Christiane Knight's Blog, page 12

Author Reads Replay!

Here’s the replay of my interview and live reading on the FAE Productions YouTube stream! Fairy Princess Lolly was a fantastic host and thoughtful interviewer, and the questions from the audience were great! I read a chapter from In Sleep You Know, so if you want to hear some of the novel read aloud, this is the place to hear that.

ONE WEEK UNTIL BOOK LAUNCH! Also, you’ve got a little over a week to enter the Goodreads giveaway – enter via the widget in the sidebar!

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Meet the Characters: Lucee

Merrick’s best friend is Lucee Fearney. She has been his friend since they were young, and they are very close. He looks at her like a little sister, and she is loyal and supportive of him. She can be a little trusting and naïve, and she is irrepressibly upbeat, which sometimes annoys Merrick, though he’d never tell her that.

Lucee has an undeniably attractive and fun personality, with style to match. She stands out in a crowd with her tattered prom dresses, combat boots, and acid green braids that really glow against her warm brown skin. She’s the guitarist for The Drawback, and a talented one at that, but she’s surprisingly modest about her musical skill. As bold and outgoing as she can be, secretly she often feels inadequate and struggles with feeling like she’s good enough.

Lucee is the one you count on when the chips are down – she is always there for her friends, even if she’s not sure how to be supportive. Her positive attitude is infectious!

Meet the rest of the characters in this ongoing series, then order the book now!

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Meet the Characters: Aisling

The first person that Merrick meets at the party is Aisling.

It’s a testament to who Aisling [ASH-lin] is that she sticks by Merrick from the beginning – she’s the first one to see something in him, and she becomes his guide as he gets his bearings in this new, weird world. Sometimes called a “Dreamling” because she was conceived between a mortal and Fae while in the Dreamland, she is disliked and distrusted by some of the Fae. Not because of anything she has done; rather, it’s because she is perceived as unnatural, even by Fae standards.

She can join people in their dreams and move her conscious mind through dreamscapes, a power she uses to help Merrick. She is a friend to Cullen and knows him well, as they journeyed by ship to the New World together, long ago.

She is small, pretty, with dark hair that has hints of lavender all through it, and Merrick is entranced with her from the very beginning. Despite being gentle and caring, she has an inner core that is tougher than most would guess – this lady’s been through some things. If you’d like to learn more about her backstory, there’s a short story about her available when you join my mailing list!

Meet the rest of the characters in this ongoing series, then order the book now!

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Meet The Characters of In Sleep You Know!

With the release date for In Sleep You Know coming up quick [May 1st 2021, in case you’ve forgotten!] I thought you might want to have some introductions to characters from the book – so I’ll start posting some glimpses of who they are and how they look in my head over the next couple of weeks. When you read the book, come back here and see how your mental images match with mine!

By the way, there’s no right answer, once you calculate in the descriptions in the story. You may find that your inner vision is a little different from mine, and that’s okay! You get to see the world through your own eyes.

There are many characters in the tale, but of course the most important is Merrick Moore [aka The Blackbird], your cover model and aspiring musician. Merrick is in a band called The Drawback with Lucee and Sousa, and other than that, doesn’t seem to have much motivation to do anything else with his life. He’s always just skated by, until the fateful night he decides to crash a party at a mysterious house outside of the city, where secretive, strange people live.

Despite Merrick’s lack of drive, he’s got some great qualities: manners, cleverness, and loyalty. The question is… are they enough to get him through a war between Fae factions?

Theydies and Gentlebeings, The Drawback“I want to know: why are you chasing me around? What do I have that is so important to you and your people that you will go out of your way to haunt my dreams to get me back?” – Merrick

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Come see me at the Virtual Baltimore Faerie Faire

I’m so excited to invite you to the Baltimore Faerie Faire, happening VIRTUALLY this weekend!

It is happening on Gathertown, which is a graphics based, virtual interactive space – it feels a lot like playing an RPG type game! You will be able to make an avatar, then walk around the event virtually to check in on musicians’ performances, do some shopping in the tents of the vendors, and even hang out with some mermaids.

The main faire will be happening between 11am and 5 pm EDT on April 10th, though there are also events happening starting at 7pm on April 9th, including the magickal Faerie Ball – come dressed in your best fae garb!

You can learn more by going to the Facebook event pages:
https://www.facebook.com/events/713128272890567/
https://www.facebook.com/events/128510469211760

And the event will be happening at GatherTown:
https://gather.town/app/FArv3oGRHwjTHtw1/BaltimoreFaerieFaire

What it will look like inside the Virtual Baltimore Faerie Faire!Navigating GatherTown

This is a pretty easy interface to use, but I thought I’d give you a few pointers to help you feel comfortable!

