Snowflakes & Endings

Greetings, Champions!

Snowflakes: the Snow Queen Short Story Collection has officially launched! I’m still offering it for 99 cents, but by the end of the week I’ll be pricing it higher, so snag it while it’s on sale! So far the feedback seems to be positive, so I’m glad everyone was happy to return to Rakel’s world! If you would leave a review on Amazon or Goodreads for the collection, I would really appreciate it!

But while I’m excited about Snowflakes, I have officially started writing Endings, the final King Arthurs book. There is no set release date, mainly because I don’t know how long it will take to write it. Keeping that in mind, I’m going to be non-responsive for the next two or three weeks while I work on it.

The less I spend on my social media accounts, the more time I have to write Endings, and since I want to write a quality book and still get it released in a timely manner, I’m giving my internet time the axe. 😉

With luck I’ll be back by the end of the month, just in time for the annual Hero Poll! But until then, thanks for understanding, Champions! And here’s a ROUGH sneak peek of Endings!

Britt couldn’t remember her mom’s voice.

The realization struck her near the midnight watch, as soon paced in the small, frost-covered Queen’s garden. The moon glowed overhead, casting silver light the withered plants. Off in the distance a dog barked and soldiers greeted one another as the patrols changed over…and for the life of her, Britt couldn’t remember her mom’s voice.

Her sister’s face—a face she had seen every day of her childhood—was starting to grow hazy too.

Britt could remember her mom’s gusty laugh and the twinkle in her sister’s eyes. Details like that were easier to recall, but everyday things—like faces and voices—were starting to slip from her memory. Instead they were replaced with Merlin’s sarcastic barbs, Kay’s twitching mustache, Mordred’s dimpled smile, and Gawain’s clear eyes.

But while she treasured the new, her heart ached with the loss of the old.

“It’s been three years,” she whispered. “Just three! How could I forget them so quickly?”

Three years ago, Britt—an American from the twenty-first century—had been pulled back through time while visiting England. Her time travel was the result of a spell forged by Merlin, who told her Arthur—the boy meant to be King of Britain—had run off with a shepherdess, and she was to take up his identity and rule in his stead.

Britt placed her hand on a stone pillar, seeking support. The stone was so cold it bit her palms, but she barely noticed.

“I’m happy,” she murmured. “My knights accept me—the real me—Camelot is more beautiful than I could imagine, and we are at peace, but…how can I forget who I was, who I really am?” She took a shuddering breath.

“Milord?” one of her guards asked, shifting in the shadows.

Britt offered him a wane smile and waved his concern off. She resumed pacing, as if the exertion would help her recall the exact proportions of her sister’s face.

She paused only when Merlin—his blonde hair white in the silver moonlight—popped around the corner of the garden. He held a sputtering torch, and his forehead wrinkled as he and Britt stared at each other from across the garden.

Writing Sleeping Beauty

Greetings, Champions! I’m finishing up my Sleeping Beauty themed posts today with this final entry. (As a reminder, all the Sleeping Beauty extras are now available–you can snag them in the extras section!)

I took quite a few liberties with my version of Sleeping Beauty, and I will be the first to admit it was mostly to make things more logical, and also out of spite. For example, I didn’t want to make the king proclaim that all spinning wheels must be destroyed–my characters live in a world that is far too logical to submit to that nonsense. So I ended up shipping Briar Rose off to the countryside–which suited me perfectly as I wanted to explore the dynamics of her being raised apart from her family.

Isaia’s role as a magic knight instead of a prince is my petty bit of spite. While I love fairy tales I do get sick of writing mostly about princes or princesses–Rumpelstiltskin has been my only reprieve thus far.  In reading the many different versions of sleeping beauty I ended up developing a serious antipathy towards the prince who awakens the princess. As you may recall, he is nothing like Disney’s Prince Phillip who battles for Aurora, and instead he waltzes into the castle and manages to awaken the princess solely because the required 100 years had passed. Not. A. Fan.

Keeping that in mind, I knew I wanted Briar’s romantic relationship to be different from my previous gals, and using a childhood friend she had known for a long time was a great way to introduce a new dynamic! (It doesn’t hurt that I am a huge sucker for stories where the princess falls for her guard!) The change in the relationship compared to the typical boy-meets-girl-and-falls-in-love made Sleeping Beauty really fun to write as I got to bring out a different level of emotions and complexities between them.

I used the true love’s kiss to break Briar’s curse, because the Brothers Grimm’s Little Briar Rose has the prince kiss the sleeping princess awake, and I was taking a few more cues from it than Perrault’s french fairy tale. (Also I wanted to begin needling poor Angelique at a young age. The next time she has to modify a curse with true love’s kiss, she just may crack!)

