Countdown to RainbowCon: Guest Post from Caethes Faron

Today I have a guest post from author Caethes Faron as part of the Countdown to RainbowCon.  Welcome Caethes!  

Thanks so much for having me! This is actually my first guest post EVER which is fitting because it’s for a countdown to my first ever con! I’m super excited to go to Rainbowcon and meet so many other authors and readers of LGBT fiction. Writing is a pretty solitary endeavor: just you, a computer, dogs that have impeccable timing when it comes to needing attention right now, this very instant, and the voices in your head. Today, I’m going to talk about those pesky voices who won’t shut-up until they’re put down on the page, some of them even demanding multiple books.

For me, each book starts with a character. Some authors may be able to construct their characters and stories to order. I am not so lucky. I can put wishes out into the universe, but they are seldom granted, and usually in different ways than I would have originally thought. For my debut novel, Measure of Devotion, I can still remember the exact place I was standing when Kale first introduced himself to me. I was walking to my closet and BAM, I saw as clear as day the very last scene of what would become Measure of Devotion. Here was a man who had been through a lot. I saw the love in his eyes, the anguish at what he had just been through, and I needed to know how he had gotten there. It was like being a little kid at story time listening to his story unfold. I knew I had to write it.

The sequel to Measure of Devotion worked much the same way, except this time Kale’s lover, Jason, showed up looking depressed at a bar. “What happened?” I practically yelled at him. "More importantly, how are you going to fix it?” So he told me, and Measure of Strength was born.

My upcoming book, Haunting Echoes, has a pretty mean, kick-ass vampire from the 1600s as the heroine. She loves hunting and killing humans. Same deal, she came to me all, “Humans are annoying, but fun to eat.” She seemed interesting, so I asked her if she had a story to tell. Turns out it was a biggie. You see, her fiancé was accidentally her first kill. One of the risks of being a vampire. But she got pretty caught up in the hunt, following her bloodlust from one end of Europe to the other until the night she sees her reincarnated fiancé in a tavern. That’s when things started to get a little dicey. She’s another one of those characters who wasn’t satisfied with just one book. Oh, no. I’ve got the second book of her story almost done and her fiancé is clamoring for his turn at the mic.

When I actually sit down to write, the first thing I do is let the character tell their story. I just type. I get their voice, their biased view of the events they're sharing, and an idea of what exactly the story is I’m going to be telling. Then I do the same for the other MC. Once that’s done, I’m able to craft the story from what each character has told me.

I’ve got characters waiting not so patiently to get their turn at the page. Then I have other characters who are just hanging out, a little shy, waiting until the time is right to tell me their stories. My job is to be quiet and listen. I’ve learned the hard way what happens when I don’t listen. Rewrites. Lots and lots of painful rewrites!

My debut novel, Measure of Devotion, is currently free on Amazon, Kobo, and Apple, so if a bittersweet love story between a slave and his master sounds like you’re thing, go give it a try. For information on my soon to be released novel, Haunting Echoes, you can check out my site at http://caethesfaron.com/haunting-echoes.

Caethes Faron can be found on her website, her blog, Pinterest, Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads and Tumblr.