high and high school I wrote derivative novellas and angsty, Goth poetry. By college I’d started in on short fiction that showed a glimmer of originality, and I’ve been building from that for years now. Everyone around me defines me as a writer: my parents, my husband, my friends. When we get together, the question is always “What are you working on?” or “What comes out next?” I’ve been defined by what I do, and honestly I have no problem with that. I can’t imagine not writing.

OHP: Well we are glad to have you with us. Tell our readers something about your inspiration for “Marina Gets the Last Word”.

C.B.: I am a fan of the paranormal and horror, particularly the old masters like Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft. I went through a phase last summer — 2009 — where I was writing a lot of horror stories: werewolves, elder gods living inside Norwegian black metal albums, vengeful women returning as oyster monsters from the briny depths…. Those sorts of things. The one thing that most of the horror sites listed in their submission guidelines is that they were tired of the old tropes. I got to thinking how someone could make a sort of standard haunting story new and different. What made Poe and Lovecraft great to me was not necessarily their ability to craft really scary situations or write in detail about giant, slimy beasts, but the use of their characters’ tension to create the feeling of dread in the reader. Either of these writers could have made buttering toast a harrowing experience if they had wanted to. I decided to create a sort of mundane haunting, a journal that seems to write itself in the hand of a dead woman, and then add to that a character that is a little haunted by something else: his own guilt and, maybe to a lesser extent, booze. This would give me plenty of room to move around the psychology and tension of the issue. Finally I realized the best way to break from the old ideas of a horror short story was to destroy the expectations the readers would have for the ending. That’s how I came up with “Martina Gets the Last Word.”

OHP: Besides short stories what other writing endeavors are you currently engaged in?

C.B.: I’ve written a young adult novel set during World War Two that I need to find time to revise. I love to write historic fiction, and so I took the opportunity during NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writers Month (ed.) last year to get this idea I’d had down on paper. This year, I’m working on a fantasy western, I think.

OHP: So, we live during a time in story telling history where the Hero/Villain dynamic is more popular than ever. Who would you say is your writing mentor/ hero?

C.B.: Without a doubt, I can say that my writing hero is Philip K. Dick. He worked hard for years, never giving up, staying dedicated to his genre. My weakest point in my writing is his greatest strength: the ability to make the story about the relationships and people without the bizarre plots or interesting settings overwhelming the story. My work is so often plot driven; I know I need to step back and reevaluate, looking at it with the kind of eye he would have had. I try to think like him when I work.

OHP: Do you have a writing nemesis?

C.B.: I believe I have a writing nemesis, but I’m not sure she really counts because she probably has no idea. She might not even know I exist, though I have taken a class with her. I’ll sometimes check her book’s Amazon ranking against anthologies and things that I’m in. If she’s ranked higher than me, I cry out “Curses!” and shake my fist at the monitor.

OHP: Wonderful. I have just a few more questions for our readers. In your opinion, which is the more important discovery of humankind… plumbing or the written word?

C.B.: Hmmm… Shitting in a hole or having to listen to recitations for entertainment? That is probably the most difficult question in this entire interview. Without writing we’d have no scripted entertainment of any kind. All reality shows on the tele? Ick. I supposed I’d rather poop in the yard and then go watch Glee than consider the alternatives. So the written word wins. Definitely.

OHP: According to Anatole France “To die for an idea is to set a rather high price on conjecture.” In your opinion what do you believe is worth dying for? What do you believe is worth living for?

C.B.: I have — let’s say — a very tenuous hold on my spirituality. I’m also quite pessimistic. As a result, I have very little faith that anything better lies down the road, so nothing is worth dying for. This life may be all I get, so why would I waste it on ideals or self-sacrifice? Everything is worth living for.

OHP: Mark Twain once said that “You can’t depend on your eyes when your imagination is out of focus.” What do you believe he meant by that?

C.B.: Well, many philosophers would tell us that the world only exists as a reflection of our mind or perception — like why we would all draw a different chair if asked to draw a chair. There’s no one “chair” that exists in the world that we all look to as a perfect example. Everything in existence is colored by our minds and, by extension, our imagination. I’m prone to exaggerate. Sometimes when I describe something I saw, I’ll up the numbers or the scope of the encounter. I don’t realize until after I’ve said — during a retelling of the story — the first number out-loud that I’m probably off. There weren’t twenty cop cars there, but maybe twelve. I have to go back and correct myself. My imagination wants the amazing things I witness in my day-to-day life to be even bigger. Therefore I can never be relied upon to give accurate testimony.