Character Interview Sean Wesley
Please welcome Sean Wesley, lead
singer of The Haystack, and hero of The
Thin Person Inside, by Rochelle Weber, published in various digital formats
by MuseItUp Publishing, Inc., and coming soon in print.
Q: What's your story/back story? Why
would someone come up with a story about YOU?
Sean: As one of the lead singers of The Haystack,
I have press and paparazzi after me all the time.
Q: Can you tell us about your
hero/ine?
Sean: Kristen is one of the loveliest, bravest,
most honest people I’ve ever met. She shared stuff in a room fulla men… Well,
they say, “You’re only as sick as yer secrets,” and Kristen don’t hold back.
Most
o’ the women I meet are out for what they can get, whether it’s publicity, or
fame or money. Kristen didn’t recognize me when we met. When we went out, she
wouldn’t even let me pay for her dinner because “it wasn’t a date.” When I
tried to buy her a TV for Christmas, she said all she wanted was a CD. Can you
believe that? A fu- a CD! Her TV was a piece o’ crap and a new one woulda been
chump change to me, but she said it “wasn’t appropriate” from a friend. Ladies
like her only come around once in a lifetime if yer real lucky.
Q: What problems do you have to face
and overcome in your life?
Sean: Well, it’s tough staying clean, and it’s
fu-pretty hard to play piano with only one hand. I think I’da offed myself
without Kristen.
Q: Do you expect your hero/ine to
help or is s/he the problem?
Sean: Like I said, I don’t think I’d even be
here if it wasn’t for Kristen.
Q: Where do you
live?
Sean: I got a mansion in Malibu, on a cliff
overlooking the ocean. That’s another
thing. After the accident, when Kristen was helping take care o’ me, she
insisted on payin’ rent! Who does that?
Q: During what time
period does your story take place?
Sean: Time period? Whadya mean? It’s now!
Q: How are you
coping with the conflict in your life?
Sean: For a while there, Kristen kicked me outa
her life. I overstepped her boundaries in a family matter. [Sean holds up his hand in a stopping gesture.] That’s a private
story for Kristen to tell or not. I couldn’t drink or use, and I was hurtin’,
so my sponsor told me to run. I was doin’ a lot
a running, till I got hit by a car. Kristen came back that night, when I was in
the hospital. Now I got her to help me stay sane.
Q: That’s all the
questions we have for you. Thank you for speaking to us.
Sean: Yer welcome. Ya know, I think this is my
first actual sit-down interview since I got clean!
Q: And you talked
more about Kristen than you did about yourself. Is something going on there?
Sean: I guess you’ll have to read the book to
find out.
Blurb:
Kristen Jensen, a Navy veteran, tips
the scale at a crippling three hundred pounds. In desperation she asks her VA
therapist if she can go into addictions treatment with the guys where she meets
Sean. With black hair, blue eyes, and a perfect body she figures the reason
he’s speaking to her is that she’s the only other person in the room.
The Haystack told their lead singer,
Sean Wesley, to get clean or get out. But none of the big-name clinics worked.
Sean’s a Desert Storm vet, so they send him to a VA in the middle of nowhere.
When he meets Kristen the first day, he thinks it’s tragic such a pretty girl’s
trapped in a huge body. And her honesty, intelligence, and bravery are even
more impressing. Sean’s drawn to Kristen, but she’s had decades to build layers
of defense.
Excerpt: They Meet
Sean Wesley went into the snack room
to help himself to coffee and a roll. He’d probably gain weight while he was
here without his personal trainer and weight room. He’d been a fat kid—always
the last to be chosen for games, and stuck in right field when he did play.
He’d been saved from a life of obesity by a growth spurt in his late teens, a
judge who gave him a choice between jail and the Marines, and switching
addictions from food to booze and then cocaine.
By rights, Sean shouldn’t be at a VA
facility. Celebrities like him usually got sober at places like the Betty Ford
clinic or Hazelden. Actually, he’d come from Betty Ford, but he’d still felt
shaky so his manager, Don Nelson, had done his homework. Danville, Illinois,
was in the middle of nowhere. The program was different, based on Rational
Emotive Therapy, and Sean was a veteran. While he made too much money to be
treated at the VA, there’s money and then there’s money. Sean had money—the
kind that opens doors and breaks down barriers. The kind that makes even the
Federal Government say, “We’ll see what we can do,” and then do it.
