Coming Soon…

2013

What a year.  For those of you that don’t know I moved back home to Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I won’t say it’s been good, but it hasn’t been all bad either. Hey, at least I’m where most of my family and friends are, that’s a plus no matter how I look at it

In the year that I was unemployed I started to really write. In 2013 I wrote 8 books, all more than 50 thousand words, a few over 100 and I am proud to say that as of Dec. 31st 2013, there were  25,486 downloads of my books. YEAH!  I am so…humbled, thrilled, excited, happy. The list of adjectives go on and on. But while I write, I also read.

My reading was like my movie watching, I’ll watch damn near anything as long as it’s good,  and in the past it was the same with books. I read a little bit of everyone, and a little of every genre. That is no longer the case. I am an addict for adult romance, and particularly fond of the paranormal kind. Currently my favorite authors are J.R. Ward (Black Dagger Brotherhood until I die) and Larissa Ione (Who I strongly suspect is J.R. Ward) but I found a few new authors that kept me going this past year and while I re-read some of my  2012 favorites, I also discovered, Darynda Jones, and her wonderful Charley Davidson Series and Shelly Laurenston’s Pride Series.  The grown up, wanna-be sophisticated part of me want to say I sat down and read: Shakespeare, Tony Morrison, Ernest Gaines, hell, even my all time favorite author, Stephen King, but I did not. I did watch a couple of episodes of Under the Dome but I didn’t like the changes, and I did try to read Anna Karenina but couldn’t get down with Tolstoy writing style. I get points for reading Cassandra Claire, Infernal Devices.

And so while I was not reading Pride and Prejudice or any other great author or classic,   I did laugh so hard reading The Mane Attraction (book Three of the Pride Series) that my husband kicked me out of bed…until I finished reading all eight books because I couldn’t stop laughing in the middle of the night. I did find a new man named Reyes Farrow in the Charlie Davidson Serires, he’s the paranormal equivalent of Christian Grey and Gideon Cross. I cried at the end of Clockwork Princess, Cheered when Quinn and Blaylock finally hooked up in Lover at Last, and was held captive for weeks on end reading the Anita Blake Series by Laurell K. Hamilton (22 books written over 20 years. I read a few more than once.)

So all told I read 63 books last year, more if you count the ones I read two or more times.

I love to read and I love to write and when I’m not driving 40 hours straight across the country, I’m doing one or the other.

Check out full list here.

Kimberly Odum Wells

LUPA: Part Two?

So, I decided to start writing after researching a favored author. I’d purchased my first nook and was obsessed with young adult paranormal romance novels and couldn’t find my next fix quick enough. I found a series of books, My Blood Approves, written by Amanda Hockings and for reasons unknown looked her up and found out she was a self-published author. I also found Penelope Fletcher, who write the equally wonderful, Ray Wilder books. She is also a self-published author.

I moved on from young adult paranormal to just plain adult paranormal and TWILIGHT-like books were replaced with THE BLACK DAGGER BROTHERHOOD, by J.R. Ward. It’s obsession at its best and worst. After reading and re-reading the BDB books and anything like it, I decided to give the self-published and often times free books a chance, after all it was the reason I started writing, and downloaded a very popular series. I read the first few pages and was like–I can do better than this.

I never intended on writing a werewolf book, I thought the market had too many after the sparkly vampires were on the scene, but since this was going to be an adult book I sat down and started to write. Like the rest, I was finished in a week with the first draft, but I couldn’t sit still long enough to do a proof reading so I picked up on a book I’d started the summer before. The original story was about fairies but I changed it to werewolves and LUPA was born. I wrote the story with a clear end in sight and I typed until I was finished. Or so I thought.

I have received emails and comments and every review states, “I can’t wait to see what happens.”

What the…

So it seems I was not finished. Currently I am working on book two of my first book, and I also have to finish a fifth book to a series, and proof the adult werewolf book that started it all. After that I can focus on a sequel to LUPA. I already have a title: NONAKRIS.  (I think)

As always, I’d like to thank everyone take time to read anything I write. I love to write and I love a good story and with each comment I am inspired to write something worthy that time.

Kim

 

THIS JUST IN…

  I’ve written a lot since I released Wlia: Mothers of War Trilogy. Heck, I’ve re-written Wila so many times I almost want to count the revisions as new books as well. I’ve gotten good reviews and the only complaint seems to be my lack of proofing the book. Each time I receive a review or email from a fan about my lack of ability to find the errors, I have mixed emotions because I have literally read the book no fewer than ten times and still, I just can’t seem to catch everything. I do know I proof read like I write…fast. There is no defense, I can only say, each and every time I will strive to do better because readers deserve no less.

Oh yeah and grammar. I do receive the occasional comment on grammar. I write like I talk (speak???) and I have poor grammar. Working on it.

Anyway, before I write about the revisions I’ve made to Found I’d like to thank everyone who have read or will read or is reading the book. When this all started I didn’t think it would become an addiction but it has, and with the kind words and glowing reviews (in spite of poor editing and grammar) I write almost everyday. It’s inspiring and rewarding in a way I never imagined. THANK YOU!

Found: Second Edition. I received a few emails, facebook and blog comments about the second book. The book was always meant to be three and I have about half of the second written but was sidetracked by five completed books and three unfinished ones. I’m a little scatter brained when it comes to writing and I find myself dropping one story to start another, but after making a move from Cali (California) to Ali (Alabama), I decided to finish book two, titled Guardians. But before that, I decided to try and find all those errors that plagued the second revision. In fixing those I decided things needed to be changed, taken out, or just added brand new, which made me release it, not as a revision, but a second edition. It changed how the second one will turn out, but that’s a different story all together. Anywho, I read, re-read, tweaked out the book cover, and uploaded to Smashwords, the new edition last night and will keep my fingers crossed that it is better. Check it out and let me know.

Kim

LUPA

Once upon a time….

A note from me

The first book that was mine, really truly my own, was a book of fairy-tales that I’d received as a birthday present when I was about nine or ten—I think.  It included Rumpelstiltskin, Puss in Boots, Rapunzel, Jack and the Bean Stalk and Why the Sea is Salty. There may have been others but my forty year old mind doesn’t remember what they were. My love for stories goes back further than that. My mother read to me and my sisters long before that book of fairy-tales, which started the love affair for all her girls. We’re all mothers now and our children love to read. What a great legacy.

My favorite book fairy-tale is The Twelve Dancing Princesses and my favorite movie fairy-tale is Cinderella. I don’t care who made it or the different versions, if a movie has been made on the premise I love to watch it. Everyone knows the story of the kind girl forced to work in her own home as a slave to her evil step-mother and sisters, but not everyone has read about the dancing princesses.

I don’t know when I started thinking of Lupa as a fairy-tale, Now they’re called paranormal romances or contemporary romance. Is it because that sound more grown up? More modern? Well, let me be the first to call a spade a spade. I like the word and I’d be honored for anyone who reads this book to walk away and think of it as a fairy-tale. I do. There’s bad language and a few steamy scenes but anyone who’s read the original Grimm’s fairy-tales know that there’s a little watering down going on in the studios of Walt Disney. Not for language or sex, but kids being boiled alive and eaten by trolls and birds flying down and eating the evil step-sisters eyes is pretty disturbing too.

I started this story the summer of 2012. It was not a book about werewolf; it wasn’t even a paranormal book until I was about a hundred pages into the original writing. You see, I was obsessed with young adult paranormal romance novels when I decided to write my first book. This story started out the second story I’d ever sat down and tried to put to paper. I loved the first line. “I woke with humidity already wreaking havoc on my slightly overweight body.” It’s not the first line anymore but the whole story came from that one line. The sentence popped into my head and hours later I had the beginnings of a manuscript. I got side tracked, wrote a couple of other books and went back to this story after the new year of 2013. I still loved it. Loved it more than the other stuff I was writing and so I decided to dust it off and finish it. The only problem was I was now into werewolves, where when I’d originally wrote the book I was into fairies and had already incorporated fae mythology into the storyline. Silly person that I am thought I could just find and replace fairy with werewolf.

