Separate but Linked

First of all, Happy Birthday Vinny Mauro!

I hope everyone had a lovely and Spooky Halloween, All Saints Day, All Souls Day, Día de los Muertos, etc. Or a quiet, respectful one. I hope you enjoyed Spooky season!

In a previous blog entry, I mentioned I wanted my series to be separate but linked, and I mentioned a few series I’m planning without really delving into a lot about each individual series.

So, here I am to explain where I was on the night of the 23rd…er, oh, wait, um… it’s the 22nd, so… um…wrong…um…thing…circumstance. *Cough, cough.*

What I mean by separate but linked is that I have these characters who might be minor characters in one series, but main characters in another series. Take Sisters: Nymphetamine Fix. It’s about Daphne Artemis Somerled, a Banshee who is also part Siren and Vampire (read the book…I won’t give access to my excel spreadsheet, what I call The Bible, as it needs to be updated a lot…but also, it’s a HUGE file). She has three friends who are younger than her, and two of them are Demons while one of them is a Fairy (they look human). Those three aren’t main characters in the Sisters series. We see them, we get to know them, but they aren’t necessarily permanent to the Sisters series. Why? Because they’re part of the Legacy series—meaning they’re the main characters of an entirely different series.

What is Sisters about? Well, the first book touches on rape and how it affected Daphne and her family, not to mention her relationship with her love, Matthew Nicholas Minerva, Matt for short and outside of a Review. Daphne didn’t handle her rape or sexual assault very well for a lot of reasons, and she hid them from Matt. She didn’t want him to know about it. She didn’t want her friends to know about it either, but because of certain circumstances, where the book picks up in the beginning, they know about the sexual assault. Matt knew about the sexual assault. I don’t want to say much more because I’d like you to read the book. I tried to lessen the blow of things, like how Daphne dealt with it and that it happened to her, by giving the situation(s) to “monsters”, or as I call them in my novel, “Supernaturals and Creatures.” If you do read it, you may think that she had a very human reaction to a lot of things, and I did that on purpose. Supernaturals and Creatures have problems, too, and they don’t always know how to handle it, how to deal with it, what to do about it. There were situations where she acted a little more on instinct, and that was a result of not only her being a teenager, but also because she’s a Banshee, and the Laws of the Veil are pretty archaic and oppressive.

I’d like to touch on a lot of serious and hard and even taboo themes with my writing, and I’d like to tell the story through the point of the Supernatural and/or Creature. I’d also like there to be comedy and pop-culture references or jokes. I’d like there to be romance. I’d like to write something I’d like to read, and my books are something I’d read to escape. My guides all tell me I need to get better at daydreaming again, and I intend to work on it so I can keep my writing muscles limber and figure out what works and what doesn’t better, so that I can be a little more instinctual myself, so that I can be more authentic and honest. Or at least keep my characters, the protagonists, mostly honest and relatable. My main interest is in fiction writing, and in third person. It would have to be a very special project if I decided to write something non-fiction.

Let’s talk about Grave Matters: The First Necromancer to further explore what I mean when I say I want to touch on serious, hard, and taboo themes. In the first chapter, my main character in that novel, Lucretia Elvira Sinclair, attempts suicide. She technically succeeded as she did die and was brought back by a Necromancer. That’s just the beginning of that book. As you’ll read, there’s a character who is bisexual and she leans towards Satanism and Wicca. There’s another character who really loves getting Baphomet drawn on his arm and wants a tattoo of Baphomet. He prefers Satanism. I don’t want to say much more about this character, but he seems light and jovial enough, until he has a talk with Lucretia about his family situation, and it gets dark quick.

At the end of Sisters, Daphne finds out some very damning things about her friends. I’m making sure those things are addressed in (working title) Legacy: The Hiatus Summer (I’m thinking of changing it to “Cruel Summer” because I am that person…). How does Legacy start? With a murder. You don’t actually see Talon Wade Stoddard kill his aunt and her piece of shit boyfriend, but he is holding a cleaver and mentions to the 911 operator that he’ll be hanging onto it until his aunt and the piece of shit are declared dead, more or less. It’s quickly established why Talon killed them, and he listens to what his gut tells him about people, lets it dictate to him who he can and can’t trust and who he can and can’t open up to, setting things up for a new living situation for himself and indeed changing the lives of Jamie Sophia Blake, Kimberly “Kim” Persephone Brennan, and Taylor Veronica Baker even more than it already has by the end of Sisters.

