Guest Post: The Work of Kindra Sowder
Hello vampire, horror, fantasy fans! My name is Kindra Sowder and I am the author of the Executioner Trilogy as well as the highly anticipated Miss Hyde Novellas as well as founder/President/ CEO of small indie publisher Burning Willow Press, LLC. I currently have 4 published books, 1 short story, and 2 more coming in 2 independent anthologies with hopes to be announcing 2 more within the next 6 months. Possibly even more in the near future.
I am continuously asked what inspires me to write, and I’ve never been able to give an exact answer. At the recent MonsterCon back in July I was asked this by many readers and fans and you know what my answer was? “Everything.” That still remains true but I thought it was time to further explain what has inspired past works as well as a few future works as well. We will start with the first series I ever wrote.
The Executioner Trilogy
I started writing this series when I was 15 years old with a friend, but things went a little sour and we parted ways. I decided that this series needed a new spin other than the ones I had already implemented. I was (and still am) a HUGE Buffy and Angel fan and I am in love with vampires and the culture so I wanted to turn that love into something phenomenal. So I created the world of the Executioner, a woman who is destined to save the world from ultimate destruction and defend it with her life against Lilith, the mother of all vampires. I placed it in my home town of Los Angeles, California. Then I created the characters who started out as True (Robin), Spencer (Gordon), Beth and Chase of whom I cannot remember their original names in the series. I also cut out a couple extra characters that I felt later on didn’t add anything to the story itself (Raven a werewolf. Gwendolyn, a fairy). This story and the characters within it has evolved quite a lot from what it originally was, no longer even similar to its predecessor. It shrunk from a five part series to a trilogy, and Spencer (Gordon) was no longer the bad guy turned good guy turned bad guy he originally was. Yes, all that had changed to what it is now. Some of my fans may even still have the original eBook release of the first book titled “Flowers of Evil” under my maiden name Kindra Kinnaman from a couple years back. The inspiration for this series was continued with music that I constantly played while reworking the entire series. The playlists for each of these books can be found on Spotify even. You can find one for every single work I have produced or am working on.
The Miss Hyde Novellas
While I do have works in progress that came long before my inception for this series these ones have been the easiest to crank out and are the first in what I hope will be a long career in erotic horror. What inspired this work? My love for the story of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Stevenson. That explains a lot, right? But what inspired so many of the twists and differences? I can only tell you that I wanted to turn it into something that was different, that no one had thought of before and, while others have come up with their own variations, I feel mine is truly unique in so many ways. I had originally wanted to make Miss Hyde a prostitute during the time of Jack the Ripper and that she was actually to blame for his murders and then some. This is a fantastic idea which I may implement into the series at a later date somehow, but I decided I needed to make it truly unique by setting it in a modern period and why not New York City? And then the AHA! moment from out of nowhere while I was typing away at work. There is no special elixir to turn her from the innocent art consultant into a killer. It is genetic. It is something that she cannot rid herself of because it is fused to her; to her soul. It is a dark stain upon her family lineage that has cursed them for eons even. That was my true moment of genius I felt and critics and fans alike have been raving about Miss Hyde ever since.
The Permutation Archives
Who doesn’t like sci-fi? I don’t know anyone. Now, imagine X-men, Divergent, and Heroes mixed together. Do that and you have the Permutation Archives! I’ve always loved the thought of putting those with special abilities into a Dystopian future with a devious dictator, so that’s exactly what I did. I wanted it to be different and I wanted to play on the fears of so many that we have a tendency to sweep under the rug. The fear of our government and the fear of those that are different from us. As a race we shy away from things, or other people, that are special or unique. I want to remove the stigma and want to point out our illogical fears. Hence, the Permutation Archives. And this will be a five part series.
The Work in Progress “Hiding behind Angel Eyes” short story and series expansion
Now, you want to talk about different. Well, we definitely have a lot of that going on in this work. As I’ve told a few I’ve always wanted to do something dark and radical and merciless, and that I wanted to take something we hold dear and twist it into something sinister. I am doing just that with this. I am turning the Angels and their God into the monsters we should fear, and the demons into what will save us. Yes, even the devil himself. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time and it came to me when trying to figure out an idea for an anthology submission and when sending it to my beta reader he suggested that I turn this into a series, which I could easily do. I agreed with him and am currently doing the research needed to make this a reality and trust me, you guys won’t want to miss it. I am using not only the Old Testament to research, but the banned books as well like the Book of Enoch and the Book of Jubillees. And I hope you guys are ready.
I do hope that has answered a lot of questions for everyone as to what goes on inside my mind when imagining the next novel idea. I can say that it is a lot more cluttered in there then I made it seem and my mind never slows down, which explains my constant insomnia (even according to science these days which is pretty neat). If anyone has any further questions about me and my work, or about writing in general I am fairly easy to reach. I can be messaged directly at my FaceBook page at http://www.facebook.com/kmkinnaman or on my website on the CONTACT ME page at http://www.ksowderauthor.com.
