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It's been a few days since the end of #maynia, since I put the finishing touches on Vengeance and sent it out into the world. Well, not the world exactly; but the world of beta readers.

A couple of our very own Hiveans have a copy, my partner and his mother have a copy, an old friend from many years ago has a copy, and perhaps my favourite, a quantum physicist has a copy thanks to my partner chucking it at him!

If you want to throw me some feedback too, I'd be happy to send you a copy. Can never have too many opinions. I'll even send you a fancy questionnaire to fill out. I mean, you know, if we've chatted before and I trust you.

However...

I feel like I need to note that the ludicrous comedy in Joey and Jenny is NOT my usual style of writing.

The Australian voice in Half Past the Moonfall is NOT my usual style of writing, despite actually being one of those horrible people with a terrible politically-incorrect sense of humour and ghastly accent.

But people seem to like ludicrous humour and the Australian voice so that's what I gravitate to when writing five-minute #freewrites. It's detrimental. I really don't enjoy writing like that. But what the market says, goes, right? Wrong. Sigh.

Write what you enjoy, or so they say.

I've been thinking a lot lately over why I write, what started it, and why this particular series is so important to me. I've gone into things before in tiny snippets, mostly in a Book Babble Here and a Ulog There.

And I was going to write so much about the How's and Why's and What's, but it's really all there in the aforementioned Ulog if you're curious. Click, click, click.

The short of it is that I was a very, very neglected and emotionally abused child. To ignore reality I found new realities in Fantasy books and chose to live in those worlds instead of this one. One of the realities I took for my own was Brian Jacques' Redwall series... and another was Louise Cooper's Star Ascendant.

I loved Star Ascendant so much. I don't have words for how much I loved it, was obsessed with it, needed to die in this world and be reborn in THAT AMAZING WORLD. Surely books are just windows to alternate realities? So said my childhood logic.

Let me share with you a snippet from my Original Story before it got edited and shredded into something else entirely.

 

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Alexandria peeked around the corner into the hallway. She could hear her father mumbling nonsensical words in his room, and listening carefully she could sense nothing else happening in the house. She moved silently along the hallway, making her way into the kitchen and peering into the cupboards as quietly as she could. There was no food and she was so hungry. She opened the fridge, there was nothing! She opened the freezer, it was empty too! Except… For a bag of frozen peas. She shuddered, peas were not her favourite of the vegetable group and even less so a food on their own. She remembered covering them in sauce or gravy whenever they were on her plate at dinnertimes, swallowing them whole. She sighed softly, she had no choice, it was all that was there. She stood frustrated for a moment, she had never cooked anything before, she was ten years old! Parents were supposed to do that sort of thing! They weren’t supposed to sit in their bedrooms smoking that weird smelling stuff out of an empty plastic bottle.

Rummaging around in a cupboard she found a saucepan. I guess you just pour them into the saucepan with water and boil? She had no idea but that seemed pretty reasonable. She turned the stove on, placed the pea-filled saucepan on a hotplate, and went sneaking around the house some more. She hovered outside her father’s door for a few moments, listening to his jumbled words, and then quietly tiptoed back to her room feeling utterly alone. She didn’t know how long she was supposed to cook the peas for. In better times, her parents used to spend close to an hour in the kitchen when it came to cooking dinner. So, she’d check on her peas in about an hour! Perfect.

She lay on her bed, daydreaming of rainbow skies and horses black as the night. Her dream world was so much better than her real world, she wished she could enter her mind and live in her pretend world forever. She put a pillow over her face and held her breath for as long as she possibly could; it wasn’t long before she started to feel dizzy, her face began to tingle, and her lungs screamed out for her to take a breath. Fine, body, you win this round. She didn’t know how long it had been, there was no clock in her room. She wondered if her peas were ready and snuck back out into the kitchen, gasping in disgust at the horrible smell that wafted out of the saucepan. Apparently she had boiled them for too long, the water had evaporated and the peas were an ugly green/black mush stuck to the bottom of the saucepan. Her eyes filled with tears. Another night with no food. She poured herself a glass of water and ran back into her room, slamming the door behind her and locking it.

 

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That last paragraph in particular. That whole segment was Reality Turned "Fiction," but that last paragraph... lying in bed. Dreaming of another world. Trying to kill herself so she could live a new life.

That was my life.

I wanted nothing more.

Sometimes that's still all I want.

And that's why I write, because that's honestly the ONLY WAY I'm going to live in other worlds that aren't this horror show we're stuck with.

 

_{Obviously I chose to not rename it; Vengeance is perfect.}
 
My story is immensely character driven. I love my characters like they're my own children -- and they are, to some extent. My brain birthed them. I cry with them, laugh with them, and cringe at them when they're acting like dickheads.

The story doesn't really come into focus unless you read all four books of the series back to back.

Book One is basically a 76,000 word prologue. That's probably looked down upon but, I don't really care. This is a story that requires being told over several books and weaved together piece by piece. The writing pace is fast, but the story-pace is gradual.

This whole story, set out over four books, is a tiny nod at that sad child crying herself to sleep every night and wishing that she was dead, and it will be complete. Even though her personal time won't come until Book Three - Ascension.

I'm insane and have already put a deposit down for the cover of Book Two -- Memories Unforgotten. I'm in the writing zone at the moment and raring to go.

...even if that means my Hive-ing will be a bit lacking. 😅

I received the artist's first draft of the cover this morning and it's beautiful and perfect apart from a few adjustments. It's from the same artist who created the cover for Book One, just up there. It's got the same lace edging, colour scheme, etc, but in the background is a castle shrouded by clouds and there is a different woman on the cover, on the opposite side, who's meant to represent the new character we will be following.

Can't wait to receive the finished product and chuck it in my Scrivener so my Work In Progress has an image to urge me onward.

Back to writing now!

Did you really read all of that? A giant kudos to you, here's a photo of Charlie Cat to reward you for your patience. 😸

 

 

Until next time,

Thank you for stopping by!! ❤️

 

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_{Book photo, book cover image, and Charlie cat photo are mine, header was sourced just below it.}