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Tag Archives: 100

10 Quotes From Deadmarsh Fey

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Posted by Melika Dannese Hick in Book Spotlight, Deadmarsh Fey, Excerpts, Fun Stuff, Missives, News, Updates

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Hi Everyone,

This selection of quotes will appear in a very personal interview on Friday, featured at Jean the Book Nerd’s great site, but as that interview is quite extensive, I thought it would be a good idea to share them with you today in a separate post. I hope you enjoy this little glimpse into Deadmarsh Fey.

Best wishes,

~Melika

“This beast, like the greater evil we faced later on, went by many names. When he invaded Everl’aria, the Moarteans christened him Groaza. Others called him The Devourer of the World. And to those on Sviddheim, he was The Bottomless, for his savagery had no end.”

“I’ve seen its other side. I know what lives here, what’s been slumbering for so long.”
      A hollow pit opened up where Roger’s heart was supposed to be. “How would you know that?”
     “I woke it up.”

He blinked in surprise and was even more startled when the dragon mimicked the action, but did so sideways. A clear membrane coated its eye, then drew back to reveal hues infinitely more searing than before—so vibrant it was painful for Roger to look into them. Orange pulsating like a lava flow, yellow glistening brighter than a city made of gold, green flashing like St. Elmo’s fire. All these colors danced not a foot in front of Roger’s face, flickering within that gigantic orb…

“Why should I not know what he’s really called?”
“Tell a man your name and he will have power over you forever,” Carver muttered.

“I don’t know how else to explain this, but I could feel her age, almost as if the weight of her years were pressing against me like a great mountain of corpses that would collapse onto me if I so much as looked at her the wrong way.”

Gryffyn looked as though he were about to have some sort of fit. “It’s far too dark in here for you to be taking this so calmly. Anything could be creeping up on us at this very moment, and we’d be none the wiser till it had us by the throat! We can’t see a foot in front of our faces, not one foot! Why are you not afraid?”
     “Because I am the monster lurking in the shadows,” Incendiu snarled.

“They were all children, yes, as were the fiends who allowed themselves to be Hosted.”
      “But that happened in a wilder age, a less enlightened time,” Roger argued.
     “Do not make the mistake of thinking present society is so highly advanced that they have forgotten their baser instincts, Roger Knightley. Evil is evil no matter the century, or the world.” 

“There are more things in Heaven and earth…” Uncle Gryffyn muttered.
“Now ain’t the time to be quotin’ old Bill Shakes, guv,” Bellows shot in.

“You’re not allowed in church!”
The Jagged One squinted at him. “Sez who?”
“Says God!”
Carver tsked. “I thought you Christians welcomed everyone.”
“We make exceptions for demons like you.”

“Will you not bid me welcome, Brother?” the beast mocked. The dragon’s voice paralyzed Roger where he stood. Hearing it sapped his strength, stole his will, made him feel as though his mind had been crushed between slabs of stone. There was chaos in it, and destruction—a voice crafted of darkness and the death of worlds.” 

Flesh and bone and hearts unknown, lead to the rath and your fate will be shown…

cover

Deadmarsh. The name struck terror into the hearts of all who heard it. But to Roger Knightley, neither Deadmarsh the house, nor Deadmarsh the family, had ever been anything to fear. Nearly each summer of his young life had been spent in that manor on the moors, having wild adventures with his cousin, Lockie, the Deadmarsh heir. This year should have been no different, but when Roger arrives, he finds everything, and everyone, changed. The grounds are unkempt, the servants long gone. Kip, the family cat, has inexplicably grown and glares at Roger as if he is trying to read the boy’s mind. Roger’s eldest cousin, Travers, always treated as a servant, now dresses like a duchess and wears round her neck a strange moonstone given to her by someone known as Master Coffyn, who has taken over the teaching of Lockie at a school in Wales called Nethermarrow.

And soon after he crosses the threshold of Deadmarsh, Roger discovers that Coffyn has overtaken Lockie. The boy is deceitful, riddled with fear, and has returned bearing tales of creatures called Jagged Ones that claim to be of the Fey and can somehow conceal themselves while standing in the full light of the moon. What they want with Lockie, Roger cannot fathom, until the horror within his cousin lashes out, and it becomes savagely clear that these Jagged Ones and the Dark Wreaker they serve are not only after Lockie and Travers, but Roger, too.

Joining forces with an ally whose true nature remains hidden, Roger seeks to unravel the tapestry of lies woven round his family’s connection to the death-haunted world of Everl’aria—and the Dark Wreaker who calls it home. The deeper Roger delves into the past, the more he begins to suspect that the tales of dark deeds done in the forest behind Deadmarsh, deeds in which village children made sacrifice to an otherworldly beast and were never seen or heard from again, are true. And if there is truth in these outlandish stories, what of the rumor that it was not an earthquake which rocked the moors surrounding Deadmarsh sixteen years ago, but a winged nightmare attempting to break free of its underground prison? Enlisting the aid of a monster equipped with enough inborn firepower to blast his enemies into oblivion might be as suicidal as Roger’s friends insist, yet the boy knows he needs all the help he can get if there is to be any hope of defeating not only the Dark Wreaker and his servants, but an unholy trinity known as the Bear, the Wolf, and the Curse That Walks The Earth.

And then there is the foe named Blood Wood, who might be the deadliest of them all.

