The Strange Tales of Peter James Martin: #18 Sales Pitch + Daemon Soul Talk

Happy Blog Day Everyone!

Today's topic is about my other writing labour of love, and the one whose had a fair bit of work put into it...despite having only one short story actually published in that setting (with maybe a 2nd if I can get the bugger finished). I'll also share all the pics and tweets from the recently completed 7DayTale prompt from over on twitter, so be warned, this post is going to get a little image heavy!

Before all that though...

The Comic Tales of Brennan and Riz

Not going to lie here, I just wanted to draw a cat. There was ideas that this may be a specific cat, and maybe engage in more 'Tom and Jerry' antics but I decided to just leave it as an ordinary feline. I think it helps sell the last panel.

Though obviously, Riz will be fine, he'll just need a bath...

So About That Daemon Soul...

I've talked about this a fair few times now on this blog, but I wanted to give it the same look over as I gave Brennan and Riz a few weeks ago.

For those who don't know, Daemon Soul is a story idea/setting/multiverse that I first came up with back in 2005...Oh, how that seemed like yesterday and not the actual eighteen...*snip* Where was I? That's right, it's an idea that's stuck with me and been the focus of many of my attempts at drawing. I wrote the first draft from 05-07 with lots of changes along the way, characters dropped and what not.

The first story was (still is) called Daemon Soul: Awakening and centered on an 17 year old who finds his world view shattered when the mysterious Serena finds him. She tells him that its his fate to become the next Daemon Soul (lucky 13th at that) and everything spirals downward from there. Being the starting point of what I'd envisioned to be 5 books (later cut to 4, and honestly, god knows how many now) there was story threads introduced here that would only be paid off later down the line.

One of those threads was a little side character called Gabriel...Yes, THAT Gabriel. Here's the odd thing, while his behaviour wasn't changed much between drafts, his fate did. You see, he was meant to die in the 2nd book, sacrificing himself. That ending didn't last long.

The source for all of this came from my interests at the time, anime and video games. Bet you never expected that, eh? At the time, it seemed like a good idea, and it was something I wanted to do, despite how close it ended up hewing to already existing works. As to which particular things influenced Daemon Souls conception, I can name Devil May Cry as the main source, seeing Dante's look and personality led to certain decisions about the main character. There was also certain tropes that I borrowed, and a few negative ones I only learned about after the fact. Suffice to say there has been changes...

So, first story down, do I try to market it, see if anyone wants a story from a 20 year old or if an agent was willing to take me on? Did I heck.

No, what I did was throw myself into the 2nd book, called Daemon Soul: Requiem back then. This time, writing it only took a year, from 2007-08 and I doubled down on everything from the first story, introducing new characters along the way. Gabriel was further cemented as the evil git he is.

Can you guess what I did after this? If you said write the 3rd book, then you'd be correct!

Daemon Soul: Corruption was written in 08-09 and marked the shift in story that meant it was heading to the climax. There was lots of reveals and one of those unfortunate tropes reared its ugly head. Each story had had been longer then the last and this one was somehow near 200 pages, which would have been a door stopper of a book if formatted properly. It was an unwieldy beast, but I felt it was important then.

Naturally, I jumped straight to the 4th book, while doing bits here and there of an alternative timeline featuring a brand new character (who has ended up far more important than I realised then). This 4th book though, Daemon Soul: Dead World was never finished. The plot was more out there than the others, bringing the multiverse into it before it was in vogue. I did use the story setting a few times, notably in a role playing campaign using the big eyes small mouth system. It turned out to be a fun sandbox to play in.

This is where the series itself entered the wildness years as a series of social upheavals swept me up and I tried to get several spin offs off the ground, but they all stalled, and eventually, I just stopped writing. Then 2015 happened. Seeing a local author advertising his book led me to a certain publisher. To make it palpable, I ended up redrafting Awakening, and submitted the first 3 chapters...

This would be a massive mistake that almost broke me. I won't go into too much detail as I feel like it needs its own blog post, but let's just say I made an expensive mistake and learned to research certain publishers before I sign my life away (again).

So where does this leave us?

Flash forward to November 2017, where I first learned of Nanowrimo. Having not written anything in 2 years, I tried my luck and signed up. The story? Daemon Soul: Avalon. This was a drastically altered 2nd attempt at book 2, leading off from the last draft I did. I was now aware of other publishing options but couldn't pursue any of them yet. I failed that first year, running out of steam but it wasn't a wasted endeavour, as it returned my writing mojo that would prove instrumental when it came to a certain man and rat duo.

That duo would monopolise my time for the following few years but Daemon Soul was never far from my mind. I dropped characters into tweets and Gabriel found a new lease of life with the vssmurder and 7DayTale prompts, along side his retinue. Then last year, with the help of a fantastic beta reader, I redrafted the first story. I was fully intending to begin querying but it hasn't happened. Why? Because I'm afraid basically, afraid of it never finding a home. What about self publishing I hear you cry? That's a lack of skills and funds on my part.

I want to get this story out there, but...Well, that's where I am currently.

To stop this ending with a sad overtone, let's talk about something extremely recent.

Last week I promised you all the pictures I drew for 7DayTale, and I intend to deliver. I'll also post the text from the tweet as I didn't do a very good job of explaining through pictures like I originally wanted.

I've left the # in front of the vss365 word from that particular day just to show you what I had to work with, but I'll delete the tags. I'll also raise my hand up and admit I cheated for the 5th day onward, using two tweets instead of one, so there will be 11 pieces of text, instead of 7.

To set the scene, Rose is an amnesiac girl looking for her memories. She named herself based on a Rose she was carrying with her when found. She has supernatural abilities that are as mysterious to her as they are to others. The world she awoke in was of the post-apocalyptic variety, having suffered the Fall. In this story, Rose is investigating a library for answers...

The Library

Rose #winced at the musky smell as she forced open the iron doors, stepping into the old library. The dusty shelves filled her with awe and wonder, curious to see if their contents could offer a clue about who she was. A sound caught her attention...

Her senses #rebooted, she looked around nervously. That weird instinct told her something was close, then she saw the pale girl's face.

"You shouldn't be here," the girl whispered. "It's not safe."

"Not safe?" Rose asked. She was feeling more uneasy...

While it was obvious that the library hadn't seen any #traffic in a long time, Rose knew that they weren’t alone.

"Watch out!" the other girl screamed, as two large hands emerged from the darkness behind Rose, each covered in a swirling mass of letters.

Rose instinctively turned, #boycotting any fear she had. The creature seemed to be a walking pile of books, with a spirit animating it, its mouth gagged by strips of paper. Putting herself between it and the other girl, she took a stand.

As the thing strode forward, Rose threw herself at it. Mustering all her strength, she attacked again and again till the front of the thing's chest broke apart revealing a #sensuous golden light. At the centre, a book and quill.

"That book..." the other girl cried, staring at the book wreathed in #sensuous light. "That's me!"

"What?" Rose asked, stepping to protect her again.

"That book wasn't finished, I...wasn't finished..."

Rose knew there wasn't any time to explain.

"Is that golden book yours?" Rose asked, setting the stage like a #screenplay.

"Well...Y-yes," the other girl murmured.

"Stay back...I'll get you that book!" Rose shouted as she ran forward, focused on helping her new friend.

The thing raged, but couldn't catch Rose as she darted around it. She took her chance with a move worthy of a #screenplay. She pulled the book free, causing the thing to collapse in an ethereal blaze. She walked up to the other girl, book in hand.

"The #nub was my author died before she could finish me...I mean, the story. That thing..." the other girl started saying.

"Was all your frustrations, your fears?" Rose asked.

"Yeah..."

"Well, we can fix that," Rose said as she started writing.

Rose wrote till the quill was little more than a #nub with a feather on it. As soon as she wrote the end. A change overtook the other girl, as she turned from a sprit, to a human who smiled with the brilliance of a sun.

"Thank you, Rose!" she beamed.