TWISTED MYTH-STER

We're Not Gonna Take It

Greek Myths are my favorite. Couldn't get enough of those stories in school and, well, even my tarot deck is the Mythic Deck--its my only deck and I've had it for over twenty years. One of the things that fascinated me most about Greek Myths is that their deities are particularly susceptible to human emotions. (Great for story telling.) 

That whole notion of the younger generation being a bunch of hooligans, I say it started with them. For a very quick summation, in the Greek Myth beginning, it was like this Brady Bunch of siblings ousted their parents to rule everything, and when their ruling brother became a parent, he ATE his kids to keep them from doing the same thing to him, only to be tricked by his wife and have the Brady Bunch of siblings he'd fathered viciously oust him singing 'We're not gonna take it...no, we ain't gonna take it...'

I'm sure you already know this...if you want to write fiction about gods and monsters with some serious human emotional baggage, Greek Myths have a plethora of characters to choose from.

I Am (I'm Me)

If you’ve read my books, you know I’ve played with the Persephone mythos from the start. In VICIOUS CIRCLE(#1) it is shown that she was raised by her maternal grandmother who is named Demeter. Seph looks to Hecate for guidance, and she ends up with a black Great Dane pup named Ares that is not nearly as protective as he is destructive. The goddess Persephone was considered a chthonic deity and a vegetation deity, while I’ve kept her away from the underworld, my character does acquiesce to that latter title and she lives on 20 acres of farmland that she rents out to farmers who plant corn on it.

In ARCANE CIRCLE (#4) You meet character Seph's birth mother whose name is Eris. Goddess Eris just happens to be the deity of strife and dischord--which character Eris provides in triplicate for Seph. I also added a rather troublesome little governmental police group called the Specialized Squadron for Tactical Investigation of Xenocrime, better known as SSTIX. While the river Styx formed the boundary between earth/life and the underworld/death, this fictional task force kinda flows in and out of the plot, showing the line between mortal laws/freedom and certain incarceration.

I would really truly love to do a spin off based on SSTIX agents. *sigh*

I Wanna Rock

I’ve taken a fairly slow approach to tapping into that Persephone myth, preferring to give it nods here and there rather than use it as a guidebook. I’m writing my story, you know, not retelling a Greek myth. You’d all be able to guess the ending.

Besides, her middle name is Isis. I could play with that Egyptian myth as well, but I doubt the fans would like to see Johnny or Menessos cut up and his pieces scattered, leaving Seph to go gather them up and when she discovers one very necessary bit of manhood missing, must fashion him a new one of gold. (Ever ready, sure, but eww, cold!)

The myth that the goddess Persephone is best known for is for her abduction to the underworld by the god-king of the underworld (coincidentally also her uncle—ick!) who rapes her and eventually makes her his happy wife/queen/goddess of the underworld.

Come Out and Play

Have I ever been tempted to play with that foremost bit of lore on her?

I’ll have to say yes. If you want to know details--HA! HA! You’ll have to wait to read SHATTERED CIRCLE, when it is released January 27, 2013.  Ok. I'll give ya a SHORT exceprt...

 

EXCERPT from SHATTERED CIRCLE:

     This place was affecting me. That scared me, but I found it difficult to be bothered by that fear. I knew this was wrong, but I couldn’t care. “What is that fog?”
     “The Vale of Mourning.”
     “It’s cold.”
     He drew me closer and put his arm around my shoulders. “It is brief; I will keep you warm.”
     The ground beneath my feet sloped downward. Inside the mist, indistinct figures raced by, or sat near our feet, or lay on the ground screaming and pounding their fists on the earth. Their sorrowful wails were so loud I covered my ears. When the ground eased into a gentle upward incline and the white air thinned, I asked, “Why do they mourn so?”
     “They loved unfortunately in life. Here, they come to know what could have been. Until their souls have made peace with that loss, they are ensnared here in the Vale of Mourning.”
     We were in Tartarus. I knew this, but until that moment it had eluded my consciousness that I was in the land of the dead. 

     I’m not dead. I’m not dead.

**I give EXTRA nods and kudos to anyone

who recognized my red-text portions as

titles of TWISTED SISTER songs. :-) **