Thank you to Colleen Chesebro for featuring me on her blog. Here’s the link to my story Rainbow Child.
AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS: INSPIRATION – Trent P. McDonald
Today it is my pleasure to welcome Trent to my blog.
Here’s Trent’s take on inspiration. It’s fascinating …. I’m a dreamer too – I expect a lot of writers are – enjoy!
OK, I’ll admit it, I’m a dreamer. Not just any old dreamer, but a daydreamer. More than that, a daydreamer with an insatiable appetite to learn all there is to know about the world around me.
Typically, when we think of a daydream, we imagine someone dreaming about what they’d do if they won the Lotto, or found the perfect person as a mate, or made a great scientific discovery, or got a huge promotion, or… you get the point: people think of daydreams as improbable fantasies about the dreamer’s future.
Not me. (At least not always )
What if this legend is actually true, or if there is a basis in fact for that myth? What if, just beyond that latest scientific discovery that was recently announced, there is a deeper, more disturbing truth? What if I could see what you are thinking?
What if magic is real?
I am constantly on the move. I don’t have a Fitbit because I’m not concerned about the number of steps I do. Walking with people who do 10,000 a day, I know I do far more, at least if I include running.
There is something about walking that makes the creative juices flow. When I was in school and hit an impossible problem, I would just go take a walk and my subconscious would answer it. When I’ve researched some new discovery, or some ancient one that I recently decided to study, a walk makes me think about the topic. Thinking, of course, as I said above, leads to daydreaming.
And I’m a dreamer. A daydreamer.
Do all of my ideas for stories come this way, from a long walk? Of course not. I really enjoy prompts and typically write two flash fiction pieces a week. I think of doing the prompts as exercising my story writing muscles. Beyond the prompts, sometimes a complete storyline just appears in my head out of nowhere. And once I even had the idea for a book from a (real, night) dream (The Halley Branch, which will be the next book I publish). But typically, a longer, more involved work will be written in a series of walks.
A good example of that would be my book The Fireborn. It was born by just the type of daydreaming on a walk described above. I was thinking of history and myth and suddenly something gelled. I had a perfect storyline. As these ideas grew deeper and deeper, I realized I had a book on my hands, not just a short story. Over the next month, before I wrote a single word on “paper” (or electrons), I wrote the entire book in my head. Every time I’d leave the house, I’d pick up on The Fireborn just where I left off. Sure, I changed quite a bit once I started actually dictating it to myself and writing it out, but all of the main ideas were there.
In my opinion, anything and everything can be the source of inspiration for a daydreamer. There is nothing too large or too small. A word, a phrase, a photo or a drawing can often bring out an idea. Sometimes it’s a song, or even just a sound.
I started this blog almost four years ago mostly as a place to promote The Fireborn (I know, it took long enough for me to break down and publish it). Since then I have posted almost 500 works of fiction, from 100-word micro-stories to 8,000-word short stories. I have put up three serialized novels and am working on a fourth. They were all written because I am a dreamer. A daydreamer.
You can catch some of these dreams in my book of short stories Seasons of Imagination. And, of course, there is the longer daydream that I recently put out, The Fireborn.
I hope you enjoy my little daydreams!
Continue reading AUTHOR SPOTLIGHTS: INSPIRATION – Trent P. McDonald
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Colleen’s Weekly #Poetry Challenge # 47 – #Haiku #Tanka #Haibun: Shadow & Light
This is a perfect poetry prompt for me as I love to explore shadows and light in my writing.
Here’s an extract from The Curse of Time – Book 1 – Bloodstone followed by my Tanka.
The evening descended, and darkness filled my room. I couldn’t sleep. I tossed and turned, but the stagnant dead air in the house tightened around my neck choking me. I slipped out of bed and opened a window. It made no difference. Feeling anxious, I noticed a deep sensation of dread forcing its way into my soul.
