In The Presence Of Angels

In the paranormal world, walking amongst the vampires and shapeshifters, the demons and fairies, there are angels. Not the pink-cheeked cherubs adorning Christmas cards, but full-bodied, living, breathing angels. Angels with enough angst and dilemmas to rival their human counterparts. And with enough sensuality and charisma to bring a mere mortal to her knees with just a look. Angels are the new models for heroes taking their stand in the paranormal world. But what is the fascination with angels?

I have been trying to answer this question for myself ever since a certain wayward angel took up residence in my brain and started telling me his story. Or, in actuality, demanded that I tell his story. Before that, I was content with writing about mere mortals who lived, loved, lost and rediscovered along the journey that we call life. But once that angel first began to speak to me, I have become fascinated by stories of angels, be they real or fictionalized. Still I wonder, what is it about these heavenly beings that spawns such fascination?

Whether you believe in angels or not, they permeate our culture like no other symbol of hope and purity. Faith and belief. Awe and inspiration. Perhaps one of the most iconic renditions of angels is that of The Sistine Madonna, better known as Raphael’s Angels. Who hasn’t seen this painting of two cherubs watching the heavens with daydreaming expressions staring back at them from a Christmas card or festive ornament? A quick search through Google will show that, although this is perhaps Raphael’s most famous painting of angelic beings, it is not the only one in which they appear. Indeed, they show up in the backgrounds of several others, but are not limited to Raphael’s paintings. Other artists, including Bouguereau, depict angels in their works.

So is it any wonder that Hollywood would follow suit? One of my favorite movies about angels is called Michael in which John Travolta gives a tour de force performance as a bad boy angel living amongst humans. From smoking to burping after a meal, he is the antithesis of the heavenly being we associate with the word angel. But that doesn’t mean he isn’t wise. On the contrary, he gets to the heart of the matter without seeming to care if he does get there. The trick is, he gets the humans to do most of the work. And who can forget that dance sequence to “Chain of Fools” where he manages to seduce every woman in the bar away from her date?

One of the most successful shows on television was “Touched by an Angel,” which always delivered a story with an uplifting message without sounding too preachy. Della Reese was perfect as Tess, a feisty, put-upon angel who was a rallying force behind her charges and loved them like a mother. She guided everyone, including the other angels in her care, with a firm yet gentle hand, nurturing when needed and doling out the tough love when the situation called for it. On the flipside was the ABCFamily miniseries called Fallen, in which a young man, upon his seventeenth birthday, discovered that he was one of the Nephilim, which put his life – and those of everyone he loved – in danger. A somewhat darker tale, it dealt with morality and good versus evil on a different scale than its more uplifting counterpart.

Which brings me to literature and the new fascination with angelic characters. Whether they are heroes or secondary characters, angels are cropping up everywhere. Debbie Macomber writes uplifting stories about angels called Shirley, Goodness and Mercy, who make it their mission to grant people hope and give them the will to love again. One could argue that the angels are secondary characters to those they come to help. On the darker side is a series by Erin McCarthy, the Seven Deadly Sins. In book one, My Immortal, the hero, Damien du Bourg, makes a deal with a fallen angle for immortality, which poses some unique problems when he meets the woman he might want to spend eternity with. In book two, Fallen, the hero is the fallen angel Gabriel whose penance on earth is to be without love forever. So whether you like your angels lighthearted and madcap, like Macomber’s angels, or dark and tortured like McCarthy’s, there is a story out there for every taste.

Thank you for traveling with me on this little journey through angels in our culture and feel free to leave a comment on your favorite angel in art, film, or literature. You tell me, have you ever found yourself in the presence of angels?

Do You Believe in Angels?

I never set out to write about angels. I didn’t sit down one day and think to myself, “Angels, now there’s a good basis for a book.” In fact, it was the furthest thing from my mind – before I had the dream. Back then, I had visions of Regency heroes and quirky modern heroines, but angels? Not so much.

Until the dream.

Of course I didn’t realize at the time that I was writing about angels. They weren’t very forthcoming in the beginning. I actually thought that I was writing about a woman who was at a crossroad in her life where the ultimate choice she made could literally have life or death consequences. I know what you’re thinking. All this from a dream? Well, no, not exactly. The dream itself centered around a woman at a nightclub dancing the night away with a sinfully attractive man. Simple enough but for the fact that, when she turned away from him, his eyes began to glow red, giving him a devilish look. Still rather unremarkable, right? Until the woman showed up in my next dream. Only this time, she was dressed in a rather proper manner and moving into a garage apartment, preparing to take care of the twins of a widower.

That’s how Nora’s Soul came to fruition. Two dreams, interconnected, that wouldn’t leave me alone. They were all I thought about. Who was this woman and why was she out dancing with a devil one night and preparing to care for children the next? The questions fueled my imagination, demanding answers. The first answer came in the identity of the woman, Nora, who began to give me clues to her background. The angels came in later. You see, in the beginning, I thought I was dealing with a clear-cut depiction of good versus evil, devil versus angel, but as the story progressed, I realized that not everything is so black and white. There are beautiful shades of gray.

