As you have probably figured out by the last couple of posts, I am always working on Short Story Saturday, however, I am also writing something else as well.
Just before my world blew up, I started working on the sequel for Noctivagus, tentatively titled Paroxysm. So far, I’m about twenty chapters in and already I know it needs some structuring. I am really excited about it actually.
Then just before the holidays, I got the manuscript evaluation back from my editor Erika, over at The Werd Nerd. You guys should check her out, she’s amazing! She sent me such a detailed report, that the work that needs to be done doesn’t seem all that daunting really. I am actually excited about the changes that have to be made for Noctivagus.
So how do I keep writing the sequel if I’m still making changes on the first story? Good question. I just know I have a lot to make happen, and the worst thing I could do is to stop writing. I took the last couple of weeks off to spend time with my family that visited for the holidays. Well, they left yesterday, so I am excited to get together with Erika and talk over the list she sent.
I have plans to keep writing the sequel, as it stands, Reid is facing a couple of challenges at the moment, and some of them are personal while some of them are a bit bigger than that. He’s having a bit of trouble working through some of these challenges and it’s starting to show in his stress levels. In addition to all of that he’s continuing to work. He’s still on Penelope’s protection detail, but he has his work to do for Atlas still.
I’m excited to see how this year shapes up as a writing year. I wrote three novel length stories last year, and a couple of short stories. Due to personal setbacks, I have been negligent in writing as much as I wanted to, but this year, I’m going to work as hard as I can to keep not only my writing on track as well as my writing platform running as well.
Reid is a special case. Reid has been around since the beginning of the ideas of this story, only he didn’t always belong to me. He’s had countless name changes but I keep coming back to this. Several characters have had name changes since the inception of this story, Ryan being the only exception. Reid’s name has changed, but it also hasn’t. I’m pretty sure originally he had the last name of King, but his name was Christian. That part never left, no matter what’s happened, his name will always be Christian, and I can’t imagine calling him anything else.
In the beginning, he actually was a character from another book by another writer friend of mine, we were attempting to collaborate, but our stories were going in two different directions, so we split our characters, took our own back and I lost him. I had every intention of creating someone to fill that void in my story, but before I could, my friend called and basically told me “You keep him, he won’t work with me anymore.” So with a laugh Christian became my character and she created someone new. We even made it legal when I moved away by putting it down on paper and framed it. It was my favorite going away present. He isn’t quite the same now as he was then, but there are characteristics that have carried over.
Christian Reid Walker, when we meet him, is nothing short of an asshole. At least that’s how he’s described by the people that know him. Penelope has a slightly different opinion of him and everyone thinks he’s being weird whenever she’s around because he doesn’t treat her like he does everyone else. Asher goes so far as to call him out on it in front of everyone. Reid gets understandably upset and walks away. When Penelope goes to check on him, he explains to her that he usually is what everyone claims he is, but goes on to explain why, sort of. The condensed version at least.
Reid has been a Vampire for 120 years. He should have long achieved the rank of Master, making himself available for a position of power within the Arkane society. Reid has no interest in those things like he once did. He likes living quietly and doing the tasks and jobs that Atlas assigns him. Atlas Rivers is the Sage in charge of their area, and his second in command is Eli Holden. The position of Second in Command should be Reid’s but he doesn’t want it.
His maker, Akina Rue, is the resident Sage in Paris, France and that was where he spent most of the first century after she turned him. He was being groomed to take over as the other Sage in her area, but he shunned everything twenty years before the story started and went on the run. He doesn’t speak to Akina any longer and has renounced anything that had to do with her, except his title and his sister Echo. Echo is the older child of Akina, and her and Reid are the only two of Akina’s children still living. They both feel the same about their Maker, so they get along well.
Reid’s soft spot and change of heart happened on a cold New Years Day when Akina asked him to do a job that he didn’t have the stomach for, something so terrible no one would want to complete it. Instead of killing the newborn Dhamphir, he took her and ran. Emma Walker is his daughter, as far as he is concerned. Even though he hadn’t met her before that night. He spent years on the run, only communicating with Asher and occasionally one or two of his other friends, just letting them know he was okay.
Now that Emma is fully grown and living on her own, he’s settled into an easy life working for Atlas. He spends his time doing work, and actively shunning most responsibility; he likes being a grunt. He doesn’t know how drastically meeting Penelope will change all of that. In the beginning he’s not really thrilled that her and Ryan are coming to the party at his house anyway.
He ends up alone with Penelope pretty early on and they get along well enough to argue about Football before they party starts. He can’t help but feel drawn to her, and as such has a deep dislike for Ryan. When Atlas assigns him to guard Penelope once she goes home, to keep her safe from the potential threat her and Ryan have walked into, he thinks it will be an easy job. Stay hidden, don’t let Penelope know he’s there, and keep her safe, what could go wrong?