In honor of what is considered the “original” sleeping beauty, Sun, Moon, and Talia–which was written by an Italian poet–Sole culture is  loosely based on Rennisance Italian culture. (You can see it in the fashion with the veils over the hair and the puffed gown sleeves, the food, the names, and the excessive use of marble/stone and wall frescos.) However, like all the other countries its government has its quirks. While Erlauf has its armies and Arcainia its blue-stocking royals, Sole is known for its magic knights. The country values things like honor, justice, and chivalry, but you can also see it in the decor. (I sprinkled knight/weapon/horse themed statues, tapestries, frescos, etc, everywhere!)

It was fun because I got to tackle a bit more of the world building in Sole than I did with Kozlovka in Swan Lake–but that’s because Swan Lake mostly takes place in the middle of a forest.

And thus ends our Sleeping Beauty lessons! On Monday I’m going to post an official announcement, but starting next week I’ll be going falling off the face of the planet so I can buckle down on King Arthurs. I won’t reply to comments and messages during that time, because I’ll be tucked away in a hermit hole that gets poor internet. Wish me luck! And on that note, Champions, I hope you have a lovely weekend!

Sleeping Beauty: Morals and Themes

Good day to you, Champions! Here’s the final Sleeping Beauty freebie: The Third Knight. (As in the third Legendary Knight Briar knights….buwahah) I hope you all enjoy it! I had the most fun with this short, so I’m reeeally hoping it makes you guys laugh, too!

Today we’re going to dig into the morals and themes presented in Sleeping Beauty.

Sleeping Beauty was one of the few fairy tales that made me pause and actually wonder what on earth anyone could find instructive/helpful about it. (I say that with all my love, because really, have you entertained any fairies recently?) Thankfully Perrault–who as you might remember the Brothers Grimm’s story was an orally shared version of his tale–spells out the moral at the end of the book.

Perrault says the moral is–I kid you not–be patient in waiting for love. I was actually surprised at the sound logic behind that, and the way he phrases it is actually quite humorous. See for yourself!

“Many a girl has waited long For a husband brave or strong; But I’m sure I never met Any sort of woman yet Who could wait a hundred years, Free from fretting, free from fears.

Now, our story seems to show That a century or so, Late or early, matters not; True love comes by fairy-lot. Some old folk will even say It grows better by delay.

Yet this good advice, I fear, Helps us neither there nor here. Though philosophers may prate How much wiser ’tis to wait, Maids will be a sighing still — Young blood must when young blood will!”

For those who are curious, yes, Perrault wrote this in his French retelling. The website I found it at said the translation of the moral (because it was omitted by earlier translations) comes from Perrault’s Fairy Tales, translated by S. R. Littlewood (London: Herbert and Daniel, 1912).

Though it might seem odd, this is really a moral I could get behind, and that’s partially why I made Briar and Isaia childhood friends and their relationship so long in developing. But while patience in love is the moral, there are still other bits of symbolism and themes in the story that deserve a closer look.

I briefly mentioned it previously, but when the king proclaimed that all spinning wheels should be destroyed and anyone caught owning/using one would be put to death, it was an inspiredly-stupid idea. This fairy tale takes place in a time where the only way for the general populace to produce thread/fabrics, was to spin it. By destroying all the spinning wheels in the kingdom, he was robbing his people of a way to clothe themselves–not to mention I imagine he put a ton of people out of business. (Think about it–not just spinners and weavers, but farmers who owned sheep would now have to take the wool to a neighboring kingdom so it could be put to use! The same goes for flax farmers.)

Furthermore, it would greatly impact the kingdom’s economy. Prices on fabrics would hike up drastically because everything would have to be imported, and while other countries would profit the people would suffer.

But that’s only if people actually obeyed the king. We know they didn’t because the princess pricks her finger on a spindle, so there’s still some machines around. The King’s order is clearly too bull-headed and impossible that the people cannot follow it. It’s very similar to the “turning-straw-to-gold” bit of Rumpelstiltskin. (Which, as you might recall, is extra impossible because straw can’t be used in spinning or for anything, so the king was telling the girl to make something from nothing.)

I feel like the King’s stubborn actions are a second moral. It shows that you can make unreasonable demands based off fear and terror, and what you fear may still come to pass. In fact, reading about the king’s proclamation is what inspired me to have Briar set off the curse on her own free will. Briar’s family–like the king from the original–are filled with fear, and they make poor decisions as a result. Briar, however, acknowledges her fear and steps forward to face her curse anyway. If Isaia hadn’t been so stubborn, her idea to set off the curse would have been smashing, and in the end she’s the hero–not because she fought but because she stirred the Magic Knights and was determined to face Carabosso if no one else would.

And that’s all for today. I hope you enjoy the final extra, Champions!