Through My Eyes

One thing I love to do is go to a local cafe where the ambiance is just perfect for writing as I get my best work done there.  This used to be Copperfield’s Cafe which was located right next to the bookstore (where now it’s just the extended bookstore) in downtown Petaluma.  Man do I miss that place.  It is where Blood Life was born, although that wasn’t the title at the time.  There was great food, even greater people and staff, and live entertainment of some sort daily.

Proofing the first part of Devendra at Aqus Cafe in Petaluma.

Aqus Cafe seems to be the new place for that in town.  A place where I can spend hours eating, writing, and people-watching.  People-watching is amazing for a writer’s fuel tank.  I can just look at someone and get stuck (sometimes staring/mad-dogging, though I don’t mean to). My mind will race and I’ll start to see them in a fictional world as a character or just pieces of one.  The rest is made up as I go.

Music is another important factor for me with writing.  When I am into a story/scene, there cannot be vocals.  Or, if there are, very little so they’re not distracting to me because when I hear vocals, I want to know their story. So my writing music must be ambient, classical, ethereal…

I’ve been working on the prequel to Blood Life, which I would like to have out by the end of 2012. Sooner if at all possible. It’s moving right along and well! It’s all about Devendra.  Her story leading up to Blood Life.  The book opens with her in jail and there’s a witch trial.  The research was so much fun for this.  Now putting it to paper in story form in order to bring what is in my mind to life on the pages for readers to enjoy – the most amazing, gratifying thing there is.  I am so in love with Devendra’s story.  I love Blood Life, don’t get me wrong, but Devendra… she’s my alter-ego, my muse, my inner witch.  She looks like me (at least how I’d love for people to see me), she sounds like me, she even smiles like me.  If you have read Blood Life, you’ll see how she was a very important character, but not the main one.  And you’ll also notice that she has so much more to her that was unsaid/written, but needs to be.

When I finished Blood Life the first time, she kept bothering me until I decided to give her a book.  Blood Life will become Book 2 in a trilogy I will call, “The Parallel Trilogy.”  That is the way I always planned to release them and for people to read them.  Blood Life could easily be a standalone novel… but there’s much more.

Book 3 . . . I’ll just save that for another post.  😉