When you click the link, the first thing you’ll do is create an avatar. It takes just a moment, and there are plenty of visual choices for you! Once you enter the Faerie Faire, take a few moments to wander around and get a feel for movement. Use X to enter tents, and G will make you into a “ghost” so that you can move around without accidentally starting conversations with other Fairegoers or bumping into them.

You’ll note that as you get near people, you’ll be able to see them on video if they have their cameras on, or hear their conversations if their mics are on.

To find a specific person, click on their name in the participants tab on the left, then click “follow” to have your avatar automatically run up to them. Once you find them, you can unfollow. It’s a great way to locate friends!

I’m going to recommend that you do that to my avatar to find my tent! Just find Christiane Knight in the participants, and click follow, and you’ll travel right to where I am. Easy-peasy!

To come inside the Three Ravens Press tent, just walk up to the table and press X and you’ll enter right in! There, you’ll find my website, and if I’m there you can talk to me. I should be there all day Saturday except when I am doing live readings. In fact, if you come to my tent, there’s a good chance you might catch me doing random readings there, too! Expect some chapters from In Sleep You Know!

You can see that there’s a spot with the link on the left, so you can invite others, or get help. You can also see my avatar and my tent. I’m in a nice location next to the statue!

To see ALL the vendors, plus info about the event and photos from previous events, go to: https://baltimorefaeriefaire.weebly.com/

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Cover Reveal for In Sleep You Know!

The cover features our protagonist, Merrick, aka The Blackbird. He’s just an ordinary guy with hazy, ill-defined dreams of making it big one day with his post-punk influenced band. He’s got a couple of good friends, but no drive, direction, or goals – just a crappy job and good style. [“Style counts for a lot!” says Merrick.]

That is… until he crashes a party hosted by mysterious people who are rumored to be interesting, eccentric recluses that almost never let people into their house. Merrick is about to get a lot more than he bargained for… new powers, a girlfriend who can visit him in his dreams, and a seven year bond with the local Fae court.

Want to know more? You can pre-order the Kindle version of the book NOW! It will be automagically delivered to your Kindle or device on May 1st 2021, which is the official Launch Day.

Want a paperback version instead? [why not both? ] You can pick that up on May 1st at the same link. I encourage folks to grab copies right on May 1st if possible, because that helps me get seen – and gets you my undying gratitude!

Pre-order on Amazon Now!

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Get ready for a cover reveal!

One of the most exciting parts – next to getting the book in your hands, of course – is revealing the cover of the upcoming book. And that time is ALMOST here! I have been having a good time teasing out little bits of info over social media, getting everyone ready for the big unveiling.

The big day is almost upon us: COVER REVEAL DAY!

Want to see it FIRST? First reveal will be for my supporters on Ko-fi. Because of their help even before my book is here, they’ll get to see it before anyone else. [want to be one of those people? https://ko-fi.com/threeravenspress is where to go!]

The next folks who will see it are those who are signed up for my MAILING LIST. If you sign up there, you’ll get an email on the big day with the image and some exciting news!

Or you can come here to see it on Saturday, April 3rd, anytime after 1pm EDT! As mentioned above, I’ll have some BIG news to go along with the cover reveal, so you won’t want to miss this. [best to sign up for the newsletter, just to be sure…]

I can’t WAIT!

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Rooted In Reality – Setting a Fantasy Novel In a Real City

aka: What parts of Baltimore are fiction in your novel, Christiane?

Using a real city as the setting for In Sleep You Know was a fun challenge! I am a firm believer in building off of what I know when it comes to writing – even if it’s Fantasy that I’m crafting. I also believe that Baltimore is a treasure trove of undiscovered magic, often overshadowed by its reputation. [Ask me how I feel about The Wire. I have opinions.]

There was no question in my mind that I would be using Baltimore as the backdrop for where my Fae, the Eleriannan and Gwyliannan, lived. But trying to decide on what version of the city I would build from? That took a bit more thought. When I started writing about these characters originally, it was the late 90s, and the way I saw the city in the story was built on my memories from the 80s and 90s. Looking over the story as the platform for In Sleep You Know, I realized that I needed to unmoor the tale a bit from a specific time in order to give it the feel I wanted. It also meant that I could blend experiences, fashions, music from different eras and have it feel cohesive and timeless.

