The Protagonists of Curse of Anubis

Hi all,

Over a year ago I wrote a blog post about the antagonists in the Curse of Anubis series. It's been a long time but with book one coming out in October I thought now would be a good time as any to post about the protagonists! They are my favourite characters (mostly because three of them are big cats).

Tahira

Tahira is Ra's chosen one who is being watched over by Bastet. She was a mummy (zombie) for the first year of the apocalypse before being 'cured'. At first she's desperate for human interaction and is used by survivors to get past mummies. She is sort of adopted by Bastet and the two have a mother-daughter relationship which grows as the series goes on.

Bastet

Ra's protector who is tasked with looking after Tahira. She is also the goddess that is represented by cats. She is the reason that Tahira is cured and is very proud of her role to Ra. Being his protector gives her a tiny portion of his power that she can use in battle. As his daughter, she's always considered it her birthright to become his protector. She has a rocky relationship with Sekhmet as she defeated her to become the new protector. But as they get closer they find that they develop feelings for each other, though neither of them wants to admit it to the other. She slowly warms to Mafdet, who at first she considers a buffoon.

Sekhmet

Ra's former protector and the goddess represented by lions. Looking strong is her major worry, which is one of the reasons why she has a mane. She considers it a show of power and command, which is why she had another God kill her over and over until she got her desired form. At first she's resentful of Bastet as she is Ra's new protector, but a few decades of having time to think it over has given her a new outlook. However, she still has her famous fiery temper and is prone to running into battle headfirst. Her and Mafdet start off on the wrong paw as Sekhmet doesn't like the fact that the cheetah goddess was always treated kindly by Ra. She is the one who spread the rumour about her being 'Ra's whore'.

Mafdet

The cheetah goddess who is an expert on poisons. Ra considered her a favourite of his and spent centuries trying to court her with no success. Despite this, Sekhmet's jealousy lead to her spreading a rumour about Mafdet whispering in Ra's ear and influencing his decisions. Mafdet is kind and caring but has no interest in interacting with the other gods because of their treatment of her. Instead she's happy enough living in solitude and finding new cures for poisons. This changes when she stumbles across Tahira and helps guide her as well. She acts like an aunt to Tahira and is loyal to her. Eventually she comes round to Bastet and Sekhmet and they are able to strike up a friendship of sorts.

That's it for this week! I hope you're looking forward to seeing these characters more in the Curse of Anubis series. See you next week. 

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Curse of Anubis Chapter Headings

Hi all,

Like Celestial Plague, the Curse of Anubis series has multiple point of views of characters. By using chapters headers in Celestial Plague, it made it easier for you to differentiate which character had a chapter to themselves. I'm doing the same with Curse of Anubis, and I'm glad to show you the chapters headers for the two main characters: Bastet and Tahira. These chapter headers were done by the same person who did the Celestial Plague ones: Solcase Major.

Bastet.

As the cat goddess in Egyptian mythology, it should surprise no-one that her chapter header is of a cat! It wasn't going to be anything else and I absolutely love it.

Tahira.

Tahira is represented by a leopard. This will make more sense as the series goes on. She's surrounded by big cats throughout the series so I thought it made sense. This one is my favourite of the two, I do love big cat drawings.

The two chapter headers will be used throughout the series. There aren't any other characters who have a POV chapter so these are the only two you will see! No secret ones like in Celestial Plague with the butterfly header for the Sarjs.

If I do more multiple POV books in the future then I'll definitely use chapter headers! I think they're a fun and exciting way and it makes the book look prettier as well. So far all the other books I'm planning only have one main character so this may not happen for a while.

That's it for this week! I hope you like the new chapter headers. See you next week. 

PS; don’t forget to check out these book bundles before you go:

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The New Book Titles for Curse of Anubis

Hi all,

About a year ago I made a blog post about how I want to change the titles of the Curse of Anubis books. Before, the titles were:

Halfway

Limbo

Middle

Dual

It's been a long time but I've managed to come up with some new names that will hopefully stick a bit better! The previous names were ones that were supposed to be placeholders until I started writing the books. But I struggled so much with coming up with names that they stayed far too long. But now, I'm glad that I can rectify that!

Book one: The Plague's Hope

Book two: The Burning Snake

Book three: The Frozen Eye

Book four: The Dead Kingdom

I think these titles are more fitting for what actually happens in the books and I think they sound a lot cooler too!

The Plague's Hope refers to Tahira as she is the first, and only, person to be partially resurrected after being a zombie. She can travel between the living world and the afterlife. The dead believe that the one who gets resurrected will find a cure for everyone.

The Burning Snake focuses more on Wadjet as she is the main antagonist in book two. She manages to get hold of Ra's Eye and takes the power for herself.

The Frozen Eye is about Horus' Eye and where it can be found. Seeing as one Eye has been found, the one who wields both is said to become the new ruler of the gods.

The Dead Kingdom I'm sure is a more obvious one, but it refers to all of the zombies. They have taken over most of the living world at this point and Anubis has stopped collecting their hearts.

