Where were all the characters before you became a writer?

Life before characters

Life, ‘as we know it’, before I became a writer was a dark, messed up place. Weird people came to me in my head with lives that demanded to live. They’d talk to me about wanting to be ‘set free’ and I had no clue as to who they were or why they were in my mind.

My imaginary friends drove my mum to despair!

I tried to lead a normal life as I grew up: school, college, work, marriage, kids, work. But then I discovered I could write about these weird people and give them the life they craved.

My first shot at it was awful. OMG awful, in fact. I think it even began ‘It was a dark, stormy night’ to give you an idea of how awful it was. That book won't ever see the light of day! Thank God, I say.

There was another weird person in my head who used to come to me in dreams. He was scary, sexy, dangerous and an enigma until I got to know him. The first night I dreamed about him I woke up with the cliché pounding heart and a sweaty bod. But in the next dream he apologised for being an ugly mother effer, and after that I think I fell in love with him a little.

He became my superman in my thoughts. When my weird people got themselves into scraps he saved them—or tried to. He wasn’t infallible and made mistakes, but I loved him more for his errors. He became Fly and I put him in my first published book called Eden.

My biggest mistake was making him more palatable to look at. In my thoughts his face is scarred—part of his mouth his missing—and his hands are distorted through scar tissue. But readers weren’t able to see through his ugliness and told me so in reviews, so when I wrote the follow up, Hunted, I went back and rewrote Fly in Eden to be more agreeable to look at.

He mocks me for that.

My books have an element of romance, but the overall storyline is loneliness. All my weird people are lonely and want (or need) to be loved. I do my best to please them.

Eden and Hunted are a soft science fiction, A Proper Charlie and Oh No, I’ve Fallen in Love! are comedy romances, although Oh No, I’ve Fallen in Love! is a lot darker than most romcoms.

What I read for pleasure is what I like to write: bad verses evil, love conquers all… you know, the usual.

In my latest book, Wide Awake Asleep, it has the theme 'riches verses happiness' and my character needs to choose which she wants when she is repeatedly pinged back in time. Each time she goes back her future, and those around her, changes.

I was inspired to write Wide Awake Asleep by the Life on Mars series with Sam Tyler being sent back to the 70s, although Wide Awake Asleep isn't a crime story or a series, and only my character, Julie, consciousness is sent backwards through time for her to appear inside other people's bodies, it has a similar theme of Julie trying to get back to her present time by correcting her past.

Basically, it's  a time travel novel with twists and turns along the way, and set in the small village of Potterspury (outskirts of Northampton in the Midlands). It's truly British!

Louise Wise

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Eden - available on Kindle NOW!

Imagine being left stranded.

No way of getting home.

No telephone, no computer, no shelter.

No food.

Now imagine the place where you're stranded is another planet. 

And then you realise you're not alone after all...

Beauty and the Beast for grown ups
The fairy tale you never grow out of.

Buy from Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk

Excerpt

A distant howl of the native-wolves caused her to swivel around towards the noise. Her heart gathered speed, and the tiny hairs that covered her flesh became erect with fear. It took long a moment to realise she wasn’t alone any more. There was Fly. But what was that going to cost her?

She looked over.

He was leaning against the broken boulder; his eyes fixed steadily on her face. He held out his hand to her.

She stared, mortified.

You’re not going to survive on your own, Jennifer Daykin; you’ve become a pathetic excuse for a human.

With that truth she allowed herself to be pulled down next to him, and was held so close that she could hear the beat of his heart. She sat tense, aware and afraid. His arm was firm around her middle. His hand, the fingers bunched into a loose fist, rested lightly on her upper thigh. She could feel the hardness of his body against hers, and she held herself as rigid as she could. Heat poured off him, warming her and worrying her at the same time.

The light gave way to the dimness of night, and the howling became louder and more frequent. The fire had faded into bright embers, and hardly any warmth came from it. Jenny peered up at Fly, his eyes were closed but she had never been more awake in her life.

She glanced down at the hand that lay on her thigh. It was large; the nails soiled. She peered closer and noticed the tiny slits on the tip of each finger where the claws emerge and retract. He came from such an ugly and violent race; she was extremely lucky she was female and able to provide him with light entertainment otherwise, as he had already said, she’d be dead.

No! I won’t become entertainment for anyone. I’ll die first!

And you will, Jen, you will.

The knowledge was like a presentiment, and she mentally recoiled at the thought of clawed, soiled hands on her body, and of the emotionless eyes that would see her at her most vulnerable. She thought for a moment of his hard, lean body against hers and a shiver, different to her repulsed thoughts, swept her body.

She stared into the fire. After a few minutes gathering courage, she began to move away. The hand on her stomach abruptly splayed out and stopped all movement.

Jenny physically cringed.

She was a woman from the 23rd century, and had made mincemeat out of men as big as Fly, yet she was unable to defend herself or seemingly survive without him. She was a strong woman, so why was she reduced to being at the mercy of a man? An alien man?

She pushed his hand off her, and made space between them, but her voice let her down. ‘It isn’t going to happen, Fly. I won’t let you rape me.’

‘There will be no need for rape.’

Jenny closed her eyes, and struggled to regain normality – but there was nothing except a black-eyed alien, vicious animals and deadly flowers in her mind to remind her that nothing would be normal again.