I often heard strange grumbling voices and laboured breathing coming from the walls of our silent house, speaking in unison, ‘Cursed house, dreadful misfortune.’ Tonight, no difference awaited me. Those weird sounds seemed to reverberate from the cramped attic room at the top of the house, right down to the ground floor. The hexagonal hallway grumbled as I heard six whispered voices that unified into one loud, persistent groan that amplified, filling the hall with the same repeated words.
I wrestled with alternating tiredness and wakefulness, pushing the sounds away, I fell into a deep sleep. I dreamed. A vision formed and I could see the pathway ahead lay deserted, not a soul in sight. The dead of night beckoned, and an eerie silence magnified every rustle and quadrupled every whisper in the breeze. The gentle sound of trickling water soothed my disturbed senses, but I couldn’t find the source. I fought a strange feeling that someone followed me. Yet, when I glanced over my shoulder, no one seemed to be there. No footprints, no churned-up earth, nothing. I walked faster, but my steps lagged, like a clock pendulum moving back and forth on a predetermined journey, yet moving in slow motion.
As my dream continued, the whispering winds grew louder. I forced myself to turn around and confront my growing fear. I saw the shadow of a man, and he was following me. Disconcerted, I tried to run and stumbled; as if this shadowy man’s long limbs were reaching forward to trip me up. Just when I couldn’t take another step, the winds stopped. The shadow revealed itself in a flash of light and vanished. My eyes blinked, captivated by blue-black hair, but I couldn’t see his face. I stood transfixed by a bright light followed by an immediate darkness.
© Marjorie Mallon 2017
Continue reading Colleen’s Weekly #Poetry Challenge # 47 – #Haiku #Tanka #Haibun: Shadow & Light
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Addressing Self Harm in Fiction Writing (Guest Post)
Thank you to Christy Birmingham for hosting me on her blog When Women Inspire today.
Please join me in welcoming author Marjorie Mallon as a guest author on the blog today! Her debut book The Curse of Time Book 1 Bloodstone addresses the issue of self harm and is the subject of this important post. Let’s give Marjorie the floor.
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Today I’d like to discuss one particular character in my novel: The Curse of Time Book 1 Bloodstone. Her name is Esme and she self-harms. I sometimes wonder why I created such a disturbing, vulnerable character. I believe Esme came into my consciousness almost without my realising. She grew out of a nugget of an idea I had about a girl being trapped, in a time she didn’t feel comfortable with.
At the time I’d heard disturbing true life stories through my circle of family and friends about young people who self-harmed and naturally this saddened and shocked me. Young people from all walks…
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MJ Interviews Amelina – The Curse of Time – Bloodstone #SundayBlogShare
Today, it is a great pleasure to introduce you to the image of my main character – Amelina, modelled here by ….. my daughter’s friend Elise Hackney.
Today, I am interviewing using my author nickname MJ, tribute to my favourite superhero Spiderman’s Mary Jane.
MJ: It’s a pleasure to talk to you about your role in The Curse of Time – Book 1 – Bloodstone.
Amelina: Thanks for the invite.
MJ: So who is Amelina in The Curse of Time?
Amelina: I’m a teenage girl stuck in the worse situation. My life sucks in a spectacularly non-normal way.
MJ: Sorry to hear that, I didn’t set out to write your character into such grief. It just happened.
We pause for a moment lost in our thoughts.
MJ: What’s your thoughts on my creative process?
Amelina: I think you must have had an odd turn! Or, you’d been guzzling a crate of booze the night before. Who knows? One morning you jumped out of bed and a bunch of ludicrous ideas poured out of you. An unstoppable, unstructured fountain of crazy unleashed imagination.
MJ: Ha ha! That’s so true it hurts! I became Obsessive, didn’t I? You know like in the kids books… Forget about Little Miss Bossy, or Little Miss Chatterbox, I became Little Miss Obsessive!
Amelina: Yeah, you became a first rate burn the kids dinner mum. Not just that, you were hell bent on listening to your teenage daughters and their unsuspecting friends to get ideas for dialogue. You’re the noisiest person on this planet, a total eavesdropping ninja.
MJ: Guilty as charged! My daughter accused me of that recently. In fact, she begged me to be scarce if her friends come round! Can you imagine? I’m such an embarrassment.
I laugh, and Amelina rolls her eyes.
MJ: Tell us about your life…
Amelina: Oh, do I have to? Sigh. My life sucks. My day to day existence has changed and not in a good way. Forget the standard tribulations of the nuclear family. Our family is peculiar. We are four humans, one cat, and a house that behaves like a demented being. My dad has undergone some weird time shift, (no spoilers,) my mum is miserable, (and it’s not just menopausal hot flushes and night sweats.) Then, there’s this girl called Esme (a sister of sorts with an impressive lot of problems,) who lives with us in captivity and a weird black cat who visited and never left.
MJ: Sounds like some household! I must have been on the super strength vino to come up with that!
Amelina: Ha ha. Yeah, you must! It really is on a par with the Addams Family without the horror aspect. I swear even the foundations of our house are freaked out by our weirdness.
MJ: It can’t be all trauma and escalating problems, please tell me there are some positives?
Amelina: Yeah. I hang out with my friends, play music, write songs, do creative stuff: I write poetry, paint, collect crystals… (no spoilers!)
MJ: Crystals play a huge part in the novel, could you tell me a little about that?
Amelina: Yeah, crystals were the starting point for the novel. The huge inspiration – encouraged by Jupiter Artland – The Crystal Grotto by Anya Gallaccio. The novel was originally entitled The Krystallos Cottage – from Krystallos in the Greek meaning Crystal. Then, to keep it simple it became The Crystal Cottage. Then, time winged its merry dance into it and the story changed. That’s when the title of the novel changed to The Curse of Time. The Curse of Time became a series, with The Curse of Time – Book 1 – Bloodstone, followed by (the unedited – still to be released) The Curse of Time – Book 2 – Golden Healer.
MJ: That’s a lot of changes! But one special ingredient remained throughout the creative process. Magic. What part does that play in the novel?
Amelina: A huge part. When the promise of magic came, a sense of much needed hope started to grow, but with light and hope there is always opposing darkness.
MJ: Opposing darkness, that sounds exciting… I’m drawn to the dark side! Ha ha…
Amelina: Yeah, it’s a yin and yang, opposites kind of story. There’s light and darkness, seriousness and humour, deception and truth, various themes which appear throughout the novel. Oh, and there’s a touch of romance too, but not in a conventional way, The Curse of Time avoids boring love triangles or instant love. This story digs deeper than that.
MJ: I’ve heard there’s a cute guy in the novel?
Amelina: Oh, yes. Perhaps two, depends on your type! Kyle is fair, Ryder’s dark…
MJ: And friends?
Amelina: It’s strong on friendships, but jealousies play a part too.
MJ: It sounds such a mix. What an extraordinary amount of themes!
Amelina: Masses. Time plays a huge part, as do crystals representing light, shadows, (darkness) and deception.
MJ: I believe there’s scope for so much more – in book two?
Amelina: There might even be a Book three. This story has a long way to go. Time is ticking… and where it will end – who knows?
MJ: Thank you for accepting my invitation to talk to my readers about The Curse of Time. You are my first character, my principal leading lady, the starting point. I love Ryder, Shadow, the Grasshopper and the subsidiary characters too but they came into being after you. So dear Amelina you mean a lot to me.
Amelina: Aww, thanks! No problem.
MJ: I mustn’t keep you. You’ve been a very helpful interviewee, I can’t say the same about Ryder.
Amelina: Huh, no surprise there!
MJ: Ryder has become one of my favourite characters too. Somehow he has that effect on people. But, he’s difficult to figure out.
Amelina: Yeah, I get that, he’s fit as can be but he’s a mystery.
MJ: Never a truer word said.
Hope you enjoyed my latest character interview, find out more about my other characters here:
Photos courtesy of:
Dr John C Taylor OBE – photographs of chronopage and grasshopper.