Wrong.

The manuscript was 78,000 words. I tossed about half and a werewolf story was born. It only took me a week to finish. 113,089 words in five days! What can I say, I love a good story, even if I’m writing it and this was so much fun. The story is fiction of course. I don’t know any werewolves personally. But some of the characters I may have borrowed from my childhood. The main character started out me (remember it didn’t start out a paranormal romance) and ended up a whole different person. I’m glad. I like Marie Elizabeth Josette Freeland.

Okay…so there are two things in the story that are really from my life. One is the story of Josette’s name screw up.  I love movies, books and am obsessed with all royalty not just the British one. And I wanted my son to have a distinguished and powerful name, which for me meant more than the measly two we’re ordinarily given by our parents. The formula was simple; a family name, a name from a character in a movie and one from a book. I named my son Reuben Thaddeus Osiris Odum. Reuben is my grandfather; Osiris is the Egyptian god of the underworld (I first read about him in Queen of the Damned by Anne Rice)…and Thaddeus? Thaddeus is the name of the father of the main character in the movie Boys in the Hood.  If you’ve seen the movie you know his name is Furious. What can I say? I should have done some fact checking on that one. I wouldn’t have named my son Furious anyway; although Hrothgar (Beowulf) and d’Artagnan (The Three Musketeers) were in the running. No shit.

The other true story is about the fork in the water with an electric charge. My sister called me in the kitchen one day and asked me to pick up a fork lying on the countertop next to the sink. I knew something was up. It took me a long time to reach over and try. But I did and I was shocked. After allowing me to try to figure out what the hell was going on for a few minutes my sister finally pointed to the frayed cord of our can opener lying in the puddle of water the fork was sitting in. I don’t know how we got the fork out but it’s a good memory I have of my sister.

Last but not least…I hope.

I’ve been told I tell a good story. I’ve been told this by several people for awhile now so I’m going to have to agree. Anyone who know me knows that when I’m confident in something I’m the first to toot my own horn. Being told I’m a good storyteller makes me want to duck my head, kick the ground and say “Aww shucks,” while blushing a nice bright red. I’m not quite sure why.

But I do know why people would think so, or rather, why I am. It’s because I love a good story of course. And I when I tell a story, other peoples story, be it a book or a film or an episode from a TV show; I want people to get as excited as I was when I was watching or reading it. I want people to cheer the good guys, I want them to hate the villain and cry when true love is loss or found. I want people to want to go home and watch the move or pick up the book or research the subject matter, as I do all the time. Which leads me to—the story itself.

I like history and I like mythology and legend. I know as much as the next average man does about werewolves. But I wanted to add something else. Something that, for those people like me who like to read any and everything; would make a person go to their computers and pull of character names to read the real story.

Odin, Thor’s father, had two wolves Geri and Freki. If you want to know the rest you’ll need to read it on your own. You’re welcome.

 I can’t end without saying something about Stephan King. I’m a fan. Enough said

I have a cover but no book

I am ten thousand words stuck. They’re great words and one day I may even finish. I can’t seem to get my mojo flowing.

P.S. Making book covers is almost as great as writing the books.

The Queen and Imagination

I love history, jewels, pomp and circumstance and beautiful ball gowns. I don’t know if it is the reason I am utterly fascinated with Her Majesty the Queen of England Elizabeth II but I’m sure it aids it. If I had money I’d move to Great Brittan, become as citizen and be forever more her loyal and faithful subject. I’d move as soon as Prince Charles became King because I am most definitely Team Diana. A place where there is a Queen Camilla is just…wrong.  I’d move back for King William and Queen Catherine’s reign.

