Shade by Cody Stewart Genre: Ya Paranormal
Clendon Kiernan has always preferred the shadows. A place where he was free from the hate and fear, from the stares and ridicule of others. One night Clen discovers the shocking truth of why. He is a Shade. A thing of darkness. A creature with the ability to shred souls. When a vile whisper tells him to destroy everything around him Clen does the only thing he can. But he cannot run from himself. The darkness growing inside Clen will soon consume him if he does not learn to control it. In his quest to do so, Clen learns that there is an entire world that exists in the shadows of Ellis, a world that has been hidden from him – secret clans with extraordinary abilities, the ghosts of a hidden past, and a war that’s been brewing for millennia. Clen must uncover the true history of Ellis, see through the generations of lies and deceit, and suffer betrayal and heartbreak if he is to save all those who hate and fear him. But when he learns the truth, will he want to? The darkness in him could save Ellis. Or it could be what destroys it.
Excerpt
Chapter 1
It lives in the cramped spaces between
shadows in the rear right side of my brain, just behind my ear. It wanders relentlessly, scratching along the
pink, fleshy walls of my mind with its unkempt fingernails, shouting
obscenities at other thoughts as they travel across lobes and cortexes. It vomits poison and corrupts my mind with
whispers of death. It reminds me how his
blood felt running down the back of my hands.
How my knuckles tore as they raked across his cheekbones. How his tooth cracked loose from his gums and
the muffled gargle as he choked on it.
It laughs and calls me a coward for running away.
The wind rustles through the pines,
dances into my ears, and carries the vile voice away. It’s quiet here. My thoughts are my own.
The fire pops and a fleet of sparks
takes flight, dancing across the night sky.
Fireflies follow suit taking the initiative to investigate the
imposters. I readjust a log when the
fire dims. It roars to life again and illuminates the decayed insides of the
cabin around me. The wooden frame has
long since rotted. The stone floor and sections of the wall are the only signs
that this was once a structure of some sort.
Muren, my Norwegian Elkhound, refuses to
step through the threshold of these ruins, insisting instead to patrol the
perimeter.
I lie back, using my sweatshirt as a
pillow, and watch for hours as the flames dance like springtime wildflowers
until their petals wilt and fall and all burns to ash. The sun peeks over the treetops and reaches
through the canopy with pale fingers of morning light just as the last ember
dwindles.
Time to go home.
Birds chime in the new day like church
bells, but I still feel heavy with the burdens of yesterday. The walk back is a habit now, following the
trail worn by my feet alone. This is a
thick part of the mountain made thicker with countless stories and a dark
reputation. Few dare walk it.
Dad sits on the front porch sipping his
coffee when I step out of the forest and into the yard. He doesn’t look up from the ground as I come
near or shift or show any signs of surprise or anger. “Get inside and get washed up. You’ve got an appointment with Dr. Hague
before school.”
My parents think I’m crazy. Everyone thinks I’m crazy. It’s hard to blame
them, though. I kind of am.
***
The chemical stink of artificial
lavender burns my sinuses. It’s meant to
foster calm and encourage me to share openly, but I can’t get the taste of it
off my tongue.
“What makes you say that, Clen?” Dr. Hague’s voice has padded walls. “What makes you think people fear you?”
The quiver in their lip as they ask me
stupid questions. “I don’t know. Just a
feeling, I guess.”
“Is that why you run away?”
“I don’t run away. I just need to take breaks sometimes.”
“Breaks from what?”
I stare out the window at the passing
school buses and laughing kids with books tucked under their arms. Packs of them, like roving bands of
scavenging coyotes.
Dr. Hague, the school psychologist,
observes me like an anthropologist studying apes in the jungle. He wants to ask
me about the fight with Jefferson Hewlett, but he doesn’t bother. I’ve been seeing him long enough that he
knows I won’t talk about it so soon.
“How are things at home?” Dr. Hague attempts a change in
direction. He’s trying to throw me off
guard.
“Fine.” But I have an impeccable
defense.
