Thank you so much for having me here today on Salon Witz! I’m
a writer of Young Adult paranormal romance and adult historical paranormal
romance. My second YA book, BROKEN, released on April 1st. The heroine in this
book is very special to me because we share a common problem.
Taylin Banes was cursed to live over and over without being
able to love. She has died ten horrible deaths. (Okay, that’s not the issue I’ve dealt with, thank goodness!) But
now that the curse is broken, Taylin has a new problem. She’s afraid of dying
again, dying painfully and permanently this time, leaving behind the people she
is now able to love.
And this is where Taylin and I are similar.
I am an ovarian cancer survivor. This past April 5th
was the four year anniversary of the morning I woke up in a hospital bed after
major surgery and was told “it is cancer.” My life would never be the same.
Surgery, 5 months of intensive chemo, 10 more months of a clinical trial chemo,
and 6 months of recovery has killed off all those vicious, stealthy cancer
cells (triumphant fist pumping!).
Since ovarian cancer has an ugly tendency of coming back
with lethal force, I’m checked every three to six months. Remission is bitter
sweet. Sweet because the cancer is gone. Bitter because the thought of it returning
is terrifying.
Chemo and I don’t mix well. Besides the hair loss (Everywhere!
Where do those nose hairs go?), I had nerve damage throughout my body (from my
teeth to my toes), sores in my mouth, toenails that turned brown and could be
pulled in and out of their sockets, ulcers throughout my digestive track and
bleeding end to end. The thought of going through that again, added to the
thought of dying early, leaving my three kids and wonderful husband – well the
fear can grab me by the throat.
When I started writing BROKEN I thought the theme would be
“you can’t fear dying or you can’t really live.” It sounds like a great truth
to help Taylin (and me) discover and implement. But as I approached writing the
middle of the book I slowed down and eventually stopped. I just couldn’t figure
out how Taylin could learn how not to fear death when she’d experienced such
pain and fear. I spent days wracking my brain and dredging my creative well for
something that could teach her not to fear. I came up empty.
When I met with my therapist (ah therapy, something I
recommend for everyone) I mentioned how I was stuck in my book. She’s a novice
writer and has great insight.
“How can I make my heroine not fear dying?” I asked.
She tilted her head. “Why should she not fear dying? Fearing
death is a very human thing. If she didn’t fear dying at all, she wouldn’t be
human.”
I blinked. I stared. I inhaled. “If you fear death you can’t
really live.”
“I don’t know anyone who doesn’t fear dying, at least
somewhat, and a lot of people live wonderful, happy lives. They just don’t
dwell on death.”
Holy Crow! Taylin didn’t have to completely lose her fear,
volunteering for the bomb squad or walking in dark alleys by herself at night.
She just needed to learn not to allow fear to stand in the way of living. If we
dwell on dying, what we would leave behind or the pain it could entail, we will
miss the whole beautiful parade going by before us.
Both Taylin and I still need to work on this. Every time I
have a CT scan or bloodwork drawn fear becomes large and darkens my world. But
for the most part I’ve learned to acknowledge the fear and look the other way
toward the beauty of living and the possibilities of each day.
I’m very lucky to have an avenue to explore my inner
craziness. I wrote a blog all through my treatments about survival. It kept me
sane. The posts are on my web site. http://www.heathermccollum.com/ovarian-cancer/ I plan
to one day organize them into a survival book.
It is amazing how much of ourselves come out in our writing:
lessons we wish to learn, people we wish to be, love we hope to find. We can
learn so much about ourselves writing and we can absorb important lessons
reading. I’m a firm believer that if you read enough happy endings, you will
bring one your way.
Have you learned something from reading a favorite book or
writing a character that resonates with your heart?
Taylin Banes’ familiar
world shatters when the cruel curse that kept her unable to love is broken. Now
she’s bombarded by all the human emotions she’d been forbidden over eleven
lifetimes. The nightmares of her deaths crack through her tough exterior,
reminding her that this last life is fragile, and fear becomes a new type of
torture.
Zach Buchanan comes from
a long line of Guardians and has trained with the Magic Alliance his whole life.
With the shake-up in the organization over the recent end of Lamont’s curse,
he’s been reassigned. He is to help The Cursed learn basic protection skills.
But can Zach set aside his hatred for the infamous Taylin Banes who targeted
his family two generations ago?
As Taylin and Zach clash, a sinister force rises
up, targeting members of the Magic Alliance and Taylin. With her last life on
the line, Zach turns from instructor to protector as the frenetic conflict
sparking between them transforms into a fierce attraction. Together they must
stop the malevolence threatening those with innate magic before darkness
consumes them all.
Excerpt (817 words):
“Taylin, you shouldn’t walk back there in the
dark.” He’s following me. I continue to head through the trees that surround
the center on three sides, leading back toward the abandoned part of the
institute. The stillness of the trees makes them look like they’re watching. My
stomach tightens, but I keep moving, anger overriding the sheer terror that
should be turning me back. I will not admit that Zach’s presence makes the
night less menacing. I will not.
“Taylin,” he calls again. “We haven’t figured
out who locked us in or who attacked Zoe. It isn’t safe for you to be roaming
around out here.”
“If you’d stop following me, I’d stop roaming,”
I throw back. One glance shows he’s closing in even though I can’t hear him. I
manage to beat him to the brick building and hurry around the corner.
“I can’t,” he says, and I whirl around.
“You can’t stop following me?” I stare at his
dark face in the shadows. “Is it still your job to track me, hunt me down?”
“If it was, you’d never know.” He lays heavy
hands on my shoulders.
“Until you killed me. Or would you have stabbed
me in my sleep so I wouldn’t know who to damn with my last breath?”
His hands drop, releasing me. “It was never my
job to kill you,” he says softly.
“No, that was Patricia Ashe’s job,” I remind
him. “But no one tried to stop her until she wanted to cut open the precious Siren,
Jule.” Why am I talking about this? I haven’t spoken about the incident that
broke the curse to anyone. Yet here I am out in the dark, vomiting it up all
over Zach, a Hunter.
Zach raises his hands and I take a step
backward. “She was nuts, Taylin. Alba didn’t figure out her plans until the
very end. We were supposed to just watch you three.”
“And that’s why you have a tat of the blade that
was supposed to kill us. Not a set of binoculars to watch us, but a triblade to
slaughter us like the Hunters two hundred years ago.”
He runs a hand through his hair, looking every
bit the warrior in his costume, his face hard and sliced by splashes of
moonlight. “It’s an old symbol, Taylin. That’s all. It means nothing now,
especially since the curse is broken.”
Stupid tears press against my eyes so I walk farther
behind the old psych hospital. He follows and I breathe relief that I’m not
alone out here in the dark. If he’d just leave, I could leave.
“Those of us who were trained as Hunters have
been reassigned. The job is obsolete.” He grabs my arm, forcing me around.
My jaw aches. “I’m sure you’re not the only Hunter
at the center. Maybe someone still wants me dead.”
“I was in that sauna with you,” he says.
“Maybe you just got in the way.”
“Or maybe you
did. What if I’m the target? Someone attacked my sister.” He drops my wrist.
“Taylin,” he says and stares hard at me. “I get it.” He looks sincere, but his
expression borders on pity. I almost pop him in the nose, but I want to hear
this.
“You get it?” I ask.
“Yeah. You’ve lived life after life knowing
you’d be born again. This is the first time you’ve had to face mortality. When
you die now, you die for good. That change would freak anyone out.”
I stare at him, unmoving, but the tension in my
chest presses hard. He takes a step closer, his voice low. “Everyone is afraid
of dying, Taylin. I know what that’s like. It’s the unknown.”
“So,” I start just as low, drawing out the word.
“You’ve got me figured out.” My smile is anything but warm. I nod. “So, Zach
Buchanan, you know what it’s like to have a blade jammed into your middle,
slicing open your intestines like they are sausages. You know how it feels to
refuse chemo because no matter what docs give you, it won’t work and you’ll
waste away. You know the burn in your lungs as you breathe in water until the
world around you fades away.” I shake my head but keep my eyes on him. “Oh, how
about dying of scarlet fever, alone, because no one wants to risk caring for
you? And my all-time favorite, being burned alive.”
“Shit, Taylin,” he murmurs. “You’ve been burned
alive?”
I blink and push his pity behind my hard eyes.
“Luke shot me in the forehead with a crossbow before the flames reached me.”
He rubs a hand over his face but still watches
me. I release a bitter chuckle and glance upward so the tears will stay put
inside. “You, Zach, are afraid of the unknown.” I level my gaze on him. “I am
afraid of the never-will-forget.”
Heather McCollum is an award winning, historical and YA paranormal romance writer. She earned her B.A. in Biology, much to her English professor’s dismay, and was a 2009 Golden Heart Finalist.
When she is not picking her teen’s brain for authentic attitude and finding time to write, she is usually found educating women on ovarian cancer symptoms. Ms. McCollum has recently slayed the cancer beast and resides with her very own hero and 3 kids in the wilds of suburbia on the mid-Atlantic coast.
For more info about Heather and her books, please visit her
web site at www.HeatherMcCollum.com. She
can also be found here:
