Adoption in Writing. And then, Adopting…

I started writing Wicked Soul Ascension long before I started thinking about children. I knew Mark and I would want children in the future, but we never talked about it. My main character from Wicked Soul Ascesnsion, Blaze, was adopted by her family after she lost her mother and father in a fire. I never thought that years later my husband and I would enter the adoption process after my novel was published.

The problem with having written an adopted character:
I didn’t know much about the process or the traumas of an adoptee. I heard many stories about international adoptions and domestic adoptions. I also have experience working with children that have been adopted. But now, I’m going to be the mother of an adopted child.
How will they feel when they read this fictional story?
Will I ever write about an adoptee again?
These questions have been weighing heavily on my heart.

On the other hand…
Maybe my child will want to become a writer. I can’t wait to read to him/her books while we curl up in their bed. Trips to the library.

This adventure is the scariest one yet.

 

Wicked Soul Ascension 
Want a read that will get your heart pumping?
Available in print and eBook.

Youtube Vlog about our adoption:
Latest Video
Our Journey to Family

 

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When your breaks fail…plan the crash.

This week is a fine week for cycling. Bike to Work has kicked off. Nothing gets those creative juices flowing like a fine ride down the trail. I hadn’t hopped on my bike in a long while. Maybe, five years or so. I got scared off it when a friend of mine drove into fishing line one day on the way to work. Someone strung fishing line on the Galloping Goose in Victoria, Canada. Other cyclists had been hurt badly. It used to be a beautiful two-hour ride to work past waterfalls in the forest. This week is a fine week for cycling. Bike to Work has kicked off. Nothing gets those creative juices flowing like a fine ride down the trail. I hadn’t hopped on my bike in a long while. Maybe, five years or so. I got scared off it when a friend of mine drove into fishing line one day on the way to work. Someone strung fishing line on the Galloping Goose in Victoria, Canada. Other cyclists had been hurt badly. It used to be a beautiful two-hour ride to work past waterfalls in the forest.

This is my journey to work on my bicycle.

Monday, May 28
Day 1:
The first part of my trip was a thin dusty trail. Grass spikelets whipped my legs as I blew past. The path widened enough to see the roots of the trees ripple the ground ahead.  With the roots behind, the smooth road before me, I let out the breath had I caged, Not so bad, my mind lets me believe. Then, I slipped in a few patches of fine sand as the trail dropped into a steep decline. I pulled on my breaks. My tires unable to grip the rugged trail slid as I turned up onto the bank of shrubs. My pavement tires weren’t meant for the rocks bigger than my fists.

Best walk it. You won’t be able to stop in time… you’ll drive off the cliff over there. My thoughts were no friends of mine. Just then, another cyclist blew by. Took the rocky decline before turning effortlessly onto the trail. I felt like a scared kitty-cat. I walked my bike. Unable to beat the fear.

The thin path leading up to the rocky decline.

I breezed through the main path. Memories of all the fun my bike and I used to have together flashed through as I listened to the ocean lick the beach.

There was a small hill at the end of the road rusty me forgot how to gear down. The weight of my lunch, sweeter, and purse pulled me to a stop halfway up. I laughed as I climbed off to push it up the rest of the way. It felt great. Breathless yes, but I couldn’t stop the smile, the random giggles, or the calm of the wind on my face. My tires kissed the pavement and speed me towards our destination. Ah, the rush.

I turned onto the road I had mapped out. All that joy and glee sank down inside to cower in a corner. There seemed to be no end to the twisted hill that stood before me. I wouldn’t make it. There was just no way I could push myself up that hill even without my bike, lunch, and everything else. With no way around it. The sight of sucked on my energy like a carnivore pulling marrow from a bone.
Sweaty, breathless, and exhausted. I pressed up the hill. I tossed away the heavy doubt. Shoved every time my mind reminded me how much weight I decided to bring that day. I took about four breaks. One for water, and the others to attempt to catch my breath.
Finally, the hill leveled out. I mounted my bicycle once again. Work was less than a minute away. When I looked at my watch… only a half hour had passed since I left home. The hill seemed endless.
With an extra half hour, I stopped by the local Starbucks for a hot cup of coffee to relax before braving my job at the daycare.

