Amy Plum's Blog, page 29

Signum Bardia

I’ve had so many questions about the signum bardia that I thought I would show you some pictures of what I based it on and give you an idea of the mythology behind it.

In the book, I wanted Vincent to give Kate something to show she is under the protection of the revenants. As Vincent explains it (UNTIL I DIE, Chapter 23): “It’s a signum bardia. A signal to revenants that you are attached to us. That you know what we are and can be trusted.”

Kate’s signum comes in handy when she meets Gwenhaël, of course, and you’ll see even more signums in Book 3.

So what is a signum bardia? It’s…um…something I made up. The Latin word “signum” means: “sign, seal, mark, token.” And I chose the term “bardia” for the good revenants because it means “watch” or “shift” in Greek. As in the watching over of humans that our bardia specialize in…the shifts they take walking together in threes (2 + 1 volant).

So a signum bardia is the mark of the bardia—their token.

Once I had the term I wanted, I had to decide what symbolism it should hold.

First I thought of self-sacrifice, and used the medieval image of the pelican piercing its breast to feed its young with its blood. Um…yeah. That’s my geeky art historian side coming out. I wish I still had my first attempt at drawing it. It looked more like an epileptic swan than this:

Pelican piercing his breast from a 16th century bestiary

or this:

Pelican piercing its breast from medieval heraldry

You did know I’m a medievalist, right? Well, now you do. (By the way, that’s a very good thing to say at a party if you don’t want anyone to talk to you. And then you can bring up the subject of pelican blood, and people will literally flee. Just sayin’…)

Back to subject. The pelican was too hard for me to draw, much less for me to describe over and over. So I went for simple. What easy shapes can communicate a message? I’ll let Vincent describe what I came up with:

“…the pyramid is supposed to mean life after death, and its three corners signify our three days of dormancy. The flames represent our aura and the only way we can be destroyed. And the circle is immortality.”

While I was coming up with the symbolism, I had this ring in mind:

9th century Byzantine ring with cabochon sapphire. (Cabochon means it's smooth instead of cut and faceted like most jewels are.)

I thought if I made the sapphire into a triangle, that would be a good start. But I wanted more. So I perused a few of my books on ancient jewelry (see…I told you…certified geek) and I found this:

Ancient Greek earring (around 350 BCE)

Close-up of the upper part of the earring

It has the same double border of gold pellets as the ring, but also decorative swirls inside the circle that could be made into flames. If you put a triangular sapphire right in the middle, it would be perfect.

So I waved my magic author wand, mixed the two pieces of jewelry and added some flames and it came out like this:

“It was a gold disk the size of a dollar coin, and it was edged with two circles of tiny gold pellets, one nestled within the other. Set in the center of the disk was a dark blue triangular stone with a smooth, slightly rounded surface. And in the space between the stone and the rows of pellets were decorative gold wires curved into the shape of flames. It looked ancient, like the Greek jewelry in Papy’s gallery.”

and had Vincent describe it as having this history:

“…the treasury belongs to France’s revenants. The pieces have been passed down for millennia. This one is logged into our records as last being used by one of our emissaries to Constantinople in the ninth century.”

But, for me, as beautiful and priceless as the signum itself, was Vincent’s motivation to give it to Kate:

“I would say ‘you’re welcome,’ but I can’t take all the credit. This isn’t just from me to you. It is from all of us to you. I saw how upset you were when Arthur made you feel you weren’t one of us. I want you to know that you aren’t an outsider. You aren’t a revenant, but you are still one of us. This signum means that you are kindred.”

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Published on June 24, 2012 05:19

UNTIL I DIE in Bulgarian

Check out the cover for UNTIL I DIE in Bulgaria! Is it gorgeous or what?

(Okay, Kate has bleached her hair, but it’s so beautiful I almost didn’t notice.)

It’s out on the 25th and you can see more about it here!

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Published on June 22, 2012 05:21

A Note of Encouragement…

…to those aspiring writers out there. I’m glad he kept writing, aren’t you?

Nicked from Courtney Stevens Potter’s FB

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Published on June 22, 2012 02:18

Lots of little things

Since not all of you follow my posts on Twitter (I’m @AmyPlumOhLaLa) and FB, here are a few recent tidbits:

Anyone in Paris on June 26 – I’m doing a reading in French at l’Antre Monde from 6-8. Click here for details.

And speaking of French, click here to read the nicest review ever of PLUS ENCORE QUE LA VIE and of my performance at the Mystic Falls event from Stephanie at Cupcake, Baston et Talons Hauts. She said I spoke in “almost perfect French” at the Mystic Falls event. Which makes me want to weep with joy. Or marry her. Either one.

Jean BookNerd is holding a summer reading of DIE FOR ME. There will be a vote at the end, deciding which character will be illustrated by an artist for special bookmarks given to all participants! I can’t wait to see which D4M character is chosen! Go here to sign up.

And if you didn’t catch it on her blog, here is the video I made showing you La Sainte-Chapelle, where the revenant wedding took place in UNTIL I DIE.

And finally, YA Sisterhood is doing their hero crush tourney once again. And there might be some revenants on the list if the nominations go well. Go cast your vote here!

Next up: photos from the WH Smith event and an article about signum bardia! (After I finish writing the Extras for the paperback version of UNTIL I DIE!)

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Published on June 19, 2012 07:52

Loss and Writing and Kate

I usually talk about perky, fun things on this blog, but I get so many heartfelt emails from you, my readers, that I feel like I can talk about non-perky unfun things here too.

A lot of you have responded to the topic of loss and grief that Kate has to face with her parents’ death in Book 1. And then at the very end of Book 2, she is once again faced with another loss. I’ve gotten at least 500 tweets, FB messages and emails from you saying that you cried at the end of UNTIL I DIE. (And I have been dispensing virtual Kleenexes non-stop since release date, it seems.)

So I know you know that feeling.

Lately I have had a lot of loss in my life, through both death and loss of love. And in many ways, the feelings both situations bring are very similar. Both involve grief. And although I lost my mom over 12 years ago, I forgot how physical the pain of grief can be.

I try to remember that pain when I write about grief, but it never really measures up to the true experience: the tightening you feel in your throat; that ice-pick stabbing in your chest; the iron clamp around your lungs, the loss of appetite and sleep. When I write things like that, I get back editorial notes that say “flat” or “too cliché?” And that is because it is so hard to describe in a realistic manner. The pain is too intense to put into a handful of words.

But for me, the physical pain walks hand in hand with the psychological pain of loss. And the hardest part for me is dealing with what the loss means for the future. What will never be. Thoughts, like those I expressed of Kate’s, that you will never touch that person again. I am a very tactile person. That thought alone for me is devastating. That you will never brush your fingers across that person’s skin: whether it be the powder-soft wrinkled face of your grandmother or the warm firm skin of your true love’s hand as you walk hand-in-hand into one or another adventure.

The concept of “never again” is the hardest for me.

With my mother, my grandmother, knowing that I can’t pick up the phone and hear their voice. I won’t ever hear my mother say, “Oh, Amy!” when I tell her some crazy thing I’ve done. (Everything I did for her was crazy.) And my grandmother talking about my daughter, who she doted on, saying, “Oh, I just want to squeeze that sweet little girl!” Never again breaks my heart.

There are loves of my life that I was glad to leave. It was time. It was clear. Others that have been hard. And some that have been excruciating. And in this situation for me, it is the “what could have been that will never be” that is the hardest to bear. The plans that I made, that I might not have ever spoken. Trips that could have been taken, meals that could have been shared, conversations that will never be enjoyed, books that will never be read together, time spent in the other’s company. All of that dissipates into the ‘this will never happen’ ether of lost experiences.

And then touch. There’s always the touch that will never happen again. The finality of goodbye.

How do you deal with heartache? Kate hid herself away from the world. I did the opposite with my mom, and had to be with people non-stop. There are bad ways of dealing – of escaping the pain. And dealing with it head-on means crying so much that you look in the mirror at the end of the day and wonder why you don’t look like a raisin. Where did all of that water come from?

Some turn to whichever God or religion they practice. I have, over the years, developed a habit that I go to when I am in desperate need of help. I should do it more often really, but only think of it when I am at the very end of my own strength. Here it is:

I’m not into ancestor worship. But I happen to have an ancestry of very strong women who preceded me, whose blood flows through my veins and whose genes I share. When I am truly desperate—I have done this both when I had an excruciating choice to make or when I am being ravaged by grief—I go to my little altar of women and remember them all.

Words and sounds are important to me. I say their names. I look into their faces and touch the objects that I have that were theirs—that they too touched at one point back in the distant past. And I ask them to pass me their strength. It’s already there in my genes, flowing through my veins. I ask them to help me tap into it and to help me make my decision, be strong, and have peace.

Loss. Grief. The disappearance of someone you love from your life. It is a necessary part of life, but curse those Fates who allow it to happen.

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Published on June 15, 2012 23:04

Paris event Saturday June 16 – see you there!

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Published on June 14, 2012 22:23

Huge News (plus deleted scene)

And bringing you today’s huge news…I finished final edits of IF I SHOULD DIE…the last book of the DIE FOR ME trilogy! !!! !!! !!!

Which, believe it or not, is much huger news for me, personally, than pressing my body against Ian Somerhalder’s.

Our very close friend, Ian

Maybe MAJOR is the word I should be using. Not huge.

So in the context of this major event, I would like to celebrate a little bit with you. My favorite readers. And since I can’t hug you all individually, I will do the next best thing and give you a deleted scene from UNTIL I DIE.

(No, I will not give you a quote or deleted scene from Book 3. Book 2 has only been out a month in English speaking countries. And you have not yet bought it for your sister or brother or mom or best friend. Which you could do right now. But…if enough of you actually do buy it in the next week, I might be tempted to give you a couple of lines from IF I SHOULD DIE Chapter 1. )

ANYWAY…

For our “I finished the end of the trilogy” celebration, here is a scene that was cut from Book 2.

SPOILERS WARNING TO THOSE WHO HAVEN’T READ ‘UNTIL I DIE’:

Instead of Kate catching a glimpse of the evil fur-coat-wearing numa Nicolas in Pere Lachaise cemetery, (UNTIL I DIE, Chapter 5) I got all Buffy and melodramatic. And this is how it went down:

I looked directly up into a pair of pale grey eyes. Sneering lips parted to show nicotine-stained teeth, which clenched as the enormous man grabbed me by the shoulders and threw me over his shoulder as easily as if I were a rag doll.

“You’re ours now, little girlie,” he said, as he joined two men who waited under a nearby tree. The three men practically oozed evil. There was only one thing they could be. Rising bile stung my throat as I realized that I was being carried off by a band of numa.

The rain had cleared the tourists from the cemetery, allowing us to move unimpeded towards the front gates. Even though there was no one to hear me, I screamed, kicking and hitting my captor as I tried to flail out of his grasp.

“We were planning on using you as bait, but I have nothing against killing you right here on the spot if you so much as wriggle,” the numa walking behind us said. “In fact, girlie, I take that back. You just keep on moving. I feel like eviscerating something today.” He pulled a gigantic hunting knife out of his coat and twisted it inches from my face. I shut up and went limp, letting myself be carried like a bag of potatoes past row after row of tombs.

“Where are you taking me?” I asked softly after a few minutes.

“Home,” the man carrying me grunted.

“Our home,” the knife-wielder said.

“Where we’ll have plenty of time to play with our new toy before her boyfriend comes to rescue her,” said the third, with a deranged-sounding laugh that froze me with fright.

“Playtime’s over,” came a fourth voice from nearby. “Put her down.” I knew this voice: it was the voice I heard in all of my dreams. I allowed myself a split second to close my eyes in relief before giving one violent thrash with my entire body, causing my captor to lose his hold on me. I dropped to the ground on my hands and knees, and using an evasive technique Gaspard had taught me, rolled a few feet out of the way before springing back to my feet, my hands lifted in fists before me.

