An Open Vein
Release: October 2007, Grove Creek Publishing

I couldn't stop thinking about a love triangle that traps an innocent inside. The idea of two men loving the same woman makes for tight drama, and when one of those men gets burned and it's too much for him, I loved the idea of taking his inability to accept or cope, to the extreme.

The idea of a lie becoming so real to someone that it dictates their life choices was one I couldn't stop thinking about: Revenge vs. reality.

It was then that my character Kane was created: A cunning, intelligent, handsome man…the devil himself, with an irresistible aura hiding behind the respected facade of "Doctor" that would erase any doubt and draw the believing and trusting in with the force of tornado.

John is "every boy" with the exception of his gift of intelligence, an irony that proffers him nothing when up against Kane's magnetism and manipulation. John is the beloved, part of the triangle that binds his parents and himself to Kane.

I saw Kane and John in the heart of New York, the antithesis of the secluded environment Kane creates for them inside of his apartment ironic and symbolic in light of the events that unfold over the summer and early fall. There, in a city of millions, Kane masterfully weaves the final threads of a web he has spent his life weaving, trapping them both in a cocoon that forces their relationship into an intimate yet ambiguous closeness. Even the season of summer being in sweltering, direct, weakening heat, then fading into the tired shades of fall, are symbolic of events for both Kane and John. For Kane, a life long endeavor becomes as brittle as dead, falling leaves. For John, what he perceives as truth leaves him weak and easily crushed.

An Open Vein comes from Kane inducing John's weakening illness, from Kane keeping John bedridden in an effort to control him. When John has enough and rips out the IV, Kane tells him he's left his vein open, that destructive forces are now free to enter his body and do damage. Trusting, afraid and confused, John allows Kane to put the IV back in.

I grew to love being in John's head as he tried to figure out what Kane was really doing. To show the confusion and loss John felt when Kane told him that he was his child, that the threesome John had known all of his life was really two men in love with the same woman. I was challenged by showing John trying to "see" into Kane with gifted eyes that really weren't gifted, but rather young and innocent in spite of being labeled "gifted." John realizes that a label doesn't automatically move a person into adulthood. Nor does it set another on a pedestal of perfection.

Music plays an integral role in my writing, and Coldplay's A Rush of Blood to the Head embodied this story. The minor chords, the lonely ache of the lone piano present in many of the songs helped me create the dark, foreboding, lonely and frightening moods that shift from scene to scene. CLOCKS is John's theme. The lyrics are John's deepest thoughts when he's locked in that room alone wondering how he got there, and why he's allowing something he doesn't understand to occur. Even the repetitive piano chords at the beginning of the song mirror the repetition of his days, building until he finally realizes and understands the truth.

Classical music references in the novel are Kane's. Powerful, haunting and frightening, Kane chooses these songs and has them playing when he leaves John alone, trapped, so that this experience of possession leaves its mark on John.

An Open Vein was an exciting departure for me creatively. So different in mood, tone and voice from my other work, like a fascinating vacation spot you visit once in a lifetime and can't ever forget-even long to return to- but know a second trip will fall short of the first, lacking, as it would, in the virgin elements of "first time" and surprise.