Katie Salidas

To kick of a brasnd new year, I have Katue Salidas as my guest today. She is the author of the hot new Urban Fantasy series, Immortalis, Katie has always had a desire to entertain. Since, early childhood, she's dreamed up fantastical characters and scribbled them into pages of various journals and notebooks. Taking an interest in vampires at an early age, she devoured every book, featuring those mysterious, blood sucking creatures, in any genre she could find. She claims that, of all the monsters out there, vampires had always been the most interesting.
It was only natural that a love of reading about vampires, and a love of writing, turned into a desire to write her own stories.
A Las Vegas native, having grown up in the famed City of Sin, Katie loves to feature it as a recurring setting for many of her stories.


You can find Katie here:

GoodReads



Good Morning Katie, can you tel, us who do you think inspires you to write?

Everything inspires. It’s just a matter of working with it. The novella, Karma & Melodies was inspired by a concert I desperately wanted to go to. I couldn’t make it but was able to catch scenes from it on YouTube. Hunters & Prey was inspired by a question I asked in my first book Immortalis Carpe Noctem, “could vampire’s and humans really ever be friends?” You can find inspiration everywhere!

Thats so true. I'm inspired by life and all the muddle that gpes on inside it. What’s next on your writing agenda?

I’m finishing up a Paranormal Romance novella called , Karma & Melodies. That one should hopefully be out by Valentine’s day. After that I have revision work on book three in my Immortalis series to complete. Pandora’s Box will hopefully be ready by October of 2011. I’m always working on something. If I’m not writing, I’m revising something.

My, you're a busy bee. How about you pick your favourite character from your new release and tell us about them.

Here is a small taster.

Becoming a vampire saved Alyssa from death, but the price was high: the loss of everything and everyone attached to her mortal life. She’s still learning to cope when a surprise confrontation with Santino Vitale, the Acta Sanctorum’s most fearsome hunter, sends her fleeing back to the world she once knew, and Fallon, the friend she’s missed more than anything.
Alyssa breaks vampire law by revealing her new, true self to her old friend, a fact which causes strong division in the group that should support her most: her clan.
Worse yet, her revelation entangles Fallon in the struggle between vampires and hunters and The Acta Sanctorum is ready to attack again, with a new army of hybrid creations: the Frenzy Soldiers.
If Alyssa hopes to survive and keep her mortal friend safe, she’ll have to be willing to make a deal with the enemy, and regain her clan’s support. It will take everyone working together in a precarious truce to fight against the Acta Sanctorum’s new threat.

Click the cover to buy.



I’d be in big trouble if I didn’t say Alyssa was my favourite. She’s my troublemaker. She’s stubborn to a fault but also just as loyal. She’s a magnet for trouble and often welcomes it with open arms. Needless to say she keeps you on your toes. Sometimes she pushes your last button and you just want to smack her and then she turns around and does or says something that makes you love her all over again. The best part of writing her in the Immortalis series is that you get to see her character learn and mature as each book progresses. She may be an adult by our standards, but as vampires go, she’s a baby and makes plenty of mistakes.

Sounds interesting. It doesn't seem to go along with the usual vampire scene. Do you have any advice for new writers just staring out.

It takes a lot of courage to put yourself out there. Being published whether it’s traditional or indie is hard. There are days where doubt creeps into our minds. We think we are terrible. We think no one will ever like our stories. We wonder if people will laugh at us after reading our words. We hear whispers and think people are saying terrible things; calling us hack writers and suggesting a kindergartner has more of a vocabulary.
Don't allow those thoughts and feelings to stop you.
Look at yourself in the mirror and say “I am a good writer!” three times. Hell, say it more if you need to. Say it until you believe it.

Tell yourself you are good and always keep writing.

Good advice. Even when those rejections come, think of it as just a stop gap to another publisher. How do you make your characters so true to life?

You have to know your character before you can write them. If you don't you'll end up writing a flat, cookie-cutter, person. You don't want that, do you?

Of course not!

So, how do we get to know these fictional characters we just pulled out of thin air?

We give them a life and history all their own.

And the simplest way to do this is to give them a resume. Pretend they are sitting down in front of you, applying to be a character in your story. Treat it like a job interview. You are the interviewee, so ask them the questions you would want the answers to.

Start with the basics. (beyond the image stuff, which I assume you have already come up with; hair color, eye color, skin color, height, etc...)

What is their full name?
How old are they?
Where do they live?
How long have they lived there?
Did they ever attend school? If so, where? (I write vampires, so school could mean listening to the great Socrates, discus philosophy back in the A.D. days)
Any specialized degrees?
Previous work history? (The jobs we do help to shape us as much as our education. Did your character have to work some menial job they hated? Were they some high powered executive? For fantasy stories, rulers of Kingdoms and peasants count as well)

Now, once you have the basics out of the way. Ask your "applicant", what qualifies them to be a character in your story?


Are they applying for a main character or a secondary character position?
What special powers and/or abilities do they possess?
Ask them to list one good and one bad quality about themselves.


And finally, your character needs to provide references! What kind of friends do they have? What is their family like? Do they have any enemies that they wouldn't want listed on a resume? List a few of those people in their life, both good and bad.

If you (or your character) can answer all of these questions, you’ll be off to a great start. The goal is to have a character that not only feels real to you, but reads as a real person to your audience.

A background and history help to create that "real" feeling.


Thanks for stopping by Katie and good luck with your books. You can buy Katies book at Smashswords or Barnes & Noble