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Kell @ Book #3

"People on the street were starting to notice what a basket case I was, the women and children mostly stared, the men wanted to fix me. A couple of well-meaning bastards tried to play hero and grabbed me by the arm they were so eager to help. Let go of me, don’t fucking touch me! The lucky ones backed away, shocked cuz I ruined their pseudo-heroics, while others dared face me behind their foul breath of omelet and avocado peppered with lox and wall street journal. I hit them with a wind farm of disaffection with the patriarchy. Ya, that’s right, Green Lantern, slow your roll and cool your jets, this ain’t Petrosinella and no, you can’t climb my hair! My performance was incandescent. I zigzagged back ways by alleys to keep from being followed."   - Kell

two quotes from book three

"I imagined she was right here beside me, pressed up against my ribs, our bellies greeting through our clothes, what hips we had trying to push around, and I could catch her tears on a fingerprint, cupping my hand to her face."  - Ame, on the telepath with Kell

"He had a foul mouth like a carnie. I thought about back in the days when my parents used to take me to the carnival and the way the cotton made my fingers so sticky and I would lick them and the rides were flying overhead and everyone was petrified, screaming, and oh what a wonderful, terrible place it was, drunks stumbling around cursing, girls getting pushed over giant stuffed animals on the outskirts, expected to give it up for what they got. Guns and the hammer coming down hard to push the metal up to ring a bell. Primitive. The rides were old machines and not always safe, the carnies loud and uncouth, everyone so happy to be scared. Everyone but me. I was turned on."  - Ame, on Black and the county fair

perspective switching. writing process

As some of you may know from previous posts, I was enticed by the natural editing process (several drafts in, mind you) to switch perspectives between two main characters and sisters, Ame and Kell. I stepped in the arena and began doing exactly that, and found Kell's voice (previously unexplored) an easy thrill; writing from her perspective comes quite natural to me. I began threading the narrative this way, back and forth between Ame and Kell, for several pages in what has come to be a rather drawn out 'prologue' of the (unreleased) Book #3 of my fiction series.

Switching perspectives seem to inject the narrative with a juicy shot and a vaccination against monotony. Both voices are first person, and Book #2 left off with the sisters apart and now trying to communicate through the telepath. Ame is searching for Kell who has gone missing. These characters both have telepathic capacity, though the younger of them, Kell, has had hers stifled by her opiate addiction. In fact, she has been a junky for so long she doesn't even know her own power. She has not yet been convinced she is one of their tribe: Delux. A people very much like humans in all ways except for certain practices and preternatural gifts.

So I had yet to have anyone else read the latest draft with the perspective switching. I really only got it all together in form a couple weeks past. I shared my work with my beta readers through g. docs.  I shot the first 15,000 words out to my betas last week and got a great reaction. One of my readers actually read my mind completely (no joke!) and suggested to me to have this threading go on - past prologue - and into the main narrative, he so enjoyed the switch. Now this will likely postpone (and already has) my release, but it cannot be helped really if I am to follow these leads. Getting the comments from my reader was like the universe speaking to me, I swear to god.

The series has had some initial success in the market. I released Book One in late 2013, and Book Two late last 2015. Here is the link to the series on Amazon, where 17 combined reviews have garnered 4.9 out of 5 stars. Here is the link to the series on Goodreads, where as of this writing 43 readers' reviews have garnered 3.9 out of 5 stars. Totaling both platforms, that makes 60 reviews for 4 out of 5 stars. Just a drop in the ocean, but encouraging enough for me to wanna keep the series alive for you and me!

TEASER

From Ame and the Tangy Energetic (Darkness, #3)  --  "We sought our pleasure in the world, thinking this would bring a measure of happiness. Maybe did for a moment; up all night laughing, walking the streets at 3am, ghost trains passing by. We readied ourselves and jumped. The world went from absolute stillness to perpetual motion, we outlined the Pacific Ocean, the sea salt filled our lungs, we sought our shadows on a train and now comes the rain, I see you pacing the room up there with your paranoia and bad thoughts about me, your negative energy sticks to the walls and peels the paint and no mirror can survive your self-loathing, not even me, and it hurts when you break me down like you think you can, when all I am is over here loving you, your ferocity, your anti, your sweetness protected but starved inside you, the most delicate beauty I have ever held and why do you think I would hurt you, how come you don’t invite me to see and cherish you, desperate you, and all your hard life you’ve been through? Fighting shadows and running away from yourself, your mom and your past, all those demons locked inside, criss-crossing, and what of it? For you were with me."  --   KatYa