Racing against time, Roger must find a way to end the battle being waged across worlds before the night of Lockie’s eleventh birthday—two days hence. If he fails, blood will drown the earth. And Roger and his entire family will fulfill the prophecy of fey’s older, more lethal meaning…

Fated to die.

 

US Customers:

Buy Deadmarsh Fey (Kindle) (Paperback) on Amazon

UK Customers: 

Buy Deadmarsh Fey (Kindle) (Paperback) on Amazon UK

 

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Posted by Melika Dannese Hick in Author Spotlight, Deadmarsh Fey, Fun Stuff, Missives, News, Updates

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Hi Everyone!

It’s been a while since I last posted any updates, but today, I am happy to share with you a new and very in-depth (possibly my most in-depth one to date) interview. Many thanks to author Sonya M. Black for providing me with such insightful questions. I hope you enjoy reading not only my thoughts on writing and other subjects, but also learning more about a few special books that have impacted my life in very different ways. Maybe you’ll be inspired to invite them into your lives and let them work their magic on you, as well.

Best wishes,

~Melika

  1. A dragon lands in front of your Main Character, what would they do?

It just so happens that my main character in Deadmarsh Fey, Roger Knightley, is obsessed with dragons, and has been since he was practically out of the womb, cutting his teeth on his mother’s fanciful stories about them, blazing through the Mabinogion by the time he was six, and venturing onward to further fill his head with even more fantastic legends, his favorite being the one about Merlin and Vortigern and the fortress that had been toppled again and again by the red and white dragons battling in a pool beneath its foundations.

Given all of that, if a flesh and blood dragon landed in front of him, Roger wouldn’t scream or scarper away in fright, but would rather shriek in delight and run forward to hug one of the dragon’s foreclaws, then try to convince the beast to fly him back to Wraxhall, Roger’s boarding school, to equalize the playing field, as it were, by teaching his headmaster a lesson—turning Master Crisp into Master Ash…literally. But once Roger came to his senses, he would do all in his power to enlist the dragon as an ally against the Dark Wreaker of Everl’aria, and the curse this fell being has laid upon Roger’s family. You’ll have to read Deadmarsh Fey to find out if any of this really does happen in the book, or if I’m just letting my imagination rocket upward like a dragon soaring through the night sky, its black wings blotting out the light of the moon.

  1. What literary pilgrimages have you gone on?

It’s not the main focus of my upcoming trip to England, but when I’m there, we’ll be spending a day in Oxford, walking in the footsteps of two authors who have had a significant impact not only on my writing, but upon my life, as well—J. R. R. Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. I expect to be awed the entire time I’m there, and quite emotional, too. Oh, and a visit to the Eagle and Child is also on the agenda! 6,900 pictures of the snug where the Inklings used to meet will be taken, so as not to miss a single angle, of course. I can’t wait!

  1. What is the first book that made you cry?

I’m sure other books got to me before this one did, but the first book I can remember which made me cry was The Turn of the Screw—and that was because it horrified me, my tears bursting forth at the very end when Miles screams, “Peter Quint, you devil!” I didn’t appreciate the ambiguity and brilliance of that line till many years later, so as a child of eight, my reaction was sheer terror. And yet I loved that little novel! I even owned a Classic comic book type edition of it that I read so often the spine broke. It’s my favorite “ghost” story of all time, and a masterful psychological study that I do not think any film adaptation has done justice to yet, although The Innocents comes close to capturing the unsettling “otherness” of Miles and Flora, and the paranoia (or does she have just cause to fear?) of the Governess.

But the first book that truly touched something deep within my heart and made me not only cry, but bawl, was David Copperfield, which I read at the age of twelve. It didn’t matter that one hundred and forty years separated me from David’s world. I identified with him, was outraged by every injustice he suffered—especially the betrayal of those he’d considered close friends—rejoiced with him when he succeeded, and felt like I was living his life alongside him as I devoured the pages of that book. Till this day, I find myself smiling when I remember Aunt Betsy screeching, “Donkeeees!” or how Mr. Micawber was always sure something would turn up. But don’t get me started on Uriah Heep. I have no fond memories of him!

Looking back, I see how the cruelty David endured at the hands of Mr. Murdstone stayed with me and inspired some of Master Coffyn’s qualities in Deadmarsh Fey, especially his penchant for harsh and often violent discipline against children. And now that I think of it, that fey quality of Miles and Flora so hauntingly delineated in The Turn of the Screw found its way into Deadmarsh, too, coloring certain aspects of Lockie’s character, so even though both books made me cry for very different reasons, they both impacted my writing in their own unique ways.

  1. Did you ever consider writing under a pseudonym?

No, never. I’ve always wanted to be known as the author of my novels, not because I have a thirst for fame—I prefer the focus to be on my stories, not me—but because I worked hard on them. The funny thing is, though, that many readers have thought Melika Dannese Lux is a pseudonym, but I can assure you that’s exactly the name printed on my birth certificate.

  1. Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?