Vincent was striding towards us through the tombstones, his dark face lethal. In his clenched jaw and stone-cold eyes I caught a glimpse of the wild inconscient warrior he must have been during his vengeance-wreaking years after the war. Without slowing his pace, he passed a statue of a guardian angel, grabbed the marble sword from its hand, breaking it off at the hilt, then swung it at the head of my attacker, felling him with one violent blow. The man lie motionless on the ground as his two cronies backed up a step, one brandishing the hunting knife and the other drawing a sword.

Vincent ran to my side, pulling me further away from the numa, and revealing Ambrose and Arthur, who stepped out from behind him.

“Just having a little fun,” said one of the numa, in a creepily reptilian voice. His eyes darted from side to side as he backed up, and I could see him weighing whether or not he could make a run for it.

“Us too,” Ambrose said, and wrenching an iron spike off of a metal gate, he thrust it through the knife-wielding monster, picking him up off of the ground as if he weighed as much as a pillow, and threw him to one side.

Arthur went after the third numa, drawing two short swords from inside his coat. They sparred for a few minutes, the ancient revenant’s two-weapon technique confusing his challenger. This drew jeers from Ambrose who was watching them like it was a spectator sport. His taunting befuddled the numa even more, who made a few useless jabs before Arthur moved forward, swinging his swords like a turbine, stabbing the man through the heart with one, and swiftly beheading him with the other.

“He might be ancient as the hills, but you got to give the guy top points for style,” Ambrose crowed.

Arthur threw one sword each to Vincent and Ambrose, who dispatched of their own victims’ heads, while Arthur took out a cell phone and spoke softly into it, telling Jean-Baptiste that they needed to dispose of three bodies. He slipped the phone back into his coat pocket and nodded to Vincent. “Your ambulance driver will pick them up and have them cremated before the day’s out,” he said. “I’ll wait here with the bodies until he arrives.”

“Aww, now that’s a real shame,” said Ambrose. “If we built a bonfire right here, I’ll bet we could attract a whole drum circle of hippie kids from Jim Morrison’s grave and have a regular ol’ marshmallow roast.”

“Ambrose,” I said, my faculty of speech finally returning, “that’s disgusting.” I looked at the mutilated bodies on the ground and felt sick. Vincent was back by my side in a flash and pulled me to him, hiding my face from the gore.

“Aw, now, Katie-Lou,” Ambrose replied. “They’re just monsters. There’s no such thing as respect for the dead in their case. It’s just good riddance and move on.”

“I know that,” I said. “I’ve killed one myself. I’m just not used to seeing…”

“It’s okay, Kate. Don’t look,” Vincent put an arm around my shoulder, steering me away from the bloody scene. “I’ll take you home now.”

His voice was calm, but his face showed an emotion that I had never seen there. It was fear. Even though Vincent had looked as dangerous as a mercenary while he fought, underneath it all he had been afraid. For me.

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Published on June 11, 2012 15:30

Huge News

And bringing you today’s huge news…I finished final edits of IF I SHOULD DIE…the last book of the DIE FOR ME trilogy! !!! !!! !!!

Which, believe it or not, is much huger news for me, personally, than pressing my body against Ian Somerhalder’s.

Our very close friend, Ian

Maybe MAJOR is the word I should be using. Not huge.

So in the context of this major event, I would like to celebrate a little bit with you. My favorite readers. And since I can’t hug you all individually, I will do the next best thing and give you a deleted scene from UNTIL I DIE.

(No, I will not give you a quote or deleted scene from Book 3. Book 2 has only been out a month in English speaking countries. And you have not yet bought it for your sister or brother or mom or best friend. Which you could do right now. But…if enough of you actually do buy it in the next week, I might be tempted to give you a couple of lines from IF I SHOULD DIE Chapter 1.)

ANYWAY…

For our “I finished the end of the trilogy” celebration, here is a scene that was cut from Book 2.

SPOILERS WARNING TO THOSE WHO HAVEN’T READ IT: