Well, I’m going to take the plunge at the end of the month and serialize Blood Ties on Patreon, so here’s one of the theme songs from her soundtrack.

There’s a lot of Bishop Briggs on Elis’s playlists. This is the one I most think of with her.

Welcome to my darkness, I been here awhile 

Elis is a witch and serial killer–of garbage men. I nearly gave the book the tagline “Elis has never met a man she didn’t want to kill” but that’s not entirely true–she’s got a great relationship with her father, for example. But you know the type who come up to you and mansplain your own job to you? Who hit on you and don’t take no for an answer? Who emotionally manipulate and abuse women? Who give you that chill of uncertainty and fear as you try to find a way to safely get away from them?

Yeah, she kills those men.

Acting like I'm heartless, I do it all the time
That don't mean I'm scarless, that don't mean I'm fine
But you'll see, when someone else makes you this way 

She’s a very easy, enjoyable character for me to write (surprising no one). A little too reckless at times–killing is a compulsion for her, which can get her into trouble, but ultimately she’s a lot of fun. I’m looking forward to sharing her misandristic adventures.

Oh, I'll drain your life 'til there's
Nothing left but your blood shot eyes
Oh, I'll take my time 'til I show you how I feel inside 

The first draft will start posting twice a week at Patreon starting January 29 for all patrons if you’d like to follow along. Those at $5+ will get a copy of the finalized ebook before it releases this summer (the book still has to go for content and copy edits).

Happy New Year! jk, everything’s fucking awful, I know. If you’d like to help out in Australia, here’s a list of places that need your donation pennies and here are instructions for needed pouches for orphaned joeys.

I’ve been working the last few weeks (or was–I have to go back and retool some things) on the first Waverly Jones novel, The Killing Beach–well, sorta first. There’s also a prequel I’ve had in progress off and on because that’s very much where Waverly’s journey begins.

She’s seventeen when the murders start in her small hometown–a brutal serial killer who takes three lives in an area before disappearing for months at a time. Along with him comes Detective-Sergeant Sebastian Kyle, who has tried–and failed–to capture the elusive killer.

Since the prequel will likely be for Patreon subscribers and the jacket copy for The Killing Beach is already out there, I can tell you that Waverly’s younger sister is the last victim before the killer goes dormant–for good. At the same time, Sebastian–who Waverly is entirely infatuated with–disappears.

The Killing Beach picks up eleven years later. Waverly is a PI with modern cases to contend with, but she’s still haunted by her sister’s murder, the missing detective, and the killer who was never caught.

So “Black Sunday Afternoon” by Anna Ternheim belongs on the prequel’s soundtrack most of all, but I still have it on my general Waverly playlist.

I have a memory–a recent one!–of reading about that song and how it was written about a murdered (or missing?) girl. Of course, I cannot find that reference now and I’m not sure if I imagined it, confused this song with another, or mistakenly read an incorrect interpretation. (If anyone knows the truth, let me know!)

(Also check this acoustic version, which I prefer.)

They gather up, something's wrong
They ask around, no one knows
Well, have you been where the rivers cross
by the water in the moss?
Nothing really moves on black Sunday afternoons 

Even if my memory is quite mistaken and I’m confusing things, it certainly fits lyrically. It’s a very haunting song that always makes me think of Waverly in the moments when she knows something’s happened but doesn’t have the full picture yet.

We’re going waaaay back this week.

I first wrote Bloodlines around 2004. A character strolled up, tapped me on the shoulder, and told me her name was Zara Lain. If you’ve read that book, you know precisely why I then had to start writing and not stop until that first book was done: she bloody well wouldn’t shut up.

Zara was, in many ways, my savior. She had strength, power, and independence when I didn’t. Really, my own relationship with her mirrors that of her human counterpart Ana.

It was a little before that time that the old show Birds of Prey was out (was it still the WB back then, or already CW? I don’t remember!) and the song “Revolution” was everywhere for a time. (The Aimee Allen album it was due to be on was dropped but leaked on the internet back them–if you hunt around, you can find some of the songs from it released separately on iTunes.)

That was how Zara Lain first introduced herself to me: with I’d start a revolution/if I could get up in the morning blaring from my computer speakers. It’s that kind of walk-dramatically-at-night-with-kickass-boots-and-no-fucks-to-give sort of song that I hear Zara in every time.

Today is also a twofer, though, because there was another song on of hers that ended up on the Bloodlines soundtrack.

“Too Fucked Up For Love” really described Zara for Bloodlines.

That was the original version–pretty obscure at this point.

I'm afraid you're holding on to something that's too far gone

She’s come pretty far from that place, I think–she’s grown a lot, inching toward no longer being too fucked up for love.

Compared to Bloodlines, it’s a very different Zara Lain that’s in next month’s Counterpoint: Always Kill a Boy on the First Date. It’s been about eight years of story time between them and she’s been through an apocalypse so while I wouldn’t quite say she’s softened, she’s got a different perspective than she used to have.

But even then, she’s still that badass in great clothes strolling down the street in the middle of the night with no fucks to give.

Typically Soundtrack Sunday posts have included the entire playlist for a book, but then that means I usually only post a couple a year. A friend has been posting individual songs and talking in more detail, though, and I thought I’d maybe start doing that to keep up with blogging more. I usually only have a sentence or two about a particular song on a playlist when, often times, I could write a lot more.

Today* is for an unreleased book, and it just recently wove its way onto the playlist.

I’ve heard “Little Sparrow” a bunch of times and always liked it, but this was an example of something hitting at the precise right moment last week. Before I write, I build a basic playlist that grows and changes as the book does, but at least gives me a starting off point; other times I hear something and it gives me an entire entry point into a character or scene.

If you’ve read the jacket copy for Yampellec’s Idol or the first chapter in the back of Shiva’s Bow (or what was included with Emaleth’s Cat a few weeks ago), you of course know Livi’s mother at long last makes an appearance in the main series after several vague mentions of abandoning the Talbot family when Livi was about five.

I love Marta Talbot. She is deeply complex, with a system of values and morals that can be seen one way by other characters (and the reader) but that make entire sense to her. Entire scenes play completely different ways to her than they do to Livi, and it’s fascinating to be in her head even though her POV is not shared with the reader.

“Little Sparrow”, though, is what really gave me her as a character. Partially lyrically, but also in terms of the mood and tone of the song. I can see her singing it to Livi in warning, notes of bitterness and a righteous anger. Sometimes a character chooses a song and whispers in my ear, “This–this one is mine”–that was the case here, even if I haven’t uncovered all the details yet.

Beyond that, I’ll leave to you to discover when (eventually) you get to read the book.

All ye maidens heed my warning
Never trust the hearts of men
They will crush you like a sparrow
Leaving you to never mend 

*Thankfully I had already written this post last week and just had to hit “Publish”; my remaining elderly cat hasn’t been doing well since Friday and fretting over him is about all I have mental bandwidth for right now. Fingers crossed I don’t lose him on Christmas, but… *gestures at 2019*