The story Dark Moon is based on one that started about
twenty years ago. Every day we meet new people, but who is to say which of
those meetings will impact our future and in what way.
It is difficult to say how long it actually took me to write
Dark Moon. I work in a very haphazard sort of way. I never have less than three
stories going at the same time. I get bored easily so I’ll work on story 1
until that happens, then I move on to story 2 until I get fed-up and go back to
story 1 and then I’ll skip to story 3 and so I carry on. And then I had a
period of 3 years in which I didn’t write a word – didn’t even do editing or
plotted new story lines. Nothing. Zip. Nada. But at a guess, I would say if I
added the time together, it might have been about 2 years, maybe 2 and a half.
And the incubation periods in between seem to do wonders for inspiration.
It started out as a straight forward, sickeningly soppy,
love tale, but it is amazing how a story tells itself. It soon became clear
that this tale needed more oomph, and resist as I might, the witchcraft element
would not be excluded. The Trevor character was also a weakling to start with,
but the story demanded he become something else completely. This character,
more than any other in the book, personifies the notion of ‘nothing is as it
seems’. We all wear different faces, pretend to be something other than we are,
but in Trevor’s case, his faces were like day and night. I loved writing the Trevor
character.
I had to be cautious when I incorporated the witchy bits to
the story, though. I didn’t want my wondrous tale to turn into something like
Harry Potter, with people calling themselves witches and wafting wands about
and sparks flying, nor did I want to turn it into a textbook on the craft.
People are strange and there will always be somebody out there who will
actually try out the rituals and stuff. So, for the sake of safety – and my
sanity! – I couldn’t describe anything fully. Less is more in my opinion. I
wanted to draw the reader into the rites, without anybody being able to copy
anything and causing themselves or anybody/thing around them any harm. A little
knowledge is dangerous, you know.
Thank you to Mark Knox for the wonderful cover art and
splendid video trailer that completed the growth of Dark Moon. And a special
thank you to All Things That Matters Press for publishing Dark Moon.
Dark Moon is available from amazon.com in paperback or
kindle from here:
http://tinyurl.com/3tl3bqu
If you are in Africa, it is available on Kalahari.com in
paperback or on mobii from here:
http://www.kalahari.com/books/Dark-Moon/632/42728694.aspx
Please follow me on twitter @lunamags
and on facebook http://www.facebook.com/pages/Maggie-Tideswell/161954970541011