I think what readers want is originality. We can all be inspired by the fantasy greats, of course, and I freely admit that Tolkien and Lewis are my literary “fathers,” but to be derivative to the point of copying them is not something I’ve ever wanted to do. I’m a little fanatical when it comes to being original, so much so that when I created the name of my main villain and Otherworld in Deadmarsh Fey, I typed both into Google and Amazon to make certain they hadn’t been used before! I understand that, according to conventional wisdom, you should compare your works to those of other fantasy authors to hook readers, or even get an agent. But that’s the problem with conventional wisdom—it’s conventional, stultifying, and only interested in preserving the status quo, leaving no room for the unexpected, and very dismissive of that which it does not understand or cannot fit into a neatly designed mold. Why can’t a fantasy book stand on its own without having to be compared to anything that’s come before? Isn’t that what people really want, to read something unlike anything they’ve ever read? To get lost in a world they can discover and explore for themselves, make their home in, without being encumbered by any preconceived notions? That would be a wondrous thing, I think, and much more gratifying than reading yet another Game of Thrones clone.

  1. How do you balance making demands on the reader with taking care of the reader?

The philosopher Nicholas Malebranche once said, “Attentiveness is the natural prayer of the soul.” Laziness of mind is bad enough, but having an unengaged soul makes attentiveness, and really anything else, impossible. This is why I don’t believe asking my readers to fully invest themselves—mind, heart, and soul—into Deadmarsh Fey is being unduly demanding, since I invested my entire being into writing this book. As the author, I see myself as the facilitator, and it is my job, through my storyweaving, to remind my readers that it is incumbent upon them to take care of themselves. I won’t spoon feed you, neither will I string you along, but you should know at the outset that I will not be your Virgil, guiding you through the darkling night. I want my readers to discover things for themselves in this world I have offered to them, a world in which they can lose themselves entirely—a world it is my greatest hope they will make their own. And to achieve this, attentiveness—concentration—is a must, not because Deadmarsh Fey is some labyrinth you need Ariadne’s Thread to find your way out of, but because giving not only my book, but any book, a cursory reading shows not only a lack of respect for the author, but for the reader’s own self, as well. How can you be moved, touched, inspired, if your only objective is to race through a book to finish it as fast as you can? What chance is there for you to experience wonder if you don’t let the story absorb you, if you cut yourself off from allowing the tale to strike a chord in your soul and make your spirit take flight? The opportunity to connect with something beyond you has been neglected, the moment for discovery, expanding your imagination, and knowing yourself deeper, lost when your overriding ambition is how many pages you can read in a day to reach a quota for the year, or some other such arbitrary marker that robs you of the chance to be seized by wonder. It makes the act of reading no act at all, but a passive disengagement that seems completely pointless—and dreadfully hollow.

With every book I have written, but never more so than with Deadmarsh Fey, my goal has been that my readers become active participants in the experience. If this happens, I believe they will feel as if they are sharing in the recreation of the novel and will be able to capture the essence, the atmosphere, in which the work was first written. By becoming a part of the story, they are truly making it into something new and theirs, which is what I want most of all. I want them to lose themselves in a tale that seems fantastical at first, but the deeper they read, the more engaged they become, they realize that the truths in this book mirror the truths in their own lives, that these characters are not so unlike them, and that they, the readers, will miss these kindred souls after the final page is turned. When total immersion occurs, my readers will see Roger and the other characters not as I do, no longer as I’ve described them, but through their own eyes, the images I’ve created meeting the images my words have birthed in their minds, catching fire, and taking flight, burning like a phoenix across their imaginations and hopefully inspiring them to create unexplored worlds of their own, or at least to never be the same after reading this book because it has touched them in some deep and meaningful way and possibly revealed to them their true “home.” That is my wish for everyone who reads Deadmarsh Fey—that they will be open to receiving what the book has in mind for them, and be changed for the better once their journey with my characters comes to an end.

  1. Do you view writing as a kind of spiritual practice?

When you invent something out of nothing, you are, in a sense, sharing in the act of creation. I’m not trying to be blasphemous or presumptuous by saying that, but I truly feel, and have done so for many years, that writing is as close as I come to touching the divine, to brushing up against the world that shimmers just beyond our own. My beloved says that all true art is a spiritual practice, and I agree with him wholeheartedly, as I do with his christening my work dream-sagas, for that is where my original inspiration for Dwellers of Darkness, Children of Light came from—in the chaos of a dream that quite frankly was almost a nightmare, a vision of two young girls, sisters, cowering at the end of a corridor in a small cottage on an fog-encircled island, flattening themselves against the wall and scarcely breathing for fear any sound would alert the gargantuan demonic bear snuffling down the hallway, growing ever nearer, to their presence—the bear that was hungering for their blood.

In many ways, I also view writing as a prayer, a reaching up toward my higher self, my angel, if you will, the self I am meant to be but have been separated from here in my exile upon this earth. It’s a constant striving to make sense out of the thoughts in my head, the inspirations, the “why” of life, and to weave them into a tapestry of light and shadow, of good and evil and the grey areas in between where heroes may doubt their valor but choose to fight on nonetheless, often against seemingly insurmountable odds, because they are dedicated to saving that which they hold dear, their world, the people they love and are willing to lay down their lives to defend. That call to fight for something greater than yourself is also very spiritual at its core, and was a vital thread I wove into the fabric of Deadmarsh Fey in ways I had never done with any other book I had written before. In this novel, in this Otherworld, I feel as though I truly am writing what I dream, both literally and in a deeper sense. I have now found my “home,” at least where writing is concerned, the place where I have finally been able to fulfill the maxim that changed my life many years ago: “All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.” Sixteen years old, was I, when Gandalf’s wisdom pierced my heart and set me on this trajectory. The journey has been hard, frustrating, and often incredibly lonely, but it has brought me joy, too, never more so than now, and I would not trade the experience for anything in the world, nor, if given the chance to go back and choose differently, would I diverge from this path that was presented to me. I believe in my soul that despite all the obstacles, it was the path I was destined to take…and how things were always meant to be.

