I sure hope your day is going well. Mine could be worse, that’s for sure. I’m still on a release high at this point. Banished has been our for a week and I’m excited to see how well it’s doing. My Diva’s on my street team have nothing but awesome things to say about it, which makes me happy dance a few times a day. They’ve become much more than random fans over the past year. They are my friends, my family, which I am so thankful for.
When I began this journey with Banished, I was dabbling in a genre that I had read before, but had very little experience with creating. While I have tackled dark shadows in The Land of the Shadows, there was always an inner peace and hopefulness in my character. For Banished I had to step into a realm that I had always skirted away from. Once I started the first chapter it was as if I turned out the lights and journeyed down the road I had always been afraid to walk. Anger, aggression, betrayal, hate, loathing, violence, blood, gore. They were my companions for the duration of this book. When I sat down to write, I poured every bit of these emotions into Grace’s tale. She is my very first attempt at a vampire and I really wanted to do it right. No offense to anyone who likes a light fluffier vampire, I just grew up on hard core vamps who had no problem eviscerating their foes. Those tales were never about the romance and while I have penned a handful of Paranormal Romance, I wanted Banished to be about something entirely different: learning to rid yourself of the demons that haunt you and finding a way to reconcile your life with the choices you have made.
I have to say, I was worried that I didn’t quite pull it off. I had put it to the side for so long I had forgotten the power behind the words. When I edited it the first time, I was actually quite pleased with what had come across throughout the story. Challenging myself to create this story was one of the best things I could do. I now see infinite possibilities in the future. I’ll not be limiting myself to Erotic romance or Paranormal Romance. I’ll write whichever story needs to be written and continue to follow my muse wherever she leads me.
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Author Elissa Daye 