C.M. Rosens's Blog, page 9

Audio Release for Yelen & Yelena Chapter 10: Blood Alchemy

Chapter 10 is here! In which Yelen & Yelena perform some experiments in Yelen’s alchemy tower, and Yelen makes some grisly confessions about his tyrannical past.

Get early access to the next episodes and support the podcast by signing up to a Tip Jar membership or above on Ko-Fi.

Music Credits:

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com)Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Intro/Outro: Quinn’s Song: The Dance Begins

Soundtrack: Morgana Rides, Redletter

Listen nowRead alongAlchemy

I’m going to dig into alchemy and magic in As Below, So Above, but here you get a look at exoteric alchemy as it was practiced 200 years before our story is set.

Exoteric alchemy is essentially proto-chemistry; esoteric alchemy is a psychological-spiritual practice. They were often inextricably linked, and in As Below, So Above, the actual performance of the alchemical process is an external and internal one, and will also inform the structure of the whole book.

Yelen describes exoteric alchemy and its practical applications only. He wasn’t interested (as a man) in the spiritual transformation of the alchemical process.

This is highly ironic, as his physical transmutation results in a spiritual rebirth and development, and you can trace the esoteric stages of his growth and cyclical behaviours leading to eventual improvement through his backstory and through the novel itself.

This came about accidentally in this novel, and I decided from this that I wanted to delve into it more deliberately, so As Below, So Above was born – and one character [Armel] who appears right at the end, will be a bridge character between the two stories.

I also like the idea that magic is affected by planetary alignments like the tides are affected by the moon, and I’m looking forward to playing with the solar system and constellations and astrology of the world a bit more too.

In this book, none of this has much of a direct bearing on anything except to enrich the worldbuilding, and to set you up for some Easter Eggs in later stories where it might actually be IMPORTANT that the light of the Baleful Star renders some concoctions poisonous… So crossover readers can point at that and scream to themselves because they already know what’s going to happen. I haven’t planned this yet, but that’s the sort of thing I like to play with.

In the meantime… enjoy this episode!

RSS Feed for Eldritch GirlYelen and Yelena – Chapter 10: Blood AlchemyAuthor Interview with Caitlin Starling: Gothic Horror, Medicine, and MagicYelen and Yelena – Chapter 08: The Rot Room and Chapter 09: Mirror MagicYelen and Yelena – Ch 07: Yelen's StoriesAuthor Interview with E.A. Noble: Worldbuilding and Intersectionally Diverse SFF

Author Spotlight: Paul Inman

Award-winning filmmaker and writer, Paul Inman was born, raised, and still lives in coastal South Carolina. He has a passion for storytelling across many platforms, including all genres of films, music, podcasts, and, of course, writing. His debut novel, Ageless, was a winner in the Sword & Laser Contest on Inkshares.com. With accolades from international film festivals and competitions such as Beaufort International Film Festival, Stephen King Rules Dollar Baby Film Festival, South Carolina Underground Film Festival, Crimson Screen Horror Film Festival, and more, his short films can be seen on Shorts TV, Amazon Prime, and YouTube. Paul is a Coastal Carolina University graduate with a BA in Music Performance and an MA in Teaching.

Author Links:

You can find him @paulinmansc on most social media.

Linktree with all the links – linktr.ee/paulinmansc

Bored Games: The Weather Channel https://youtu.be/4d6rAACYbA8?si=0JhMw5THBlYQD_gK

Tell us a bit about your web series. How did you get into short film-making for YouTube, and what gave you the idea for your web series, Bored Games?

Sometime in late 2021, I’d just finished That Feeling, my Stephen King Dollar Baby (that’s where he would give non-exclusive rights to adapt a story to indie/student filmmakers, sadly the program has ended). I was looking to do something a little more laid back after the year and half long adventure of making a King film! I thought it would be nice to make a comedy (That Feeling deals with some heavy themes). I thought something light and silly would be a great way to flex my writing muscles.

The idea was to make something like Seinfeld for the internet – a show about nothing. I took inspiration from my life, as one does, and thought about what it’s like to sit around with my friends. We always go on some wild tangent that’s usually ridiculous and often hilarious.

After some brainstorming, and convincing my wife that our house was perfect for the shoot, I came up with a handful of silly scenarios that would eventually become the basis for each of the episodes. It’s great, because each script is short and contained to one location – sitting around a table playing a card/board game – you can shoot an episode in a short amount of time. There is a running gag that someone new is at the table each episode and we almost never acknowledge it or that the character is new. They make me laugh. And, hopefully, others laugh too. I’m really grateful for the people who’ve volunteered their time and talents to make this little silly idea into a reality.

Which episode/s was/were your favourite to make so far, and can you say why?

That’s like choosing your favorite child! I’m sure that everyone says this, but they are all different from each other – even though the premise and the basic concept is the same for each. I loved making each of them in different ways and for different reasons. I’ll say this, unhinged Herbie (Ben Higgins) in this latest episode (The Weather Channel) make me laugh a lot. And I play a role in them as well. I love that my character is the “rational” one, but they are all a bit crazy.

Do you find that being a short fiction writer has helped you develop scripts for your web series, or vice versa – has writing scripts for shorts has helped you develop as a short fiction writer?

Great question, believe it or not, I wrote a novel (and a terrible, but fun and goofy, feature length script) before I did most of this other stuff. The novel is called Ageless and it’s out there somewhere if you’d like a copy. (Shameless, I know). Here’s the elevator pitch for that: A “young” woman with a genetic anomaly, spend her long life running from the people who’d exploit her. Ageless explores the question: is immortality a gift or a curse? It’s Firestarter meets X-Men meets Bourne.

To answer the question, I would say yes. Working one short form writing has influenced in both directions. My short fiction is stronger because of my short film script writing and vise versa.

Macabré: A Horror Anthology includes your novella Welcome to Hel!. Tell us a bit about the anthology, and your novella in particular.

I’m only one of several contributors to Macabré. I was asked to contribute a story in late 2023. My contribution is Welcome to Hel!, of course.

MS Chambers was the one who produced the book and gathered all the authors. The book includes some terrific stories by a group of fantastic writers. She sort of gave us free rein to create whatever came into our minds, as long as it was some subgenre of horror.

It was a lot of fun writing for this novella. It gave a chance to work some ideas that I’d had brewing for a lot of years. Outside of this, I’ve been writing short fiction in fits and starts for years. I’ve been a kick lately and wrote or finished several short stories in the past four or five months. I’ve been compiling my short writing too. I may produce a collection at some point.

Welcome to Hel! is a Sci-Fi Horror-comedy, described as Lovecraft meets Men In Black meets Clerks. What gave you this idea, and what was it about your working class protags and their normal working scenario (like Clerks) that you found compelling for the story?

Believe it or not, I saw a friend post something about getting a promotion making him the night manager at his job and it was the spark that created the fire (FYI, he doesn’t work at a convenience store like the characters in Welcome to Hel!).

In fact, the working title was Night Manager for a while. But I found that the main character shifted away from the night manager to Jordan, who is sort of the new guy, so I made the change. I think people can relate to a working class character; most of us live this in our day to day. This story isn’t exactly a normal working scenario, but you do get a bit of the mundane shit each of us goes through at our jobs on occasion. No one loves scrubbing the door jambs, or mopping floors, but it’s got to be done. Sometimes we put our heads down and power through. Everyone knows that feeling and can understand it. Almost everyone.

What can people look out for from you – anything coming soon? Will they recognise themes and tones from your previous work in your future publications?

There’s always irons in the proverbial fire. Probably too many, if I’m being honest!

The main thing: We – myself and a group of filmmakers and writers who adapted Stephen King’s work through his now defunct Dollar Baby program – are taking preorders for an all-new book Keys to the Kingdom. A Dollar Baby Horror Anthology of original horror fiction! 

A strong start got us noticed and you can help make this book a reality. We’d love your support!

 $10 = eBook
 $20 = Paperback
 $60 = “Super Reader” (3 books + your name in the book as a thank YOU!)

Let’s make this happen together! 

Learn more: inkshares.com/books/keys-to-the-kingdom 

I’m working on a new film that could see the light of day in 2025, but more likely 2026. I’ve got many short stories submitted to different publications, and I’ve got a novel out there looking for a home as well.

Plus, I’m always writing. I’ve got a lot of things going for 2025. None that I can talk about just yet. Well… I guess I can say there is very early talks about a standalone release of Welcome to Hel! in the near future (you’re the first I’ve mentioned this to!!).

And I’ve got a poem coming in a collection this summer.

You can find out more about all of things as they happen on my social media and website. Thank so much for having me and thanks for all you’re doing for the writing community! You rock!

Like This? Try These!

Yelen & Yelena Chapters 08 and 09 – Audio Release

Audio Release for Chapter 08: The Rot Room and Chapter 09: Mirror Magic is out today!

This read-along is for everyone who prefers audio over print/eBooks, and it’s free, but if you want to support the podcast then please head to Ko-Fi and join as a monthly Tip Jar member (or above) for early access to the episodes and mp3 downloads, as well as some eBook freebies in epub and PDF format.

There is no transcript as the book is the transcript, the audio is for accessibility – grab your copy now!

ListenRead along

Episode Music Credits:

Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Intro/Outro: Quinn’s Dream: The Dance Begins

Soundtrack: SCP-x4x, SCP-x6x, Folk Round, Morgana Rides.

The Magic System

Magic in Yelen & Yelena‘s universe operates along the lines of radio waves and electricity, where it is a naturally occurring force and part of the normal background noise of the universe that very few people understand at this stage.

The rot is something else – yes, it’s magical, but instead of being a naturally occurring wavelength in the atmosphere, it’s a physical substance with magical qualities. It needs a vessel to carry it out into the living world, and then it escapes as the vessel breaks down.

The understanding of magic as wavelengths with different charges interacting with different materials and impacted by the natural topography of the landscapes it encounters is only recently (in this book) being understood, and they understand it based on their observations of water, and the way rivers and tides and waves behave, and patterns of currents over uneven riverbeds, and so on.

This is also the in-world reason magic circles work for protection, but why they don’t always work the same way (or at all) from place to place, so for years were written off as superstition. Magic bounces off certain materials, so a circle the right size for the wavelength would result in the magic cancelling itself out inside the circle, making the charge inside the circle = 0. In other places, you’d need a series of concentric circles to cancel out different wavelengths, possibly of different materials. Trial and error is required!

Magic is also unpredictable – there are many different kinds of charge, not all of which have been discovered, and different regions have their own set of background waves. So you could turn on a machine that in one place is a magically enhanced steam engine in one area, and in another area the same machine will turn itself inside out and present you with a bouquet of flowers, because the charges of the magic in that area are totally different, and merely controlling them in the same way produces wildly variable results.

This is why Yelen’s mirror had to be given to him by the Mortress – it is linked to the curse and presumably works using a charge that is unfamiliar to that region, and his original time period, so if she hadn’t given it to him, a normal magic mirror for the Provinces wouldn’t have worked at all in the same way. The magical charge of the mirror would have been cancelled out by the charge of the curse, and nothing would happen.

(Magic also interacts with noble metals like silver and gold, but glass is good for magical containment, which is why mirrors can be very useful objects; especially silver-backed mirrors in silver or gold frames. This is why the nobility used to have magic mirrors for communication devices, but they were out of reach for the majority of the population.)

Magic & International Relations

This also opened up a lot of other worldbuilding possibilities. I wanted a world without colonialism and conquest in quite the same way as this world had, and so the Guild Mistress Venturer from the Lalaris Islands that you met in the hostelry did not have her islands raided and her people exploited, but she did meet and marry a Trading Guild Master through the pearl trade.

Now, this trade may result in exploitation via soft power and political reactions to networks of supply/demand, but it’s not the same thing as the East India Trading Company, and the people of Lalaris have a much stronger hand in what happens in that trading arrangement.

The in-world reasoning for this is that when merchants encountered the Lalaris Islands, they didn’t understand the different charges of magic in the archipelago, and none of their own rudimentary understanding about magic applied there; like trying to force microwaves down a copper wire instead of a tube. If they had turned up with hostile intent, the indigenous people would have simply wiped the floor with them.

This puts everyone on different footing with one another, and different relative power dynamics can exist, simply because magic is unpredictable and a science of its own that needs study and experimentation.

When you realise that travelling to other countries means you will encounter people well-versed in the use of their own magic, while you do not know how to use any in that region and what you have reacts in wildly different ways to how it’s meant to work, diplomacy becomes paramount, or you’ll all die very fast.

So that creates a new set of power dynamics and imperatives that our world doesn’t have, and renders technological arms races less important, as you could turn up with a war machine that doesn’t use magic and have it immediately blown to smithereens and take the whole fleet with it. Similarly, gunpowder and arrows and bullets are all very well until you realise the other side all have a personal forcefield that renders them invincible, and you… do not.

War ends up being a very local affair – whether that’s neighbouring countries or civil war – where everyone’s magic is more or less the same. Also, if it’s the same AND unpredictable, you just wouldn’t bother using it most of the time if you had technology that worked more reliably.

The main way of interacting with foreigners is through trade and diplomacy, which can create soft power dynamics and a lot of intrigue, rather than hard power and military conquest. It also becomes a thing of the past, where people didn’t understand magic at all and mostly relied on weaponry.

Also, people can’t always explain their own magic to outsiders. They know from their own history of magical experiments what works and what doesn’t, but they can work that out without being able to explain the fundamental physics behind it, so nobody is any the wiser what charge it is, or whether it’s low frequency or high frequency, or what that means.

Spark Lines & the Provinces

Spark lines were mentioned in an earlier chapter – these are basically aqueducts for magic, and you’ll get to see what they look like (they’re very weird) in later books and stories set in this world. They don’t carry generated magic – they pull magic out of the atmosphere and channel it (like radio). There are big plants at either end of a spark line that filter magical wavelengths, bounce it around weird mesh and fans and all kinds of shapes, and get it to travel on down other spark lines.

You don’t have them in the Provinces because it’s expensive, and there’s no political will to invest in working out how the wavelengths interact with Province topography (magic behaves differently across different landscapes, like water behaves differently when flowing over different topographies, creating eddies and whirlpools and so on). Pockets of wild magic can and do still exist in regions like this, where magic is not channelled.

Layfolk like Yelena just don’t see this scientific side of things, and therefore buy into the “magic is tamed now” narrative, when it… is not. It’s just so normal that nobody notices it’s still swishing around, and unless you encounter a pocket of it, you wouldn’t know it’s there.

I’m going to expand on this (with some in-jokes for the physicists) in the next story I’m working on, As Below, So Above, which brings in alchemy and magic and the Interior City as a setting.

RSS Feed for Eldritch GirlYelen and Yelena – Chapter 08: The Rot Room and Chapter 09: Mirror MagicYelen and Yelena – Ch 07: Yelen's StoriesAuthor Interview with E.A. Noble: Worldbuilding and Intersectionally Diverse SFFYelen and Yelena – Chapter 05: The Wanderer and Chapter 06: YelenYelen and Yelena – Chapter 03: Last Orders and Chapter 04: Winds of Change

ATTENTION RICKY FANS: New Release!

Release Announcement:
The Sussex Fretsaw Massacre & Other Stories is now out in print and eBook.
GET IT NOW

I’ve been asked a few times if The Sussex Fretsaw Massacre would have a print release; now it does, but included with it are several short stories that have been Ko-Fi-member exclusives since 2023.

(You should join the membership at Eldritch Seeker tier or above if you want more like this).

What’s Included?“Gerald” – originally in the anniversary hardback edition of The Crows, this short story is now the opening story of The Sussex Fretsaw Massacre & Other Stories, and features Ricky meeting Myrddin for the first time, and Gerald getting his name. “Poison” – written for Ko-Fi members in 2023, this story marks Ricky’s first solo kill on his 14th birthday, and the beginning of his drug-and-alcohol-fuelled descent into adolescence. “June” – written for Ko-Fi members in 2023, a slice-of-life short on one of Katy’s birthdays that kicks off the brief and ill-fated Wes/Ricky relationship.“First” – written for Ko-Fi members in 2023, this short is Ricky/Wes and their first intimate/erotic moment (on page). CWs for: dub con/questioning asexual teen + allosexual bi/pan (unlabelled) teen. “Crush” – written for Ko-Fi members in 2023, this is a short story from Wes’s POV, charting the development of his complex feelings for Ricky, from childhood animosity/jealousy through to his teenage crush.“Conflict” – written for Ko-Fi members in 2023, this is the end of the road for Wes/Ricky, or so they both think.“Love Song for The Crows” – written in 2021 for Monstrous May, supporter-only Ko-Fi content, no membership required for access. This is from The Crows/Fairwood House’s POV, from its ruined state through to Carrie’s first steps into its entrance hall, with glimpses of Ricky from that point of view. The Sussex Fretsaw Massacre – novella still available to buy as a standalone eBook. The collection also features a full page illustration by Thomas S. Brown, which was originally included in the original edition of The Crows prior to its 2024 re-release by Canelo.

If you buy the eBook direct from me for £5.99, you’ll also get the mp3 files for The Sussex Fretsaw Massacre, as aired in a 3-part mini series on my podcast, Eldritch Girl.

get from Itch.ioget from Ko-Figet from cmrosens.com

To buy the eBook on its own, or the print version, you can check out this link instead to purchase from your store of choice, or get via your eBook library subscription. If you don’t want to use Amazon, there are alternatives!

Author Spotlight: Devan Barlow

Devan Barlow (she/her) is the author of the Curses & Curtains series and the collection Foolish Hopes and Spilled Entrails: Retellings. Find her short fiction and poetry in various anthologies and magazines. She reads voraciously, and is usually hanging out with her dog, drinking tea, and thinking about sea monsters.

Author Links:

Website: devanbarlow.com
Itch.io shop: devan-barlow.itch.io

Universal Book Links:
An Uncommon Curse
An Uncertain Murder

Let’s talk about the series Curses & Curtains, which merges fairy tales with musical theatre and mystery.  What is your favourite fairy tale, and what are the appeals of fairy tales for you? 

There are so many I love, but if I have to narrow it down, either The Blue Bird or The Princess and the Pea. Fairy tales have an endless capacity for weirdness and transformation, humor and horror, which makes them excellent beginning points for most any kind of story you want to tell.

 How did you choose which minor characters to refocus the stories on, and what scope did this give you to play with plot strands and themes that perhaps get overlooked in more traditional retellings of these tales?

When I finish reading a fairytale and think “Oh, but what about that random side character? We never got to hear what happened to them!” that often leads to me writing retellings.

For this series, I took that instinct and expanded on it, to look at all people and events happening just out of frame of the main stories. A lot of support structure is necessary for princesses and princes to complete these enormous quests! After all, someone has to cobble the enchanted shoes the Twelve Princesses dance in every night.

What inspired the characters of Susan in An Uncommon Curse, and Joan in An Uncertain Murder, and what is your favourite thing about them?

There are a number of fairy tales where a male love interest is transformed/kidnapped/loses his memory/etc, and often he ends up engaged or married to another woman. I became fascinated by the plight of that “other woman” and that led to Susan! I love how sensible she is, even as the world around her becomes increasingly chaotic.

Joan first appears in An Uncommon Curse as a tertiary character, but I immediately knew I wanted her to come back. I love how Joan is both very anxious but also loves to (in her way) be in the spotlight, and that helped me develop the plot of book two, which includes both a heist and having to solve a murder that hasn’t happened yet.

What inspired the idea of a cursed musical, and how did the musical itself develop as you were plotting and drafting the stories?

Plotting book one happened mostly simultaneously with building the world. A lot of my plotting process involves asking “How could I make things worse for the character” so while I originally planned that Susan would have a (rather inaccurate) musical written about her, I then realized that if I made the musical itself a vehicle for magic, I could introduce both chaos into the plot and more intricacy into the worldbuilding.

With books two and three, then, the challenge was then to still incorporate musicals (and theatrical magic) in ways that didn’t feel repetitive. The challenges of plotting, describing, and writing lyrics for the in-world musicals has been overwhelming at times, but such a fun way to push myself and deepen the worldbuilding.

The phrase ‘the magic of theatre’ is taken very literally in this series – there is actually a magical theatre! This might be a bit deep, but can you tell us a bit about your own philosophy/thoughts about theatre and its magic vs reality, and how that works its way into these books?

I think musical theatre is one of the most amazing ways to immerse people into a story. A successful production involves not only a group of people working together effectively, but also an enormous amount of different types of expertise.

It brings so much opportunity for both heartbreak and hilarity, and has always struck me as an incredible milieu for fantasy. I also believe there’s a parallel between musicals and fairy tales, in that if you only focus on the stars, you get a much shallower production/story.

Do you have any fairy tales you want to explore further? What’s next for your series?

I’m perpetually reading fairy tales, and figuring out strange new things to do to them! Next is book three, which will (hopefully) be out in the spring of 2025, and is narrated by a character series readers will recognize from books one and two! It’s still crammed with fairy tale tropes and theatrical shenanigans, this time with a magical baking competition and a healthy dose of Gothic novel spookiness.

Get An Uncommon CurseGet An Uncertain MurderLike This? Try These!

Eldritch Girl S04: Yelen & Yelena Episode 05 (Chapter 7)

Welcome to Chapter 07: Yelen’s Stories.

Yelena gets to know Yelen, who struggles with reality and sudden socialisation, and they play guessing games together… with a few forfeits…

CWs: mental health issues, depressive mindsets, derealisation, detachment/dissociative disorder symptoms.

Support the podcast on Ko-Fi to get early access episodes and mp3 downloads.

Head to cmrosens.com to get updates and sign up to my author newsletter.

Listen nowRead AlongListen AheadNotes on Taramine, Magic, and Consent

Yelen tells Yelena a story about the Mortress, which implies that the herb taramine renders you immune to her power unless you consent to being under it.

I wanted consent to be a central part of the book, but also the issues around dubious consent, coerced consent, and how magic doesn’t care about the nuances. That, to me, is really uncomfortable, and adds to the Horror elements of the novel.

Magic in this universe is a completely amoral and dispassionate force, like gravity or electricity, it is not something that cares about you, and it can be used in any way a user is able to manipulate and control it. Consent, regardless of how it’s acquired, is the only thing necessary to override protections against magic, and that is deeply disturbing in its implications.

I hope that this adds to the background sense of dread or at least unease, and the idea that things will kick off later in the novel that will, in true Gothic style, send things spinning off in unexpected (and dark) directions.

I also liked the idea of a herb used for contraceptive purposes being of central importance to the book, given the themes of personal agency and bodily autonomy, so I hope that this works.

Music Credits :
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0
Intro/Outro:
Quinn’s Dream: The Dance Begins
Kevin MacLeod pieces used in Ch 07:
Midnight Tale
Bittersweet
Our Story Begins
Leaving Home
Quinn’s Song – First Night

Worldbuilding and Intersectionally Diverse SFF with Multi-Genre Author E.A. Noble on the Eldritch Girl Podcast

I’m E.A. Noble, and I write Queer and Diverse Fantasy for the Culture. I grew up in Mississippi with my great-grandmother, who encouraged me to turn my dreams into reality. Becoming a writer was always what I wanted to do. As a Queer, fat, Black, AuDHD, and disabled woman, it was important to me to write stories that amplify voices like mine. I want it to be normalized that we can be the love interests, the warriors, the assassins, the main leads, and the superheroes too!

Author Links:

All the links: linktr.ee/eanoble

Connect: Search for @eanoble or @authoreanoble on all social media platforms.
@authoreanoble.bsky.social on BlueSky

Listen nowTranscript Introduction

CMR: Hello, and welcome back to Eldritch Girl, and we’ve got EA Noble with us, which is really exciting. Could you introduce yourself to everyone please?

EAN: Yes, I am EA Noble, and I write queer and diverse fantasy and Gothic literature for the culture. What that means is, when you open up one of my books, I hope you find yourselves within the pages.

CMR: Your latest book, the Supersized Bubblegum book, is on my TBR, and I’m so excited to get to that. We are going to be talking about that, I think, but also mainly about your high fantasy novel as well, When Blood Meets Earth, as well, and we’re going to hear a clip from that from the forthcoming audiobook. So this was on femme audio takeover. Could you just give us a little bit of context about the extract we’re going to hear and tell us a little bit about that book?

EAN: Yes, so this scene takes place between Candia and and my main character, Bellamy, which is a badass, and Bellamy has traveled very far because there have been rumors, things started, that the Fire King is about to launch a war against the 6 other kingdoms. And Candia is the Fire King’s daughter, and she has agreed to meet, and Bellamy is basically confronting her about her place and her role in this war that’s about to be unleashed in this novel.

CMR: Mm. Mm, okay.

EAN: Mmhm. Also, the narrator, I just want to say, I just want to say the narrator of this is A’rese (ar-ess-ay), I hope I said that right, but her name is A’rese. And she will be officially in production with my novel in January. So look out for that, because it’ll be in full production soon.

Extract from When Blood Meets Earth

Narrator: A’rese.

@authoreanoble

@A’rese Narrates #femmeaudiotakeover #booktok #blackboktok #yournextread

♬ original sound – E.A. Noble Fantasy

Check out A’rese on A’rese Narrates, and see if this talented actress is the right audiobook narrator for you!

Audio Captions:

Candia shook her head. “No, because it has to be said. For centuries your people have held our pasts over our heads, refusing to let it go. Punishing us for maleficence that our forefathers have done? Is it not enough that the spirits cursed us? Do you people stop and think about the harm your persistent judgments do to us? How we feel? How we are hunted every day by ghosts of the before?” Candia’s voice cracked as tears bloomed.

