♦Welcome to another edition of the Open Book Blog Hop!♦
Topic #234
What elements from your life are woven into your latest book?
Welcome back to another Open Book Blog Hop! The authors included in this ongoing series wish to thank you for your reads. We appreciate, even more so, when you share our writings with your friends. If you’re new to the series, welcome aboard. The authors engage and impress weekly. Prepare to become a regular reader.
The Lucent Rise is the final installment of The Trailokya Trilogy and it contains quite a few elements of real life (Easter Eggs). Spoilers ahead!
- Holly Greer’s family mirrors my family at the time I penned the books. My brother has since divorced.
- Holly struggles with Math, and that is a subject I struggled with in school. I have improved since and really want to study calculus so I can move into having a biology degree.
- Holly studies topics I am interested in…theology and spooky theory! What a mix! e
- Holly has no children until later in life. She becomes involved with someone and does get pregnant. While I had a girl via IVF/Donor, Holly is having a boy with her husband.
- Holly is a writer.
- The estate where Holly lives is also a wolf sanctuary. This is a dream I have, but in the interim, I am an avid supporter of the NYWolf.org.
- You might think Chiron or Argus are based on Atka (he passed away a few years ago) of the Wolf Conservation Center but these guys have existed since I was a girl…
- The books are from dreams I have had since I was a girl.
- The character Reyes is loosely based on one of my favorite actors, River Phoenix. The kindness and music of River lives forever, and I wanted to show that in Reyes.
- Holly experiences serious domestic violence and rape at the hands of an ex-partner. While I am a survivor, Jet represents a combination of abuser attributes that may or may not belong to men I have known. DV is an important topic for me. I thought it would be important to display the innocuous along with the overt, in order to make people aware of the warning signs.
- I do not feel whole without a dog or two at my side, and Maiel feels exactly the same, missing her boy Argus and his pack quite a bit.
- Nightmares that inspired scenes in the book included demonic figures that stalked me or skulked in my room, before they were dispatched back to hell by a guardian or myself.
- The snapping and crackling that Holly hears before she leaves her body is something I experienced in sleep, and is thought to be a sign of an out of body experience by spiritualists who believe that is possible. It certainly feels strange and very real when you snap, crackle, pop, and woosh away to somewhere. The brain is amazing!
- I don’t ride a motorcycle yet, but it is a goal.
- Me and Maiel both have dragon tattoos. I have the same navel piercing as Holly, as well as the multiple earrings.
- Maiel and I have red hair. Well, I had copper hair growing up, like Holly, but have taken to making it a bright red. Now that I’m in my 40s, I have to cover the snow on my roof. I would miss my red, which seems to have darkened and grayed with age. I don’t feel myself without it.
- Holly loves Chinese-American food. I’d love to explore real chinese food, as well as culture and language. This is my next goal after learning German.
- Holly sees dead people. I might. I’ve experienced some really weird things, and that has made me more open to writing a topic like this. I guess it was my way of trying to make better sense of these widely held legends and myths. Every single culture exhibits angels and demons, so there must be something to it. Why not go dark fantasy sci-fi with it? (I am not religious. I have one foot in atheism while labeling myself an agnostic because of the weird experiences.)
- Holly’s experience with the Theater Industry is a thinly-veiled aggregation of the publishing industry. Personalities represent the egoistic-annoyed expert to a youthful know-it-all with connections. Readers will find talentless characters guaranteed success simply for who they are, and those trapped in mediocrity, angry about their choices. Threads of indifference contrast active sabotage.
- Holly’s best fried Ranice is modeled on my bestfriend, but little else carries over. My BFF and I are still friends, and she is the aunt of my daughter. We share a townhouse in these hard times, unlike Ranice who takes the first opportunity to abandon her friend, at a time when Holly needs her support. Ranice better represents those fair weather figures in my life, unfortunately more frequent than is fair.
I’m sure there are more, but this list is getting long enough! Let’s hop on over to see what our other hop authors have to share. Click on their links below…
