Aminah Iman's Blog - Posts Tagged "inside-the-nation"

Hello Loves, welcome to this week’s Inside the Nations blog. As most of you know we at RedInk Pub are all coming together to write a book, Order From Chaos. This wonderful compilation has several heroes and villains from the RedInk universe and we are so excited to share it with you. Believe it or not, that isn’t what this blog is about. It’s about working with other authors on the same project. There are a lot of pros and cons to doing a project with other great writers that you love and respect and I will try to hit the ones nearest and dearest to me.
Let’s list the pros first shall we. One of my favorite things about working with my fellow ‘Queens of Horror’ is coming up with the concept of the book. When Omega first came to me with the idea I thought she was insane. We all have different writing styles, our characters are so different, etc. But after I stopped shooting it down long enough for her to actually tell me about it, I realized she was right. The concept was amazing! Once we ran it past the other girls, everyone agreed. We talked about it, tweaked it, and came up with something truly epic.
The other awesome thing about writing a compilation book is having other writers on the ready to bounce things off of. If you are in a rut and don’t know quite where to go, the others can pitch in and help out. This particular project has a lot of character change where I may have to write for Jaqueline’s character or Neffi may have to write for Omega’s, but we are always ready to lend a hand or a voice.
My most favorite part of working on this project with my girls is reading what they write immediately after it is written. You can’t get much better than that. To read some of your favorite authors work while they are writing it is an amazing thing!

Now, the cons… Not that there are many, but there are a few. One of my least fav things is waiting for another person to finish their respective chapter. I may have an idea for Micha or Sari, but Liam’s chapter isn’t finished yet and I can’t move on until it is. This doesn’t happen much in our case, but when it does you can literally see the flames coming out of my ears.
On the flip side of that, say you are chugging along with your chapter and another author calls and asks if you’re done yet. ‘Have I sent it to you…’ is the response I want to say, but you can’t because they are simply asking if it’s their turn yet. Patience is definitely a virtue.
Another con is agreeing on how a chapter should go. Everyone has their own ideas and styles of writing so you may not see eye to eye. I may want a battle scene in chapter five, but Neffi thinks it’s a bad idea… Who’s right?

The point is, if you decide to write a book with other authors there will be ups and downs, but if you want it to work you will take the good with the bad. It boils down to compromising and doing what is best for the book. I hope this helped and as always, I wish you Happy Reading!

Hello, Loves and welcome to another Inside the Nation. Seeing as our 8-series cross-over book, Order From Chaos, is just weeks away, I thought I’d talk about the experience I had when it came to writing another person’s character. Let me be clear, we all wrote for our own character in their individual chapters, but they had to interact with one another. So, if my character Sari and Omega’s character Liam were having a conversation I had to write for Liam if it was in my chapter… Get it? That happened more times than not and in the beginning, it was difficult. There was a lot of ‘Acaleus wouldn’t speak that way.’ Or, ‘Sari doesn’t dress like that.’ So, we had to change it. One good thing we did was go back and read all of the books included in this cross-over, it took a while, but we wanted all the main characters fresh in our minds as well as the villains they were facing. During this wonderful journey, I learned a few things.
One of the first things I learned was, although all of the ladies in Red Ink write about the supernatural, we all have very different writing styles. Let’s take my Sari, for example, she is crass and unpredictable, she has a big heart and a bigger mouth, and she is a great hunter, but she is vulnerable when it comes to her family. I write her extremely gritty and personable with a hint of insecurity. One the other hand Jacqueline’s Gabriel is an 18-year-old half demon and half angel with the weight of the world on his shoulders. He has a smart mouth and can be very aggravating, but his heart is golden. In my opinion, Jacqueline writes him perfect, me on the other hand, would probably write him too mature for his age, or too cocky. When it was my time to ‘speak’ for Gabriel, I had to do it in the manner in which Jacqueline would. You’re probably thinking that would be easy, but believe me, it isn’t. If you want to do it right, you have to write like the author.
Another thing I learned was every author has a signature style. Each and every one of us has something familiar in every one of our books. If you’ve read one of my books and turn around and read another, but my name isn’t on it, you’d think, ‘This reminds me of an Aminah Iman book’. With that being said, while writing this book, we had to stay true to each authors signature. I had to continuously remember that I had to write these characters the way their authors would, not how I would. It was challenging but well worth it.
We had so many obstacles in using 8 different series in this book. It was an idea that I was against in the beginning, but so glad I agreed to in the end. We clashed and complained, I probably yelled and screamed, but in the end, we came out Epic. I cannot wait for you all to read this on 10/31/17 but until then, as always, I wish you all Happy Reading.

Hello Loves and welcome back to Inside the Nation. As I mentioned last week, I'm going to spend the next few weeks introducing you to the main characters in Order from Chaos. Order from Chaos is an 8-series crossover book that will be released on Halloween. Me and my fellow Queens of Horror have taken our most fearless heroes and our worst villains and pit them against each other. This book picks up shortly after, my book, Apocalypse leaves off. After the Order and the Vamperial battle for the fate of the world, both sides lost vital members of their teams. The Vamperial couldn't leave well enough alone, so they go after the Order once again. They've recruited a few others to assist them in hopes of finally beating the Order. In turn, the Order gets the best of the best to help them.

