Q & A WITH AUTHOR JONE ARAYA
Q: You could have written your stories anywhere in the world your imagination could take you. Why did you use Southern California as location for both books?
A: As a native Californian, I could say it involved less research but that sounds lazy. Especially now with artificial intelligence that can cut research time dramatically. However, I don't use AI prompts in my creative endeavors. The characters are the stars of my stories, as they should be. The location is a minor detail.
However, I have a deep and abiding love for my home state. My favorite books, television series, and movies are set against the backdrop of the Los Angeles area. Southern California has a certain glamour, a certain mystique, that has provided a life-long fascination for me. Small wonder I would locate my characters in a place I know and love well.​
Q: Both books mirror the same themes of human brokenness. Your short story, Wednesday's Child, deals with a particularly disturbing subject. What prompts you to write such stories?
A: Much of what is written—fiction, poetry, screenplays, or music—carry theses same themes. Many artists' works reflect the world around them and suffering is a part of this world. The harshest reality we face is that we all have our appointed time to die. Knowing that, you would think we would appreciate our families, our friends, our neighbors, and our lives, more fully. Look around. That isn't the case. There is conflict, hurt, and ugliness at every turn.
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To write tales of rosiness, happiness, and perfect people living perfect lives is false. Today's perfect lives are nothing more than social media constructs. I write what resonates; with a proviso.
I feature the same dark theme in my digital fine art (below). My mom once asked why I don't paint beautiful things (I do on occasion, mom). In my art and in my words, I don't express the dark heart of man to glamorize or glorify it. I write of brokenness because it can be repaired. I write of heartache because it can be healed. I write of wretchedness because it can be redeemed. And that is the proviso—you have to get through the bad to see the good emerge. As a person of faith I am refined by fire, as are my characters. What emerges is more pure, more beautiful, more purposeful.​​
Cleaning House
Pugilistic Tendencies
What Betrayal Looks Like
Q: In your second book, The Extraordinary Misses of an Ordinary Life, what was the inspiration behind its main character, Cristian DeSilva Long?
A: Cristian is the true hero of the story, even though, in the beginning narrative, he thinks he never did anything heroic. Cristian is a character after my own heart, an amalgam of people I've known in my life who are decent, who strive to do the right thing but stumble along the way.
Cristian realizes, as we should all realize, he can never be a perfect, upstanding individual. For instance: people I know would never physically take a life, but may kill a character with the sharp tongue of gossip. I know of people who would never rob another's possessions, but may rob a person's trust or security by being deceitful or unfaithful. I know of people who are adamantly against war, yet there is no peace within their own hearts or households.​​
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The Bible states unequivocally 'no one is good, no not one' (Psalm 14:3; Romans 3:10). All have sinned and fallen short of God's glory. Sin is an archery term. It simply means to 'miss the mark'. None of us in our personal lives are master archers, least of all, the characters of my stories.​
Q: What's next in your author journey?
A: I do have a third book in the works. I already have the title and the beginning sentences jotted. I'm sure it will unfold as my other two books, with minimal effort. In my creative pursuits, I follow the lead of the most august Creator. Creatively speaking, He takes me to places I never thought I'd go.