Ileandra’s June Indie eBook Review: Blood In The Paint

Posted on June 7, 2014 by Ileandra Young

Blood in the paint book cover

Jordanna East

Author: Jordanna East
Title: Blood In The Paint
Genre: MF Thriller Baby!
ASIN: B00JCZLQVQ
‘Jillian Atford is a successful psychologist with a lavish office in Center City Philadelphia…
Lyla Kyle, an accomplished artist, lives a rather quiet life–except for nights when she lures married men into her tangled web and murders them, all in a never-ending quest to avenge her mother…
Jason Brighthouse Jr. is a young Philadelphia police officer who lives in his father’s shadow and is troubled by the constant ridicule that surrounds his ambition…’

Well fuck! I don’t normally swear – I leave that for Raven – but this book made me cry just a tiny bit. And not for the reasons you think. Here we go.

Cover:

five starsI love this cover. Clear, no nonsense font, clever use of the syringe to make the letter ‘I’, the face in the background, the can of paint. There’s a lot of information about the book before you even open it up and that is a difficult thing to do.
I guess my only nitpick is that if I didn’t know what I was getting I wouldn’t immediately think ‘thriller’ from the cover. Then again… I’m a little bored of black with red blood splatters, or sinister men in hats lurking in the shadows beneath a street lamp. So the fact that this is something fresh stops me docking the half star I considered.
Very nice indeed.

Story:

4.5 starsPicking up ten years after the events of Blood In The Past (a prequel novella you don’t have to read but I highly suggest you do!) Lyla, Brighthouse and Jillian have moved on with their lives. All three in extremely different ways, but in a manner that isn’t at all hackneyed or clichéd.
A novel which opens the head of a serial killer, dumps you inside, and locks you there with her. In the dark. Listening to her thoughts. empathising with her, despite the fact that she has done (and continues to do) really horrific things.
There are no slow bits in this novel. Enough space for me to catch my breath, wipe my brow, say ‘phew’ and then the next shocker slaps me to my arse.  There were some quite genuine moments (while reading) of ‘oh my God,’ ‘wait you can’t do that’ and ‘no… no.. nooooooooooooooooooo!’ Fortunately my partner knows I’m a bit nutty so didn’t question me when he realised I had the Kindle in my hand.
As this is the first in a series you expect a cliff hanger and it doesn’t disappoint. The stage is neatly set for the next in the series without leaving you feeling cheated, confused or at a loose end. Another skill.

Characters:

4.5 starsI simultaneously love and hate Lyla. I want to hug her and pet her on the head, followed quickly by a sharp punch and a kick in the teeth. It’s very confusing. Brighthouse had me waving pom poms and throwing confetti the second he started talking and Jillian balanced it all with a blend of frustration and pity for me. Three whole, incredibly real and believable people with problems that pull them apart then slam them together over and over,giving off plenty of sparks as a result.
Some of the surrounding characters weren’t quite so fleshy, but they didn’t need to be as far as I’m concerned. They did the role of a support character perfectly and did so without being forced or shoehorned into where they needed to be.

Overall experience:

five starsFinely edited, excellently formatted, the only excuse I have for putting this book down (the few times I did) was that I needed sleep or to do my own damn work.

Final score:

five starsAverage across all scores comes to 4.75 stars.
Yeah, that’s five stars. I don’t give those out very often using the system, but it’s well deserved in this case.

If you’re unsure if I mean it, let me put it this way…. At one point while reading I uploaded this update to Facebook:

Update on Facebook re reading other indie authors

Yeah…

Not to garner pity or anything like that, but mainly to acknowledge that what was bothering while editing that day wasn’t my problems with the chapter, but the fact that my confidence was shot to all hell by the fantastic piece I was reading. Never mind that I do fantasy and that this is a thriller… my brain needed a rest that day. *shrugs*

Part of me wants to dock a star for that rotten feeling 😛 but obviously I won’t.  I can’t fault the book and I’m looking forward to the next. That’s it. Five stars.

new ileandra signature,

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Writing Process Blog Hop Pt2 – (& Mah Goals – wc 02/06)

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Ileandra Young

Me kitted up for roller derby.