So here he was in the middle of a
cornfield in bum-f*** Illinois at a shabby old VA hospital. An enormously obese
woman came into the snack room interrupting his reverie, and Sean thought, That could’ve been me. What a shame—she’s so
pretty.”
* * * *
Kristen noticed the table of goodies
and the drop-dead-gorgeous man perusing them in the break room when she went in
there to put her lunch in the refrigerator.
“Want one? I heard they send ’em over
every morning. I guess they’re yesterday’s leftovers.”
That’s
right. Offer sweets to the fat lady.
She managed a tight grimace. “Thanks, but I’m here because I’m a food addict.”
She held up her orange.
“I’m Sean.”
He
prob’ly wouldn’t give a fat chick like me a second look anywhere else. Still,
what is it about men with black hair and blue eyes that makes me go all mushy? “Hi.”
“I’ve heard of food addicts, but what
makes ya call yourself that?”
“When my kids were little, I left them
without a babysitter while I went to the store and wrote a rubber check for ice
cream and M&Ms. I’d say I’ve been about as desperate for my fix as any
addict or alcoholic.”
“Wow! Yeah, I guess so.” He held the
door for her as they exited and then followed her into the Day Room.
Kristen sat on a love seat, taking up
the whole thing, while Sean sat in the chair on the other side of the end table
next to her. They were the only two people in there since there were classes
going on. She was sure the minute other people came out he’d find someone else
to talk to. She pulled out her crocheting. She was fairly certain Eric would
propose to Viki at Christmas and had already begun work on a tablecloth for
them. She worked on it a minute and then decided to be polite. “So, what’s your
drug of choice?”
“Cocaine. I’ve been clean a coupla
months, but it’s hard ta stay clean.”
“I’ve heard that. I was at a halfway house
fundraiser and they said it takes something like over a year for cocaine to
completely leave the body, and during that time a person can still have random
cravings. They were raising money for an extended treatment program.”
“That explains why I’ve been having
such a hard time. I hope this treatment helps.”
“Yeah.”
People started coming into the Day
Room from classrooms just down the hallways. Several of them gave Sean and
Kristen curious looks. Yeah, what’s such a
great looking guy doing sitting with a fat chick?
Bio
Rochelle Weber is a Navy veteran with
a BA in Writing from Columbia College in Chicago. Her novels Rock Bound and Rock Crazy are available in both e-book and print. Her third book,
The Thin Person Inside, is available at MuseItUp Publishing, Inc. Ms. Weber
edits for Jupiter Gardens Press, The Author’s Secret, and publishes the
Marketing for Romance Writers Newsletter, winner of the 2013 Preditors &
Editors Readers’ Poll for Best Writers’ Resource. She also started Roses &
Thorns Reviews and currently has two partners.
Ms. Weber battles bi-polar disorder,
quipping, “You haven’t lived until you’ve been the only woman on the locked
ward at the VA.” Her song, “It’s Not My Fault,” won a gold medal in the
National Veterans Creative Arts Competition. She has lost over a hundred pounds
and kept it off for over three years. She lives in Round Lake Beach, Illinois.
Links:
Buy
Links:
MuseItUp
Publishing, Inc.: http://tinyurl.com/rwmusettpi
Amazon:
http://tinyurl.com/rwttpiamz
Author
Links:
Website:
www.rochelleweber.com
Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/rochelle.weber2
Facebook
Author Page: http://www.facebook.com/Rochelle.Weber.Author
Twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/RochelleWeber
Amazon
Author Page: http://amazon.com/author/rochelleweber
Key
Words: Addictions Recovery, Cinderella Story,
Cocaine Addiction, Compulsive Eating, Contemporary Romance, Danville IL VAMC,
Disability, Eating Disorders, Food Addict, Morbid Obesity, Smart Recovery,
Rational Emotive Therapy, Rock Star, Veterans
Thanks for sharing,
Tina
1 comment:
Sean asked me to thank you for having us on your blog today, Tina. He would have thanked you himself, but he doesn't have his own e-mail account. He has "people" for that.
Post a Comment