Sophia Madison's Blog, page 4

The Phoenix Series: Blue Ruin (Chapter Two: Traitor)

Day two of the countdown to February 29th, the release of my dark fantasy novel, Blue Ruin!

This snippet is from my Chapter Two: Traitor. In this chapter, Heidi — a double agent, a detective for the government, Maura’s work partner, and Adrian’s (the antagonist) lover — arrives at a crime scene she helped stage. 

Side note: Beth is the alias Maura uses. Beth is Maura. 

***

Heidi waited for the signal, the yellow flash at the end of the long street that signified it was done. One minute. Two minutes, and then five minutes passed since the last Annihilation spell lit up the sky. She curled her fingers around the leather steering wheel. Had Beth killed Adrian? Chuckling to herself, she shook her head. He’s immortal. But the thought did little to ease her nerves. Beth’s squad should be dead by now. Beth should be dead by now.

***

Blue Ruin is the first novel in The Phoenix Series. The Phoenix Series is a dark fantasy with gothic, noire, paranormal, and supernatural elements.

“A hunter and the hunted, Maura Leroux is one of the last of her kind with a dark past that has haunted her. With black magical beings having been hunted for centuries, she’s come to learn a thing or two about survival. But Adrian Wilhelm, a notorious Vampire, threatens to destroy Maura’s newfound life as a detective in the magical world of Mystics. Adrian intends to use Maura as a means of resurrecting the fallen world of black magical beings, Abysm. Maura has made it her mission to stop Adrian while covering her tracks from those that have been seeking her out for centuries.”

Blue Ruin is now available for pre-order as an e-book. Pre-order The Phoenix Series: Blue Ruin — set to release on February 29, 2016.

  

The Phoenix Series: Blue Ruin (Chapter One: Chasing Shadows)

As a way to countdown to the release of my novel, Blue Ruin, every day I am going to post an 8 to 10 sentence snippet. I got the idea after joining Weekend Writing Warriors, where each Sunday, you share a snippet of your work with other writers.

Today, I’m going to share a snippet from Chapter One: Chasing Shadows. Here, our main character and anti-hero, Maura Leroux, comes face to face with the antagonist of the book, Adrian Wilhelm, a notorious Vampire whose future has tethered itself to Maura’s past.

***

The monster in his Armani suit with his dark red eyes and widening smile surfaced from the shadows.

“Adrian,” Maura breathed.

Time slowed to a stop. She was a kid again. Scared, alone, staring at the being who tore her world apart. She could still see her mother’s blood dripping from his fingers, etched along his broad smile. She quivered with a surge of emotions. Anger. Hurt. Sorrow. Hate.

***

The Phoenix Series is a dark fantasy series comprised of gothic, supernatural, paranormal, and noire elements.

A hunter and the hunted, Maura Leroux is one of the last of her kind with a dark past that has haunted her. With black magical beings having been hunted for centuries, she’s come to learn a thing or two about survival. But Adrian Wilhelm, a notorious Vampire, threatens to destroy Maura’s newfound life as a detective in the magical world of Mystics. Adrian intends to use Maura as a means of resurrecting the fallen world of black magical beings, Abysm. Maura has made it her mission to stop Adrian while covering her tracks from those that have been seeking her out for centuries.

Blue Ruin is book one of three. It is now available for pre-order here — set to release on February 29, 2016 with a printed version. 

  

Weekend Writing Warriors – The Exorcism

I’ve joined this writing group: Weekend Writing Warriors . It is the weekly hop for everyone who loves to write! Every Sunday, share an 8 to 10 sentence snippet of your writing.

To kick off my recently published novel, Blue Ruin, I will include it as my first snippet. This snippet is from my Prologue: The Exorcism.

***

“Help me. Help me. Help me,” Maura prayed to her deceased father for strength. She sat in the first pew of the church – hands folded, head bowed, fear paralyzing her.

You can’t be saved, the voice whispered, its echo reverberating through her bones. She clasped her hands harder together to keep them from shaking.

What was I thinking to agree to this? Maura thought.

A brush of wind blew across her left side. She let out a long breath, exhausted from the thought of what was to come.

***

Blue Ruin is the first novel in The Phoenix Series. The Phoenix Series is a dark fantasy with gothic, noire, paranormal, and supernatural elements.

“A hunter and the hunted, Maura Leroux is one of the last of her kind with a dark past that has haunted her. With black magical beings having been hunted for centuries, she’s come to learn a thing or two about survival. But Adrian Wilhelm, a notorious Vampire, threatens to destroy Maura’s newfound life as a detective in the magical world of Mystics. Adrian intends to use Maura as a means of resurrecting the fallen world of black magical beings, Abysm. Maura has made it her mission to stop Adrian while covering her tracks from those that have been seeking her out for centuries.”