Wooo! Go Roller Derby! 😉

Morning folks!
Hey, we had some sun yesterday; it was great! After all that rain it was lovely to see some blue skies and actually enjoy being outdoors. Not that I did much of that; Sunday is my training day with the Dolly Rockit Rollers and we train on an indoor rink. Ho hum.

Sorry this took so long coming. Raven did her post almost two weeks ago now, but I got distracted by other things. I’m good at that. Anyway, thanks Tom for tagging us; I hope the results have been interesting.

For those of you who missed Raven’s post, this is a blog hop designed to share our writing process around our current WIP. What works, what doesn’t, how we find the little spark that keeps us writing, how we deal with slow days. I’m hoping to tackle all these things in today’s hop, so I hope you’re ready for it. 🙂 Goodie.line break, swirling graphics, from openclipartDo you like my new line break, by the way? The HTML versions suck, so I’ll be using this one from now on. Purdy, huh? Click it to see where I got it. ^_^

Right… anyway…

What Am I Working On?
Walking The Razor’s Edge (WTRE). This is the second novel in the Saar’s Legacy trilogy, the first of which (Silk Over Razor Blades – SORB) is currently with beta readers. I’m hoping to have reader comments back by June 15, but, in the meantime, starting the next thing was the best way I could think of to avoid going crazy with nerves. Because I am bloody nervous.

The Saar’s Legacy trilogy follows Ileandra Young (yes, yes, I know, I will be changing her name following this post, I just haven’t found one that suits yet) and her eventual rise from newborn vampire, afraid of everything, to heavy-weight mover and shaker in the vampire community.
SORB sees her become a vampire and deal with the fallout of what that means to her friendships and relationship with her fiancé, as well as for herself on a personal level. WTRE follows directly on from that first story and sees Ileandra forced to take a more active role in vampire society, managing their expectations of what they want from her as well as what she wants from herself.

How Does My Work Differ From Others of Its Genre?
I want to say ‘strong female character’ but that’s just not true. 1) Plenty of books in the genre now have strong female leads and 2) Ileandra doesn’t start that way. She spends most of SORB whining about how miserable her life is and, by the time she gets to WTRE, though she understands a little more, she’s still overwhelmed and confused.
No, WTRE and the rest of the trilogy is different, mainly because of my take on vampires.

I don’t think it’s too much of a spoiler to tell you; vampires in the Saar’s Legacy trilogy are the product of a pact with the Egyptian god of chaos and nastiness, Set. He gives them life, strength and vitality and in return vampires give him blood tributes. They do this by drinking blood. My vampires take their root in Ptolemaic Egypt and their origin ties in directly with the Battle of Alexandria in which Octavian, Antony and Cleopatra played significant roles. Yes, I’ve taken a little artistic license with the facts of the battle and the relationships between these three people, but, by and large, the history is accurate and my vampires slot in.

My work is also different because its, what I like to call, an in-between story. Many other books of the genre I’ve read, vampires are either known and established in the world as bad guys or good guys. They’re recognised as legitimate dangers, or members of society depending on what books you read. Or vampires are underground and hidden. My story happens between those two; at the start of the trilogy, vampires are a myth or fable not to be believed, by the end of it, the world is forced to acknowledge that these creatures are real and that they need to be dealt with.

There… I don’t think that’s too much of a spoiler. ^_^

Why Do I Write What I Write?
I want to read it. Simple as that. When this trilogy started out, it was a six part monster of shitty writing, in which all the adventures I hoped for as a teenager took place. Now, as a thirty year old, I have a bit more control of my ideas and I’ve spread them out a little, but these are still adventures I want (not literally, obviously). These are still people I want to meet, relationships I want to have.

I’m a writer. I write fiction. I’m one of those most fortunate few who are able to have anything in the world they want… so long as they are willing to write about it.
That’s the main reason.

The other reason is that, when I started, I didn’t see anything like this out in the world. It bugged me. I wanted to share my idea of vampires and their origins because what I’d read to that point hadn’t been satisfactory.
Then Twilight came out. -_-

mouth, tongue sticking out

Credit: nicubunu

Need I say more? I want to show those twi-hard sparkle-pires out there what vampires are really like. I want to show them how a vampire is able to fall in love without being totally pussy-whipped and how a female character (or male for that matter, jeez!) doesn’t have to give up themselves to be part of the world their significant other inhabits.

