For the Merry Month of Mae: Guest Blogger Angela Yuriko Smith

A while back I read a great indie book called the End of Mae, and made a friends with its author, Angela Smith.  Now she has taken End of Mae, as well as her other book, No Money Marketing, done some polishing, some revisions, and re-released them both into the world.  To celebrate she has embarked on a month long book and blog tour, her Mae Awareness Month.

This blog is one of her tour stops and today Angela is here with a guest post about truth in fiction, plus a book giveaway.  That's right, not only do you get to read her insights, but any and all who read this post get the chance to download a free ebook of End of Mae.
Just pop on over to Smashwords and use the coupon:

End of Mae: https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/63958
Promotional price: $0.00
Coupon Code: TU95T
Expires: May 31, 2012

The Truth in Fiction

The best lie contains a grain of truth.  In the same way the best fiction has the aroma of reality pervading its nooks and crannies.  I find for myself that reality tends to wind thru my fabrications without letting me in on the secret.  I'm as surprised as the reader by some of the happenings that occur under my tapping fingers.  Then one day it hits me from nowhere.  What I thought I made up was really something, or someone, that happened.

An example of this is my frigid and cruel character Ms. Prym.  She is described as being thin and severe.  She reminds Mae of a fairytale witch and is only too happy to be the disciplinarian for her master Heylel.  Prym is the scariest creature in the whole tale I think and she affects me on a deeply personal level.  When I started weaving Prym and Heylel's interactions with Mae I found it upsetting enough that I put the whole thing down and wouldn't continue the story for about 5 years.

It was during an interview that I made the connection myself as to who Prym really was to me.  I was asked what inspired her "psychotic Quaker" charm.  I thought a moment and then replied that she kind of reminded me of my 5th grade elementary teacher.  A lightening bolt went off in my mind with clarity and I realised Prym was my 5th grade teacher.  She never actually drug me down to a basement to teach me manners with a board but I imagine she would have, given the opportunity.

Since that first epiphany of the reality that lurked in my fiction I've seen it everywhere.  I harvest characters all the time now in the people I meet in daily life.  By the same token I see shadows of flesh and blood friends peeking thru the eyes of my characters.  It's a way to collect all the most interesting and best parts of everyone I know.  I can hoard smiles and bitter looks like other people keep Longaberger baskets.  Bad days are petri dishes for breeding sour emotions for later use.  Good days can be stored up, savoured and used in times of drought.  Reality is the framework upon which story tellers weave.

That's what I love most about being a writer.  To spin stories is to live in a world painted in shades of reality.  Like ghost whisperers, writers communicate with those even the grave can't wrap around.  We go beyond the veils that segregate the worlds of the living and into unimaginable territory, but only because we haven't thought of it yet.


You can check out Angela's website here:
http://dandilyonfluff.com/

You can find the complete tour schedule for Mae Awareness Month here:  

http://dandilyonfluff.com/coming-soon-mae-awareness-month/