Everyn Kildare: Introducing Everyn

PLEASE READ THE UPDATED VERSION ON MY NEW WEBSITE: www.everynkildare.com

I started this blog on my 30th Birthday, back in 2013. I was exhausted, sleep-deprived and felt about as big as an elephant because I was nearing the end of my second pregnancy. There was a part of me that felt as if my lifelong desire and determination to write was being forgotten and pushed aside by the day-to-day chaos of being a struggling working mother and a wife.

Yes, that means I'm older than I look. I think it's good to have a healthy dose of innocence and youthfulness, even as an adult. That, and I seem to have really good genes (Thanks Mom, you rock!) If you ever feel like the world is too heavy on your shoulders, spend an hour playing and creating things with a five year old - you’ll see what I mean. A little immaturity and wonder every now and then can really lift you up and make things feel lighter.

But what the hell does any of that have to do with me as an author? That’s why you clicked on this page, right?

Basically, I can say whatever I want about myself right here. I can say I was born on the planet Jupiter and grew up idolizing pigmen with three heads who spout prophetic gibberish in pig-latin for fake currency. I can claim I’ve ridden a dolphin across the Milky Way, and parachuted off a dirigible while my hair was on fire to save orphaned Martians. We’d all know I was full of shit, and likely having some out-of-body experience in public.

So, if this patch of virtual space is my pedestal to narcissistically list myself off to you, I might as well do it in the manner that comes most natural to me.

Every time I lingered over the "About the Author" section of my website I got bored brainless halfway through reading. I knew that I needed to change it, because if I was making myself comatose, I’m fairly certain no one else could stomach it either.

To remedy this, I've enlisted the help of a character named "Mouse" who I invented with my mystical, awe-inspiring Author Magic. (The imagination is such a marvelous enigma of joy, it should definitely be considered a superpower!)

Somewhere in the void of my mind there exists a place that is both empty and full at the same instant. The landscape is dotted with half-formed monuments of ivy and stone, waterfalls that cascade down into an abyss of stars, and a lone crudely painted desk with mismatched chair where my consciousness desperately spins out imagery to fill in the cracks that expand and contrast from one scene to the next.

A figure manifests within - a shimmer, a haze. Mouse forms into this vacant world like a popped opalescent bubble in the sunlight. He's short and thin as a rail, with a wild mop of auburn hair that curls over his slightly pointed ears and hangs low over his dark eyes like a shaggy dog. He has expressive and bushy eyebrows that raise high over a cunning smirk. It hovers like the faintest hint in the corners of his lips as he watches me, watching him.

“Can you pass me a mirror?” He says, his voice gravelly and raw from its first use.

I sigh, knowing I’d made him slightly narcissistic due to the narcissistic nature of what I’d created him for in the first place. Witnessing the disdainful shrug of his bare shoulder, I was already wondering if that had been a mistake.

I probably shouldn’t have been surprised that his first concern would be of his own appearance.

Without a second thought, I purposely dress him in a loose pair of olive-green overalls rolled up to mid-calf, a black-and-white striped shirt with tacky diamond print, and a wide-brimmed hat with brightly hued plastic flowers like the kind eagerly religious women wear on Easter.

He stares down at his new and strange attire and his dark eyes widen out with horror.

“That was cruel, even for you! Now the readers will be tainted with this image of me from this point onward. First impressions are important, you know? What do I have to do to get a suitable dashing-hero description out of you?”

“Continue to ask questions, for one. I’d like you to interview me for my new About the Author introduction on my website. If you do a good job and you behave yourself, I’ll dress you, or undress you, however you like in whatever story you’re inclined to exist in.”

He purses his supple lower lip and ducks his head in contemplation, gripping the pastel splattered straw hat in his fist and yanking it off in annoyance.

“Any story I want?” He finally asks, lifting a skeptical eyebrow.

“Sure.” I shrug, “You characters do whatever you want most of the time anyway. Just look at how Denora and Conner hijacked the story-line in Release! I had to add a whole other book to the series just to get it all straightened out.”

Mouse sucks his teeth and rolls his eyes like a practiced teenager, “Oh, please! You know you set that up. You’re like the evil puppet-master, putting the pieces into place and sitting back to eat your bucket of salty popcorn while you watch it all explode in front of you.” His arm attached to the floral-topped hat jerks up and down as he waves it at me like an accusation, all the while the words pour out of him in a single breath before he heaves in another mouthful of air, “Don’t act so innocent - you know you love it!”

“More than you could possibly imagine - but the stories still sometimes take on a life of their own. Occasionally characters make decisions us writers don’t expect, and stories take a turn that the writer wasn’t anticipating. More than once I’ve added a side character to a story in passing who turned out to be more important than I knew when I initially created them.”