Apparently a lot.
He gets further involved in Penelope’s life when they start hanging out and the Reid she gets to know, is playful and fun. He’s the one that only his closest friends know. She also gets to know the side of him that his daughter knows, the caring side, the part he doesn’t tell anyone else about. The last pieces of his humanity are in this part of him that he hides away. This is the Reid Penelope gets to know and trust.
When things go fully off the rails, he tries to revert back to the way he had been, but Penelope can see straight through his tough exterior and even though he tries, she calls him on it. Eventually they find a balance of sorts and things settle down. Her relationship with Ryan is an ever increasing thorn in his side however, and he doesn’t want to be that guy, but at the same time he kind of does.
Reid’s character development happens mostly through commentary from his friends, as they can see the shift Penelope doesn’t see. Penelope only sees him close himself off and knows something is wrong. She earns herself a protector and permanent bodyguard because of this as it hasn’t gone unnoticed that she is important to Ried. There are only a handful of people on the planet that are, and all but Penelope can handle themselves, so he makes it his mission to keep her safe.
Reid is one of my favorite characters to write for because he is so dynamic. He carries the pressure of his bloodline, because of who his maker is, and who her maker is. They’re the closest thing to royalty as the Vampire’s can get. It carries a lot of weight in the entirety of the Arkane community, something Penelope and her friends learn about first hand at one point. Right now, two of the books in the series are going to be from his perspective so that we get a real look at what is actually going on with him. There are snippets sprinkled through Noctivagus, but I can’t wait to work on the next book to really explore all of the things that make Reid the complex character that he is.
I hope you all enjoyed this little sneak peak into who Reid is. There is so much more I want to share about him, but they would be spoilers and I don’t want to do that. Instead, I will leave you with one of my favorite vision boards that I’ve ever made. And it has to do with Reid, so enjoy.
So that’s it. Remember to be awesome! See you later!
Hello again! We are going to talk about Ryan this time. While Penelope is the main character, Ryan would be classified as a secondary main character. Throughout the series, Ryan plays a very important role in Penelope’s life. It’s through him that her life changes to begin with, and he is instrumental to those changes. So, without further ado, let’s meet Ryan.
Ryan James Meade is the oldest child in a family of five, and stays as down to earth as possible given his current career, thanks to his Dad. He tries to stay very family oriented and not give in to the traps and pitfalls of his fame. When we meet him, he’s recently gotten out of a relationship with his ex girlfriend, and co-star Charlotte Townley. When he meets Penelope, she’s like a breath of fresh air for him. He is instantly attracted to her appearance but after talking to her, he finds he’s enamored with her personality as well. He thinks nothing of their differences in class or the fact that they come from very different worlds, just that she is someone he wants to continue to know.
His life makes it difficult to meet people who want to see the real him, so it’s nice that upon meeting Penelope, and subsequently her friends, that there is a large group of people that genuinely like him. He strikes up an unlikely friendship with Asher Jameson, and despite his initial hesitance due to him being a Vampire, finds that he becomes a good friend rather quickly and someone he wants to keep in his inner circle despite the relationship twists and turns that he and Penelope experience.
Despite knowing a lot of people, he finds he most cherishes his friendships with Rich Cunningham, and Asher most of all. They see him as a person and don’t care what his position in society or his money can do for them. They are more comfortable just hanging out, drinking beer, and playing video games in Rich’s small apartment than going out on the town and for that he is grateful.
Even though he and Penelope have trouble seeing eye to eye and go through a period where they don’t even speak, he never loses touch with some of their mutual friends and when he and Penelope start talking to one another again, it helps to ease the tension.
He becomes a confidant to Penelope and eventually the have the friendship they should have started with instead of jumping into a relationship. So when Penelope hits a low point and needs a friend, he’s glad that their relationship has grown enough for him to be able to keep her secrets and offer a reassuring shoulder to cry on with no expectations attached to it.
Ryan himself continues to grow in fame and as such, holds the people who keep him grounded closer. They help when everything else seems to be too big. He’s a genuinely nice guy and just wants to help people, so he does a lot of charity work in addition to everything else. He’s a good friend and a good brother to his younger two sisters, Lorelei and Ariella.
I hope you guys enjoyed learning a little more about Ryan today. He’s a great character and honestly, there is a lot throughout the series that happens for him. He does get a happy ending, just like almost everyone, but not always in the ways they expect. Ryan is a good friend and values the friendships he has because of what they contribute to enrich his life. For someone that can buy anything they want, it’s nice to have people that could care less if he worked at the grocery store down the street, and are more concerned with his sarcastic wit, and trivia about weird things. He’s ever the English gentleman and most of his friends love that.