*shrugs* So yeah… I won’t deny it; on some level this trilogy has become a big nyah-nyah-na-nyah-nyah at Stephanie Meyer (and my 15 year old self who wrote the same sorts of crap). But it’s also just me flexing some imaginary muscle; letting off some steam.

How Does Your Writing Process Work?
With this piece, far more like Raven’s. However, in an effort to avoid repeating her words, I’ll tell you how I used to do it (and how I still do it on a mini level).

I have an idea. A germ. A seed. I don’t write it down in a notebook or record it in a sound file… oooooh no. I sit at my computer, crack open a new project in Scrivener (or in the past, Word) and write. Just… write. I don’t know where I’m going, or how I’m going to get there, only that it’s FREAKIN AWESOME and that I love the journey.
Occasionally I have an idea of the end, or where I want to be. Normally by the time I’m 10k words in I know where I want to finish, but the rest of the route is still unknown.
It’s a bitch to edit later (which is why SORB took so long before I did the rewrite back in November) but that first draft is just… brain vomit. I think it, it goes down, warts and all and I just let my fingers fly on the keys.

Those first drafts are riddled with typos, incomplete sentences, chapters that start in the middle or hang off in the middle of nowhere. They often have massive duplicated sections and then two different versions until they meet up again somewhere in the middle… it’s just a mess.
Then I leave it. I leave it and cry in a corner 1) in relief for getting so many words out of me and purging those demons and 2) because I know eventually I’ll have to fix it.
😉

Then my process looks a lot like Raven’s. I skim read, I fine read, I edit, I re-read. I edit some more. As many times as it takes. Often more than Raven’s stuff because it’s longer and because it was such a mess to start off which.
But I think I have slightly more fun than Raven does. Da Shared Brain gives me a hell of a lot more freedom than she gives Raven. Not sure why. Maybe it will change. For now, however, I just enjoy the ride.

Tag People!
Phew! Ha, that was fun. Okay, done for now. In the same way Raven did, I’d like one person to continue the hop. This time it’s Brian Taylor over at Descent into Slushland. No pressure hon, but if you do fancy taking part, just link back here to let me know. Cheers!line break, swirling graphics, from openclipartOkay. Sorted. Goals now….

Last Week

Edit my flash fiction piece
Hmm. Yeah, that’s a bit embarrassing. Nope.

Resubmit my sci-fi story Love Bytes to another competition.
Nope. *head desk*

Continue working on WTRE, but only AFTER the other goals have been achieved
Kinda… in that I kept working, but well before the other goals. In that I just completely forgot about them. *sigh* This is what happens when I start a new project. I just dive on board so hard that everything else gets left behind.

Nuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!

Yes… this was a real head-desk moment.


In light of this and my upcoming operation, I think I need to change tack.
Maybe I just need to accept that I’m still too excited to concentrate on anything else other than writing this first draft. Maybe in some of my downtime, instead of working on my LARP costume wheee!) I can do those other things. At least then it will be after my daily 2,000 words (so I don’t feel like I’m missing out or slacking off).

This Week

  1. Edit my flash fiction piece
  2. Resubmit my sci-fi story Love Bytes to another competition
  3. Continue working on WTRE
  4. Relax after my op

Yeah. There we go. That should be enough to be getting on with, right?
I know I won’t completely relax after the op; I’ll be lying in bed, still wanting to do things, so if I keep those first two jobs for those points, then at least that’s easier, right?

Heh… that’s what I’m going to tell myself anyway. 😉
new ileandra signature,

Posted in Goals Posts *haha!*, Ileandra's Posts, Silk Over Razor Blades, Walking The Razor's Edge | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Guest Blog: Technology And Writing

Posted on May 31, 2014 by Da Shared Brain

This post is particularly apt, considering what happened to my laptop this week. Fortunately for me and our workload, we’ve been able to get it fixed and (lucky us) sorted out our dead desktop too. It means no food for a month :p but at least it’s done. Maybe I’ll make back those pennies on the books I’m now able to keep working on.

