Guest Post by Jeyn Roberts + Giveaway: Signed ARC of Dark Inside!

Today, I have Jeyn Roberts here with me to talk about world building of Dark Inside. :) Stick around for a little something after the post.

          Hi everyone! Thanks for having me. I’m thrilled to be doing this guest blog.

          My name is Jeyn and I’m the author of the upcoming dystopian novel ‘Dark Inside’.  I’m here today to tell you all about how I created the world that Mason, Aries, Clementine, and Michael live in.

          Set in the not too distant future, Dark Inside begins with a huge worldwide disaster. Earthquakes rock the entire world, destroying everything that we know, killing millions of people, and bringing forth an evil like no other.  In the wake of this great destruction, four teenagers find themselves struggling to survive as they set out on a path that will eventually lead them to each other.

          So how did I come up with this world? Quite simply—I dreamt about it.

          When I was a teenager, I began having these strange dreams. I called them my ‘River Dreams’ because they always seemed to revolve around a river. I’ve been dreaming about this world off and on my entire life. They go forward and back in time, and there are always the same characters, people I’ve never met in the real world and only exist in my subconscious.

          My dream world is a terrifying place. Almost everyone is dead. Those of us, who are left, are hidden in dilapidated houses or apartments. And strange creatures walk the streets.  Monsters that look and act like us—but are killers.

          One particular dream involved a shabbily dressed monster pushing a shopping trolley, which made me coin the term ‘Baggers’.  These became my monsters when I wrote Dark Inside.

          It took me several years before I finally decided to start writing about my world. I wanted to give it justice, so I waited until I felt the moment was right. And when I finally sat down at my computer, the words so quickly, I finished the novel in less than three months.

          I wrote Dark Inside when I was living in Daejeon, South Korea. I was as isolated as I could possibly get. I barely spoke the language and I didn’t know many people. But this turned out to be a blessing. Isolation is terrifying. No one likes to feel completely alone. As my characters went along their paths, I travelled with them, totally understanding their wants and desires.  It left me breathless, lying in bed at night because I couldn’t get them out of my head. The story had been buried inside of me for so long—it practically tore its way out of my fingers and onto the computer.

           I’ve always loved ‘end of the world’ books. Stephen King’s ‘The Stand’ is one that really sticks out for me. I love zombie movies because no matter where you run, they’re always one step behind you. I find this to be the ultimate horror. Although there are no zombies in my novel, the message is still there. No matter what you do, the Baggers are coming.

          So what is the whole moral of this blog post today? Not only can dreams come true, they can become great fiction.

          Believe.

Jeyn Roberts (pronounced Jen - the Y is silent)grew up in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and started writing at an early age, having her first story published when she was 16 in a middle-grade anthology called LET ME TELL YOU.

When she was 21, she moved to Vancouver with dreams of being a rock star, graduating from the University of British Columbia with a degree in Writing and Psychology. For the next few years she played in an alternative/punk band called Missing Mile before moving to England where she received her MA from the prestigious Creative Writing graduate course at Bath Spa University. Jeyn is a former singer, songwriter, actress, bicycle courier and tree planter.

An avid traveler, she’s been around the world, most recently, teaching high school in South Korea.

A lover of animals, Jeyn volunteers regularly with helping abandoned and abused animals, especially cats.

Giveaway: Signed ARC of Dark Inside

*CLOSED*

Since mankind began, civilizations have always fallen: the Romans, the Greeks, the Aztecs…Now it’s our turn. Huge earthquakes rock the world. Cities are destroyed. But something even more awful is happening. An ancient evil has been unleashed, turning everday people into hunters, killers, crazies.

Mason's mother is dying after a terrible car accident. As he endures a last vigil at her hospital bed, his school is bombed and razed to the ground, and everyone he knows is killed. Aries survives an earthquake aftershock on a bus, and thinks the worst is over when a mysterious stranger pulls her out of the wreckage, but she’s about to discover a world changed forever. Clementine, the only survivor of an emergency town hall meeting that descends into murderous chaos, is on the run from savage strangers who used to be her friends and neighbors. And Michael witnesses a brutal road rage incident that is made much worse by the arrival of the police--who gun down the guilty party and then turn on the bystanding crowd.

Where do you go for justice when even the lawmakers have turned bad? These four teens are on the same road in a world gone mad. Struggling to survive, clinging on to love and meaning wherever it can be found, this is a journey into the heart of darkness – but also a journey to find each other and a place of safety.

Jeyn is super generous to offer an ARC of Dark Inside! And it will be signed!

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Ends June 11, 2011!

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