I'm so glad that I finally sorted the titles out because it was driving me crazy. I've spent ages cycling through names that I think would work and then discarding them for not feeling right. These ones feel a lot better and I'm hoping that they'll stick. Especially since book one is coming out in October.

That's it for this week, I hope you like the new names! See you next week. 

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A Fun Monthly Writing Challenge

Hi all,

This week I’m going to talk about a monthly writing challenge I usually take part in, called Furious Fiction. I was introduced to this by the chairman of my writing group. He sends the email around each month and we can participate and share our stories if we want to. I try to take part as much as I can, though sometimes because of NaNoWriMo or not being able to come up with an idea for the prompt I don’t contribute.

First off, what is Furious Fiction?

It is a writing challenge that launches on the first weekend of each month. On the Friday, an email is sent out with the prompts and you need to squeeze it into 500 words. They usually supply a few words that have to be in your story as well as another challenge. This month’s was to write a story in the middle of something. I went with the middle of a trial, which Bastet has to complete without being killed by a zombie lioness.

The email goes out on Friday and you have 55 hours to write your story and submit it. The ones who manage the challenge are Australian, so you have to go by Australian time to submit it before the deadline. They have a countdown on their website when the challenge is live which is really handy to keep track of how much time you have left!

So far all of the stories that I have written for this challenge have been set in the Curse of Anubis universe. Two have been in Bastet’s perspective, while the others have been various unnamed characters that kick off certain events of the story. I’m hoping to get these stories submitted to anthologies instead of collecting them together for the Curse of Anubis Short Story Collection. There are other stories that I want to write for that book, but Furious Fiction really helps with getting other ideas out.

I’ve participated in a few of their challenges and I find them all really fun, it’s a good way to flex your writing muscles and write on a strict deadline. Some of the words that you have to add in can sometimes be hard to work in too, so it takes a lot of thinking.

I love participating in this challenge and a lot of the members of the writing group that I’m a part of write stories for it too. It’s really interesting to see what others come up with the same prompts and deadline. I’m going to try to participate as much as possible, even if I don’t win! The winner and the shortlist entries are all displayed on their website once all the entries have been read. The winner receives $500.

That’s it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading! See you next week.

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The Antagonists in Curse of Anubis

Hi all,

This week I’m going to talk about the antagonists in the Curse of Anubis series. I wanted to pick gods that people wouldn’t usually see as being evil. This series focuses on a zombie plague and the main character, Tahira, trying to survive in a new world. She is guided by Bastet, who is trying to figure out how to stop the plague and find out what happened to Ra, who has disappeared.

Horus.

I picked Horus to be an antagonist as I imagined him being angry with Ra. In this universe, Ra takes the throne back from him and asserts himself on it once more. He also strips Horus of his animal, a falcon, and instead gives him the hawks to rule over instead. So when Ra goes missing, Horus doesn’t hesitate to try to take advantage of the situation. He goes after Tahira as she is Ra’s chosen one, and he doesn’t want her meddling with his plans. Unfortunately he isn’t very good at planning ahead or working with the other gods, which is his downfall.

Wadjet.

Twitter chose Wadjet for me after I posted a few gods that could be an antagonist. She is not a fan of Ra as she was his second-in-command until Sekhmet challenged her and won. She has been bitter about it ever since and has vowed to get her powers back that have now been passed to Bastet. She is not against using those around her and always puts herself first. While she is more receptive to working with the other gods, she would much rather take all the glory herself.

Set.

As Anubis’ father, it’s only natural that he would be involved in the scheme against Ra. He helped his son come up with the idea of a zombie plague and tries his best to keep him on his good side. In this universe, Ra allows the gods to choose the animals they want to represent them. Instead of choosing one of Ra’s creations, Set created his own: the sha. Ra humiliated him by putting his sha on Earth and laughing as they died out within a few decades. Set tried to create an animal that was better than the ones that already existed, but instead the sha are weak and sickly. He never forgave Ra for humiliating him in front of everyone.

Anubis.

The creator of the zombie plague and son of Set. With how much the human population was growing, Anubis was struggling to harvest all the hearts from the dead. He begged Ra for help, but Ra turned his back on him. Anubis then plotted against Ra and released the plague without his permission. He didn’t expect Ra to go missing once the plague was released and decided to take over the realm of the gods himself. The only thing left for him to do is rid himself of Tahira, Bastet, Sekhmet and Mafdet.

That’s it for this week! In the future I will write about the protagonists and how they fit into the Curse of Anubis universe, I hope you enjoyed reading, see you next week.

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Why I'm Going to Change the Book Titles in Curse of Anubis

Hi all!

I haven’t talked about Curse of Anubis for a while. For those who don’t know, this is a YA Horror series that will be published after Celestial Plague. There are four books total, all of which have been written but just need to be edited, formatted and get a cover designed. The story follows Tahira, a girl caught in the zombie apocalypse who is guided by Bastet, the Egyptian goddess. It’s up to them to figure out why there are now zombies everywhere and what it has to do with Ra’s disappearance. They meet plenty of other gods along the way and traverse both the human world and the god’s plane together.