Today’s guest post is from David Gilchrist; a lovely guy for whom I beta read a year or two back. Reading his post makes me wonder how much of Tapasya was written on a tablet or smart phone (:p) but I’ll let him talk about that. I can’t point fingers anyway; I do a lot of recording notes and thoughts on my smart phone these days; it has an excellent voice recording feature with is slowly becoming invaluable.

Anyway… over to you, David. ^_^

Writing is just you and your favourite word processing packing, bashing away for hours on the keys, or finding a million excuses not to, isn’t it? And you better stay away from those gadgets. Once the cute pics of cats have you, that’s another night down the pan….

But can’t your tablet be more than a distraction? Ever thought about using it as a way to write whilst stuck on the train or bus? Even some phones now have screen sizes that allow you to capture your wild imaginings whilst everyone else on the tube tries to block out all the tinny whinings from all the other sets of Beats, by turning theirs up. I’ve managed to batter out 500 words in the passenger seat of a car whilst doing the evening commute. Not recommended if you get travel sick though.

There are many apps available for your phone and tablet: word processing ones to help you capture your ideas (Kingston Office and Writer to name a couple); progress monitors to help keep you on track (NaNoProgress, Writeometer…); dictionaries and thesaurus (Websters etc). Go and have a delve and see what’s there.

And what about where to store your precious work in progress? Sure you save it every half hour/hour/day… but what if you drop your 99th cup of coffee all over your laptop? That’s when you wished you’d backed it up. And these days, backing it up doesn’t mean firing in a floppy disk (yes I am THAT old) and then sending it to your old mum. There’s tons of online/cloud based services for saving your documents securely (Dropbox, Google drive etc etc). Most are free up to several 100s of MBs if not GBs worth of data. Also, these can be synced across all your devices so you always have the latest version of your WIP with you.

An example; for those that like to read on the Kindle, export your WIP to pdf and then email it to your kindle account. Then you can review it and mark it up there!

And talking of versions, what of revision control? Coming from a software background (GEEK ALERT!) I love revision control. Tools like Tortoise SVN allow you to track all the changes you make to your document – compare versions – revert bits of versions. This may seem a bit extreme when it comes to writing, but if you’ve ever made a large change and then wished you hadn’t, have a wee play with them.

But what about my precious hand drawn maps, and my scrapbook of notes that I leave by my writing desk? How can I have them with me when I am out and about, I hear you ask? Take photos! Your smartphone can capture extremely sharp, high res images of all your doodles. These can even be automatically synced with your Dropbox/Google Drive account so that they are available in the same place as your WIP. Also, when you see that thing that inspires your next novel; the run down church, the broken car, the forest on the edge of the lake, then snap away and have them magically whisked away so you can dig them out when your muse has deserted you.

And the best thing about most of these is that they don’t cost a penny (apart from your phone contract of course!). The important thing is to see the potential in your devices and gadgets, rather than just the limitless possibilities for distractions.

Maybe there’s just time for one more clip of a dog on a skateboard….

David is a writer of words, lover of music and designer of electronics. The west coast of Scotland is his home.
Having loved fantasy since first reading The Lord of The Rings he has been devouring the genre ever since. He enjoys sojourns in the lands of horror, thrillers and even (whisper it) non-fiction. But he’ll always find his way back to dragons and magic and fantasy.
Find Tapasya, his debut novel at here or here.

Posted in Guest Blogs | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Raven Rantz No.2 & I Haz Planz 29/05

Posted on May 29, 2014 by Raven ShadowHawk

angry smileyIf you’re not familiar with these, let me explain. Like Smut With Brains, Raven Rantz is another of my brands. I use it when I have something to say. Sometimes positive… often not.
I talk about things that frighten me, anger me, amuse me, enliven me, excite me, pleasure me 😉 More often than not, these things are excuses for me to swear a lot (excuses I happily and readily accept) but I’m trying to tell you something too.

So… first world problems.
Fuck that phrase. Fuck it all and the snotty, self-righteous people who come out with ‘There’s people starving in Africa,’ or more recently, ‘There’s people dying in Ukraine/Libya/Syria.’

