The Shadow Soul
The Trailokya Trilogy #1
By- K. Williams
Genre- Epic Fantasy
The Shadow Soul is the first part of The Trailokya Trilogy, a fantasy series that follows the rise and fall of fabled races and souls at the junction of three worlds: Zion, Earth and Jahannam. K. Williams weaves a tale that will leave you questioning long held convictions about the human legends of Heaven and Hell. Are you ready to enter the gates of Zion and learn the truth?
Captain Maiel is a duta warrior of Zion, a race of giant, winged guardians and chroniclers of the lesser souls. Maiel’s assurances are shaken when she nearly loses a young human girl to the dark forces of Jahannam, the prison realm where the lowest beings reside. To avoid answering to the leaders of her world, Maiel seeks refuge on Earth, but she is pursued by a baron of Jahannam intent on destroying her. Can she be saved before time runs out? Or will she be sacrificed to secure the borders of Zion and to hide the lie her journey uncovers?
With each step further into darkness, long held secrets are revealed and shadows rise from the past to challenge absolutes.
Check out these other titles from K. Williams on sale for a limited time for just 99 cents!
Blue Honor -
OP-DEC: Operation Deceit -
I asked K. Williams about her writing process, everyone has their own way and it is a interesting look into the world of the author. Here is what she had to say; and I would like to thank her for answering my question!!
The
Writing Process
Writing is something that I just do, as others might go about styling their hair or cooking a meal. Because I’ve been doing it so long, reflecting on the process is a little difficult. There are years to look back over. What I did then, doesn’t work now, or what I do now doesn’t work as well as then. I will do my best to explain, and hopefully, for someone like myself, this will alleviate a lot of stress and feelings of inadequacy.
I read a lot about these authors who demand that you write every day. They tell you that unless you do, you’re not a writer. I guess that’s how they feel they can distinguish themselves from other writers, in some effort to stand out from the crowd. The advent of the internet has allowed more writers than ever before and the room is noisy. The shouts of “Hey, I put in more hours than you, so I get picked first,” or, “I do more so I deserve this more,” are simply a way to distinguish oneself from the growing pack and succeed at the writing game. Humans, by nature, are competitive. That’s pretty much all I chalk that talk up to: the attempt to prove oneself better than others. The quality of what is put forth is far more important than the amount of time put into it. Some will come by style easier than others. This is the only point where time matters--that you take the time to study and perfect the craft, if this is what you really want to do. However, writing daily without quality criticism is ineffectual. All you do is hammer in bad practices. I’d recommend, rather, going to college level courses that require a lot of writing and are in a supporting field (for instance, physics and history for steam punk). I’ll tell you why...
I do not write every day.
If I wrote every day, there would be no time to rest. Writing takes focus and to get into that focus you have to build up to it. There is your life going on all around you. Chores need to be done, food made, the dog walked, the cat pan scooped, the kids cleaned up, a job to attend and being seen in public, just to name a few. If I wrote everyday, when would I do my research? Not all research is sitting down with a pad and pen and taking notes out of book. Research could be spending the day out somewhere significant. Reflection is research. Being present in a moment, is research. Myself, I watch a lot of movies. Like photographs, they’re inspiring. a snippet here and a snippet there and suddenly that hill I was climbing is crested and I’m back on my merry plotting way. If I wrote everyday, my dog would disown me and I’d be fired from my job. Why? because you need to live your life--even if writing is your life. To write, you must live, or there will be nothing to write about. Writers draw from the well of experience, so I fill the well.
Nor, do I plot.
I don’t plan much. I don’t plot out where I’m going because outlines cannot predict all the beautiful nuggets my characters will help me discover along the way. I cannot silence them, to make them perform as if actors in a stage play. They need to be free. They’re that part of me that requires expression, and binding the expression makes it hard to express. Ever try to talk with your mouth full? Write with your hands tied.
The only thing I planned with Trailokya was to have three books, each with a glossary of terms to help the reader, to remove the gag and handcuffs that bound my voice (worrying what people might think of me attempting this topic in this manner), and to complete the books all at once for continuity purposes. The rest was just letting Captain Maiel tell her story.
I write from Point A to Point B, but only after lengthy deliberation on the thing that inspired this new story.
Whether it’s a dream, or a photo, or even a moment on film--a word uttered in the moment perfect--reflecting upon the idea is what helps to form the how. I make a note. Usually, my desk is littered with post it notes, which I call love letters to myself. They sum up the idea, fairly briefly, with a list of must happens (character names, scenes) underneath. Sometimes I make drawings. I keep them in folders for later, should anyone ever be interested in seeing how it happened. (see pictures)
Writing is something that I just do, as others might go about styling their hair or cooking a meal. Because I’ve been doing it so long, reflecting on the process is a little difficult. There are years to look back over. What I did then, doesn’t work now, or what I do now doesn’t work as well as then. I will do my best to explain, and hopefully, for someone like myself, this will alleviate a lot of stress and feelings of inadequacy.
I read a lot about these authors who demand that you write every day. They tell you that unless you do, you’re not a writer. I guess that’s how they feel they can distinguish themselves from other writers, in some effort to stand out from the crowd. The advent of the internet has allowed more writers than ever before and the room is noisy. The shouts of “Hey, I put in more hours than you, so I get picked first,” or, “I do more so I deserve this more,” are simply a way to distinguish oneself from the growing pack and succeed at the writing game. Humans, by nature, are competitive. That’s pretty much all I chalk that talk up to: the attempt to prove oneself better than others. The quality of what is put forth is far more important than the amount of time put into it. Some will come by style easier than others. This is the only point where time matters--that you take the time to study and perfect the craft, if this is what you really want to do. However, writing daily without quality criticism is ineffectual. All you do is hammer in bad practices. I’d recommend, rather, going to college level courses that require a lot of writing and are in a supporting field (for instance, physics and history for steam punk). I’ll tell you why...
I do not write every day.
If I wrote every day, there would be no time to rest. Writing takes focus and to get into that focus you have to build up to it. There is your life going on all around you. Chores need to be done, food made, the dog walked, the cat pan scooped, the kids cleaned up, a job to attend and being seen in public, just to name a few. If I wrote everyday, when would I do my research? Not all research is sitting down with a pad and pen and taking notes out of book. Research could be spending the day out somewhere significant. Reflection is research. Being present in a moment, is research. Myself, I watch a lot of movies. Like photographs, they’re inspiring. a snippet here and a snippet there and suddenly that hill I was climbing is crested and I’m back on my merry plotting way. If I wrote everyday, my dog would disown me and I’d be fired from my job. Why? because you need to live your life--even if writing is your life. To write, you must live, or there will be nothing to write about. Writers draw from the well of experience, so I fill the well.
Nor, do I plot.
I don’t plan much. I don’t plot out where I’m going because outlines cannot predict all the beautiful nuggets my characters will help me discover along the way. I cannot silence them, to make them perform as if actors in a stage play. They need to be free. They’re that part of me that requires expression, and binding the expression makes it hard to express. Ever try to talk with your mouth full? Write with your hands tied.
The only thing I planned with Trailokya was to have three books, each with a glossary of terms to help the reader, to remove the gag and handcuffs that bound my voice (worrying what people might think of me attempting this topic in this manner), and to complete the books all at once for continuity purposes. The rest was just letting Captain Maiel tell her story.
I write from Point A to Point B, but only after lengthy deliberation on the thing that inspired this new story.
Whether it’s a dream, or a photo, or even a moment on film--a word uttered in the moment perfect--reflecting upon the idea is what helps to form the how. I make a note. Usually, my desk is littered with post it notes, which I call love letters to myself. They sum up the idea, fairly briefly, with a list of must happens (character names, scenes) underneath. Sometimes I make drawings. I keep them in folders for later, should anyone ever be interested in seeing how it happened. (see pictures)
Writing from
Point A to Point B takes knowing where you’re headed, but as stated before,
there is no outline, except for the vision I hold in my head. I know where I am
headed, but I let the characters choose the route. They do an amazing job, if
you trust them. Besides, all that time I spend reflecting, I get to know them
so well and test out scenes in my head. Once they’ve sat a while percolating in
the brain, what will work and what must go is obvious. Think of your trips to
the grocery store or bank. Do you take the same route, every time? Try another
route, maybe something wonderful will happen. What could that be? And, so on.
I obsessively write until it is finished.
Now that
I’ve gauged my route, found my crew and loaded up provisions--off I go into the
wilderness. It literally feels that way. I’m in a total fog, seeing the entire
thing behind my eyes like a cinema in my head. Pretty much it’s like taking
dictation at this point. The characters become my friends and family, of whom I
spend every waking moment. There is no time, during this period, where they are
not on my mind. Rather suddenly, the party ends, and the guests go home…
Then I edit.
Then I edit.
I finish the
book, from beginning to end before I edit--unless I get stuck on something. I
like to go back over the immediate work from the day/night before to ensure I’m
on the same page. One night’s sleep or day of work can make you forget the
subtle points and screw you up. Some light editing might happen then as I think
of a better way to say something, but the real editing happens at the end.
How I edit is that while I was writing, I make notes of things to check on. Then, I read through fixing the flow and grammar problems, citing story problems and deciding if that character really needs to be called that or if some other name might be better. Lastly, I let it rest for a few days, sometimes weeks. This rest period is very important. Just like when I reflected before writing, now I must reflect after. Are there any points I missed that might really make something pop? Could I have ended that better? Is the protagonist’s reasoning enough, or can I do better? Rest. Reflect. Day dream. Put the play on the stage of the mind.
When I pick up the work again, I do another sweep, just as before. When finished with this, if I feel satisfied, I give myself a short rest--a night or two. Then I start with the natural reader software. The software reads my book back to me. This is especially useful for catching wrong words, but you’ll never hear to, versus too and two. So, I keep my eyes open, and read along just like when I was a kid. I love this software! It sounds wonky at first, but eventually it smoothes out. The technique has been used on all of my works. It is invaluable.
