INK SPOT NEWS - JUNE RELEASES~

Take a look at these fantastic titles--Just in time for summer reading!

Never Alone

C.J. Carpenter

A Megan McGinn Novel #1
"NYPD detective Megan McGinn plays fast and loose with the rules in this fascinating debut" —RT BOOK REVIEWS

Resurrection Bay
By: Wayne McDaniel, Steven Womack

From Edgar Award-winning author Steven Womack and Wayne McDaniel comes a force of evil on par with Hannibal Lector in a heart-pounding page-turner you can't put down.

CARVED IN DARKNESS ~ Fantasy Cast

By: Maegan Beaumont

    I've had more than a few people email me and post on my FB author page, to tell me that the CARVED "reads like a movie" and ask, "when is the movie coming out?"

    My reply is always, "thank you!" and "just soon as someone Hollywood deems important cuts me a check."

    Sigh.

    Still, it's fun to play pretend... so, here are my fantasy cast picks, ya know--just in case :



Sabrina--Jessica Biel. I'll admit of all my characters, Sabrina was the hardest to pin down. I didn't want someone too obvious (Angelina Jolie) but she still has to have the physicality necessary to pull it off. I think Mrs. Timberlake offers a good balance of vulnerability and toughness. If you doubt me, watch Blade: Trinity... What? I'm an action movie junkie. Don't judge me.











Michael--Sam Worthington. Okay... Worthington and Jeremy Renner were neck and neck. Both are great action stars but Worthington is a bit more low key, which I like. He has that vulnerable yet tough thing going on. Besides... look at those eyes!
Movie justification: Terminator: Salvation












Strickland--Damien Lewis. I've been a big fan of Lewis since he starred in a little-watched NBC show called LIFE. Strickland has a razor-sharp, tough-as-nails center, disguised by a slobbish, slightly sarcastic candy-coating. Lewis fits him to a T.
If you can find LIFE on hulu or netflix, give it a watch.



Val--Sarah Shahi. I'm not sure it came through on the page, but Val is tiny.

Tiny but fierce. She's the only person on earth who can go toe-to-toe with Sabrina and feel she might win with any degree of confidence. Shahi portrays that take-no-prisoners attitude beautifully.
Shahi starred opposite Damien Lewis in LIFE, she currently has a re-occurring role on CBS's PERSON OF INTEREST.

Nickels--Ryan Reynolds. Yes, I'm well aware that I now have both feet firmly planted in the Land of the Ridiculous but whatever, it's my movie! Reynolds is all kinds of hot, plus he has that wholesome, boy-next-door thing going on... with just enough hard-ass to keep him interesting.

Lark--Idris Elba. Lark is tricky... he's huge. I mean, huge... when I wrote him I kept picturing Michael Duncan Clarke who was 6'5... At 6'3, Elba comes in a few inches shy but he's got more than enough bad-boy in him to make up for it. He was just about the only thing I liked in PROMETHEUS. I've had more than one person say to me when we discuss the book, "I didn't know Lark is black!"
So... Lark is black. Now you know.




Tommy--Adam Beach. I've had a crush on Beach ever since I saw him in WINDTALKERS and he is exactly who I thought of when I wrote Tommy. Just the right mix of boyish charm and wisdom.








Carson--Warren Cole. Carson is a complicated guy... he's not really a bad, he's just too wounded and entrenched in the past to evolve into something more than what he is--a small town cop with a chip on his

shoulder. Cole plays bad beautifully (Have you seen THE FOLLOWING??) and I think he would do a great job at bring out the complexity in Carson's character.

Wade--Michael Fassbender. This one might seem like a head-scratcher, but hear me out. Like with Sabrina's character, I didn't want obvious. I want someone you'd never see coming. He's charming and handsome but at the same time, if I look hard enough, I can see a hint of cruelty. That's who Wade is to me.

Ben--Chris Hemsworth. My daughter is in love with this guy... me? He's super cute but not at all who I pictured when I wrote Ben's character. The guy I pictured isn't an actor. He's an Irish boxer named John Duddy, with whom I had a brief, yet intense, obsession. All the same, I promised my daughter that if CARVED was ever made into a movie, I'd make sure Hemsworth was in it... and a promise is a promise.

Mandy Black--Kristen Bell. You know, the coroner we see for about five minutes. She's featured prominently in book two and I like her so much that I'm thinking of moving her to the forefront later on in the series. She's witty, sharp and not afraid to put Sabrina in her place, which makes her awesome. Bell, whom I've loved since her Veronica Mars days, fits her like a glove.





And there you have them, my picks for Carved in Darkness: The Movie. If you've read CiD, I'd love to hear your thoughts on who you'd place in the roles, given the chance.

The “It’s Really Real” Moment

I had this post all planned out in my head. It was going to be a humorous recap of my New York City trip, complete with drool-worthy photos of the Manhattan Library. Here’s one, at least: Marble and carved wood and electric chandeliers and so many books I could get happily lost in there for a decade.

And I saw a Gutenberg Bible. Among dozens of other ancient books in their current display of religious texts. The gilding, the calligraphy, the artwork… a book lover’s paradise.

But just as a character can wrest control of a WIP by main force, the events of the end of last week grabbed this planned post and ran with it.

A box sat on my front stoop when I returned from the airport. A heavy box. From Midnight Ink. Filled with my author’s copies of Force of Habit. In a new tradition started by I created a sculpture with them.

Last Friday, my boss showed me his copy of Force of Habit—just delivered. I signed it for him and went back to work. I few hours later, in a classic delayed reaction, realization hit me: I just autographed my first book. That someone ordered, paid for, and received in an everyday business transaction.

After four years, three books, 185 rejections and a few publisher passes, it’s real.

I met four authors much farther along in their careers than I am—one has 70 published books! Yet as we talked about debuts, they all reported the same “oh, wow” moment for their first book.

This deliriously happy post brought to you by that great catchphrase from the movie Galaxy Quest: Never give up! Never surrender!

On Debuts and Cliches

“Write what you know.” It’s one of those clichés every writer hears in the early stages of learning the craft.

I agree with it—to an extent. I know about religion, classic horror, acting, and medieval lit. The first novel I ever wrote dealt with religion and horror. Then an agent who passed on that book challenged me to write a crime story starring an ex-nun. Nah, I thought—I’m a horror writer. But the idea clung to my subconscious, and I decided to learn about private investigators, health food, MMORPGs, and the minds of stalkers.

You may be asking: How is getting into the mind of a stalker is a positive thing? It is when it’s the mind of the villain in my debut mystery. If I’d clung to my self-label of “horror writer” I wouldn’t be looking forward to my first mystery on a bookstore shelf next spring.

Yet without my writing roots I wouldn’t be here either, because folks seem to be fascinated by nuns. We’re like an alternate species of human. Yep—I used to be a nun. Habit, veil, the whole shebang. (Sorry to disappoint: The convent’s nothing like Sister Act. And speaking of clichés, yes, I played the guitar; yes, I sang at Folk Masses; and yes, I taught middle school kids to sing and dance.) In my debut mystery, my ex-nun main character is re-acclimating to the world. That’s writing what I know—you should’ve seen me trying to walk in high heels for the first time in years. She’s also foiling a Bible-obsessed stalker, which combines what I know and what I had to learn—I’ve certainly never stalked anyone! Although if Gerard Butler moved in down the street…

Where was I? Oh, yes. Clichés. Nuns themselves may be cliché, although I certainly wasn’t. As in, I was in trouble pretty much every week for all my years in the convent. At first all I thought the only use I could make of those years were good was cocktail party conversation for the rest of my life. Yet what I thought was a colossal waste turned out to be a crucial ingredient to a mystery series.

Were I to go back to teaching English, this is where I’d start: Everything you know, everything you’ve experienced—good and bad—can be used to make your writing better. I’m living proof.

Oops. A cliché. I’d better go back to daydreaming about Gerard Butler moving into my neighborhood. And writing my next book