Blue Ruin is now available for pre-order as an e-book. Pre-order The Phoenix Series: Blue Ruin — set to release on February 29, 2016.

 

 

 

The Journey of Publishing

May 2014 — the start of a very long, very trying, and an amazing journey.

Blue Ruin began as an idea. A small spark in my brain. A moment of insanity, as I later realized. Why would anyone in their right mind want to write a dark fantasy series? Three books? Dozens of characters? 200,000+ words? Enough action/emotion/engagement to hold a reader’s interest for several novels? It wasn’t until the editing process that I realized I was in over my head. Drowning.

Writing was fun. Exciting. Adventerous. I was able to discover another world and morph it to my liking. I created characters that I could imagine being a part of the real world and some that would love to kill me if they had the chance. Creating characters was the most fun. They could be anything and everything that I wasn’t. Evil. Scandalous. Magical. Powerful. Desperate. Hateful. Lonely. But, it was also the hardest. Characters are stubborn. Willful. Defiant. And sometimes, you have to kill them. By the end of Blue Ruin, I had a graveyard of characters that didn’t make the cut into the novel.

Writing Blue Ruin was one thing…editing was a whole other animal. I spent two years refining, polishing, rewriting and more rewriting. I thought editing would be the easiest part. The story is there, what else needs to be done? But, I soon learned that it wasn’t what was there that needed work. It was what wasn’t there. During the editing process, my 70K novel blossomed to nearly 90K. Characters, plot points, dozens of scenes and chapters fell into the abyss of recycled material. New scenes, new characters took their places, and by the time I received my final manuscript from my editor, my novel was unrecognizable from what it had started as.

Through the help of my beta-readers and editor, I learned a lot about writing. Writing is easy. Writing for an audience is hard. There were times where I wanted to give up after receiving a bad review or realizing I still hadn’t gotten that particular scene right yet, even after rewriting it thirty times already. Those moments are crucial. It’s in those moments that you remember why you are writing — why you are doing any of this.

Pre-order The Phoenix: Blue Ruin — set to release on February 29, 2016

Where It All Began

It started as something. An itch. A curiosity. A gnawing in the back of your mind, accompanied by a little voice that said, “let me out”. Or in my case…boredom. Every writer remembers the first time they wrote. Their first story. The first time they finished writing a book. They remember where it all began.

I was young – old enough to know books existed, young enough that I couldn’t write yet. I sat in our little apartment with its pink carpeting in the living room, box of raisins to my left, stacks of construction paper to my right, the television two feet from my face. I can still remember the feel of the construction paper – how I never saw construction paper like that again. It was thin, but strong, not easily folded like that other paper we’d had. It had a smooth surface, sharp edges. Perfect. I’d picked the front and back cover pieces. Purple. The inside would be white. And so, with the TV on some show I’d lost interest in, my raisins almost gone, the house quiet, I began.

I didn’t know what I was doing. At first, I was just drawing pictures, placing them in order, and stapling them to the construction paper. Then, a wordless story took form. A house painted orange breathed life into the pages. A purple alien visiting human relatives wove a story between disjointed and almost unrelatable drawings.

For me, that’s how it started. Raisins. My favorite construction paper. An alien and an orange house.

I’ve written for more than half of my life. Picture books turned into poems. Poems expanded into short stories. Short stories morphed into novels. And now I stand at the start of a new milestone. The beginning of a series.

Welcome!

My name is Sophia Madison, and this is my little site. Here you’ll find all of the projects I’m working on. The Phoenix Series is my current WIP – although I have plenty of side projects – and is the closest to being published. As of December 2015, I intend to publish the first book of the series, Blue Ruin. Each book will be self-published on Amazon, and once they are, I’ll post links to the site.

While The Phoenix Series is in the spotlight, I do have several other novels that I frequently bounce between when The Phoenix Series is causing me problems. Those side projects are listed on their own page. When they’re close to publish, I’ll designate a separate page for each. For now, they’re in their own little slush pile.

I’m not much of a blogger, and I’m not a famous author. But, I’ll give blogging a go and see where it takes me. The most I can do is share what I’ve learned with writers who are where I’ve been. At the same time, I hope to learn from other writers in my time here.

Feel free to check out my About Me page to find out where else I’ve planted my flag. Facebook. Twitter. Scribophile. Connect with me, and I’d love to connect with you.