How dare you belittle my problems? Why should they be any less valid than yours? Just because, in the grand scheme of the universe, my problems are small and actually not all that important, doesn’t mean they aren’t important to me.

My sons in Huggies boxes

Because… y’know… you would climb in boxes if you could still fit. :p

Last night I picked up Sprog2 so he could have a go at switching off the bedroom light. His twin brother (Sprog1) went ape-shit and screamed for ten minutes because he didn’t get a chance to do the same. This morning, without thinking, I gave Sprog1 the pink cup for his milk instead of the purple one. He didn’t give a crap, but Sprog2 sobbed until I swapped them over. Because HIS cup is purple and he can’t possibly drink out of a pink cup because that’s not his.
Would anybody call this a ‘first world problem?’ Would any of you shake your heads, cut sideways glances at my two year old sons and tell them; ‘Cheer up. At least you don’t live in Ukraine’? Or would you tell them ‘At least you don’t live in a cardboard box’?

No. You wouldn’t.
Though if you would… please don’t tell me, as I doubt I’ll be able to control my reaction.

Children are the purest, clearest indicator of base human nature. They act in a simple way, because they haven’t yet had the time to learn boundaries, social norms and enforced expectations. They are genuine. And because of this, they’re allowed to enjoy whining about their problems without being made to feel guilty.

Lucky sods.

Earlier this week my laptop broke. If you’re reading this post, it’s because I’ve either fixed it or found a way to get around the problem. But I’ve not been able to work so far this week. All my current work is digital so even if I was working by hand it would be something completely new.
So… I’ve been in a mega shitty mood all week.

Quotes for the repair range from £50 all the way up to £105 (something like $185 for you guys across the water). I don’t have that money. Everything we have goes on food and bills and we have to be careful even with that.
The Funk Master works, I don’t – unless you count the books I’m working on.
And… before it comes up; I stay home with the boys, thus saving us the expense of childcare. An expense that would have utterly consumed my previous monthly wage. Yes – I’ve worked it out. Believe me. I checked (again and again and again).

So my laptop broke. My first world luxury that allows me not only to work, but to play games, enjoy films and listen to music. Didums.
But, the Universe tells me this is a ‘first world problem’. That I should be grateful I have a roof over my head, food and friends and an awesome family. That I should stop whining and just deal with it.

Well… screw you, Universe!

single finger saltue

Credit: liftarn

I can’t walk the half mile into the city centre with dodging three requests for ‘spare change.’ As if there is such a thing any more. I pass men and women huddled up in doorways against the rain, wearing stinking clothes and tugging grubby fingers through hair so dirty and matted, it resembles a small dead animal.
I turn on the TV (oh! another luxury) and hear nothing but reports of death, flood victims, asylum seekers, job cuts, murders and rapes.
I see that every day. I see it, take it in, and feel it.
So believe me… I know how lucky I am as I sit in my comfortable chair, in a warm coffee shop, drinking a chai latte bought for me by The Funk Master. I’m already thinking of the full roast dinner I’ll cook tonight, though part of me cringes at the thought of spending my last £2 (until who knows when) on some green veggies to go with it.
I could have been born in any number of places, in a completely different time. A time where I wasn’t allowed to love a white man. A time or place when my sexuality would get me stoned. A place where my desire to learn, work, read and grow would see me strangled in my sleep.
I’m very, very lucky. I know that full well and I thank the Universe for it every day.
I’m rich. Hell, set against a large portion of the world population I’m considered incredibly wealthy.

But… don’t for a second think that makes my problems any less worthy of my time and attention.
Yes. MY time. You (universal you) don’t care about my problems. Why would you; you have your own. And I’m sure that they consume you in different ways and that you’ve come up with your own methods of dealing with them. But does that make your problems less important than mine? Less valid? Does this difference in any way affect the fact that for you (or me) our problems (big or small) are real and worrying/annoying/frightening/painful/depressing/demoralising, whatever?

No. It doesn’t. Because all problems are relative.

