Hey everyone! Welcome to our stop on the Descended by Blood blog tour! For our stop on the tour Angeline Kace stopped by and graced us with a guest post about why she decided to write Descended by Blood. Angeline is one of the sweetest people you will meet if you don't follow her on twitter go do that now :) also here's a link to her blog she's got tons of cool stuff there! We're also hosting a giveaway so after the guest post be sure to check out what Angeline is giving away!
So without further ado we're handing it over to Angeline...
Why I Decided to Write Descended by Blood
The journey to writing my first novel wasn't really what most people would expect. I didn't grow up loving to read. I read some when I was younger, probably up until about the fourth grade, but then I would only read enough of a book to get by on book reports for school. I wrote some poetry in junior high, but never really did any serious writing.
I became a book addict in November 2009. I read Twilight because I was going to see the movie with my sister, and since books are ALWAYS better than the movies, I thought I'd better read it. And if the guys at my work were digging the book, I thought it must have been pretty good. Once I started reading Twilight, I couldn't get enough of Edward, enough of vampires, enough of the written word. After I finished the series, I scavenged for more vampires. I became a member of some fan forums and followed the threads with book recommendations daily. When I said I was an addict, I meant it. Literally. If I wasn't at work, school, or sleeping, I was reading.
When I find a book I really love, I tend to visit the author's website. And that's what I did with Twilight. One of the posts Stephanie Meyer wrote talked about why she enjoyed writing. She mentioned that she got the same "high" when she writes as she does when she's reading a good book. I knew exactly what she was talking about because that was something I loved about reading. And reading was getting expensive. I am an instant gratification kind of gal, so waiting on library books was never an option for. Plus, I'm an ebook gal all the way, so all of my books were purchased. Writing just seemed like the natural progression to my addiction. And thus, I decided that's what I would do.
I had a dream that night or the next night that was amazing! It was one of those dreams you think would make an awesome movie. So, I wrote down what happened in the dream, what I saw, and everything. Then I opened up a word document and started to write it. During this time, I began to research the process to publishing. Everywhere I went, I read how hard it was to get published; how many query letters you had to send out and how many rejection letters you'd get back. I didn't want to put myself through all that, so I tucked the book away in a file on the computer, sad that my ideas would never reach any readers.
Fast forward to December 2010. I read a little book by the name of Switched by Amanda Hocking. Let me tell you, I loved this book! I had such a HARD time trying to get into another book because all I could think about was what would happen to Wendy and Finn. And like I mentioned earlier, when I really like I book, I search out the author. I found Amanda's blog and read that she published her own books. What!? I didn't need to send out 50 million query letters or beat my head against a brick wall for years? That was it! A door opened up for me and something clicked into place. From that moment on, I knew I was going to write and publish my own books.
The question now was, "What do I write?" I had another awesome dream around this time. It was a sci-fi and I loved the characters. I had my plan, I knew what I was going to do, what I was going to write, and in my excitement, I spilled it all out to my husband. That was when my journey to Descended by Blood truly began.
"What?" Hubs said. "Why would you write a sci-fi book? You should start out writing what you know. How many sci-fi books have you read?"
"I dunno," I said. "A few."
"Right. And how many vampire books have you read?"
"Uh, probably like a million."
"Then that's what you should start out with," Hubs suggested.
"Yeah, but vampires are so saturated in the market right now. I kinda wanted to do something different."
"Oh, come on," Hubs said. "You can't be the only one who's endlessly searching for the next great vampire book."
And I honestly thought I couldn't be the only one. So, I set out to write a vampire book in a market saturated with vampire books. I still wanted to create something different, but because I had been gobbling up vampire books for the past two years, I felt I was prepared with an arsenal of knowledge of what had been done, and with enough creativity, I could create something that could set my vampire book apart from the masses.
I started by separating my vampires from others in the most obvious way. My vampires would not be made from being bitten or by a virus that passes on within the biting. My species of vampires are an evolved race of humans. I started the storyline out with werewolves as an opposing race, but that just wasn't working, so I changed it up to a breed of vampires that could be made. However, the process is a lot more complicated than being bitten. You'll find out more about this process in the later books, but this was also something that took me a great deal of thought to figure out how to set it apart.
Another way that I set my vampires apart was by having them originate from somewhere that I have never read vampires coming from in fiction. Croatia is rich with vampire history, and when I found out that one of the earliest written records of an actual vampire sighting was from there, I knew that was the place for my vamps!
One final thing I wanted to mention about my vamps and my inspiration was the Mafia. The Mafia is something that has always piqued my interest. Everything they do, they do with the thought of secrecy in mind. They have their methods down to an art, and I think if vampires truly existed, some of those methods would be the same.
I'm still a huge fan of vampire books, and now that Descended by Blood is written and out there for the world to read, I'm glad that I got to create my own version of them. I'm excited for what's to come and for you all to see deeper into their culture and social structure.
Thank you Jaime and Patricia for hosting me today on your blog! You're both such great bloggers in the blogger community, and I'm grateful that I got to stop by ;)
She's so awesome isn't she! Thanks Angeline for doing the guest post and asking us to be a part of the tour! So onto the giveaway here is what Angeline has for us.
Giveaway
-We have the skin prize pack, which includes a Kindle or Nook eReader skin, an ebook, a bookmark, and a nail polish.
-The contest runs through the end of 9/7. So winners will be announced on the 8th.
-Contest is US
Contest is over. Winner will be chosen by the baseball hat method. We here at Two Chicks do not use random.org
Also make sure to check out the following tour stops for more chances at prizes! The tour goes until the 29th so look for more blog links on these blogs!
Sept 7th- I'm A Book Shark
Sept 8th-Seeing Night Reviews
Sept 9th- My Cute Bookshelf
Sept 10th- Letters Inside Out