I also think that there is something intensely, almost ecstatically, spiritual about being seized by a story, which happened to me when writing Deadmarsh Fey. From a certain point onward, I was no longer in control of this book. My characters quickly and not too subtly disabused me of the notion that I knew what was best, and since I really had no choice in the matter, I let them take over, and Deadmarsh Fey became a much better tale because I got out of my own way. And that is something I would encourage every writer to do, whether you believe our craft is a spiritual practice or not…let your ego go. It is your worst enemy, will shut you down, choke your creativity. You must diminish for inspiration to increase, and only when you do this will your story have the potential to take wing, blaze across the heavens, and transform into something unique and rapturous. Something you and you alone were born to write.

  1. Do you read your book reviews? How do you deal with bad or good ones?

Yes, I do read them. No author likes to receive bad reviews, and at one time, they had a powerfully negative effect on me, but as I’ve gotten older, and grown as a writer, they don’t influence me anymore. I know the value of my work, and nobody’s negative opinion is going to make me doubt it or love it any less, especially people who abandon my book after only reading a fraction of it. Additionally, if somebody is just spewing vitriol, I don’t take it to heart. And if they completely miss the point of the book, I don’t internalize that, either.

I do appreciate good reviews, of course, especially when the reader invests him- or herself into the world I have created—living through my characters, even becoming them for the short while they are in their company—and therefore is able to truly comprehend what I am trying to say instead of simply glossing over details that were not included as filler, words that weren’t written to pad the pages, just to get things over with for whatever reason, as I mentioned above. It’s a very rewarding feeling when a reader “gets” my work, as happened recently with the wonderful Dianne Bylo at Tome Tender. Her review has become my favorite, and the best, of any of my books thus far, not only because it was erudite and well-written, but also because it revealed that Dianne had let herself be seized by Deadmarsh Fey and thereby connected with it in a profound way, which is what I hope the experience will be for everyone who reads this book.

  1. Do you hide any secrets in your books that only a few people will find?

I do, but when it came to Deadmarsh Fey, everything that I hid within its pages was built up and eventually revealed in a rather shocking manner a few chapters from the end of the novel. Even at the eleventh hour—and by that I mean some of the very last scenes of the book—I was still unraveling secrets I had woven throughout the story from the beginning. Nearly all of them found resolution in Deadmarsh Fey, though I did leave a few open ended enough to be explored further in the three successive novels in Dwellers of Darkness, Children of Light. Each one of these secrets, every arc that was created in Deadmarsh Fey to be spooled out into the other books, however, did have a suitable ending when its furtherance of the plot in this tale had served its purpose. This was a conscious choice, because I despise loose ends, and even though I think that in some cases it is fine to be ambiguous—as with The Turn of the Screw—I believe that ambiguity for its own sake, or as an attempt to be “edgy,” ruins the integrity of a story.

In the sequel to Deadmarsh Fey, which I’m working on now, there is a sort of inside joke for most of the novel, but it is revealed at precisely the moment when it counts most and is quite earthshattering. And yet…when readers get to that point, I have a sense they will most likely feel that if they’d just thought about it a bit more, they would have been able to solve this riddle fairly early on. I’m hoping the reaction will include a fist to the forehead and a dramatic exclamation of, “Good gad! How could I have been so blind?!” I’m incredibly eager to interweave this plot point throughout the novel—palming the ace where I can, scattering false clues, then finally lowering the boom and blowing the lid off this secret when the time is right. I confess to taking a little enjoyment in being tricksy like this when crafting my books. All right, it’s more than a little. It’s a LOT! But it makes things tremendously exciting for me, and I hope this excitement will transfer to everyone who reads my novels, this one especially.

  1. What is your favorite childhood book?

The Ivy Cottage by E. J. Taylor. Even though it was very short, and I first read it at the age of four, I still remember the feeling of warmth with which this book enveloped me—as cozy as a sheltering blanket, as soothing as a mug of hot chocolate enjoyed by a roaring fire. The illustrations were entrancing, and I was completely captivated by the idea of living in a cottage in the woods, or one just on the borders of it. After all these years, this is still my dream.

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New Deadmarsh Fey Excerpt @ The Fantasy Hive

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Posted by Melika Dannese Hick in Book Spotlight, Deadmarsh Fey, Excerpts, Fun Stuff, Missives, News, Updates

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writing life, writing method, writing process, years, yo ho yo ho a writer's life for me, york, Yorkshire, Young Adult, young author, young female author, young love, Young Protagonists, young writer, your home, ziroonderel, ziroonderel Hi Everyone! I am beyond thrilled to share with you today my featured interview for the Fantasy Hive! It’s a fun and wonderful site

Hi Everyone,

I’m so happy to be back at The Fantasy Hive this week, but instead of an interview, one of my most favorite excerpts from Deadmarsh Fey is being featured! Thanks once again go to Laura and the great people at this fantastic site for allowing me to showcase my work.

I hope this excerpt will intrigue and unsettle you, and make you insatiably curious to find out what happens to Roger next!

Best wishes,

Melika

Flesh and bone and hearts unknown, lead to the rath and your fate will be shown…

When wandering through a forest, one expects to see many things. Trees, squirrels, maybe even a bear…

A feast laid out solely for you in the middle of a clearing…

That last one shouldn’t have made the list, you say? Try telling that to Roger Knightley, then, for it is exactly what he stumbled upon while sojourning in the woods behind Deadmarsh.

Here, on this whimsical table, were found treats stuffed to bursting with enough luscious flavors to satisfy the cravings of a boy possessed of a sweet tooth the size of the North York Moors. How could he resist such a temptation?  I feel safe in saying most anyone would find it difficult to do so…assuming you could actually seewhat had been set out to entice you. Forgot to mention that small detail. The feast is invisible, unless you look at it through a glass darkly, which, for Roger, means peering through the two halves of a cracked, milky blue moonstone known as The Eye of Arianrhod. Without this, there’d be no hope of piercing the glamour that hangs over such a fey place. But is it a glamour of enchantment?

Or of evil?

I invite you to read on and discover for yourself…

The Feast in the Forest, excerpted from Deadmarsh Fey

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Featured Interview at The Fantasy Hive!

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Posted by Melika Dannese Hick in Author Spotlight, Deadmarsh Fey, Fun Stuff, Missives, News, Updates

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Hi Everyone!

I am beyond thrilled to share with you today my featured interview for the Fantasy Hive! It’s a fun and wonderful site, and I enjoyed answering these questions so much. Many, many thanks to the fabulous (and sharktastic!) Laura M. Hughes for giving me this opportunity. I hope you will all enjoy reading about, as Laura phrased it, “sharks, the power of music, sharks, itinerant writing, sharks, and the possibility of Melika secretly turning out to be a Dúnedain ranger.”

Best wishes!

~Melika

Thanks for joining us today, Melika! Let’s start small: tell us about a great book you’ve read recently.

Pan by Knut Hamsun. This is the second of his novels that I’ve read over the last few months (Victoria was the first—devastatingly brilliant!), and I can now say that I am hooked! Pan is a short book, but that only makes the experience even more intense. There is much casual and outright cruelty in it, regarding how human beings use and treat each other as if they are disposable, but you just cannot look away, or at least I could not—and you absolutely cannot stop reading, washed along on this dark tide of roiling emotions as you are. The characters did things that made me want to strangle them, and yet I pitied them and could relate to them almost simultaneously. I even laughed aloud at several points, only to be chilled into silence a few paragraphs later, especially after reading one shattering line that had to do with Aesop the dog. I find Hamsun’s works fascinating and am, quite frankly, amazed by his ability to sketch these vivid and penetrating psychological portraits with such economy, whereas it would take a lesser author hundreds of pages to do the same.

Okay, time to escalate things: reality warps and you suddenly find yourself leading a D&D-style party through a monster-infested dungeon. What character class are you, and what’s your weapon of choice?

I had to do some research for this question, because I’ve never played Dungeons and Dragons and know nothing about it. Yet as soon as I saw what the character classes were, I had no doubt as to which one I’d belong to. Ranger. Not only because Aragorn, after Gandalf, is my favourite character in The Lord of the Rings, but I think I actually might have Dúnedain blood, since I was mistaken for a 15 year old a couple of summers back, even though I’m…quite a few years older than that. As for my weapon of choice, it would have to be a sword, one that is slightly smaller than Anduril (I’m darn near hobbit size, how do you expect me to lift something so huge?!), but no less lethal and majestic.

Great answer! When you’re not trawling through dungeons, do you prefer to type or to hand-write? Why?

I find that when I’m seized by a story, my thoughts begin firing incredibly quickly, and since I’m a fast typist (thanks to my mother, the typing teacher, who taught me this skill when I was five years old), this allows me to put my ideas into a cohesive narrative much more easily than if I took the time to handwrite them into a notebook. It also must be said that my handwriting is not the most elegant thing in the world. To give you an example of just how illegible it can get, I’ve had to discard notes in the past because I couldn’t make heads or tails of what I’d written! I still jot down notes on whatever scrap of paper is nearest to hand, of course, and try not to be so hasty when scrawling out a thought, but typing has been and will, I hope, always be the best writing method for me.

And how do you like to work – in silence, with music, or serenaded by the damned souls of a thousand dead shrimps?

Can’t they be prawns like Pepe, okay? No? In that case, I like to have music playing low in the background when I write, preferably epic film soundtracks, while at other times, I require classical music. It depends on what I’m writing. If the scene calls for me to muster my inner Rohirrim, then epic it is, but if I’m writing something intensely emotional, I need music that will resound in my soul and heart and be my Virgil, guiding me through the darkness and into the light beyond. This was the case with one particular scene in Deadmarsh Fey, and if I hadn’t had classical music to bear me up when I was plumbing some very traumatic and emotional depths, I do not know how I would have made it through.

Are you an architect or a gardener? A plotter or a pantser? D’you write in your underwear, or in a deep-sea diver’s suit? Tell us something unusual about your writing method!