The titles that I originally came up with are below:

Halfway

Limbo

Middle

Dual

But I’m not sure if I like those titles so much now. They seem more like placeholders until I come up with better ones. I’ve tried to think of other titles that might fit better, such as: Reincarnation, Resolution, Ra’s Eye, Horus’ Eye, Set’s Revenge etc.

So far nothing has stuck.

Bastet, as she first appears in Curse of Anubis

I’m still brainstorming some ideas about what the names should be, though I’m probably going to go with something along the lines of either the protagonists or the antagonists. Tahira, Bastet, Sekhmet and Mafdet are the protagonists, while Horus, Wadjet, Set and Anubis are the antagonists. I would like to incorporate their names in the titles somewhere, but I’m not sure how that will work yet. I just wanted to make a post about it so it isn’t a shock when it does happen. The series title will be staying the same, just the individual book titles will be changed.

The first book won’t be published until late 2024, so I have time to figure out the names. I may even ask my newsletter subscribers for their thoughts as well. Nothing about the books themselves will change, just the titles.

That’s it for this week, wish me luck in finding the perfect book titles! Next week will be my 2022 year in review, so keep an eye out for that.

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Dual Quotes - Camp NaNoWriMo July 2021

Hi all!

As with last Camp NaNoWriMo I thought I would collect all of the quotes I made on Twitter in one handy little blog post! This time my project was Dual, the last book in the Curse of Anubis series. Unfortunately due to sickness and tiredness I didn’t post a quote every day, but I hope the ones that I did post made up for that!

In November I will be participating in NaNoWriMo again, but this time for the first book in the Original Elementals series - Frostbite.

Days 1-9

Days 10-20

Days 21-30

That’s it for this week, I hope you enjoyed the quotes! Next week I’m going to talk about a book signing event I’m attending! See you next week!

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Middle Quotes - Camp NaNoWriMo April 2021

Hi all!

If you read my blog post in December you’ll remember that when I participated in NaNoWriMo I posted a compilation of quotes from the book I was working on - Halfway. I’m now doing the same for Middle, except this time there’s a quote for each day! I’ll do this again in July when I’ll be working on the final book in the Curse of Anubis series - Dual.

Days 1-10

Days 11-20

Days 21-30

That’s it for this week, I hope you enjoyed reading! Next week I’m going to talk about books that I would like to read in the future. See you next week!

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Halfway Quotes - NaNoWriMo 2020

Hi all!

If you weren’t aware, I participated in NaNoWriMo again this year (National Novel Writing Month) and started writing the first book in the Curse of Anubis series: Halfway. From day three I started posting quotes from the book on my Twitter account, which I have collected here for you all to read! Some are in Tahira’s point of view, while others are in Bastet’s. If you want me to do this when I participate in Camp NaNoWriMo too, let me know!

Days 3-10

Days 11-20

Days 21-30

That’s it for this week! Let me know if you want me to post daily quotes whenever I do NaNoWriMo or Camp NaNoWriMo. Next week I’m going to talk about the Elemental Dragons calendar that I’m doing on my Facebook page. See you next week!

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Why I Chose Egyptian Gods for Curse of Anubis

Hi all,

This post is a sort of follow on to my previous post, writing zombies. Whenever I mention that I'm writing a zombie series with Egyptian Gods, I get quite a lot of confused looks! I then have to try to explain how the zombies and Egyptian mythology go together without spoiling the plot. So, I thought I would write a non-spoiler version for my readers!

The virus.

The 'zombie virus' is created by the gods. One in particular, who has gone against the rest of them to doom humanity. If you couldn't tell by the series title, this god is Anubis. It was not a collective decision, and the rest of the gods are trying to pick up the pieces.

Bastet.

Bastet is the goddess who appears the most throughout Curse of Anubis, helping the MC, Tahira, survive in this new world. In Ancient Egypt she used to protect the home from evil spirits and disease, though this scope has now increased exponentially with the zombie virus. She was sent specifically by Ra for this purpose.

Tahira.

Tahira is the main character of the series, and almost all of the chapters in the books will be from her point of view. She is fifteen when the virus hits, and as it spreads quickly she's got to find a way to survive. Bastet finds her, and takes her under her paw.

God forms.

The gods will appear mostly in their animal forms. An Egyptian Mau for Bastet, for example. They will very rarely appear in their more human forms, as they don't like showing these to humans.

Afterlife.

Once a human is infected, they're not exactly dead. They can alternate between the living world in their zombie form, where they can only watch and not control themselves, or they can go to the land of dead to spend time with others who have been infected. The land of the dead is seen as a paradise of sorts, where there is no pain, suffering or hunger. But, some people start to go missing from the land of the dead and are never seen again, even in the living world.

School.

The school that the first book is mostly set in is based off of my secondary school. I didn't realise until I started writing it that I was describing the old layout of my school. A few years after I left it got a new look, but I don't know what it looks like inside now. So, I'm going with the old layout that I knew like the back of my hand when I attended.

That's it for this week, I hope you enjoyed! See you next week!

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