I know her life is sometimes, if not always, anything other than the fairytale that I imagine. It still seems so other worldly. And while I watch documentaries on her life or read the latest this or that online about her family I cannot help but place her in the realm of make-believe. Maybe it’s because I’m American. Maybe it’s because I’m a girl. Maybe it doesn’t matter. There is just something about the quiet regal woman that makes me daydream and puts me in the place that I often go when I watch a good movie or read a good book.

My first book has all the things that I love. A Queen who wears long flowing gowns and no shoes. She has knights and a guard. There are angels with large white wings that protect her and are utterly devoted. People bow and curtsey to her and she wears a crown that changes with her mood, it can be  covered in diamonds or become a wreath of spring blossoms around her lovely head.  There is pageantry and fealty, oaths and vows. There are unbreakable bonds. And sappy love. All of which fascinate me.

The ceremonies that take place in the book are based on those I’ve found from all around the world. If you care to dig there is real history and folklore within the book. The color of the wedding dress. The significance of the number 7, the wedding ceremony, the name of the characters; all based on some tidbit of information I came across when I started because sometimes history and fairy-tales are one.

Like the Queen.

 

The List

Inspiration – stimulation to do creative work; somebody or something that inspires; creativeness; good idea; divine influence.

I have always loved books and movies. The world of make-believe is where I belong. This will be short and sweet (the introduction; not the list). Below are the people, books and movies that make life a little brighter for me. Even on the worst of days. Below are the people and things that make me want to write something worthy.

Below are the reasons I still believe in magic.

Actresses

• Meryl Streep: In everything she’s ever been in
• Sally Fields: In Norma Ray and Steele Magnolia. Okay, for everything else too except for, Not Without My Daughter.
• Holly Hunter: In the Piano, even without that amazing voice she moves you completely with the music she played herself in the movie.
• Michelle Phieffer: She’s one of the most beautiful women in the world and she totally rocked in Scarface. And I don’t care what anyone says she was the best cat woman ever!
• Halle Berry: Only in Frankie and Alice
• Oprah Winfrey: Only in The Color Purple
• Cameron Diaz: Because she’s so damned funny

Actors

• Clint Eastwood: Enough said
• Jaime Bell: In Billie Elliot
• Samuel L Jackson: Who don’t like that motherfucker?
• Mel Gibson/Tom Cruise/Will Smith: In any movie where they run
• Ryan Gosling: Because there’s a little bit of Johnny Depp mystery in him
• Johnny Depp: Because I’ve been in love with him since 21 Jump Street and What’s Eating Gilbert Grape.
• Brad Pitt: Brad Pitt…

Movies

• Pride and Prejudice/Dangerous Liaisons/The Age of Innocence: Love stories that I have yet to tire of watching.
• Sense and Sensibility: I love the end when Emma Thomas breaks down when she realize that no, Hugh Grant has not married.
• The Sound of Music: Because who doesn’t fall in love with Julie Andrews every time she opens her mouth to sing.
• Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer: Who doesn’t love Kung Fu? And if it’s you then you suck.
•  The Curse of the Golden Flower and House of Flying Daggers: Pretty to look at and has Kung Fu? What more can you ask for?
• Howl’s Moving Castle: Anime at its best and a wonderful love story.
• The Piano: Ada and George love is second only to Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy’s

Directors

• M. Night Shyamalan: The dialogue keeps me spellbound but I might have to kick his ass him if I ever see him for what he did with The Last Airbender.
• Clint Eastwood: For every movie he’s directed.
• Mel Gibson: For Braveheart. FREEEEEEEDOM!
• Ang Lee: Have you seen Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or Brokeback Mountain?
• Stephan Chow: For Kung Fu Hustle and Shaolin Soccer – PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let him make the next Avatar movie. The real one, the one M. Night fucked up, not the one with the big blue aliens.
• Hayao Miyazaki – Love what he does with Anime.

Books

• Song of Solomon – It takes me to a place that is dark and mysterious. Her world is shades of grey and sepia.
• The Blackdagger Brotherhood  Series– The writing style is like an action movie. It’s mindless fun and brilliantly done.
• The Dark Tower Series – Roland. Enough said.
• Fifty Shades of Grey Trilogy– It was my first in the genre and I couldn’t get enough of it.
•  The Long Walk / Rage – these are two short stories that are about teenage boys. They are as wonderful as they are terrifying in the things these two unrelated boys do. The stories, when I read them originally were so bizarre. Not so much now.
• The Stand – Because I love a good end of the world book as much as I love an end of the world movie.
• The Rae Wilder Series – Love the bond between Rae and Brennan that has the potential to destroy all if they are separated for too long.

Authors

• Stephen King – Where to I start. The man can tell a story. He is the master of his craft. I don’t know if his own family loves him as much as I do. Yes I said it. And I know how it sounds. Stephen King’s It was the first book that I read that was my own. I spent a great amount of time reading whatever was in the house which was black authors and the occasional harlequin romance novel. At least that’s what I remember. I’m sure I had checked out a few books here and there at the library throughout my schooling but It was loaned to me by my then boyfriend and it was love at first word. He never fails and never lets me down. I am guaranteed to be captivated by each word from the first to the last. These weak meager words do not do justice for how I feel about the many wonderful works of the great man.
• Toni Morrison – Reading Toni Morrison is like watching Japanese horror. There is something dark and spooky and hidden just out of focus. I find myself scared and excited and nervous and anxious when I read her books. Her work makes you have to take a moment. You exhale and close your eyes as you try to readjust your mind to bring you back to reality when you leave the world she has created.
• J.R. Ward – The Samuel L Jackson of writing styles. I don’t know if she’s the first but she’s the first I read and boy do I love it. Written how I would talk myself, reading her books doesn’t so much take you to a different place, but rather show you your alternate life. Her vampires don’t sparkle but they’re also not the traditional blood-drinking, die in the sun, children of the night. The story behind their creation is second only to Anne Rice’s. I’m a romantic and these men love their women like none other.

First two thousand words

Click here to cut to the chase: https://kimberlyodumwells.wordpress.com/guardinas/

Guardians, is part two of the story that I always thought of as a trilogy in my first efforts to write a book. Ambitious, I know. But I love the saying: Go big or go home.

The first book, The Mother’s (title later changed to Found) was redone shortly after its completions when I realized I could do better. I did, in my humble opinion. I immediately started part two. 77,000 words in I was side tracked by the idea of great sci-fi book about an immortal.  I’m completely fascinated with the story of Henrietta Lacks and her miracle Hela cells, so much that I started to read everything I could find on all the advancements of medicine since their discovery as well as cellular genetics. It’s fascinating stuff. Every element of it from, Dr. Otto Gey’s invention of the roller drum used to grow the cells, to Tuskegee University (then Institute) involvement in mass production of the cells, to how scientist were able to map genes because of them.

Okay. I could go on and on, the point being is that I stopped writing part two of Found to start on a book that is currently titled The First Immortal (I am standing firm regardless of my husband’s obvious disapproval).

I read every day and when I’m not reading I try to write at least two thousand words every day. Most of the time I even make it. This is as per Stephen King’s suggestion in his wonderful writing bible: On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft (that’s the last reference of the great Mr. King; I promise I recognize I have a bit of a problem). Lately I have been drawn to the genre of adult paranormal romance. It took the place of the new love of contemporary romance that took the place of the once loved young adult paranormal romance. So The Blackdagger Brotherhood took the place of Fifty Shades of Grey that took the place of Twilight. I have read more than thirty books in the last four months of this particular genre.

I have also in the last four months almost completely stopped watching television which allows me to read almost constantly, when I’m not doing other mundane daily task such as: cooking, eating, bathing and peeing.

