Labels

absolute awesomeness addiction Adversity An Uncommon Whore angels animal rescue animal welfare Anne Kane anxiety aquamarine author corner bad angels bad weather Barbara Elsborg BDSM bdsm romance belinda mcbride BelindaPalooza Belindapendence Belle Starr beverages bisexual bisexual romance Black Planet Blacque/Bleu blog hop Broken Cancer CAPA changeling press characters cherise sinclair China chronic pain Coming Out contests cooking courage craft creativity culinary competion custom art cyber punk Dark Haven deadlines Deeply blog demons depression dog shows dogs Doms of Dark Haven Dos Lunas Dragon's Blood drawings druids election embarrassment EPIC Winner erotic romance erotica expressive writing faith family fantasy fear femme domme fiction Film fire firefighters France free reads full moon futuristic genre hopping ghosts goldenwolfen grand prize greco-roman culture halloween happiness haunted mansions head/desk health heroines hide my head in shame Hong Kong human trafficking Iditarod Inspirational jessica freely Jessica Freely jianne carlo Kate Roman KC Burn Lance Mackey las vegas Last Call Europe lena austin lex valentine LGBT lifestyle linda suzane Lisabet Sarai little Dragon Little Dragon Little Foxes loose Id lost pets love scenes lucky in red lynn lorenz m/m m/m romance Madly martial arts martini mary winter meditation menage romance menege mental illness My Birthday mythology NaNoWriMo New Concepts Publishing new release New Year's Giveaway News nutrition overcoming pack politics paranormal paranormal romance Paris Passion in Print passionate plume pearls personal pet peeves PETA PL Nunn positivity procrastination Rainbow book awards real life release dates Review Risk romance save the quiet kitty science fiction Sele selena illyria shape shifters Sheri Lewis Wohl shunga siberian husky sidhe sierra cartwright slavery smoke snow snowfire: chrysalis space opera speculative fiction St John and St Thomas stupid mistakes succubus survival Suzanne Rock Tara Lain terrorism The Next Big Thing The Romance Reviews Tiger Eyes time off TMI Tony Leung travel Truckee Wolves Truly urban fantasy valentine's day vampires vampiropolis weight weight loss well being werewolves When I Fall wicca wildlife witches wolves World building world events writer's block writer's health writers block writing writing habits yacht

Thursday, February 19, 2009

Wecome to Normalville, USA - Population: You


Last year, I was fishing around for a new idea for a series. I do a lot of sci fi and fantasy, but haven't really done any paranormal.

I was thinking about the lives we hide, as opposed to the faces we show to the world. What came to mind is a place where everybody has there secrets, and in some cases, everyone else knows those secrets. Its the most normal place in the world, isn't it?

Anyhow, here's a snippet from Snow Fire: Chrysalis. My first visit to Normalville, USA.


Available at Changeling Press:
http://www.changelingpress.com/product.php?&upt=book&ubid=1103

Blurb:

Kell is haunted by memories of a place that doesn’t exist. He dreams of a face he’s never seen. He senses that somehow, his life is wrong. Compelled by loneliness and isolation, he walks away from everything in a quest for answers.

Come with Kell as he journeys down a long, snowy highway to a mysterious town called Arcada. Maybe, just maybe, he will find his answers there.

And maybe he will find himself as well.

Excerpt:

Vintage sports cars don’t handle all that well in the snow.

Not that the elderly Jag lets me down all that often, but as we crawled through drifts on Highway 70, I began to get the feeling that my long journey was about to come to an end.

The snow fell in those tiny, crystalline flakes that are so fine they dazzle the eye. When you try to make a snowball, it just falls apart like sand between the fingers. At first, it barely settled on the roadway, dancing away from the headlights of the car, but in time, the snow began to drift and blow across the road, eventually obscuring the roadway completely. I navigated using the slight elevation of the blacktop and the instinct that rarely lets me down. I was guided by the odd compulsion that had taken me from all that I knew for the promise of all that should be.

I’d been wandering in a funk for what seemed years, having sold my apartment and my business. Life had dried up, lost its appeal. One Tuesday I looked around and found myself alone, friendless and so painfully, obviously different from the general population, that it was clearly time to move on.

In the midst of my unhappiness, I remembered a face I’d never seen. I had memories of events that had never happened. A place came to mind, the memory of a small town that my family had visited in my youth. It was quintessential small town America, a town square, City Hall. The sort of place you generally see only on a movie set. Normal. In fact, that was the nickname of the place. While I couldn’t remember the name of the small city, I vividly remembered the signs entering the city limits. They playfully welcomed the traveler to “Normalville, USA.” I’d forgotten the state, the name of the town, even what part of the country we’d been in. Only that happy sign lingered in my memory. Funny, though, my parents never recalled seeing that sign. In fact, they hadn’t remembered the town at all. I couldn’t forget.

Welcome to Normalville, USA.

No comments: