K. Brooks's Blog, page 5

#facts and #figures. #writing for a crowd

Here here!

 

Looking for those who have read The Spark That Left Us.

Looking to compile a list of questions left unanswered, the memories incomplete, the stories left uncovered.

Many of you have asked for more about Levina, and the absence of Addy and Clara’s father.

Your questions will be answered (hopefully) in Sparks Ignite (working title).

Anything else I can help you with?

 

You help me be better.

 

until then…

 

x

#writing the past can be hard

I’ve heard a few times now, that Deke’s flashback is one of the preferred chapters in The Spark That Left Us. He’s one of the few characters with an acknowledged back story, a history. Writing events currently happening to your characters is easy. You write it. It happens. You feel that little twist, since you’re responsible for that happening, whether they love or laugh or cry or scream. It’s you. All you.

But when it comes to writing the past, there’s a slew of consequences that follows. If I do this, how do they act now? If I say this, how does the ripple affect every other character in your story, what they do, how they react.

Additional issues, with the mythos that fills The Spark That Left us – is that no one can trust the construct of their reality. Then you end up in a situation where, do they know this even happened? Would they react differently if they knew it did?

So now, while writing (the tentatively titled) Sparks Ignite – although being set in the future, a year onward from the final events of The Spark That Left Us, there has been a backslide into the past, events that shaped where the characters were lined up in order to pursue the events of TSTLU, in order for them to understand what is happening to them now. And I am in constant fear of, what if something happens, something brilliantly important happens – and suddenly casts a shadow over TSTLU?

 

When #actors do the thing. #writing

Deke Masterson is near and dear to my heart. And if you are a lover of The Spark That Left Us, he’s probably pretty dear to you too. He’s been described by readers as “ruthless” but “soon to be likeable” which if there is any sort of indication for character development, I assume that would be it.

But sometimes you just find that one real person that embodies a character so much, that you aren’t quite sure how it happened.

I thank the universe for the music video for “The Words” by Christina Perri, because it gives me behind the scenes shots of a man who embodies Deke to the point where they’ve now become one and the same in my mind.

I can’t help but see these shots, and remember their trek through Colorado. I can’t help but see the stolen truck. They never intended it, and yet it thrills me.

Inspiration comes in many disguises.

Thank you Christina Perri and Colin O’Donaghue, for becoming Adeline and Deke, if only in my head, and if only for a moment.

 

#warning while #writing

I think this is my new favorite Word error.

 

 

Are you ready for this sequel or what?

Chapter 1 (you know you want it) #spoilers #tstlu #writing

The nights always began with the mutterings. Whispers so quiet, fragments of words barely heavier than sighs drifting into my sleep. Sometimes the sleepless nights ended there, when around two in the morning, he’d finally quiet, his side of the bed silenced. Sometimes I had to check if he was still breathing, the sudden heaviness of the darkness pressing down where his words once swirled.

But it was the nights when it didn’t end, when the muttering became cries, and his twitching hands grasped at the sheets, that weighed on me the most. If I woke him, he couldn’t face me in the dark, wouldn’t accept the courage I tried to give him. If I left him to his nightmares, I lay there, staring up at the ceiling, tears running down my face, waiting for the day to break.

And on rare occasions – the nightmares woke him, a sudden gasp and a throwing back of sheets, the cold air across my bare legs as he sat up, trembling on the edge of the bed.

Tonight was one of those nights, and his sudden movement has scared me awake, and as always, I waited. He had hunted – Hell, he had killed more than he can remember, and it is the ease in which he can become smoke, drifting into the other rooms, the kitchen where it all began, that makes me strain to hear where he wandered to.

I could see his shadow against the window as he came around the bed, settling silently into the chair, and he gently cranked the window open. A soft breeze wafted in, warm and richly scented with summer, spicy from its path through the garden.

Maybe tonight was the night that he’d tell me what he saw in his sleep. Nothing could be worse than what we saw together, the excruciating death of my brother Reggie, the final sacrifice of his brother Casey, and the bitter demise of my sister Clara. Each exquisitely horrible and painful in their own ways, all within the hours of the same fateful night.

My skin crawled with goosebumps, the hair on my exposed arms rising.

I stared at the darkness surrounding his face, seeing no more than the line of moonlight along his nose, my eyes straining to see more. There was a point in time when his eyes would have flashed, catching the stars in their mirrored silver, and I would have at least known if it was me he stared at through the murk.

There was a point of time when his skin would have crawled with electricity too, but I am electing not to think of it at this moment.

“I know you’re awake,” his words reached my ears, soft and hoarse.

“I know you’re awake too,” I chide, gently, pulling myself up to sitting against the headboard.

I hear a quick exhale, as close to a chuckle as I was going to get at this time of the morning.

I wait, listening to the breathing, remembering when I had begged for him to stay alive, to start breathing again, and to not leave me alone in this world where everything had gone so horribly wrong in so short a time.

“Did we do everything we could?”

His question comes quiet and poignant, cutting me deep. It was a fear that we shared, the fear I wouldn’t, couldn’t articulate that he was trying to address now, when I couldn’t see his face. I had always assumed his nightmares were of the things he had done, not the things he had failed to do.

I picked at the bed sheet, not really thinking of anything, trying not to bring it all up again. I was too tired, had been for a year now, it was the thinking, I swear. It could kill you, just wondering. Hoping. Searching.It was a reverse wanderlust – instead of needing to escape, explore, adventure, search for the ineffable – it was inside, gnawing away at the insides, the two words, ‘what if’ slowly tearing you down to the rubble.

I heard him swallow in the gloom. That inevitable half-choke, as you try to keep everything in tight, closed doors, throw away the key. It escapes though, that little noise. It was the noise that reminded Deke what he had thrown away for Casey. I slipped out from under the covers, untangling my feet from the sheets, and headed towards his chair, the floor cold enough to bite. His hand reached for mine where my fingers splayed in the dark, not quite sure where he was. I folded onto his lap, pulling my knees up to my chin and resting my head against his chest. Deke wrapped his arms around me, his face in my hair, breathing deeply.

What we wouldn’t give to take it all back, to stop everything before it had started.

But we knew from experience what happened when you sacrificed everything for something you didn’t earn, for something you didn’t deserve – and how it could all come crashing down.

….

But what if it isn’t awful? And other thoughts about #writing

Simply put, writing makes me happy. I’m not writing for anyone else, other than myself. But unfortunately, we are not only our own worst enemies, we are also our greatest critics.

There are a hundred thousand ways to put yourself down- because you know all your own self-doubts. You know where the chink in your armor is, or in more modern terms – you can feel the hole in your sock, worrying away and getting larger.

So you send out your work into the universe, you wrote it just for you – who cares what they think?

But you do, because you assume they know everything that you know.

That they can glean it from your words.

That they will use it against you.

Sometimes, sitting and breathing and ignoring what your brain tells you is true is the only thing you can do.

I could have kept The Spark That Left Us all to myself, and who knows, maybe no more than 3 people will ever read it. But that’s more than just myself, and that’s where it gets important.

 

#launch is happening RIGHT NOW #getonit

Paperback is here! Paperback is here!

After a year of hard work, tears, struggles, cold days at photo shoots, long days at computers, and more coffee that I can imagine…

We’ve finally done it.

It’s here!

And what a strange feeling it is. To be done, but knowing you’re never really done.

I hope people like it. If it speaks to even one person, that the enjoy it as much as they can, it’ll be enough for me.

And if 99% of everyone else hates it, well, what are you gonna do?

 

#terror and the #supernatural

There’s no quite exquisite terror quite like assuming everyone will hate your work.

 

 

The Spark That Left Us. Released to the world tomorrow, in paperback 04/23/15.

 

 

Have you checked out the Facebook page?

The Business of #proofs, and #photography

So who knew printing would be darker than screen images?

Everyone. The answer is everyone. But oh well, live and learn, right?

But, turns out, we prefer the adjustment!

The light gives it more depth, and makes the character of Deke more striking. All in favor? Say aye!

 

#paperback excitement #mindblown

I’ve never been so excited for a mail delivery before. I’m more excited than Christmas, more excited than my birthday.

I just want to run across the country and find it and rip open the wrapping and hold it in my hands.

I feel like this is a microscopic portion of what a parent feels like before meeting their child for the first time.

I can’t, can’t, wait.

This is the beginning, this is the end, this is infinite. Yeah, sure, it will probably get lost to the ages, buried under the millions of other books published every year, but maybe to just one person, besides myself, it will be special. It will connect. Someone will relate, in whatever strange way, and they will believe.

I can only hope, and in the mean time, I can only wait.