Meg Collett's Blog, page 9

Deleted Scene from The Hunted One

Happy Wednesday, everyone! Here is a deleted scene from the final battle between Michaela and Clark and the Watchers. IT MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS FOR THOSE WHO HAVEN’T ALREADY READ THE HUNTED ONE. So be careful what you read

Also, this hasn’t been professionally or extensively edited as it was ultimately cut.

Deleted Scene

Spasms of bright, piercing light flashed across the night sky. The fight still waged, but the searing lightning and killing trees had stopped. The air smelled of fire and sulfur. For all its activity in the skies above it and in the shadows within it, the woods were fairly quite. Snippets of rushed, whispered words slipped through the cracks in the trees. They sounded like venom and hate.

A broad shouldered Nephil carried Clark through the woods. Three more Nephilim, including the one named Sophia, who Clark had just saved from the research facility, protectively encircled Clark as they slipped toward the road. Sophia was closest to Clark, the back of her arm only inches from his face. The scent of honey and summer drifted from her hair and into Clark’s nose. Her pretty face stayed tense as she probed the darkness around them.

A Nephil behind Clark spoke a sharp sounding word in the Watchers’ language. The marks along Clark’s arms flared, sending sharp pin-pricks of pain through Clark. He winched, but he recognized the word. It meant father.

The Nephil carrying Clark crouched. The others turned toward the woods, waiting. The Watcher appeared around a tree beside Sophia. Clark tried to tell her to watch out, because her head was turned the other way, but he couldn’t make the sounds.

Sophia heard the Watcher though. Her head tilted, catching its scent. The Watcher surged, like a snake’s strike at her. She feinted to the left, stepping out of the Nephilim’s circle. She danced closer to the trees, dodging the Watcher’s long clawed fingers that scratched out at her. She pulled the decrepit angel farther into the shadows and away from Clark.

The Watcher spoke too quietly for Clark to hear. The ground bulged and a dirt-formed hand reached up and wrapped around Sophia’s tiny ankle. She stumbled, wrenching her ankle. The ground twisted more, and she fell completely.

The Watcher descended on her immediately. Its hot breath was on her face as she whispered into its mouth. A sharp wind buffeted into the Watcher, sending it sprawling backwards. When Sophia stood, limping, it twisted her fine hair around her face in a soft caress. She spoke again and sprung high, unnaturally high, into the air.

The Watcher stood, looking around in confusion. He turned back toward the group, eyes narrowed on Clark. Like a silent wraith from the sky, Sophia landed deftly on its back. Her tiny hand slid softly across the waxy pale skin of the Watcher’s neck. In the wake of her finger grew a bulging, gaping slice. Black tar blood poured from it the cut. The Watcher sagged. In Sophia’s hand as she walked back to the group, her hair slightly mussed, was a thin branch darkened with blood.

“Let’s hurry,” Sophia said quietly.

As they jostled along to the road, Clark flickered in and out. The pain in his chest was like a hollow beat of another heart. He felt it predominately in his head, beating a steady song.

Your mother is alive.

Your mother is dead.

Your mother is alive.

Your mother is a Nephil.

Clark opened his eyes and they were on the road. A large van idled on the road. The door slid open and Clark was delivered inside. A warm, interior light illuminated the van’s inside, which was stripped of seats. Instead two gurneys along with IV’s and other medical supplies were laid out inside.

The next time Clark opened his eyes, he was stretched out on one of the gurneys with a needle in the crook of his elbow and his favorite shirt cut open. He looked at his chest where the Watcher had stabbed him.

The skin was torn flesh and dried heaps of blood. A peek of bone emerged from the inflamed flesh. Fresh blood bubbled, slow and seeping, around the wound.

Clark gagged and lowered his head. His cheeks were flaming hot, yet his fingers trembled. Now that he had seen the wound, the pain shifted from a steady echo to a raging tiger in his chest, clawing its way out. Clark’s shoulders contracted on the gurney, ready to buck with pain. His mouth opened to scream in agony.

A hand with long fingers and slightly calloused skin settled on his arm. He knew that hand, that touch. The breath left him with one clench of his lungs. He carefully turned his head to follow the hand up the length of the arm to see the face.

“Clark,” his mother said, speaking his name with a smile. She crouched beside him and adjusted the IV in his arm. When she looked back at him, in the lighting, Clark saw the wrinkles that fanned around her eyes. Wisps of gray hair framed her face. She was still pretty in her own way as she always had been. Her blue eyes watched him, drank him in. Her hand rose from his arm and reached toward his face.