“Is that how you write your books? Just plop down some exotic scenery, make up a few tormented characters, then set them loose to run amok and give you a story?”

I narrow my eyes at his mocking tone, my lips forming a hard line. Mouse withers in front of me as he realizes his mistake.

“Take my story in a direction I don’t like, and I’ll be forced to re-write you.” I say evenly.

Mouse gulps hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing up his long thin neck like a buoy in turbulent waters.

“No. You’re goading me, aren’t you?” I grumble, leaning my elbows on the surface of the imaginary desk as I peer up at him from beneath my frustrated brow. Mouse sighs, his stiff shoulders melting in to a more casual pose as he observes me warily to see what I’d do next. “Of course that’s not how it works. What a terrible story that would make! No direction. No plot. No point to care for the characters, or their adventures.” I smile, my anger momentarily muted, “Sure, some characters are entertaining purely based on their personalities. You could listen to them blather on and on about absurdity, and they’d still engage you with their wit and lively delivery.”

“Like me?” He grins elatedly again, his dark eyes twinkling like a child who’d just won his first gamble.

“I haven’t decided if I want you to be witty or not.” I respond.

Mouse deflates, and he leans back against the edge of the desk, his fingers gripping the straw hat so roughly I heard the brim snapping in his fist.

“I don’t like the way you’re looking at me.” He grumbles, half under his breath, “I feel as if my fate has been sealed and you’re already tightening the noose around my neck.”

“Maybe you’d worry less about your neck if you kept to task and did what I asked of you in the first place?” I prompt. Mouse blinks several times in confusion and I groan, shaking my head in exasperation, “The interview?”

His whole face flushes a vibrant red, and he waves the straw hat back and forth in front of him as if to fan it away, “Of course! How silly of me. What would you like me to ask first?”

“Seriously, Mouse? You have no ideas of your own?”

“You made me this way!” He huffs, tossing the hat out into the abyss beyond the desk and watching it swirl down into the darkness below.

“Start with my background, perhaps?” I offer.

Mouse grunts indignantly at my suggestion, “You should never start a story with boring background info. I learned at least that much from you.”

I can’t help laughing in response. There he is, earnestly forming his own identity and personality in front of me and I’m left feeling both amused and in awe of the very concept of fiction.

“Which one of us is the character here?” I joke, stretching my long legs out in front of me and resting them on the edge of the desk beside him. Mouse glares down at my imaginary boots, only inches from where his ugly green overalls meet the side of the wooden desk and he quickly moves away.

“You tell me, Writer. Did you create me, or did I make you up instead?”

“Maybe I made you witty after all - and slightly sarcastic. I’m liking you more. If you don’t want to start with background, then what?”

Mouse scowls and purses his lips as if trying to stifle something that could end up causing him more harm than good. I watch as he turns and paces up and down in front of the desk a few times.

“Go on. You know it’s eating you up, Mouse. Just say it.”

I sigh as his tormented expression darkens, and he turns away in shame.

“You don’t like me. You’re going to kill me off horribly, aren’t you?” He looks broken - lost - a being without purpose or function.

I laugh in disbelief - the kind that bursts out suddenly as you try to hold it in, so it ends up snapping out like the crack of a whip.

“Even I’m not sure how you’ll end up yet! I don’t like to plan that far ahead, unless it’s detrimental to the outcome of the story. Leaving some things open and loose gives the characters room to grow and change, allowing them show a side of themselves that I hadn’t expected or anticipated. I find when I give characters some space, they usually end up surprising me.” I shrug, leaning back in my chair until it’s hovering precariously over the abyss on two legs. “Honestly, I wasn’t really planning that far ahead when I created you. You’re formless, with no history and no future except the one I dream up for you. You’re not bound by a setting, a plot, or the opinions of other characters. Right now your path is the brightest - because you have nothing but possibilities ahead of you.”

***Thank you for reading my introduction! Obviously, Mouse wasn’t being very co-operative in my attempts at an interview, though I managed to persuade him to give it a sincere effort eventually.
If you’d like to read the rest and get to know more about me and my wayward character, you can find Part Two by clicking the link below.***

Making a Character - An Interview with Mouse Part Two

My Written Work:

I write novels and the occasional short story in the paranormal and fantasy genres. Some of my works flirt with steam punk; some straddle the fringes of horror. I don't like boundaries.

I also (not so secretly) write *adult (18+)* fantasy adventure serials and other experimental works under the name Wicked Red. You can find more about those on the Wicked Red blog, if you're feeling overly curious: Wicked Red Serials

The Crow Series

Crow
Shift
Release
Curse