Dante is a shade of gray. When he first came to me in my dream, Dante portrayed himself as something of a devil. So that’s how I described him. He was a devil, his only purpose was to steal Nora’s Soul, and that was the end of the story. Or so I thought. But Dante had other ideas. Just when I thought I was done with him, he wouldn’t let me go. He kept invading my dreams, telling a different story. I soon learned that Dante was an angel who, not unlike Nora, was led down the wrong path by his desires. And Dante also finds himself having to make some decisions that could have severe ramifications not only for himself but also for others connected to him.

At its core, Nora’s Soul is about a woman’s crisis of faith – in herself as well as the heavenly beings who are trying to set her on the right path. But it’s also about what happens when one of those heavenly beings has been led astray, his own faith – in himself, in his kind – tested. Even Dante will have to answer the question: Do you believe in angels?

Getting Into Character

I have a confession to make. I hear voices in my head. Now, under normal circumstances, this confession would make one question their sanity and perhaps lead to years of intensive therapy. But I left out an important part of the confession: I am a writer. The voices I hear in my head are those of the characters that live there, in the land of my imagination, toying with my gray matter until I finally tease them out and onto the page. And there is the secret, at least for me, of characterization. I have to be able to hear the voices before I can get a fix on the characters.

As anyone who takes a pen to paper will tell you, characterization is an integral part of the story. You can have a mediocre plot, a tried and true plot, and yet still make it come alive with fascinating characters. Likewise, boring characters can sink a good plot. Just ask any reader what kept them enthralled in a book and more often than not they will give you a detailed description of…the characters. What do you remember most about Romeo and Juliet? The intricacies of the plot – or how passionate the lovers were for each other? What about the movie Titanic? What remains fixed in your mind, the fact that the ship sank after striking an iceberg or the ill-fated love affair between Jack and Rose?

Characters define a story; they are the backbone of the plot. Everything that happens within the story depends upon the type of characters that populate it. So the writer owes it to the reader to give him or her characters they will not forget. Characters that will live within them long after the last page is read and the book is closed. Characters that make them want to revisit that book again and again. How? For me, it is the simple matter of feeling that way about the characters myself. After all, if I can’t feel passionate about my characters, how can I expect my readers to? And so I listen to my characters.

For me, listening to the way they speak, the words they use, is an integral part of characterization. That is how I “get into” character. I playact in my mind. Visualize the character in a scene and play with her emotions. It helps to imagine a certain actress playing the character in a movie, to run the scene in my head like it’s a filmstrip. How does she sound? How does she stand? What does she look like when she’s angry? These are all key ingredients to characterization. You have to think of them as real people, full-bodied and well-developed. When you start wondering how your character would feel about a certain situation or how she would handle a certain crisis, then you have done your job. If you can write a line of dialogue and on a second pass realize that your character would never say that, or at least not in that way, then you’re totally in synch with your character and are one step closer to remaining true to them.

At this point, you might be thinking that’s all well and good, but how do you get so in tune with your characters? Another good tool that I use, in addition to the filmstripping, is the character interview. This is a fun and cool exercise for the writer because we never know just what our characters are going to say until we ask the questions. As evidenced in an interview of one of my characters – Dante, from Nora’s Soul – when he was interviewed by Pat Bertram http://patbertram.wordpress.com/2008/10/10/pat-bertram-introduces-dante-the-hero-of-noras-soul-written-by-margay-leah-justice/. Suffice it to say that Dante’s true nature leapt right off the page from the moment of his introduction – and he didn’t let up once. Not only did this make for an interesting interview, it made the character more memorable.

Why not try it for yourself? You just never know what you might learn when you open up your mind to the voices in your head.

Margay

What a Character

Have you ever had a character invade your mind? When you thought you were done with him, has he ever come back to haunt you, or to prove otherwise? It happened to me. When I began to write Nora’s Soul, the character of Dante was just a satellite character in my mind, a device to move the story forward. But he had other ideas and he just wouldn’t be silenced. He invaded my mind, took over my thoughts, and even tried to –

Dante: Stop, woman! You like to think you’re my creator, but we both know the truth of that, don’t we?
Margay: But I did create you.
Dante: Tell them how I came to you in a dream.
Margay: All right, so you came to me in a dream -
Dante: I love invading dreams. I don’t get to do it very often.
Margay: Can I tell the story?
Dante: Oh, yes. Please do.
Margay: Thank you. As I was about to say, it was one of the more vivid dreams I’d ever had, a fully realized scene of the two of us on the dance floor, dancing the night away.
Dante: I love dancing.
Margay: Dante, please.
Dante: Oh, sorry. Go on.
Margay: But you were something of a devil and that is how I first thought of you. But as the story came to develop, I realized that you were more of an angel, just a…misguided one. You’d lost your way somehow. You’ve been rather stingy on the details.
Dante: If I told you everything up front, what fun would that be?
Margay: Yes, I must admit it’s been more fun pulling the details out of you with a pair of tweezers. I just wish I didn’t have to go through Nora to get them.
Dante: Ah, yes, Nora. Sweet girl.
Margay: We’ve talked about this, Dante. You can’t have her. She’s not meant for you.
Dante: Can’t I have anyone? What kind of power do I have if I can’t take whomever I want?
Margay: Don’t forget free will. It’s all about free will. You see, they have to choose you. If they don’t choose you, you can’t have them.
Dante: I never did like free will. It’s always messing things up.
Margay: Dante, come on now. Maybe we should just talk about the book.
Dante: Yes, do that. Talk about the book.
Margay: At its core, Nora’s Soul is a story about one woman’s journey to rediscover her faith – in herself, in her beliefs, but along the way, she is challenged by two angels, one light and one dark. The light angel, Peter, wants to help her reconnect, but the dark angel, Dante, wants something entirely different. He wants her soul.
Dante: Nice summary.
Margay: Thanks.
Dante: I just hope you got the story right.
Margay: Well, I guess you’ll just have to wait until the release date to find out.
Dante: So you’re not even going to give me a little hint about how it turns out?
Margay: Nope. But if you go to my website http://margayleahjustice.com, you can read an excerpt.
Dante: And you thought I was the devil.
Margay: If you’re done, I’d like to regain some control over this article.
Dante: Oh. Sorry.
Margay: Right.