So please; stop trying to make me feel guilty over my ‘first world problem.’ Do that, and I promise not to call you up on the fact that you’re whining over missing your 14 day Caribbean cruise because you had to re-mortgage your six bedroom house after one of your three Lamborghinis got stolen. You know… the one with your brand new ipod in the glove compartment. -_-

Ha /rage.

For ages I wasn’t sure if I should post that or not. Now that I have, I think I’ll just leave it here and let it sit, reminding me of how irrational I can be once a month. 😉 You know… when the chocolate runs out.

GOALS! Let’s get back on track. This week has been a slow one. With one thing and another all adding up, I didn’t quite get as much done as I was hoping. But I’m not sure what else I was hoping to do because I achieved everything in my list. o.O
That’s weird, right? Beating myself up because I’ve done everything I wanted to do? Seriously, what the hell?
That’s not a first world problem, that’s a writer-who-doesn’t-cut-herself-enough-slack problem. *sigh*

Last Week

Keep hammering at those Slippers & Chains edits. My target is another five chapters; going through one a day is realistic and gives me space to keep going if I have the time.
Well I did it. Ha! I did it All those beta edits are done and, bar the formatting, the novella is ready to send to Breathless Press. It feels like it’s been a long time coming and I’m so scared right now I could choke.
Part of me wonders if this is why I’ve taken so long to get on with it. Is the idea of potential rejection so much that I can’t handle it?

My guess is that in the past when submitting (myself or Ileandra) we’ve been sending something we didn’t quite have the faith in. So it didn’t matter if nobody took up our words because we could always do better.
This time I know I’ve done everything I can. With my current level of skill and knowledge, Slippers & Chains isn’t going to get any better than it is. I need to learn more and grow more before I can improve it. So this time if it’s not taken up, it’s a much bigger blow.

Ugh. Thinking about it that way makes me want to pack it into a drawer and leave it there forever.
I’m not going to do that. Obviously.
I remember the promise I made to you guys, months ago. It seems like a very long time ago now, that I told you Slippers & Chains would soon be available for you to read in full. I don’t like to break my promises. And there’s no reason why I should.
If Breathless Press don’t want the piece, there are two other small presses I have in mind. If they don’t want it, then I have Little Vamp Press. If it’s good enough for the Meeting Each Other series, it’s good enough for this.

Find the name of that LGBTQ Literary Festival in Notts and book on. It’s in June (I think) so I need to hurry up and remember what it’s called, so I can make sure I have train tickets.
It’s the Bold Strokes literary festival. I met these guys at States of Independence last year and this year actually. They’re lovely, and one of the places I’m considering sending Slippers & Chains to if Breathless, pass on it. I’m not sure it’s exactly the sort of thing they publish – I need to look through more of their catalogue – but there’s no reason not to try. However there is an issues with my ability to visit the festival next week:

I’ve finally got the date for my surgery. I’ve not talked about it much, but I need to have a cyst on one of my ovaries removed before it gets any bigger (WAH!) and that’s happening next Wednesday.
I’m bricking it, I’m afraid, but distracting myself (with varying success) with thoughts of what I want to do with myself in the time I’m laid up and how I can still help run the house. It does mean, however, that I won’t be going to the festival after all; I may well still be in hospital.

I’m not sure what that means for me as a blogger, but it does me that relaxing will be forced on me, whether I want it or not. I’m not sure how they’ll have to open me up since I have caesarian scar tissue in the area they’ll want to be working on. I’m hoping for key hole surgery, but I’m not holding my breath. -_-

Either way, Ileandra or I will let you know how it goes, but it does mean that goals will be a little light on the ground going forward.

So….

This Week

  1. Make the necessary preparations to send Slippers & Chains to Breathless Press.
  2. Send Slippers & Chains to Breathless Press.
  3. RELAX!

That’s it for now. Have a good week, enjoy the sun (if we get any) across the weekend and I’ll (hopefully) be with you this time next week.

On Saturday, as it’s the 5th one of the month, we have a guest post lined up from the awesome David Gilchrist. I’m sure he’ll look after you. 🙂

Yep. That’s it. Enjoy your evening.

Raven's Signature In Black

Posted in Goals Posts *haha!*, Raven Rantz, Raven's Posts | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments