Lost in Which Genre?

by Diana McCollum

Diana McCollum-- Life is often chaotic in our home, but when I have a few hours of uninterrupted writing time, I use it, as it is a precious commodity.

A lifetime avid reader, I enjoy creating worlds where anything is possible. I can’t help but include an element of the paranormal in my stories, and always a happily-ever-after.

For me there are different levels of being ‘lost in a book’. 

I read a lot of different genres. Straight romance, Regency’s in particular, I find highly entertaining. However, they are books I can read a chapter and put the book aside. I tend to read these types of stories in the evening, in bed. I’m “lost in the story” enough to enjoy, but not enough to keep me awake.

Paranormal, Romance and Suspense author Nora Roberts’ story lines are fast paced, cover tough topics and are good, because of that I do have a hard time stopping at just one chapter. If I sit with one of her books, I’ll be ‘lost in the book’ and reading for a couple of hours. Her stories come alive, and I have to find out what happens. 

For me most romances and some romantic suspense books are ‘slow paced’. When they are not fast paced I tend to get bored, and can easily put the book aside for a day or two. I usually read this type when I take a break from household tasks.

I don’t know if it is because I’m a mature reader now, but I seem to be pickier about how I spend my time reading.

Now a good thriller, like the one I’m reading right now by Harlan Coben, “Missing You”, will keep me reading straight through to the end. With three interlacing plot lines and fast pacing I’m intrigued to the very end. No reading one chapter at a time with his book!

I know this probably seems strange to enjoy thrillers most of all when I write paranormal romance! Hey, each to his own choices. That’s what entertains me!!

Do you read certain books during the day, night or. .?

If you like witch stories, modern times with a pinch of paranormal you might try my book: The Witch With the Trident Tattoo.

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Even Paranormal Authors Do Research!

by Diana McCollum

I write mostly paranormal stories. You might wonder how much 'research' goes into a book for a paranormal author. Well, not near as much as a historical author. Still, I do have to do a certain amount of research.

Some of the details I garner from reading other paranormals. I keep notes on books I read, word choices and other details.

Word choice in any genre is to me what paints the picture of the story. For instance, in my book "The Witch with the Trident Tattoo" I had to do some science research, some mythology research, and commercial fishing research to come up with an interesting and believable (as far as one can believe a paranormal story) book.

My heroine, Ella, is a scientist and a sea witch. Poseidon, Ruler of the sea, is who she reports too. Her familiar is an Octopus named James. So a little more research here on Octopus habits and what grows in the ocean etc.

Here is an excerpt as James gives Ella a ride to see Poseidon, who has requested a meeting with Ella.

"James wrapped one long tentacle gently but firmly around her waist. She linked her arms around two of his. On a whoosh of water, he propelled them to Poseidon's waiting submersible.

       One of her favorite things to do was ride along with James Her hair streamed behind her and they virtually flew over the bottom. Starfish dotted rocks close to the island, seahorses darted in and out of kelp, and her favorite, sea ferns, swayed with the current.

    They dove to ninety feet where the devastation brought a heaviness to her chest."

    As a scientist Ella has been studying the dying ocean off the coast of MA. This is why Poseidon has requested her to report to him. Not only is she studying the ocean as part of her job, but also at the request of Poseidon.
 
    When the reader meets Poseidon, I'll give you the generic sentence first, bare minimum.
    "Poseidon sat on a chair. On top of his head of black hair sat a gold crown. He was naked from the waist up except for two gold bands on each arm." Does that paint a picture of this man? Not a very interesting one!

This is what the reader reads as Poseidon is introduced. "Poseidon reclined on blue silk and green satin pillows set inside an enormous clam shell. On top of his black dreadlocks sat a golden crown encrusted with sparkling gems. Naked from the waist up except for two gold bands around each massive forearm." The reader gets a better picture of Poseidon with this description.

