By K D Grace (Guest
Blogger)
First
off, I’d like to thank the wonderful Lisabet Sarai for inviting me
over. It’s always such a pleasure to spend time with her. I was
very excited when Lisabet asked me to post about something near and
dear to my heart – a weekly phenomena that occurs every Friday over
on my blog. It’s something I’m having so much fun with that I
almost feel guilty for doing it. Over at my place, Friday afternoons,
I’m following in the footsteps of Charles Dickens, Herman Melville,
Henry James, Alexander Dumas, Arthur Conan Doyle and Stephen King –
hoping some of their genius rubs off on me as I write my second blog
serial, In
The Flesh.
With
the growth of movable type in the 17th century, the
serial became popular because books were very expensive and putting
out a story in small installments on a weekly basis made it
affordable and accessible to a much larger audience. I’m giving you
a quickie primer here from Wikipedia – some of it I knew, some of
it not.
Serials
have never really fallen out of favor even as books have become
cheaper and cheaper. I remember as a kid my mother used to read
stories in the GRIT newspaper that were in serial format. Some
magazines still do serials. In 1984 Tom Wolfe ran Bonfire of the
Vanities in Rolling Stone. Stephen King, Michel Faber and
lots of others have experimented with serialization. With the
internet and the rise of successful and respectable self-publishing
along with the advent of the eReader and eBook format, the serial is
becoming even more popular. Add to that the sudden attention gained
for fan fiction through Fifty Shades of Grey and sites like
Wattpad, which are places strictly for writers to serialize and share
their stories with readers, and the serial is having a wonderful
resurgence.
I
discovered that writing a weekly serial for my blog, and also
Wattpad,
for no other reason than for the sheer pleasure of it was a great way
to experiment and bring a little change of pace into my writing as
well as a way to write some of those stories I’ve been wanting to
write for ages, but just never had time to.
Writing
has been a pleasure for me all of my life. In fact, writing has been
THE pleasure of my life, second only to sex, and that’s probably
because the two are, in my mind, very closely linked. My characters,
more often than not, take me in directions I totally wasn’t
expecting to go, and they control the stories I write. As frightening
as it is to give over the reins, the results are always exciting for
me, and for the reader. I’ve found that there’s no better place
to let the characters have their head (you see what I did there???)
and enjoy the wild path they lead me on than a blogged serial with
weekly installments. It doesn’t interfere with other projects, it’s
a fantastic break from the WIP, and that means I always go back to
that work in progress refreshed and ready to write on. Plus there’s
always that added adrenaline rush of wondering if I’m going to be
able to pull it off yet another week’s episode, and just how the
hell my characters are going to get out of the mess I left them in
last Friday! In the serial’s immediacy, there’s a discipline
involved and a rhythm that’s been good for my writing and my
creative process.
I
wrote my first serial, Demon
Interrupted,
in episodes that came out only every three weeks. I took that
opportunity to tell the story of a secondary character in my Lakeland
Witches Trilogy. I wanted to know Ferris Ryder’s story, and I
thought a serial might just be the way to discover his secrets. It
was the most fun I’d had writing in ages! I completed it the
Halloween before last and, I’m very excited to announce, it’ll be
included in the release of the Lakeland
Witches Box Set
that will be coming out early this year! Check my blog for updates on
that.
Which
leads me to another benefit I’d not really thought about before I
started my serial experiments. Writing a serial is a painless and fun
way to get another story done without it interfering with the WIP. It
takes a bit of discipline to set aside the time to do 2K a week on
another project, but once the story gets going, that 2K often becomes
3. It’s a pleasure to take that little break from the usual writing
routine, and the end result, as well as the interaction with the
readers, is so worth the effort. When it’s finished, it’s already
a clean manuscript, which needs very little change before being
published in other formats.
What
I love most about writing a serial for my blog is that it’s a
chance for me to completely let the Muse lead me on a weekly basis.
Also, I really love the fact that it’s something I can give
my readers, a little guilty pleasure every Friday, sort of a literary
nooner. It’s almost like they’re looking over my shoulder as the
story unfolds, and that’s a very exciting, very immediate, way --
not only to write, but to bond with readers as well.
In The Flesh
is very dark paranormal romance, and here’s a little peek.
Please
DO remember that this is a free read unfolding every Friday on my
blog, so do head on over and enjoy the rest!
When
Susan Innes comes to visit her friend, Annie Rivers, in Chapel House,
the deconsecrated church that Annie is renovating into a home, she
discovers her outgoing friend changed, reclusive, secretive, and
completely enthralled by a mysterious lover, whose presence is always
felt, but never seen, a lover whom she claims is god. As her holiday
turns into a nightmare, Susan must come to grips with the fact that
her friend’s lover is neither imaginary nor is he human, and even
worse, he’s turned his wandering eye on Susan, and he won’t be
denied his prize.
Excerpt
Long
toward morning I woke with a start. The room was awash in the scent
of roses, and I was certain someone had called my name. “Annie?”
I half whispered. There was no reply, no sound other than the anxious
breathing that must surely have been my own. Surely. The pitch black
of the room pressed in all around me like another presence, so close
that I felt if I switched on the light, I would suddenly come face to
face with it. The bile of panic rose in my throat. I threw off the
duvet and fumbled for my phone, dropping it on the mattress before I
could finally slice the blackness with a sliver of light. The drop
cloth curtains trembled on either side of me, no doubt from my own
panicked actions, and the smell of roses thickened.
Careful
to keep the sliver of light, I slipped into my robe and hurried to
check on Annie. Even in the stairwell I could hear her moans. As I
neared the transept the air felt charged and heavy like that moment
in a storm just before lightning strikes. The hair on my neck rose
and goose flesh prickled up my spine. I held my breath as I tiptoed
closer. The plastic drop cloths had been shoved onto the floor in a
heap, and there in the moonlight she lay, thrashing atop the altar,
her hair splayed like a halo around her head, her nightie pushed up
over her hips. She arched her back and cried out, reaching her arms
upward to something I couldn’t see.
I
wanted to run, but instead, I stood frozen, bathed in cold sweat,
waiting for logic to explain everything away, as the moonlight around
her seemed to explode and coalesce with her ecstasy. The smell of
jasmine, Annie’s favourite flower, cloyed at my throat making my
head ache. After what seemed like an eternity, the urge to flee
finally took control. Heart pounding, I stepped back, hoping to leave
unnoticed, when suddenly I felt a rush of wind against my face and
breathed the musky odour of sex. I stumbled backward, unable to hold
back a small yelp. My phone slipped through my fingers and skittered
under a pew as the scent of jasmine gave way to roses.
In
the heavy press of darkness, I half ran, half fell down the hall back
toward my room, tripping over the edge of a drop cloth thrown across
the floor and coming down hard on both knees with a breathless curse.
I pulled myself to my feet gasping for oxygen, groping at the wall
for the electrical switch, desperate for light – any kind of light.
Though I was disturbed by what I had seen, I was more disturbed by
the fact that it had aroused me even through my fear. As my eyes
adjusted, light coming in from the small window in the door of the
makeshift kitchen bathed the room in monochrome grey. Another gust of
wind blew the door open with a loud crash. I yelped and jumped
forward to force it shut. Then I could have sworn I heard my name
again, called out with such longing that I couldn’t stop myself.
With hands slippery from nervous sweat, I fumbled the door open again
and stepped out onto the patio. The clutter of Terra cotta pots
looked like strange squat specters in the dance of moonlight and
shadow. Making my way past derelict strawberry jars, several bags of
ancient compost and wheeless wheelbarrow, I emerged into a large
garden over grown with weeds. It was the deconsecrated churchyard, I
reminded myself with a shiver. In the bright moonlight, I stood
holding my breath. Listening.
Annie
had taken twisted pleasure in speculating about the graveyard that
had once been the back garden. She had imagined exhumed medieval
skeletons taken to the London Museum to be studies and cataloged. She
had imagined underground catacombs where ghosts of priests and and
murderers alike scurried on secret missions, some sinister, some
holy. I shivered at the thought and pulled the robe tighter around
me. I had not found her speculation amusing then, and I found it even
less so now. I found nothing about this place amusing. Fighting my
way through a tangle of ivy I came to a stone bench that looked like
it well might have belonged in a graveyard. Not wanting to go back
inside Chapel House, I sat down, hoping desperately that if I thought
long enough I’d find a rational explanation for everything that had
happened or I’d wake up and discover it had all been a bad dream.
Staying in places with intriguing pasts often brought me unsettling
dreams.
I
could smell roses again -- old roses, not any sort of modern hybrid.
Only old roses would smell so strong and so sweet amid the rank
growth of weeds. As I breathed in the scent that seemed to be coming
from just over my shoulder, I felt a humid breeze on my neck,
brushing my nape, like breath exhaled with the settling of a kiss.
The leaves rustled around me, and the bench was suddenly in shadow.
With a start, I turned to hear the sound of footsteps retreating down
the path. “Annie? Hello?” I clamoured to my feet and followed the
rustle of leaves, the scent of roses always just ahead of me. “Annie,
this isn’t funny, alright? This isn’t funny!”
I
hadn’t remembered the garden being so large. It felt as though I
wandered the paths for hours. My spine constantly prickled, but a
quick glance over my shoulder always revealed no one following me.
The paving stones were mossy and slick beneath my bare feet. I
stumbled along ignoring the scratch of bramble and the sting of
nettle, shoving my way through leaves damp with dew until I broke
through, as though I’d just pushed aside a curtain. With a gasp, I
stopped short, nearly losing my footing on the moss.
The
smell of roses was overwhelming. The sense of not being alone crawled
along my spine on little insect feet. In a small copse set between
aging lilac bushes taller than my head and a gnarled hawthorn hedge
that might have once been apart of a formal garden, he loomed over
me. I swallowed back a scream just before it could escape, just as I
realized he was an angel, or at least a statue of one.
Slightly
more than human size, his weathered marble toes barely touched a low
plinth, as though he were just alighting. One large hand was extended
in invitation toward me, the other rested on his naked chest over his
heart. A billowing veil of stone just covered his groin so that his
perfect form, all but the most intimate of it, shown silver in the
moonlight, frozen in a motion of welcome, muscles tensed in
anticipation, empty eyes locked on mine.
With
my heart battering my ribs, I stood unmoving, stone cold, as though I
were his marble counterpart. I know this sounds crazy. And even after
so much time has past, it still sounds crazy every time I think of
it, and yet I knew then, just as certainly as I know now that
something ancient, something primal, moved over my skin, like the
brush of spider webs and dust motes, fingering its way deeper, into
secret places, places in myself where even I never dare go. Whatever
it was, it knew me, it understood me, and its longing for me was
terrible.
*****
The recent short
stories, ‘journal entries,’ and In
The Flesh,
along with Landscapes,
a story I wrote for the wonderful m/m collection, Brit
Boys: On Boys are all tied into a bigger project linked with my
present WIP and the world it involves. I’m having fun on a grand
scale, and sharing it with my readers as I go.
Thanks
again for having me, Lisabet! Always a pleasure!
About K D
Grace/Grace Marshall
Voted
ETO Best Erotic Author of 2014, and a proud member of The Brit Babes,
K D Grace/Grace Marshall believes Freud was right. In the end, it
really IS all about sex, well sex and love. And nobody’s happier
about that than she is, otherwise, what would she write about?
When
she’s not writing, K D is veg gardening. When she’s not
gardening, she’s walking. She walks her stories, and she’s
serious about it. She and her husband have walked Coast to Coast
across England, along with several other long-distance routes. For
her, inspiration is directly proportionate to how quickly she wears
out a pair of walking boots. She also enjoys martial arts, reading,
watching the birds and anything that gets her outdoors.
KD
has erotica published with SourceBooks, Xcite Books, Harper Collins
Mischief Books, Mammoth, Cleis Press, Black Lace, Erotic Review,
Ravenous Romance, Sweetmeats Press and others.
K
D’s critically acclaimed erotic romance novels include, The
Initiation of Ms Holly,
Fulfilling
the Contract,
To
Rome with Lust,
and The
Pet Shop.
Her paranormal erotic novel, Body
Temperature and Rising,
the first book of her Lakeland Witches trilogy, was listed as
honorable mention on Violet
Blue’s Top 12 Sex Books for 2011. Books two and three, Riding
the Ether,
and Elemental
Fire,
are now also available.
Find
K D Here:
