Hey everyone!! Today I have the fabulous Kia Zi Shiru in the house, talking about Black Sheep, a beautiful story from a talented author. Sit back and relax as Kia shares with us! <3
~~~~~
Thank you for having me on your blog today,
Night. Today I’ll talk a bit about how I came to writing Black Sheep.
I mostly come from a background of
fanfiction. Starting with Remus Lupin/Sirius Black (Harry Potter) and Zero/Kaname (Vampire
Knight manga) I read a lot of slash fanfiction. Around the age of
fifteen/sixteen it had taken over almost all of my reading time, not because
there weren’t any books out there that I hadn’t read (though I was getting very
close to that in my preferred genres in our local library) but mostly because
they had better story lines. Yes, fanfiction had better story lines than
published fiction. Though RL/SB fanfiction was mostly about their Hogwards
years and Z/K was mostly set in the future of the manga. So it wasn’t like they
were just playing in the set world but also that they created something new. I
really loved stuff like that, it showed off the skill of some of the writers
very well.
After a while one of the writers that I
followed wrote her own original fiction and that brought me to FictionPress
(where you can still find me these days). On FictionPress I got to know all
sorts of stories, but I also found a very nice niche genre of gay fiction that
wasn’t all about the uke and the seme but that dealt with real issues. A world
opened to me. Where my local library had 2 gay books for teens and one lesbian
book, here I had more stories than I could even start reading. I slowly got to
know a couple of awesome writers and I read a lot of stories.
From the point of reading slash fanfiction
to reading original fiction to then starting Black Sheep took about 2 to 3
years.
Those 2 to 3 years I spend reading a lot
lot lot of serial work. I followed up to ten stories at a time and also read
finished series. I used to print the stories off so I could read them on the
bus or the train. Those were the days ;)
I don’t know what inspired me to create Black Sheep, or what sparked the idea
for the first scene I wrote for it (now no longer in the story but it will be
the short story at the end of the second novella). But when I started writing
that first scene I couldn’t leave the characters alone. My English wasn’t that
good back then so it was a bit of a struggle at first to write things that
people understood well. But reading even more stories by then really helped
with that.
I slowly started updating chapter by
chapter on FictionPress, to see how well it would do. It didn’t do too bad, but
as any online writer can tell you, if you don’t interact on the website you
don’t get any reviews at all, you mostly get silent readers. Which was sad but
unavoidable. I did keep to updating though, and am glad I pushed through.
Somewhere around halfway through Black
Sheep: Letting go of the Past (named Part
1 back in the days) I found a few friends on another website and they and
their own stories have really helped me through the harder times, but it was
their enthusiasm for Vic and Jack that kept me going.
Black
Sheep, to me, has been a lot about experimenting. I
experimented with writing, with outlining, with updating, all sorts of things.
Some experiments went well, some not so good. I also experimented with genre,
coming mostly from a fantasy background. Young Adult non-fantasy was something
I hadn’t tried before, but it was very fun anyway.
I was able to do something I really like,
research. A lot of research has gone into Black Sheep, about different things.
Some of it on depression and suicide but also things like the helping side of
it. It made Black Sheep more than
just writing, it made it an experience. I read a lot of stories, some
fictional, some real and it always kept me close to Black Sheep.
From reading slash fanfiction to writing Black Sheep, there was one thing I
really liked about it all: the experience. I experienced all sorts of gay
stories, from romance to teen drama and it allowed me to create Vic and Jack,
characters that even now I’m actually finished with writing them still pop up
from time to time hoping that I write more about them.
Thank you for lending me a spot on your
blog to share my story of the start of my writing.
Cheers, Kia.
~~~~~
Black Sheep: Letting go of the Past blurb:
Trying to rescue her son from a destructive environment,
where the end of his last relationship almost ended in tragedy, Vic’s mother
decides to move them all to a new town. Vic, glad at being able to start anew,
takes the chance to create an image that would make his last two years of high
school a lot easier.
Excerpt:
The
first time I saw Vic I was standing in the schoolyard. Marie was hanging around
my neck and we were listening to music, like every morning since we started
high school. Suddenly she squealed into my ear and out of reflex I started
playfully choking her. That was... until someone cleared his throat near us. We
stopped and turned around. I froze. There, right in front of me, was the most
beautiful guy I had ever seen.
He had long
black hair, piercing blue eyes, perfect round and pink lips. The black long-sleeved
top he was wearing had chains which were attached to his black skater pants
with even more chains on them. He was just damn sexy... He looked very
confident even as the whole school was staring at him. He didn’t seem to care
or notice at all.
“You squealed, madam?” He
grunted but grinned and asked, “You know where room 304 is? I’m new here and
need to be there for my first class. I’m Vic, by the way.”
“Uah! Addams Family
reference!” Marie jumped up and down. “We’re going there too. I’m Marie and
this is Jack.”
Vic looked me up and down
and smiled.
“Nice. So I assume you’ll
be helping me today?” He seemed to be talking to Marie but his eyes were on me.
“Sure!” Marie grabbed his
arm and dragged him with her as she bounced into the school. Vic looked back at
me with large eyes as if unsure what was going on, but I shrugged and smirked
at him as I walked after them.
It was
never boring after that. Marie kept going on and on about him, about how she
liked him and how sweet he was. It was annoying, but heck, even I couldn’t get
him out of my thoughts. He was just so... intriguing...
Author Info:
Kia Zi Shiru is a Dutch girl studying
English and Creative Writing in the UK. Amongst her interests she finds
writing, reading, doing research and learning different languages (including
but not limited to: English, Dutch, French, German, HTML, Java, PHP and Assembly).
Her writing and reading habits include books with Young Adults, gay themes,
strong female or minority characters and fantasy elements (more often then not
all at the same time).
Black Sheep: Letting go of the Past Links (Buy & Website):
Book webpage: http://www.5timeschaos.com/blacksheeptrilogy
US Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.com/Black-Sheep-Letting-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00ALYZJMY/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1355213111&sr=1-1
UK Amazon link:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Black-Sheep-Letting-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B00ALYZJMY/ref=sr_1_2?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1355213142&sr=1-2
Smashwords link: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/263832
Kobo link:
http://www.kobobooks.com/ebook/Black-Sheep-Letting-go-Past/book-m9XSR4loTUurR9N9fSA1zw/page1.html?s=KSOuBLi5k0OsIanBzvdKOQ&r=1
Thanks for sharing with us, Kia! Everyone be sure and check out Black Sheep: Letting go of the Past! Have a good day~
XOXO NIGHT TEMPEST
I love books about people with dark pasts. Black Sheep looks interesting.
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