Karen Marie Moning's Blog, page 5

Graphic novels, comic strips and fan art

There are days when I just love my job. Most days actually. But some days are better than others: like when I get to do nothing but write all day then read a little on the beach before going for a swim. (Yes, I'm back in Florida and loving it.) Or days when someone is inspired by something I've written and creates their own art, sends it to me, and inspires me all over again. Creativity feeds creativity. Keep it coming!

As many of you know, I'm doing a graphic novel (working title FEVER MOON: THE FEAR DORCHA) which, I'm pleased to say, is coming along beautifully. It's been a fascinating process. A graphic novel requires a very different tool belt than a book. In a book, I can describe the Sinsar Dubh at length. In a graphic novel I have to decide how to convey the nature of a living, sentient, evil manuscript in a single image that must be instantly impactful and identifiable as what it is. Don't expect exact replications. In FEVER MOON, some of the choices have been artistic. But enough for now about MY graphic novel. It isn't nearly done and I'm not going to talk about it much more until the release date is near.

In the meantime, a fan sent me HER version of a comic strip that brings to life a scene from my book Shadowfever. (I'm capitalizing words because I worry that since I mention the real, OFFICIAL graphic novel in the same blog entry about a FAN-CREATED comic strip, some of you will walk away thinking the strip I'm about to post is from MY graphic novel and it's NOT. :)

First, Mathia did a painting of the scene where the Seelie and Unseelie armies meet in a dark street in Dublin. Isn't it fecking fantastic? Because I run a PG-13 site, we had to censor the Unseelie Prince's full...uh, glory.



And here's her comic strip depicting the moment Mac chooses to walk away from temptation, with a little help:). I was blown away by how beautifully she illustrated the scene. I love it!

SPOILER ALERT IF YOU HAVEN'T READ SHADOWFEVER--DO NOT READ THE COMIC STRIP.



I was fascinated by how neatly the dialogue lent itself to the visual version. She did an amazing job bringing it to life. Please respect the artist's copyright. To see more of her work, visit her page at deviant art. Isn't she wonderful?

Cover reveal!

I just posted the cover for the mass market paperback of Shadowfever. I think it's stunning! Take a look and let me know what you think!

Valentine's Day Contest!

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Prize:
A gorgeous pink Swarovski Crystal Heart Necklace!

To Enter:
Post a picture on my fan wall page of who you think best represents Jericho Barrons.

You can only post one picture and can't post a picture someone else has posted. (To be fair, Eric Eterbari can't be nominated, sorry guys, LOL!)

I will pick the 10 pictures I like best at midnight tonight, and create an album of those pictures to post on my wall.

Then everyone has to vote on which of the ten pictures they think is the best JZB.

The person whose picture gets the most votes by Friday, at noon Pacific Time wins the necklace.

(That means if your picture is selected as one of the ten finalists at the end of the day today, you have three and a half days to campaign and convince people to vote for your entry!)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Now show me your best JZB!

Notes on the Fever Series--*SPOILERS*

I've been getting a lot of questions via email, MB, FB, blogs so I thought I'd dust off some of my notes and do a long post.

I've already shared parts of this in a recent chat and told parts of it at recent events but people have been asking me to put it all in one place. I sometimes forget there's a world beyond the readers that I feel like I've known forever, because we've been interacting so much at my MB forums for the past five years. I recently realized that readers who are new to the series don't know how it came to be, or what I was doing before I wrote it, and with three-quarters of a million posts at the MB, specific information can be hard to find.

Lately, a lot of people have asked me what the hardest thing about writing the Fever series was. Hands down, the most difficult thing was that it didn't follow any of the rules by which I was used to writing. I had to abandon control issues and take a leap of faith.

The entire series came to me one night in a dream. I said that in a recent interview and the person interviewing me looked at me strangely and said, "Wow! That must have been a really long dream."

It wasn't. In the dream I wasn't actually being told the story, or watching it unfold. I was reading a book, turning the pages faster and faster, being dragged along by the throat. The feeling was both exhilarating and uncomfortable. I was thrilled to be reading it. I didn't like anything keeping me so compulsively riveted. It's been a love-hate relationship from the beginning.

When I woke up from the dream, I exclaimed without thinking—or I would have realized I was being handed one of those contracts you have to sign in blood—yes, please, yes. I want to write a story like that!

The floodgate opened. The entire series shunted into my brain like a squirt on a Dan Simmon's fatline. Not piece by piece. Dumped. One minute I didn't have it, the next I did. Complete with names of installments, characters, plot twists and turns, even how many books it had to be and where each installment had to end.

I resisted it for months. Sometimes I took it out for a test drive in idle moments just to marvel at how wrong it was for me to write. It wasn't my kind of story at all. It was first person, not third. It had no neatly defined hero or heroine. It ended on cliffhangers, and was spread out over five books. Then there was the troubling fact that it didn't have a traditional 'romance' which was precisely what readers loved about my books. There were only shades of gray, no black and white. Even worse—it made me think. I read to escape.

I'd made a successful career for myself writing stand-alone romances with happy, complete endings. Not only was there no reason for me to change genres suddenly, there was compelling reason for me not to.

Determined that the Fever series would have to find another storyteller, I sat down to write another stand-alone third-person romance novel. Safety net below me, pole in hand, I knew how to walk that wire.

Nothing came.

I sat there for three months staring at my computer. And nothing came.

I offered innovative bargains to various deities for a little inspiration (ignoring the massive inspiration that was constipating me). I wrote down all the reason I shouldn't write the Fever series. I wrote down all the reasons I was not going to make a career change. I staunchly refused to write word 1 of the first book.

[As an aside, what I didn't know at the time but would soon find out was that I had been bitten by a tick that carried Lyme disease and I was about to embark on a five year journey to hell and back while it invaded my CNS and crippled me. Like Mac, I was happy and carefree. I think the lessons we most need to learn are usually at our fingertips.]

I remember the day I sat down at my desk and stared at the computer screen for the ninety-fifth day in a row of blank pages and, in a trancelike state, picked up a black Sharpie (my husband had to paint over it and has never let me forget it:) and wrote on the wall the titles of the five installments: Darkfever, Bloodfever, Faefever, Dreamfever, Shadowfever.

I sat back and stared at the wall, contemplating how difficult a career change would make my life.

Then I remembered finding Frank Herbert's Dune when I was a teenager, going through some hard times. I remembered having to face something I was terrified of. I remembered discovering the Bene Gesserit mantra: I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

I remembered the many times in my life I'd recalled that mantra, word for word and how much I'd needed it. I wondered where I'd have been if not for it. How I'd have gotten through.

Something shifted in my head and I got up and wrote below the titles: Hope strengthens. Fear kills.

I began writing Darkfever that day.

There were times I hated taking on this series. There were times I relished it. Days I felt cursed by it, other days I felt blessed by it. I haven't always liked the characters, nor have I agreed with many of the things they've done. In the end all I can say is this:

The story came to me. I told it. And I'm glad I did.

Onto the nuts and bolts…

Though the story was complete with names, character, plot, etc., I still had to decide how to write it. Structure, theme, vantage point. These are some of my notes made during and after in no particular order. I think of them as the steel girders for the building.

• The Fever World is a dark one, pierced infrequently by light, literally and metaphorically. I kept in mind a famous quote by Kahlil Gibran as I was writing: "Your joy can fill you only as deeply as your sorrow has carved you."

• I wanted to explore two completely different characters: an innocent who'd never known sorrow of any kind and the only rules she lived by came from The Bartender's Guide for Mixing Perfect Party Drinks, and a borderline sociopath who'd constructed a frame of ethics for himself. I wanted to give them both something life-changing then sit back and watch them change. I wanted to capture the urban fantasy world as the pivotal transformation was initiated—not after the vampires had come out, or once the weres/witches/ zombies had legal rights. I wanted to chronicle the characters that were in the line of fire before the walls crashed, and see how they behaved as their world melted down.

• When every other novel I was picking up in the bookstore announced: Vampire/Werewolf/Demon hero on the cover, and was marketing it on the basis of that paranormal creature's mythic resonance, I wanted to write a story with a male center-stage character that defied labels, and wouldn't permit one. I wanted to make the reader choose to take him or leave him without the convenience of a pre-packaged tortured-hero caricature to slap over his outline, and no easy answers about whether he was good or bad. I wanted to write a paranormal creature and never tell the reader what he was, because I believed they would ultimately see him more clearly in his everyday behavior, than through the distorted lens of someone else's legend.

• Barrons says, "Judge me by my actions" and makes the reader do the same. At the end of the series, I want the reader to answer the question: Who/what is Barrons? the same way Mac does: Who cares? He's Barrons.

• In the vein of showing, not telling, I want my characters to love each other—but never tell each other that. I will show it in their actions, in the choices they make. Words are easy; lies as simple as parting your lips and breathing.

• Although Mac begins as an innocent, she doesn't stay that way long. Her sister's brutal murder takes her to Dublin on a quest for justice and revenge. With Alina dead, her everyday life rapidly transforms from sunshine and carefree dreams to a dark, frightening shadow-realm with monsters in every cobwebbed corner. It rains incessantly where Mac is, inside her head and out. Most of the crucial action takes place at night, in an urban decay setting. I want to achieve this feeling: When the sun manages to penetrate the storm clouds hanging over the Temple Bar District, or one of the dazzling Fae strolls across the page, the leavening effect must be jarring, breathtaking.

• I want the series to function as a Janus head on multiple levels, highlighting contrasts and creating a play of tension between opposites compressed in a volatile reality to illustrate the point that Jean Paul Sartre makes in Being and Nothingness when he explores the concept of anguish at the point of absolute freedom: The only thing that matters are the possibilities, what you choose, what you commit to. All potentials exist in every character, at every moment. It is their actions that define and separate them.

• When we first meet Mac in Darkfever, the only carving she's ever experienced is cutting up limes to wedge into the neck of a frosty Corona while hanging out on the beach, playing volleyball. I like that about her. She's going to be easy to break. I wonder how she'll get back up. Her sister's gruesome murder is only the beginning of her fall. Barrons, on the other hand, will be a tough one to rattle.

• By the time Mac encounters the Fear Dorcha in Shadowfever, the fifth and final book in the series, she will have been tortured, gang raped, turned Pri-ya, survived attempts on her life from multiple sources, had her parents kidnapped, found they weren't even her parents anyway, and come to suspect—with good reason—that of all the monsters she's had to face since her sister's death, she's quite possibly the worst. At that moment she must stand her tallest, shoulders back, spine straight, unflinching.

• Jericho Barrons says the only reality you can control is the one you're willing to face—and who would want to live in a reality that was controlled by someone else? It's a cage, no matter how gilded. Sartre's faith of bad faith is the greatest hypocrisy and frank absurdity to him. Every lie a person tell oneself forges another link in the chains that bind. Barrons cares about only this: How much truth can you face? How free do you dare to be? If the choice is yours—and it is—wouldn't you crave absolute freedom? The more clearly one sees that there's nothing within, the more power one has to create whatever one wants without. Barrons understands this and because he does, he is truly free. For this same reason, he's Unseelie king in the making.

• V'lane understands this, too, and is another shadow hero, a doer of great good or great evil depending on the standards by which he's being judged. As the king will say at the end of Shadowfever, in another reality, V'lane would have become the king and Barrons Cruce, or Barrons would have become the king and imprisoned War, perhaps V'lane might have been Barrons…perhaps where Mac is concerned, he is…but this time he doesn't get the girl. The three of them: Barrons, V'lane and the king are mere choices away from having been the other.

• Mac can't even spell existential angst but is going to get a crash course in the day-to-day application of it, and along the way become fascinated by the two nearly omnipotent males that are so dangerous and attractive. A woman doesn't get something like Barrons or V'lane without paying a high price. Mac 1.0 is like a peacock, one of the showy males strutting around showing off her fabulous plumage, trying to get the king of the jungle's attention, but to survive in Barron's bed she'll have to lose her tail feathers and grow claws. Part peacock., part lion, Mac 5.0 won't know what she is any more and won't care because she knows this much: she's unbreakable and she likes it.

• Mac, Barrons and V'lane are complicated, self-aware characters. Each is flawed. There will arguably be no heroes in the series. With a minor twist of the lens, those who are perceived as the villains might be viewed as the heroes, and the heroes might be villains. It all comes down to who's writing the press releases. I may eventually have to tell it from someone else's point of view.

Character notes:

• Jericho Z. Barrons: Barrons is hard, cold, brutally efficient killing machine, brilliant, cunning and utterly focused on what he wants at all times. He rarely smiles and if he does, it's a brief softening, a faint uplifting of the corners of his mouth—never a full smile. Since he met Mac, he has smiled on several occasions. Once, he laughed out loud. JZB is not a man for expressions of happiness. At best he radiates self-satisfied calm, a big cat at rest. Harsh, forbidding, controlled, a man of intense discipline, he emotes anger, mockery, challenge, irony, raw sexuality, animalistic fury, but no tenderness. He's a hard man. There are no cracks in his walls but the one Mac can slip through—and he hates that but he accepts it because it is the truth and to pretend otherwise would be an exercise in futility. Whether he likes it or not, she gets under his skin and makes his dick harder than any other woman ever has. He wastes no time examining the whys of it or resisting her effect on him. He focuses his energy like a laser, slicing and dicing, rearranging reality to suit what he wants the best way he can get it. Since the moment he met Mac and accepted that he wanted her, he has been ruthlessly altering her, making her ultimately suitable for him. The only question in his mind is: will she survive what he's doing to her?

• MacKayla Lane: Mac is a woman on the verge of…everything: A complete psychotic episode, a life-changing epiphany, becoming something truly good or truly evil. She often feels bi-polar—because she is. A sweet, southern girl with refined taste and pretty manners, she's a shining star with a great, sucking black-hole at the center. The evil she's been hunting so assiduously, the mind-numbing, soul-crushing monster of twisted destructiveness she's been tracking through the rain-slicked streets of Dublin—is her. Every dark spell, all the dangerous power, the vicious rage and hunger crouches inside her. It never intended to let her find it in the streets until she'd found it in herself.

• V'Lane: V 'lane had a lousy publicist. He's the center-stage male character I gave a label: Seelie, shining death-by-sex Fae, erotic, brilliant, ballsy and no more sociopathic than Barrons. With V'lane, I can't help but play the "what if" game: What if the night Mac rushed through the dark zone seeking sanctuary, Mac had found V'lane instead of Barrons Books & Baubles? What if he'd taken her to Faery and told her the truth, the full truth that very night? Would she have been swayed by his desire to save his trapped brothers? How different is he really from Barrons and his eight? V'lane may have rebelled against the Unseelie king's wishes but he was only trying to set the rest of the Unseelie free. He was beautiful, powerful, he could have left the icy prison and abandoned them, and pursued his own pleasure. But he wanted all the Unseelie to have a chance in the sunshine and beauty of the world. He was a freedom fighter, a renegade, a determined, cunning, patient, valiant crusader. Doesn't the world need War? Isn't he the only reason tyrannies topple, empires fall and humans change? War is the catalyst, the means by which wrongs are righted, scales are balanced, and the world transformed. Isn't V'lane the real hero?

I hope this sheds a little light. Enough to stay to J

Check back for a more general Q & A coming soon…

Karen

You guys are a-fecking-mazing!

The Moning Maniacs can move mountains. I just got word that Shadowfever debuted at #1 on the New York Times Hardcover Bestseller list. Thank you for being such fabulous fans and friends! xoxoxooooo Karen

Booksigning in NOLA--an apology

I've been wanting to blog about this since I got back from New Orleans Wednesday night but it was still too fresh and painful for me. After waiting five years to wrap up the series, the one night I was looking forward to the most was signing Shadowfever in NOLA on Monday. Dream come true kind of event. You know how when you anticipate something, you mentally project yourself into it and know just how it's going to go? I never once imagined the scenario that unfolded.

There we were in the beautiful Le Pavillon hotel with snacks and books and music and plenty of room to curl up and read. I planned to sign until midnight, hang out with you all, stroll around, try to pull an all nighter, then go right to the discussions.

Unfortunately on the flight down last Friday I sat with a group of people who were sick. They were throwing up and talking about having come back from some exotic country. I figured they had food poisoning and never gave it another thought. Until two hours before my signing Monday afternoon I began running a fever and started getting sick, too. I was flabbergasted. I was horrified. I sat on my bed and thought this can't be happening, I've been through a lot in the past few years but I just don't have the strength to get through eight hours of talking, signing and smiling while running out to throw up. I cried. Then I cleaned up and went to the signing and did my best.

It wasn't good enough. I only made it four hours. My wonderful team did everything they could to get me through it. I have very little memory of the event. I was running a fever and everything had the surreal quality of a dream.

But not dreamy enough that I don't remember the disappointment in your eyes. That's going to haunt me for a long time. After a few hours I knew I would barely be able to sign all the books so we had to get down to just a signature and no photos.

I have pictures in my mind of smiling faces that freeze, show a flash of total disappointment then quickly mask it.

You guys were amazing. You actually tried to make me feel better. And I was the one that let you down.

I was in bed by eighty-thirty Monday night, shivering, blankets over my head, sick as a dog. The next morning my doctor called in something to keep my stomach under control and I was able to do the discussions but not the way I'd hoped. I was supposed to fly back to Atlanta that night but had to delay my flight until I was well enough to travel.

I know how far many of you came to attend the event. I know how much time, effort and money you put into it. And I can't believe I got sick! I can't find a single gift in the lesson. Unless it's this: I sat there, looking at you and I saw the disappointment in your eyes—then you turned back to your friends and were happy and laughing again—and it drove home for me what the Moning Maniac events are all about.

In the beginning we came together because of love of the books. But Monday night I realized that while we still get together around the books it's not because of them, or me. It's because of the magic you've made with your friendships and shared adventures. I had one of those moments where the universe goes still and you see your place in it, and it's really very small, but a damn fine place to be.

I'm so sorry I wasn't able to last for the whole signing. To those of you that didn't get a full inscription and photos I can't apologize enough. I feel terrible! I hope to make it up to you somehow in the future.

Karen

SHADOWFEVER first 2 chapters up at my website--*SPOILERS*

***SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS!!!***

Late last night I received word that a major retailer had failed to honor the embargo and posted the first two chapters of Shadowfever online. (Some people are saying it's three. It's not. They only posted the first two.)

The first two chapters contain a MAJOR SPOILER and a lot of information.

I feel it is my duty to alert you to this because the spoiler may be appearing in a single sentence online at any moment--if it hasn't already--and you may get blindsided with it at Facebook or other online gathering places. I control the climate only at my own forums.

This isn't how I wanted things to go. I had something special planned for you pre-release but the unauthorized posting blew it for us.

Since it has been leaked, I'm giving you the choice.

I've posted the PDF of the first two chapters at my website for those of you who want spoilers. IT WILL TELL YOU WHO THE BEAST WAS.

To say I'm disheartened by the leak is an understatement. But as I said earlier--I have the best fans in the world and I know you'll protect each other.

CLICK HERE IF YOU WANT TO READ THE FIRST TWO CHAPTERS WITH MAJOR *SPOILERS*

I also posted a link at the bottom of the Shadowfever excerpt page.

xoxooooo
Karen

PS: The retailer that posted it didn't do it on purpose. As frustrated as it makes me, you should know it was an oversight.

Thank you!

With the release date of Shadowfever approaching and anticipation growing, I wanted to take a moment to say a heartfelt 'thank you' to all of the fans of the Fever series.

It's been such a toss up for me: the decision whether or not to let my publisher send out advanced reading copies of the Fever books. The simple fact is it's better for me if I do, because advance publicity is critical to a writer's career. I've made many reviewers unhappy because we've gone the arc-less route and my career has suffered for it. Last year a famous magazine called to request an advance copy of Dreamfever. The publicity from them would have been incredible! You can't buy that kind of attention. But it would have ruined the one thing I've always considered more important than publicity: the reading experience for my fans. The series is full of mystery and cliffhanger suspense. Although occasionally a reader complains about being left hanging, more often than not I hear how much you enjoy the experience of coming together in a community and debating the plot twists and speculating about the ultimate outcome. Some of you have even written to tell me you aren't sure you don't enjoy your Fever friends/conversations more than the books themselves, LOL!

I've done everything in my power to protect my fans. I don't want anyone that has waited five years (or even five months or weeks) to have their experience spoiled by one badly placed review on line that gives it away—and believe me, in Shadowfever there's a lot to give away :)

As the release date approaches, I have no doubt some books will slip through the cracks. There is no perfect strict on sale date, or embargo. Mistakes happen. Copies of Dreamfever hit the stands early, and so did Faefever.

So why am I thanking you? Because in the complicated, mistake-laden world of publishing, the one thing I can count on are my readers. Last year when early copies came out you were so amazingly respectful of each other. If you shared spoilers, you did it far behind the scenes and in such a way that no innocent, hapless reader would stumble upon them. You astound me with your care and respect for each other's reading experience.

It's been a long journey with Mac and the crew. The last chapter is about to begin….Keep the faith, be good to each other and let me know what you think when you've finished. I can't wait to hear your thoughts on how it all ends!

Stay to the light.
Karen

Art by Mia! Doesn't it rock?

Shadowfever TV Commercial

Check out the awesome trailer Random House did for Shadowfever!

Happy Holidays!

Leiha knows how much I love Christmas and made this for me, LMAO! I just had to share. Wishing you all the merriest! (It's really much clearer than this. I'm not sure I uploaded it right.)