Guest Post: Me, Them and Us by Keira Michelle Telford

I’m often asked how much of my own personality ends up in my characters, and the truth is: all of me. Not just in one character, or even in one book, but overall, there’s a little bit of me in all of them. 

Ella ‘Silver’ Cross is my arrogance, my defiance, my addiction, my strength, and my greatest weakness. She’s cocky and sarcastic, and quite often speaks before she thinks. She genuinely doesn’t care if people like her or not, and she’d never compromise herself just to fit in with a crowd. In short, she lives her life the way she wants to live it and makes no apologies. A tomboy at heart, she doesn’t see the point in painting her nails or putting on make-up. To be honest, she barely sees the point in brushing her hair. She considers her sexuality, like political allegiance and food cravings, as fluid and subject to change at any given moment. If she loves a girl, she loves a girl. If she loves a boy, she loves a boy. She doesn’t much care to be pigeonholed. She has some not-so-great traits, too, of course. She curses like a sailor and is prone to being grumpy, vindictive, and vengeful. She can be cruel, though she recognizes her capacity for cruelty and tries to keep it at bay. Worse still, she has a very addictive personality, and should be kept away from anything that comes with even the remotest risk of dependency.

Alex is my heart—the soppy, romantic part that believes in eternal love. He’s the little puppy part of me that just wants to be loved. He feels most secure when attention’s being lavished upon him by the one he loves (Silver), and when she’s cold and distant, he feels anxious and uneasy. He can sometimes lack self-confidence, which tends to make other people think of him as meek, but he’s a tower of strength when he needs to be. He’s also smart. Like, geek smart. He likes to learn new things and he LOVES books. He craves the acquisition of knowledge, and his curiosity is limitless. On the negative side, he can be rather doubtful of his own abilities. He often under-sells himself, and finds it hard to see in himself the things that other people see and appreciate.

Luka is my guilty pleasure, lusting after women in a way that only a lovable rogue like him could get away with. He’s incredibly sexual, and proud of it, but his determination to enjoy himself and to be seen as something of a playboy has many negative repercussions, and also hides a deeper weakness. For a start, it’s a type of escapism—it’s a distraction. He fills his mind with other things so that he doesn’t have to deal with the fact that he’s often too afraid to go after what he really wants (Silver). He puts on a big show in the hope that nobody will be able to see through the façade and discover how unhappy and unfulfilled he really is. He makes out that he’s carefree, but in all honesty, he’s full of regrets and concerns.

Maydevine is my sense and reason, and my level-headedness. He’s practical and logical, and almost Vulcan in his approach to problem-solving. To some people, this can seem cold and unfeeling. In reality, he has emotions—he just keeps them well concealed. He sees emotion as a sort of weakness, and he hates to appear weak in front of others. Pretending not to be driven by emotion has become something of a habit over the years. Unfortunately, this puts up barriers between himself and the people who want to be close to him. He finds it hard to let people in, and the older he gets, the gruffer he becomes.

Then, there’s Alice. Alice is my manipulation and my selfishness. She puts on an act and gives people what they want, all the while hiding her true identity. She’s a real Walter Mitty kind of character. I don’t even think she knows who she really is anymore, and, perhaps, neither do I.

I’m so much of these people and they’re so much of me, the lines are eternally blurred between my thoughts and theirs. As much as I discover new things about each of them every time I write about them, I’m also discovering new things about myself. (Some things I like, some things I don’t). Writing is a cathartic experience for me, I suppose. Maybe I’m the real Walter Mitty here. Maybe I’m all of these people and more, and I have some kind of undiagnosed dissociative identity disorder. Who knows? Ultimately, as long as I’m at peace with all of these clamoring voices, I’m more than happy for them to stick around, and I’m sure there’s plenty more yet that we’ll learn from each other.

Length: 162 pages

Book Description:

BOOK ONE in THE SILVER SERIES

2342 CE
Dishonorably discharged from the Hunter Division and banished for crimes she did not commit, Silver struggles to come to terms with her new prison-like surroundings: a segregated area of the city called the Fringe District, populated by murderers, thieves and rapists.
tarving, and desperate for money, she reluctantly accepts the Police Division's invitation to enroll in a covert Bounty Hunter program: an initiative devised to infiltrate the criminal underworld of the Fringers, and to force the very worst warrant dodging law-breakers to meet their fate--death.

Unfortunately, Silver doesn't realize that the Police Division is about to up the ante. They need more than little snippets of information and arrests--they need someone to pull the trigger. They need an executioner.

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