The only unusual thing about my writing routine is that I rove from room to room when I feel the need for a change of scene. Staring at a blank wall all day gets old after a while, so I often take my laptop outside and sit amid the greenery. It’s soul-restoring, and inspiring, and always makes me feel as if I’ve been given a chance to see the story afresh, with new eyes. I’m very grateful I’ve had the opportunity to do this, because I see how it has helped in the past, most especially with Deadmarsh Fey. There were some particularly thorny spots toward the beginning of that book that only finally became untangled in my mind thanks to my being able to write outside in the freeing air.

What are your most significant non-book fantasy influences?

There is only one, but it was a paradigm shift and changed the course of my life: Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings film trilogy, specifically The Fellowship of the Ring. And here is the reason why…

For most of my early life, I wanted to be a marine biologist, even though I had been writing little stories on and off since I was around eight years old, and began work on my first novel at the age of fourteen. To me, writing was (and still is) like a key that unlocks secret doorways into other worlds, and I couldn’t seem to shake the feeling that I was being called to dedicate my life to exploring these universes—and making them my own. Yet it wasn’t until the winter of 2001, as I sat in a darkened theatre, awestruck and enraptured by my first glimpse of Middle-Earth, that the path I was meant to take unfolded before me. This I owe to Gandalf and the words of wisdom he spoke to Frodo in the caverns of Moria, when hope was threatening to fade and disappear entirely:

“All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us.”

In my heart, I knew what my decision had to be. And so I made it…and have never looked back.

What was the last thing you watched on TV and why did you choose to watch it?

 Air Jaws: Back From the Dead. I’ve been watching Shark Week since it premiered, and these flying shark specials have been my favorite parts of the celebration for many years. The sight of such huge, magnificent animals—some weighing two to three tons—launching themselves out of the water never ceases to amaze me, and has resulted in my being inspired to incorporate sharks into not only my writings (current project included), but in song, as well.  Here’s a little one I composed ten years ago during the 20th anniversary as an homage to Shark Week—the most wonderful time of the year:

Jingle Sharks

 (As performed by Irv, a Great White Shark from Sydney, Australia, and all around fantastic lad,
with select interjections by the Australian Shark Chorus)

Swimming through the sea, with bloodshed on my mind,
I spy a little seal, then bite off his behind!
But he is just a snack, I need a bigger munch,
So when I spot a surfer dude, I shout, “Yippee! There’s lunch!”

Ohhh! Jingle Sharks, Jingle Sharks, chumming’s not for us!
Sharkin’s been looked down on since Old Quint, he bit the dust!
(And we’ve got Bruce to thank for that!)
Ohhh! Jingle Sharks, Jingle Sharks, we like our bait live!
Why don’t all you people on the beach come take a dive?!
(We won’t bite, we promise! Sharks’ honor!)

*brief tom-tom interlude: Da da da da da DA, dum dum!*

The surf is choppy now, and swimmers cannot see,
That lurking right offshore, is little three ton me!
I play it nice and cool, I bide my time so good,
And when nobody’s looking, I latch on to someone’s foot!

Ohh-ohhh-ohhhhhh! Jingle Sharks, Jingle Sharks, Shark Week is sublime!
We’ve ruled cable TV for three decades in primetime! Ohhh-oh-ohhhhhh!
Jingle Sharks, Jingle Sharks, everybody’s hooked!
Thanks to conservation, now, our goose ain’t gonna be cooked!

*raucous shouts of “Sharkland, forever!” erupt from the Australian Shark Chorus*

End Song

Copyright © 2008, 2018 by Melika Dannese Lux

*APPLAUSE* Beautiful, Melika! Simply beautiful.

Back to the questions (sadly): the world shifts, and you find yourself with an extra day on your hands during which you’re not allowed to write or otherwise do any work. How do you choose to spend the day?

Wandering the fields of the Shire (ours is not in New Zealand, btw) with the one I love. That would be heaven, and my idea of true bliss—the absolute perfect day.

If you could choose one punctuation mark to be made illegal, which would it be and why?

The semicolon. It’s so indecisive. Am I a comma? Am I a period? Make up your mind, you cannot be both!

In no more than three sentences, tell us a little something about your current work in progress!

Here there be sharks, and demons of the deep. And a creature whose memory is as fathomless as its desire for revenge.

At this point, we’d be surprised if there *weren’t* sharks in your WIP.

Melika, if you could co-write or co-create a series (like The Expanse, or the Malazan Book of the Fallen), who would you choose to work with and why?

Can I hop in a time machine and travel back several decades to Oxford? Because the author I would love to co-write or co-create a series with is J. R. R. Tolkien. He and his legendarium and their glorious film adaptations have impacted my life in so many ways, and if the space time continuum or whatever it is could be bent to allow me to meet and work with him, I’d do so in a heartbeat. Just being able to talk to him and discuss not only Middle-Earth, but his love of Anglo-Saxon and Norse myths and legends, the meaning of words and names, his deep Catholic faith and how it imbued his worldview…that would be amazing to me! And then there is the added bonus of ending up at the Eagle and Child after a hard day’s work and meeting up with all the other Inklings, especially C. S. Lewis, for a round of likeminded conversation and story reading from each of our latest projects…and some pretty harsh but constructive criticism! I know this is a total fantasy, but I don’t care. Let me have my little dream.

What’s the most (and/or least) helpful piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

The worst and most stultifying piece of advice I have ever been given is to “write what you know.” If I’d followed it, Deadmarsh Fey would not exist. Don’t write what you know. Write what you dream, and make sure you instill your entire being into what your heart and soul are calling you to breathe into life.

If you could visit any country at any point in history, where/when would you go, and why?

There are two, both in the present day. England first, then off to Middle-Earth, I mean, New  Zealand, to tour Hobbiton and The Lord of the Rings filming locations, catch a glimpse of the big boys (Great White sharks, from a boat, not within the cage, because, as a rather crackbrained yet perspicacious old salt once remarked, “You go in the water. Cage goes in the water. Shark’s in the water. Our shark. Farwell and adieu…”), and other places that have special meaning to me.

Every writer encounters stumbling blocks, be it a difficult chapter, challenging subject matter or just starting a new project. How do you motivate yourself on days when you don’t want to write?

It wasn’t writer’s block, because I never stopped writing during it, but back in 2013, I suffered through an intense, year-long ordeal of working on what would become the last book in Dwellers of Darkness, Children of Light  (the four novel series that Deadmarsh Fey is part of). At the time, I thought this book had to come first, but every day I sat down at the laptop to write was a struggle and made me feel as though I was trying to shove round pegs into square holes. It took me a long while to realize that the story wasn’t working because I was attempting to tell the end of the saga without knowing its beginning. But I plowed through, and that is what I encourage every writer to do. It was the only way I was able to overcome this type of obstacle, since giving up was never an option. Yet even though this experience was incredibly frustrating, I do not regret it, because what was written in that novel laid the foundation for nearly every scrap of myth and legend, and even inspired a number of significant events, in Deadmarsh Fey, that I would have known nothing about if I hadn’t written that fourth book first.

Tell us about a book that’s excellent, but underappreciated or obscure.

The King of Elfland’s Daughter by Lord Dunsany. It’s been ages since I read that book, but I still remember the characters (Ziroonderel the Witch, Alveric the prince and his Elvish love, Lirazel, Orion the hunter of unicorns…), the almost heart-breaking lyricism of the prose and plot, and the ethereal nostalgia for that time in my life which merely thinking about this book makes me feel. The novel is very dreamlike, infused with a sense of otherness and melancholy, and yet there is hope and romance (in its truest sense) in every word. It was one of the very first fantasy novels I read after I’d made the decision to become a writer, and it will always be precious to me.

Finally – and I feel like this question was designed solely for you, and has been waiting for you to answer it in all the months we’ve been doing these interviews – would you be so kind as to dazzle us with what we like to call a ‘shark elevator pitch’? (It’s exactly the same as an elevator pitch, but with sharks.) (Well, one shark. Which, by the way, is currently picking between its rows of teeth to try and dislodge the remains of the last author who stepped onto its elevator.) Ahem. So: why should readers check out your work? A shark elevator pitch of your own book(s) in no more than three sentences – go!

Whether we are aware of it or not, we all have a fundamental longing for “home”, and by that I don’t mean a building, but a deep ache within the heart to find the place where we truly belong. For me, at least when it comes to my writing, “home” has always been in these other worlds I have created—perilous realms infected by a darkness that seems unstoppable…yet also realms of searing beauty and light, peopled by characters who heed the call to lay all on the line for a chance (sometimes less than a chance) to defeat the evil that is threatening to devour everything they love because they have realized that their world, though fallen—and uncannily similar to our own—is worth fighting for. When reading my books, especially Deadmarsh Fey, my wish and hope is that you lose yourself in these worlds, that you let go and journey along with the characters, grow attached to them, become them, even, and see in them a reflection of yourself…and if by doing so you discover what your “home” is, then that is reward enough, for it will mean that I have made the best use of the time that was given to me.

Brilliant, Melika. Thanks so much for joining us today, and best of luck with the Self-Published Fantasy Blog-Off!

Melika Dannese Lux is the author of Deadmarsh Fey and Corcitura. Find her on social media using the links below.

Lux - Deadmarsh Fey
Lux - Corcitura

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SPFBO $0.99/£0.99 Fantasy Book Sale!

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SPFBO graphic1

Hi Everyone,

To coincide with the start of this year’s SPFBO, over 120 other authors in the contest and I are slashing the prices of our books to 99c/99p! This is a great opportunity for you to sample some fantastic fantasy fiction without going broke! To see the plethora of books on sale, just head over to author Andrea Domanski’s site by clicking on the link below:

http://www.andreadomanski.com/spfbo

And don’t forget to show a little love for Roger and the fey while you’re there by snagging a copy of my latest release, too!

cover

Thank you so much, and please, once you’ve read and enjoyed our books, it would be wonderful if you could leave us reviews on Amazon and Goodreads and whatever other social media sites you are members of. This helps us out tremendously!

Best wishes, and happy reading!