     The hero, Noah, is the captain of a fishing boat. When he takes Ella out for a ride a storm kicks up.
 So I researched nautical terms, and weather terms etc.

     "The radio crackled before he could form a response. "Mayday! Mayday! This is the Red Moon, Oscar Aldrich...taking on water. . .' The radio continued to crackle.

    Noah grabbed the microphone from his Marine Radio 'Oscar! Noah Drago here, what's your position, over?'

   Noah wrote down Oscar's coordinates. 'He must have run into the squall we came through. I'm heading back---I won't let this sea claim another friend.' He steered his boat back the way they had come, chasing after the storm.

    Gray clouds were leaden, almost black, and towered above the horizon. The hull slapped against waves, the sea churned beneath them."

   On this same boat trip, Noah witnesses Ella doing Magick for the first time.

   "Ella come back inside!" The sea tried to wrench the wheel from his hands. He struggled to control the helm.

   He looked again and she had raised her hands toward the sky. Clouds parted, the sun broke through encircling the boat. The seas calmed, flattened, identical to a lake on a summer day. He couldn't believe what he was seeing. The squall continued to rage around their circle of calm."

   Then there is the fun of creating spells! Here's an example.

       "Green leaves of Hemlock,
         And mighty twigs of Hemlock,
         I know you hold Magick.
         Release your power to save the sea,
         For this you've been handpicked,
         So mote it be!

     Ella set her grinder down and picked up a stirring rod. Gently she stirred her Magick portion, a foundation to start with.

        'Round, round and round the sea you'll go,
         to bind your Magick three drops of wax from this enchanted candlestick,
         So mote it be!'

   She held a binding candle over the beaker, continuing to stir whilst three drop of wax dropped into the bubbling mixture. A ball of magical energy began to form."
 
   Well, I had fun going back through "The Witch with the Trident Tattoo", to find these examples.
Now you know that there is research involved for Paranormal and Fantasy stories too!

Have you ever read a book that had too much researched info in it?

This was going to be awesome, but...

Hi everyone! I am YA author B A Binns , writer of contemporary and realistic fiction for teens. My tagline tells you what I am about - Stories of Real Boys Growing Into Real Men - and the people who love them. 


First, let me explain that my post was going to be awesome.

First, I intended to go deep into the history of Halloween. Until I began doing research for this post, I had no idea that hallows were saints, or that Halloween was the first day in a traditional three-day time of remembrance for hallows, martyrs and the faithful departed.  How could I, when 21st century America has turned October 31 into an all too commercial day for purchasing candy to hand out to kids running around looking for freebies much to the dentist's delight?  Halloween is all about  purchasing expensive costumes (including sexy vampires but seldom involving any saints), playing pranks, attending wild parties, telling scary stories or watching horror movies, or some combination of the above.

Then, I was going to talk about two books that are not your grandma's scary stories.

One, The Girl With All The Gifts, handles the typical horror, post apocalyptic, zombie genre in a totally atypical way. At first, this story, largely told from the monster's point of view, seems a little ho-hum. Melanie is an "infected" child with superior strength and an almost uncontrollable desire to feed on the flesh of uninfected human beings. But she can also think and learn, and even appreciate a good book. Something in the child's brain makes her half monster/half human and provides the key to ending the epidemic devastating humanity. At least, that's what everyone, from the scientist determined to harvest the cure from Melanie's brain, to Melanie herself, believes.

But she doesn't want to die, even if that sacrifice will save the human race and her beloved teacher. And we readers don't want her to die, either. Because we know something the scientist doesn't. We know there is a real soul inside Melanie. So we read on, hoping for the romance between the teacher and the soldier to blossom, and for both to find a way to save both Melanie and humanity. 

But that would be too easy, and this author forces readers to walk through door number three.

The other book, the Queen of Katwe, deals with ordinary, everyday fears in a more contemporary setting. On the surface, its an inspirational story about a female chess prodigy, Phiona Mutesi, is discovered in a slum in Uganda. who uses her prodigious talent at chess to become her country's female champion. Hurrah, right? Nothing scary about that.

But this is a real life story about a real girl, and reality is never that straightforward or devoid of fear. The fear of walking into a strange room and being ridiculed by everyone there can be huge for an adolescent. When someone makes snorting noises and calls you a pig, the urge to never return is huge.

Phiona moves from being afraid of rejection after defeating one of the experienced boys, to overconfidence and humiliation at the hands of an adult champion with no fear of vanquishing a fourteen year old.

And when you are a mother, seeing your child step out into the big, bad world can be terrifying.  Not just because she will be traveling to strange countries without you at her side. Not even because you fear someone may try to hurt her. Her mother rightly fears that once Phiona has slept in a real bed, flown on an airplane, played in a swimming pool, and discovered that ketchup is the world's greatest invention, the return to the hard life in the slums of Katwe will forever torture the girl.  If you don't think that's a horrifying fear, remember that when most parents look at their children, they have one big wish - that they be happy.

That's what I was going to talk about.

---

(BTW, this is where I start talking politics, so if you want to avoid that and stop reading now, I won't be offended)

We all fear something, whether it’s the monster chasing us to grab and eat us, or the fear of failure and it’s twin, the fear of success. The question is, how do we handle our fears? So I have to add an addendum about my personal fears. A year has 365 days, and disasters come in all shapes and sizes. Fear isn't just about monsters eating human brains (although considering the current state of politics at times I do wonder if a few zombies have been chomping on some of the people I see around me)

On Halloween I will dress to impress the things that say boo and trigger old-fashioned superstitions. I have my very own witches costume, complete with wig, hat and broom and spend every October 31 daring the things that go bump in the night to come and try and best me.

Fear doesn't have to be about the end of the world. Sometimes it's about leaving the world you know for a new one. I'm not talking about some overlap between science fiction and horror or an airplane taking a girl from the depths of a slum to the magnificence of Moscow. Sometimes the world you think you know seems to disappear in real life.

That's what seems to have happened around me this election year. Human monsters have appeared to spew hate, and, in some cases, to act in hate on other human beings. It's not just about books or movies, and whoever wrote this script doesn't appear to have left much possibility for even a happily for now ending, much less a happily ever after. This is why I prefer the escape of a book. It's also why I can't retreat into a story and forget the world.

I live in America. If you don't, I'll just say pray for us. Pray that we remember the things we really want in a leader. That we find a way to control ourselves and our inner demons. That we remember that in most cases, being politically correct is just another way of saying be polite and caring.

When I was very, very, very young, I saw a movie called Gorgo. I remember the name because it scared me to the point where I lay in bed for many nights afterward, staring at the light in the hall, certain I would see the monster's shadow and preparing myself to run. On the way to school, in broad daylight, I would look up, afraid I would see it's head towering over the buildings.  (Do not ask my how I could believe the monster would fit inside my families apartment and still be big enough to bee seen over rooftops. I was young. It made sense to me at the time.)

I saw the movie again a few years ago. When it ended I shook my head and wondered why that campy movie once scared me so completely.

 I want this year to be like that.

In a decade or so, I want to look back at how people behave, and get that same feeling. I want the good people to show those who think everyone needs a fistful of guns that they are wrong. I want good cops to refuse to allow a few bad ones to tarnish them all. I want people to realize that it's not about the size, or shape, or color of the bodies we inhabit. And most of all, I want people to realize that when picking a Commander in Chief, experience and training for that job count. I would not hire a fry cook, no matter how excellent he or she was on the culinary front, to rewire the electricity in my house.

Please let me look back on 2016  someday and wonder why I was ever so scared.

---

Like I said, before the world got in the way, I originally intended for this post to be an awesome discussion on things that go bump in the night.  (You can tell me if it still is.)

 

Interview with Author Diana McCollum on her Coastal Coven series

Author Diana McCollum

Paranormal Romance author Diana McCollum’s debut novella, The Witch with the Trident Tattoo, came out from Windtree Press earlier this month. This book is the first in the Coastal Coven Series.

Welcome, Diana. Can you tell us what your book is about in a sentence or two?

Witch Ella Stone, born with an affinity for water and a scientist, is on a mission. Ocean life is disappearing off the Atlantic Coast, and Poseidon needs her to find out why. To find answers, she hires handsome, brooding sea captain Noah Drago to help.

The sexy scientist's kisses turn Noah's world upside-down. Soon, he's plunged into a world of myth, magick and passion.

But will their growing connection-their love-be enough to save them from an encroaching evil bent on destroying all life as they know it?

Briefly, tell us what led you to write The Witch with the Trident Tattoo? (TWWTTT for short) What else have you published?

I thought it would be fun to write about a sea witch. I hadn't read any stories about a sea witch. I thought who would she answer to? Poseidon, of course! 

I have short stories in two different Anthologies: "Love & Magick", which has the witch Hettie's story in. Hettie is a time traveling witch and belongs to the Coastal Coven featured in "The Witch with the Trident Tattoo". The second Anthology is "Gifts from the Heart".

You’ve lived in the western United States for most of your adult life. What made you choose an east coast setting for the Coastal Coven Series?

It seemed like the appropriate setting. Hettie the time traveling witch lived in MA. I wanted a setting by the ocean, so my made up town of Waxing, MA became the main setting for the stories. 

Your Sea Witch heroine, Ella, has an octopus named James for a familiar. What is a witch’s familiar?

Over the centuries familiars are said to have taken many different forms. I picked James, an Octopus, as Ella's familiar. No matter what form a familiar takes, their responsibility is to assist the witch. The familiar can help with different types of magick, and also help with manipulations of natural energies. For instance, magick energy contained in stones and herbs and in the four elements, Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water. James back story is he was a minor prince in Atlantis and displeased Poseidon  by stealing shoes, and Poseidon cursed him to live as an Octopus to pay his debt to society. I will add that James has a shoe fetish, even as an Octopus.

One day I will write James' story. I think that would be a fun, fun story to write.

Is the Coastal Coven Series an open-ended series at this point, or do you have and end-point in mind?

There will be a story for each of the witches. And for the wizard that lives in the Hemlock tree, which is the passage between the past and present.

What are you working on now? 

I am going to begin the second book in the Coastal Coven series this week. I am deciding on a title over the weekend. I need at least a working title to begin, that's just the way I write.

In TWWTTT you created an engaging teenaged mermaid character. Have you considered writing Young Adult or New Adult novels?

Pink haired, Mischell! I did love writing this character. She will have her story one day. I don't think as Young Adult, maybe a New Adult novel.

What are some books you’ve read recently and loved?

Nora Robert's "Dark Witch" series. Loved all three books. "The Witch's Daughter" by Paula Brackston. Right now I'm reading "Lamp Black, Wolf Grey" by Paula Brackston, such a good story I can hardly put it down.

What is your favorite piece of writing advice?

BIC FOK-Butt in chair, fingers on keyboard! as Nora Roberts said you can't edit a blank page. So put words on the paper and move forward.

Leave a comment for a chance to win a free e-book, I will be giving away two e-books. 

Please share an excerpt from The Witch with the Trident Tattoo with us.

Excerpt

Draft: The Witch with the Trident Tattoo

By Diana McCollum, Copyrighted

Chapter 1

 by Diana McCollum, copy right

    The town meeting last night had left a bitter taste of disappointment in Ella Stone’s mouth. She had tried her best to convince the upstanding citizens of Waxing, Massachusetts the importance of suspending fishing for twenty square miles off the coast, and inland to Turtle Point and the beach in town. She also suggested no swimming for a couple of weeks while she researched the unknown carbon based matter depleting the nutrients necessary for sea life to be sustainable.        They had rejected her proposal and it had stung, and still stung.

