Keira Michelle Telford
We have a wonderful treat today... Keira Michelle Telford, author of The SILVER Series has stopped by!
Tell me, were you a reader before you were a writer? What
do you enjoy reading?
I
don’t read a whole lot of contemporary fiction. I grew up reading Edgar Allan
Poe and Oscar Wilde, and I tend to enjoy stories that have a touch of the
macabre. (Okay, more than a touch – I like my stories to be drenched in it).
The more morbid the better. The more graphic the better. The more grotesque it
is, the more I’ll be entranced by it. Of course, I also want a little bit of
romance. Edgar Allan Poe’s work is littered with emotional torment, centered
around the loss of loved ones. I think his work shaped the way I feel about
love, and especially about a kind of love that transcends death.
Is SILVER:
Acheron (A River of Pain) the first book you’ve written?
No,
not by a long shot. Acheron wasn’t even the first book I wrote in The SILVER
Series, it just sort of emerged from my brain somewhere in between The Lost
& Damned and A New Age Dawns. The first book I ever wrote was about a
school for witches, wizards, invisible people, werewolves, and children with
psychokinetic powers. Sound sort of familiar? Yeah, well, someone else kinda
got a publishing deal first so my idea got thrown in the trash. I was only
twelve, though. I got over it.
Where their some particular inspirations for the
character’s development or character traits for The SILVER Series?
Ella
‘Silver’ Cross has existed for so many years, I can’t remember a time before
she was in my mind. I guess she’s my alter ego. I’m not sure. We’re definitely
very similar in a lot of ways. She’s belligerent, sarcastic, bisexual, bossy,
and hard as nails. She’s tough on the outside, but rather mushy and sentimental
on the inside. She pretends she’s not hurting even when the pain is tearing her
apart. To be honest, I probably know her better than I know myself. She’s the
very best and the very worst of me.
There are many roads that lead to becoming a published
author, each one littered with its own potholes. What was the most challenging
aspect of writing SILVER: Acheron?
(dialogue, character development, creating names, etc)
The
most challenging thing for me is perspective. My books are written in
third-person present tense, and this can be tricky. Since the story’s not being
told directly from Silver’s point-of-view, I have to be careful to give enough
of an insight into her mind so that the reader can relate to her and empathize
with her situation.
How did you tackle this challenge?
Practice.
The use of third-person present tense just seemed natural to me for this
series, even though, prior to this, I’d always written novels in past tense. I
think it’s because I’d spent a number of years writing film scripts in between
bouts of novel writing, and I was just never able to revert back. That being
said, I constantly have to be aware that I’m writing a book, not a script. If
my words come out sounding like camera directions, they won’t be engaging.
Being an author is so much more than just writing a
good story. Besides the “pen and ink,” what is one of the most difficult things
you’ve encountered on your journey as a published author? What helped you get a
handle on it?
All
the legalities are a minefield. Knowing and understanding what is expected of
you as a publisher (for example, in Canada, all publishers are expected to send
in hardcopies of their published work to the Library & Archives service – a
requirement which is easy to overlook), and learning about tax treaties and
which one(s) apply to you (if you’re a non-US author, that is) can be a
confusing road to travel the first time you embark upon it. I recommend reading
up on all of these different things before you put your book(s) out there. If
you’re already aware of the work that lies ahead, you’ll be so much more
prepared to tackle it when the time comes. Remember the five P’s: Proper
Preparation Prevents Poor Performance.
It sounds like you’ve come quite a distance. Thank you,
Keira Michelle, for coming today and
sharing a little of your experience with us, for helping us avoid a few
potholes on the journey to becoming a published author.
Find out more about this Keira:
Buy link:
Bio:
Keira Michelle is a British ex-pat, now
living in British Columbia, Canada. She is the author of a 10-book series of
post-apocalyptic, dystopian science fiction books, all centering on the lead
character of Ella 'Silver' Cross. The first book in this series, Acheron, was
released Nov 2011, and the sixth book in the series, Inamorato, is due to be
released Nov 2012.
Blurb:
Dishonorably discharged from the Hunter Division and banished for crimes
she did not commit, Silver struggles to come to terms with her new prison-like
surroundings: a segregated area of the city called the Fringe District,
populated by murderers, thieves and rapists.
Starving, and desperate for money, she reluctantly accepts the Police
Division's invitation to enroll in a covert Bounty Hunter program: an
initiative devised to infiltrate the criminal underworld of the Fringers, and
to force the very worst warrant dodging law-breakers to meet their fate—death.
Unfortunately, Silver doesn't realize that the Police Division is about to up
the ante. They need more than little snippets of information and arrests—they
need someone to pull the trigger.
They need an executioner.
---------------------------------
SILVER: Acheron is the first book (a 40,000 word novella) in a 10-book series
featuring the character of Ella ‘Silver’ Cross. Set more than 300yrs in the
future, the Silver Series takes place in a post-apocalyptic, dystopian world
where humans are a species on the brink of extinction. No longer at the top of
the food chain, humans are preyed upon by the Chimera—genetic mutants that
outnumber humankind 25:1.
