The Beautiful Damned Novella's: Lunar Light

Monsters should not walk the daylight,
but cower in the dark....

When the full moon haunts the sky, Evangeline prowls the dark as a Wendigo; a fearsome mix of human and beast. The night an injured outcast falls into her claws she must defy her keeper, the laws of nature and her own morality to protect him from the Hunter who wants his head as a trophy. Struggling to reconcile her cannibalistic urges and gentle temperament, Evangeline must move beyond the ancient curse of her ancestors blood, and become legend.

The Beautiful Damned Novella’s. Something I’m going to have a helluva lot of fun with. These are supernatural stories that focus on creatures and legends that fascinate me. The protagonists do not resonate (with me) enough to carry into a standalone novel or series (at present), but have enough fire to feature in their own novella. The first is already completed and will help me keep my mind snappy in the run up to the release of A Demon Day.

Lunar Light was so much fun to write. It’s my favourite title so far and the cover disturbs me the longer I look at it. The ugliness and brutality of the Wendigo has always called to me. It was a very conscious decision to take my mind to that dark, sensual, animalistic place, but I didn’t want to do it with werewolves. Balancing Evangeline’s (lead protagonist) gentle temperament and cannibalistic urges within a young women confident in her sexuality yet virginal ... was bloody hard. I tried to be honest about it all and not romanticise sex to the point of delusion nor make it crass. Have I achieved this? I don’t know ... feedback will tell.

Wendigo’s (in the imaginary land where they exist) are killers; higher up in the food chain and not ashamed of it. They eat people. So how would you (as a person who is quite empathetic and good) come to terms with that? Evangeline is not ashamed of what she is but what she represents. The story will be bold in its violence - the legend of the Wendigo cannot be tamed into something pretty - and the monsters beautifully ugly. The romance is sweet ... in a twisted way.

It’s my first stab at Fantasy Romance so it should be interesting to see people’s reactions. It was surprisingly difficult to keep the central theme about love rather than get wrapped up in the supernatural lore.

Lunar Light will be released in February and will be a free download to introduce the collection. The novella comes in at just over 30,000 words (approximately 2.5 hours reading time). This is a Dark Fantasy Romance and not suitable for younger readers! The Beautiful Damned Facebook Fan Page is already up and kicking, and I’ll update the page on each book in the collections release. 

***

Fuck me, I was short of breath and dizzy. Blood rushed in my ears and I had to keep my back flat against the cave wall for support. I stared at her and she smiled faintly, her hand sweeping between her legs for a brief moment.
     “You better be worth it,” she murmured.
     Evangeline, my woodland goddess, walked to the cave ledge, spun into a crouch and slipped those long legs off the edge on one lissome move. “Come. The sun is rising and I want to use the last of the dark to cover our way home.” The crown of her head disappeared out of sight.
     Still pressed into the wall like I was terrified of falling, I blinked then scrubbed a hand through my hair and barked a laugh. I needed to pull my shit together if I was going to survive her that was for sure.
     Making my way to the edge of the cave I climbed down after her.

Film Review: Black Swan

The Gist: Frigid, sexually repressed ballerina with mommy issues experiences a psychotic break and thinks she's becoming a bird.

Favorite line: “That was me seducing you. It needs to be the other way around” - Thomas Leroy

Favorite Scene: As she dances the Black Swan her arms sprout feathers and become black wings.

What is there not to say about this film? Natalie Portman is exquisite and Vincent Cassel is bold and flawlessly arrogant as Thomas, the Company Director.

Ballerina Nina wants to be the Principal for her Companies latest production, making her Princess Odette in Swan Lake. To do this she must embody the pure White Swan; in which grace and precise execution of the dance is required (which she has in abundance). But she must also become the dark twin, the Black Swan, and portray a sensual devil-may-care attitude. She's instructed to let the dance consume her, to "lose control" to become perfect. The challenge is something she as a perfectionist cannot handle.

Being a relatively clever girl she manages to snag the part by allowing Thomas to glimpse a little of the darkness in her. But it becomes clear her soft spoken little self may not be able to carry it off. Over a period of time she falls deeper into depression. Everything starts to slip away and to achieve the sensuality and darkness of the Black Swan she literally loses her mind and becomes one. Her skin becomes scaled, her feet webbed, her legs buckle into frankly fucked up positions ... her psyche splinters, and ultimately the walls of her reality shatter. This was shown to marvelous effect by all those huge mirrors and deviant reflections that awed me.

During this chilling spiral into madness she fabricates encounters with Lily (Mila Kunis), a sexy ballerina who is actually trying to be her friend. In comes Nina’s lesbian wet dream, which I am sure the guys enjoyed, but it was tasteful enough to give my gag reflex a rest.

The opening sequence gets your heart pumping with all those extreme close ups and shots of Nina dancing the White Swan; captivated in Rothbart's spell. The film has a clean feel to it .. cool and de-saturated colors, which gives the entire thing an austere tone.

Oh, and her mother freaked me out. She was (in my mind) the significant catalyst that induced her daughters breakdown and final show stopping demise.

Go see it. A great film and the running time is not excessive.

Directed by; Darren Aronofsky

Runnign time: 108 min

Indie Author, I am One

How many of you adorable readers (well, my readers are adorable anyway) are aware that when reading eBooks there is a strong chance you'll pick up/buy one from an Independent Author (meaning they don't belong to a Publishing House)?

