Siren Call

An early first draft of something I've been playing around with this evening. I know that I have set it after the events of 'Lost Glory', but not decided whether it is going to be part of the sequel. Depends how well received it is, I suppose. Please bear in mind it is a very early draft, so miles to go with it yet. Anyway, let me know what you think...

Siren Call.

The subtle glow from a candle on each circular table threw its bright shade over the darkness. Where the light flickered, small snatches of gold and sequins pinched at the air, before retreating into the shadows. An odd sense of anticipation seemed to hum in the air; strange for such a small venue, Faye thought.

Taking a sip of her tonic water, she reclined back in her seat, her eyes darting from face to face. Each one locked into an animated conversation. A cacophony of buzzing chatter, a seamless harmony of excitement and plans. Switchblade smiles were painted onto their edged faces.

At the front of the collection of tables stood a small platform, raised less than two feet off the sticky ground. A solitary stool was placed in the middle of a deflated black stage. Bedraggled maroon curtains hung limply at each side of the stage, remnants of the old theatre the space had once been. Faye had never been  to ‘The Wreck’ before, though she had heard rave reviews, particularly of its monthly ‘Open Mic’ night. It had seemed like the perfect place to meet. Neutral. Non-threatening. Public.

And he was supposed to be here half an hour ago.

The fact that he was late didn’t surprise her. It was his default setting. To make her wait around for him. He made her impatient. Briefly, she glanced at her phone.

Vacant.

When the remaining lights around the stage dipped and a single cylindrical shimmer descended on the tiled noir floor, she had given up hope that he was going to show. A few months ago, this might have provoked an emotional response. A tightening of the gut. Tears. Despair. There was not a remote possibility of that now. It was over. She was over. He was dead to her…

Absent-mindedly, she twirled a chocolate brown strand of brown hair into a spiral around her finger. When the blonde peroxide had been stripped from her hair, it had felt like a cleansing. An exorcism of a part of her that clung on inside begging to be heard. It nagged at her still, haunted her even, but she was hardly going to allow it to plague her night. Just to satisfy a ghost of what had once been.

The thump of a drum and the upbeat jangle of an acoustic guitar lifted the air and provided a window of light in the darkness. Until that point, she hadn't even realised that the band had started to play. It made sense to stay, to hear them out, to escape the familiar barbs of home. It would be the same as every night now was. Her mother’s anxiety, her friends’ interrogation, the haunting voice of regret taunting her late into the cold night…

This was going to require something stronger than tonic water.

Turning her back on the appreciative crowd, she made her way to the empty bar, fumbling in her purse for what remained of her 24 hours. A flimsy, fake ID, matching her own flimsy, fake sense of self. Tapping her foot along to the infectious rhythm, she flashed the ID at the non-plussed bar man and downed the amber liquid in one mouthful. Placing the glass back on the bar’s edge, she ordered another one.

When the sound of polite applause resounded against the slick grey of the walls, signalling the end of the first act, Faye was five shots down and counting. Her blood felt ignited now, the liquor blazing through her veins. Instinctively she knew it, she wanted to dance. A hazy sweep of the room told her that there was little chance of her wish being granted here.

Faye reached the door and inhaled a sharp intake of iced air. The shiver that trembled down her spine took her completely by surprise, mostly because it wasn't prompted by the air. It was the melancholic chords of a guitar brushing and soothing the hushed atmosphere.

That voice.

To call it velvet wouldn't do it justice. Velvet was smooth, unruffled, blameless. This sound was more like…she groped for the word…taffeta. Ruched, uneven, ridged. The words were emotions. The emotions were words. Inseparable.

When her feet moved back to their old seat, they almost seemed to be levitating above the ground. There was no reason. No choice. Like her body was on an intangible cord. Like that golden thread was being extracted all over again.

Sitting obediently in her chair, the wick of each candle was so low now it seemed only an ember remained. Just a spark, but enough to direct her submissive eyes to the stage. To illuminate the reason her skin was crawling with desire. He sat there, posture relaxed, his guitar cradled to him almost as if it was a natural extension of himself. His tousled brown hair hung low over his eyes, and they were directed downwards, focused only on the flex and coil of each string when his fingers plucked them. Faye felt her cheeks blush, as if she were intruding on something personal. Feeling that unnatural pull exerting its hold over her, she felt herself leaning forward, her elbows on the table, her eyes glazing over. When he briefly tore his eyes away from the sharp smoothness of the guitar strings, and the drenched blue pool of his irises met hers, she knew she was supposed to look away. That her heart was a traitor. But the melody erased the guilt. His seductive smile erased whatever was left of her soul.

