BLUE NOTE
The Fractured Prism, #1
by Holly
Graf & Krissy May
Date of Publication: June 21st 2019
Publisher: 252 Publishing
Cover Artist: Krissy May
Genre: NA Urban Fantasy
Tagline: Everything has a price
BLURB
Niels Poulsen, self-styled God of Rock and lead singer in a popular punk band, has everything he could want: family, friends, fortune, and fame. When his best friend and fellow band member, Jace, goes missing, Niels will do anything to get him home safe.
Niels discovers that their money and connections won’t help them on their journey. They will rely on an model airplane, a family secret, and a tangled magic that weaves the band into the fabric of other realms so tightly they may never make it home again. Their quest takes them across new worlds, through foreign dangers, and straight into the path of an ancient prophecy that wants Niels for itself.
If Niels and his friends survive long enough to find Jace and negotiate their way home to Manhattan, will it be worth the price? The magic says one of them will have to die…
Excerpt:
As they walked away from the sketchy
people, Niels leaned down close to Hattie’s face. “The liquor stall? Or do you
think it’s a setup? Christ.” He leaned away. “I’m as paranoid as Rhyss now.”
“No you’re not.” She side-hugged him as
they walked. “I’ve got a bad feeling too.”
“They pointed that way,” he gestured,
“so let’s go this way.”
“Good idea.”
They passed several stalls. One had all
kinds of colorful eggs on display. Another had a row of kids dancing in front
with a sign that read: Ontriss Academy of Noc Thui. Another stall had fried
dough smothered in cinnamon.
Niels’ stomach rumbled again.
They should’ve begged Kenzie for some
money before she left, but Niels had the feeling she didn’t have much in the
way of funds. Land pirates were still pirates, after all.
Something just ahead of them started
screeching.
Places to go: not in that direction.
Whatever was up there probably ate people. Niels steered them casually toward a
stall with jewelry, but Hattie was having none of being steered around.
“What is that?” She moved towards the
keening, cutting off a pissy guy with a cart full of vegetables. Some of the
food toppled off the cart.
Niels almost reached for one, but two
thoughts stopped him: One, he had no idea whether they were even edible; two,
Kenzie said they executed thieves, and this didn’t feel like a good day for
that. Dying wasn’t on his agenda.
He let Hattie pull him across the road
on her quest for death-by-screech, until they were in sight of the screeching
thing.
“Is that a
dragon?” Niels asked.
Holy shit.
Not just a
dragon, but...a dragon. It was about the size of a teacup, or a gerbil maybe
because teacups didn’t have tails, and this dragon did. It was covered with
spines and opalescent scales in every pastel color of the rainbow.
Even though it
wasn’t as big as the other dragons they’d seen in Sylem, it made the most god
awful noise to make up for its size. Niels was tempted to screech back at it,
see how it liked that. Or bring his guitar and climb into the higher notes,
with an amp.
When the dragon
saw Niels, it screeched even louder, rattling the side of its cage so violently
Niels thought it might knock itself off the table.
“It wants you,”
Hattie said.
No it didn’t.
Clearly it wanted out so it could attack him. While that technically counted as
wanting him it wasn’t the good thing Hattie’s tone made it out to be.
He stopped
freaking out. What had he just said to himself? He needed to trust that Hattie
was often more right than he was about shit.
He finished
crossing the road with her and didn’t stop her when she asked, “Can we look at
that dragon?”
The stall owner,
a beefy guy who would have been a butcher - or a Mafioso, which amounted to the
same thing - in any decent, clichéd movie, frowned at them. “You spoiled my
dragon.”
He lifted the
latch on the cage door and the little rainbow-tiled monster shot out of the
cage, directly at Niels.
Niels backed
away. He couldn’t die yet. He still had songs to write, Hattie to date, his mom
to annoy…
The dragon
landed on his shoulder, chirped once, and let out a huff of steam that
condensed into beads of water on Niels' neck.
Okay, so not
dying today. Not yet, anyway.
Niels allowed
himself to breathe.
The dragon was
kind of cute if he ignored its claws digging into his shoulder through his
shirt.
“That’s three
hundred Angmol.”
Oh yeah, Niels
could just pull that out of his ass.
“We don’t have
three hundred those things,” Hattie said.
“Or one,” Niels
muttered so only she could hear. She laughed.
Authors Info
Holly began her career as an accountant. While her sense of humor tends appropriately dry, her love for writing far exceeds the constraints of an office job. She attended four colleges across three states in pursuit of her BS in Accounting, while taking extra courses in philosophy, law, and writing. Between words, she spends her time immersing herself in the magic of life.
Author Info
Krissy lives in a chaos factory, which is run by a merciless team of miniature humans and their pets. She enjoys music, foreign languages, noise-cancelling headphones, and the smell of fresh-mowed grass. She has a useless degree in Physics and part of another useless degree in Nursing, neither of which helped in the creation of this book.
The Book Junkie Reads . . . Interview with both Holly Graf & Krissy May . . .
http://www.hollygraf.com
How would you describe your style of writing to someone that has never read your work?
Krissy: I think the finished product is gorgeous. Fast-paced and maybe a tiny bit heartwarming. The process to get there is chaotic, accidental, and full of pain.
Holly: I start with the voice of the character. As I work out their actions and the words they share with the world I build in the details of their surroundings and their thoughts. As motives develop their actions may change, especially as I push them through the motions of their motives. Around this point I ditch the entire first draft and restart with an understanding of the character I’m working with. I’ve tried using characters sheets and what not but letting the move across paper is the best way to see what sort of character I’ve created. When I finish the first draft, I go back through and edit it, which involves rewriting 50-75% of the words and adding easter eggs and other things that will connect the beginning to the end...in summary, what Krissy said.
Do you feel that writing is an ingrained process or just something that flows naturally for you?
Krissy: I’m probably overthinking this question, but I can say that I’ve been writing since the day I discovered how to type (eight years old) and I have never really stopped.
Holly: Ideas flow naturally. I have periods of time when I try to absorb as much information as possible and I give my subconscious time to devour and process the information, and then I let the words flow and see what stuck and what didn’t.
What mindset or routine do you feel the need to set when preparing to write (in general whether you are working on a project or just free writing)?
Krissy: I get up and make tea, check Twitter, Facebook, the news, and flex my character muscles. Three hours later my kids are suddenly running late to school and I’m having a panic attack.
Holly: I make sure all my life ducks are in a row: phone calls returned, kids fed, house tidy except toys. I listen to music from whichever character’s playlist (each POV has their own playlist, and many minor characters do too), then I start typing. If I get angsty I take a break to work out.
Do you take your character prep to heart? Do you nurture the growth of each character all the way through to the page? Do you people watch to help with development? Or do you build upon your character during story creation?
Krissy: I let my characters lead so much that they decide how to develop. Like real people, some are so stubborn they can’t find a way through because they won’t. Others are too shy to seek out their love interest but make fantastic heroes in a crisis. Every person has room for growth on any given day, and my characters are the same. They often surprise me in how and when they grow.
Holly: Same as Krissy. I work with each like they’re tangible clay. I make playlists for each so I can capture feelings I want to remember for that character. We talk a lot about what we do, which is ultimately method writing. We give ourselves to the characters we are writing. I think about my life and how the characters I’m working with would react, what they would do, how they would feel about my own habits. I nurture the growth and we go through tens of thousands of words of rough draft for character development. I don’t use worksheets (I have tried). We both start throwing them on the page and work them until we find the voice we’re looking for, then we get to real work.
Do you have a character that you have been working on for a long time that still isn't quite ready, but fills you with excitement to work on the story?
Krissy: Yes. His name is Five. He is quite ready but unfortunately the sluggish authors that write his story are stuck 20 years in the past. Someday, they’ll get to him, and on that day glorious things will happen. He’ll unfurl his wings and take on the world one joke at a time.
Holly: Yes, a few. Most notably, Ely. He’s an epileptic guy who has these amazingly supportive parents, but as a teenager he sees it as intrusive and frustrating. He wants independence, especially because he knows he’ll never have complete independence. I love working on his story, but it hasn’t bloomed into what I want it to be yet.
Have you found yourself bonding with any particular character(s)? If so which one(s)?
Krissy: Indigo is probably the most similar to my own personality. I haven’t really bonded with her because I’m mostly just terrified that she exists, that Holly knows Indigo is more or less me with a different backstory.
Holly: Nim and Terren, a twinset. Nim is someone who does what she believes in. She’s adventurous and bold, she makes bad jokes and isn’t afraid to embarrass herself. I love when we use her. On the other side, Terren is painfully aware of what society expects of him. He hides himself while acting the way he wants behind closed doors. He’s often misunderstood and a character I’ve never quite written on paper the way he should be written, but I enjoy the challenge.
Do you have a character that you have been working on that you can't wait to put to paper?
Krissy: Simon. He’s complex and still new to me but he’s so ready to matter in this world.
Holly: Feidhelm. He’s a character I’ve had for a long time in the background, but I’ve never gotten him right. I still don’t know what makes him tick as a character.
Can you share your next creative project(s)? If yes, can you give a few details?
Krissy: We’re working on one I keep finding excuses to push away: It’s about a pair of teenagers. One is in foster care and one of them is epileptic so it is very dear to my heart. I don’t think there are enough stories for kids with epilepsy to read where the book is about the people and not about their epilepsy. Every time we start it, I panic and decide it’s not good enough for my epileptic daughter to ever read and I find some excuse to scrap it again. Someday, I’ll find the courage to write it. You can expect it to be true, but maybe not easy.
Holly: The epileptic story is a big one. It’s been on the back burner for 5 or 6 months. They’re gay teenagers and it’s got the romance elements, but it’s a lot about family. The other big one is Barnabas Mackey. Barnabas (Bash) is a character Spence comes up with, stories he writes within the stories. We don’t mention it much on paper, but it was created writing a scene two or three years ago. Spence uses Bash to work through some of his own angst.
What are some of your writing/publishing goals for this year?
Krissy: I’d like to put out three books like we did last year. More would be delectable.
Holly: I’d like to get three books out and I want to edit our web series. Two years ago I was proud of it, but today? Sometimes I don’t even know what I was trying to say.
Have you ever felt that there was something inside of you that you couldn't control? If so what? If no what spurs you to reach for the unexperienced?
Krissy: I come from a rough past, somewhat treacherous waters. What I love to write are people from similar pasts paving better futures for their children.
Holly: My anxiety? I try, but it’s a beast of its own. I can’t control that it exists, but I’ve got a shabby system to cope when it hits. Usually it comes in a wave, and it builds and builds toward a peak, then I say something insanely stupid and the wave subsides and I feel clearer, even if I’m still recovering.
If you could have dinner/dinner party with 7 fictional characters, who would they be?
Krissy: Fitzwilliam Darcy, Ender Wiggin, Bean, Richard Campbell Gansey III, The 10th Doctor (in his appropriate body, as my date, if you please), Aziraphale (who is not allowed to refer to the 10th Doctor as Crowley), and Harold, with his purple crayon. I think amazing things could happen at that dinner.
Holly: Hannibal, Malcolm Bright, Maximus, Joe Carrol, Leslie Knope, Amy Santiago, and Charlie Bradbury
If you could spend one-week with 5 fictional characters, who would they be and where would you spend that time?
Krissy: Oh you’re making me pare down my list. Well played. I would go to Greece, with characters from my own work: Acheron, Corban, Drey, Nell, and Niels.
Holly: A really cool, high tech lab, with Tony Stark, Bruce Banner, Michael Jennings (Paycheck), Bruce Wayne, and Bunsen Honeydew. That could be fun.
Where would you spend one full year, if you could go ANYWhere, money is not a concern? What would you do with this time?
Krissy: I would go to Greece. Since money is not a concern I would hire the Wiccans in my book to make a portal between Chalkidiki and Athens so I could visit the Plaka whenever I wanted, but still swim daily in the Aegean of the north, where the waters are pristine and unsullied by tourists. Between swimming and shopping, I would parent my kids and write.
Holly: While I’d love to take a year long tour of the world, if I had to spend the year in one place I would choose the space station. I love astronomy and I want to see the world from above — the weather patterns, lights, the way life keeps existing even when you remove yourself.
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Your book sounds like a great read and thank you for sharing it with us
ReplyDeleteThis sounds really good
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