Georgina Mallon – photographs of female model E. Hackney posing as Amelina, male model, J. English posing as Ryder.
Alex Marlowe, via https//samanthamurdochblog.wordpress.com – bloodstone crystal, and black cat model Lily – my character Shadow.
Don’t forget to pop over to my launch party on 26th August here on my blog, Facebook, and social media. Can’t wait!
Bye for now, time to hang out on my crystal chandelier….
My social media hang outs:
Authors/Bloggers Rainbow Support Club
Twitter: @Marjorie_Mallon
Twitter: @curseof_time
Instagram
Tumblr
Fellow Administrators of our Authors Bloggers Rainbow Support Club #ABRSC on Facebook, myself, my good friends Colleen Chesebro and Debby Gies.
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#Fairies, #Myths, & #Magic Author Spotlight Guest Posts – “The Charcoal Nomads,” by Richard Ankers
A beautifully written piece of guest writing on Colleen Chesebro’s blog by Richard Ankers – The Charcoal Nomads. Enjoy!
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Introducing ReaderLinks and Author Helper
Introducing Reader Links and Author Helper. This looks good, and as it’s from Nicholas Rossis I know it will be good!
ReaderLinks
I have mentioned my author friend John Logsdon a number of times in this blog. Not only is he a book marketing guru who has helped me a lot with my own books, he has also been developing ReaderLinks; a website to help Indies in their everyday struggle to sell more books.
As John is a hugely successful Indie author himself, he has developed ReaderLinks to cover all of our needs: It includes a Book Calendar; a Sales Tracker; Tweet Management; a Global Links tool; and many more tools.
I’ve been part of his beta-testers for the past few months and I’m excited that the project has now reached the point where the launch build is ready. Check it out and subscribe to be notified when it launches! You can find out more by watching the video below.
The Author Helper
Except for developing ReaderLinks, John has also…
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Colleen’s Weekly #Poetry Challenge #46 – #Haiku #Tanka #Haibun: HONEY & WINE
I’m participating in Colleen’s challenge and the prompt words this week are perfect to introduce you to my main male character Ryder in my debut novel – The Curse of Time – Book 1 – Bloodstone.
You can join in Colleen’s Weekly Poetry Challenge by clicking the following link: https://colleenchesebro.com/2017/08/15/colleens-weekly-poetry-challenge-46-haiku-tanka-haibun-honey-wine/
Don’t forget about my online party to celebrate my kindle book release on 26th August which will be held here, on Facebook, and on my social media.
Here’s a buying link to my Amazon UK page:
Bye for now,
My social media hang outs:
Twitter: @marjorie_mallon
Team Awesome at my Authors/Bloggers Rainbow Support Club on Facebook
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Of A Book Tour: The Curse Of Time
Thank you so much to Beaton for featuring me on his lovely blog home: becoming the muse. Touched by his lovely sense of humour and kind words: ‘I must confess to being super curious and cant wait to read this…. its like being regular curious but I wear a cape.’ Beaton, you’re like a breath of fresh humorous air! xxx
GuestPost:
If you were having coffee with me, we would have a quick chat with MJ (whom is neither Michael Jackson nor from Spiderman) and a sneak insight into the characters from her up coming book Bloodstone Book 1 The Curse of Time……….
Book 1 – Bloodstone
Thank you to Beaton for inviting me to guest post on his blog today.
It’s a delight to be here, I have enjoyed following Beaton for a good old while and I think we seem to share a similar sense of wacky humour.
I’m delighted to share with you my novel The Curse of Time – Book 1 – Bloodstone a YA/middle grade fantasy set in Cambridge, UK.
If I was to pick a character or two that Beaton would enjoy I’d guess I’d start with Ryder my male protagonist, a narcissistic fellow who prefers to hang about in the shadows…
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Promoting Young Authors – Evan John #Swansea
Hugh’s excellent idea promoting young emerging writers. Read young Evan’s Zombie tale it’s really good, what promise!
M J Mallon YA Author and Poet 