As the song progressed, the lyrics ebbed and flowed from his honeyed lips like waves upon the shore. Each word caressed lovingly by his tongue. Each word meant for her.

A siren call. A hidden warning.

A fool’s promise. A new day dawning.

            When the song came to a close, she watched the people around her clap nonchalantly, as if they were watching someone else. Detached. Disjointed. She wanted to shout, to scream, to shake them one by one until they felt an ounce of the flood of feelings she felt now. But they didn't see it, and a small tinny voice at the back of her mind didn’t see it either. An insignificant mumble that something wasn't right. That she should leave…

            Pulling herself to her feet, she made her way back to the bar, desperate for a glass of water and some fresh air to clear her busy mind. The frosty burn of her skin where someone’s hand lingered on her wrist forced her body to turn to a slender frame. Fitted jeans and checkered shirt. A taffeta voice.

            ‘Come with me.’ A command, not a question. Her muscles moved on cue to follow him into the dim light ahead. Tonight she was his puppet, and he was pulling all her strings…

Re-drafted Prologue

Based on the invaluable feedback of my target audience book group, I have made a couple of changes to the Prologue of the novel below. What do we think of the new version? Is it better?

Prologue

‘Hell hath no limits, nor is circumscribed 
 In one self-place; for where we are is hell, 
  And where hell is, there must we ever be.’

(Doctor Faustus. Christopher Marlowe.)

Hell isn’t what people say it is. I remember going to ‘Sunday School’ when I was younger and being told that it was heat, pain, fire and torture. They got it half right.

Hell isn’t under the ground either. In the films, you see zombie-like arms pushing through the ground as a screaming victim is dragged down to its murky depths. It isn’t like that either; more like stepping into the next room, albeit a room that you didn’t know existed. A flash of ultraviolet light. A portal in the air. A living portal. One which moves and swells, swallowing up the room around you, swallowing up you.

When the hour struck and he came to retrieve me, a ferocious cold snapped at me. I thought my bones would shatter into a million fragments, and then slip through my fingers like gold dust. Tentacles of ice slithered and snaked their way around my ankles, my wrists, my neck… Where each feeler grasped at my skin, obsidian crystals began to form. Tiny clusters of these grain-like crystals meandered their way over my limbs, tracking the veins as they ruthlessly made their way to my heart. I didn’t scream and wail, like I should have. The contract had been signed in my tears. I had made the deal. I was his.

An ashen blue flicker. I know; you would expect reds and oranges and yellows, flames which lick at the carbonated air, emanating blasts of heat and sending plumes of smoke into the atmosphere. The mixture of blues, purples and silver fog the air, creating a dull sheen between your eyes and what is in front of you. The mist is the only thing down there to remind you that you can breathe at all, even if the air itself is clammy and scented like maple syrup. Scented like death.

When he took my shaking hand and led me deeper into the cavernous tunnels ahead of us, I was not afraid.  I knew what I had signed up for and the surprising thing was, I wanted it.  My feet scraped over hard rocks and debris on the ground and where the mist was thickest around my feet, I felt a tickling sensation.

Surprisingly, hell is not dark. Like the brightest of all angels who created it, its incandescent light filled the tunnels as we ventured into them. A light so blinding, it made it impossible to see what was ahead, or what you had left behind. We suddenly came to an abrupt halt and he turned around. Taking both hands in mine, he brushed his thumb across my palm and I shivered.

When he looked into the depths of my eyes and told me it was time, I allowed it to happen. I wanted it. I needed it. I wasn’t dragged down to hell; I volunteered.

Writing Playlist

So I discovered that my love of music not only manifests itself in my house/car/office at work to help me concentrate. Music also played a massive part in writing. There were certain parts of the book where I was struggling to put the emotion I wanted into words and music really helped put me in the right mood/frame of mind.

I've split the playlists down into the two main protagonists. Each song relates to a key part of the novel, and once the book is out and about, I'll let you know which bit correlates to each part.

Faye.

Angels-The xx
Cosmic Love-Florence and the Machine
Make Me Wanna Die- The Pretty Reckless
Explosions-Ellie Goulding
Ignorance-Paramore
Judas-Lady Gaga
Feeling Good-Muse
Always Attract- You Me At Six
Radioactive-Imagine Dragons
Starry eyed- Ellie Goulding
Weak- Skunk Anansie
Shelter-Birdy
Up In The Air-30 Seconds to Mars
When You Want Something You Can't Have-Courteeners
Born to die-Lana Del Rey



Lee.
God and Satan -Biffy Clyro
Heaven-Hurts
Lost in Paradise- Evanescence
Running Up That Hill-Placebo
Flaws-Bastille
Crashland- Twin Atlantic
Stellify- Ian Brown
S and M- Rihanna
New York- Snow Patrol
Sweet Dreams (Are made of this)- Marilyn Manson
Smother-Daughter


Hope you enjoy!