“How did your parents react this time?”
“The same.”
“How does that make you feel? That you can run into the woods, disappear
for days, and your parents welcome you back as if nothing happened?” His stare is forceful and constant. I sink
under the weight of it.
“I need to get to class.”
I wash my face as soon as the session is
over, trying to scrub away the smell of therapy before school.
***
I stand still and invisible in the dull,
gray hallways as the horde of apes and coyotes bustles past. They pick fleas
out of each other’s hair and nip at each other’s heels. I stand on the
periphery, hoping they all just pass me by.
One of them veers off course, working
his way through the packs straight toward me. He towers above the rest, the
tallest sophomore in school. He’s broad and blond and has a permanent glint of
mischief in his grayish-blue eyes.
“You’re going, right? I know you have this mysterious loner persona
that you love to project, but this party is going to be epic.”
Oliver Niels seems to be the only
one who’s never felt the need to run from me or throw things at the back of my
head. He’s been my sole friend since
second grade.
“I’m not feeling it tonight, Ollie.”
“You’re never feeling it, Clen. I think you were born without whatever part
of your brain actually feels it. Or
maybe, I saw this special on the Discovery Channel once about a guy who got in
this serious accident, banged his head real bad, and all of sudden spoke in a
British accent. You ever experience any
head trauma? Seriously, if I wasn’t your
friend, you’d never come off the mountain.
You’d be a hermit, grow a huge, gross beard and eat squirrel stew. There’d be legends about you. The Hermit of Mount Bannir – died sad and
alone with squirrel on his breath.”
Ollie’s voice fades away like a
passing echo when I have to venture into the horde to get to class. Cologne and scented body lotions coat my
nostrils, and my throat closes from the olfactory assault. The chatter grows to an indecipherable roar
of voices that crashes down around me like a relentless wave. Ollie’s voice sounds far away, like he’s
yelling at me from the beach as I’m dragged out to sea.
A thick mane of black hair slaps me
in the face as it passes. The sweet,
natural smell of it lingers. I meet one
set of eyes among the hundreds swarming like bees around me. As pure and green as the first leaves of
spring. The deafening roar dulls to
gentle whisper.
Temporarily blinded by the rare
shimmer of beauty among the streaked
linoleum and concrete walls, I crash into Silas Conroy, my forehead bloodying
his lower lip.
“The hell, Kiernan?! You looking to get dead?” Silas snarls like a rabid dog, tagging the
wall with red graffiti. His black hair
is shaved on the sides, giving him a short Mohawk. His left ear is mostly missing, just bits of
jagged scar tissue. His eyes are dark
and shallow.
Something hisses in the base of my
skull. It’s a cold tickle, a drop of ice water that flows down the length of my
spine. But it’s still quiet enough that I can ignore it.
“Easy, Silas.” Ollie steps forward to shield me as I pick up
my books. “It was an accident.”
“Protecting him is an accident,
Niels. You should side with your own
people.”
“You aren’t any kind of people I would
claim as my own.”
“I still owe you big for what you did to
Jefferson,” Silas snarls at me. “Your
bodyguard won’t always be around to protect you, Kiernan.” He cackles like a
hyena as he saunters off.
Ollie lifts me off the floor like he
always does.
The beautiful green eyes disappear among
the horde.
***
Lunch is a wretched ordeal as usual. I slide my tray along the counter, the lunch
ladies looking on like hair-netted prison guards. They heap scorn on my plate,
piled high atop a mountain a gritty mashed potatoes.
Kids stack their books in empty seats as
I pass. I know I’m not welcome at any of their tables. They all know I’d never
dare attempt to be in their company, they do it anyway, every day, just to make
it painfully clear. There’s a small table in the back corner, by the garbage
cans and emergency exit. It smells and the bitter wind howls through the doors
in the winter. That’s where I sit.
I eat fast so I can leave before the
rest. If I’m here when they scrape their plates, I’m likely to end up with
creamed corn all over the front of me. The lunch monitors herd us out the side
doors to the athletic field to mill about for a mandatory twenty five minutes
of fresh air. I shove my hands in my sweatshirt pockets and head straight for
the tree by the road. I sit in its shadow, hidden from the late spring sun and
the spiteful sneers of my peers.
The crowd immediately divides in
two. Half of the field is black hoodies,
gauged ears, and work boots – kids from the Pines. The other half is skinny jeans, nice watches,
and gelled hair – kids from the Village.
They’ve hated each other for as long as I can remember. Not just the kids either. Everyone. I don’t live in either neighborhood, which
only means I’m equally hated by both.
Dr. Hague is on monitoring duty
today. He wanders down the center of the
field, scratching his chin and nodding.
He starts for me, knowing I spend this time under my tree and not among
my peers as he prescribed, but thankfully, thinks better of it. Being seen with the school shrink would do
nothing to improve matters. Instead he makes for a tight circle of kids on the
Pines side of the field emanating the faint smell of cigarette smoke.
As I watch him scold and lecture, a rock
hits my shoe. I don’t need to look up to know who it is.
“What do you want, Silas?”
“You’ve got debts, Kiernan. First, you
lose it on Jefferson. The kid damn near
choked on his own tooth. Then you bloody
my lip because you’re too stupid to watch where you’re going. Time to
settle. And Ollie ain’t here to save
you.”
“Leave me alone.”
“No, I don’t think I’m gonna do
that.” Silas grabs me by the collar and
rips me from the pleasant shadow.
The whisper in my head becomes a harsh
cry, demanding that I retaliate. I try to take steady, even breaths, to keep my
heart beating a normal rhythm. Dr. Hague
said that will keep me calm. Then my feet leave the ground, and I’m weightless
for half a second before crashing back to earth. All my calming breath is forced from my
lungs. The harsh cry becomes a vicious growl.
A circle quickly forms around us. Kids from the Pines and the Village alike
gather to watch my humiliation. I’m the great unifier.
Pressure builds behind my eyes. Dr. Hague says I just need to
concentrate. I can’t let it control me.
“What?
You aren’t gonna go all ape nuts on me like you did Jefferson?”
“You’ve got anger issues, Silas. I know a good shrink who could help you out
with that.”
Silas cocks his arm back, ready to split
my skull with a wicked punch.
“Enough,” a commanding voice
orders. Dr. Hague pushes his way through
the circle. “Everyone inside now! Silas, to the principal’s office. Clen.” He shakes his head, sad and
disappointed. “Get to class.”
***
I’m the only passenger on my bus. The school repurposed a utility van
specifically for me. Kids point and
chuckle when I get on, but their voices die when the door closes. The drive is quiet.
I stare mindlessly out the window as we
drive through town. Ellis is a boring,
little hole in the world carved out of mountain and forest. It’s bordered in the north by the Tear of
Heaven, a massive glacial lake and surrounded on the other three sides by the
Moreau Mountains. Town is divided in
half by the River Skye, which flows from the Tear of Heaven all the way down to
Hudson City – Lakeside Village on the East, everything else on the West.
The engine groans and sputters as we
climb Mount Bannir. Sal, the bulbous
driver who smells of beef jerky, curses his misfortune at drawing the short
straw of school bus routes. He pulls to
a stop at the end of my driveway, a dirt road that seems to have no end. It twists and turns until it is swallowed by
the dark of the dense forest. Sal won’t
drive in there. He dismisses me with a guttural grunt.
I’m thankful for the walk. The forest
swallows the light and, with it, all the anxiety that’s built up in the back of
my mind over the course of the day.
“How was therapy?” Mom asks as she
slides dinner in the oven. Dad suddenly
shifts uncomfortably and hides his head in the fridge.
“Fine.”
Mom stiffens. Her hands become tightly
clenched fists inside her oven mitts.
“That’s all I’m ever going to get from you, isn’t it?”
“I need to take a shower.”
“Safe to say you’re grounded,” Mom calls
as I walk away.
“Fine.”