The way home nearly killed me. Nearly. Not quite one hundred percent. Like ninety eight…yeah, that sounds right.
I thought the hill in the morning was a monster. Told my boss that too. A nasty monster that chews on your lungs as if it were taffy. The claws that dig deep into your heart and squeeze so hard that each heartbeat pulses through your whole body. Hell was that hill.
I was wrong. Horribly wrong.
I love when writers foreshadowing stories. Like tiny hidden puzzle pieces. Cute, adorable, pieces. I hate however…when it happens in real life and involves me cycling up a hill.
After a hard days work. I imagined a nice flat ride home on a different route. I went up a tiny hill that leads me to a nice paved road home. Once I was far enough away from a quick escape… it began. A hill with a delicate incline so subtle that you never noticed in a car. It steepened once and awhile as if the hill enjoyed taking new bites out of my legs before a lengthy chew. All the nasty words I said about the first hill, I took all of it back. That hill was a nice hill. Quick and sweet. Ripped off fast like a band-aid. This one was like listening to the dentist drill into your tooth. My home was at the bottom of the hill. On the other side. All that peddling seemed pointless. The smooth ride down cooled my face as the breath came back to my lungs. It was peace after a hard day. Wonder at the end of a horrible movie.
Have I ever mentioned that sounds make me jumpy? You might know the sound. You squeeze your breaks and it squeals. Not the, you need to change me. The, You’re going to die!
That’s not a nice thing to say to someone when they need you as you plummet down a hill faster and faster. The other break, the jester, gave you a very important lesson when you were younger. Don’t touch it. It looks safe, but pull it wrong and the jokes on you. My second option was to hit the ditch. Blackberry bushes with all their prickly-nastiness seemed a better idea than the pavement. The gooey water could be okay. All the while I touched my rear break wishing for it to work.

Snap. Not normally a good sound while on a bike. Or pop. Both bad sounds. When blended together and the hum of tires follow. No squeal warning me of death. Just the ease of break pads slowing me down to view the ocean.

I can die another day.

Tuesday, May 29
Day two:
The knowledge of the trail let me predict the what came next. The first drop after the sandy patches seemed less steep. The fist-sized rocks shrunk into small chunks of gravel. I caged the breath in my lungs as I rattled off the drop, across the gravel road, onto the main path. I wondered as I passed the chattery squirrels, the windswept trees, and the ocean’s side, what on Earth made me so terrified? I have an unreasonable fear of pain. I don’t know when it started, or why it started. It grew over time. The slippery slope was only a small accomplishment. And yet, the thrill over left me ecstatic. When I got to the first hill I geared down, leaned in, and conquered that too!

The rocky hill.

I decided to take a different path. Past the monstrous hill. The new challenge was steeper than the last, but it was short. I could see the finish line. I felt the day was in the bag. Nothing could stop this winning streak.
My tires seemed as if they needed air on the way home so I swung into the gas station for a quick top up. As I tried to slow to a stop…my breaks betrayed me. They squeezed the disk ever so gently. Whatever I did the night before to fix my breaks issue…failed. I had to go down that steep hill with the inability to stop. Thank the stars I decided to get air or I might’ve been typing this from a hospital bed.  I didn’t think I’d ever need the tools my mom got for me for Christmas. I kept them in my bag for those just in case, but will never happen, moments. A nice guy asked me if I needed a hand with it. Me being me, I declined. I was going to learn how to fix these things on my own…even though I almost just killed myself by doing just that.  Breaks tightened, I took a ride around the mall parking lot. Not the smartest plan. You know. A car pulls out of a spot fast and I can’t stop. Oh well, I survived. They worked…sorta. The sickly squeal made me second guess myself, but I did have the power to stop. And I did stop. I made it down the hill while my bicycle screamed the whole way down. The light at the bottom turned red and I coasted to the line. I made it. I made it.

I think my bike is trying to kill me. This I should think about while I ride tomorrow.

 

Wicked Soul Ascension 
Want a read that will get your heart pumping?
Available in print and eBook

The Nightmare of Page 40

Wicked Soul Ascension
Chapter 3 Page 40

This dark nightmare that Blaze endures is one of my favourite scenes. When I first approached it I wanted it to be lighter so I could ease the readers into my madness. But, when I wrote the scene it was blah! I crumpled chapter three into a ball and threw it into the recycling.

(Spoilers…Sorta…)

Here is the dissection of the nightmare of Chapter 3:

I reapproached the nightmare with a new angle. The night before I sat down to rewrite chapter three I had a horrible and yet amazing dream. There were ups and downs all over the place. It was like riding a rollercoaster without the safety harness. I knew then how these dreams should play out.

The nightmare had to be about school. Most nightmares that happen are about things we fear or cause us some form of hardship. Ether in the past or in the minds predicted future. At least, that’s from my experience.
Blaze, main character, the students at the school bullied her for being different, easy to pick on, and socially awkward. The teachers never gave Blaze a chance to work through the trauma she had experienced as a small child. Blazes’ mind is a dark eery place where the most twisted things were allowed to happen. I decided that the students and teachers needed to be displayed in the most Blaze-ish way possible. Meat hooks were a great foreshadowing choice that I snuck in. Those of you that read the book…did you catch that?
I took away the sound of the room. The blood that dripped from the open wounds, no creaks, or steps were all void of sound. Loud music in horror movies, even the lack of music, usually means that something is going to pop out. So, I wanted to try it out in a book. I loved the result. It truly added to the emotion of this scene.

After it was written.
The finished nightmare in chapter three made it’s way to my favourites list. I ended up reading it at the Laughing Oyster Book Reading Series on Vancouver Island, Canada. I had never read in front of anyone since English class in school. I mumbled my intro to the crowded room. My hands vibrated as my knees grew weak.
And then, I read the two pages.
When I finished I glanced up from my sheet of paper at the audience panicked that I picked the wrong passage for the crowd. I meekly said, “thank you,” into the mic.
A pause.
Nothing.
Not even a cough.
Finally, they all let out a breath at the same time before they began to clap. It was then I realized how intense the passage was. That the air in the room was sucked out while the audience held their breath.
This is my goal. I want my readers to truly feel the aura of each scene the way I read the nightmare of chapter three that day.

 

Wicked Soul Ascension 
Want a read that will get your heart pumping?
Available in print and eBook

I have done a live reading of this scene on my Facebook page.
Skip forward to 14:12 for the reading.    (Click Here)

 

Here is my interview with C. B. Dixon

I got an interview with Fiona. When she asked what I wanted on my headstone I was stumped… Here’s how it went.

authorsinterviews

Hello and welcome to my blog, Author Interviews. My name is Fiona Mcvie.

 

Let’s get you introduced to everyone, shall we? Tell us your name. What is your age?

My name is C. B. Dixon and I am 27 years old.

Fiona: Where are you from?

I am from the Sunshine Coast, BC, Canada and I love it!

Fiona: A little about your self (ie,  your education, family life, etc.).

I’m married to a handsome commercial diver who I met when I was 17. We moved from Alberta to make our lives in British Columbia with our two lovely kitties. At the moment we are looking to adopt our first child!

Fiona: Tell us your latest news.

I am editing book two of my trilogy! It has me super stoked! I can’t wait until Mortal Soul Ascension is published.

Fiona: When and why did you begin writing?

When I…

View original post 964 more words

Giveaway! Get a Free Book!

I’m over the moon excited about learning about Instafreebie.com. I have been nervous about giving out copies of my novel Wicked Soul Ascension due to how many horror stories I hear from other authors finding their book for free on some random website.I talked to an author friend of mine, Kolleen Fraser, about this fear and she pointed me towards this site. She said she does all her giveaways using Instafreebie. With The Ascension Trilogy about to have book two released soon, I thought it would be fun to give away a few copies of Wicked Soul Ascension.

So here is the link to get your free eBook of Wicked Soul Ascension: https://instafreebie.com/free/Krw4S

 

For Blaze Nemasa there is no escape from the nightmares that hunt her. Hope maybe the only one who can save Blaze’s human soul.
Demons lurking in the shadows are only myths, or that’s what Blaze’s parents told their adopted child before she fell asleep. That all changes when Blaze finds out the truth about her family which burned alive in a house fire on her third birthday. A book of Sin drags her deep into the underworld where Blaze learns the truth about her wicked nature.

(Wicked Soul Ascension is a paranormal fiction book for adults. Be prepared to be sucked into Sin to experience heart-pumping adventure.)

Writing: Scenes for the Senses

After writing Wicked Soul Ascension I considered getting my head checked. The settings that I had imagined in my head were twisted and brutal. I dampened them down to let the reader’s mind add in their own details, but that didn’t make them less scary to see, write, and read. The senses of the reader had become a fascination as I attempted to put them right in the midst of the story.

For Wicked Soul Ascension, I felt the settings were everything. They had to be right! Not only did the objects need to be in their places, but the colours had to have a role in the play of emotions. Red, crimson, are colours that I used to bring forward the readers emotions. This colour was obvious. It was the greens and blues that were hidden in corners of the story that brought light into the darker places of the Sinful Realm. Since colour is mainly grey and red in the realm, the brighter colours reminded Blaze and Hope of the Earthly Realm. This played on Hopes mind since she began to ask to go home.

When I first brought sound to the story I felt awkward. It felt cheezy. Really cheezy. After I did a read over I couldn’t see the story without it. It would have taken the wind out of the air and quieted the whole story. A world with the absence of sound was not what I was going for. So, I added the crack of bone and the slam of a door. It accented the scenes like a mint leaf on top of vanilla ice-cream.

It’s fair to say you wouldn’t want to taste a book. The ink and paper don’t please the tongue. On the other hand, if writers do it right, you can taste a story. I’m a huge foodie. I love different tastes and textures of all types of foods. And when an author adds this element to a story I get all gitty. Since Blaze undergoes a dramatic change I tried to make the reader taste and smell the world around her as she experienced it all for the first time. This was fun to write. There were times I would go and smell/taste something so I’d write it right. There were odd looks from those around me, but research is research.

Wicked Soul Ascension taught me that a story is much more than words. I knew this from reading a book, yes. But, everything changes after writing a book. As a writer, I realize that the reader has scenes that you can play with. I hope to develop this skill as I grow. My goal is to have the reader engaged with more than their mind. Book two, Mortal Soul Ascension, is going to be released soon. I hope to apply my expanding knowledge to the book as I do my read-overs.

 

 

 

Wicked Soul Ascension 
Want a read that will get your heart pumping?
Available in print and eBook.

 

 

 

Extra:

The Void.
The void had to be my most favourite plaything while writing WSA. I could do whatever I wanted in that nightmarish dream space. The scene at the school was the beginning of it all. Once I let the sinister writer out, it became hard to put her back in.

Writing: Blaze and Hope

The characters Blaze Nemasa and Hope came to me in my original stories that I would write in middle school throughout high school. In one copy of the story that I wrote in middle school, Blaze and Hope visit Japan to explore all the things that my friend Kim and I wanted too. It was our own little fan fiction that we had created. Of course, Blaze and Hope were not called by the names they have today. Over time their names developed into the story for the roles that they play through Wicked Soul Ascension. Hope brought light to Blaze’s life where as Blaze felt like all she did was destroy things that got close to her.When I first learned about the art of writing a story I was fascinated by symbolism and foreshadowing. I would look for it in movies, books, and even everyday life to see if it would apply to the real world. I took this to heart when I renamed my new characters for the Ascension Trilogy.

Blaze’s last name was a different story. I had a bad dream one night and I remember a voice calling out Neeeemaaaassssaaaa! It was the creepiest thing. The next night the trees growled it. I knew that morning that I had Blaze’s last name. I then had the joys of trying to spell the blasted sound. I have to admit that it didn’t come out perfect, but it was close enough and easy to pronounce without hesitation.

The personality of Blaze came naturally. She seemed to want growth. She longed to break out of her shell and blossom into the daring, passionate, character she became by the end of the book. I struggled with her voice in the beginning. Once I got a hold of her it was hard to let go.

Hope on the other hand…her character jumped out of the book with her bubbly personality that balanced perfectly with Blaze. She almost scared me with her vibrant voice and spontaneousness.

I feared to put the two together so often. Blaze seemed so monotone and Hope to hyper. As the story progressed I realized that they were a match for each other. The story took a strange twist when their traits begin to switch. Hope becomes dull voiced, withdrawn, and less bubbly and Blaze gains this conference that she never had before. I really enjoyed this part. Watching the story take its toll on the friends. The horror of the Sinful Realm effected Hope and Blaze equally in an opposite way. I thought I would struggle to do the change, but it was fascinating to see the effects. I felt like a scientist experimenting on them as I threw those twists at their personality traits. How would they react if I did this to them?… Well, that was interesting! What about this? I found when one progressed the other degressed. As if they could never be on the same plain together. If one was wild the other was level headed.

When I finished writing Wicked Soul Ascension I had troubles with self-doubt about the friendship. It seemed too fictional. It wasn’t until I received the printed copy months after the revisions, edits, and formatting that I got a chance to sit down to read the story. I understand that there is always something knew to learn, and this pairing taught me meany things. I am quite in love with Blaze and Hope. I am happy with the way they turned out.

If you have read Wicked Soul Ascension I would love to hear your comments on Blaze and Hopes friendship.

Do you have a friend that is bubbly or monotone? Does your personality complement theirs?

 

 

 

 

Wicked Soul Ascension 
Want a read that will get your heart pumping?
Available in print and eBook.