Does your head hurt yet, or have you gotten out some white boards and red string? Because that’s what’s going on in my head with my characters: Meticulous planning of timelines and figuring out how and where and, most importantly if main characters of other series do fit and where they fit as minor characters in other series.

I’m doing this on purpose.

Yes, you read that correctly: I’m doing this on purpose. It’s what feels right and aligned for me and my writing more often than not. There were times I questioned it, but frankly, I can’t imagine anyone but Jamie, Kim, and Taylor being friends with Daphne—she wouldn’t open up to anyone else in the ways she opened up to them, trust anyone else in the ways she trusted them. I would know, because in previous drafts, Daphne was a loner and had no friends, except for Matt in one version, the version that started to morph into the version it became and that’s published on Amazon. It wasn’t easy or fun to write. Putting her with Jamie, Kim, and Taylor was fun, and it rounded Daphne out as a person. It showed that she wasn’t antisocial, that she could get along with girls that weren’t her sister. At its core, Sisters is about an unhealthy relationship between sisters, but I wanted my characters to feel real and complex, and for them to feel real, Daphne needed friends. Bryn, her sister, and Mike, their little brother, have friends as well, but the story is a close third person, which means it mostly follows Daphne, sometimes Matt.

There’s another character who I haven’t spent much time with, but I’m absolutely in love with writing him, and he’s consistent no matter where he pops up so far, and that is Conan Brendan Van Gale, Werewolf. He is just…flawed and complex, and I can’t picture anyone else having the conversation he has with Daphne at the end of Sisters. He will show up in Blood Scarlet, which is my vampire series, when I’m ready to write it.

There’s another character who is minor, and she is in my vampire series. I’d love to write a short story, possibly a novella, about her. She’s sadly a human, but I like her story: She’s a lesbian, and she struggled with that, and I’d love to write it as an aside, show how she ends up with her girlfriend, show their love story. It would make a nice, ultimately sweet pallet cleanser compared to everything else that’s going on in Blood Scarlet.

“What are you wanting to do with your vampires in Blood Scarlet?” you ask.

“It’s a deep dark secret,” I respond, “I have so many drafts of it, I really don’t want to talk about it. I’ve announced on Facebook before that it’s going smoothly or that I’ve started writing it, or I’ve gotten excited and told friends I’m working on it only for it to crash and burn because I’m not happy with the iteration of that draft. It’s another hard write, different from the hard write that was Grave Matters: The First Necromancer, but a hard write nonetheless. So, I’d rather not talk about it or what it entails or what it’s about, if I’m writing it or not, if I’ve started writing it or not. I’m worried to get excited about writing it, announcing that I’m working on it, and yet another draft falling through because I realize it’s not what I want, it’s inauthentic. So, it’s being concocted in my head, brewed and steeped like a tea or a potion.”

“Okay…so what is Disguise and Haunted about?”

“Well…did you read Sisters? If not, it’s okay. However…”

Towards the end of Sisters, there are new additions to the Review Panel: Killian Brone Muir, a Vampire (who is in Blood Scarlet), Kent Laurence Bulman (who Jesse’s grandfather in Grave Matters: The First Necromancer), and Luna Liliana Luminosa. She and her granddaughter are main characters in Haunted, which is about ghosts and psychics—and of course teenagers growing up and then eventually becoming ghost hunters. Or at least, that’s one of the many goals I have for Haunted.

As for Disguise… The main character there is Katya Natia Alois, a Werewolf, and for some reason, someone in her family decided she was going to be betrothed to Darius Demetrius Delaney, who is the big bad in both Disguise and Blood Scarlet. He was also a big bad in Sisters, but isn’t the primary big bad in Sisters. I make it seem like Bryn is the big bad there, but I can honestly admit that even I don’t know if she’s really bad and what everyone thinks she is or if she’s something else. The reader and I will find that one out together, as time goes on.

“Spooky Sukie, this sounds like a lot. Do I have to read all of these series, and do I have to read them in the order they were published?”

No. I mean, yes, it can be a lot, but I love it. I understand it could be a lot of reading…but here’s the thing: I’m trying to write it in a way that these characters are nerdy Easter eggs. If you read Stephen King’s work, it’s like that. I don’t know about you, but I get excited every time he makes an It reference in one of his other books, and if he makes a Dolores Claiborne reference…it’s pure bliss when he makes a Dolores Claiborne reference, let me tell you. She is definitely one of my heroes. My love for this self-reference stemmed from pop-culture reference in one of my favorite young adult books, Blood and Chocolate by Annette Curtis Klause, when one of Klause’s characters is carrying someone over his shoulder and the character is singing or whistling “Dead Man’s Party” by Oingo Boingo, and later to cheer up the main character, Vivian, her peers sing “Werewolves of London.” I got a rush because I knew both songs! It felt like “finally! Someone’s writing something I know about, something I can relate to, something I love.” I feel the same way when I understand Elvira, Mistress of the Dark’s references (I understand most if not all of her references, thank Goddess).

You don’t have to read Sisters to enjoy Grave Matters anymore than you have to read Blood Scarlet, Legacy, Haunted, or Disguise. Does it help if you do? Of course. Does it hurt if you don’t? I hope I’m writing it in such a way that it doesn’t. In Sisters, it’s mentioned that some Reapers were compromised, and so a different Review Panel was selected for the new Review, and it’s mentioned that they were compromised by a Necromancer. I kept it vague in Sisters on purpose. In Grave Matters, (I hope) I go into detail about how Jesse Humphrey Bulman had a Review for bringing someone back from the dead and the consequences of his actions as it pertains to Grave Matters. His use of the Reapers on the Review Panel to bring back Lucretia is what compromised them.

I’ll repeat it again: You don’t have to read one series of my books to enjoy another series. It helps, but you don’t have to.

That written, you also don’t have to read them in the order they were published—you don’t have to read Sisters and then Grave Matters and then whatever I put out next (although, right now, those are the only two out…you’re welcome to read the blog as much as you want…). But I do recommend reading Sisters: Nymphetamine Fix, followed by Sisters 2: Insert Working Title Here, Sisters 3: You’re so far off in the distance right now I can’t see you, Sisters 4: Haha! It’s cute you think I’ve planned this far ahead for anything. The same can be said for Grave Matters: The First Necromancer, Grave Matters 2: I have no idea what your name is yet, but it’s definitely not the second Necromancer because there’s already two in the first novel, Grave Matters 3: I’m coming for you/I can’t think of anymore nonsensical subtitles, so let’s just go with the Freddy Krueger rhyme… You get the idea: If you want to read Sisters, please read them chronologically, and the same goes for Grave Matters, but you certainly don’t have to read them in the order they get published.

I’m not sure where the idea to tie them together like this came from, but I’ve been in love with it since, and I’ve never been one to shy away from doing hard or difficult things. I’ve been writing from a very young age. It’s my first love, my passion, and I’m here for the long haul.

So, the long and short of it:

o   Sisters: Bryn Cassandra Somerled (Banshee), Daphne Artemis Somerled (Banshee), John Michael “Mike” Somerled (he identifies more as a Siren than a Banshee), Matthew “Matt” Nicholas Minerva. I’m not spoiling what Matt is. Banshees.

o   Grave Matters: Lucretia Elvira Sinclair (Witch and Manufactured Necromancer), I know I’ve blogged about Lydia before and she goes here, Jesse Humphrey Bulman (born Necromancer), Kent Laurence Bulman (born Necromancer), unnamed male character. Witches.

o   Legacy: Jamie Sophia Blake (Non-Traditional Demon), Kimberly “Kim” Persephone Brennan (Non-Traditional Demon), Taylor Veronica Baker (Fairy), Talon Wade Stoddard (Non-Traditional Demon. Demon’s and a Fairy, not a Faerie. In my books Fairy and Faerie are different.

o   Haunted: Luna Liliana Luminosa. Luna herself is a Bruja, and her granddaughter is a mix of Bruja and psychic. Ghosts, ghost hunting, psychics, possibly psychic phenomena.

o   Blood Scarlet: Conan Brendan Van Gale (Werewolf), Killian Brone Muir (Vampire). Vampires.

o   Disguise: Darius Demetrius Delaney (Half-Breed; Full-Blood Vampire and Full-Blood Werewolf, although Sisters points out the controversy of his lineage…it’ll probably get pointed out again, just to spite and bug Darius), Katya Natia Alois (Werewolf). Werewolf.

I hope I’ve explained this adequately…

Until next time…

Authentically: Keep it Spooky!