I set my bag in my room, gather some clean clothes and make for the
bathroom. I stop at the top of the
stairs when I hear the hushed whispers.
“We can’t keep doing this, Clark.” Mom’s frantic, on the verge of either yelling
or crying. “He was gone for two
days. Sleeping out in the woods
somewhere. We had no way of knowing whether
he was even alive or not.”
“Muren was with him. He was fine, Sarah.”
“He is not fine. He attacked somebody. And we just send him off to that doctor like
it’s going to fix something. This is not
a problem Dr. Hague can fix.”
“We don’t have any other choice.”
“Yes, we do,” Mom snaps. “If you would just talk to him, tell him…”
“No,” Dad declares curtly. “We made a decision. We need to stick to it.”
Mom’s feet pound angrily on the floor as
she storms off. Dad curses under his
breath.
***
My parents are in bed early. The tense night of passive aggressive
scowling and openly aggressive yelling must have tired them out.
I cautiously open my bedroom window
and scale down the pine tree next to the house.
Ollie is waiting for me at the end of my driveway.
“Well, look at you,” he says as I climb
in the passenger seat. “You showered and
even brushed your hair. If I didn’t know
any better, I’d say you were looking forward to this.”
“You don’t know any better. I couldn’t be looking forward to this any
less.”
“Don’t be such a sad, old man. You might as well slip on some loafers and a
sweater vest, talking like that. Read a
romance novel. Eat a sleeve of saltines. I know deep down somewhere in that dark pit
of despair you call a soul there is a tiny flickering light. And do you know what that light is?”
I immediately regret getting in
Ollie’s car. “No, nor do I care.”
“Youthful exuberance. Passion.
A desire to grab life by its delicates and howl at the moon.”
“I’m not grabbing anything by its
delicates.”
“I’m talking about living!” Ollie throws his arms toward the sky in an
exaggerated, theatrical gesture.
“Tonight you’re going to do some living.
You’re going to talk to pretty girls, maybe tip some things over. You’re going to act reckless and swear and
yell and at no point in the night will you use the word nor. You’re going to act like a real sixteen year
old, not the angst-ridden, chiseled jaws you see on the CW. We’re going to the Raveyard.”
The Raveyard is a local legend. One of the original settlers of Ellis,
Abigail Moreau, lived alone, in the mountains.
One year, crops failed, livestock disappeared, houses burned down,
people dropped dead for no apparent reason.
The townspeople accused her of witchcraft. They marched up there in true angry mob fashion,
pitchforks and torches in hand, and killed her.
They named the mountain range after her.
It was the least they could do, I suppose. Now she’s said to haunt Ellis, looking to
exact her ghostly revenge. The Raveyard
is a large clearing in the woods where Abigail was said to bury her victims. Now it’s a place to party.
“Whatever.” I hunch down in my seat
and pull my hood over my head. Let’s
just get this night over with.”
“That’s the spirit.”
The Raveyard is only a few minutes
away from my house, in the foothills of Mount Bannir. Ollie turns down an old logging trail that
empties into the large clearing, slowing to a crawl as his car jostles over
roots and rocks and holes in the ground.
I take one long, deep breath, like it’s my last taste of air before
diving deep to the ocean floor, and get out of the car. The infinite weight of the sea presses down
on me. I cling close to Ollie. He’s my only lifeline, my only source of
oxygen while navigating the dark trenches so far below.
The heat of their stares pales that
of the raging bonfire. The salty sea
water is like acid on the burns. I’m so
distracted by the pain that I don’t notice the riptide until I’m already caught
up in it. I reach back for Ollie, but
he’s pulled in a different direction, one with straight black hair, eyes that
smile and skin like the failing light of morning. I’m churned and battered against craggy shore
as the sharks circle round. My lungs
burn and scream. My head fills with plankton
and algae that feed off the soft tissue of my brain. I’m spit out the other side, gasping and
broken.
I collapse against a tree and cling
to it, desperate for a new lifeline. The
smell of the smoke, pine, and birch fill my nose. The crackle of the kindling as it splits and
burns rings like a song in my ears. I
run my hands across the rough bark, tracing each crack with my fingers. Its sap sticks in the hair on my knuckles. I picture the perfect green eyes that passed
too quickly. Eventually, the sound of
voices fades away. The stink of cologne
and anxiety disappears. The world
disappears.
“Are you sleeping? We’ve been here, like, ten minutes and you’re
sleeping against a tree. Have you even
tipped anything over yet?”
“Ollie, can we just…” As I slowly
open my eyes, reluctant to let the world back in, I see that he isn’t
alone. The girl that pulled him to a
different shore smiles kindly, her soft, dark eyes beaming from behind her
raven bangs.
“This is Suzume Akamura,” Ollie
declares with an oafish smile. “Su, this
is Clendon Kiernan.”
“Hey,” I choke out, recognizing her
from school. She’s a freshman.
“Hi.” Her voice is smooth and steady. “How’s it going?”
“Umm, good?” I reply, cautious and
confused. Ollie glares at me, silently
demanding I be cool.
Su fidgets with her hands. “I’ll be right back. I need to let my friends know where I
am.” She disappears around the other
side of the fire, her steps gaining more confidence the further away from me
she gets.
Ollie pinches the bridge of his nose
and shakes his head in exasperation.
“Could you be any more awkward?
It only takes you two words to send someone scurrying away. You’ve talked to other people beside me
before, right?”
“She’s from the Village. I thought you kids from the Pines weren’t
allowed to talk to them.”
“I can talk to whoever I want.”
“Hey, it’s your feud. I just don’t want to go out like Mercutio.”
“Who?”
“Romeo’s best friend. Got killed because of the Capulet-Montague
feud? We read it last year in
English.”
Ollie shrugs.
“How do you pass classes?”
“Charm.”
A familiarly raven-haired boy
marches toward us from the edge of the Raveyard. He’s thin and wiry. He’s a junior, I think. His dark eyes are like empty holes in his
head.
“Where is she?” he demands. “Where is Su?”
I lean in close to Ollie’s ear so
only he can hear me. “See? This is what I’m talking about. I’m not dueling anyone.”
“Hey, Yori. Su is around somewhere.” Ollie scans the
crowd with his hand to his brow, like a sailor taking stock of the sea.
“Stay away from my sister,
Niels.” Yori doesn’t seem to mind that
he barely comes up to Ollie’s shoulder.
He puffs out his chest and huffs authoritatively.
Ollie leans back casually with his
hands tucked in his pockets, impressively letting Yori’s obnoxious commands
roll off him. Others aren’t so passive.
“Problem?” Brian Till, a boy from
the Pines, steps forward. Till rivals
Ollie in size, but has none of his restraint.
“None of your business,” Yori spits.
“I think it is,” Till growls and
crosses his arms, threateningly flexing every muscle he can.
Others gather around, anticipating
bloodied knuckles and broken faces. The
crowd erupts, hurling curses and insults like monkeys with their own
feces.
The capillaries in my eyes pulse
with steadily building intensity. The
pressure pushes outward on the fissures in my skull. The rumbling voices bleed together and fade
away. The hateful whisper in my head is
the only sound in the world.
I hum a song to drown it out, but it
devours the music like a rabid dog. I
try to push it out my ears, scrape it off my tongue, swallow and digest
it. But it won’t quiet. I step back from the crowd and dissolve in
the darkness at the edge of the forest.
It wraps around me like a snug blanket.
I run and let my feet take me where they want to go.
The whisper soon quiets, and I hear
the crickets and cicadas and the crunch of the ground beneath me. The soft plodding of my feet on dirt and
leaves turns to the course grinding of crushed stone. I’ve stepped into another clearing. My stomach tightens and twists in knots, and
the hairs stand up on the back of my neck as a cold shiver runs down my spine. A haunting and familiar feeling creeps over me,
like a wave of spiders. The core of me
goes cold. Every breeze is a whisper
telling me to leave. Every little noise
is the ground telling me it doesn’t want me here.
The moon creeps out from behind some
clouds, illuminating the jagged tree line at the far end of the clearing to
show that it’s not trees at all. It is
the charred husk of an old house. The
roof has collapsed. Only small sections
of the walls are still standing.
Everything inside is cinder and ash.
“Clen? Where’d you go?” Ollie calls
from behind me. “Sorry about this,” he
says quietly to someone else. “I think
he’s got a touch of Social Anxiety Disorder or something.”
“Sorry about my brother,” Su
replies. “He’s a jerk.”
They stumble out of the forest. Yori follows close after, still making
demands.
There’s something strange about this
place – something both comforting and terrifying at once. My brain is adrift in a pool of déjà vu. It feels like I exist in two worlds at the
same time, and, with each blink of my eyes, I am transported from one to the
other. I am standing in an eerie
clearing in the middle of the woods, terrified out of my mind. Blink. I’m playing at a home I know well,
comfortable and safe. Blink.
I exchange unpleasant, untrusting looks with people I’ve just met. Blink. I’m surrounded by friends as close as
family. Blink. Darkness. Everything is covered in darkness and
fear. Blink. The fear swims in
their eyes, now just black, empty orbs. Blink.
Emptiness.
I flash from one world to the other
so fast that I lose track of which one is real, which one is mine.
Like there’s a rope tied around my
insides, I’m pulled toward the house.
The icy feeling in the center of my chest spreads throughout the rest of
my body, chilling my blood and bones to the marrow. I stumble a few yards from the wreckage,
tripping over an unseen object. A
Nintendo DS. I pick it up and a current
of electricity shoots up my arm. My
muscles spasm, and a vivid scene of anguish flashes through my mind like a bolt
of lightning.
The world around me changes. The house is whole again. A young boy stands in front of it. Veins pulse violently in his neck as he
screams from the very pit of his soul.
Tears stream down his cheeks, but evaporate before they reach his
chin. Then the world erupts in fire, and
ash blots out the sun. The boy disappears,
swallowed in flame. As the world I know
returns, I find myself screaming for the boy, reaching out for him.
Ollie rushes to my side, again offering
a hand to lift me off the ground. “He’s
freaking out. We need to get out of
here.”
The fires burn hotter behind my eyes.
“No,” Yori says. “We need to get out of here. You two need to stay away from us. He’s clearly insane, and I don’t trust you.”
Hot flames dance on my skin and
smoke fills my lungs. The smell of
blistering flesh sets acid churning in my stomach.
I feel death in the air. Cold.
Absolute. It’s inside me,
scratching at the lining of my stomach, clawing its way out. The beating inside my skull grows faster and
stronger, like a dozen horses racing around a track, feet and hearts pounding.
They round the last turn. Their muscles
explode like gunfire. Pound, pound, pound. The animal sounds mix in a chaotic symphony
of noise and agony that crescendo as they reach the finish line. Pound,
pound, pound.
It whispers in my head. A vile hiss from a wretched little snake.
Kill them.
About the Author
Cody was born in Upstate New York. Eventually setting off to seek his fortune, he worked in a paper mill, a whipped cream factory, cleaned apartments, and administratively assisted several organizations before returning to the Adirondacks with a wife and child that he picked up along the way. He approaches life as though it were a page – frequently rearranging paragraphs to make it more interesting if not wholly true, fudging with the margins to fit more in, and, sometimes, erasing entire sections altogether. When not altering reality, he is scouring comic book shops, lying on the ground, or floor (whichever he happens to be standing on when he feels the need to go horizontal), trying to convince his wife to make french toast (she makes amazing french toast), and searching for the darkest cup of coffee in existence.
Interview:
Please welcome Shade author Cody Stewart to Diane's Book Blog.
What is your favorite part of the story, Shade?
The relationships. I love exploring how these characters act with each other, how they react to their circumstances, how those circumstance alter their relationships. And superpowers. Take some father/son tension, add a dash of super rage and hulk strength and discover what happens.
How long did it take you to write Shade?
I began writing Shade over five years ago, at my desk, at work while I was supposed to be working (the work they paid me to do, anyway). My coworkers were very confused at how busy I seemed to be all the time. My fake dedication to my job helped me get promoted so I wasn’t able to fake work/real write anymore. I had to actually work. It was the worst. I got about halfway through Shade and stopped. I was lucky enough to land a super boring desk a year later and started the whole thing from scratch.
If you were stranded on a desert island which of your characters do you want by your side?
Ollie would be handy at mercilessly slaughtering wild animals. Aidan would be good for building fires, but he’s kind of a psychopath. Wyn could probably fly me right off the island, but he’s a bit of a d-bag. I’d sat Amy. In an early draft of Shade, there’s a scene where she makes the most amazing peanut butter and banana pancakes. It’s unlikely we’d find those ingredients on a desert island, but just knowing the skills were there would give me hope.
If you could be best friends with one of your characters, who would it be?
Ollie is partially based on my best friend so I’d have to choose him. Our dynamic is very much like that of Clen and Ollie - he draws me out of my mind cave whereas, alone, I’m likely to spend all day in there eating gummy bears and binge watching Boy Meets World. Although, we do that when we’re together also.
What inspired you to write your first book?
I couldn’t really tell you. I remembering sitting at my desk, and a story just started pouring out of my fingers. I hadn’t thought about writing a book before then. It happened very suddenly, and it hasn’t stopped.
What is your favorite book that you wrote?
Shade, as it is the only book I’ve written so far. But I suspect my fourth book will be my favorite book that I will write. It’s going to be so good.
Who or what inspired you to be a writer?
This quote from Brian Michael Bendis, legendary comic book writer, in Words for Pictures: the Art and Business of Writing Comics says it better than I can. “You’re writing because there are these voices in your head. Not the scary kind, but voices, images, scenes, all telling you a story that you feel compelled to push out into the world...You’re writing because you’re the kind of person who has a really hard time expressing yourself unless you’re writing...It’s when you write, and only when you write, that you feel like a normal human being. It’s writing that let’s you have a normal rest of the day...You’re a better person around your friends and family when you spend that quality time with yourself. You need that time to figure out who you are and where you belong in the world by writing it down.” I wasn’t inspired to be a writer. I was born to be a writer. But I have been inspired to be what I was born to be.
What books have most influenced your life?
Two months before I graduated from high school I had no firm plans as to what I was doing next. I told everyone I was going to grow a ponytail and travel across the country, which was 25 percent joke and 75 percent actual intention. Everyone treated it like it was 100 percent joke. Except my brother. He gave me a copy of Travels With Charley by John Steinbeck with the following inscription: “I look forward to the next installment - Drivin’ with Baggie.” Baggie was our cat. I did eventually grow a ponytail in a prolonged fit of experimentation, but have yet to travel the country. I did, however, take that book to college where I studied writing, carried it to England for a semester of study, and now, over ten years later, it sits in a place of honor on my bookshelf.
Who is your favorite author and what is it that really strikes you about their work?
Neil Gaiman. It’s amazes me how diverse he is, how many different genres and mediums he works in. Comic books, children’s books, Young Adult Fiction, Fiction. And they all have such unique, powerful voices.
What's your favorite book-turned movie?
Where the Wild Things Are. I rumpused for so long after I watched that.
What is your typical day like?
My son just turned a year old a few months ago, so my days only recently began to show some form of structure that could be called typical. I spend as much time in the morning as I can with my son and wife (and parents and grandmother - we live in a four generation household!) before going to work. From 9:00am to 5:00pm my brain divides in two. One half controls my body, enabling it to perform essential work duties like working a stapler and smiling politely. I retreat into the other half, which looks like the captain’s quarters of an 18th century treasure galleon. From there, I sail the Universe. My brain becomes whole, and I spend as much time with my family as I absolutely can before they go to sleep. Then I start sailing again and recording my adventures.