On one fine evening, while sitting on my couch next to my completely ignored husband and equally invisible son, I was reading one of the recently discovered Breed Series books by Lora Leigh. Book seven…or sixteen…maybe it was book three (I read them out of order, they’re stand alone books for the most part), when I had an AH HA!, flashbulb over the head moment. I had an idea for a story.

So at this point I think I can safely assume, without making an ass out of you or me that we all know what time of book Fifty Shades of Grey is. Barnes and Nobel has it under Fiction, Romance but let’s not sugar coat it, its erotica. And if Fifty Shades of Grey is soft core, The Blackdagger Brotherhood is XXX. This is what I have been reading for the last few months and this is the type of book my idea was for.

For five days writing the story consumed my every waking minute. The first day I wrote clean through the night and well into the next day and when I went to sleep, I swear to God, I dreamt about it. I could do nothing else until I finished it and finish it I did. Two weeks it took me. Two weeks to read and then do a first edit before I sent it to two others to read to tell me if it was any good and what changes needed to be made before I post it. My husband calls it my secret book because.

Which brings me back to Guardians, I know, you thought I’d never get to the point.

I had all but given up on part two. I love the story, I just got stuck. I could have become unstuck if my head was not clouded by so many other ideas for stories, better stories. I was resigned to walk away from it indefinitely until… I received a message from a woman who’d read Found and wanted to know when the second book was coming out.

Joy

Pride

Complete and utter SHOCK.

I will never forget the feeling. It was better than my first profit sharing check I received at my last job (and that was HUGE, the feeling and the check, at least for me the money seemed like a lot for someone with no college education and started at 10.00 an hour…different story different time). So I opened the unfinished word document, printed out a copy and sat down to reacquaint myself with the story.

Instructions given by he who will not be named were that when writing it was best not to look back. Unfortunately when the going gets good for me I tend to forget what it was I wrote. So many days I sit down and have no clue what’s next only to find my fingers flying across my keyboard after the first few words are typed. I don’t know if this is common but that’s how it is for me. After reading the first few pages I decided it was…GARBAGE.

To date I have written two full books, two partial books that each are over 70,000 words and a short story. What I discovered, which I read would happen by he who will not be named and confirmed by my husband’s reading of the initial 2,000 words of my book The First Immortal, is that I have gotten better.  Guardians, was my second attempt and as I sat in by bedroom, with pen in hand I could only get through maybe 10,000 words of very bad writing. My very bad writing and so I started over today.

I sat down this morning after dropping my kid off at school, and with page one of the unfinished manuscript next to my computer I started from the beginning. It’s a good story, I spent months researching folklore and religion and history in preparation. I will be finished and it will be good. If not for me than for that one lady who took the time out of her life to not only finish my first book but then like it enough to actually want to read more.

Like I said before, I may not ever be famous. It’s almost guaranteed I will not, but I’ve discovered in the last year that I’m pretty good and spinning my own tale, in addition to telling those of others.

I like the idea of positing the beginning of my stories. I’m always amazed at the first glimmer of an idea that holds so much possibility. The first words that can take you away from the mundane of the everday to place that is…well…magical. The link will take you to the first 2,000+ words of Guardians. ENJOY! https://kimberlyodumwells.wordpress.com/guardinas/

It was worth every single word

Hello Ms. Wells I just finished reading your Found book and couldn’t find when the next book was coming out ?
Found was a fantastic book !!

Words can not express the joy I felt when I opened my email and found the above comment that was not from friend or family member.

I am finishing up with a second book that my husband has named “the secret book” and the comment has made me go back to finish the second book of the Found trilogy. The title; The Guardians. The book cover; a done deal. I am seventy thousand words down in a book that will be about ninety to a hundred when done. I should be finished in a month.

I may not ever be famous, may never be known by more than a handful of people who download these free books. But I will forever be grateful to each and every person who take the time to read my stories.

Thank you.