I am pleased to have Martin Sharlow, author of Shades of Twilight
guest posting as part of his Pump Up Your Book virtual tour.
guest posting as part of his Pump Up Your Book virtual tour.
To be honest this was the hardest book I have ever written.
The only thing that seems to come close is its sequel which I'm currently
working on. I'm not exactly sure why, maybe the characters are fighting me,
lol. As to how I came up with it, well after catching the vampire bug last year
I found myself wanting to write about them. I wrote one book that was in third
person that has a good following, but somehow it didn't seem to ring true for
me. I couldn't put my finger on it till I went back and did some more reading
of my favorite books.
Then it hit me. I wasn't writing in first person, and my
lead was a man in the first book. That’s when I knew what I needed to do. Melissa was born right then, and the entire
story began to unfold before me. Usually when I write I come up with a story I
want to write, the plot is just waiting for me and I create the characters to
go through the gauntlet that I prepare for them. In this instance, I created my
main character without a plot. Instead I had a person who starts out immature
and whiny, and slowly grows up as she overcomes the challenges that life puts
in her way.
I realized quickly that this was going to take more than one
book to accomplish if it was to be believable, and I wanted people to see the
change. The second thing I wanted to do was to put her in the real world. I
mean, I know a lot of vampire stores pretend they're in the real world, but I
never really think they are. I mean while I was working on this novel one
of Stephanie Meyers' movies had just came
out and was all over the place. I
couldn't help but think, if you were a teen and into Twilight, wouldn't you act
a certain way or compare yourself to the movies or novels if you found yourself
in a relationship with a vampire? Even
if it wasn't exactly the same thing? I think you would, and this helped me in
developing the story, as well as some local legends that in the book turn out
to be true.
About Martin Sharlow
Martin Sharlow was always a storyteller. In his youth he
used to play roleplaying games and usually he was the game master. That allowed
him to create and modify stories and then tell them to his captive audience in
the form of a game. Because of this and
the many fantasy books he read, Martin went the next step and started writing
fantasy novels.
Recently, however, Martin changed genres to vampire romance
as he got bitten by the vampire bug. This happened after picking up one of the
latest novels and finding himself hooked on it. Today Martin has written two
vampire romance novels, and is in the process of writing many more.
Martin currently lives in Vancouver, WA with two of his
three children, who help to keep him grounded in reality.
You
can visit Martin Sharlow at http://www.wix.com/targoun/martin
