D.C. Gomez Interview - Plague Unleashed ~ JeanBookNerd

Photo Content from D. C. Gomez

D. C. Gomez is an award-winning USA Today Bestselling Author, podcaster, motivational speaker, and coach. Born in the Dominican Republic, she grew up in Salem, Massachusetts. D. C. studied film and television at New York University. After college she joined the US Army, and proudly served for four years.

D. C. has a Master’s Degree in Science Administration from the Central Michigan University, as well as a Master in Adult Education from Texas A&M- Texarkana University. She is a certified John Maxwell Team speaker and coach, and a certified meditation instructor from the Chopra Center.

One of D. C. passions is helping those around her overcome their self-limiting beliefs. She writes both non-fiction and fiction books, ranging from Urban Fantasy to Children’s Books.

Greatest thing you learned at school.
I am extremely blessed to have the opportunity to attend film school for my undergraduate degree. One of the best lessons they taught us, was to write about what we know. To become familiar with the world around us and capture that essence.

When/how did you realize you had a creative dream or calling to fulfill?
I knew from a very early age that I was in love with being a storyteller. It didn’t matter the medium I enjoy telling stories. My father confirmed it as well as he joked with me, that since I was in elementary school I had a very vivid imagination.

Tell us your most rewarding experience since being published.
The most rewarding experience has been connecting with readers. The ability to talk about books with likeminded individuals has been a true blessing. That part of the journey was both unexpected and truly amazing.

If you could have written one book in history, what book would that be?
I would have love written any of the Sherlock Holmes nobles. I’m truly in love with the character of Sherlock. His abilities to processed information while still struggling to connect with those around in. That complexity in the character is something I truly enjoy.

Has reading a book ever changed your life? Which one and why, if yes?
The book, The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle, truly changed my life. It help me see how much time I wasted focusing on the past or being afraid of the future instead of enjoying my life. It took me several times of reading the book for the message to sink in.

TEN RANDOM FACTS ABOUT PLAGUE UNLEASHED
Plague Unleashed is probably one of my favorite books I written and it’s a wild ride. Here are some fun things about this off the wall story.

1) Plague is book 2 in the Intern Diaries Series. In the series, it takes place 8 months after book 1. In the first book, Isis is new to the job as Death’s Intern. She gets beat up a lot and is serious struggling with the training. In Plague, she is finally ready for action. In this story, you get to see her skills at work.
2) Plague introduces the reader to Pestilence, the next Horseman in the series. In this series, the horsemen are all siblings, and I had a blast creating the rivalry between Death and Pestilence. There is all the extra tensions that makes Isis grateful for being an only child.
3) One of the comments I get a lot from this book, is how readers don’t like Pestilence. You are not supposed to like her. She is delicious evil, and she owns it.
4) In book 1, Death’s Intern, I had added a side character named Shorty. At the beginning, Shorty was not going to be a returning character. But in this book, he completely took a life of his own. Shorty is hysterical and a nice sidekick the Isis’ series side. His driving skills as a menace are legendary due to this book.
5) When I was researching a location to place Pestilence secret lab, I wanted to be underground a chicken plant. In my mind, that was pretty funny. As part of my research, I drove down to one. The smell of the plant was overwhelming, that it completely confirmed my location selection. If you can avoid it, don’t drive down to a chicken plant.
6) One of the main themes in this book is the possibilities of zombies running lose in Texarkana. The idea was of having a virus that was set lose in town, and people were zombie like, but they hadn’t die yet. At the time, I didn’t want to make the book super gory, so I looked for ways to not have a killing spread of zombies. My solutions was to have the character of Death refused to have any of the human-zombies killed in order to preserve their souls. It worked as a solution, but it cause an additional conflict- where was I going to put all those bodies until they found a cure for the virus. As my brain went down that rabbit hole, a crazy idea pop-up. One of the churches in downtown Texarkana has a basement, we will keep the zombies there (don’t tell the parishioners).
7) When I wrote Plague, I honestly thought I had some really “chill zombies.” Unfortunately, my brother busted that bubble, when he reminded me I had 5 years turned zombies and attacked the staff of the school. It is seriously a hysterical scene, since none of the kids is actually killed, but they do cause a panic.
8) In the series, Isis develops the reputation of a bad-date. Chapter 15 in Plague is the reason this happens. Isis is set-up on a blind date by Constantine (the talking 5000 year old talking cat), Bartholomew (the boy-genius), and Bob (her only real friend). While the boys meant while, their idea of a perfect date for her leaves a lot to be desired. It doesn’t help that he takes her to Ci-Ci’s pizza and ends up turning to a zombie.
9) Another side character that took a life of his own is Eugene, Pestilence’s Rookie Intern. While he is a brilliant chemist, he is also an amazing Latin dancer, something that came a shock to me when I was writing him. Eugene has his own cult following.
10) As part of my merchandise that I sell for the series, there is a couple of items for Constantine. The most popular is a t-shirt that says, Constantine for President. The reference to that comes from this book. There is a section where Bartholomew shares with Isis that at one time Constantine decided to run for president and Death had to stop him. At conventions, we now tell all the readers we are working on getting rid of his merchandise from that fail campaign run before he gets in more trouble.

Thank you so much for this amazing opportunity. I truly enjoy this interview. Also would like to give a huge thanks to the amazing Ms. Christine Gerardi Designs, for the beautify cover for Plague Unleashed.

After eight months as Death’s North America Intern, Isis Black is comfortable seeing dead people.

She is used to talking to the souls of the departed and helping Death carry the souls to the afterlife, too. But unfortunately, her intense training is not enough to prepare her for her new challenge: the walking dead.

Zombie-like people, whom have lost all higher-level consciousness, are walking the streets in the small Texas city of Texarkana, where Isis lives and works. Isis, and her teammates, a talking cat and a genius boy, must find the person responsible for this destruction, stop the infestation, and find a cure before every living person turns into a zombie or dies without a soul.

Not only must Isis find a cure for the plague, she must find it in five days—before twenty-thousand people arrive to watch and compete in the math and robotic Bowl Games.

If Isis doesn’t stop the plague in time, everyone who attends the games will contract the virus and spread it across the country.

Can Isis find the culprit, the cure, and save Texarkana and the country from a zombie apocalypse?

In this second book of the captivating series, The Intern Diaries, author D.C. Gomez takes the reader on a fast-paced, exciting journey through the real-life streets of Texarkana.

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