How does it sound as soundtracks go?
Stacy

Endings

When I started writing this book, it was pretty safe to say i thought I would get bored after about chapter 5. The fact that my word document now reads 71,000 words with the final chapter to finish and the epilogue to write is more of a shock to my system than anyone else's I imagine.

Furthermore it is fair to say that whereas I had a fairly vague idea of where it was all going, the details did not exactly slot into shape into I actually started writing the chapters. I knew I had all these threads tangled up in each other. Questions that needed answering, the crucial factor of Faye and Lee's relationship hanging in the balance, and my own need for closure on it all battling together on the page.

I hate happy endings. Happy endings for me, are the 'Disney' way to end a story. Life doesn't have happy endings, so why should it then follow then that books should do? I also had to think about my source material- 'Doctor Faustus' by Christopher Marlowe. I'm sure I am causing no great shakes by declaring the somewhat obvious ending to that play. He gets dragged to hell. It is unavoidable, a fixed point in the plot of the play, but then the play ends. So where does that leave me? I made it obvious in my Prologue that Faye was going to find herself in hell too. What my source material fails to illuminate is what happens to Faustus once he is down there. So it was with that opening up in the ambiguous ending of Faustus that I could stage my own ending in 'Lost Glory'.

I thoroughly enjoyed writing about Faye's descent down into hell. I researched and read about Dante's Inferno, using much of his perception of what hell would look and feel like in order to get a sense of what Faye might see or hear. Describing either hell or heaven is an absolute bind as a writer. What can you already say that hasn't been said for? It isn't exactly the type of location you can travel to in order to undertake research. In this sense, the work of other writers in invaluable, and Dante's Inferno in particular was something I could take and use.

Then at midnight last night, I found myself writing the apex. The crucial moment in the whole novel where everything is defined and decided. As a reader, I love that part in a book where you turn the pages, reading faster and faster to find out what happens next. I had no idea that it was something writers participated in too. As I listened to music for inspiration, to capture the mood I was aiming for, my fingers seemed to drum the keys of my laptop faster and faster. I knew what I wanted to happen. I knew the way I wanted it to happen. I even knew how it was all going to end. Yet that reader inside me wanted it on the page in black and white. Concrete. No going back.

I cried writing it. By the time I had typed the last page of the chapter, the tears were streaming down my face. I never understood why. I don't know if it was the words, the music I was listening to, the realisation that it was nearly over, or the feelings towards my characters. All I know is that I wept. Is this normal for writers on approaching the ending of their work,or am I clearly just insane?

Right, back to my final chapter...

Thanks for reading.
Stace x

Publishers or self-publishing? That is the question.

From the moment I realised that I didn't want this book to stay on my laptop, entertaining only me and a few others, I have been pondering the best way to get my work out there. All of the websites have advised me  to get a following, to assess whether there is actually a market for what i'm trying to do. With these words I mind, I created this blog, my own facebook page (www.facebook.com/lostglory1987) and my own twitter account @Glorylost. It doesn't seem to be doing badly so far. Both my facebook and twitter following seems to be growing day by day, and some great people I know have shared my links to help spread the word.However the likes and follows are starting to slow now, so I feel like I'm getting to a crossroads.

The book is nearly finished (about another 5 chapters left now) and hopefully the final word count will end up about 65,000. I am planning to get a focus group of my target audience together to give me some honest and critical feedback, and I have a potential person to design my book cover for me. Once it is finished, I can also start doing some thorough and brutal editing. My lack of typing ability is making me particularly aware of typing errors, and with it being an extended work, I am eager to check things like character development/continuity/plot holes.

But even once that's done (and it will take a good few weeks once I'm back at work), where do I go from there? If I send it to a publisher, I risk the following: they will reject it outright and I will feel disheartened or it will disappear into a publishing black hole and I never see it again. But... in the unlikely event, an agent picks it up, it will also give me physical copies of my book, and support/advertising and all the things a writer needs to stand a chance. If I chicken out of that option, and self-publish, the advantages are clear to see. I will collect a 70% royalty share (if anything sells) and it is a way to get exposure so that a publisher can then pick you up. Writers such as Amanda Hocking have done it and made thousands, and more importantly, have established a writing career.

I feel like I have to try and get the book out there somehow, but at the moment, with the threat of my 'real job' looming, I need to work out the best route for me...


Please keep following and reading. Every like and follow means a lot to me.

Stace