The tiny prickles underneath my [Bellamy’s] skin spread to my entire left side. “I’m going to say this once, and I will not say it again. You need to lower your tone when speaking to me.”

Candia scoffed.

“Second,” I continued. “I’m holding you accountable for what you are taking part in now. Your role in this matter. You continued to play it, instead of dismantling it entirely. You refuse to use your role to put an end to those who wish to continue a legacy filled with bloody battlefields and chains. The past will continue to be held over your head because people like you haven’t learned from it. And now there’s another war coming, and all you can offer is tears.” I sneered. “And you have the nerve to sit across from me like you’re the fucking victim? Like you’re not sitting at the table with your father, as he plans to bring destruction upon us all? Snatching babies from their cradles, and forcing them into a world where they are nothing but science experiments?” My entire body itched intensely as I spoke through clenched teeth. “Dry your fucking tears. They are not welcome here.”

EAN: Oooh! Intense.

CMR: I love that clip. And I really love the narrator. I think, yeah, it’s such a good job, right? That’s going to be so exciting. So yeah, I just need to… Let’s let that settle for a bit.

EAN: I know!

CMR: Sit with that.

EAN: Right.

CMR: So this fantasy novel obviously has some deep themes. This clip especially showcases ideas of personal and collective accountability. You’ve got that – you said Gothic stories in your introduction, and this definitely has the Gothic theme of haunted by the past coming through there on a systemic as well as an individual level. And were these themes that organically grew from your drafts of the story, or did you set out to incorporate them from the start?

EAN: So I’m one of those type of writers that believe that all books should have a theme. Not everybody believes that, I just, wanna you know, preface that, but I do. And when you read my stories, there is an overall underlying theme that happens through the books.

Now, this particular scene, I did not set out for it. It happened due to the fact of in my world, there were seven continents, much like our own. And what happened was these humans decided to harness the power of gods, and one of the powers that they harness is of the Fire Spirit, and there are seven spirits. So you have fire, earth, wind, water, life, reaper, moon. Those are the seven spirits.

So when these people, these humans, capture the Fire Spirit, they took her power, and they used that power as a weapon to destroy the seven continents, literally killing billions of people, and for their punishment they were cursed and pushed to the side.

So in this world, in the present day, the world that we are in is a Pangea. All the people have been gathered into one location. And within that one location, there are seven kingdoms, and everybody exiles the Fire Spirit or the Fire Kingdom, because of the past, and what they’ve done, even though this is almost 600 years later.

And so what Candia is saying is, we are the only ones born with no magic, with no power, and is it not enough? Have we suffered enough? How long are we going to get punished for our atrocities that we’ve committed?

And Candia goes on to even say, I didn’t steal nobody’s power. I never hunted down the Fire Spirit and took away the Fire Spirit’s magic. I didn’t do it. And yet she come from a bloodline that were one of the first people who hunted the Fire Spirit down and took away the power. You know what I mean. She’s a princess. And so we have that conversation happening on Candia’s end.

And then for Bellamy side of the story, where she’s coming from is, she’s also a princess, and she feels like it is her duty to protect those that you know cannot protect themselves. Those that are weak. It’s her duty to stand up for her people. And here it is almost 600 years later, and your father is launching a war against the kingdoms, and Bellamy is just saying, you say you don’t want to be held accountable for past sins that you didn’t commit, and yet you sit next to your father, as he’s planning to launch another war on all the kingdoms, killing babies, stealing them from the cradles, forcing people into the military forcing people, you know, to, to go through this war, which is meaningless. You obviously haven’t learned from your past, because if you had, you will stop your father at all costs for launching this war that’s about to happen.

And so we having these two conversations at the same time, and that like I said, it was not something that I set out to have was something that obviously needed to happen with those two perspectives colliding at once.

CMR: There’s such a lot going on there as well, and I think in terms of worldbuilding there’s a lot going on. You’ve got this really interesting set up of locations, like the Pangea countries. And – so there’s obviously, in a Pangea, there’s no separate continents, if anyone doesn’t know what that means.

EAN: Right, mmhm. Yeah.

CMR: It’s – so, the Pangea is basically where it’s one continent. And in this case it’s divided up into like seven kingdoms. So you don’t have those like. There’s no sea to cross. There’s no, there’s no barriers. Necessarily. There’s, you know, natural borders like mountains and rivers. But yeah, so why did you? How did you come up with that? And let’s talk a little bit more about that world building, because I think that’s really interesting. And I love the idea of the seven spirits and the spheres of, of, yeah, that you’ve got going on and like, what was your world building process like, how did you create your world as you drafted? Do you kind of work in the themes of the story and then create the world to fit those themes, or do you create the world first, and then the story grows from that?

EAN: Okay. So my world building starts with character, and everything that I always do always starts with character. And once I get that character or that vision, it starts to expand the world that’s around them.

As you read any of my books, you will quickly see that I am a character driven writer and storyteller. I read books, and if I’m not in love with your characters, I don’t care how many awards you have. I’m never – I’m gonna DNF! [The acronym for Did Not Finish, often used as a verb in English-speaking online book/reviewer circles]

I have to love your characters. I don’t care how many plots, how fast is going, how slow is going. Give me character.

So when I began my world building it started with Bellamy, and it started with this princess. That’s not a princess, but she is a princess. But why isn’t she a princess? What happened for her to be? Because Princess Bellamy’s mother is an exile queen. Again, there are seven kingdoms, and Bellamy comes from the lineage of the Earth Kingdom. So my book is a mixture of The Poppy War and Avatar: The Last Airbender. So – keep that in mind.

So Bellamy’s mother is an exiled Earth Queen, and she’s living in the Reaper Kingdom. Why?

And then I just begin to start building, and I keep asking myself why, why, why, like I’m a 2 year old child trying to explain to myself things. And then the world building kind of just pans out from there, and I get the history and the bloodline of Bellamy, where she stemmed from, where did these elemental powers come from, and what was the world like before the what we call the ‘mortem era’? So there’s pre-mortem era. There’s mortem era, and there’s post-mortem era. So the death age, or before the death age, you know. Bellamy comes from a long line where when the war was happening and the earth was literally being destroyed. There was just one woman who came out, and she cried upon the gods.

(And I am Gullah-Geechee. So that’s a rich Afro-American culture that comes from South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, and the Southern States, where slave ships dropped us off at like, the biggest ports. And so, being Gullah-Geechee, we have our own black magic, some people call it vodou, and some people call it hoodoo, but what it really is, is protection, ancestral magic.)

And so this woman was like, I need help. You see, they’re destroying the world. So she put her hand in the soil and called upon the six sleeping spirits to come and rescue the universe. And thus elementals were born. So when they finished that, locking the Fire Spirit away because Fire Spirit went mad, the six spirits gave the six kingdoms magical powers, or elemental powers, so in times of need they can help each other, lift each other, and they would never be powerless again.

And so that’s how the world started to take shape for me. And I kind of just built upon that until I got the world that I got today. I hope that was okay. [laughs]

CMR: You could talk literally, you could talk worldbuilding at me for hours, and I’d be like, yes, yes, tell me more.

EAN: Oh yeah. [laughs]

CMR: This is good. This is the good stuff.

[They both laugh]

CMR: I used to teach a class on British national identities, which sounds incredibly dry. But that was — actually — why am I here? And how do I speak this language? And why am I in this country is one of the interactive exercises I used to play with my students, and I give them like, based on the history of the British Isles. This is at the end of the course, so they would have known about migration within Britain, and like, the Anglo-Saxon invasions, and all that kind of stuff. So I’d be like, why would you be a person from country A, but you recognize the King of Country B, and you speak the language of B, but you have the religion of A, or you … You know what I mean? And they had to come up with these reasons why, and they have to give me historical answers for it. Yeah, anyway, your worldbuilding —

EAN: Yes, yes, that’s literally — yes.

CMR: I was like, ahh!! [They laugh] Because that’s just how it is, right.

EAN: Yes!

CMR: It’s rooted in in so much real history.

EAN: Yes, exactly. Because that’s a great point, and I love that you made that parallel to your teaching, because that’s exactly that’s exactly like — you start with a character. They’re the person. This person believes in this, their religion is this, but they are this, this and this. So what happened to make this person, you know, all these things in one, and then you out build out the world like that. Yeah.

CMR: Yeah, I think also, like, if you’re building on such a rich heritage and tradition, and you’re trying to create a rich heritage and tradition that feels real, you kind of have to ask those deep questions and look at historical parallels and see how this happens for people in real life, right.