~Melika

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Warnings from Cutwater Island…

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R. R. Tolkien, jack, Jack the Ripper, jagged, jagged ones, JAWS, jawsome, jawsomeness, jean valjean, jess watkins, jingle bells, jingle sharks, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, john william waterhouse, jon, joseph sheridan le fanu, joy, JRR Tolkien, Jurassic Park, just keep swimming, katniss, kind, Kindle, kindle giveaway, Kip, Kipling, Knightley, knowing thine enemy, la la land, La Perle de Paris, la petite coquette, lad, languages, laptop, leave, legend, legendarium, legends, Leonora, Leonora Bianchetti, lepers, les miserables, letter, library, lie, lieder eines fahrenden gesellen, lies, life, light, lin manuel miranda, lineup, Links, lips, list, Lockie, loggerheads, logistical, London, longing, longing for home, longings, lord byron, lord of the rings, LOTR, Louisa May Alcott, Louvre, Love, love of reading, Luc, luck, lunch, lux, lynn's books, lyrics, machen, maddie, Madelaine Bradburry, madness, mahler, malevolence, manipulation, Manon Larue, manor, marble, marine biologist, mark lawrence, 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Excerpted from Deadmarsh Fey, Chapter 20, Warnings and Visitations

 

Oh, wait, I tell a lie! There was something in there. It was…

“Was what?!” Roger demanded of the paper. But the writing had stopped. He grabbed the next page and noticed that Iso had inked yet another date into the top of it. The twenty-second of May. She was catching up.

Here I am, finally coming back to this letter. I had started to tell you what was in that chest when I was called away. We finally made the move, Rog. I’ll give you the details later, but let me first finish up what I was going to say. In that chest was a curiosity that Evie immediately claimed for her own. I’m sure you’re dying to hear what it is, and since you are not around to say, “Get on with it, Iso! Spill!” I’ll take your silence as a yes and tell you. It’s the most astounding thing—the bust of a lady with a veil covering her face, but it’s all made of marble! Even the sheer-looking veil! Extraordinary, right? I’ve no idea how the carver managed it. The first time I saw this thing, I wanted to throw the veil back to see what color the lady’s eyes were. I really thought I could do it, too, but, of course, when I tried, it stayed firmly in place, and that’s when I realized what a ninny I was to have thought I could do so, even…

“Drat it, Iso!” Roger cried. “Why can’t you sit still long enough to finish a letter?!” His rage fizzled out when he saw what he’d been too angry to notice before. The sentence had been broken off with a wild streak of Iso’s pen. She’d pressed down so hard, the nib had almost pierced through the paper. What had happened to startle her so badly? Or had she been more than startled?

What if she’d been attacked?

Roger’s eyes flitted to the next section of the letter and he read a few lines, unnerved by the change in Iso’s tone. In the space of a few sentences, she’d gone from bubbly to sounding darn near paranoid.

I hate that statue. Evie somehow managed to smuggle it here without any of us knowing. If Father had discovered it up in Skye, he would have chucked it into the sea, which is what I’ve half a mind to do. I’ll never walk by that statue at night. I can’t even stand to go near it during the day. I swear that woman is looking at me through her veil. I don’t know how to explain it, but I can feel her eyes following me. And I’m not the only one who thinks something’s off with that statue. Jon said he’s felt the same way, but not Evie. Oh, no, never Evie. She dotes on the creepy thing. I even caught her talking to it once. Have you ever heard of anything so daft? 

Roger paused to consider everything that had happened to him within the last day, then nodded. He had done more than hear of anything so daft. He had seen it with his own eyes. He went on reading.

I’ve carried this letter halfway around the world with me, Rog. It’s high time I send it off to you, but I’ve just not had the will to finish it. It’s rather hard to muster up excitement for anything when you’re stuck in the house with nothing but books for company.          

Roger sat bolt upright. Was she sick? Was she in trouble? Why should she have to stay inside the house? He felt uneasy, but what worried him most was that he was running out of pages—out of space for Iso to tell him what was really going on.

I’ve learned something rather disturbing from Father. It seems that Mother had a near-fatal accident when she was pregnant with Evie. For some reason, Father blames the Deadmarshes for Mother almost dying. I’m not really sure why. He was rather vague on that point. But I tell you, Rog, it’s a good thing he didn’t hold a grudge against the children of that family, otherwise I never would have known Travers. And you’d have probably been deemed tarnished by the accident of sharing the same blood. How dreadful would that have been? After my brother and sister, you’re the closest friend I’ve got. True friends don’t keep secrets from each other, which is why I’m telling you this one, even if it makes you think Father’s gone off his nut. Here goes… He said the sins of the Deadmarshes had brought doom upon us all, that they are the real reason we find ourselves stuck on this rock in the middle of a demon-haunted sea. I still don’t understand why he blames your family, but he does. Nothing can make him change his mind about that. And he’s blaming them not only for our current circs., but for Mother almost drowning in Wales, too.

Roger upended the wastebasket next to his chair as he shot up from his seat. Wales?! Why Wales?! What had Iso’s mother been doing there?!

Ignoring the mess he’d made on the floor, he sank down on the chair and managed to calm himself enough to resume reading.

I would have preferred to live in Wales, you know. Anywhere would’ve been better than Cutwater Island. Ever heard of it? No? Neither had I. It’s an awful place. All jagged rocks and scrubland. And the people…we might as well be lepers. Not one of them has come to welcome us, and they avoid us whenever we show our faces in what passes for a village in this place. And at church, well… Come Sunday, we kids are the only ones in the pews. I don’t think we’ll be leaving this godforsaken rock any time soon, though. At least not till the thing circling the island leaves. He’s like a reaper, Roger. Three in the last week alone have been taken before they could even cry out. They were dragged under by the beast with the tail shaped like a scythe and skin that shines like an oil slick on the water’s surface. And yet he’s known as White Death. It must be because of the underbelly. Either that or the teeth. Rog…what do you know of sharks?

cover

Copyright © 2017, 2018 by Melika Dannese Lux

 

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