Well, there you have it. Character. You just never know when a character is going to invade your thoughts – or take them over completely and try to run your life. But what are we without the characters that populate our books, our movies, our lives?

An Introduction

Hello, everyone, my name is Margay Leah Justice and I am the author of Nora's Soul. As dedicated readers of The Deadly Vixens blog, some of you might already be familiar with me as I am a frequent commenter here and had the honor of having my book reviewed by the Vixens. So when the opportunity presented itself to become a Vixen myself, of course I jumped at it! For those of you who don't know me, here's a little background.

I won't bore you with the details about how I came to be a writer but I will tell you that I took a somewhat unconventional route to get published. After a few half-hearted attempts at getting published when my daughters were younger, I finally decided about five years ago to really invest the time and the effort to seek publication. Still, I wondered if my writing was good enough, so I decided to submit it to some contests first, to test the waters. Well, the waters were welcoming and I met several kindred souls who shared the same goals and ambitions and we created a critique group in an effort to help each other achieve our dreams. Somewhere along the way, someone suggested that we start our own publishing company so we could see our books in print and, well, one of us took that idea and ran with it. Thus, Second Wind Publishing, LLC was created by Mike Simpson who single-handedly granted the dreams of every author in that group and thensome. Second Wind has grown by leaps and bounds in the past several months and new authors are joining up every month.

So that is my professional story, for the moment. I am still writing the next novel and planning several others, all while promoting myself online and taking care of my daughters at home. Although balancing homelife with the business of writing and getting published can sometimes be challenging and in conflict with one another, both are very rewarding endeavors. My philosophy is, if you really want something you will find a way to achieve it.

I welcome any comments or questions, so if there's anything you want to know, please feel free to ask. I will answer everything to the best of my abilities. I can't wait to get to know you all!

Margay

Book of the Week: Nora’s Soul

I recently had the opportunity to read Nora’s Soul by Margay Leah Justice. The story is a sweet romance about Nora Kendall, a lonely woman who’s all but given up on life. When her brother died at a young age, Nora thought that God had forsaken her, and she’d given up her belief in angels. Throwing out everything she owned that depicted the heavenly creatures, they somehow managed to turn up everywhere.

When her boyfriend dumps her for another woman, Nora is surprised and confused. She’d expected something completely different. Her job also proves to be a constant source of tension in her life. Finally, deciding she can’t take any more, she quits her job. With the loss of her job and relationship, she agrees to help out her best friend by becoming the nanny for her friend’s brother, Kyle.

Kyle Cameron is fighting his own demons. After an unplanned pregnancy ruined his plans for the future, he took up responsibility and married the woman he really couldn’t stand. He’d still be stuck in an unhappy marriage, if his wife hadn’t passed away, leaving him with two adorable twins to care for.

Kyle really needs Nora’s help, but the two of them share a past. He’s not looking for a replacement wife, even though Nora might be just the woman he’s looking for. Tension rides high as the two try to live together with differing opinions on how to care for his kids. Can Kyle keep Nora at a distance, or will he realize that sometimes the chance for happiness can be staring you in the face?

Nora has loved Kyle her entire life, even though she doesn’t feel worthy of him. She’s not trying to become his new wife, although it would be a dream come true for her. She’s just trying to get through life as happy as she can be, considering she feels like she shouldn’t be alive. Why didn’t God take her instead of her brother? He was the good one, as far as she is concerned.

When two very different, but appealing men show up in her life unexpectedly, she has no idea that one is after her very soul, and the other is trying to save it. Unaware, that her own life hangs in the balance, she must realize that life is too important to give up or risk losing her soul.

Nora’s Soul was a very interesting read for me, nothing like I’ve ever read before. It had all the elements for a good story. Good vs. Bad, the struggle to find out who you really are. Nora has many challenges to overcome, as does Kyle. Tension fills the story from page one.

Ms. Justice does an excellent job creating the scene. I felt myself getting angry and aggravated right along with the characters. She brought me into the story and kept me there until the end. Good job, Margay!