Guest post by KH Lemoyne for her book Destiny's Choice

K.H. LeMoyne has been writing romance ever since someone told her that she had to grow up and get a real job. Then she switched to writing romantic fantasy to keep real life from getting in the way of a good story. The love of things mystical and magical keeps her writing, with characters who fight for never-ending love against insurmountable odds. Well, that and occasionally she gets to write about elves and dragons … but that’s a different story.

Published by Digital Crystal Press

The difference between fate and destiny is choice. 

Tsu Halan, Guardian defense master, has honed his skills and waited patiently over the centuries for the covenant’s promise of a mate to share his soul and a family to cherish. Close enough to taste fulfillment, the dark echoes of the past threaten with danger and death.

Jai Dashkov harbors her own painful secrets of harsh betrayal and tender loss. Her desperate search to reclaim her life doesn’t allow room in her heart to deviate for love.

Adult-content rating: This book contains content considered unsuitable for young readers 17 and under, and which may be offensive to some readers of all ages.

Brenda, thank you for hosting my on your blog today!

The main character in Destiny’s Mark, Tsu Halan, is the defense master for the remaining members of the Guardian race. Some readers might think there is a correlation between him and the more famous Sun Tzu of eastern battle strategy and philosophy fame. Well, yes and no. Tsu does share a geographic past with the renowned originator of the Art of War. He shares a deep commitment to logic and philosophy as well. However, the approaches of these two men differ quite a bit. I thought I’d share something that I ran across during my research for the Guardian series. I hope you and your readers enjoy.

~Kate

Interesting Research Tidbits

I read and research a lot of mythologies, fables, and religious principles looking for items to pepper my stories or morph for fun. I'm no expert on any of these subjects, but I am a lover of taking tidbits and daydreaming about ‘what if.' Out of this process, I created the Guardians' world, the rules that govern them, their individual powers, their homelands, and many of their difficulties.

Each book in the series focuses on a different Guardian from Eden’s Sanctum: their struggle to win the hearts and respect of their mates, their battle against the evil intent on destroying them, and their effort to realign the Guardian covenant to provide protection for mankind’s evolution. They represent different geographic regions of the world and so I read through a lot of information, and search through too many name databases to mention. Cool, but a huge stack of info. This is the reason I print most of my research and keep huge binders with lots of Post-it tabs.

Sound pretty dry? Not really. I run across wonderful information – most of which I’ll never use in the story, but no information is wasted on the imagination.

Here’s an example. The main character in Destiny’s Mark is Tsu. He is the Guardian weapons and defense master, and he and his sister Quan originated a few hundred years ago from an eastern province of China.

My Tsu loosely shares a name and some traits with Sun Tzu, from the Art of War fame. While the book, The Art of War, is a tangible item, there is mixed conjecture as to whether the Chinese general, Sun Tzu actually existed.

That said there are some fun mythologies and stories about the man.

One being that King Ho-Lu tested Sun Tzu’s skills by ordering him to train the king’s harem as soldiers. Hmm, you can see this problem coming miles away. As the story goes, two of the King’s favorite concubines were positioned in command of the remaining hundreds of concubines. Ordered to perform their maneuvers, the concubines…giggled. To be fair, Sun Tzu gave them a second chance. The giggling repeated. Tzu had the two favorite concubines executed, beheaded. His resolve and judgment was tied to the idea that “If the instructions are not clear, if the orders are not obeyed, it is the fault of the general. But if the instructions are clear and the soldiers still do not obey, it is the fault of the officers.” The two women were replaced with a clear message sent to the troops and needless to say, further training efforts went smoothly.

That character profile didn’t fit with my Guardian Tsu character, but I loved the trivia and the notation remains in my series notebook – never know when you might be able to use, reuse, or twist some detail.

Seasons best wishes...

I always take time off during December and early January = being the mom of a large family is a full time job that I fit in around work and writing most of the year, but for the Christmas and New Year seasons they get all of me. Not that they particularly want me - the older ones have their own lives and families and interests and the younger ones are at an age where I am little more than a walking wallet - but they all like what I provide at this time of the year - and I don't just mean the wallet part - they like the baking days that I organize, and the late night gift wrapping sessions that the teens help with - and they like the calm that comes when the usual sport activities are suspended and we can go to movies on a weeknight evening or maybe even just go for an extra long walk with the dogs. This year we will also head to Victoria after Christmas so the younger 5 can shop till they drop and maybe we'll book a couple of nights in a hotel and ring in the New Year in that fair city.

There will also be some drama because you just can't have 14 kids + plus their families and not have someone experiencing some kind of drama - but I can provide a calm to that - the only bonus to aging is that "been there done that" is very true and so I can easily and lovingly provide hugs and strong shoulders as needed.

I won't get any writing time. I'm 2/3 through the sequel to Cleah: The Lost Fury Chronicles - but that will have to wait till after I get back to the office in January. I know the ending, of course, but I can't quite figure out how to get there from where I am so I'll at least make some thinking time and hope that my brain can work it out in the next couple of weeks.

Well fellow writers and fellow wanna be successful writers - I wish you all the best of the season - and may  you enjoy health, success, and happiness in the coming year.

Guest post by Mya Kay author of A Song For Jordan

Title: A Song for Jordan
Author: Mya Kay
Genre: Contemporary YA

Mya Kay’s A SONG FOR JORDAN (Amazon/Mya Kay Publishing; December 15, 2012; $15.00 Print, Kindle $7.99) is a story that will take you along an emotional and mental journey with Jordan Crystal Myers as she searches for a father that her family hates. Everything fifteen-year-old Jordan Crystal Myers knows about music comes from her father, from arranging notes to playing several different instruments. One day, she’d love to meet him.

A musician who left her mother, Melissa, when she was born, Jordan longs to have a relationship with the man that gave her the gift of music. Even knowing that her grandparent’s wanted her mother to abort her and that her mother doesn’t want her to find him doesn’t stop Jordan from asking questions.

A bi-racial teen already facing the pain of being mixed in an image driven society puts her search on hold when she lands a competitive music internship in Atlanta with SyncDeep Music Group, a label run by one of her favorite musicians. For the next six weeks, Jordan gets to arrange music, play and network with some of the music industry’s biggest artists. Two weeks before the internship is over, she’s abruptly fired and finding out her mother is the reason behind her termination causes Jordan to lose all hope – until she realizes she may have just found what she’s been looking for all along.

All the lies she’s heard come to light in this gripping tale that will leave your heart wrenching for Jordan as she searches for the one thing she longs for most. A SONG FOR JORDAN will leave bitter mothers who keep their children away from their fathers feeling sorry for the pain they’ve caused.

Author Bio

Mya Kay is the author or Speechless: Short Stories and a screenwriter. She is currently a teacher in South Korea teaching English as a Second Language. You can follow her on twitter, facebook or learn more about her at her website www.myakbooks.com.

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Guest Post

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Building a Strong “Weak” Protagonist

When I first created Jordan (my protagonist in my newest novel, A Song for Jordan), I knew that I wanted her to be weak. But even weak characters have to have character. Nobody wants to root for an underdog that doesn’t make people sympathize with them. With Jordan, there were three things I wanted to focus on most:

1)    I wanted her to shine even through her weakness.

2)    I wanted her to be compelling.

3)    I wanted readers to be able to see her alter ego (the new her that would eventually shine through)

I think building a strong protagonist is hard enough. But when you have a character that naturally doesn’t put up a fight for the things they want in life, you have to give them another dynamic so that readers will want to know what’s going to happen next with this person.

Jordan actually ended up being stronger than I even I gave her credit for. Whenever she played the piano or wrote a new song, her strength shined through. It was just a silent strength. And it didn’t come packaged the way most people would think.

I believe writers should understand that even when you have a character that is supposed to be “weak” and ends up transforming in the end, there still needs to be a strength that your readers can see, even if it’s subliminal. Here are some key ways to make sure your “weak” character has a poise that your readers still find fascinating:

1.)  Make sure you give your character something they have to gain before the end of the story. Your character shouldn’t just have an outside end goal, but an internal end goal. A lot of How-To books say this, but I think people have to remember that this is especially important with weak characters.

2.)  Make sure your character’s internal goal is realistic. For me, I had to make sure Jordan didn’t get too “strong” too fast. She had a long way to go from being timid to boisterous when it came to relationships in her life. If she had just gone off on someone early in the book, readers would’ve felt like they didn’t know who she was. Even with weak characters, readers want to feel like they know how the person is going to react. The pattern of behavior should only break at some point after the climax.

3.)  Give your antagonist some power. In a book like A Song for Jordan, there was more than one antagonist. Everybody wasn’t a bully, but I definitely needed for my antagonists to have some power. They all were able to control Jordan some way, somehow, even if it was just mentally. It made Jordan’s weakness seem more believable. It was understood that “maybe Jordan acts this way because so-and-so is this way”.

4.)  Finally, make sure your character’s weakness makes sense. Jordan didn’t have to be super weak for her weakness to be believable. It was a matter of making her weakness and the plot flow right together. Of course, the antagonists in the book made this easier. That’s why it’s important to know what and who your main character is going to have to face before you start. Map it out so that you can figure out which scenes you can use to show your protagonist’s weakness and eventually growth.

Just as I mentioned above, even a weak character has to grow. That’s the most important thing to remember when working with your main character. Show growth. Give your readers something to root for. Otherwise, you will lose them before your story even starts.