D. Michelle Gent's Blog, page 2

From Facebook & Twitter to the world

I have to start as I mean to go on and to do this, I have to build my audience for my work (and the works of my colleagues in writing, both in and out of the Gingernut Books Ltd - Publisher stable). To do this, it would seem that I'd have to market my work, blog, guest-blog, write articles, hubs and loads more things besides - ALL of which I am prepared to do but I also realise that this will eat into my writing time. This is where my friends and Fans (wow, I can't believe it, I actually have these) can help.
I need more than 5000 likes on my Facebook Author page. I need 100,000 for my Twitter account and whilst this seems excessive and impossible, it really isn't. I have 3 full novels out and 4 short stories on Kindle and I believe that's a good amount to set my platform on but I need help. I need the help of people that like my stories and I know I've asked this before but I have to ask it again, PLEASE share my links, PLEASE cajole, threaten and beg your friends to like my pages, and share my links and ask them to ask their friends to do the same.
I can't do this alone, I need help and I know that my friends on FB, the ones that I've not yet met and those that I have met (even if I'm too ditzy to link people to their FB account, sorry Sandra) will help me. I have the best and most supportive friends online and offline and I do know that together we can and WILL get my books (OUR books) onto that big screen somewhere and when that day comes, I'll invite you ALL to the premier - even if I have to travel closer to your home town to do it!

The start of new things to come

Legends, myths, folk tales - every nation has them, even the relatively new ones, nations that are less than a millennia old, less than half a millennia old.Vampires have become the most common, varying stories that came across the vast oceans with the new settlers. Witches, werewolves, hob-goblins and trolls are there too, nestling in amongst the tales of hardship, loneliness, hunger and strife. It wasn't enough that the settlers in a new land had new, natural hazards to overcome, they had to battle old ones from the old country too. The vampires, witches and werewolves travelled along with them in their minds, their hearts and their fears.Stories of hardworking people trying to make a new life for themselves in the new, exciting, dangerous but ultimately rewarding land were peppered with tales of temptation, the devil handing out prosperity too easily for the price of a soul gave adequate warning against laziness, drove a spike of terror into the hearts of communities that wished their lives were just that little bit easier or that all their dreams could come true right now.
What? You thought that the idea of instant gratification was a new concept? Not even close.
Those tales were understandable. Fables of temptation and the ultimate turn around of a fallen sinner redeemed at last by the love and devotion of a family and a community who put their trust in hard work and men of God.A community once divided by greed, brought back together by the clever defeat of the Prince of temptation, Old Hob, the Devil. The eternal struggle of good over evil.What of other tales? What of the myths dragged with pilgrims and settlers from the old countries? What purpose do they serve? Why do men perpetuate those tales?Blood sucking vampires, men turned to beasts of the field by the light of the full moon, goblins, witches, faeries, trolls, giants, dwarves? Why do these stories persist? If it isn't for a useful and instructional moralistic tale, is it then because there may be a basis in fact?Did those creatures once exist? Were they eradicated by vigilant humans or did the creatures just learn to hide their existence better? Learned to use man's growing disbelief that he was lower down the food chain than he would like? Did they - do they - use his unwavering faith in the advances of science against him? The scientific fact that explained why a victim of tuberculosis when dug up, disinterred, exhumed, looked plump and healthier in death than they had at their last in life. The natural processes of decomposition forces blood from orifices such as the mouth where the blood vessels are closer to the skin's surface to make it seem as though the corpse had somehow been reanimated to claim other victims and feed on their blood?Then man's inventive and macabre imagination, coupled with his desire to be scared, gave stories of werewolves, forever enslaved by the moon, forced by the monthly phenomena into murderous, frivolous killing sprees. Did those creatures really only exist in man's warped imagination? His eternal fear that one day he could revert to the savagery of days long since gone, times when it really was kill or be killed, when man had only tooth and claw to rely on rather than his inventive nature and advanced weaponry. Before he even had the idea of propulsion, slings and rocks, bows and arrows, cannon.Man has advanced up that food chain, killed everything he feared, done away with the animals that could kill him, drove them deep into the forest, the ever decreasing forest and jungle, to make absolutely certain that he can sleep easy in his bed. Man has no predator now, only other men.Or did those ancient predators evolve? The predators of old, those that are human based or could pass for human with a little genetic manipulation, interbreeding with humans over the centuries to bring their features more in line with what was acceptable. Did the mythical, legendary and creatures of folk tales ever exist? No? Are you sure?Just because vampires, werewolves, witches and goblins are told of in fairy stories, told to us as children doesn't make them less real. If they existed once, they may still exist, they may just have become wise to man's destructive nature, become better at camouflage and disguise.Would a predator really show himself to his victim if the victim had the means to kill it? What sense does that make?If a zebra had the means to slaughter the lion, would the lion ever allow the zebra to know of its existence? The answer to that of course, is no.It suits the predators of man to allow the belief in his own ultimate supremacy. Vampires, vulnerable by day, would be winked out of existence. Werewolves susceptible to precious metal, gone in the blink of an eye. Disbelief is the weapon of choice for the mythical creatures and if vampires and werewolves exist, how many other creatures do too? 

www.awesomeonlinemagazine.com

Yeah, that's the title of this week's blog, the magazine that I'm connected with.

A few months ago, I was asked if I'd like to be sub-editor for a new magazine. Of course, I jumped at the chance, I enjoy writing and I love connecting people that can work together to create something AWESOME.
I was in the Caribbean when I saw the first magazine. I lay on the beach reading the articles and thinking just how lucky I am.

I have my dream job. I write.

The magazine was intended to be bi-monthly but the success of the first month meant that we could go monthly with it. Everyone was delighted of course, but there are drawbacks. We have to get enough articles to fill the pages. There's a bigger drawback though... this magazine, AWESOME magazine, can't have any old tat on the pages, the articles, columns and pieces have to be AWESOME.

Now for the question then...

Are YOU up to the task? Can YOU write something for our magazine? Can you?
Give it a go... but make sure it's AWESOME!

Can characters come to life for you?

I've just created a Twitter account for Red, Sentinel Exemplar, the main character in my three (soon to be four) novels. I think I'm going to have a little fun with her but will she really 'come to life' though her Tweets? I hope so...


Then, do I go even further and create other Twitter accounts for the other characters so that she can interact with them? I'm thinking that I shouldn't... too time consuming, too over the top and too freakish. I can cope with getting into the heads of my characters when I'm writing about them but I don't think I want to get in there with regards to how they'd interact with Humes on Twitter... Can you imagine Darius on Twitter? Or Anton? Oh my goodness, Erzsébet Tweeting?
Yes, I think I'll leave my bloodthirsty characters safely trapped in the pages of my books and in the minds of my readers... perhaps that's best... for now... until I get bored :)


If you'd like to follow me: @ShellGent


If you're brave and would like to follow Red: @WolfSentinel


Don't say I didn't warn you...

Oh what a week!

Well that was a week of ups and downs, I must say.
It started out with great intentions... I had three articles that I had promised people, one article, one interview and a fiction piece.
Deadlines for the three were Thursday (x2) and Friday. I'm pleased to say that I managed all three by Wednesday. Now THAT'S  a first!
The interview was easy, all I had to do was answer some questions - Thanks Julie Catherine.
The article, I was struggling on. I didn't have inspiration until a few nights ago. I was keeping up with the Brit Awards on Twitter not TV and I saw a few nasty and utterly horrible comments about Adele - she had won 6 Grammys a few nights previously and she must still have been on Cloud 9. As she started winning, I noticed a few comments about her weight and I thought they were going too far.
I Tweeted the guy and told him it wasn't right, Adele is a role model for young girls to not diet to extremes but whether he saw it or not, it didn't stop him.
So I played him at his own game and I started using the # to trend the #Brits too.
The next morning, my Tweet had been removed from his page so I guess he had seen it but the best part is that I wrote the article on self-confidence and self-perception, not just in young women but in all of us. I know that I've looked in the mirror and thought "who the hell is that and what have they done to my face?"
I mean... I don't remember getting this old... it's only been a very short time since I was 16 years old... hasn't it?
Well, apparently not.
I've wondered about plastic surgery, but that's as far as it's got... to the wondering stage. I can't justify spending money to 'go under the knife', no matter how I look but that's just me. I will never criticise anyone for having surgery, it's a personal choice but I do feel saddened when it goes too far.

The way I will stay young and become immortal is through my children and my books. While my children are around and having children themselves (I'm going to be a grandma in a few short months) I'll stay young.
And while there are copies of my books out there, I'll be immortal.

Hazel/Red and where she came from

Moving on from where Dusty came from in the geography of my imagination, I thought I'd share where Red came from too.

Deadlier... than the Male was the first novel I wrote. It took more than a decade to get it to where it became a 'proper book' (thanks Fiona hehehe) and the journey of that is enough to use up an entire Blog, so I'll gloss over that for now.

Red is female, like me. She's a red-head, like me. She has a temper, like me and she has no hesitation in killing those that annoy her enough... not like me.
A lot of the people that know me well and have taken time to read my books can see similarities between me and Red but that's as far as it goes. My imagination takes Red into extreme situations where the choice is kill or be killed and she obliges - with enthusiasm and flair.

Where Red's story is concerned, it began when I worked at a nightclub in the town close to where I lived. I worked there as Front of House staff - Door Supervisor, or Bouncer as it's more commonly known.
It was a slow evening, with not many customers, because the club had just opened and it took a few weeks before it became 'the place to be seen'. I was looking up at the sky over the rooftops of the buildings across the road and I turned to Lolly, the receptionist and said: "Can you imagine someone leaping from rooftop to rooftop, silhouetted by that full moon?"
"Are you talking about vampires?" Lolly asked.
"No, werewolves." I said that without thinking.
Vampires were still sexy, even though 'Interview' with Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt had been released five or more years before and Lost Boys were more than a decade older. I was starting to want more from the monsters I was reading about, I wanted something different. If I could write a story that entertained me, I was sure that I would be onto a winner.
I went home from work (it would have been around 3am) and I started to write.

I wrote what I knew - that's the advice, isn't it? - I wrote about a woman that was confident and intelligent (no, really, I can be, just give me a minute...). I wanted people to not only like her, but to feel empathy for her. I also wanted her to be strong enough to take care of herself and to not need anyone taking care of her, watching out for her or kicking ass for her. I wanted her to be surrounded by people that would do all those things if she needed or wanted - that's what friends do, isn't it?
I wanted this to be more extreme than a tale of friendships, trials, fall-downs, stand-ups and the like, this had to have gore and blood and mayhem - things I like to read about. I wanted my story to be as good as any I've read, as entertaining, as enthralling - as unputdownable - as any of those books I love. I didn't want much, did I?
That was going to be a test of my, as yet untried, talents.

I'd never written a full novel before. I had written short stories but never something that had to be disciplined and structured.
It took me two years to write.

I think I started out by writing about something that scared me in my daily life. Now, what scared me then (still does) was the idea of being alone in a deserted place and being attacked. I suppose that everyone has that fear and I'm no psychologist but I would assume that it's a natural fear of becoming someone or something's prey. Bearing that in mind, I set about writing about a woman on her way home from work, tired, distracted and vulnerable - just the right ingredients for a victim. Throw in a lonely location and a few added spices of previous attacks in the same place and we have a tense scenario where we just know she's going to be assaulted.

I added a twist of irony and deep satisfaction, a few pieces of location that I tumbled around in my head and scattered them in some slightly altered geography and there! I had my first scene and Red was born.

Then I wanted a back-story for this lady. I didn't just want a little back story though, I wanted her to have centuries of it! I took her five hundred years into the past and as I typed, she grew from an exceptionally fragile human girl, orphaned and alone, to one of the most powerful Wolves that had been documented.

Red is kick-ass, she's all-fury when necessary, she's independent and capable - she's Deadlier... than the Male.

Shameless plug alert

I don't do this very often, I'm not one of those people that plugs their work on every site at every opportunity. Sometimes maybe I suppose I should, but I find it intrusive and it's certainly annoying when all I see on my Twitter is "Read my book!" "My book, read it!" "Have you read my book yet?" from the same person, each time I refresh.
Anyway, here's me, being a hypocrite then...

Dusty came from nowhere I think. She sauntered up to me one Saturday evening and settled herself at my side and began to tell me her story. Before I knew it, I had almost 8,000 words written about her first adventure. It didn't seem to have taken any time at all. By Sunday afternoon, I had a full episode of her story, the genre she fitted into and a character that I really liked. I asked a few people to read what I'd written and bearing in mind that I wanted Dusty the Demon Hunter to be a kick-ass teen, I was disappointed when I was told, in no uncertain terms, that it was way too raunchy for teens. Now, to be fair, I don't think it was the teens that it was too raunchy for. I think it's too raunchy for the parents of said teens. They don't like to think their teens are reading this - they are though, trust me, I did too!
Nevertheless, I toned it down (no, really, I did) and though it's still slightly risqué, it's not graphic.

Dusty's friend has had a dabble with a friend's Ouija Board and something came through. That 'something' was an incubus, a demon that seduces human women in the hope that it can impregnate them and then steal away the resulting child.
Dusty was asked to help her friend Ange and because Dusty is the result of a similar encounter (her mother was seduced by a powerful demon) she helps Ange to stop the night-visits.
During the course of the adventure, Dusty meets another half-demon called Hunter, and they hit it off.

I had the story proof-read (thank you Julie) and it was put onto Amazon's Kindle site (thanks Trev).
Then I sat back and waited.

People loved it! They love the character, the story - everything about her! I am still excited that I created something that others enjoy and tell me that they enjoy it. Though she's not hit 1000 sales yet, Dusty's getting out there and I'm sure she'll be a success (she already is a success to me, people enjoy reading about her, it's not about the money, it never was).

After that encouraging start, I tried another story. This time Dusty encounters mythological creatures called harpies. I researched these creatures and found that they were three sisters and I was able to weave a very satisfactory (well, to me, anyway) story with regards to Dusty. Ange makes another appearance in this story too, as does Ange's cousin and of course, Hunter. Flights of Fantasy has also been well received by the fans that have started to accumulate for my half-demon teen.

Vampires, Trouble x 3 was inevitable I think. After all, my writing career was re-started when I was admin for a vampire game on Facebook (don't bother to look for it, I no longer play the game).
Dusty is approached by a vampire and asked to help. There's way more to the vampire's tale than at first seems, which makes for another interesting read.

The next Dusty tale is a free download. I wrote it with the specific aim of putting it into Gingernut Books' Newsletter (click the link at the bottom of the page) and you can still get the story.
Dusty meets Santa in this story. As I wrote it, I wrapped it around one of my favourite Christmas poems - The Night Before Christmas. I had a lot of fun with that short story and it fits in well with Dusty and how she's developing as a character.

The fifth in Dusty's repertoire has just been released. Dusty's Doppelganger was as much fun as the rest have been to write.
I didn't find much by way of research on the doppelganger myth but what I could remember from childhood stories have been supplemented by my trusty fall-back option - I made stuff up!

I'm in the middle of writing Dusty's sixth adventure - it doesn't even have a working title yet - and it's still fun. I'll keep you updated on her adventures and possibly, later this year, maybe Dusty's seventh will hit the shelves running - as a full length novel.

Thanks for reading!

On a cold and frosty morning...

January - cold, sharp mornings with frost thick on every surface. It makes the world seem clean and fresh even though everything is dead - no, not dead, but slumbering. Twice this week I've been at my computer as the sun broke through and banished the night time - I can't say I'm a big fan of early mornings but I suppose if I've been woken up (by the screaming child next door - again) then I must make the most of it.

As this new year begins, I'm thinking of what it's going to bring with it this time. I know that we are going to have a few great upheavals in our lives as a family, we're having a new addition in May for one thing. But personally, my writing career seems to be on the very edge of something big and I can't help being excited. Before you ask, no, Hollywood hasn't called and neither has an agent or publisher - that's not what I'm excited about. I can't put my finger on it, there's just something in the air I think... Movies, Magazines, Newsletters - all are opportunities to be spotted and grasped and I've met some inspiring people along my journey so I'm ever hopeful.

I've had a few wobbly days just lately, days where I seemed to have had so much to do, so many things that I could be getting on with that I didn't know where to start, which one to begin, and so I started a few different projects and finished none to any kind of satisfaction. I know what I have to do today and I shall finish all three of those writing projects.

Then I shall tidy the bathroom...

Wish me luck.

New Year still?

Last night I went to a party I greeted some of my friends with Happy New Year and the discussion began: When do we stop saying Happy New Year?
Is it once the first few weeks are done with, when January is over or when you've wished all of your friends and family a Happy New Year?

I think I'm just about done with my own personal Happy New Years for this year except for you, my blog followers -

Happy New Year to you all :)

Suky - I'm not sure if this will be a novel or short story yet...

She stood at the top of the stone parapet, right at the very highest point of the bridge. She looked up at the stars because she dare not look down. Her heart was thumping in her chest, her hair was streaming out around her, buffeted by the wind and sometimes swirling around her face. Once she shook her head in order to get the hair from her mouth and she wobbled on her unsteady legs, she would not try that again.Her clothes were being tugged and pulled by the wind as though by invisible fingers and gusts threatened to topple her from her precarious perch.She thought about the reasons that she had climbed to the highest point that she had ever been to and whether they made sense to her still. They had made sense when she was preparing herself, they had made sense whilst she had been climbing and now, now that she was finally at the fork in the road that would send her onto one or another of the two separate paths in her life, she thought again on the reasons that she had decided to put an end to her present life.Family, she had none. The job she worked at was no kind of career and though it was deemed that she had been very fortunate to secure herself a place as scullery maid without so much as a reference, she found that the other maids were snobbish bullies. The male staff members were lecherous pigs and she had neither the strength nor the energy to avoid or refuse their attentions any more. When she had finally succumbed to the attentions of the younger son of the household, she was held in greater disdain than ever before. She was fortunate to have escaped without an unwanted pregnancy – that much she knew but she was mortified to find that someone had found out about her dalliances. The younger son, the favourite amongst the staff 'below stairs' was sent away so that he couldn't get into more trouble and she was threatened to be sent packing if she so much as showed signs of being with child.Her terrible and unbearable situation became worse. The maids blamed her for the son's departure, as did the cook and the butler. Her colleagues had hardly spoken to her before he had been sent away, now, they sent her to Coventry. She was miserable and as such, her work suffered. The housekeeper had summoned her into her office and told her in no uncertain terms that she had to pull her socks up or be off and on her way with no references.That had been a little over a month ago and she had tried her very hardest to please everyone but it was impossible.A few weeks ago, as she lay on her bed, worn out from the day's work but unable to sleep for her misery; a thought had popped into her head:"I'll show them! They'll be sorry when I'm dead and gone and they'll know it was their fault."The thought was persistent and though she tried to push it away – nothing was bad enough to wish herself dead over, surely – it came back night after night and then it began to appear when she was being snubbed or told off. Then it would appear when she was working at her usual duties and pretty soon, the thought was there as a permanent fixture, running around in her mind. Her ultimate revenge would be her death, her blood on their hands.