Well, after a cumulative total of about 39.5 hours in the car, driving out to Michigan for a wedding, I’m back home, and hope to never be in a car again. ::laugh:: Today, our mini-series continues with our heroines and heroes still starring in “Torie’s Life”.
(Fictional Blake Lively and the young clone of Chuck Norris were nominated for a NotRealsies Award after the last blog… so, fingers crossed!)
I don’t have exact dates or a moment of conception for The Gates of Humanity like I had for the New Hope Chronicles. New Hope is the “story of my soul”, as my mother would say. It came easy to me. The characters spoke to me, the story was familiar and easy, and I dropped a quadrilogy of about 201,000 words in less than three years. New Hope means an awful lot to me.
Gates on the other hand, it’s different. It’s harder. It’s a real challenge for me as the heroine is completely opposite of Tree (who I still adore). The characters are all made up, whereas I based a lot of the New Hopers on friends and family. The world is something new and unexplored, unlike zombie apocalypses. So all in all, it’s just harder. The first one I officially started writing in 2014, and I still have not finished the third and final book…
Yes, I know – being a writer is hard. And if it’s not, then you’re doing it wrong, right? ::laugh::
So, dates I have not. The inspirational spark however, I do have. You’ll never guess where this idea came from. Never in a million years. Especially not if you’ve read my other blogs.
Dick Roman! Everyone loves Dick! Dick is so great! Dick is just the best!
If you recognize this name, we should be friends if we’re not already. If you don’t recognize this name, google him. Google the full name however, or you might get some VERY interesting search results… just sayin’…
Dick Roman was the uber villain in season six of Supernatural. He was the head of the Leviathans – ancient, evil creatures that are impermeable to guns, knives, acid, grenades, swords, baseball bats, and lawnmowers. Floor cleaner however… that’ll do. Anyway, aside from that horrid plot twist, the Leviathans were pretty cool bad guys, and Dick was the greatest of them all. They had this plan to tamper with artificial sugars to turn people into mindless cattle so they could eat them without having to worry about a struggle. Obviously Sam and Dean stopped that madness, but I stuck to the idea of “what if the Leviathan’s won?”
Then, I had an argument somewhere with someone (maybe Old Bestie of the college days…?) about what a Leviathan was. I was 100% sure they were sea monsters! And I was right! To an extent. I mean, it’s all lore, so who’s to say what’s right and what’s not?
Somewhere along the way of researching Leviathans, I saw a simple blurb about Leviathan being one of the seven princes of hell – then I had to look at that! The seven princes of hell were apparently in a never-ending battle against the seven archangels of heaven – so I had to look at that! And the princes were all tied to one of the seven deadly sins – so I had to look at that! And the angels all had mentions in the bible somewhere – so I had to look at that!
It was an endless spiral into the black hole that is Wikipedia, and from that, The Gates of Humanity was birthed. In my world, the Leviathans’ plan succeeds, and the human race is literally just cattle living in farms. But Leviathan is not a species – instead he’s a greater demon, a prince of hell, responsible for introducing the idea of envy to the world. There is no Sam and Dean, there is only Constance.
I have not been as vocal and gung-ho about Chaos and the angels partly because I’ve been so beaten down by the responses to New Hope. I love Tree and Caine and Damien, but no one else in the world does yet. I also love Chaos and Michael, but not the same way. If no one loves the “story of my soul”, how could they possibly like this one?
Hasn’t stopped me from rereading these stories over and over and over, but that last book still hasn’t been completed…