One of the people the Order gets is Liam. Liam is a genetically engineered pyrokinetic who made his debut in Omega's Hit List. Liam is one of those characters that once you meet him you want to know more about him. He has gone through a lot in his life but refuses to allow it to change him. He could easily turn dark, but he believes in fighting for those who cannot fight for themselves. Liam and Micah, who I introduced in last weeks blog, were on opposite sides in Hit List until Micah realized Liam was a genuinely good guy.
Liam has the ability to create and manipulate fire. He also has regenerative abilities, which comes in handy during a fight.
What makes Liam different than the others is his kindness and his moral decency. He truly believes in trusting everyone until they give you a reason not to.
I hope this gave you a bit of insight into who Liam is. I cannot wait for you all to read Order from Chaos, but if you want to get to know Liam beforehand, grab Hit List by Omega. I hope you enjoyed this week's blog and as always, I wish you Happy Reading!

Hello, Loves and Happy New Year! I know it's been a while since I've posted a blog, but I took a little time off to get some things in order for this year's Red Ink Pub's book releases. We have some truly great titles that we have been working on for you guys.
I decided to go back to my roots and focus on historical fiction this year. Although my first release of the year will be a Chronicles of Sari book, which I am thrilled about, the remaining of my books for the year will be historical fiction. Those of you that know my work know that I love this genre. It's something about taking a historical event and revamping it. I love putting my horror/supernatural twist on it and making my readers think this could have actually happened.
My first book, Lillith: My Genesis, was about the first wife of Adam who was banished from the garden of Eden after speaking the name of God aloud. I put my twist on it by making her consume the beasts in the wilderness and then being transformed into the first vampire. In doing my research in the Torah and other religious texts, I found that her character and the way she carried herself reminded me of a vampire, so I made her into one, fictionally. I did the same thing throughout the Vamperial series when I picked her queens.
For the past few years, I have veered off the historical fiction genre and leaned more towards horror and supernatural. Don’t get me wrong, I love these genres, but I have missed my first love and am so happy to be getting back to it. The research of it, the digging into historical events and people, it makes me very happy. I have three that I have scheduled to be released this year and I had such a wonderful time researching and working on them. I will definitely keep you all posted on release dates so be on the lookout.
As far as my next book, The Chronicles of Sari: Asylum, I am eager for you all to read it. I’m bringing the sassy hunter back to tackle a haunted mental hospital full of possessed patients. She, her pack of wereleopards, her partner Dom, Doc and Ingrid are all in it together trying to figure out how to save the patients and vanquish the evil. It comes out February 21, 2019, be sure to go to my Twitter and Instagram pages to see some amazing character art. I will also be doing some cool Sari related quizzes and games in the next few weeks.
I hope you all are doing great and as always I wish you Happy Reading!

Hello Loves and welcome to another week of Inside the Nation. As promised, this week we will talk more about Sari, the main character of my The Chronicles of Sari series. Last week we talked about who she is as a person, how she operates, the people in her main circle. This week I want to get into the 1st Sari book Were-.
In Were- Sari was called by a friend of Lonnie's, the police chief of Marion County, named Gilbert who was having a problem with a newly turned vampire. Sari agreed to meet with him, see what she could see and go from there. The meeting didn't go to Sari's liking, it seemed as if Gilbert had some secrets. Now, normally Sari didn't care about secrets, but this was a case and that was a no-no. Gilbert was very slow to answer and it appeared like he already knew who was following him so Sari figured he was in on whatever was going on, she was right. She then calls Lonnie to ask about Gilbert and the case begins.
Sari figures out that the Master vampire of the city, Milton, was making hybrids of were-animals and vampires. She soon discovers that Gilbert was helping him and was being stalked by one of the hybrids when things became too much for him. During this time Dom comes in, Sari and Dom had worked on a case the year before and had a brief, but meaningful fling. Turns out that Dom was working on the same case in Chicago and it bought him to Indianapolis. Sari and Dom worked the hybrid case together, with a few twist and turns and discovered that Sari had inherited a pack of wereleopards.
Sari, Dom, and the leopards figured out what was making the hybrids, which I will not tell you here because I want you to read the book, and there is a massive battle.
In this book, there are several awakenings from the characters. Sari has to realize working with others is not a bad thing, Dom has to see that all supernatural beings are not bad and so forth, the rest you'll have to see in the book.
This book taught me that I can write a supernatural book that didn't have to be historical. It also taught me that certain characters will simply take over the story, I loved that one by the way.
All in all, I hope you can pick up The Chronicles if Sari: Were and let me know what you think. I believe you will love Sari and the rest of the gang! As always, I wish you Happy Reading!