These Authors have to do the following with no financial or creative support (unless they go and pay the big bucks to freelance professionals for it of course).

• The Manuscript (obviously – I roll my eyes at myself)
• Copy-editing/Proof-reading
• Manuscript Formatting
• eBook Cover Design/Paperrback & Hardback Book Jacket
• Book Blurb & Hook
• Distribution
• Website Design, Build and Management
• Promotion - arranging blog reviews, press releases, merchandise, etc
• Marketing - advertisements, free book giveaways
• Profile Building
• Fan Correspondence & Social Networking

And a multitude of other things that I won't mention since we would be here all day. And they have to deal with pitching their novels against books that are plastered all over the place in big marketing campaigns and get bolstered by reviews from national newspapers or magazines with prime placement on chain bookstore shelves. And they have to be writing their next book. And they have to still be dealing with rejection from agents who still don't want to take a chance on them even when they have a small readership. And they probably all work a stressful 9 to 5's (like me) so that general life can go on and they can fund their writing addiction (trust me, it is an addiction). 

That is a lot and 'ands' people!

Being an Indie Author is like working another full time job at times, because you have to be everything to everybody. You have to be a die hard lover of the written word or you won't survive it (yes, I am that dramatic).

My main downfall is promotion. I'm not an in your face personality, and I couldn't sell a box full of real £50 notes for a penny if I tried. But if I did want to heavily market and promote I know there would be major financial and emotional limitations to what I could achieve.

Trying to be traditionally published is like pushing a purple elephant that the Maharaja didn't want through a carnival guarded by an army with riot shields. So you dress your elephant up and you kick it though that door and hope it will knock down all the majestic gray elephants that were considered more beautiful and hope the Maharaja who rejected it will take notice. Of course your purple elephant may get shot by poachers. But there is a chance it will be worshiped by the citizens, and put in a lovely wildlife preserve. Allowing you to be free of the Maharaja.*

What was the point of this blog post? I've forgotten since I'm writing it at stupid o'clock – suffering a bout of insomnia – but interpret it any way that pleases you.

*For those not understanding my symbolic references;

Purple Elephant = Indie Novel

Gray Elephant = Traditionally Published Novel

Carnival = Book Market

Maharaja = Publishing house 

Poachers = Bad Reviews 

Army = Literary Agents

Riot Shields = Submission Guidelines

Citizens = Readers

Wildlife Preserve =  A Praised Novel

Hai & Happy New Year

Happy New Year! 

How exciting. I've got so much to do this year I'm positively anxious to get going. Before my next blog post which will be looking forward at A Demon Day, I'm going to look back on my progress with my first book since I hit the three month benchmark yesterday.

Book One of the Rae Wilder Novels skipped past 40,000 downloads. That is just ... um ... I am speechless. And I still don't have my iBookstore stats (over 300 ratings with an average of 4 stars), which I'm dying to get my hands on as I think they'll be good. The book is doing good in the Nook store with over 650 ratings giving me a flattering 4 star average, and over 100 written reviews! I've gotten an amazing amount of feedback on my Facebook Fan page and via Twitter, and managed to respond to over a hundred of you that contacted me over the festive season. Thank you all for your kind words and support! Another gem is that I've got over 45,000 reads on WattPad.com, whoop whoop. I'm hoping to do a giveaway at some point in late Jan/early Feb so please watch out for that. I'll also be giving my "fans" an excerpt of A Demon Day (Book Two) with the second books trailer on the site. 

The Hardback Edition of the book is now available to buy via Lulu with 40% off  – £10.79/$16.30 (List Price is £17.99/$27.18) and it is free to download. If you buy please do leave a review and let me know what you think of the quality, cover design (to the left), interior, etc. I think these things are important to the overall enjoyment of the book. I had a good time with Lulu.com. It was easy and enjoyable. If you're an Indie Author and want to do a hardback I recommend it! The only thing I had trouble with was the file up-loader (kept getting error responses). The Author Spotlight is a great idea too and will be useful when I release other books.

The Paperback Edition is out soon via Amazon.com (final cover to the right). So it will be a couple of weeks yet as I was not happy with quality of the proof interior, I had to go back to the drawing board. It will be priced at £7/$10.99. Amazon have put me through the grinder. Their cover designer is okay, but I made an effort to design my own covers. Needless to say having to abide by trim sizes is bloody annoying. Plus there is a 48 hour approval, so if you get it wrong you have to wait and start again. It adds so much time onto everything. I know it sounds like I'm always hating on Amazon, but all my experiences with them are so negative ... this year will be better *stubborn face*.


There will be a number of chances to get your hands on free copies of the Print Editions and I will post the giveaway schedule soon. I'm still thinking of new promotion ideas, but March will signal the end of my six month focus on TDG. My attention will shift to the promotion of the sequel. Admittedly, I don't do much by way of marketing (the hard sell ... shudder) as I want to focus on the writing itself. Now I've had a chance to see what's out there, and how people respond on different platforms I've worked out a marketing plan that's best for me and my work ... my style. I should get to see it in action for Book Two.


I have three book blog reviews for TDG to point your attention to Book'dOut, Clandestine Sanctuary and The Literary Housewife (my favorite as her review style reminds me of mine). A big thank you to those three for taking the time to read and review.

In closing, I hope everybody is well rested after the break we had and ready for the year ahead. I am. I've got a ton of New Year resolutions I am 33.3 per cent certain I will keep until the end of January ;)