By
K D Grace (Guest Blogger)
Thank
you for inviting me over, Lisabet. It’s always a pleasure to join
you.
I’ll
admit it, I talk to myself. It’s gotten so bad that when I’m
thinking through a story, I even forget I’m in a public place and
just keep on talking. The thing is, I find conversation with myself
often enlightening. You know what it’s like to talk through a
problem with a friend, or even just discuss something that’s
important to both of you. It’s not unusual to walk away from those
talks with new insights and deeper understanding.
I
find that conversation with myself is not all that different.
Sometimes by talking things through, I find solutions I hadn’t
expected, inspiration from bits of internal dialogue. This happens
often enough, in fact, that sometimes I do feel like I’m talking
with someone else. Sometimes the conversations become brainstorming
sessions. Sometimes they devolve into arguments, and I find that I
don’t always get along with myself. Those are the most difficult
times, when I have to figure out how to make peace with me.
In
some ways I think those conversations we have with ourselves are the
grown-up version of the imaginary friends we had as children. At
times, whoever I’m talking to inside is a really scary bitch. Other
times I think she’s bloody brilliant. I’ve made no bones about
believing my Muse is a vicious, sadistic woman who delights in egging
me on and poking me in the ribs with a big pointy stick. She seldom
changes out of her dressing gown, and she chain smokes filterless
cigarettes. While I wouldn’t exactly call her an imaginary friend,
she gets the job done.
Of course, I know
she’s me. I’m not quite ready for the rubber room yet. But I also
know that she’s a different part of me, a part that offers me tough
loving, sadistic inspiration that keeps me tunnel-visioned and
writing into all hours. This post is not to say that my strange
relationship with my Muse inspired the first two novels of the
Medusa’s
Consortium series…. But… Maybe.
I
wanted a glorious Muse – broad shouldered, sexy, dark hair,
sizzling smile. I wanted to be seduced into writing and then rewarded
with more seduction for my efforts. I think, as much as anything the
Guardian – the demon who is imprisoned inside my Scribe, Susan
Innes, was inspired by that fantasy of the sexy Muse I didn’t get.
How can you doubt that when Susan, the heroine in both my novels, In
The Flesh
and Blindsided,
is a Scribe just like all novelists are. She’s home to a very
dangerous, and sexy, demon who could be a desperately needed ally.
The one thing he isn’t, however, is safe.
Most
people have some fantasy about yielding to dangerous seduction. What
if we did yield? What if we could survive that yielding? What would
be our reward? What would we discover about ourselves? I’m
convinced the writers of the very best novels I’ve read are the
ones who take that plunge and allow themselves to be seduced by the
unsafe places in the imagination, in the human psyche. What comes
from allowing that dangerous seduction can be a wild and exhilarating
journey. It can equally be our worst nightmare. The demon within, the
muse, the inner voice can guide us, seduce us, even destroy us, and
the risk we take when we yield and listen doesn’t come without a
price. And for Susan, the question very quickly becomes is she
willing to take that risk and pay that price.
Blurb
In
New York City, away from those she loves, living with the enigmatic
vampire, Desiree Fielding, Susan Innes struggles to come to terms
with life as a vampire whose body serves as the prison for a deadly
demon.
When
Reese Chambers arrives unexpectedly from England, desperate for her
help, she discovers that Alonso Darlington, his lover and her maker,
has been taken captive and Reese has been warned to tell no one but
her. Before the two can make a plan, Susan receives her own message
from a man calling himself just Cyrus. He not only holds her maker
prisoner, but also her lover, the angel Michael. If she wishes to see
either of them alive, she’ll come to him and not tell Magda
Gardener, the woman they all work for and fear.
With
no help coming from Magda or her Consortium, Susan and Reese must
turn to the Guardian – the terrifying demon now imprisoned in her
body. He alone can help them, but how can she possibly trust him
after all he’s done?
Excerpt
It was a dark place
where she found him, with walls so high only a small patch of
starlight was visible above, but she was a vampire now. She didn’t
need the light, and he, well he had never needed the light, had he?
He stood naked with his back to her. He was broad of shoulder. There
were white scars like latticework across muscles stretched taut over
his shoulder blades. At first she thought they were from a whip, but
as she drew nearer, she saw that they were more geometric in form, as
though perhaps they were some sort of ancient ceremonial writing. She
traced the shapes of them with the tips of her fingers, and his
muscles rippled with the sensation. With a start she realized she’d
never seen his body before.
“That is because
I have none,” came his reply. “Only in dreams can I wear
the flesh of my choosing.”
“You’ve worn
flesh often enough. I would have thought it was always of your
choosing,” she said, making no effort to hide her bitterness.
“It was not my
own, though. That pleasure, I have never known.”
“Only in dreams,
you say. Then this is a dream.”
“You know that it
is.” He didn’t turn to face her but leaned toward her, and
she slipped her arms around him and rested her head on the flat of
his back. His belly tensed at the touch of her hands, and he caught
his breath in a soft moan. “Touch is what I longed for most,”
he said. “I thought the lack of it would drive me insane while
I languished in my previous prison. But here, with you, I’m closer
to touch than I would have thought possible. I do not mind it, you
know. It is no hardship to be nestled inside you, close to your
heart.”
She released him
and took in their surroundings once more. “This is the place I’ve
created for you?”
He pulled her arms
back around him and sighed with contentment as she laid her head
against him once more. “This is how I have decorated. The place you
created for me was only the shape of myself, both boundless and
infinitesimal. Oh, it did not matter. I could see through your eyes,
feel through your flesh, even though it no longer lived as it once
did, even though you never spoke to me. I hoped that someday you
would.”
“And when I
refuse, you come uninvited into my dreams?”
“All dreams are
uninvited, Susan, and perhaps this time it is you who have come
uninvited into my dream.”
Buy
Blindsided Here:
About
K D Grace
Voted
ETO Best Erotic Author of 2014, K D Grace believes Freud was right.
It really IS all about sex -- sex and love – and that is an
absolute writer’s playground.
When
she’s not writing, K D is veg gardening or walking. Her creativity
is directly proportional to how quickly she wears out a pair of
walking boots. She loves mythology, which inspires many of her
stories. She enjoys time in the gym, where she’s having a mad
affair with a pair of kettle bells. Her first love is writing, but
she loves reading and watching birds. She adores anything that gets
her outdoors.
KD’s
novels and other works are published by Totally Bound, SourceBooks,
Accent Press, Harper Collins Mischief Books, Mammoth, Cleis Press,
Black Lace, and others. She also writes romance under the name Grace
Marshall.
Find
K D Here:
