Dark Obsession: The Sun Dwellers ~ Blog BLAST and David Estes Guest Post!

How love made me a writer

By David Estes

I wouldn’t be a writer without love. When I left college I became an accountant. Yeah, boring. No offense to any accountants out there but it is. I did it for 7 years, so I’m allowed to say it. Of course, there are a lot of things to be said for accounting, especially for someone with serious OCD, like me. All the numbers are neatly organized and everything balances, or at least it should. But sitting in a cubicle crunching numbers and looking for discrepancies…urrr, it almost sucked the life out of me. So no, if you’re thinking it was my love of accounting that made me a writer, you’d be wrong.

So five years of accounting in my good old hometown of Pittsburgh and I was ready for some serious change, an adventure, something, anything! Naturally I did what anyone in my situation would do, I wrote a book. Just kidding, we’re not to that part of the story yet. No, I did the other thing that anyone in my situation would do. I moved to Australia. What? That’s not what people do! Oh well, it’s what I did. Why’d I do it? Looking back, I think the creative side of my brain needed some kind of nourishment, and surely a new place on the other side of the freaking world with strange animals that hop like bunnies but stand upright, and people that say “boot” when they mean the trunk of a car and shorten everything (who knew afternoon could be shortened to “arvo”), would be able to help me.

I’m going to read your mind and guess that you’re thinking “Wow! I bet that worked to unlock your creativity so you could write your first book!” That would be wrong, too. Well, I guess technically it’s right that moving to Australia led me to write my first book but not because of the awesome place that it is; rather, it was because of who I met there.

I met Adele. A beautiful smile, delicate shoulders, gorgeous wavy hair, big brown eyes, a nice tan: based on looks alone, I was ready to get down on one knee! Okay, okay, I know, stop being a guy already, but it was true. Her smile caught my attention right away and I wanted to get to know her. We went to the same party, I got bold, used my pathetically unsmooth moves to get my arm around her and then we kissed (if you ask her, she kissed me, but I firmly believe it was mutual).

Sparks flew. Like all over the place to the point where another guy who had a crush on Adele threw a bit of a fit and stormed out of the party. True story. We were making waves already. The rest of the love story moved fast. I moved in to her place in Manly Beach after six weeks. Asked her to marry me after three months. Eloped after eight months. I found my soul mate.

And still I wasn’t happy. I mean, yeah, I was so happy with my personal life, with how me and Adele spent every spare second together. But something was missing. My career was just a job, a way to pay the bills. Adele, my hero, convinced me to switch jobs. So I got a job as a risk officer, hopefully to do something that would allow me to challenge my creative side a bit more. I had three weeks in between jobs. Adele knew I was one of the biggest book worms in the entire world and I constantly talked about how I wanted to write a book one day. She told me to write a book.

“But I have no good ideas,” I complained.

“Then pick your best bad idea,” she suggested. “Give it a try. What else are you going to do for three weeks?”

So I started writing a book about angels and demons who evolved from humans. Three weeks later it was half done and I had officially caught the writing bug. My new job didn’t really satisfy my creative side the way I’d hoped but it didn’t matter, I was writing books! What my new job did do was give me the time to work on my new hobby. I wrote every day. Half an hour on the ferry ride to work, an hour at lunch, and a half hour on the way home. I finished Angel Evolution three weeks later and my iPhone was full of other book ideas. Seems that once you get the creative juices flowing, coming up with new ideas gets easier.

I didn’t know what to do with my book so I wrote a children’s book about a nine-year-old girl who finds a treasure chest of magical gloves, each of which gives her a different superpower. Nikki Powergloves was born in four weeks. I couldn’t get enough writing and I watched as my daily word count rose from 1,500 to 2,000 to 2,500 to 3,000, which is what I average today. Five weeks. Demon Evolution popped out. Then Archangel Evolution. I had a whole trilogy!! So I self-published it. So cool, I’m an author! Buy my books!

Not many buyers out there for a random no-name like me. So I started giving away books. Lots of books. Hordes of books to anyone who would take them. In the meantime I wrote three more Nikki Powergloves books and started on my new YA dystopian series, The Moon Dwellers. When things started picking up with the Angel Evolution books, I hired a copy editor and a cover artist and partnered with a marketing team.

Adele, my sweet, life-saving Adele, once again stepped in.

Adele: “You should write fulltime.”

Me: “I’m not selling that many books.”

Adele: “You’re selling enough.”

Me: “OK.”

I left my job and we left Australia, on the adventure of a lifetime, travelling the world for two years while I embarked on my new career as a fulltime writer of YA and children’s books. In the six months we’ve been gone I’ve published five books with another three to come in the next three months.

That’s it. That’s my story. Without love, without Adele, I wouldn’t be where I am today. A writer. If there’s a moral to this story, it’s that love can change lives. Not only change, but remake. Into something better, something worthwhile, something meaningful. Thank you, Adele, for loving me, believing in me, and for changing me.

Early praise for The Sun Dwellers

"This finale exceeded all of my expectations. The action, the intrigue, and the relationships were taken to a new level. Fantastic finish to the series, and definitely the best of the three."

Kerri Hughes ~Goodreads

"There are some very surprising twists and turns. And the ending is awesome! I can’t wait to read what David writes next! "
Lolita ~ Goodreads

This was a great ending to the series! So much action and emotions packed into this story.
The pacing was great and we get a lot of big secrets to come out and finally tie everything together.
Alexandria Nicole ~Goodreads

“This series is nothing short of amazing. It's given us more than the moon and the stars, now we the brilliance of the sun.”
Terri ~ My Book Boyfriend

Early praise for the author

“David created a world I was excited to learn about and characters I cared about. I'll remember this story for a very long time!”

Alexandria Nicole ~Goodreads

“Estes delivers a winner with confident writing that truly draws you into the story. “

Think ~ Goodreads

“The author, David Estes, has forged his name into writers to be watched and read.”

Marni ~Goodreads

“David is such a fantastic author and he really knows how to pull at the heartstrings.”

Kay ~K-Books

About the author

David Estes was born in El Paso, Texas but moved to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania when he was very young. He grew up in Pittsburgh and then went to Penn State for college. Eventually moved to Sydney, Australia where he met his wife. A reader all his life, he began writing novels for the children's and YA markets in 2010. He´s a writer with OCD, a love of dancing and singing (but only when no one is looking or listening), a mad-skilled ping-pong player, and prefers writing at the swimming pool to writing at a table

You can follow David at:

Blog

The Dwellers Saga

The Moon Dwellers Synopsis:

In a desperate attempt to escape destruction decades earlier, humankind was forced underground, into the depths of the earth, creating a new society called the Tri-Realms.

After her parents and sister are abducted by the Enforcers, seventeen-year-old Adele, a member of the middle-class moon dwellers, is unjustly sentenced to life in prison for her parents' crimes of treason.

Against all odds, Adele must escape from the Pen and find her family, while being hunted by a deranged, killing machine named Rivet, who works for the President. She is helped by two other inmates, Tawni and Cole, each of whom have dark secrets that are better left undiscovered. Other than her friends, the only thing she has going for her is a wicked roundhouse kick and two fists that have been well-trained for combat by her father.

At the other end of the social spectrum is Tristan, the son of the President and a sun dweller. His mother is gone. He hates his father. Backed by only his servant and best friend, Roc, he leaves his lavish lifestyle in the Sun Realm, seeking to make something good out of his troubled life.

When a war breaks out within the Tri-Realms, Tristan is thrust into the middle of a conflict that seems to mysteriously follow Adele as she seeks to find her family and uncover her parents true past.

Buying Links

The Star Dwellers Synopsis:

After rescuing her father and younger sister, Adele is forced to leave her family and Tristan behind to find her mother in the cruel and dangerous realm of the star dwellers.

Amidst blossoming feelings for Adele, Tristan must cast his feelings aside and let her find her own way amongst the star dwellers, while he accompanies Adele's father to meet with the leaders of the moon dwellers and decide the fate of the Tri-Realms.

Will Adele be able to rescue her mother and make it back to the Moon Realm before the President and the sun dweller soldiers destroy her family?

Can Tristan convince the moon dweller puppets of the error of their ways?

Was Adele's lost kiss with Tristan her one and only chance at love?

In her world there's only one rule: Someone must die.

Buying Links

The Sun Dwellers Synopsis:

With those she's closest to dying around her, Adele embarks on a secret mission to the Sun Realm to assassinate the President. Along the way she'll uncover secrets about her relationship with Tristan that she might not be ready to face.

Tristan has a secret, too, one that's been eating him up inside ever since he met Adele. Will he reveal all, and

risk the loss of friendship and love at a time when he needs it the most?

At the same time, Adele's mother, General Rose, must lead her soldiers into battle to face the sun dweller army in the hopes of holding them off until Adele can complete her mission. Can she outlast the strength of

President Nailin's elite fighting force?

There's only one truth in their world: someone must die.

Bonus Material

Includes a bonus Dwellers Short Story (Anna's Story) and a sneak peek at David Estes's follow up YA Dystopian Series, Fire Country!

The Dwellers Saga books are now available everywhere ebooks are sold or in print via Amazon.com. Also, David pledged when he started writing to always respond to his readers, and he loves getting comments and questions, so please contact him using one of his favorite social networking sites below. As always, happy reading!