Please give a warm welcome to KH LeMoyne!
Research Out-takes
Each book in the series focuses on a different Guardian from Eden’s Sanctum: their struggle to win the hearts and respect of their mates, their battle against the evil intent on destroying them, and their effort to realign the Guardian covenant to provide protection for mankind’s evolution. They represent different geographic regions of the world and so I read a lot of information, and search through too many name databases to mention. Cool, but a huge stack of info. This is the reason I print most of my research and keep huge binders with lots of Post-it tabs.
Sound pretty dry? Not really. I run across wonderful information – most of which I’ll never use in the story, but no information is wasted on the imagination.
Here’s an example. One of the main secondary characters in Warrior Reborn is Tsu. He is the Guardian weapons and defense master, and he and his sister Quan originated a few hundred years ago from an eastern province of China.
My Tsu loosely shares a name and some traits with Sun Tzu, from the Art of War fame. While the book, The Art of War, is a tangible item, there is mixed conjecture as to whether the Chinese general, Sun Tzu actually existed.
That said there are some fun mythologies and stories about Sun Tzu.
One being that King Ho-Lu tested Sun Tzu’s skills by ordering him to train the king’s harem as soldiers. Hmm, you can see this problem coming miles away. As the story goes, two of the King’s favorite concubines were positioned in command of the remaining hundreds of concubines. Ordered to perform their maneuvers, the concubines…giggled. To be fair, Sun Tzu gave them a second chance. The giggling repeated. Tzu had the two favorite concubines executed, beheaded. His resolve and judgment was tied to the idea that “If the instructions are not clear, if the orders are not obeyed, it is the fault of the general. But if the instructions are clear and the soldiers still do not obey, it is the fault of their officers.” The two women were replaced with a clear message sent to the troops and needless to say, further training efforts went smoothly.
That character profile didn’t fit with my Guardian Tsu character, but I loved the trivia and the notation remains in my series notebook – never know when you might be able to use, reuse, or
twist some detail.
About The Author:
KH LeMoyne was born into a naval family, experiencing total emersion in Spanish kindergarten in Rota, Spain. Her childhood of migrating up and down the eastern US seaboard, with hops from California to Arizona to Virginia, inspired her love of stories and myth. After fifteen years as an Information Systems professional, she now writes full time in romance: fantasy, futuristic and paranormal and straight urban fantasy under another pseudonym. She lives in Maryland with her wonderful husband and a pair of corgis. Much to her dismay, she rarely encounters supernatural beings other than on paper.
KH Lemoyne’s current series books Betrayal’s Shadow, Warrior Reborn, XX and Return of the Legacyare available in eBook, with paperback editions coming late summer. She is currently finishing the second in the Phoenix series, Shepherd, (due for release in August). You can find out more about her books at http://www.khlemoyne.com/ and her blog: http://khlemoyne.wordpress.com/
Be Sure to stop on by at the next stop on the tour at Bitten At Paranormal Romance And Don't forget about the End of Tour Giveaway!
Where you can buy Warrior Reborn:
1 comments:
Awesome guest post!
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