Wednesday, April 8, 2020

#147 Inside the Emotion of Fiction COVEN BORN by Stephanie Reisner aka AUDREY BRICE


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****Stephanie Reisner’s aka Audrey Brice’s  Coven Born is #147 in the never-ending series called INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION where the Chris Rice Cooper Blog (CRC) focuses on one specific excerpt from a fiction genre and how that fiction writer wrote that specific excerpt.  All INSIDE THE EMOTION OF FICTION links are at the end of this piece. 

Has this been published? And it is totally fine if the answer is no.   If yes, what publisher and what publication date? Yes. I don’t work in traditional publishing anymore (there’s no money in it), and publish all of my work independently through Darkerwood Publishing Group LLC. Coven Born, published March 13, 2020.

What is the date you began writing this piece of fiction and when was it completed?  I tend to be a slower writer, but I began Coven Born on the 27th of December and finished it January 28th. Then it went to my editor for two passes. It was completely done and uploaded by March 8th.  So about 3 months for the whole process.


Where did you do most of your writing for this fiction work?  And please describe in detail.  And can you please include a photo? I have a home office and it’s a disaster area.  Some words that describe it: Cluttered, cozy, dedicated, warm, inspiring.

What were your writing habits while writing this work- did you drink something as you wrote, listen to music, write in pen and paper, directly on laptop; specific time of day? I am still a bit haphazard. I would like to say that I sit down and write X many words a day, but that’s not my habit. While I try to write 2K a day, there are about 10 days a month I slack off and do other things, like admin work, advertising, etc.…  

          I usually have a cup of coffee or tea with me when I’m writing. Sometimes I write with music (metal, industrial, gothic), most of the time in silence (as that’s my preference).  I type or dictate, though dictation creates more editing.  I save dictation for when my carpel tunnel or arthritis is acting up. I also write at various times of the day, but after 8PM is my preference. I’m more productive at night. There are rare times I’ll write scenes out longhand, like when I’m tired of staring at a computer screen.  When I first started writing, I wrote everything out longhand.


What is the summary of this specific fiction work? I have numerous novels available under three pen names, but right now I’m focusing on my award winning Thirteen Covens series of books written as Audrey Brice, including the offshoot series, Thirteen Covens Academy. I didn’t think of really calling this series anything else as I tend to think of titles as I manifest the story line.           
          There are a few exceptions to this. Thirteen Covens, however, has been a ten-year project in the making, with the bulk of the books having been written, finished, and published in the past four years. Thirteen Covens: Bloodlines Part One (the first 7 novellas in the Thirteen Covens series) was a CIPPA EVVY award winner (second place, horror) in the 2018 CIPPA EVVY awards.

Please include just one excerpt and include page numbers as reference.  This one excerpt can be as short or as long as you prefer. Most emotional excerpt:  This is from Thirteen Covens Academy: Coven Born -
I took the envelope immediately noticing it was thick. There was more than just a single piece of paper inside. My palms were sweaty as I slipped a finger under the flap and tore the envelope open. Then I pulled out the folded sheets of paper, double checking to make sure nothing had fallen loose inside. It was a letter and nothing more. I sat down at the table, not sure if I wanted to read it in front of everyone but knowing they wouldn’t leave. My father’s familiar scrawl covered the pages.
Jess,
I am writing this on the rare chance something happens to me before your eighteenth birthday. If I am still alive, my lawyer will burn this, and you will never see it. However, if you are reading these words then the worst has happened and hopefully your mother will help you to make sense of them. You, my only daughter, the brightest joy of my life, were born in Upstate New York, just outside of a town called Haileyville. We were absolutely overjoyed as was our entire family.  We never raised you discussing the family because I felt it was best to leave the past in the past and start a new life with you and your mother here in San Francisco. But now that you are of age, it is your choice if you wish to reconnect with the family. I know they probably miss you greatly and will never forgive me for taking you and your mother from them. Perhaps now your mother will go back, and you can go with her as it was my fault she left to begin with. My pride and arrogance made me shun our heritage and leave everything and everyone I ever loved and valued (aside from you and your mother, of course) behind. I realize that now, but only too late.
You are very special Jess. You are the last of the Blackwood’s, though it is my hope that maybe someday you’ll go back to Haileyville, reunite with your family, fall in love with a nice man, and have children. Even though they would never carry the Blackwood name, they will carry on our bloodline, and bloodlines are important. I hope you’ll come to understand that and regain your heritage.
I am guilty of crippling you. I know your mother has tried, albeit subtly, to teach you the magick, passed down through the coven for almost a century. Whether you picked up on it or not remains to be seen. Again, she will have to explain all of this to you. More than anything, I want you to go back. I want you to meet the family, and it is my dying wish that you will not make my mistakes. That you will initiate into the coven, and will carry on our legacy as my brother, your Uncle Thaddeus has done, as your grandfather did. I pray to Amon every day that he makes the right choice in whoever he takes first, because pacts always require sacrifice, and my brother, at least, didn’t cower and run away when things got difficult. I have been feeling the eye of Amon on me, which is why it was so important for me to write this letter, just in case.
I love you, Jessica. Your mother loves you. I have always been so proud of you. Proud of the woman you’ve become. Continue making me proud.
Love,

Dad. 

A sigil had been scrawled at the bottom of the last page. There were tears running down my cheeks, but I didn’t bother wiping them away. “When did he write this?”
“It was mailed to my office a year ago if we’re to go by the date stamp on the envelope I found it in,” Max said, his voice subdued.
I handed the letter to my uncle. “Excuse me. I need to use the restroom,” I lied, making my way to the lavatory down the hall. I sat in there for probably ten minutes before I heard low voices in the dining room. 
Then there was a light knock on the door. “Jess, honey, everything okay?” Aunt Marla asked from the other side of the door.
I tried to stop crying, but it was no use. All this time I thought I was finally coming to terms with my parents’ death, and then something like this happened and the wound reopened, leaving a bloody, weeping hole.
“Jess, what can I do?” Aunt Marla asked. I could hear the worry in her voice. My aunt, Daemons bless her, didn’t deal with emotional situations well. Which made her and my Uncle Thaddeus a perfect match, because he had a hard time with emotions, too. Or maybe they were okay when they were alone and only had to comfort each other. I opened the bathroom door just a crack to let my aunt know she could come in.
She slipped into the room, closed the door behind her then turned to me. The helpless look on her face made it clear she wasn’t sure what to do. I reached my arms out to her as a cue and immediately got the hug I so desperately needed.


Why is this excerpt so emotional for you as a writer to write?  And can you describe your own emotional experience of writing this specific excerpt? When I’m writing in first person, I often, mentally, become that character. My MC is a young woman who is almost eighteen, she has abruptly lost her parents due to an accident, and she’s been moved to the other side of the country to live with an aunt and uncle she doesn’t know. I am a very empathetic person, so it was easy to imagine myself in my MCs shoes, reading a letter from her father that he wrote “just in case” anything happened to him. Her world has just been upended and just as she thinks she’s adjusting to this new life, the scab is ripped off of the wound and she is smacked upside the head with the reality that her parents are dead and never coming back. It’s horrific.  I bawled like a baby while writing this scene and felt emotionally traumatized after it.  

Were there any deletions from this excerpt that you can share with us? And can you please include a photo of your marked up rough drafts of this excerpt. No. I tend to write tight and have to go back and flesh things out.  This is why my books aren’t 70K-100K tomes.

Other works you have published? I write a lot of steamy romance and erotic romance as Anne O’Connell (both contemporary and PNR)
I write sweet Romance and Epic Fantasy as S. J. Reisner
As Audrey Brice I also have an urban fantasy series called OTS about a mage who solves supernatural crimes, and I’m writing a cozy witchy mystery mini-series, Wicked Ways under this pen name, too (to lighten the mood from all the dark stuff I write).

Stephanie Reisner is an award-winning and bestselling author of thrilling steamy and paranormal romances, dark urban fantasy, occult horror-thrillers, cozy mysteries, contemporary romance, sword and sorcery fantasy, and books about the esoteric and Daemonolatry. Her pen names include Audrey Brice, Anne O’Connell, and S. J. Reisner. She is happily married and cat-mom to three pampered house cats. Her muse is a demanding sadistic Dom who often keeps her up into the wee hours of the morning.
To learn more about Steph and her multiple pen names visit: http://www.sjreisner.com/

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