A Night in the Cells with E.L Wicker
Good evening discerning readers,
It would seem there’s a new trend amongst the criminal fraternity. There’s been a rise in identity-theft in the publishing industry with people claiming to be authors, aspiring writers, bloggers, the list goes on. Well, starting tonight, we’re going to put a stop to it.
Tonight I have arrested E.L Wicker on suspicion of claiming credit for writing vampire-fiction book, Fractured Immortal.
It doesn’t end there. She’s spent the last ten minutes in the cells screaming about how she has a popular blog and how Fractured Immortal is the first part in something called the Bearwood series. I think this one’s going to be trouble.
Before I bring her out for questioning, let’s see what intel we have on her. E.L Wicker was born in Dun Laoghaire back in ’81. In 1990, she moved to Surrey and discovered a love of writing. She won several writing competitions and became the editor of both her school newspapers. As she grew up, her education absorbed all of her time and writing went by the wayside. In 2013, inspired by her love of music, she began writing Fractured Immortal, her first novel.
Let’s see if her story holds up. She looks lively; I’ll keep the cuffs on this one. BRING OUT THE SUSPECT!
Okay. Let’s start at the beginning. Tell me about your early days as a writer.
The first full book I ever wrote was a rip off of a Point Horror book. I was obsessed with reading them, from The Snowman to The Mall, I read them all. I don’t think they were particularly scary, I just liked the characters in them although I have been mentally scarred by the animals that died in them. I suppose it was like fanfic, I even called the male lead Storm, after the male character in The Mall.
The relationship between music and writing is a recurring theme on your blog. What influence did music have on both the writing process and the themes in Fractured Immortal?
Fractured Immortal was born from images that raced through my head when listening to ‘Let Her Go’ by Passenger. Songs are stories in their own right, beautifully crafted short stories and I love them. It’s never the rhythm that makes me fall in love with a song, it’s the words. Music invokes thoughts, feelings and visions, which is why I listen to music when I get writers block. Many a block has been broken through or an epiphany occurred thanks to music. So you could say that all of my writing from the process to the problems, are based on the images that I see when I listen to music.
Your blog regularly features other authors work, new releases, interviews and cover reveals. How important is it to connect with other authors and what advice would you give to new writers who may be a little nervous about reaching out to people?
This is a many sided thing, first of all connecting with other authors is important because if you come across a problem, they are the ones that can help you through it. Secondly, publishing can be costly so being able to offer free promotion is my way of helping to ease the financial strain of the process. And finally, as we write more we also learn more and that knowledge can be passed on to others. Help and be helped, that’s what it’s all about. If you’re new to the writing process just reach out, you’d be surprised by how many genuine people are out there, willing to lend a hand.
Hmmm. Seems like you can talk the talk. Now, let’s get to the heart of the case. If you ARE the author of Fractured Immortal, you should be able to tell us about it in a few, concise sentences, right?
In a teeny tiny nutshell, Fractured Immortal follows Ilia Rose as she attempts to kill Sol, the vampire responsible for raining misery down on her friends. As Ilia gets closer to revenge, she also becomes closer to Nathaniel, one of Sol’s allies. Nathaniel is not at all what he seems and as his secrets are uncovered, Ilia comes to realize that her part in the battle against Sol is bigger than she ever thought possible.
Fractured Immortal is described as ‘a vampire tale like no other.’ What makes it different?
Ah, my editor wrote that, she’s awesome. I guess it’s because Fractured Immortal is different from a lot of the other vampire tales out there. There are some fantastic vampire books around, all of which are original, however we live in the shadow of some very popular vampire based fiction and the downpour of very similar fiction because of that. It’s important to make our work unique and that’s what I tried to do with Fractured Immortal.
What was the hardest part of writing the book? And the most enjoyable?
The hardest part was staying on track. I never had a set plot to work with, I made it up as I went along so if I took a wrong turn it could end up costly. On the project I’m working on right now, I took several wrong turns and the amount of words I’ve cut because of this is ticking toward the 60k mark – that’s almost a full book, oopsie. The most enjoyable part is seeing the characters I’ve crafted come to life on the pages. My favourite character is Kyle because he was so hard to write, therefore I get the most enjoyment out of seeing him as a fully created character.
Well, all sounds legit so far. There’s just one more thing. Let’s see if you can recite an excerpt from the book verbatim. Just a paragraph or so ought to do it :
My joints burned as they pulled at my limbs, each eager to get the kill. I pulled my left arm free and hit out in an aimless attempt to make contact with one of them, but failed. Vampires clawed at me. White heat spread from the slashes in my skin. With a cry, I tried to hit them again and again until the stake but into flesh.
Looks like it all checks out. Fractured Immortal is out now on Amazon US for $.99 and Amazon UK for 99p, on Kindle Unlimited or available to borrow through the Kindle lenders library. E.L Wicker can be found on Goodreads, Twitter and on her blog, where I’ll be keeping a close eye on her. RELEASE THE PRISONER!
