Other Indie Authors: Marita Hansen

I've decided to feature some other indie authors on my blog. First up is Marita Hansen whose novel Behind the Hood is now available on Amazon kindle & Smashwords. Marita is also a talented artist - the cover art is her own work.

Life on the rough side of New Zealand.

In this South Auckland neighbourhood where gang culture, drink, drugs, sex and violence is already a way of life; a vicious attack on a teenage girl sparks a ripple effect of revenge and fury. Live the carnage through multiple viewpoints as the tale unfolds to a bloody climax.

Warning: NOT for the fainthearted.  *This book contains strong scenes and adult material.

Here's the start of the book to whet your appetite:

Maia

Maia Daniels knew she should just ignore the boys. Walk past, don’t listen, she told herself. Don’t talk back. 

It was ten o’clock on a Saturday night. The gang were sitting on a wall outside Claydon Pub, passing around a smoke. She’d seen some of them at high school, when they decided to turn up that is.

Whooping and yelling came from the pub. A television blared loudly, no doubt replaying the All Blacks’ rugby match against the Wallabies. Maia stopped at the driveway as a purple Holden drove into the car park. Music blasted from inside the souped-up machine, the bass pumping its steady beat out into the night.

“Maia, c’mere,” Tama Harris yelled.

The gang leader was eighteen, tall and solidly built, with a wide, flat nose. He’d shaved off his hair recently, replacing it with a curved pattern called a moko. Usually, the tattoo adorned the face, a sign of a Maori warrior—something to be proud of. But Tama was no one to be proud of, nothing but a dreg who constantly harassed her. Unlike the other boys, he wore his hoodie tied around his waist, his ripped jeans and muscle shirt unsuitable for the cold autumn weather. Maia figured he was probably high on something, either from the weed in his hand or the empty bottles at his feet—or both.

“Hey, Maia! Are ya a double d?” a podgy boy with spiky blond hair shouted.

“They sure felt like it,” Tama replied, his hand actions eliciting laughter from the gang.

A blush ran across Maia’s cheeks. Shit, she hated her breasts. Even in her oversized sweatshirt they still grabbed attention. She pulled her hood further over her head, and rounded her shoulders. After another car passed, she hitched up her track pants and walked across the muddy driveway.

Tama hollered, “Oi! I told ja to c’mere.”

She looked back, aching to give him the finger, but instead jammed her hands into her pockets. God, she was a moron for sneaking out, but ... Ben’s raves were always awesome. Why couldn’t her mum let her go? It wasn’t like she did drugs, and the boys at the party were just mates.

Tama’s scowl changed into a grin. He threw his joint onto the ground and jumped off the stone wall. With a jerk of his head, he indicated for the gang to follow.

Maia’s heartbeat picked up. Still concentrating on Tama, she stepped off the kerb and onto Waiata Crescent. The blast of a horn made her leap back. The front passenger leaned out of a battered sedan, and swore at her. Ignoring the pimply git, she scooted around the car and across the side road. 

A loud wolf-whistle made her jump. She glanced over her shoulder. Tama’s eyes were fixated on her, promising things she didn’t want. 

He grabbed his crotch. “I like ya from behind, Maia.” 

All the boys, except for Mikey Thomas, laughed. Tama’s cousin looked away as though uncomfortable with what was happening. He was fourteen and in her class at school. She thought he liked her; either that or he had a staring problem. Yeah, she’d only noticed because she was usually checking him out too. 

Maia wondered if she could lose the gang by cutting across the highway. Traffic was heavy, making this option just as dangerous as stopping for Tama. Further up the road, past the tyre yard, the video and liquor stores’ lights were on. The neon sign of the happy video man was a welcoming sight. It was maybe a hundred metres away. She thought she had a chance of outrunning Tama. She was fast, damned fast. If she’d showed up to school enough, she probably would’ve been on the track team. 

“Maia, pretty Maia,” Tama taunted. “I’ve got sumpthin’ to show you.” 

Maia wasn’t sure whether it was a knife—or something else in his pants. She knew he carried a switchblade. He’d stabbed her brother in the arm once when Nike attacked him with a baseball bat. She’d always wondered whether this was why Tama harassed her. But she couldn’t blame Nike for it. Leila, his girlfriend at the time, had caused the fight. The bitch had cheated on him with Tama, then cried rape after he found out. 

“Leave me alone, Tama,” she said, remembering the last time he’d approached her. She’d kicked him in the balls for grabbing her breasts. “Nike said he’d beat the living snot outta you if you came near me again.” 

“I’d love to see him fuckin’ try. Plus, you owe me, bitch.” 

Maia knew she should keep her mouth shut; that whenever she spoke it got her into trouble. Her mother had told her countless times, “You speak too much, Maia, you should listen more.” 

She grinned, unable to help herself. “What do I owe you? More bruised balls?” 

She heard a slicing noise behind her, the sound of a switchblade being opened. Shit! 

“Get her,” Tama yelled. 

You can find Behind the Hood at the following distributors

Amazon US

Amazon UK

Amazon DE

Smashwords

Reviews

"INTENSE! I could probably leave my review at this one word and that would say it all. What a nerve wracking read. At first I thought there were going to be too many point of view characters for me to get involved emotionally, but they all tied back to each other perfectly. I had no problem keeping track of who was who and how they related back to each of the other characters. By the last three-quarters of the book I had the phones turned off and the Do Not Disturb sign hung on the door. I had to know what was going to happen and I didn't want any interruptions. Marita Hansen did not disappoint. I can't wait to read the sequel..." Amazon US Review.

"This may be a work of fiction, but the author has used her knowledge to give us an eye-opening and realistic look into a very rough culture. This book is quality, one not to be missed." Smashwords Review. 

About the Author
Marita is a New Zealander, currently living in Singapore.  She is married with two kids, and likes to write, create artworks, coach soccer, and occasionally referee a match.

maritaahansen.blogspot.com 

Sample Sunday: Breaking Free

A very brief extract from Hamelin's Child:

Eddie pursed his lips, still smirking. “I’m going to count to three,” he said. “You either put the knife down or I’ll take it off you. Your choice.”

Michael said nothing.

“One.” Eddie tossed the keys onto the bed.

Michael risked a quick glance at them. Too far away.

“Two. Don’t be stupid, Mikey. You’re far too pretty to damage.”

Pretty? Michael curled his lip contemptuously, fired up by adrenaline.

“Three. OK, if that’s the way you want it.” Eddie tightened the belt on his robe and stepped up to him. Right up – not just out of reach of the knife, but well into Michael’s range.

Michael slashed, but Eddie reached beyond the knife and knocked his wrist away. With his other hand, he punched Michael in the stomach and the knife fell to the carpet. Eddie picked it up instantly and before Michael had time to catch his breath, there was an arm across his throat, a face inches away from his own.

Moving On From Procrastination

So what's new? A few posts ago I was debating what I should be working on right now. With too many projects on the go and not enough hours in the day, I wish I could apply some of the OCD organisation of my day job to my writing.

So I've bitten the bullet and asked the wonderful artist/designer JT Lindroos (who did my awesomely good cover for Hamelin's Child) if he could come up with something for my YA fantasy Edge of Dreams. Now Edge was almost picked up a few years back by a couple of traditional publishers (not enough money at the acquisitions meetings, I was told), and was eventually published by an independent ebook company, but I've got the rights back now and have another book in the series almost ready, so I thought it was time for a major edit/update and then it would be ready for kindling. Getting the cover art sorted is a real incentive to get moving, and JT's first draft last week was impressive - not how I'd have thought of doing it at all - which goes to prove that designers are worth the investment. I've been doing a bit of research on blogs, review sites and forums and covers are vitally important in getting a potential reader to get as far as a blurb or a click-through.

So watch this space. Edge of Dreams and its snazzy new cover will be up on kindle very shortly, followed in a few months by the sequel Flashpoint. Young adult contemporary fantasy, certified 100% vampire-and-werewolf-free. Not even any elves, faeries, wizards or dragons. And no zombies either. Although if a million people buy the books, I might be persuaded to write some into book 3...

Violence in Literature

There's an ongoing discussion going on over at Soooz Says Stuff. This month's topic is Violence in Literature: When is Enough, Enough? There's a guest post up every day or so and it's generating some lively discussions. Today is my guest post, so feel free to hop over and join in!

Mermaid Magic!

Nothing whatsoever to do with writing, but I just found this on an old blog - proof that I have other creative talents!

I painted this on my daughter's bedroom wall when she was about 5 or 6 and wanted to be a mermaid when she grew up. Took me about a week to do by drawing small squares on my picture and bigger ones on the wall and transferring the image bit by bit. In the fireplace was a dark green & sparkly grotto complete with seashells.

Daughter is 15 now and Ariel is long gone, replaced by purple and silver, mirrors and make-up. A shame really that I couldn't just roll it up and stick it on some other little girl's wall. My 4 year old niece would adore it.

Anatomy of a Cover (or an idiot trying to use photoshop...)

I've been lucky so far. A talented friend did the cover for my short story collection and a professional cover designer did the jacket for my novel (with input from the wonderful Al Guthrie whose help was much appreciated).

I have a crime short story I wrote for a competition. I rather like it and there doesn't seem to be a huge market for shorts, so I thought it might be time to put a few single stories on kindle to generate some more interest in the novel. It turns out that the writing is the easy bit!

version 1

First off, I need an image. No problem - there are lots on google, aren't there? Well there are millions to search through and many have no known owners that I can find. A lot are tied down by copyright and creative commons licensing and it's such a minefield, I don't know where to start. I don't want to pay monthly fees for image downloads and I'm not very good at sifting through them all to find what I want.

