Kristian Daniels

I am the eldest of a family of three. I grew up in a small community near Montreal, Canada. I was fortunate to have learned speaking English at a very young age. Our neighbor were English who didn’t speak a word of French, and their two sons and my brother and I began playing together and this is how I learned the language. We moved to another part of Quebec province, for my father’s work, and my life as a teen left some scars. I knew then I was gay, and I was bullied, laughed at and mocked.

At sixteen, I wrote a movie script and text for a movie I wanted to shoot with my father’s Bell and Howell Video camera, (I never did shoot it). Then later on, I was in my early twenties, I wrote a play, which I still have to this day. Then I dabbled in poems, short stories. My parents always told me that I had a way with words, from what I said in greeting cards. Unfortunately my mother passed away before I published my first book, Stolen Heart, but when my husband read my book, he cried as it reminded him of his time growing up. I surprised many with my writing. They were stunned that I had this talent.

I enjoy reading. I read murder mysteries. My favourite author is Dan Brown. Before I became an Information Technologist and Management professional, I studied fashion design. I design dresses for many wedding and today I design for myself. I’m very artistically inclined. I’ve always been that way. Hence, I took a professional makeup course in my late thirties which I occasionally am asked to do by friends and others for weddings and their evenings events. In my spare time I also take time to go to the gym.

Moment of relaxation and creativity. Reading relaxes me and it also takes me into the writer’s world. I sometime wonder if I could write a fantasy genre story. I’m fascinated by stories that are witch and human superpower based. Perhaps one day I will attempt to write this genre of stories.

I write during the day when everyone is away. My environment has to be quiet. In the evening I will write for a few hours late at night when my husband is gone to bed. I do write almost everyday, when it is a few hours during the day or late evenings. I tend to not write much on the weekends.

The French edition of Stolen Heart, Poursuivi par la Haine, came about because I have many francophone friends who doesn’t speak or read English and asked me if I would ever write a French book. I decided to translate my English book into French. But you cannot just translate as it loose it’s meaning, so I literally rewrote the book in French and had it published through a publisher in France.

The bond between two people, the love they feel for one another and the sensation in your heart when it’s filled with happiness and love for your lover. I believe that my caring, nurturing side of my personality and sensitivity is part of why I’m a romantic at heart. Watching romance in a movie or reading it in a book, always makes me happy and draws joyful tears out of me. I fell deeply in love in my early twenties with someone who I thought felt love as deeply as I. We met one night I was out dancing. We started dating and that led to us moving in together and even bought a house together. My life revolved around him, I fell deeply in love with him, then things turned sour. He began drinking and being verbally abusive. I learned later that he regretted what he had done and that he sought help. That was my first big heartache.

One of the difficulties was the behaviour of their parents facing the discovery of their son’s sexual orientation. I had a general idea that religion and faith would be playing a big part of this, so I did some research of a Mormon family faced with this situation versus a Catholic one. Although both have similar views on that, I determined that Greg’s parents would be the one that took the hardest based on his father’s background and deep-rooted belief in religion.

I knew I wanted to make Greg, a popular guy at school, where all the girl would want to date him because he was the Captain of the football team, and Tyler someone who has a few friends but was less interested in girls. Other difficulties were how to have them outed, by whom and how their parents came to find out. The other was having the characters continue seeing each other despite what was happening.

My goal when I write my stories, at least the ones that I have published to date, is to promote hope that even though you are going through a rough time, or awful things are happening, to not give up. Rely on your closest friends to help you through rough patches in your life. If things are really bad, get some help. It’s worth fighting for who you are and how you want to live your life and who with. This is why I began writing, because even though we have made a lot of progress in accepting one another for who we are, the suicide rate in teens and young adults are alarming. There are still a great amount of bullying and intimidation and hate in the world and I hope my stories can help everyone better understand the harm, hurt, and devastation bigotry, hate and bullying does.

I drafted an outline of what I wanted to write about in this book. I didn’t want to write a story about my experience as a gay man. So, before I began writing, I researched what today’s young adult are experiencing, what they are living through and noticed a lot of what I experienced were still being faced by them. Then I defined my main characters , Elliott, Chad, Paul, then later on came Chase. I wanted to take Elliott’s character from birth to adulthood and see him through all aspect of his life.

I am currently working on a second edition of Stolen Heart. This edition delves deeper into each of the character and situations.

I think my passion for writing helps my motivation. When I start something, I’m eager to finish it to see the end results. I am the same in my job. I work on projects and often there are deadlines attached to them, so I expected to meet them. For my writing, I dedicate a block of time everyday to advance my story. This time is usually when my husband is listening to his French serial and he has some three times a week and every second weekends when he works. I am pretty disciplined at it except when writer’s block attacks. If I’m staring at a page and nothing comes to me, I leave it and go do something else. That something else is often hoping on the treadmill for fifteen minutes, listening to music or going for a walk with the dogs. If I don’t get inspired that day or night, I’ll leave it and come back the following day.

The meaning of showing not tell. That was one aspect of writing I learned by being told by publishers when I sent my manuscripts.

The voice in which you tell the stories. Whether in first person or third person. My first book was written in a first person voice, my second edition of the same book is being told in a third person voice.

I learned a lot from my book reviews. Whether the characters needed more details, or there was a time gap between scenes or situations. I read every reviews good or bad and learn from it.

My very first reader was a friend of mine who I asked that she read my book and tell me honestly what she thought as a reader herself. She came back to me with her comments, where I could elaborate more on the scene, what was lacking. I really do appreciate her comments and her point of view as a reader. She was my sounding board.

My first unknow reader, was from Goodreads who thought the story was good and was looking forward to other book from me.

Another reader asked me if Stolen Heart was based on my life or experienced. I responded to her that it wasn’t. Some of what my main character has gone through, I did experience, but the story is not my own.

My next book which is being edited, is Parkwood Hills, slated to be published end of March beginning of April 2023.

Entertain my readers. Reach a wider audience and touch people’s heart.

Through Instagram. I was browsing and seeing what was new on Instagram and someone mentioned the Allauthor website. I browsed to your website and was pleased to see that there was somewhere for authors that I can become a member of.

What I like about Allauthor, it provides authors with tools to promote their books, announce upcoming ones and communicate with your peers.