Have a great day everyone! Again, if you haven’t already, head over to insta to get the latest on the giveaway! See you guys tomorrow with another Character Profile. Until then, be awesome!
So this week we are doing some character profiles on the different characters from Noctivagus. I can’t draw so I can’t create their exact looks so I did faceclaims instead. If you don’t know what a faceclaim is, let me explain. A faceclaim is when you take the face of a famous person or some real life person that looks similar to what you think your character looks like in your head. I wish I could draw because I can never find anything exactly, but my stick figures cry. So here is the faceclaim that I have for Penelope, and then I’ll tell you guys a little more about her.
Penelope Jane Sawyer is the main character for Noctivagus. We meet up with her just before her internship is set to start. She’s been studying interior design in school and all she has left is the internship before she graduates. She’s managed to snag one of the few paid internships available, which she is really excited about. It has an added bonus of a continuing mentoring program that comes with it, which will be good for her after she graduates. The program is highly coveted and she is proud to be the one who received it.
She goes on vacation, planning to spend a couple of days in London by herself, and then a few days in Florence, Italy with her friend Callie Gracen. Callie is active duty Navy and they met while Penelope was still on active duty as well and have remained very good friends even after Penelope got out. While at the airport in New York, Penelope gets bumped to first class unexpectedly, and decides to wait in the first class lounge. It’s there that she meets actor Ryan Meade. The two strike up a conversation and get to know each other through a game of twenty questions. They happen to be on the same flight and when Ryan’s friend and bodyguard, Rich Cunningham, asks Penelope to switch seats with him so he can finally have some peace a quiet, her and Ryan spend the trans-atlantic flight talking.
Once they make it to London, Penelope fully expects to never see him again, only for Ryan to ask her if he can tag along to the pub with her and Rich, since the price to switch their seats was a pint of something. The next couple of days in London are a whirlwind and Penelope almost cannot believe what is happening to her. Before she leaves to meet up with Callie, Ryan makes sure that she knows he’d like to keep talking to her.
Callie and Penelope have a lot of fun and enjoy catching up with one another while they are together. On the final day of their trip, they are both surprised by Ryan showing up to whisk Penelope off to LA instead of home like she’d planned. She attends Ryan’s newest movie premiere as his date before he surprises her further by taking her to visit her best friend Bailey Stills-Parker, who has been trying to convince Penelope to make the six hour drive down to her place in Illinois for an end of summer party. Penelope had previously refused and was looking forward to seeing her friend at Thanksgiving instead.
While Penelope is thrilled to finally meet Bailey’s new boyfriend, Asher Jameson, she isn’t as thrilled by the attention from Reid Walker, Asher’s self proclaimed brother. It isn’t until she figures out that Bailey is dating a vampire that everything starts to make sense. Instead of being afraid, like she knows she should be, she’s intrigued. The party helps Penelope reconnect with old friends, and brings new people into her life that she wouldn’t have ever met if she hadn’t. She didn’t know that her and Ryan had walked into a war, and when she finds out, she tries desperately to keep it from the people she loves.
Back home in Michigan, with Ryan gone back to work, and her internship started, she finds out just how much of an impact the last two weeks have really had on her life. With the sudden addition of Reid playing babysitter and watchdog, she isn’t sure her life can get more complicated than it has already become. She isn’t prepared for how much things will change, or how desperately she feels pulled to leave her home and go back to Illinois and the comfort of her friends. She doesn’t know what to do with the new feelings of loneliness in her apartment and life that weren’t there before she’d gotten on a plane.
Through the ups and downs that happen, Penelope tries to stay the same upbeat, optimistic person that everyone knows, but struggles with bouts of depression and the still semi-fresh grief of losing her brother. Especially when she has finally reunited with her brother’s best friend and pseudo older brother, Mike Parker. Between the start of the story, and the end of this one, she finds love and loses it. She accepts the new changes in her life, and her ever expanding knowledge of the Arkane world, that seems to operate quite successfully within our own.
So that’s all I can tell you about Penelope right now. This story is honestly about all of the things life can throw at you in a year and how she copes with them. It’s not gonna always be happy or sad, and throw some Arkane elements in there, a war, and Vampire politics that she really doesn’t understand, and it makes an already complicated life even more complicated.
Hope you guys enjoyed this little snippit into Penelope’s life. If you have any questions, feel free to ask away and I’d be happy to answer anything! If you haven’t already, make sure you get over to the insta and check out the contest to win exclusive Noctivagus merch! All you have to do is tell me your favorite book quote and follow the page to be entered! Talk to you guys later!
Amber Marie Writes 