EAN: Yeah, mmhm.

CMR: Because that creates those those layers for the world to really come alive. Yeah, hundred per cent. I’m so tempted as well to ask you about the world building you did for your other book, which is Supersized Bubblegum.

EAN: I don’t mind!

CMR: Which is a totally different, totally different genre, because you are a multi genre author, and I feel like it would be remiss not to bring that up in the interview.

EAN: I am. Oh, yeah, yeah.

CMR: [There are] Many, many strings to this bow, because there you’re dealing with an AU, an alternative universe of our world. So how did you go about creating your world building for that? Because you’ve obviously got all of these rich ideas for the fantasy that you can draw on. But did you find creating an alternative universe world a little bit different to that, or like what was your process?

EAN: No, mm-mm. It was not different to it at all. Again I start with a character, and I know we’re talking about world building, and it’s really weird to say, Oh, you know, you start with the character, because I just was watching another world building video, and no matter how many I watch, they always say they start with like the actual reality of the world. But that just doesn’t happen for me!

And so I saw this Fatty Baddie in my head, you know. And I’m just like, oooh! and I’m just like, uh-huh, thanks card giving, body, big, love it. And I’m just like, okay, so what’s your story? And I was just thinking, like, how cute would it be that she gained superpowers and by actually eating food? And I’m just like oh, I would love that actually, you know, if I could, I would do that.

CMR: Yeah!

EAN: And then I started like building on like her wants, these desires. And I started thinking about the world. It started with her. Then it went to her apartment unit. Then I’m just like, okay. What type of apartment is she staying in – 1st or second floor? Big girls gotta know, because I’m first floor. I’m 1st floor all the way. We started there, and then it crept off into the streets, and then it crept off into this grocery– not this grocery store, but this convenience store, and then it crept off into politics and was surrounding the politics. Then it crept off into this whole entire universe, where superbeings work with the police. There are some people that’s born with superpowers, some people that are not. And I was thinking to myself, what can I liken this world to?

And cause the one thing I want people to know, if you’re listening; nothing is new under the sun. We try our hardest to create these unique, beautiful things that nobody else has. I’m sorry, somebody else has it. You probably just never heard of somebody else having it, but somebody else has it, and they’re probably doing it, you know, a lot better or a lot worse, who cares? But it exists somewhere.

So, I started looking up like worlds that mimic the world that I have in my head with superheroes work with authorities and stuff like that. And it just so happens that I watch The Boys. I don’t know if you have ever heard of The Boys on Amazon Prime.

CMR: Yeah, we’ve got that, that’s made it to the UK.

EAN: Yes, and you know how crazy they are. And so I was thinking, Yeah, this Supersized Bubblegum can be very seriously related to, almost in the universe of, The Boys.

CMR: Okay!

EAN: It’s the exact same dynamic that I have. And so I use that to also add to the layers of my world and created the, you know, city of Chimango, which is kind of like a playoff of the city of Chicago. So.

CMR: Right. Aw, I love that, I like that it’s the same process each time, but it just goes to show that that process is so versatile. And you can create multiple things by taking the same starting point and then just like building and layering and layering. Yeah.

EAN: Yeah.

CMR: I think that’s also something that came up in Georgina Kiersten’s interview as well when they were talking about their world building process. That was that was quite cool to hear. Yeah. It’s a slightly different process, but also from a character and outwards.

I think that’s just such a good way to go, honestly. But I’m very biased because I’m a character driven author as well. So I feel like I need to go out and find, like a world building orientated author, just to like add balance.

[laughter]

EAN: Right. So the way I see— Right, so I’m an anime nerd, and I’m not a big gamer, but I’m a big gamer watcher like I love watching streamers. When I’m at work, I watch streamers. When I’m at play, I watch streamers when I need to house clean, I put on somebody that’s streaming some type of horror. I love horror streamers. So some type of horror streamer. Indiana Jones just came out, so I’m watching a streamer play that through as well. So like–

CMR: Fab, yeah.

EAN: –Right. And so when you enter a game right, you don’t enter the world. No, usually you enter the character. You go character first, and then some games and some horror games as well. You build your character’s face the way they look, the way they dress, their style. And then, once you build that character, that character is being released into some random place to which you have to sometimes build a house, build a hut, build whatever. And you start just creating these little moments within the game that, you know.

I think I was playing… I think I was watching one of my favorite streamers play Sons of the Forest, and if you play Sons of the Forest, you’re dropped out of this airplane and landed into this beautiful lush world, and you have to build your hut. You have to meet characters around you. You have to go in searching for like mountains and and valleys and food and cutting down trees, and before you even get to the plot of Sons of the Forest, you know what I mean.

CMR: Yeah.

EAN: So I feel like. It’s the same way, for when I build my world, I start with my character. What she looks like, what or what they look like, what are their wants beliefs? What are their desires? What are they here for? And then they’re in this white room, and then I start building out the white room and then expand past the white room and see what’s around the white room. You know what I mean.

CMR: Yeah.

EAN: So it’s kind of like that.

CMR: God, this is so fun. Because the next question is, how do you develop your characters so you can explore the issues and the themes that you want to get at within the book.

EAN: Yeah. So I love characters, I love characters, I love characters. And the first thing about developing multi-faceted characters is understanding that characters are complex. As humans, we are complex. We are walking contradictions. Like, okay, I’m fat. Yeah, I want to lose weight. But I’m about to go get McDonald’s after this interview. You know what I mean. So it’s like, we are walking contradictions sometimes, and we aren’t just one note, and I think that a lot of books that don’t do the justice of developing their characters, they tend to fall flat. Their characters tend to fall flat because they’re one note. They just added one layer. They are very small minded and narrow minded as to what it is that they want, and that is not how humans function. I don’t care if you’re a himbo or a bimbo. You still have layers. You know what I mean. You’re just not single-minded. You have depth.

First you have to figure out the ghost. What are they hunted by? Then you have to figure out what lies have they told themselves? Then you have to figure out, what do they need? What do they want? What are their desires? Because sometimes what they need is not what they necessarily want, and what they desire is not necessarily what they need.

So you have to figure out how are they traversing through the world with the perspectives that they have, and then you have to just keep building and adding layers.

I think of it, I think of character building, like art. So we have a drawer. Because I get obsessed with those videos too late at night. And I like to watch… Okay, you’re learning too much about me and what I do when no one’s looking. But I like to… I also like to watch those cleaning carpet videos, but that’s neither here or there.

[they both laugh]

So I like to watch like drawers render their images from like start to beginning, and I find it very fascinating that even very experienced drawers they start off with like circles, triangles, and all these different types of shapes and objects, and then once they get the curve of the body correctly, they start erasing lines and combining the lines and smoothing the lines out, and then they keep adding layers like shadow, and how they tilt the brows, how they move the hair! And then they just keep building and building and building until they add the skin, the clothes, the eye color, and it just comes to life.

But it starts sometimes with a circle, you know, and that is character building as well. Sometimes you have to start with that flat, okay, we know she’s obsessed with a boy, or obsessed with some some romance. We know she’s there. But why, and what will happen? And what if she doesn’t get it? And what if she wants something else? What does she like to do in her spare time? Is it always an obsession with someone? Or like, how deep can we get her — or him? (I don’t know why I’m using “her”. I write mostly women. That’s why.)

So it’s like, how deep can we get them? And we’re just adding on those layers, into those layers, into those layers, until your characters no longer feel like characters, but they actually feel like realized people.

CMR: Yeah.

EAN: Yeah.

CMR: Do you have a program that you put like the notes into? Or do you have flashcards or like, how do you — I’m always fascinated how people actually keep track of things.

EAN: I use a few programs. when I first started writing, I use Milanote. But I don’t use that anymore. Because there’s other softwares that I like a lot better than Milanote. But it was like a electronic kind of posty card type of thing. But now I use a software called Obsidian.

I love Obsidian. It works with my brain. It’s also free. And that’s a very important to indie authors. Because it takes a lot of money to produce a book. So this software is free. You can do upgrades, but honestly, I’m really big on. They give you. They give you so much in the free version that I haven’t yet needed to upgrade. But it’s “Obsidian”.

And then the next thing that I like to use is Novlr. I love Novlr, I don’t hear a lot of people talk about Novlr, but it allows me to section out my stories, because one thing I also do is before I write a chapter, I put a a chapter summary.

So I keep everything in like those two things [Obsidian and Novlr]. So, yeah.

CMR: Yeah, no, I. Yeah. I’ve always fascinated by that, because people keep showing me stuff. And I’m like, I need this in my life. And then I’m back to notebooks where I write everything by hand, and then I lose the notebook, and I’m like why, why am I doing this to myself. [laughs]

EAN: Yeah, no, right. Novlr and Obsidian. So Obsidian works a lot like Scrivener in a way. But I think Obsidian is a lot better. Because Scrivener is so… I’m autistic and ADHD. So when I go to Scrivener, it’s just overwhelming. It’s like a sensory overload, and I never know where to start, because it’s too much to start.

CMR: I felt the same, I tried it and got like, oh my God, what am I doing?? Yeah.

EAN: Yeah! Obsidian, however, although Obsidian is a learning curve, if you go to Obsidian’s page, there is this handsome young man, I sound like my grandma, there is a handsome young man, who teaches how, step by step, of how to use Obsidian, and once you learn how to use it, it’s really up to you, and you can fashion it however you need it to be fashioned for your brain. But one thing I love about Obsidian, is it interconnects everything.

So they have like this little graph that if you want to see how all these things connect, you hit this button and this and this map just populates of how all of your characters interconnect, and how the world interconnect. It’s so gorgeous! I love it. I love it.

CMR: Oh, wow! Yeah, okay. I’d never heard of it before. I’m gonna try it. Sorry, I sidetracked us. Sidetracked.

EAN: I love it. I love it. I love it so much, definitely try it out. It is a learning curve. It really is. But once you learn it, you can beat the curve, baby. You can. You can use it and it’s a lifesaver.

CMR: that’s so good to know. Yeah, okay, I’m going to try that. I was going to ask as well, what are your main goals as an author, so not just in terms of your writing, but in terms of what you want for readers of your books to experience, because you’ve just got so much going on. You’ve got some really detailed world building. You’ve got these characters. You’ve got the layering of both of these. So you’re exploring deep themes of like accountability, and haunted by the past, and all of these really layered dark themes as well. So what do you want your readers to experience when they pick up one of your books?

EAN: I want them first to experience a world that’s not their own. I don’t want to shy away from hard conversations, but also I don’t want my readers to feel as though they’re being preached to. So everything that I write, it needs to be organically from, and relevant to, the world and the characters in the world.

However, when a reader reads my book, I want them to take away something new about themselves. Rather, they have learned to question something, or they have been inspired. I think there was a one reader who read When Blood Meets Earth, and for some reason she was inspired by every quote at the top of the page, and she was just like, Oh, I love these quotes. Oh, I love these quotes. And she kept trying to Google the quotes to figure out where I get them from, and a lot of the quotes is just quotes I’ve made up.

[laughter]

I totally made these up. You’re not going to find them anywhere. They’re mine.

And she was just like, Oh, I just love these quotes. I just want to put them on a coffee mug, and she just was obsessed with the quotes, and for some reason those quotes were just teaching her something new about the world, about her own personal world. And so whenever you read my book, I want my readers to feel seen. I want them to feel heard. I want them to feel like, you know, it’s okay not to be perfect, that it’s okay to grow. It’s okay to explore. It’s okay to imagine. Especially because I do write mostly New Adult, but I also write Adult.

And I think sometimes the industry is– they tend to push YA so much. And I understand why, but they push YA so much, and adults tend to– when you’re reading as an adult, it’s like, Oh, I have to read a certain type of book because I’m an adult.

And I don’t want that. I want, even though you’re an adult, I don’t care if you’re 30, 40, 50, 60, when you open up my books, I want you to imagine worlds beyond ours. Dragons, fairies, fae, fat women who eat bubblegum and gain superpowers. I want you to be transformed, and enjoy the world that you’re in.

[laughter]

CMR: That’s such a great answer. Yeah, that’s beautiful. And I’m so excited because Supersized Bubblegum is on my list after I’ve read Jamison Shea’s next one, I Am The Dark That Answers When You Call. But yeah, I’ve been wanting to read Supersized Bubblegum since it came out.

EAN: Yeah, so Supersized Bubblegum is, ah… mm. I will say, it has its grotesque moments.

CMR: Good. I’m in. Yes.

[laughter]

EAN: Okay. Because one person, one of my readers who absolutely loves everything that I write – I always talk about her because I love her so much – but she couldn’t make it past Chapter 3, because it gave her nightmares and I’m just like, I swear, I swear after Chapter 3, it’s not as grotesque. After Chapter 3, I’m telling you it’s fine, okay, it’s fine. She’s like, no, I can’t.

[laughter]

CMR: Oh, wow! That’s an endorsement, I think.

[laughter]

EAN: Okay, so here’s the thing about me. I don’t like books that start off with a bang, and then in Chapter 2 or Chapter 3, drop me. You get that drop. I call it the drop. I don’t know the proper name for it, but I call it the drop. So we start off fire. You’re just like, Oh, this book about to be good. Rub my fingers, lick my lips. Yeah. And then, Chapter 3 is just like, o-kay, and then you spend the rest of the time trying to catch that Chapter 1 high… and the high just ain’t high-ing. Like, what is happening? Give me what I came here for! And then it doesn’t get good until like after the midpoint. You know what I mean. I hate, I loathe books like that. And so my stories tend to go slow and rev up.

So. Chapter 1 isn’t just, you know. Wham, Bang, Thank you, Ma’am. No, it’s get to know me. It’s not info dumping either, because I don’t like that either, but it’s dropping you into a world that is already realized. And somebody described it as you just got let in on the in-circle. And now you’re just sitting there for a minute while these other people are making all these dynamics, and you’re just trying to figure out like the cadence, the jokes, the inside jokes. And so you’re trying to pick up on all those things. But like once you pick it up, it’s like you’re in. You’re in now. You’re in with the in-crowd.

CMR: Yeah.

EAN: And that’s how I tend to take my books. So they continually rev up as yeah as it goes. Yeah.

CMR: Ah, yes.

[laughter]

CMR: I was already in. It’s been sold to me 300 times over now.

[laughter]

CMR: So just before we go, because I think this is all we’ve got time for. Would you like to let us know anything that you’ve got coming up in 2025? I’m going to give you some space just to highlight as well ways that we can support you. Let us know how we can support, and what you’ve got coming up.

EAN: Y’all, I have so much going on in 2025 that I don’t even know where my head is right now. So When Blood Meets Earth, I will say, as an author, you know that is my debut novel, and I did make some mistakes, like, grammar. So When Blood Meets Earth has just finished being re-edited. A lot of the grammar is fixed, and the story is still fire. Okay? but the editing got it got updated. I got new art in the book. I got new glossary. I also added new character art.

And then the production of the audio book is coming out what started next year, and it should be out by the end of year. Also, Book 2 will be set for pre-order. That’s coming out at the end of the year as well.

So please follow me, I’m on Facebook. I have a Facebook group. So if I disappear off the Internet, I don’t disappear in my Facebook group. So just if you want to join and see what I’m doing. Go there. I’m on Threads. I’m on Tiktok, and my website is theeajournal.me. (Not .com; .me).

I’m also hosting an anthology with a few of my other favorite authors, and we are coming out with something on mythology, called They Who Swallow the Sun.

And it’s a very dark, speculative fiction. So if you have fantasy, sci-fi horror. All of that that’s in this book. And it is. And I just received the cover back for it. And when I tell you it is tea! Okay. Okay, so yeah, I have a lot of things going on next year. So please follow me and support me. And I really appreciate it.

CMR: I’m going to put all of your links in the transcript, so people can go to cmrosens.com and grab the transcript from there. But yes, so follow E.A. Noble @authoreanoble across all of the platforms.

EAN: Yeah, yeah.

CMR: That is unfortunately all we have time for, so I will see you next week. Thank you so much for listening. Thank you, E.A. Noble, for coming on the show.

EAN: Any time, any time. Thank you for having me.

CMR: It’s been an absolute pleasure.

Author Spotlight: Katta Kis

Katta Kis’ first job was playing a vampire baby in a ​student film, sealing her fate as a goth child for life. ​After a variety pack of jobs and apartments, she is ​currently settled in Northern California. She ​cohabitates with her two adorable demon babies ​masquerading as cats and her high school romance ​which never ended. When not writing, she can ​usually be found reading or at a concert.

Author Links:

Bluesky: @kattakis.bsky.social
Instagram: @kattakiswrites
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All other links: linktr.ee/kattakis

Let’s talk about Romance! How would you pitch your brand of Romance to readers who don’t know what to expect from your books yet?

I would call it contemporary pagan celebrity romance. Real magick practices set in our world (with some made up pop stars).

Let’s chat about character development and your writing process! In Love in the Liner Notes and Love at the Rock Show, you have a combo of band guy + witchy girl; can you tell us a bit about the different practices your pagan/psychic characters engage in, and also the differences in the bands and musicians that you write?

In Love in the Liner Notes, I introduce our broken-up boy band Beatboyz, two of whom (Patrick and Rohan) end up in a love triangle with my witchy sex educator, Cazzi. Cazzi practices sigil magick, turning her spells/coping mechanisms into pictograms and images which she has tattooed on her body. Rohan is really into symbols and sigils but isn’t a practitioner.

Meanwhile, Patrick is a certified herbalist, practicing herbal medicine, mostly in the form of teas.

Judit, who is the female main character in Love at the Rock Show, is a psychic who specializes Tarot readings (though she can divine with anything).

In addition, we have Rohan’s Satanic ex-girlfriend Angela Alice (and heavy metal queen) and Benji, Patrick and Rohan’s business partner who is an ex-pop punk/goth rock star and animist. The two of them are my couple in the book I’m currently writing, No Love in LA.

Musically, I have a washed up boy band (with various post-band career paths including famous solo act and drag queen), a goth rock star turned songwriter, and a very popular Satanic metal star. Also, Benji’s mom plays in an old school all-female DIY punk band. All these genres are very fun to write, especially the lyrics of their songs which I include as chapter headings and throughout the books.

How do you develop your love interests and make the dynamics unique to these pairings, but still a familiar combo of characters for the readers?

In this series, all my main characters know or know of each other by the end of book one so their relationships are very influenced by the group dynamics (who’s friends with who, who broke up with who, who broke their friend’s heart, etc.). I developed Cazzi and Rohan first and they changed A LOT during the various drafts.

The Pagans & Pop Stars series was a side project for a long time while I wrote “serious books.” Eventually, I realized I kept coming back to it for a reason and switched my focus.

This is a process that started back in 2012 or so, so please forgive me if I’m a bit vague on the details of developing these characters who have lived in my head for so long.

Anyway, back to the characters. As I was developing the world around Cazzi and Rohan, side characters kept elbowing their way into the picture and I would realize “oh this person needs their own book” and sometimes, like in the case of Benji and Angelica, who they should be with was clear from the get go.

Other characters, like Judit, went through a few iterations before I found the version that worked.

The process for me is very iterative. I keep tropes in mind to some degree but a lot of it is diving into the psychology and trauma of each character and then fitting their scars together with those of their love interest. Then I tweak things to make sure that while there’s angst and drama, the overarching relationship becomes healthy and supportive.

I do read a lot of romance (because I love it) but also to see where my stories fit in with the narratives readers love while also keeping them fresh and fit my vision.

What attracts you to, or is your connection to, the worlds of these characters, do you do a lot of research or read rock star autobiographies/biographies, or have you been on the road yourself?

I love music and I’ve been in and around the industry and the entertainment industry since I was a child. I find the machine of the entertainment industry horribly fascinating and love to see how people disrupt it or create art outside of it.

I haven’t been on tour myself nor am I a musician, though I did play several instruments (badly) in my youth, but I was a music journalist and have musicians in my family so I learned a lot from folks who had had those experiences.

I’m also a research junkie so I devoured many, many books over the years on songwriting, the industry, oral histories, and memoirs/autobiographies. I also listen to great podcasts like Song Exploder (especially useful for the songwriting in Love in the Liner Notes) and My Warped Life (gave me so much insight into the festival tour in Love at the Rock Show).

I do a lot of research for the parts of my books that are not of my lived experience too including pagan practices outside of mine, gender and racial lived experiences, and certain traumas.

I also use sensitivity readers for POV characters to make sure I’m not being harmful with my depictions.

What was the best gig/concert/festival you have ever been to, and has that been used as inspiration for the books?

Oh my goodness, I’m so bad at picking favorites! Also, I have been to sooo many gigs over the years. Pieces of all the shows I’ve ever been to are in my books somewhere either subconsciously or consciously like when I took notes at Aftershock Festival or pulled on my memories of covering Launch/TBH festivals (RIP) and being backstage at events I was covering or where knew the band for Love at the Rock Show.

Shows that really stand out:

My Chemical Romance – I saw them twice, once as my first show and again at Aftershock a few years ago, and oh man, they are so good. I was 13 again and sang my heart out for the whole show. Also Gerard Way is really sweet about taking care of the crowd which is lovely to see. Rivals/The Raging Kids – This was a small venue show with a bunch of artists but these two stood out. Rivals was the band we came to see and they were amazing, worked the crowd even though it was sparse, and lovely to talk to afterwards. The Raging Kids is actually one guy with a very short set list but wow, he engaged the (even smaller) crowd until we were eating out the palm of his hand. Also super nice to talk to afterwards and he gave us the set list to the show which I still have. Hozier/Allison Russell – Both wonderful performers who made the giant basketball stadium we saw them in feel intimate. Loved that Hozier actually played a song with Allison because you just don’t see headliners engaging with their opening act that much anymore Ghost – Amazing show. When they did their closing song, “Monstrance Clock” and everyone sang along, it was a religious experience. There are many more amazing show memories running around my head right now (Fallout Boy, the Maine, Jakarti Smith, Rise Against, Judas Priest, Muse, In This Moment, Bastille, Nile Rodgers…). I think I need to go find myself another concert to go to.

What’s next for the series? Do you have any couples you’re especially looking forward to introducing to readers?

Next is Angela Alice and Benji! I’m working on No Love in LA and it will (hopefully) be out sometime this fall. This is possibly (don’t tell the others) my favorite couple for many reasons: their dynamic (Benji hates Angie, she’s got a crush on them), the characters (Angie’s a force of nature who is trying to turn over a new leaf, Benji is a control freak and both of them are morally grey goths who scare people), and that I get to write an female/enby pairing which is close to my heart because it reflects my relationship.

The final book in the series is also really fun, it’s the last two members of the Beatboyz in a second chance M/M romance. One’s a drag queen, the other is a successful solo act and they’re stuck on an island dating reality show together. Super excited to write that one.

Like This? Try These!

Eldritch Girl S04: Yelen & Yelena Episode 04 (Chapters 5 & 6)

Welcome to Part 2 of the novel: The Castle. It’s 2-for-1 on this episode as well, because Chapter 05 is pretty short.

CWs: rot-related peril, non-graphic rabbit hunting and butchery, suicide ideation

Chapter 05: The Wanderer – Yelena narrowly evades the rot in the forest and finds the castle.

Chapter 06: Yelen – Yelena meets Yelen, who doesn’t realise he’s been alone for ~90 years.

Read AlongListen freeListen Ahead

I was heavily influenced by Nicholas Stuart Grey’s play, Beauty and the Beast, for this version of Yelen and his time-blindness, but also the ways in which his mental health has declined due to his years of isolation and loneliness.

Nicholas Stuart Grey (1912-1981) was a British actor, novelist, and playwright, and should by rights be a British trans icon, who underwent a medical transition in 1959 but had been presenting as male since the 1930s. Most of his books can be purchased second-hand, but some may be available as print-on-demand. His work has influenced a lot of SFF writers working in the genre today.

Beauty and the Beast (1961) is a play for children in which a forgetful wizard curses an arrogant prince into a bestial form, only meaning to do this for a few days until the prince learns his lesson. Unfortunately, the wizard completely forgets all about him, and only remembers many years later, by which time the Beast has gone mad with loneliness. Fortunately, Beauty is able to help out there, and her experiences in the castle also develop her character arc.

The play came across to me as a cautionary tale of how you can mess someone else up by accident, regardless of intent, and the need to take responsibility for that. This isn’t my favourite Grey play/novel. He has much more interesting ones, and much better ones, but this is still something I credit with the development of Yelen & Yelena, so I definitely have a soft spot for it.

It also made me think about the Beast’s mental state, and how someone who had been alone for about 90s years would cope with company, and how he would think about his past as a man, now centuries ago. This was the kernel of the idea for Yelen & Yelena, in fact, and the whole book grew organically from this point.

We are finally introduced to Yelen in this episode, so please enjoy the 2 chapters available here for you!

Support the podcast at ko-fi.com/cmrosens, and get early access to the episodes, mp3 files, and eBooks. Join the Eldritch Seekers/Eldritch Family tier for monthly fiction and more goodies!

Music Credits:
Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0

Intro/Outro:
Quinns Dream: The Dance Begins

Other Music (Kevin MacLeod):
Quinn’s Song: First Night;
Moonlight Hall;
Magic Forest;
Giant Wyrm;
Midnight Tale;
Bittersweet

Sound Effects:
BBC Sound Effects Library
Floraphonic – Pixabay

Best Friends Bury Bodies (Complete Draft)

About the Book

You may remember back in 2023 I was thinking about a contemporary murder mystery / second chance romance with protagonists in their late 40s. I wrote a number of chapters and scenes for this, and ended up with about 51K of a continuous draft, and a number of other versions in other documents. All of this was shelved, and I completely forgot all about it.

I think the issue mainly was (and still is) that it was conceived as a queer m/f romance, but the MMC (Bobby, 48M) is an ex-rockstar, now alcoholic recluse and virtually unrecognisable, with a wife (Izzy, 31F) who is blackmailing him. The FMC (Sarah, 48F, his soulmate whom he hasn’t seen for 12 years) returns to his life, has an affair with him, and Izzy is found dead. Because, apparently, I can’t write anything nice.

This was meant to be contemporary, but it has ended up being set in 2010, with legendary rockstar Bas Troy disappearing in 1998, a year after the death of Princess Di. I wanted a time of peak paparazzi frenzy, but also before the days of prevalent face-recognition software, the internet in everyone’s pocket, people glued to their phones, and all the things that would make disappearing off the face of the earth much harder now.

The whole novel has become a melodramatic rock opera, in which there are multiple secret identities, hidden lives, and family drama, in a small rural Surrey village called Oxstone.

I think it was originally conceived as Midsomer Murders meets Rock of Ages, with a sobriety journey that’s rockier than the central relationship. It has become another narrative of drawing an isolated person back into community, with the added complexities of old friends closing ranks to protect the secrets binding them together.

The driving force of the novel is Sarah, who is not a people-pleaser, she is a frustrated fixer, who cannot ‘fix’ her partner’s sudden death 6 years ago. When she unexpectedly reconnects with Bobby, her soulmate since Primary School with 40+ years of history between them, his life is an absolute mess. For a start, she knew him as Kyle Lambert at school, before he picked Bas Troy as a stage name – and now she finds out he’s hiding as ‘Bobby Scully’ in a small rural village down south, after vanishing from the face of the earth for the last 12 years. Worse; he is not in a good way.

This is all fairly devastating for her, as she realises she has to resist trying to ‘fix’ him, but she also has to open herself up a bit more and create that space for him to come back into her life. Sarah also hates cheating, but they end up having an affair, and Sarah wants to help him get sober, but that’s not going to happen with Izzy still in the picture.

However – when Izzy turns up dead and it looks like he did it (and Sarah also has means, motive and opportunity), Sarah has to go into fixing mode, or all the secrets will come tumbling out, and she enlists their old school friends into helping her hide Izzy’s body and make it look like she left him – so they are the only ones who know she’s even dead.

This is further complicated by the discovery of some bones near Bobby’s house, which turn out to be Alice Fry, a local woman who disappeared five years before.

My main difficulty in writing it as a murder mystery is that I found I had less interest in whodunnit, and more in the group of people of go to great lengths to hide the body they find, and cover up the murder to protect people they love, when they don’t actually know for sure who the murderer is.

Writing a story from that perspective was more challenging, because it leaves things open and the characters were resisting their own investigation, instead focusing on how to cover up the crime. But it’s also far more fun to play with, so I hope the situation is satisfactorily resolved by the end, with some answers. I’m not sure how people who enjoy murder mysteries will like that ending, as, in order for there to be a HEA/HFN, someone has to get away with murder.

I will be interested to see how this goes down with beta readers.

Queer and Polyam Rep in Best Friends Bury Bodies

Why queer if m/f, you ask?

Both MCs are, of course, bisexual, and in this case, allosexual and alloromantic, and also polyamorous. All polyam people in this story date separately and there are no throuples etc; the polycules are a series of interlocking Vs, for the most part.

It’s time to get out the post-its and string, and do some polycule mapping!

Sarah (48F) had an anchor-partner Julia, whom everyone called Jules, (who would have been 47F in 2010), and a girlfriend Sammie (45F) (Jules and Sammie were not seeing each other).

Jules died 6 years before the book begins, back in 2004. Most of Sarah’s arc revolves around how she is dealing and not dealing with Jules’s death, which was more central in other drafts and I’m worried has got a bit lost in this one. That’s something to put a pin in for the next round of revisions.

Sarah and Sammie are still going strong by the end of the book and beyond.

Sammie is married to Mike, and dating Vicky, neither of whom are dating Sarah, but Mike and Sarah are casual-level friends. It isn’t clear how well Sarah and Vicky know one another, if at all, but this is implied to be a more distant connection, and it is likely that they only hear about one another second-hand via Sammie.

Sammie is splitting her time between her partners. This is currently working for all of them, and Sarah especially, as she needs her own alone-time, and time with her very close-knit group of old friends. She’s in a very comfortable rut, which Sammie doesn’t think is very good for her, and that’s causing some friction between them as Sammie tries to help her do something new, while Sarah actively resists any kind of change to her routine.

When we meet her, Sarah is not willing to move out of the house she and Jules bought together, and doesn’t want to move in with Sammie and Sammie’s husband, although that offer is on the table. She is also not dating anyone else.

Sammie remains with Sarah for the whole book and beyond as her existing, loving and supportive, long-term partner, and doesn’t also hook up with Bobby. If she did, she would first have to clear that with both Mike and Vicky, whom we don’t meet on-page.

Bobby (48M) is with Izzy (31F), which is a sham relationship, because she’s blackmailing him and undermining his sobriety to keep him isolated from the world. Izzy is cheating on him (but arguably it’s not cheating if the relationship is over, and/or never really existed in the first place beyond outward appearances). He, however, is not allowed to see anyone else in any capacity. When he starts to break out of this, bad things happen to him and around him.

Behind Izzy’s back, he starts a casual relationship with older, closeted, single dad Jim (60M), who runs the florists in the village, and starts teaching Jim’s daughter Bella to play the guitar. Jim and Bobby have been casual acquaintances for a few years, and Jim rents greenhouse space from him, which has given them opportunities to talk.

This relationship continues to the end of the book and presumably runs beyond it – they don’t stop seeing each other in any capacity just because Bobby is also staying with Sarah at the end.

Jim had a lavender marriage with his wife Alice, and their daughter Bella (13F) is the result of IVF. Alice disappeared 5 years ago, and Jim is convinced something has happened to her, but the police are satisfied she just left him and nothing is being done to find her.

Bobby and Jim’s relationship is a friendship with unspoken benefits – Jim is highly private, and remains both closeted and unlabelled. He is most likely romance-averse aromantic (his reactions to Bobby trying to kiss him, e.g., certainly give this impression, and while this could also be read as internalised homophobia, that reading of it doesn’t quite gel with the on-page platonic affection he is comfortable showing), and gay rather than bi.

Jim is fine with Bobby seeing Sarah, who is fine with Bobby seeing Jim. They never openly discuss this all together as a three, because Jim makes it clear he’s not interested in talking about it, and Sarah doesn’t feel like there’s anything to talk about, as long as it’s working for everyone.

There are also gay side characters, some of whom are out.

David (48M), is an ex-drag queen turned sales manager, who has undergone his own battles with addiction and is now sober. This makes him a very good old friend for Bobby to reconnect with, and a good support for Sarah.

David is in an on/off relationship with another of Sarah’s close friends, Cillian (42M), who lives platonically with High School-sweetheart couple Lindsey & Tom, and their 13yo daughter Amber, who sees Cillian and David as her uncles.

David, Sarah, Lindsey, Tom and Bobby were all best friends at school, and Cillian, Jules, and Sammie are later additions to the group.

Finally, there is Marcia (63F) who runs the tearooms at Oxstone, and is a lesbian, who considers this none of her neighbours’ business. She knows Jim is gay, Jim knows she is gay too, and they both do each other the courtesy of simply never mentioning it.

What Now?

I re-discovered this novel about 4 weeks ago, and it has been my hyperfixation ever since. I worked on it and built it up to a 78K draft about 2-3 times in those 4 weeks, each time not being able to finish it, going back re-outlining and trying again.

Finally, I stripped it back to 40K, tried one more time with a better ending in mind, and now it is complete at 85.5K words.

While there is still a lot more work to be done, I desperately need a short break from it. I have some eyes on it, but I’ve also gone over the whole thing and left myself comments on what I’m going to change in the revisions, what sections I’m moving, scrapping, reworking, and completely re-writing again.

The title is still a moveable feast; I sent out some teasers on this book in my newsletter where it was featured under the working title, A Guitar Called Magnolia, but I’m flipping back and fore on this, and currently we’re back to Best Friends Bury Bodies.

We’ll see what happens next, but this might be a late 2025/early 2026 release, if anyone is interested!