Some of the places mentioned in the story are based specifically on real-life analogues – the nightclub is definitely based on a well-known club that caters to specific subcultures in Baltimore [one that I DJed at for a while, shhh] – but it also draws from some other clubs with which I’m intimately familiar. I wanted that feeling of familiarity for readers who have haunted those sorts of clubs. Same for the Frisky Bean – if you’ve been to this sort of non-corporate community coffee shop, the kind with comfy chairs and bookshelves piled with tattered paperbacks to read and board games, you will picture it in your mind right away. The Frisky is also built on the memories and experiences of so many coffee shops like it, in Baltimore and other places I’ve lived in and visited.

Photo by Henry Guan on Unsplash

There are other places featured in the book In Sleep You Know that are actual locations, but may not quite resemble the Baltimore of this consensual reality. I talk about the Gwynns Falls area, for example, but I paint the scene with a bit of a muted brush, leaving the exact location unidentifiable. It is absolutely based on a few houses hidden away there, but none specifically. Maithe House is indeed exactly as advertised, but only on the outside. I have a lot of tidbits about The Maithe, but I’m saving them for a future blog post.

The first place we go in ISYK is a party at a big house. Traveling outside of the city, down Falls Rd – which runs from close to where Club Marcada is located in Midtown, almost to the Pennsylvania border – it’s obvious that the house isn’t a place one can just stumble upon, it is off the beaten path. I’ve again softened the border between our reality and book reality when it comes to exact location and the ease of getting there without a vehicle. If you’re in the know and driving around the Greenspring Station to Ruxton Road area, you might find yourself traveling the road that Merrick takes to crash a party.

Both Merrick’s apartment and Lucee’s place are based on places where friends lived, in the Mt Vernon neighborhood. Sousa’s place isn’t too far from there. The pic above shows a little of what that area looks like. It is a great neighborhood for artsy types, though perhaps a little more affordable in the fictional version of Baltimore!

Using a real-life place, even one I’m familiar with, gave me some things to think about before I proceeded. I’ve seen it done really well, and also not quite as well. It can be easy to let the setting overwhelm the story by putting the city’s character and descriptions too far forward. For me, Baltimore is an important part of the tale, but not the most forward part. I wanted it to lurk in the background in some ways – interesting but ignorable in detail until the right time. And of course, it is all about timing!

I can’t wait until you travel to my version of Baltimore, and you get to meet the folks that live there.

Keep tuned for more In Sleep You Know news, coming soon!

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The Waiting Game

They say that good things come to those who wait, and I am taking that advice to heart as I get through the final processes of getting In Sleep You Know ready for its big debut! The chances are good that you don’t really know what it entails to get a novel from idea to manuscript to proof to book. Add in all the various forms in which one can release a story – hardback, paperback, epub/mobi, audiobook – and the work really starts to stack up. And if you aren’t versed in this, it can feel like a daunting task… especially if all you really wanted to do was write stories for people to read.

I’ve found that I already had some of the “extra” skills that one needs to publish a book independently, which gave me a good start. I am used to creating my own graphics, marketing copy, and press, thanks to my other job as a fiber artist at Three Ravens Studio. I can also take passable photos, thanks to years of shooting my yarn and fibers. That’s definitely more than a lot of writers have in their skill sets when starting out.

The key to success, in my mind, is getting an understanding of what I don’t know, and then either learning how, or hiring someone skilled in those areas to be on my team. In this case, I am both taking my time to learn more about formatting and proper setup/layout for printing and publishing, and I hired a fantastic designer and book coach to help me through the process. I can’t say enough good things about Leesa Ellis of 3 Ferns Book Design and all the work she’s done to make In Sleep You Know go from a weirdly formatted .doc* to [almost!] finished book. If you are an aspiring author looking to self-publish, do yourself a favor and invest in hiring someone like Leesa to help you though these steps. You need editors, advisors, designers, and other professionals on your team. It’s important that these people are not you! Getting that outside input is vital. Trust me when I tell you: you are too close to your work. You need a team. Even if that team is Beta readers and trusted friends – though don’t rely on them to do your heavy lifting. You truly do get what you pay for.
*I add a lot of extra paragraph breaks and spacing when I write, because it can be difficult for me to differentiate dialogue, etc in my working manuscript otherwise. Finding all those things to fix them later is a pain and my editing team are saints.

When I get stuck, creatively, I often go to the Sovereign Oracle and expansion packs for a kickstart. It never fails to apply to the situation!

In the coming weeks, I’ll talk more about the tools I use, what I’ve been doing during the pre-launch-countdown time to prepare, and of course I’ll be sharing some more short works. By the way! I am writing a short story that goes along with In Sleep You Know and will be offered for FREE to those who join my mailing list! It won’t give away the story, but you will learn more about one of the characters and get a feel for the world of the Eleriannan before In Sleep You Know hits the shelves. Want in? Just sign up for the Mailing List and as soon as it is ready, you’ll get it in your inbox!

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Now You’re Not A Baby Doll

So who is this Christiane person, anyway?

So here I am, talking to you like we’ve just run into each other in the halls at a con, or waiting in line to get into a show, or wherever you might see me and feel bored enough to ask a bunch of questions about who I am and what makes me the person I am. Why? [Why not!]

I’ve got a Bio page, but that’s just got the “writer” stuff on it, and I’m a big believer in connection as a full contact sport. No, not like football, more like jumping into the pit at a punk show.

So that’s a great place to start, actually – I DO NOT do sports. I always say: if you see me running, then you should run, too, because something is definitely chasing me! However, I not only love dancing with every fiber of my being, I actually minored in Dance in college. [Theater major, because I am obviously into things just for the money, right?]
I’ve talked at length about how I got into being involved with the Goth/Industrial/Electronica subgenres and built myself a small career as a DJ and promoter for a while that way, so I won’t go through the whole story now. But you need to know that my direct progression involved music and dance in school > discovering the joy of going to punk shows and the freedom of everything it brought > finding alternative dance nights at clubs that gave me the confidence to really pursue the things that give me joy.

I’ve always loved writing, music, and performance. For someone who spent a great deal of time in her own head while growing up, I managed to still excel at being dramatic – to the point where I knew that I wanted a public-facing job when I grew up. I played at being a radio DJ, introducing the 45s I’d play for myself as I recorded my own mixtapes, learning bits of trivia about the bands I liked to “reveal” to the audience. I also made my own dramas and musicals, did my own costuming, and wrote my own scripts, all to be performed by and for myself in my room. [I liked sheets for sweeping togas, capes, and skirts.] And I dreamed about fronting a band, and probably shook the house at inappropriate hours while practicing my vocal stylings. Come to think of it, I still do.

So falling into Theater was obvious, and I pursued that and music and dance, and found myself more and more frustrated as I ran against what I was expected to be, rather than what I am.

Punk was the antidote.

When I discovered punk, I learned that there was a world where it was a lot easier to be who and what I wanted to be. There was still pushback to some degree and plenty of -isms, but the culture was set up in a way that gave me more freedom to speak out against them, and show anger in general. In the 80s, it was still tough to be an angry woman, an individual, a rule-breaker, and not be penalized in every aspect of life. Punk mostly didn’t care. I thrived in that scene, and I grew comfortable in my own skin.

Posing with my beloved friend Faron, 1987ish? Fully feeling myself here.

That led me to finding more Post-Punk and Alternative music and going to clubs that played those genres, too. Suddenly, I was at a show or a club every week, absorbing even more music and being exposed to a wide variety of culture and art, and I loved it all. My outfits got more dramatic, slowly verging into a decidedly Goth aesthetic, which then blended with my everyday look forever. Seriously, I’m still basically wearing the same stuff, just the more casual versions. Long black skirt and band tee, with a hoodie or cardigan and Docs? Yep, that’s me.

And that phase, my friends, shaped everything else in my life. I found the people who appreciated my aesthetic, my words, and eventually the music I wanted to make. I started publishing ‘zines and contributing to others, and I became a small time club DJ around the East Coast of the US, centered in VA/DC/MD.

A lot of In Sleep You Know, my upcoming novel [and the world in where it lives], is fueled by these experiences. It references clubs I went to regularly, music I love, and the subcultures of which I’m a part. It also reflects the wonder I felt when I started coming to the city and discovered a place where I belonged, and all the magic and weirdness I learned to see and accept without question. Merrick Moore, the main character, is in many ways who I was when I first roosted in Baltimore City: a aimless dreamer accepting of the beautiful and odd people randomly met along the way. Someone game to roll with strange happenings, because deep in our heart, that was we always hoped to find.

Me and Merrick, we’re the dreamers here.

In the harshness of daylight, we might have a harder time buying into the weirdness than we did under cover of night. But those experiences changed me, shaped and reinforced my sense of whimsy and wonder and possibility, and gave me a lot of fodder for the things I write about now! And soon, you’ll get to see how they shape Merrick, too. *

If you like reading true tales of my strange adventures that are 100% unvarnished and often ridiculous, let me know. I have so many shareable snippets! Not everything is going to make it into my books, right?

* NotASpoiler: it’s a bit different than how things went down for me.
ps: Post Title is a snippet of song lyric from “Baby Doll” by Ruin, a Philly punk band that meant a lot to me back in the day.

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