#thewindstormseries

[katierobison]

Countdown Post 6: Most Difficult Scene to Write

This post is a bit of a cop out; I can’t really talk about the most difficult scene to write in Firestorm without giving everything away. (Maybe I’ll come back to this in a few months.) So instead I’ll leave you with some Adele, as this song served as something of an anthem for the trilogy’s ending.

[katierobison]

Countdown Post 3: Favorite Character

Apparently I forgot to share this one. Sorry!

Spoilers for those who have not read the first two books.

Hands down, my favorite character in the series is Paika--Kit's mentor and uncle figure. He was best friends with Kit's mother growing up, and he steps in to take care of (and train) Kit when she returns to New Zealand. He's a fierce and intimidating warrior, but he's also quick to crack a joke. He teaches Kit a lot about the importance of family, community, and loyalty, and she comes to trust him completely. Here is her first real encounter with him in Coiled Snake:

I’m surprised when I enter the house and see a light on in the kitchen. I turn the corner, expecting to see Miri, and instantly jump backward. Sitting at the table, eating a cookie, is a burly man wearing a wife beater and a black leather jacket. Though his arms are large and muscular, I can see a slight potbelly bulging underneath his wife beater. His long hair is pulled back in a ponytail, and a dark tattoo swirls across his face. He looks up when he hears me and grins, revealing a gap in his front teeth.

I snatch a knife from the counter and point it at him. The man laughs and takes a bite of the cookie.

“You any good with a knife, girl?” he asks, his mouth full.

“Well,” I say shakily, “you’re pretty big, so I probably wouldn’t miss.”

He laughs again. “Okay. Say you get the blade in me. You look scrawny, so it likely won’t go very deep. Now you don’t have a weapon. I walk over there, break your arm, flip you around, and slam your face into the hob. Bam! Then I come back here and finish my biscuit.”

I swallow and back up some more. “Why are you here?”

“Good question,” someone says from behind me.

I turn around. Miri is standing in the doorway, arms folded across her chest. I breathe a sigh of relief.

“Kia ora, Mir,” the man says. “Thanks for the biscuit.” He holds up the final bite.

“Don’t recall your asking.”

“I know how much you like to share.” He smiles.

“I can take care of the girl,” Miri replies sharply.

“No one’s doubting that, love,” the man says. “I’m just providing a little backup.”

“Oh, really? And where do you expect to stay?”

“You got a couch or something?”

“No.”

“All right. Guess the front lawn’ll do.”

“You’re not going to sleep in the garden like a bum. What will the neighbors say?”

“Maybe they’ll offer me a couch.”

[katierobison]

Countdown Post 5

Today is June 5, which means we're on Countdown Post #5: Most Interesting Research Discovery. (Only two more days until launch!) Also, I just realized that my countdown posts are really counting up...Oh well. I liked how they matched the date.

Back to the post: I learned so many interesting things while writing this series. I had to research kayaking, camping, topography, geography, architecture, nano technology, meteorology, linguistics, native cultures, mythologies, purse seining, air travel, tattoos, pharmaceuticals, military protocol, firearms, oil drilling, hand to hand combat, horticulture, and sheep rearing, to name a few examples. There were many serendipitous moments in my research, but perhaps one of the most fortuitous discoveries occurred when I was deciding on the title for book two. This book's titular windstorm is a cyclone, and when I looked into the etymology, I discovered two things:

1. The word "cyclone" was coined by a British East India Company official named Henry Piddington who wrote in his Sailor's Horn, Book 8, "I suggest...that we might, for all this last class of circular or highly curved winds, adopt the term ‘Cyclone’ from the Greek κυκλως (which signifies amongst other things the coil of a snake) as...expressing sufficiently the tendency to circular motion in these meteors" (Oxford English Dictionary).

2. Paddington got his Greek mixed up: κυκλως (kuklos) actually means "circle." The word he meant to use was κύκλωμα (kukloma).

This was a wonderful discovery for a couple of reasons. First, Kit equates the Rangi and their serpentine tattoos with snakes. The fact that "cyclone" was named for "the coil of a snake" thus made it a perfect fit for my book. But it became even more perfect when I realized that cyclone had received its name because of a misconception--just as Kit assumes her Rangi necklace is a snake when it is actually a bird.

Oh, the levels of meaning at work here!

(For a bonus piece of serendipity, reread the Lawrence poem quoted at the beginning of Coiled Snake.)