At this point, my manuscript is handed over to an editor and we review the material and fix the issues the editor finds. I buck at story changes, though. I feel that I’ve done all the development needed in the initial stages of the story and that the vision is on paper as it needs to be. Should an editor suggest a story change, I almost always reject it. I pick through their edits to make sure they don’t alter dialogue, which I purposely misspell or have grammar issues in because no one speaks in perfect grammatical English. To do this to dialogue makes it stiff and, I feel, unreadable--at best annoying. Coming from a screenwriting and film background, I understand this as a performance issue--no actor will perform your work grammatically correct because no one believable speaks in that manner and it’s just not a good performance--so I refuse to write that way either. The character would fall flat in the reader's brain.
The powers willing, the editor is okay with what I have accepted and rejected and the book moves on to being proofed. My writing of the manuscript is done--heart in mouth, I watch it evolve into it’s own lifeform and go out to meet the world. Shrinking violet or extravagant daisy? I can’t ever tell.
That is my process, and I hope that reading about has helped in some manner, that there is something useful that you saw here. When trying to find what works for us, it helps to reach out.
How I edit is that while I was writing, I make notes of things to check on. Then, I read through fixing the flow and grammar problems, citing story problems and deciding if that character really needs to be called that or if some other name might be better. Lastly, I let it rest for a few days, sometimes weeks. This rest period is very important. Just like when I reflected before writing, now I must reflect after. Are there any points I missed that might really make something pop? Could I have ended that better? Is the protagonist’s reasoning enough, or can I do better? Rest. Reflect. Day dream. Put the play on the stage of the mind.
When I pick up the work again, I do another sweep, just as before. When finished with this, if I feel satisfied, I give myself a short rest--a night or two. Then I start with the natural reader software. The software reads my book back to me. This is especially useful for catching wrong words, but you’ll never hear to, versus too and two. So, I keep my eyes open, and read along just like when I was a kid. I love this software! It sounds wonky at first, but eventually it smoothes out. The technique has been used on all of my works. It is invaluable.
At this point, my manuscript is handed over to an editor and we review the material and fix the issues the editor finds. I buck at story changes, though. I feel that I’ve done all the development needed in the initial stages of the story and that the vision is on paper as it needs to be. Should an editor suggest a story change, I almost always reject it. I pick through their edits to make sure they don’t alter dialogue, which I purposely misspell or have grammar issues in because no one speaks in perfect grammatical English. To do this to dialogue makes it stiff and, I feel, unreadable--at best annoying. Coming from a screenwriting and film background, I understand this as a performance issue--no actor will perform your work grammatically correct because no one believable speaks in that manner and it’s just not a good performance--so I refuse to write that way either. The character would fall flat in the reader's brain.
The powers willing, the editor is okay with what I have accepted and rejected and the book moves on to being proofed. My writing of the manuscript is done--heart in mouth, I watch it evolve into it’s own lifeform and go out to meet the world. Shrinking violet or extravagant daisy? I can’t ever tell.
That is my process, and I hope that reading about has helped in some manner, that there is something useful that you saw here. When trying to find what works for us, it helps to reach out.
Due to ill health I have not finished reading Shadow Soul. I am actively reading it now and I can tell you for the most part I am very much enjoying it. I will get a review up as soon as possible. I am truly sorry, I detest not being on time.
About the Author-
Born in Saratoga Springs, New York, where she continues to reside, K.Williams embarked on a now twenty year career in writing. After a childhood, which consisted of voracious reading and hours of film watching, it was a natural progression to study and work in the arts.
K attended the State University of New York at Morrisville, majoring in the Biological Sciences, and then continued with English and Historical studies at the University at Albany (home of the New York State Writer’s Institute) gaining her Bachelor’s Degree. While attending UA, K interned with the 13th Moon Feminist Literary Magazine, bridging her interests in social movements and art.
Currently, K has completed the MALS program for Film Studies and Screenwriting at Empire State College (SUNY), and is the 2013-2014 recipient of the Foner Fellowship in Arts and Social Justice. K continues to write and is working on the novels of the Trailokya Trilogy, a work that deals with topics in Domestic Violence and crosses the controversial waters of organized religion and secularism. A sequel to OP-DEC is in the research phase, while the adaptation is being shopped to interested film companies. Excerpts of these and more writings can be found at: www.bluehonor.com
Links-
Thank you so much for hosting me today! I'm very excited to have my book presented to your readers and I hope that they enjoyed my answer to the question. Hopefully a writing out there struggling to understand their process sees a bit of themselves in my response and is put at ease.
ReplyDeleteJust this week, I found out that The Shadow Soul earned Honorable Mention in the Hollywood Book Festival! I am so thrilled!
You are very welcome!! That is so exciting, congratulations!!
DeleteHope you're feeling better soon. Thank you!
DeleteTHank you for giving me a new author to stalk..heheh ;)
ReplyDeletehahahah! Totally looking forward to geeking out with readers.
Delete