Skies of Grey

I’ve never written anything quite like Skies of Grey. I did a stint with some embarrassing ghost writing when I first graduated from UTD, and I’ve written gross and scary stories before, but nothing nearly this dark. It’s interesting the things that influence you.

My grandmother passed away a few years ago and during that time I couldn’t write worth a damn. I had several much lighter toned works in progress, even if they didn’t all have traditional good guys. But for about two months nothing worth reading came out. And then I wrote the first chapter of Skies.

I was experimenting with different voices, different characters, and I had all of these horrible scenarios running through my head. Nothing I tried made them stop and they kept getting in the way whenever I tried to write my normal stuff. Or at least “normal” for me. T-bird and Mortimer came first.

Mortimer was supposed to be a main character, but the more I tried to write him as anything other than a sniveling weasel the more it didn’t work. Somehow, and I’m still not sure how, T-bird beat down the doors of my imagination and stormed in with chapter one and stayed consistent ever since. I liked writing T-bird. She was violent and in control and dang did I ever want to be those things. Winter and Reem came later, followed by Fleshchild and Primo.

I know they say that characters are some sort of reflection of the author’s mind and if so, then mine were born of my grief and anger and everything vile that twisted around in my gut. I’m pretty sure Mimi, who loved legal thrillers and Nora Roberts, would have been appalled. But also very proud. She was an incredible woman, and our family gatherings and holidays still have a hole she used to fill. We’re moving on—because that’s what life makes you do—and writing this was instrumental for me doing that.

I hope that your reading experience is as enjoyable for you as the writing was cathartic for me.