Category: Introduction

Blood Slave- Prologue

Hello readers! Today we have another short story. The prompt is actually the prologue for my book Blood Slave! J It’s not the original prologue that I had in mind, but I think it makes for a better beginning. So, here it is!

            Lisia practically skipped down the trail to the small clearing in the woods. She held the note in her hand and read it again in the dying light.

            “I cannot hold my feelings back anymore. There is something I must tell you and I can’t do it inside the castle. It is too important to tell in a note. Meet me at the first clearing in the woods where the mulberry trees grow at dusk.

Your secret admirer.”

           Anticipation coursed through her veins. She had never left like this before. She reached the clearing and didn’t see anyone but the hairs on her neck raised. She felt a presence at her back and turned to see nothing there. The smile fell from her face and the last rays of sunlight died. She backed up and fell. A sharp crack quickly broke the silence of the forest and a hooded figure emerged from the trees.

           He whipped the hood back revealing his handsome face creased in anger as he held up a lantern to see Lisia’s head resting on a rock. Blood starting to drip to the ground.

            “Now what?” he yelled, frustrated.

            “She’s still useful, Kieran,” whispered the she-demon into his ear, sending a shiver down his spine.

            “I know… but…”

            “You were going to kill her anyway. What does it matter?” she asked.

            “Well… I was… hoping…” He couldn’t finish his sentence. He couldn’t say it out loud.

            “What? Have some fun with her before…? HAHAHAHA.” The she-demon laughed manically than abruptly stopped.

“Here’s something you need to remember. Whether you have fun or not you are following my orders and the faster you fulfil my orders the faster you will learn. If you truly wish to have fun, I can tell you, I am an excellent partner,” she said, with her nose practically touching his and her fingernails caressing his chin.

He looked at her with wide eyes then kissed her, hard. He could hear her chuckling and he deepened the kiss drawing blood from his own lips. She pushed him away while keeping her hand on his chest, and he could see the insanity in her eyes.

“Don’t touch me again unless I say so,” she said through clenched teeth.

She disappeared into the darkness of the forest and he looked at the body of the girl, blood still pouring out of her cracked skull.

“Well, how am I supposed to get her back to the carriage now?”


Intro to Blood Slave

Hello Readers! Today I’m going to introduce my latest book. ? Let’s see, I had this idea two or three years ago because I was frustrated about how all vampire stories make them stay in hiding. Think about it. They are essentially at the top of the food chain and they stay secret. How does that make any sense? They would make great kings and queens or whatever rulers fits your fancy.

So, I realize, now that I’ve started talking about it that I should remind everyone that since these ideas are mine and mine alone, they are under copywrite law. If you ask for my permission to use something I’ve written I honestly don’t have a huge problem with it depending on what you’re going to use it for. ALWAYS ask me first. This paragraph doesn’t NOT give permission. I’m just letting everyone know!

Anyway, back to my story. So, I had this question that formulated into an idea. Vampires essentially rule everything (kings and queens style), werewolves are their bodyguards/military/detectives, and the humans are peasants. That’s the basic run down anyway. As with any monarchy there is a hierarchy within these classes.

The Royalty is like any monarchy with their courts and such. Most all of royalty are born vamps meaning a sex happened and they grow normally until they reach like 20 then aging slows down. There are some vamps with no titles that are the turned ones and kind of act like mercenaries and assassins.  Vampirism and Lycanthropy are mutations in a human’s DNA which can be spread in my book. Honestly, I don’t have all of it figured out yet and it may never be all figured out. ?

The Military is like the US military because that’s what I know and what showed up when I google searched it. Haha. So, you have the General, Lt Generals, Major Generals, Colonels, Lt Colonels and so forth. I will be changing the names to something else but I’m still working on that. There are also the specialty squads that do detective work. They’re kind of my favorite squads cause I am such a geek for murder mysteries and cop shows. (Hello Castle, Bones, NCIS, Criminal Minds… do you want me to keep going?) I can’t give too much away. I do want people to actually read my book. ?

Now the peasants are where it gets interesting. I highest “rank” of slavery is called a blood slave. (Squealing with excitement because I honestly LOVE this and can’t wait to share!!!) A blood slave is the personal slave of any ranking vampire. The higher up the royal is the higher up the blood slave is but the less freedoms you have. They get the perks of nice clothes, regular food, a decent place to sleep (depending on how generous their master is or isn’t) but they always must be by their master’s side unless they’re released. Some masters believe that release is death, others just want some privacy occasionally.

Now my main character, Alana, is the crown prince’s blood slave. They’ve grown up together. She’s also a half breed (half human and half werewolf) which is technically illegal. Well it’s illegal to birth and help create a half breed of any kind so, Alana is an orphan. She doesn’t have too many friends because she doesn’t really have to freedom to. It’s a sad existence really but don’t worry it changes early on in the story. ?

Well I don’t think I can say much more without giving away more than I should. I certainly hoped you liked this little intro and as I write more, I will tell you more about it giving some scenes and such. So next week I will have another short story for you guys and next month along with some more short stories I will talk about how to develop characters (there really isn’t a right way but I’ll tell you what works best for me). Well that’s all for now!


Peace in the Rain

Hello my dear readers! Today I’m posting another short story and tomorrow I will be posting again to tell you about my book!!!  I guess I should preface this with I suffer from depression and anxiety and at times things get incredibly hard. Writing these stories, though they are dark, help me through that. Turning my darkness and depression into something that others can enjoy brings me happiness. Anyway, this short story I wrote a while ago from a story prompt I found again on Pinterest. Not sure where it is from, but it was to “end a story/scene with the words I always found peace in the rain.” So here it is! Hope you enjoy!

I make my way through the gray headstones. My suit coat flutters behind me but I don’t feel the wind. I look up and the last of the funeral goers are making their way back to the parking lot away from me.

Good.

No will know I was here.

Clouds darken and mirror the guilt inside me. My burden weighs me down and my steps are harder to take. Finally I reach the fresh dirt marking her grave.

Emily Schwartz. 1992-2008.

A water droplet darkens her headstone and I look at the sky but rain hasn’t fallen, yet. I touch my face and see the tears cling to my fingers, gathering, and falling again on her headstone. My skin is numb. Has been since the accident.

A shout brings me to turn my head and I see Emily’s brother. The way he stalks toward me tells me I should be afraid but all I feel is guilt. He should be angry at me. It’s all my fault. I take a few steps toward him. I’m ready. Punish me for my awful mistake. The mistake that took your sister’s life. I want to say this but my body won’t respond. His red face is shoved into mine and I see his mouth moving but I hear nothing.

Suddenly all I see are the clouds. I hear thunder as my head slams into something, her headstone. I see the rain drops coming at me and hear them hit all around me. I can feel them. My burden is gone, and I realize as everything darkens…

I’ve always found peace in the rain.


Hello Readers!

Welcome to MJ’s Literary Theater! I am MJ and super excited to take you on this journey of mine to become a published author.

            Creative writing has always been fun for me. In elementary school I remember writing this short story for Halloween about a girl who just moved into a house and across the street lived a ghost, who inevitably took the life of the girl. It was chock full of the spooky superstitions (house number 13, run down house, etc.) mainly because I read a few of soft thriller books. Funny thing is I can’t stand to watch horror movies (except Supernatural, although I do have a hard time re-watching the first few seasons) but writing them doesn’t bother me. I’m reminded of something one of my good friends from junior high and high school told me when we took a creative writing class. He said he writes about the stuff that scares him to help him not fear it anymore. I have to say it blew my mind that this guy feared anything, but it made a lot of sense. It sparked yet another series of novels I wanted to write but I’m jumping ahead a little bit.

            So, after that amazing little short story, which holds a dear place in my heart, my next big adventure with creative writing was in junior high. I had an amazing English teacher for 7th grade and during our creative writing unit my class was asked to write a short story. The minimum page requirement was 2 pages. I don’t remember how long this assignment went on, but we turned in rough drafts and I had over 20 pages. The look of amazement on my teachers face when she had to make a maximum page requirement makes my life. I believe this was the first time she had to do that.  I wish I still had that original 20+ page story about ants because I don’t remember much else about it. My mom had to help me cut it down to ten pages and that was one of the hardest things I had to do, but after this, I mastered the concept of short stories. My 7th grade English teacher will probably never know how influential she was in turning me towards being a writer, but I will be forever grateful.

            Now in high school I had some ups and downs. I was always creating new worlds and writing about them. I have a binder full of my ideas that I’ve had over the years. I think 11th grade was my most successful year of writing though. My English teacher (yet again) had us write a 50-word blurb about ourselves. Do you know how hard that is? Seriously you should try it. I remember writing it about how I wrote about my dreams or something like that. He was very impressed with it. He even mentioned in class. (Yeah, I was one of THOSE students. Unassuming but a little bit of an overachiever.) This was also the year that I took my creative writing class and I have some awesome poems from it. My favorite is about a girl who went crazy and murdered the people that made her crazy. I’ve always wondered what my teacher thought about it but I’m sure he could see that my soul was crushed. That year, I dated a guy that was manipulative and abusive. It made for some great writing material but, um, it sucked in the long run. I didn’t write at all my senior year and for a while afterwards because I was still processing my trauma. I had to find a way that my writing didn’t involve him.

            After I graduated, I attended one semester of college, got married in the middle of that semester, and got pregnant three months into my marriage. I planned to get pregnant soon but in the happiness of starting a family I forgot my passion for writing. It wasn’t until after my second child was born that I started writing again. I created a new world with new characters, and I fell in love with it. I’ve had an on again, off again relationship with this book. Finding time to write with little kids is hard. I get lost in my writing. I can’t really spend hours writing like I used to when children are interrupting every five minutes. My kids are still little, as I’ve added twins to the mix a little over a year ago, but they’re getting older and I need to reignite my passion.

           So, here we are! Thank you readers for coming on this journey with me. I promise to be real, funny, and hopefully you find me entertaining. I think I am. ?

            Just so you have an idea of what I plan to do with this blog my first month will have three posts of me talking to you and telling you some more things about me and my book, then I plan to post some short stories. Some of these will be new or I might try to tack down some of the short stories mentioned in this post. I know that my ant story is gone. ☹ But I have the other ones that I mentioned (I think) and they will all be updated and revised. Don’t need to subject you to my juvenile writing. ?

            ANYway, I will post again shortly probably with a short story. Until next time!!!