MUSE MONDAY
Please welcome my guest, C. Marie Bowen, to Discover Yourself. Be sure to leave a comment and you'll be entered in a drawing for a free eBook of Passage! You have until Thursday to leave a comment and the winner will be chosen on Friday.
Hello, Brenda, and thank you for having me as a
guest. I’m excited to be here on Muse Monday.
I’m currently working on an edge of your seat, paranormal
trilogy. Mix up a near-death experience with a past life, flavor with epic
romance, and then stir in a few mouthwatering cowboys, add a dash hostile
conflict, and you’ll have Passage—book one in The Soul of the Witch
trilogy.
The story takes hold from the first chapter and
heads straight into a soul splitting journey. I am in the last stage of editing
book two, Prophecy, and cannot wait to have it released so I can latch
onto the final piece of the story in book three, Paradox. My goal is to submit
Paradox, to my publisher by the end of this year.
Soul of the Witch first began to take shape back
in 1980. I had given birth to my oldest son and taken an extended maternity
leave from work. Although the story had been fighting to get out of my head for
years, this was the first time I put pen to paper. Literally. Back then, I used
a pen and spiral notebooks labeled #1, #2, etc. I still have those spiral
notebooks.
When I returned to work, I put the notebooks in
the closet and let them sit for another nine years. In 1989, I gave birth to my
second son, and again, my internal muse sparked. I pulled out the old notebooks,
and with the help of a friend from work, put my handwritten words into a WANG
word-processor. Of course, back then, there were no PC’s or word processing
applications, and no way to preserve the digital work. But I finally had a
printed copy of my story. Back into the closet it went, and life moved on.
Fast forward to August, 2012. Both boys had grown,
finished college and moved on to pursue their lives. I found myself extremely
unhappy at work. A large corporation had purchased the company I worked for and
many of my long-time co-workers and friends had left or were let go. The new
management wanted their own processes and people. The times, they were
a-changing, and the pressure began to affect me physically. My hair began to
fall out. I developed stress related nerve pain. I didn’t know what I was going
to do.
Out of the blue, my wonderful husband suggested I
take some time off and regroup. I couldn’t resign fast enough. After that, I
made a list of everything I wanted to accomplish during my break from work;
clean out the closets, paint the hallway, and rework the flowerbeds. In my
closet, I found the box with my typed story, along with a bag of spiral
notebooks. I quickly added another item to my TO-DO list. Publish the story.
The first order of business was to put the book
into an actual Word document. As I began typing the story, my imagination took
flight. The story took over and I was filled with enthusiasm. I became a
different person, happier, with all my remembered friends from the closet
arguing inside my head. But I knew I needed structure and direction. I joined
RWA and enrolled in editing and writing classes. I eventually ran into a few
like-minded writers who also worked on their first books and we formed a
critique group. I discovered my fabulous, passionate epic had to be edited with
extreme prejudice. I had written each precious character with their own point
of view, and included all their character-building back stories. The original
work was well over 150,000 words. Yikes!
During the long edit/re-edit process, I read about
an open submission at a small publishing company, Prairie Rose Publications.
They were asking for Western Halloween short stories for an anthology. I
had a western character and paranormal was right up my alley. I retrieved one of
the “cut” back-stories, reworked it into a short story, and submitted Hunter
and Lily Graham to PRP. When the acceptance email came from the acquiring
Editor, I had to have my husband read it again just to be sure I understood
what the email said. They loved my story and my characters and wanted to
include my short story in their Halloween anthology.
Since then, I have written two more short stories for
PRP anthologies. All my tales have a paranormal twist, suspense and romance. I
finally submitted Soul of the Witch, Book 1, Passage, to PRP at the end of last
year, and it was accepted for publication. Passage, Soul of the Witch, Book 1
published on March 12, 2015.
I was thrilled to put a big CHECK beside Publish
the story, although I have yet to paint the hallway.
Passage - blurb:
After a car accident, Courtney Veau has a “near death” experience, and
returns to her past-life in the post-Civil War west. When she wakes in a
present-day hospital, Courtney realizes she’s returned to her own hollow
existence. Heartbroken, she knows she left behind not only a family she loves, but life with the man who
shares her soul, a man she’ll love forever, Merril Shilo.
A carriage accident nearly takes beautiful Nichole Harris’s life,
stealing her memories completely. Plagued by amnesia, she is
confused by flashes of memory that are out of time with the world around her,
and seem to belong to someone else. Only Nichole's own strong emotions remain
to guide her—and as others try to take control of her life, she fights a
desperate battle to survive. Merril Shilo is someone she should know, and
though her memories fail her, she is stunned by her passion for him—and the
remembered agony of a broken heart.
Merril Shilo is the love of Courtney’s life—no matter when
that life might be. The memories and emotions of her life as ranch heiress Nichole Harris consume Courtney’s
mind—and her heart. Courtney soon finds her desire for Merril threatens her
sanity, as he beckons from a past she can no longer reach. She would give her life to return to
her soul-mate, if she could only find the passage back to him.
Excerpt from Passage:
The long shadows faded into
twilight. She'd found what she came for—proof this house existed. There was no
longer a reason to stay; and yet, just the possibility she might hear his voice
again kept her waiting one more day.
Outside the window, night took
final possession of the day. A few porch lights came on down the block.
Headlights swung around the corner as a car turned onto the street and
illuminated the pavement. The headlights winked off and a car door slammed.
Behind her, the room took on a
familiar chill. She turned from the window and pressed her back against the
heavy drapes as the echo of boots pounded up the back stairs. She gasped when
he raced into the room, vaguely luminescent in the darkness. He was dressed in
denim trousers and cotton shirt, with a silk scarf tied loosely around his
neck. Where's his hat? Had he lost it in the dash up the stairs? That
wide-brimmed cowboy hat was such a part of him he seemed naked without it. His
hair had come loose from its binding, and he shoved it out of his face with a
familiar motion. She stood close enough to read the emotion play across his
face, a mixture of fear and bewilderment. His breath was labored, and his
anxiety tangible as he stopped and looked right at her. Her mouth fell open in
surprise and her heart tightened in her chest. Does he see me?
He took a hesitant step toward
her. “Nichole?” His voice filled with horror, he whispered her name from
another life.
“Yes! Merril, it's me.” Courtney
stepped toward the specter.
His head turned. His attention
called away from her open arms. “Oh, sweet Jesus.” Merril fell to his knees and
reached for something no longer there. “Nicki, please don't go. Stay with me.”
“Merril, I'm here.” Her heart
ached for him and for herself, but her plea went unheard.
Sobs shook his wide shoulders.
Her heart clenched to witness his
despair. She longed to comfort him, to assure him she was there, but could not.
In defeat, she sank to her knees beside the grieving apparition.
“Nicki, don't leave me. Look at
me—” His hushed voice, choked and broken.
“I'm right here, my love,” she
whispered, but the room grew warm and Merril Shilo faded back into the past.
Courtney hung her head in the darkness and fought back tears. One question was
answered, at least for now.
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