Clark cringed away. “Don’t touch me!”

Her hand fell away, but the kind look in her eyes never changed. “I’m sorry, Clark. You’re okay.”

Clark’s throat closed. His lungs protested in his ruined chest. He gasped, pleading for oxygen. The gasps grew into great, sucking heaves as the panic assaulted him. His mother was supposed to be dead. The words were like a flashing light racing around inside his head. They made his heart spasm and clench as he struggled to breathe. He thought his head might split apart and spill his brain onto the floor. He felt like he was going to die.

“Calm down, sweetie.”

Clark shook his head furiously. Pinpricks of light flashed in his vision from lack of air. His eyes watered. The hole in his chest poured a steady stream of blood now, which Iris, his very much alive mother, covered with a new, thick layer of gaze.

“Start cleaning this, Jeremiah” she commanded to the front of the van, where the Nephil who carried Clark out of the woods appeared. He began gathering supplies.

“Where’s…” Clark gasped. He choked on the word. “…Michaela?” His chest still heaved with the effort, and Iris settled an oxygen mask across his face. Sweet air flooded through Clark’s nostrils and into his gaping mouth. The concentrated oxygen expanded his chest, and the lights in his eyes went away.

“Where is she?” The question came easier this time and sounded muffled under the mask.

“Has the pain medicine kicked in yet?” Jeremiah asked Iris from where he stood beside the gurney, his hands full of medical supplies.

Iris shook her head. “He can handle it.”

Jeremiah descended on Clark with a focused, grim expression that worried Clark even through the haze of pain. Gauze soaked in alcohol replaced the blood soaked rags on his chest. The liquid hit his injuries, spreading licks of fire throughout his body. Clark screamed. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he passed out.

Later, Clark opened his eyes. He didn’t know how long he had been out, but his head was soft and fuzzy. The pain was gone. He knew the van was moving. He turned his head to the gurney beside him.

Michaela laid there. Her body was a jumble of twisted limbs. Nephilim were crouched on either side of her with their heads bent and hands flashing across her skin, leaving gauze and splints in their wakes. One of Michaela’s arms hung off the gurney. A piece of bone from her forearm poked through the skin. Her fingers were bent and poking out at all the wrong angles. Blood, gold and shinning, ran a narrow stream down her arm and dripped from the tip of her finger.

The panic from earlier welled back inside Clark’s chest. She was dead. She looked dead. His heart sped through the thick sludge the pain medicine had put him in. His hand clenched around the single sheet beneath him as he struggled to rise up. The heart monitor next to him began beeping quickly.

Iris appeared above him, her hand settling on his chest. She blocked his sight of Michaela when she kneeled beside him. He tried to talk, but his tongue wouldn’t move.

“It’s okay,” his mother said. She reached up and stroked his face.

He shook his head as the tears ran down his cheeks. He needed to see Michaela, but Iris blocked his view. The tightening of his chest began again, making the heart monitor beeped even faster.

“Clark, would you like to hear about the first time I met your father?”

Clark looked back to his mother, who smiled down at him. She looked so calm and assured. She wouldn’t stare at him like that if Michaela was dying or dead already. Surely she would tell him. The heart monitor slowed marginally. He wanted to see Michaela, yet he still found himself nodding his head.

“It was the summer of 1976,” Iris began…

Cover Reveal for The Lost One

Finally it’s here!!!! And let me tell you, I’ve been waiting for this day for weeks! What day you ask? Well, duh! It’s the cover reveal for book 2 in my End of Days series, The Lost One!

Okay! Okay! Quit hollering. I’ll show it to you now

OMG IT’S SO EPIC, RIGHT?!?! I know. I loved it the moment I saw it, which is wild for me. I’m a natural borne nit picker.

Adrienne McNellis did the photography and artwork. She is brilliant. I mean, she’s a creative genius. I love her work so much. Check out her Facebook here.

We shot this image from Adrienne’s basement. Bri, the model, stood in front of a gray screen. I was the assistant, dropping feathers, flipping hair, and flapping fabric. This shoot was so different from the first book’s cover, because I couldn’t visualize what the cover picture would look like. Standing in front of the blank screen, it was so hard to know! We spent hours at the shoot. At the end, we were all exhausted. But it was so worth it. When I saw the image, I was blown away, because once again Adrienne had caught the message of my book without even reading it. How she had understood my crazy ramblings, I will never know!

