I have something very special for you today. However, before we can get down to the awesome sauce in this post I need to post my Battle of the Bands results. On the 15th I posted the song It Had To Be You with Tony Bennett and Harry Connick, Jr. battling it out. Eleven of you lovely people voted and came back with 6 for Tony and 5 for Harry. However, I still have to cast my vote, either giving the win definitively to Tony or creating a tie. ::drumroll with people holding their breath:: And my vote goes to... Harry Connick, Jr. Yep, all I did was create a tie! See ya back here on the 1st of the month for the next bout in Battle of The Bands!!!
Many of you know that I have set aside either Monday or Tuesday for All Things Writing. Today, I am pleased to tell you that my first guest writer is here. She is going to share with us the story of her journey to publishing her first novel. Achieving a life goal is something I know that all of you can relate to, whether you are a writer or not. So, please put your hands together for M. Gerrick, newly published author!!!
Thanks
for letting me visit today, Robin!
Robin
asked me to write something deep and personal about my experience writing The Vanished Knight, so I thought I’d go
back to the beginning of me writing anything. To before I actually could write.
In
a way, it all started with my grandmother. When I was still small, my
grandmother was the one who told me, my brother and my cousin that fairies
lived in our garden. Maybe she thought, it’d keep us busy for the afternoon
while we looked for them.
Or
maybe she suspected that we’d build this tiny world in the garden, where
fairies did dance on flowers, and
this big, interestingly shaped rock would be the queen’s palace. We stared in
wonder at the magic we saw, and when the fairies went North for the winter
(i.e. we lost interest in the game), we wanted some new source of wonder.
Thing
is, we’d been creators once before, so hopscotch etc. wouldn’t be it. I can’t
remember which story came next, but we often took t.v. shows we liked and
changed them to suit us, and lived those
stories every afternoon for days. Highlights included Robin Hood, Sinbad,
Hercules and the three musketeers. We were never boys though. That was my
brother’s job when he was there.
Oddly,
one of my favorites, King Arthur, never made it into our afternoons that I can
remember. Odd in that it shares prime place with Robin Hood as my favorite
story.
Anyway,
my grandmother watched us play and urged us to let her write the stories we
created down. But they were too long and complicated, and we were much more
interested in playing than in writing. She did pen down plenty of rhymes and
poems that I rattled off on some bored afternoons, though.
I
liked poetry. Enjoyed reciting my rhymes to my grandmother, but later on, when
I’d learned how to read and write, she told me to note my rhymes down myself. I
think this was in first grade or so. And I loved it! It was probably also where
I started writing stuff for stories down, but as I said, playing them was a lot
more fun.
As
I grew, my grandmother showed me the secrets to writing working short stories.
Which was great for two reasons. I aced creative writing in both my first
languages and seeing people read and enjoy what I wrote inspired me to write
more.
As
a natural progression, the word counts dictated by school became too short, so
I started expanding the stories in my free time, in my mind at least, often
playing them out. At thirteen, I had an idea for a book, and my grandmother
told me I could write it. And the day I started, I became a novelist.
Blurb
Since the death of her parents,
Callan Blair has been shunted from one foster family to another, her dangerous
secret forcing the move each time. Her latest foster family quickly ships her
off to an exclusive boarding school in the Cumbrian countryside. While her
foster-brother James makes it his mission to get Callan expelled, a nearby
ancient castle holds the secret doorway to another land...
When Callan is forced through the
doorway, she finds herself in the magical continent of Tardith, where she’s
shocked to learn her schoolmates Gawain and Darrion are respected soldiers in
service to the king of Nordaine, one of Tardith's realms. More than that, the
two are potential heirs to the Black Knight—Nordaine's crown prince.
But when the Black Knight fails to
return from a mysterious trip, the realm teeters on the brink of war. Darrion
and Gawain set out to find him, while Callan discovers there is more to her
family history than she thought. The elves are claiming she is their princess.
Now with Darrion growing ever more
antagonistic and her friendship with Gawain blossoming, Callan must decide
whether to stay in Nordaine—where her secret grows ever more threatening—or go
to the elves and uncover the truth about her family before war sets the realms
afire.
Bio
M. Gerrick (AKA Misha Gericke) has
basically created stories since before she could write. Many of those stories
grew up with her and can be seen in her current projects.
She lives close to Cape Town, with a
view over False Bay and Table Mountain.
If you’d like to contact her, feel
free to mail her at warofsixcrowns(AT)gmail(DOT)com, Circle her on
Google Plus or follow her on Twitter. If you'd like to see her writer-side
(beware, it's pretty insane), please feel free to check out her blog. You
can also add The Vanished Knight on Goodreads.
Links:
