Monday, December 2, 2013

An "Alien" Has Invaded The Bridge With "Dark One's Mistress" Origins, and The Undead Road Is Done!


Someone set their blasters to "Deju Vue!" Dark One's Mistress is back! And this time, by way of book tour fame, the author has come to tell us more about this new fantasy novel and how it came to be. Let's hand the controls over to Aldrea Alien! And welcome aboard!

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Firstly, I'd like to first thank David for letting me ramble on his blog about how Dark One's Mistress came to be.

From conception to contract, it has taken me roughly two years. The idea for it all started when I was fooling about on my game console, playing some evil, soul-stealing overlord who takes over the fantasy realm. It was the second in the series and the MC was the original overlord's son.

So there I was, relaxing and killing pixel people when, out of nowhere, I find myself thinking "What if this bad guy isn't a villain? Maybe he has a perfectly good reason for taking those souls, like they belonged to evil men and is actually part of their judicial system."

Everything sort of snowballed from there. The idea wouldn't leave me alone and somewhere along the line the plot to Beauty and the Beast wove its way into it the story. Honestly, I didn't get that reference until halfway through writing it. I thought it was just me until one of my CPs mentioned it.

While I'd written romance in my previous stories, I wouldn't call them straight romance novels. But this does have one thing none of my other stories have: a lack of sex. It was originally going to at least imply it and yet, as I drew closer to the chapter I now refer to as my "no-sex, sex scene", I realised that it wouldn't be true to the story. And that decision changed the ending.

So having the story go through all the critiquing, editing and then the general fluff of finding a decent query (about ten tries there), I sent it off to my list of prospective publishers. Five emails were sent. They all replied, only one wanted to keep the story the way I wrote it.

After a few days to get the general squeeing and random glomping of various family members (my daughter multiple times) under control, I signed with Astraea Press.


About the Author:

Born and raised in New Zealand, Aldrea Alien lives on a small farm with her family, including a menagerie of animals. Since discovering a love of writing at the age of twelve, she hasn't found an ounce of peace from the characters plaguing her mind.

Blog - Facebook - Twitter - Goodreads

Aldrea is offering a chance to win a free voucher! Feeling lucky? Sign up below!



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*takes the controls back* Thank you, Aldrea! And congrats on your release. Let me know when Book 2 comes out - we'll do this again!

Update: The Undead Road, my first horror novel (although it's more science fiction-like) is done! That makes it my 9th work, my first attempt at first person POV, and at 80K words, my shortest novel. I will start edits soon and hopefully have a beta ready by January.

This month, I'll be editing nonstop. If I'm lucky, I'll have three MSs edited/touched up and then I'll shop them in 2014. Here we go!

Excited for Aldrea's book? Who else is celebrating their NaNoWriMo victories? What's your secret to plugging those words in nonstop?

I'm David, and this is what I was listening to when I finished ...

24 comments:

  1. Inspired by a video game - nice! Maybe I need to play more often. Appreciate the no-sex sex scene.
    Congratulations on finishing another story, David!

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    1. You totally need to play more often. Single player, hack 'n' slash games are perfect for zoning out to.

      Although, I never did finish that game...

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  2. Oh, and thanks again, David, for helping me out. ^_^

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  3. Aldrea's book sounds very interesting. Congrats on finishing another book and enjoy the edits.

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  4. Congrats on finishing your book, David! That's fantastic! How was writing in First Person POV?? :)

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  5. Congrats on finishing! Sounds like you'll have a busy December AND 2014. Woot!

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  6. Congrats on your book! I hope you enjoyed first person--I couldn't imagine writing any other way.

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  7. I love the Origins Story for this novel. Congrats on publication!!!

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  8. It's always interesting to see how writers get their inspiration and ideas for their books. Congratulations Aldrea will add this to my tbr list and congrats to you too, David for finishing your latest, have fun with the edits! (:

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    1. I love reading them, too. So many ways to find inspiration. ^_^

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  9. Congrats to Aldrea! I enjoyed reading how the story came to be.

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  10. Congrats on finishing The Undead Road! And double congrats to Aldrea.

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  11. Wow, Aldrea's book has quite a history behind it! So cool how something so simple led to what seems to be such a complex story...

    And congrats on completing your first horror novel, David! Good luck with all the editing you plan to do this month!

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    1. The ambiguous morality of my 'Dark One' did make my head hurt at times.

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  12. Congrats to Aldrea on her book. Ad congrats to you on completing your manuscript. You've been so productive these days!

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  13. Congrats on the book, I love the cover!

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  14. Aldrea, congrats on signing! Sounds like you've got a winner:)

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  15. Aldrea's book sounds really interesting! I play these games all the time and I've never been inspired...I'll have to start opening myself up to possibilities, LOL!

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  16. Hi, David, Hi, Aldrea,

    What a cool cover and very intriguing premise. I enjoyed reading about your journey Aldrea!

    I wish you ALL the best and great success with you novel!

    Hey, David,

    It's been a while. I hope all is well with you!

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