Welcome to October Frights Blog Hop 2018. Scroll down to the bottom of this post to find links to other Horror and Paranormal authors who are also participating in this year's event.
The Starblood Trilogy began a decade ago. I had been studying Creative Writing at the Open University and a group of us students organised regular writing competitions with each other. One of these competitions was to write the nastiest short story, a competition I am proud to say I won. With a small amount of rewriting that short story became chapter 2 of Starblood.
There was a lot going on in my life while I was writing The Starblood Trilogy and much of it made its way onto the pages. Star’s journey was my journey. I had two daughters and was struggling to bond with the second. The business I had started with my husband was failing, and my relationship with the husband was becoming increasingly fraught and emotionally abusive. I suspected I was insane and frequently considered ending it all. Only my commitment to my daughters prevented me from throwing myself off a cliff or slashing my throat at times. The desperation and angst I felt is reflected in the story arc.
I did heal, and I am now in a much better place than I was five years ago, but that isn’t part of the Starblood story, so I’ll leave it for another time.
Starblood was subject to some strange synchronicity. The novel was originally published by Stone Circle in 2011, but was later picked up by Vamptasy Publishing. A fellow author at Vamptasy was Jef Rouner, who wrote for Houston Press and also wrote the introduction to Starblood the graphic novel. He wrote a piece in Houston Press about a night club “Numbers” where a vicious murder happened, reminiscent of the one that takes place in Starblood. He sent me the article and I realised that he was talking about a case I was already vaguely aware of. The business I ran with my husband was a Gothic clothing company, and one of our models had been convicted of murder. I didn’t know the details until after reading this article, but it did chill my blood a little.
Readers frequently told me that Starblood would make a great film. Without the resources to make that happen (maybe one day) I put out an advert on Deviant Art for a graphic novel illustrator and found Anna (then Dmietriva, now Prashkovich). In Anna I found more than an artist. She’s my twin, my soul mate, and what we produced together was magical.
So far the first two books in The Starblood Trilogy are available as graphic novels – Starblood and Psychonaut. The third, Black Sun, is currently in production.
I recorded a 15 minute video about the graphic novels. I will link it to the blog post in case you are interested in hearing me chat unscripted and relatively unrehearsed about the subject.
However, the Starblood story isn’t finished yet. Freya has been yelling at me to expand her story, writers reading this will know how demanding characters can be. “Ribbons” will begin as the killer rain continues to fall, but will also tell Freya's story from her sister's murder up until at least a few years after Black Sun ended in a post-apocalyptic Britain. Freya is a fascinating character, more deeply flawed than even I was at the time of writing the novels. Her grit and perseverance are an example to us all, but even I was surprised that she wanted to be tortured some more. I thought I’d done more than enough damage to the poor woman over three books.
If you are interested in The Starblood Trilogy I am currently offering the first 13 chapters as a free read. Pop along to download your copy. There are other free reads available. Visit October Frights' Instafreebie to find them.
