Tag: characters

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a taste of Forever

(image via http://streamline.filmstruck.com/)

I will admit that I have had a lifelong fascination/obsession with vampires.  It started young.  I remember watching Salem’s Lot  when I was just a wee eleven years old.    I’m not cognizant of any significant vampire related moments prior to that, but I have very vivid memories of watching it on TV in the apartment where we lived in Hilton, NY.  Of course, some of that is to do with my age, and some with the fact that my younger brother had snuck down the stairs to watch for at least parts of it and was haunted for MONTHS after by the scene in the image above.

So, it would be safe to say the Stephen King introduced me to vampires.  He was by no means the last to walk me into the dark, of course.  I read the book the movie was based on that same year, and after that I dug into other books and movies and TV shows, too many to count and name, for certain.

By the time I was 20 I had read Dracula enough times to know entire passages by heart.  I wasn’t content to stop there either, I dug into vampire lore, exploring the different ways they were presented in different cultures…the similarities, the differences.  I was fascinated by the concept of immortality,  drawn in by not only the idea of being witness to history, but the mundanity of living a daily existence where every night bleeds into the next.

I was, as a pubescent teenager is like to, pulled to the erotic notion of the biting, of taking life from the very essence that keeps us all alive, the intimate nature of that exchange, while also at the same time, being a practical child, by the idea that not every meal could be an erotic buffet of hot neck biting and licking that led to what my teenage hormones could only imagine.  I found myself thinking about other ways a vampire might get what she needed, without the entanglement of the humanity that comes with drinking from a human chalice.

By the time I was sixteen, I had a pretty good idea what my vampires would be like, if I were to write about vampires…and from that idea, Amara was born.

It is safe to say that Amara comes from those first vampires I experienced, and is influenced by those that came after.

And you can experience Amara and all her nuance right now for 99 cents!  Forever is available right now for Kindle at the low price of 99 cents. Grab your copy today…and leave a review if you would!  Reviews make writers happy!

My coffee cup seems to be empty, I best go fill it up.  Happy Wednesday, Readers!

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radio silence

Wow, it’s been a while.  Sorry about that!  It turns out that working a full time job, working a consulting gig for Pride, editing an anthology and writing a book all at the same time can keep a person ridiculously busy.

Who knew?

It also makes a person forgetful.

 

But, Pride weekend is upon us and soon my life will go back to it’s normal breakneck speed, at least until the following weekend when I will be utilizing the long holiday weekend to escape the heat of the East Bay and head up into redwood country with my mother on a photography trip.

There will also be a fair amount of people watching and character collecting.  I look forward to the smell of nature and the cool shelter of the trees.

But when I come back I’ll have story ideas and pictures to share!

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Time for free ebooks!

Today, tomorrow and Friday (June 7, 8 & 9) Through Shade and Shadow is available for Kindle for zero dollars!  If you don’t already have yours, now is your chance!

I’m nearing the end of my first draft of the sequel, and having paged through this first book again this weekend, I’m reminded of how much the characters grow in the second book.  Alaric and Mason are favorite characters of mine and sometimes while writing the minutiae of the scenes and sifting through the plot I lose sight of where they started, so it’s fun to revisit a little bit while talking about the book with new people.

In the next book we will meet some new characters, and some of those who were briefly introduced in Through Shade and Shadow become more visible.  I’m really enjoying fleshing out characters that we only glimpse through Mason or Alaric’s eyes to start out.

Got a question about anything Shades and Shadows?  Drop a comment and I’ll do what I can to answer.

 

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gregarious green

There’s something about going green…I mean, it’s not like it’s strange these days to see people with wild colors in their hair.  On a daily basis I see blues and pinks and purples in a variety of shades and styles.  But green isn’t as common.

I’ve always loved the color, from a faded mint to a dusty sage to a deep emerald to a dark hunter…it reminds me of the earth, of things that grow, things that are natural.

I tried it out back in February, when I wore a green wig to a convention.  I got so many compliments that I determined that one day I’d just do it. Go green.

Of course, it wasn’t as easy as just grabbing some green hair dye.  No, not when I’ve been dying my hair some shade of red for at least 6 years (since the last time I decided to go nuts, bleach it and do fun things with it).  I took me 3 bleachings and a color stripping to get to a blond enough blond that I could dye it green.

I had some moments of apprehension.  What if my work place wasn’t as progressive as I thought it was?  What if I hated it once it was done?  Didn’t stop me though.

Funny thing, this green hair.  I find my self-confidence bolstered,  I find myself happy when I look in the mirror, I find my anxiety levels a little less than they were.  And, people seem to like it.  Sure, I’ve had a few people look at me as if I’m nuts, but most of them smile and nod.  Some even tell me they like it.  People at work love it.

That too makes me smile.  Sure, I’ll be forty-nine in September, but numbers will never prevent me from seeking out what makes me happy.

I hope you can say the same.  Be yourself and put a little color in your life!

In the sequel to Through Shade and Shadow, we meet Zero, a teenage character who expresses herself through wigs that range from the mundane to the outlandish. None of them have been green yet.  I may have to fix that!

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the joys of public transportation

As a writer, I am a people watcher.  I love finding spots where I can sit an unobtrusively observe the world around me.  I find the lives of others endlessly fascinating, even in the most mundane activities.

Each person has their own story.  Some of them more than one.  They all come from somewhere.  They all are thinking about things I can’t know about.  I live in an area where people watching can be a very rich sport.