    The fishermen wanted to make a living, she understood. If they continued to fish and toxic organic matter continued to grow, fisheries would be depleted in a short time. Not to mention she couldn’t be sure if the organic material was toxic to humans or not, it was too early in her research to tell.

    Arriving for her Saturday shift at her friend Hettie’s gift shop, The Crystal Witch, she seethed with fury. Her pulse beat a fast tempo, sending beads of determination over her skin. Ella marched down the aisle of scented soaps and candles toward the back of the store, as sparks of pent up Magick flew off her. Candle wicks on the display table burst into flame when she passed. As she breezed by the rack of wind chimes tinkled and rattled as if a gust of wind blew through the store, when none did.

    “Ella, what’s the matter?” Hettie Wynn stood in the office doorway, hands wrapped around a cup of coffee.

    Ella handed the local newspaper, Lighthouse News, to Hettie. “The meeting last night was a bust. Apparently I am a crazy woman scientist who doesn’t know what she’s talking about. Wait, no—‘environmental whacko’ is what they said.”

    “I’ve got a degree in marine biology and oceanography from Salem State University. I’ve studied under some of the most prestigious professors, and they call me an ‘environmental whacko’?” Ella removed her sunglasses and used the edge of her sweater to clean the lenses.

    “Did you present your findings in terms they could understand?” Hettie reached out and steadied the wind chime rack.

    Ella walked over and blew out candles one by one. In so doing, she blew sample herbal powder out of the display bowl and covered the floor in many colors. She harrumphed at her blunder and crossed her arms. “Sorry for being in such a dither, but you know what I’m up against.”

    “Poseidon.”

    “Yes! He wants answers, and only from me. ‘What happens in the ocean is a matter for the realm to manage. I’m depending on you to find the answer. Do not involve the human governments.’ He’s such a pretentious monarch, always playing games with me.” Unshed tears of frustration threatened to spill over.

    “These waters have been in the care of my family since my ancestors first stepped on shore at Plymouth. There’s never been anything of this magnitude, anything capable of destroying marine plant and animal life to this degree. Whatever has damaged the flora and fauna hasn’t reached shore, but I’m concerned because it’s just a matter of time till it does. I’ve named the toxin Razor Toxic Bloom-RTB-1, and it is spreading pass the outer banks toward Waxing.”

    Ella stalked over to the screened back door. A slice of ocean was visible from here, sandwiched between two cottages across the alley, an early May breeze blew across her face. Something was invading the waters of her ocean. Her mother before her had been the sea witch in charge of taking care of these coastal waters. Ella had inherited the position when her mother and father were called by Poseidon to protect the Bering Sea. “Time is of the essence. Poseidon doesn’t want government agencies involved, or other marine biologists. He’s got his reasons for believing an immortal is responsible. This problem is for me to solve and time is running out. Whatever RTB-1 is will reach our shore eventually if not stopped.”

    She crossed her arms over her chest, and turned back to Hettie. “Commercial fishermen protested the loudest, and I understand fishing is their livelihood. But if fish are unhealthy, should anyone be eating them? All the mothers agreed to not let their kids swim or wade for two weeks.”

    “Do you think you can find an answer by then?”

    “I don’t know. I hope so.” Her stomach clenched. “Do you think what’s happening in to ocean is something our coven should look into?”

    Hettie walked closer and put her arm around Ella. “I think you need to call on your resources. You are a Sea Witch, none of us are. We can help you on land, but water is your domain. Have you contacted James? Or Mischell? Maybe one of them could do some investigating for you?”

    “You’re right. Of course, I’ll contact James.” A fluttering in her chest made her realize she wasn’t alone. She had her familiar, James the octopus—the Coastal Coven and her laboratory. She’d find the answer.