How do you overcome writer’s block?
Write. Just keep writing. I’m not actually sure I really believe in writer’s block as an almost clinical condition, the way it tends to be discussed. I believe in writer’s fatigue. Sometimes I get tired of writing. I take a break. I come back. I always come back. I can’t not come back. And sometimes I just have to eliminate as many distractions as possible. With ruthless prejudice. Most often that means turning off the computer (did you know you can watch David the Gnome on YouTube?) and putting pen to paper.
Can you share a little of your current work with us?
Absolutely. I’m working on two projects right now. First is the sequel to Shade, titled Beast. Beast further explores Clen’s struggle with his dark nature after the tragic revelations of Shade. It explores all of the characters’ dark sides a bit more and whether or not all of the shattered relationships from Shade are salvageable. Second, I’m developing an ongoing webcomic titled Constant. I worked with Rafael Desquitado, an amazing artist, to create the Shade preview comic book, which is available for free on my website. We liked working together so much that we began developing Constant. At it’s heart, Constant is a story of grief and the very diverging paths that grief can send two parents who have lost their child. Told in the context of alternate dimensions, spaceships, and aliens with handlebar mustaches.
What book are you reading now?
I just finished I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson. So awesome! It’s told with such an amazing, unique voice. It’s not narrated to the reader so much as it is the reader stepping inside the brain of two incredibly interesting, quirky, funny, and endearing characters.
What do you prefer paperback, hardcover, or ebooks?
Paperback. I like having a physical copy to read. I stare at one kind of screen or another for the majority of my day. I’d rather reading be a break from that. And paperbacks hurt less than hardcovers when you’re carrying them in your bag and you slip and fall on it.
Do you have anything specific that you want to say to your readers?
Thank you for sailing with me.
The Giveaway:
$25 amazon gift card combined with a swag package.
The Tour Schedule:
October 31st
SleepsOnTables – Review
November 1st
Suzy Turner, YA Author – Interview
Hope To Read – Promo Post
November 2nd
Archaeolibrarian – I dig good books! – Guest Post
November 3rd
Bella Harte Books – Promo Post
November 4th
YaReads – Interview
November 5th
NaYa Books and More – Promo Post
Fictional Thoughts – Guest Post
November 6th
M&EM Read YA – Review
Diane’s Book Blog – Interview
November 7th
Mythical Books – Guest Post
Becoming Books – Promo Post
November 8th
Cassandra M’s Place – Promo Post
November 9th
Bookworm In Barrie – Promo Post
November 10th
Lisa Loves Literature – Review
November 11th
Mystical Lit Lounge – Review
November 12th
Reading Over Sleeping – Interview
November 13th
WTF Are You Reading? – Promo Post
Reading is My Treasure – Guest Post
November 14th
My Book Chatter – Guest Post
November 15th
Adventures in Writing – Promo Post
November 16th
I Feel the Need, the Need to Read – Review
November 17th
The Caffeinated Booknerd – Promo Post
November 18th
Sleeps on Tables – Interview
All My Book Finds – Review
November 19th
ReadWriteLove28 – Guest Post
Bitches n Prose – Promo Post
November 20th
Imaginative Dreams – Review
A Little Bit of R&R – Interview
November 21st
Blissful Book Reviews – Review
Never Ending Stories – Promo Post
November 22nd
Book Lovers Life – Guest Post
Pandora’s Books – Promo Post
November 23rd
Mindjacked – Review
Fly to Fiction – Guest Post
November 24th
For the Love – Promo Post
November 25th
Just One More Chapter – Review
November 26th
The Book Beacon – Review
November 27th
Mercurial Musings – Review
The Book Cellar - Promo Post
I love the cover!!
ReplyDeleteThis looks like it's going to be an exciting read :)
Thanks so much for being on the Shade blog tour, Diane!!
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Just heard about this book from your blog. Looking forward to getting my hands on it. Thanks so much.
ReplyDeleteCan't wait to read!
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