ANK on the incredible delight of chocolate digestives with peanut butter

Yup! My eating habits could be called unconventional. I rather like to think of them as adventurous. After all, I almost tried a roasted grasshopper... once...
Today, I fancied a peanut-buttery treat... or two. But I had run out of bread, felt too lazy to go to the shop, and didn't want to eat it straight out of the jar. (I confess - I occasionally do that...)
I sensed a perfect storm starting to brew in the not-available food department.
And then - Saviour! - I spotted a pack of chocolate digestives tantalisingly winking at me from the far side of the kitchen.

My peanut butter-focussed mind (aka the uncontrollable parts of my brain) fired up all its unoccupied synapses and made the connection instantaneously! Yep - I can work pretty fast where edibles are involved. No dithering!
It was a delightful feast: peanut-buttered dark chocolate digestives. Heaven! Bliss!

Change of scenery...
As I happily munched away at my peanut butter-delights, staring at my computer screen and willing at least one of my characters  to give me a clue of where they were heading to, the realisation struck me:
My writing habits are as mix-and-match as my eating habits!
Personal trait? Guess so. I never fancied being boxed up, labelled, and stuck on a shelf. I like to reinvent myself, do new things, try things I never tried before... and then I stick with what works for me.

And that's why I write what I like to read, and I eat what I love the taste of.

Genres? I elaborated on that one a little bit previously.
People? What do people do? What do aliens do? Where do they come from? When it boils down to it, they are all living, feeling beings.

I don't buy into the concept of the ultimate Good or Evil. I work in the Inbetween - where beings are multi-faceted: predominantly good, but circumstances may push them to show their less favourable personality traits.
At the end of the day a good read is not about its genre (aka the label we put onto it) but about the journey; the way the protagonists deal with situations; their determination to survive and succeed. The sheer will of a being pressed to breaking-point. Their endurance, their spirit, their hopes and dreams. It is about the life of the characters - no matter the genre!
Well - I'd never have encountered the delight of a peanut butter digestive if I'd had bread on the shelf!

ANK on Nick Cole

Who is Nick Cole?
A gifted engineer, handsome devil, loyal friend, and saviour. He is Bella's temptation and Dylan's bane.

Nick's character didn't even exist when I started writing the first draft of The Sphere.
He appeared literally out of nowhere. One day, he stepped out of a dark corner of my mind and very politely introduced himself. Once I got over my initial shock and allowed him in, he had no problem convincing me that I needed him.
He never left me in any doubt that he came to stay.
Three books into the series and guess what: He is still with me.

And what a character he is!
I took him on board - reluctantly - because I needed him; the story needed him; Bella needed him.
Nick, however, fell for Bella; line, hook, and sinker.

And no matter how many times she floors him - he always gets up. He is a fighter; a survivor. He is my true hero.

I am grateful that he had the courage to come and the stamina to stay.

I admire and respect him.

Thank you, Nick!

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The man himself:
ANK has a melodramatic outlook when it comes to my person.

Let me get one thing clear: I never volunteered for altruistic reasons.

Firstly, I only agreed to talk to Bella about warp travel because my friend and mentor, Barnes, asked a favour of me. Secondly, I wanted to help because the project provided a new and intriguing distraction from life on the space station.

Thirdly - and I hate to admit this - I stupidly fell for Bella - and I couldn't pull out afterwards.

What started with butterflies in my stomach and high hopes for a future together almost ended in a disaster. The woman I love has some cruel ways to twist a man around her little finger and break him in the process! I know - I am at the receiving end. Yet - I cannot deny her! I cannot step away from her. I am too bloody weak.

She has a pull on me that I cannot escape; like even light cannot escape the pull of a black hole. That's what Bella is for me: A black hole - relentlessly sucking everything into it. And like a black hole, Bella's pull is indiscriminate. I know she doesn't do it out of spite. It is her nature. I wish I were stronger... I love her.

I need to get her away from the space station; out of the reach of The Sphere. Make her forget it ever existed; make her forget what it holds inside ever existed. I can do it... I would do anything to win her love. Beg, steal, lie, kill. I only need to build this spaceship. That's all it takes.

Once we are underway, she will be mine.

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ANK:
Nick is my most complex character. He causes me massive headaches because he is so unpredictable; yet - he is such a pleasure to work with.
When the story runs dry, Nick steps in to save the day.
Guess it's his paternal ancestry. He cannot deny his genetic predisposition. His father is a handful as well.
I nearly fell flat on my face when he turned up out of the blue!
Those men have a nasty habit of taking me by surprise...
I was blissfully oblivious to Nick's true nature - and so was he.

Enough! Nick's Dad has no doing in The Sphere, but he will feature prominently in the third book, Homecoming, where he will cause a good deal of havoc and upset. Until then, the Sphere-World Series has some life-changing challenges in store for Nick. I am not going easy on him! But that's what he came to volunteer for...
Good luck to you, my friend!