So here is The Lost One’s blurb:

They say some things must be broken before they can be fixed. But when Michaela hoped to cast doubt on the Aethere, she never thought things would fall apart like they did. Now the Aethere have turned their attention to the End of Days, and they won’t rest until they obtain the tools of Earth’s final destruction: the Seven Seals. 

The world is falling apart at the seams, and Michaela finds herself clutching the threads. She alone understands what will happen if the Aethere ever get the seals, and it’s the one thing she will fight to the death to prevent if she has to. 

Even amidst the devastation on Earth, Michaela struggles to restore her faith in Gabriel. Together, they’ll need to decide if their love is strong enough to erase the line she had fought so hard to draw between holy and fallen.

Michaela said she wanted a war, but when the End is looming, what will she fight for?

Have I mentioned how much I hate writing blurbs? Cause I do. You can add The Lost One to your Goodread’s shelf here.

Thank you guys so much for stopping by and checking out my cover! If you would like to sign up for my newsletter, here is the link. I pick random winners each newsletter to win prizes like swag, ebooks, and my new Michaela inspired candle created by the wonderful Book Scents Candles. Let me tell you, it smells heavenly. Get it? Go give their Facebook page a like!!

Thanks for stopping by!!!

xo Meg

 

 

MEGA VALENTINE’S DAY SALE! 40+ Authors :)

Check out this amazing sale!!! Yay!!! I’m not going to post links to all this, because, well, that’s crazy.

I will post this one: amazon.com

Have fun kids

Tiffany Aleman
Luck of Love



Serenity Falls


Juli Alexander
Valentine’s Day Sucks



Text Me box set


Ashley Beale
Burning Attraction



Fearless Attraction


M.S. Brannon
Scarred Love


Marissa Carmel
Strip Me Bare


Melanie Codina
Love Realized



Love Resisted


Meg Collett
The Hunted One


Brooke Cumberland
Kitchen Promises


Laurel Ulen Curtis
The One Place



Impossible



A is for Alpha Male



The One Girl


Christy Dilg
Forbidden Forever


Dulaney Glen
Unexpected


Sarah Goodman
Life’s Next Chapter


Jessica Ingro
Love Square



His Ever After


Sarah Ashley Jones
More than a Promise


Brandi Kennedy
Selkie



Fat Chance


Bayli Lane
Becoming More


K. Langston
Because You’re Mine


Kimberly Lauren
Beautiful Broken Mess


Elizabeth Lee
Give Me Something


Felicia Lynn
Tied Up in Heartstrings


Faith S. Lynn
From Lies to Promises


Faith Marlow
Being Mrs. Dracula



Cogs in Time



Cirque D’Obscure


Mia Michelle
Rose of Thorne



Thorneless


Amy Miles
Defiance Rising



Captivate



The Christmas Messenger



Forbidden


Ilsa Madden-Mills
Very Bad Things


Emily Minton
Windows


Janae Mitchell
For Always


Wendy Owens
Only in Dreams



Stubborn Love


Lindsay Paige
Don’t Panic



Sweetness


Lindsay Paige, Mary Smith
Breakaway


Casey Peeler
No Turning Back


Ashley Piscitelli
Surrender to Me


Harper Sloan
Axel



Cage



Beck


Andrea Smith
Maybe Baby Lite



Diamond Girl


T.H. Snyder
Touch Me



Touched by You



Touched by Another



Pierced Love


Crystal Spears
Seize Me



Withstanding Me


Hilary Storm
In a Heartbeat


Felicia Tatum
Mangled Hearts


Tijan
Fallen Crest High



Broken and Screwed


B.N. Toler
Healer


Alice Montalvo-Tribue
Translation of Love



Desperation of Love


Leanne Tyler
The Good Luck Charm



The Good Luck Spell



The Good Luck Potion


Michelle A. Valentine
The Black Falcon Series


Fran Veal
Finding My Escape


Chandin Whitten
Beautiful Goodbye



Beautiful Misery


S.Q. Williams
Who He Is



Who We Are


Morgan Wylie
Veiled Shadows

Rage Against the Book – Facebook That Is

Let me start by saying that I normally never do this. I let others dole out their soapbox opinions, because I just want to talk about books. Specifically, my book. But I refrain ‘cause blah blah it’s annoying. Blah blah spam.

However, the more I see about Facebook cutting back on page views, the more compelled I feel to speak out. I majored in Economics from the University of Tennessee. I’m not saying I’m an expert by any means, because I cut most of my classes in favor of writing or napping. But I do think I have an idea of what’s going on.

The posts we create from our pages are getting fewer and fewer views. Facebook said it was because they have pictures in them, links in them, share requests in them, and so on. But now, Facebook is saying that posts with just text in them are getting shown to fewer viewers.

Why would fans like our page if they didn’t want to see our posts?

They do want to see them.

And Facebook spouting that it’s the viewers who don’t want to see pictures or links in their news feed is a load of crap.

I think it’s Facebook who doesn’t want to see our interactive giveaway posts or picture posts with huge amounts of comments and shares, because they have all those big name retailers breathing down their neck.

Think about how bookstores, grocery stores, or Wal-Mart all have highly desirable positioning spots within their stores that they sell to the highest bidder. When I worked for a large music group as a college marketing rep, I would go into Target or Wal-Mart and ensure we had the number of “facings” our contract required, which means I just made sure our artists’ CDs were facing out in the number of rows the music group had bought.

Our news feed is Facebook’s prime positioning spot. And those big retailers, whose ads are popping up more and more, want those spots.

Our posts (however trivial they might be) are direct competition to those big ad space buyers. When we scroll down through a news feed full of giveaways or pictures or whatever, our attention is automatically pulled away from those ads.

But if you have a news feed full of just text posts, and even not too many of those, all we see are ads everywhere.

Facebook wants our attention directed to those who pay for it. That’s it.

I buy Facebook ad space, but I wonder why when I see more and more ads show up on my news feed that are definitely not targeted towards my tastes.

Facebook is turning into Wal-Mart. We are going to have to hunt for what we want, and even then it might not be worth wading through the junk to get to it.

What do you guys think?

From Druggie to Angel: The Story of Michaela’s Evolution

Back in 2008, I hit a speed bump. I was freshman in college and thousands of miles away from my family. It was Christmas break, and I had just learned my flight home was delayed. I was depressed and seriously needing a hug. I drove back to my dorm and sat on my bed, feeling overwhelmed with these toxic, sinking emotions. I wanted to cry. Instead I picked up an old composition notebook and started writing.

Years later and more drafts than I care to recount tossed in the trash, I finally came to the story I have now. What I started writing on that Christmas break bears no resemblance to my upcoming, debut novel, The Hunted One. But they share the same roots. That story way back then taught me to write. I grew up with these characters; I became stronger as they became stronger.

In the very first draft of the story, my main character was a paranoid schizophrenic with a drug problem. She was all the negative emotions I needed to vent. Even back then I wanted a story about someone rising from the dirt and grime of their life to become something extraordinary and special. It was what I was going through, so I put my character through it.

Here is an excerpt from that very first beginning (sorry if it’s a little rough. It hasn’t been professionally edited).

 

“If my life was like a body of water, I had sunk to its depths. I hid from the sun and the life near the surface. I couldn’t take part in the daily routine act of staying afloat. It was too much for me to handle, the fakeness of pretending I was whole. I was anything but complete. I was lacking. I wasn’t normal, and I refused to fake a life I had no right to have.

See, I had died once. I should have stayed dead.

I stood on a jagged cliff with the edge of the darkening forest at my back watching the sun bruise its hostile path into the folds of the horizon. The colors that filled the tired evening sky reminded me of a bloody gash – pinks of exposed tissue, reds of spilt blood, purples of deep bruises, tans of torn skin. The intensity of the sunset sucked the colors from everything else, leaving nothing but specter paleness behind. Much like a gun had been aimed at the sky, a hole blasted through in desperation, creating the injured sunset, only to leave death behind when it was all over.

It was depressing to see such painful beauty. The sky looked so vivid and alive. Yet, down here on earth, everything was cast in haunting shadows. The forest itself, so full of brilliant greens and life, looked gray and sick in comparison. I couldn’t even see the valley below the cliff on which I stood. The brutal sunset was a one man show, nothing else could compete. I felt too small standing out there, being crushed smaller and smaller, like nothing mattered.

You don’t matter. 

The draining feeling often left me worse off than I was before, if that was even possible. But sometimes I still liked to come out here and see the sunset. Our tiny shack was so deep into the forest that all I ever saw was a vaguely illuminated green haze through the dense leaves. No matter what, coming out the cliffs was always a shock. The onslaught of color was almost painfully graphic. The sun was so forceful in its attack that it nearly hurt. I didn’t come out here often, but when I did, I cherished the humbling, belittling process of it.

When the sun finally buried itself into the earth for the night, I turned back to the forest and headed home. There was nothing but eerie remnants of light left to guide my way, but I knew the forest unnaturally well and the going was easy. Nevertheless, I walked slowly.

The first raindrop fell on my slack and unexpressive face, which was my constant look of voided animation that I didn’t care to break. My blank, glazed-over eyes never blinked the dull nothingness away. Nor did my downward-turned mouth ever reveal any emotion through a smile or frown. I looked like a hollow, shell of a woman, a ghost of life.”

 

See? I was in a dark place back then. And I was really just writing to write. Then I realized I loved what I was doing and it made me feel whole. So I started to write to publish. Here is what that passage all those years ago turned into:

 

“Michaela sprinted through the trees until the earth ran out beneath her, and her toes were on the edge of a rocky overhang, teetering for a moment before she remembered she couldn’t fly. Forcing herself to step back, she stood on the jagged cliff with the edge of the woods at her back, watching the sun bruise its hostile path out of the folds of the horizon. The colors that filled the early morning sky reminded her of a bloody gash—pinks of exposed tissue, reds of spilt blood, purples of deep bruises, flesh beige of torn skin. The intensity of the sunrise sucked the colors from everything else, leaving nothing but specter paleness behind. The sun appeared hidden behind a veil of mourning.

She closed her eyes and turned her face upwards. She searched deep within, looking for the presence of the other Archangels. She found nothing but an empty, hollow ache along the sides of her spine where her wings should be attached. Without her wings, she was all alone in her head for the first time since creation—just like Lucifer said.

She felt like a ghost, like any moment she could dissipate into the air, becoming just another particle amongst trillions. But just then, Clark crashed up behind her, ruining the moment and her loneliness. He bent over, hands on knees, and drew long, gasping breaths. He was almost comforting if not a little annoying. Finally, he stood back up in time to see the end of the sunrise.

‘Look, Michaela. I have to know. What really went on up there?’

Michaela didn’t speak for a long time. Clark waited almost patiently except for the persistent tap of his boot.

‘They were just standing out there—this line of fallen angels. It was infuriating. It’s like they can take whatever they want, do whatever they please. They shouldn’t have been there. I thought it would be easy to step outside for a moment to run them off. By the time I realized I had left the gates open, I was too far away to close them. I didn’t go back like I should have. I hoped it would be okay. But it wasn’t. He was there. When he drew back his hood, and I saw his face, I knew then. Why else would Lucifer be in Heaven? And then Molloch’s knife was in my back, and a mass of fallen angels attacked Heaven. My own Archangels betrayed me.” Michaela’s voice broke. The pain was stifling, but she bottled it up and shoved it into the darkest corner of her heart. “I woke up in the Watchers’ cave with Molloch. We fought. He wanted nothing more in that moment than to choke the life out of me. So much hate…then he fell on my wingtip. And just like that—he was gone. He just…disappeared.’”

 

Throughout The Hunted One, the bones of that long ago initiation into writing are still there. Some I’ve even worked hard to keep, because they mean so much to me.

I think a lot of authors write a few different books before they find the one that is good enough to pursue publication. I did the exact same thing, but for me, it was the same story told a million different ways. It took me years to figure out how to write the story I wanted to write.

To other authors who find themselves haunted by a story or characters but can’t find the right words, I would say never give up. Give it time. Let it sit. Try other things. But always come back, because eventually you will find the way to tell that story. And if you believe in it enough, it’ll be a great story.

This post was first published on the WONDERFUL, AMAZING http://irisjexx.com/

Buy Link for Amazon (available in print and digital): http://www.amazon.com/Hunted-One-End-...

Also available on Barnes and Noble.

The Hunted One is going live!!!

Thank you all so much for your support during this journey. To keep the information all in one spot, here are buy links and current giveaways!

Amazon:

Print Link: http://www.amazon.com/The-Hunted-One-...

Digital: COMING SOON! I’ve hit publish, just waiting for it to go live.

Barnes and Noble:

Digital: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-h...

 

Current Giveaway:

https://www.facebook.com/TraceysVampy...

 

Book Tour and Mega-Giveaway with &50 gift card starts tomorrow!

http://www.booknerdtours.com/2013/the...

The Road to a Novel: World and Character Building

“The Hunted One” was a long, slow evolution. Looking back over the six years it took me to write the book, I don’t recall any great flashes of inspiration. However, I do remember lots of frustration and half-finished versions of the book.

My central character, Michaela, is my own take on the Biblical Archangel Michael. But she didn’t start off as such. Instead in the earliest drafts of the book, she began as a paranoid schizophrenic girl with a drug problem. The very first day I started writing I knew I wanted a redemptive story about a young, beaten down girl who rises from the dirt and grime of her life to become something extraordinary.

I wrote many versions of the book, and all of them were dead ends but one – the final one. In the finished version, Michaela doesn’t have drug or psychological problems, but I think I stayed true to my desire for a story about redemption. Michaela’s evolution from a druggie to an angel was a very dynamic character evolution I, as the author, had to go through. Readers will never see the early versions of the book where Michaela was a drug addict, but I had to let go of those old ideas about my characters in order to write the new story about angels.

I wasn’t too worried about having angelic characters, because this was a story about their flaws and mistakes. Any human can write about that as we can all relate to it. But I was worried about the world building for Heaven and Hell. That was daunting to say the least.

But it had to be done. So I started with a map. I sketched the way Heaven needed to be laid out for my story. In “The Hunted One,” Purgatory is right outside of Heaven’s gates and serves as a waiting area for the souls waiting to be judged. It took a while and lots of alterations, but eventually I had everything in place so that my characters could move from space to space logically and without confusing readers.

After that, I needed to figure out what everything would look like. I guess I could have just regurgitated the descriptions from the Bible, but I really didn’t want to do that. I took some basic landmarks like the Tree of Knowledge and the pearly gates and worked them into my story by giving them my own twists, which was oftentimes the hardest part of writing a book.

I learned to get out of my own way and just let myself be original even though I was dealing with a setting like Heaven, which is a “place” everyone has their own ideas about. It was hard at times, but when I got everything worked out, it was worth it because I had something truly original.

One of the most important things I learned while world building in “The Hunted One” was to keep things simple. I found that it was easy to get carried away and start adding all these levels to Heaven. But by adding all that complexity, I was creating confusion in my writing. My characters weren’t even interacting with these settings I was trying to work into the story. Once I realized my mistake, I cut those parts out and just focused on having readers experience the settings as my characters moved through them.

The most important aspect of world building is giving the reader room to imagine the rest for themselves. This was really important for me to learn along the way. It’s impossible to include every aspect of setting in a story. And you wouldn’t want to for the sake of your reader.

In the end, I wanted to create a story about angels that was completely different from every other “fallen angel” book out there. I tried to apply that notion to every aspect of the story, and it started at the very basics with world building and carried through to the character development, plot, and even how the characters move and speak.

Fingers crossed I achieved my goals with this story!

 

**This guest post was originally published at http://www.marilynalmodovar.com/

An Introduction to my Debut Novel, The Hunted One

I remember the exact day I started writing my debut novel, The Hunted One. It was Christmas Break in 2008. At the time I lived in Texas, where I went to Baylor University on an equestrian scholarship. I planned to fly home for the break, but the weather had delayed all the flights. Totally devastated, I drove back to my empty dorm. I was young, 18 years-old, and I just wanted to go home. My parents lived in Tennessee, so I was far from home, home-sick, and in desperate need of a hug. These feelings overwhelmed me until I pulled out an old composition notebook and started writing.

I have no clue where the story came from or why, but out poured this paranoid schizophrenic young woman with a drug problem. Obviously, I am not a paranoid schizophrenic with a drug problem. But I took a sliver of the emotions I felt that day, and I pushed them to the rawest point possible in my story. Weirdly enough, it made me feel better, and I’ve been writing ever since.

Years and many, many rewrites later, The Hunted One was finally realized. My tortured young character grew into the Archangel Michaela (adapted from Michael). I always equate my writing journey to a quote by Michelangelo:

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

That day in December when I was scared and alone, I had this huge block of rock in front of me with a story waiting inside. Years later, nearly five drafts abandoned, and three completely trashed books, I have finally found my angel.

The Hunted One

By Meg Collett

Releasing January 17, 2014

The Fallen have trespassed into Heaven for the first time in eternity. Prepared for battle, Michaela and her Archangels open Heaven’s gates to confront the Fallen. Only, Michaela’s Archangels—her brothers and sisters in Heaven—betray her. And when the Fallen attack the sanctuary in the skies through the gates Michaela inadvertently left open, the Holy Angels accuse Michaela of planning the invasion.

One simple mistake with a thousand consequences.

Dragged to Earth by an Archangel turned Fallen, Michaela will do anything to return to Heaven and save it. In her fervor, she kills the Archangel—something no angel has ever done before. Wingless, without any hope, Michaela welcomes death when an unlikely human ally, Clark, finds her and convinces her to fight back, because she is the only one left who can. With the help of Clark and Gabriel, an innocent Archangel whose friendship deepens into something far more torrid and unexpected on Earth, Michaela must prove the Holy Angels have their own plan for Heaven, and it is one that may prove to be the End of the Days.

If she fails, she’ll lose Gabriel forever, human souls will be unfairly judged, and Heaven will belong to angels who deserve it least.

If Michaela doesn’t find the courage to continue, Heaven might fall.

It may be too late to save herself, but Michaela is the only one who knows the truth, the only one who can save the Archangels from an eternity of pursuit. Wingless and tainted, if Michaela doesn’t prove the Archangels’ innocence, she may never be able to return to Heaven. But even that may be a hopeless dream.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18652128-the-hunted-one

Unlearning the Queen’s English – By Sweta Vikram

You are expected to learn at least five new English words every day, memorize their meanings, and use them appropriately,” announced my school’s single, svelte, smart, haughty headmistress, Ms. Sharma, at the beginning of every semester. I don’t believe I have shared that in my formative years, I went to a boarding school spread over 250 acres of lush hills in Mussoorie, India.

We boarders, like typical teenagers, snickered at the English-loving protégé of the founding fathers. We soon caved in when words like, “You will pay a fine if caught speaking in Hindi,” started echoing in the hallways.

“What else can we do? We get ten rupees as tuck money and have an insatiable boarder’s appetite,” said the queen of rebellion, my classmate, Rajani. We all resisted but, in the end, pragmatism won. We couldn’t risk depriving ourselves of the only gentleman we saw over the weekends—the tuck man and the array of goodies he brought, like Santa at Christmas.

The students waited expectantly for his coconut macaroons, Mango Frooti, and cream filled rolls. I, too, went from thinking, speaking, and debating in the Queens English to dreaming in it. I didn’t want to take any chances. What if Ms. Sharma confronted me in my dreams and deprived me of the weekend decadence?

My obsessive-compulsive relationship with English language might have begun in Mussoorie, but it didn’t end at school. On one occasion, my mother yelled at me because I corrected a relative when they said, “I am having to go to the wedding.” I was rebuked, “This is what you have been taught? To tell elders you are wrong!” Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything, but I was beyond cure by then. Years and years of emphasis on accurate diction, pronunciation, and grammar had turned me into a grammar maniac.

In 2005, when I joined an Ivy League college in the United States for a master’s program in communication, I thought, “How difficult can it be?” A significant number of Americans I had interacted with used grammar erroneously. A few used “like” a little too often in their sentences. Others said, “Stand on line,” blithely. When a coworker said, “Irregardless of what they say, I could have went there,” I was convinced that I would sail smoothly through grad school.

In my first semester, I signed up for a course called Business Writing for the Media. I was the classic Indian student—sat in the first row, hand raised to answer every question, and stayed back late to confirm that I hadn’t missed anything. I was trained to think that earning a 4.0 GPA was the only measure of good performance. Though I was an adult by this time, fear of performance appraisals from my childhood continued to haunt me. “96%? Where you lost remaining marks?”

Day one in class was disastrous. Let’s just say “ungrammatical” was my professor’s choice word for that evening. “You might want to read On Writing Well,” he suggested. I was baffled. It was like telling Cleopatra how to rule Egypt. “The English that you speak and write would be a misfit in the American world of communication. If you want to survive, you have to relinquish the Queen’s English and accept the Americanized version,” he continued in a more compassionate tone.

I could not believe my ears. Saying, “Please find attached my resume for your perusal,” or “I had been waiting for the article to finish,” was incorrect? When I read out one of my PR pitches in class, my classmates gave me a confused look. One sentence read, “The yoga guru looks sober.” In Queen’s English, sober means somber; in the United States it refers to a non-drunk person. The professor said, “It’s not just the extra “o’s” and “u’s” you need to eliminate from your vocabulary (neighbor vs. neighbour); you need to get rid of passive voice, convoluted sentences, and flowery language.”

But I was taught that passive voice was the cultured and sophisticated style of expressing oneself. Wasn’t flowery language synonymous with a good command over words? “If you can’t finish reading a sentence in one breath, then you know it’s too long,” the professor reiterated.

It was clear I had to unlearn whatever I had learnt my entire life. I came home and howled like a baby. In my Indian high school, I was the popular editor–in chief of my school’s publication. Words were what I knew best. The talent & skill set that I had been proud of my entire life was now redundant. I made a note to self, “Tonight I went from reigning grammar queen to a lonely tuba player.”

Over a period of time and after several splashes of red ink across my assignments, I warmed up to American English. The ride from the colloquial, Indianized version of the Queen’s English to the Yankee version was an interesting, bumpy experience. When my friend showed me a copy of the recommendation written by his former boss at one of the global firms in India, I instantly understood why the top schools in the United States hadn’t accepted him. One recommendation went, “I am having to say that Ravi is having lot of good qualities.”

I wonder if language is a matter of perspective. Who decides whether it should be tomatoes or to-mah-toes? I wonder what response my Queens, New York, English would evoke if I were to return to Mussoorie today, where Queen’s English continues to reign.

——-XX——-

Personal essay “Unlearning the Queen’s English” excerpted with permission from the book “Mouth Full” published by JK Publishing. Copyright (c) 2012 Sweta Srivastava Vikram. All Rights Reserved. This piece also appeared in India Currents & Halabol in its edited form.

Author Bio: Sweta Srivastava Vikram (www.swetavikram.com) is an award-winning poet, writer, novelist, author, essayist, columnist, and educator. Born in India, Sweta spent her formative years between India, North Africa, and the United States. She is the author of five chapbooks of poetry, two collaborative collections of poetry, a novel, and a nonfiction book. She also has two upcoming book-length collections of poetry in 2014. Her work has also appeared in several anthologies, literary journals, and online publications across seven countries in three continents. Sweta has won three Pushcart Prize nominations, Queens Council on the Arts Grant, an International Poetry Award, Best of the Net Nomination, Nomination for Asian American Members’ Choice Awards 2011, and writing fellowships. A graduate of Columbia University, she lives in New York City with her husband and teaches creative writing across the globe & gives talks on gender studies. You can follow her on Twitter (@ssvik) or Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/Words.By.Sweta).

I Quit My Job and Made A New Year’s Resolution

It has been my life-long dream to be a writer (the kind that actually makes a living at it). For nearly six years, I worked on my first novel, “The Hunted One,” which will be released January 17, 2014. And for the last few months, I have focused on nothing else but actually getting to the point where I can push the publish button.

But that’s stupid to say, because so many other aspiring writers have been working at the pursuit of this career for longer than I’ve been alive.

Yet, I still decided to put in my notice at my office job.

I probably sound like a presumptuous you-know-what and maybe I am, because I haven’t even published my first book.

But failure has never been an option for me.

In November, I was struggling. Daily, I wavered between quitting and staying at my current job until I could make enough as a writer to quit. The argument in my head went something like this:

You can’t quit. You haven’t made any money yet. You might never sell a book. Self published writers are lucky to sell 250 books in their lifetime. You are not an exception. Do not believe you are an exception.

I am not an exception. I’m just like you. But…

You’ve saved enough money to pay for the next book’s expenses. You’ve sacrificed your expensive hobby (showing horses) so that you can pay to write properly edited and formatted books. You husband is a wonderful man who supports your dreams even if he thinks you’re a little crazy. You have no mortgage, no car payments, no kids, and no debt.  If you quit, you can write more books faster. If you quit, you can work twice as hard to make your dream come true.

Obviously you can see what side of the argument I leaned toward.

I’ve worked since I was 15. I understand what it means to spend every day working toward a long-term goal. It’s rarely gratifying, and when you finally reach the end, you’re too exhausted to care. But when you look back on those years, you forget the endless days and only relive the pride of that accomplishment.

I got married this year. I got a new job this year. I got to work at 7 AM , spend my day fixing lazy people’s mistakes, get frustrated, drive to the barn, spend hours with my horse, drive home, fight with my husband for half an hour, and then write.

It was a stupid process.

And I was going to fail.

So I quit. But I am in a lucky position where that was a feasible option for me. Not many are as fortunate as I am.

Maybe I am an idiot. I haven’t even published my first book. But I also made a decision that terrified me, made me live in the moment, and bettered the quality of my short time here on Earth.  I put my faith in God, who has never broken a promise to me. And I making my dream come true.

I guess this somehow turned into a New Year’s post, which is timely since tomorrow is my first official day as a full-time writer. I found that resolutions are pointless for me. I never stick them out. But I am a dreamer. And I’ve put myself in a position to accomplish a life-long dream. And that definitely sounds better than resolving to lose twenty pounds.

Because obviously that will never happen for me.