[katierobison]

Win this giveaway pack from BookhoundsYA! http://www.bookhoundsya.net/2016/06/giveaway-interview-firestorm-by-katie-robinson-katiearobison.html.

[katierobison]

Countdown to Launch

Firestorm will be released next week! I have an awesome blog tour and some really great giveaways happening right now, but every day until June 7, I'm also going to do a special countdown post.

June 1- Favorite scene

June 2- Favorite literary allusion

June 3- Favorite character

June 4- Favorite writing memory

June 5- Most interesting research discovery

June 6- Most difficult scene to write

June 7- What I'll miss most about Kit's world

Today is June 1, so here is Countdown Post #1: Favorite Scene.

I rewrote the beginning to Firestorm at least six different times before figuring out where the story needed to start. (You can read the first chapter here.) One of the earliest versions opened with Kit in the water, which I loved because of the contrast it provided to the book's focus on fire and because it reflected some of my feelings about the ethereal beauty of New Zealand. Unfortunately, the scene didn't quite work as a way to start the book. Luckily, however, I was able to keep the scene by moving it further back in the story. 

Here it is:

The water is everywhere. Heavy, dark, suffocating.

I welcome the suffocation. It means I can’t hear the wind.

A familiar burning enters my lungs and spreads to my head. I don’t have much time.

Turning away from the ever-deepening shades of gray, I swim back to where the light shimmers through the cresting waves and ripples along my arms. I move through an underwater world of sea grass and silver fish. Pretending for a moment that I am one of them, I let the current direct my body toward an unfettered future. The vast energy of the world’s oceans cradles me with surprising gentleness. I close my eyes and feel only the rhythmic swaying of the waves. The soft caress of the sea goddess.

For a heartbeat, I try to remember if I’m dreaming or awake. These days it’s hard to tell the difference between my nightmares and reality. But here everything is so quiet and peaceful; it couldn’t possibly be real life.

And then it’s time to breathe.

I break through the brown-gray surface, drinking in painfully sweet air. As the buzzing in my ears fades, it’s replaced with the cawing of the gulls, the slapping of the water against the inlet’s green islands, and the aching song of the wind.

I look around and try to remember how I got here. Slowly, it comes back to me. I couldn’t sleep. I left the house early, seeking solace from my fiery dreams, and my feet carried me to the ocean.

The waves playfully nudge my shoulders, and I resist the temptation to dive again. Instead, I strike out for shore. When I make it to the beach, I step onto the seaweed-strewn sand and wring out my hair, wipe the salt from my face. In the daylight, the world seems almost kind, my nightmares far away.

I sigh and survey the land around me. Lush green hills, the inlet’s gentle guards, outlined by dark trees and low fences and spattered with sheep and white farmhouses, slope all the way to the water’s edge. A single albatross, magnificently long, stands out against the blue sky.

I pause there for a moment, letting the sun drench my vision, trying to think only of the warmth spilling over my skin and the sand hugging my toes, wanting to exist in this moment and nowhere else. But the peace only lasts for a moment. With my next breath, everything comes crashing back, overwhelming me like the coastal currents that sweep in from the sea.

I left Rye in Mexico. The twins are being drafted. The world is burning.

I blink rapidly and turn toward land. It’s only then that I realize someone is watching me. I snap my eyes up to meet the silent figure standing solid and motionless at the place where the brown sand turns into vibrant grass. His dark hair is in a knot at the nape of his neck, and a single strand brushes his smooth cheekbone, the side without a moko.

“Hi,” I say.

“Hi,” Stephen says. Then nothing. He stands there, waiting.

“I felt like going for a swim.”

He nods. “I don’t blame you. I came here with the same idea.”

I look at my toes, not sure what to say.

“I wasn’t certain you were coming back up.”

I brave a look at his face, but he’s so practiced at keeping his expressions masked in stone, I never know what he’s thinking. I wonder if he finds me impulsive and irresponsible.

“I didn’t know if I was either,” I say at last.

He nods again and looks out across the horizon. There’s something primal about the way he’s standing there, backed by the green hills, the ocean breeze singing in his hair. Like he’s from another time. Then he turns to look at me, and as our eyes lock, I feel like he’s taking me with him, back to the land of the long white cloud, where warriors first walked the uninhabited hills and valleys, where everything was new and anything was possible.

I wrench myself out of the vision with a gasp. Stephen takes a step toward me, but I hold out a hand. “I’m okay.”

He stops. I wait for him to ask me what’s wrong, but he doesn’t, and the two of us stand there while the wind whistles a long-forgotten song.