ANK on Dylan

Dylan. Ah, what can I say? He is my beautiful alien. He is pure, true, and eternal.
When I first met him, he was nothing more than a figment of Bella's imagination, and I'd planned to leave him behind inside The Sphere; buried in Bella's past, and kept alive only in her imagination.
But he wasn't going to have any of that!

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Turns out ANK got me all wrong at the start. I don't hold it against her - it is confusing to meet new species, and not everybody can wrap their head around the existence of beings who are so different from humans, that they can't perceive them with any of their human senses or scientific sensors. Doesn't mean we don't exist, though. I am no bloody illusion. I am real! I came to meet Bella inside The Sphere, and I came to stay. Period!
I love Bella. I loved her from the first moment I sensed her aura. That was on her sixth birthday when she was allowed inside for the very first time. I waited - more than ten years - before I approached her. Revealing my existence was the scariest thing I ever did! My energy still gets all upset when I think about it. I took a human male form - one I thought she would like. It worked! She fell in love with me. I am the luckiest singular entity in the whole of the universe.
I had to tell her that being with me was dangerous for both of us, but she wanted me nonetheless. It became trickier to conceal our relationship as time passed, and so Bella persuaded me to help design a spaceship, which can travel to Earth. A one-way journey into the unknown.
We need this ship to escape the confinement of The Sphere and the dangers of being found out. Earth will be safer for us. There, I will be able to lead a double life: Blend into the human society as one of them, but also stay connected to the realm of the singular entities.
It is a two-bladed knife. We will be free should we succeed, but building this ship means Bella has to work with Nick Cole - a man she likes a lot and could easily fall in love with. It scares me; I could lose her. There is nothing I can do but meet her inside The Sphere, love her, and make sure I stay one step ahead of Nick.
I was never insecure in all the billions of years since I came into existence right after the Big Bang. I am eternal, I know where the Universe came from, and I know where it is going to. Its path is predictable; I can read its energy, trace the flows of its currents, and follow them through their troughs and sources. I have intimate knowledge and understanding of the energetic environment of the universe. Nothing fazes me; I can navigate singularities, wormholes, and black holes; I can ride on a dark matter wave or an ion-storm.
But what I cannot do is predict how humans, their technology, or their psyche will react with those energetic phenomena that litter the universe, I am so familiar with. I just don't know.
Despite my eternal existence, and my experience, I am not omniscient - and most certainly not omnipotent! I am no god; I am no creator; I am just one of the many children of the Universe. And as such I have my limitations.
Being with Bella makes me acutely aware of my otherness. I never had to live in as a corporeal being before. I am an energy being in my natural form.
I had to get to grips with my human body, and I am still occasionally struggling with my new emotional landscape. I am learning on a daily basis.
"Daily" - one of those words... Time - I never had a need to define it, to live to its tyranny, to worry about it. Time for me just is. Now, I have Bella. And Bella's lifetime is limited; Very limited. 300 years... Tops! Less than a blink of an eye on the timescale of the universe. Then there's me: Eternal, immortal, convicted to roam the universe forever after Bella. How can I possibly go on without her?

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#ANK speaking
It hurts me to see Dylan suffer. My confident, self-assured, strong singular entity changed in front of my very eyes into a human. Never had I expected to see him suffer human insecurities, worries, and pains. But not only that - on top of it all, he has to deal with the certainty of losing Bella. Death is not a common concept for singular entities, losing loved ones is something they don't customarily encounter. They are solitary creatures - most never forge close bonds with others; and if they do, they can choose to be together forever, or go their own ways after a while if they so wish.
Staying with Bella is not a choice. It is a necessity; one that has a use-by date stamped onto it. Dylan knows it, but he doesn't allow it to taint their relationship. Giving in to despair is not in his nature. And I love him for his strength.
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Took me a while to convince ANK that I am more than a pretty face with a hot physique. She didn't like Bella and me falling in love the way we did.

Some events she never saw coming - and neither did we to be perfectly honest. Some things take even me by surprise; some things even I don't take into account. Lesson learned! It makes me painfully aware, though, how easily we can be tricked into thinking everything is going to be alright, when in fact things are going tits-up.

I am dreading the journey ahead! The Sea of Dark Matter might swallow us; the universe might throw us so far off course that we cannot make it back in a human lifetime. I am aware that I can't predict events to come; I can't even influence them from within The Odyssey. That's the name of the spaceship, which will take us back to Earth (read a preview here).
I feel guilty for deceiving Nick. In his world taking Bella on this journey will get her away from me. This is his motivation - she is his reason d'etre. He loves her; not as much as I love her - but he doesn't know that yet. He doesn't know that Bella is not his destiny; and yet - I hope - that, should anything ever happen to me, he will take care of her, and make her - if not forget me - forget the pain of losing me.
But this is stuff that may or may not in an unknown future, and I don't like to speculate; I am scared of what lies ahead.
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P.S. I am planning to publish The Odyssey as #Amazon #eBook and #paperback within the next four to six weeks.
Plenty of time to read book 1 of the Sphere-World Series. The Sphere is available on all #Amazon marketplaces.
#kindleunlimited subscribers read for free.
Please stay tuned for an upcoming promotional #freeday on January 06