Some of the most stand out people though are those I observe on my daily commute.  I live east of San Francisco, and I take the BART train into the city 3 to 5 days a week.  Most of the time the ride in is quiet.  Everyone is busy catching up on Facebook and email or trying to catch a few more minutes of sleep before the day really begins.

The ride home though…that is a treasure trove of people watching.  Young mothers with small children, teenagers with their backpacks and music banging out of their earphones, construction workers looking tired and worn, business people in their suits….it’s like a microcosm of the Bay Area.

When it’s really crowded, like the scene above, and my agoraphobia ratchets up,  I pick out a single face and I start to tell myself a story about that person’s life.  That guy in the suit looking like he just spent an hour at the gym…it was his third interview that week, but so far nothing had panned out and he was tired, exhausted really, but he knew he needed something better.  He’s crammed into that corner trying to study the text book in his hands so he’ll be prepared for class that evening, after he goes home and feeds his baby and kisses his wife and promises her that things will get better.

Some of those little stories create characters so vivid for me that they end up in a book I’m writing. There are a few of them in Through Shade and Shadow.  Can you spot them?

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introducing Sahara Katan

Sahara is the first female character I’m introducing, she is also the first Shifter.  Sahara is a woman in her thirties, with mixed heritage that is Indian and Mexican. She is also a Shifter, and her animal form is a large lioness.

We meet Sahara when Alaric and his friends attempt to liberate her, and two younger women, from Omega Labs, an organization with close ties to the 8th Battalion.  While she accepts the hospitality offered, she is wary of the people extending it. Before her capture by the Lab group, she lived a solitary sort of existence for years after the deaths of her immediate family, her mother to cancer, her father to a heart attack.

Sahara is a strong woman, used to doing things her own way, used to letting the cat inside do what it wanted.  In fact, during the rescue, Sahara kills a guard, a fact that puts her at odds with at least one of Alaric’s men.

She becomes a reluctant guardian to the teenage sisters that were rescued with her.  But once accepting the role, she is a fierce and loyal protector, a role that eventually extends to the people around her, including Alaric and his family.

***

The women really come to the fore in book 2, where we will learn more about Sahara, and meet Raven, Zero and others who will play important parts in what is to come.

***

BUT, I also have news.  The paperback edition of Through Shade and Shadow is available now and the Kindle version is available for preorder.

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introducing Bryan Wagner

Bryan Wagner is a part of Alaric’s clan, a close friend of Alaric’s father.  He has been a part of Alaric’s life for a long time.  As the story opens, Bryan is in his late thirties and with Alaric serves as one of Anson Lambrecht’s Keepers.

Bryan was raised with more formal training than many in the clan and he has good control of his gifts.  He’s a strong reader, is good with projecting glamors to make things and people appear to different and he can project ideas/thoughts into unprotected minds.  These things come in handy when you’re running from someone.

Physically, Bryan is tall, with broad shoulders and big hands.  His skin is tan from hours in the sun, all but a long white scar that runs from his hair line, down over his left eye and onto his cheek.  That eye is blind and white.

Bryan sometimes comes across as a bit crass because he doesn’t waste time with niceties he doesn’t mean.  He’s bold and he is unafraid to voice the unpopular positions.  He is, however, fiercely loyal, first to his clan, then to the clan’s leader, even when he disagrees with a decision that leader has made.

He is not a fan of getting involved in the strife tearing the country apart and he holds very little love for the other tribes, Shades in particular. Bryan was an integral part of the work to bring the scattered clan back together and institute training regimens to strengthen the tribe, though he himself doesn’t really have the patience to be a teacher.

 

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Introducing Alaric Lambrecht

Alaric Lambrecht is the second main character in Through Shade and Shadow. As the story opens, Alaric is twenty four years old and he has had a pretty charmed life.  His parents are not wealthy, but they are upper middle class.  He’s never wanted for anything.

At seventeen, his father tapped him to be one of his Keepers, a trio of people from the tribe of psychics, empaths and other gifted folk who help the leader of the clan function, watching out for his mental, emotional and physical well being.

Alaric’s specific gift is empathy, the ability to feel what others feel.  He uses it in an attempt to help his father do his other job, that of city councilman.  Alaric is his aide, does research for him, helps field phone calls and the like.

When he isn’t busy with that, he is helping his mother with re-igniting the structured teaching methods of his tribe, which have largely been abandoned due to the persecutions of the past.

He’s pretty content with his life until people begin to react to the discovery of the Shade serial killer in ways that will threaten his people. As his idyllic life begins to unravel, Alaric must make choices, all of them driving him toward Mason Jerah and beyond him, war.

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Introducing Mason Jerah

When we first meet Mason Jerah, he is just turning eighteen and watching his grandmother die.  He has lived his entire life separate from modern society, but for what he can see on television.

His interaction with the outside world has mostly been with the people in the nearest town.  He has been alone with just his grandmother for many years.  As a result, he’s hesitant and comes across as shy upon first meeting.  It isn’t so much that he is shy, but he’s thinking through everything he says.

Mason belongs to a tribe of people called Shades, one of five tribes that once upon a time coexisted peacefully.  Shades are gifted healers who can use energy to help not only themselves, but others heal.  It takes a lifetime of learning and practice, which Mason hasn’t had because his grandmother was too afraid to teach him.

Shades require large quantities of fluid, usually water to be able to do their work and to keep their own bodies functioning.  They are also vulnerable to the affects of the sun, burning quickly and well beyond the average sunburn.  The sun can kill a Shade.

With his grandmother’s death, Mason decides to embark on a traditional journey that will take him down off his mountain and out into a world that has started to fall apart.