So given that my short story is set in Liverpool, I thought I'd go and take my own photos. Hubby has a posh digital SLR and happens to work near Pier Head, so I sent him off on a mission to take me lots of photos of the Liver Birds, Pier Head, the Mersey Ferry and terminal etc. He came back with half a dozen Liver Birds.

Next I need software. I have an old copy of Photoshop that I bought some time ago (you can buy previous versions - mine is CS3 - quite cheaply when new versions are released). So I chucked the best photo in, cropped it a bit, resized it and added a title and author. I even managed to sample the colour of the Liver Bird and use that as the text colour. The result was version 1 - but the Liver Bird is so small, it will be invisible at thumbnail size (need to remember that anything shown on Amazon or used as a signature in forum posts etc will be *really* small, so the cover needs to be sharp with a lot of contrast and big type).

version 2

So I tried again. This time I cropped more of the image so the Liver Bird is bigger. This is an improvement, I think, although you don't get a sense of the sheer size of the building. Now you can clearly see the colour of the text matches the Liver Bird. I'm not sure what else I want to add to this image yet - might go and take some more photos of the ferry and I'm not sure where on earth I can find a royalty-free image of a rocket-propelled grenade (rpg) from as unfortunately I don't know anyone who can assist me there! Version 1 would be better to add secondary images to, but then the whole thing might look too complicated.

version 3

Version 3 and I've cropped the image so that the Liver Bird dominates the space. A different look again.

So what's next? Well I'm not fussed on the font. It needs to be something that's obviously not romancy-chick-lit, all the more so as the title itself doesn't say "crime" (it's a song title for those of you who don't know). I've exhausted the fonts within photoshop so I need to go hunt around the net for inspiration (and fonts seem as complicated as images...)

Sort the font, maybe add a couple of smaller images if I can work out how to do it without it looking tackily amateur. Format the story and upload it and I'm away!

Anti-Social Networking

Much as I hate to admit it, I'm middle-aged. In the 45-54 age bracket on forms (turning 40 was a breeze, but that 45-54 was a killer). I've worked in law-enforcement for all of my career and in IT for a large chunk of it. So back in the very early 1990s - if not the late 1980s - I had an email account. Back then, I don't recall the internet existing outside of academia, but there were a very few ISPs around that offered email accounts if you bought a large and clunky Amstrad dial-up modem card that you stuck in a slot in your pc and plugged your telephone line into. Then there was a choice of basically CIX and one or two others whose names I forget. Not only did I get an email address, with a nice off-line reader (necessary to avoid tying up the phone lines while reading/writing emails), but also a set of community forums where you could chat to other account holders in various groups of threads - much like a non-pictorial version of today's Facebook.

For anyone who is old enough and/or nerdy enough to remember all of this, I was jale@cix.whatever.co.uk and I mostly used to haunt the cult.tv threads where we discussed equally nerdy topics such as Star Wars. I recall a mass meet-up at somebody's house in Birmingham, where we watched lots of classic tv (this is before dvds and internet tv, remember - most of us didn't even have a video player), ate lots of food and generally had a good time. There must have been 50 or so people there (it was  a big house in Solihull), including an undercover journalist who promptly divulged the lot in the next day's national papers - claiming infringement of copyrights and public performances. 

But it shows the power of social networking 20 years ago. There were no other quick forms of communication - mobile phones had shoulder-bags to carry the battery and were strictly for the rich and businesses. Private telephones were still ruled by British Telecom and an expensive way to spend time. Stamps and letters still ruled the masses, but it's not the ideal way to communicate, especially with people you've never met in real life.

I moved on from CIX as the internet gradually grew and lost touch with a lot of the great guys (and girls) I met back then. And now we are spoiled for choice with Facebook, MySpace, Bebo, Twitter and now Google+ coming on line (I don't get Google - cloud computing? I mean what if it's raining?). I may be 47, but I love being able to keep in touch with old friends and make so many new ones all over the world, especially when they are people I choose to communicate and interact with, by virtue of the things we have in common - shared interests, hobbies or values.

Is it anti-social to be sat at a computer rather than talking to real people in real-time? Where are these real people? I live in a small village and have a family. I don't really have any friends who live close enough to drop in on - and these days, it's not really done, is it? These days you never call unannounced "just for a chat and a drink" like we used to. That's sad. But then I have all these people at my fingertips. They might be online and all over the world - but they are real people too and I know many of them would be there for me if I needed them. I've seen how they respond to others in crisis, whether that's financial, earthquake, fire or other disaster.

And friends like that are hard to find anywhere.