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There’s this awesome set of conferences that really gets my inner geek squealing, the TED conferences. The slogan for the conferences is “Ideas Worth Spreading,�� it features a ton of speakers who will talk anywhere from 5 to 17 minutes. The topics vary, but all of them are innovative or at the very least thought provoking. They recently started this new thing–TED Ed–which features short lessons rather than talks.

I found this one about world building, and I thought you guys might find it interesting.

Typically I go about world building a little differently, but the author gives some good tips.

Hey there Champions! Typically I don’t like to talk about me because it feels a little, hmmmm, self-centered? (Or maybe a little boring too, hah-hah) However, I’ve recently had the chance to chat a bit more with a few of you Champions, which has given me a much better idea of what my audience is like. In the spirit of sharing, I thought I would tell you guys a bit about myself.

What do I read?

I read just about anything. I’m not into super hardcore Sci Fi–although I have made exceptions–and I tend to stay away from American Prarie themed books as I was obsessed with those as a kid and read waaaaaaaay too many of them. Horror isn’t my thing, but I have a special love for all things fantasy. I read historical and modern fiction, but ironically while my favorite genre is fantasy most of my favorite books are classics. (Like Pride and Prejudice, Count of Monte Cristo, Heidi, King Arthur and His Knights, Little Princess, ect.) I love romance, but I’m a little shy and a tad jaded about it so I don’t go for the melodramatic love stories. (Hah-hah, as we can all tell by my passionate hatred for Lancelot and Guinevere.)

What is my most treasured possession?

My dog, hands down. Perfect Dog, as I have occasionally referred to her, is my 2 year old collie. She’s the sweetest, cutest dog ever–although she is somewhat spoiled. She’s unusually intelligent, but she can also be a wee bit belligerent. (In example, if it is 5 degrees Fahrenheit and I’m outside with her, waiting for her to use the facilities she will take FOREVER so I freeze my butt off.) Perfect Dog is my ideal companion, though. She keeps me from sitting in my office all day like hermit, and when I am working she curls up on her bed near my desk. Ah, I think I have a picture of her sitting around here. One moment please!

Behold, the perfect-ness of Perfect Dog! As a disclaimer she doesn’t always look this awesome. You should see her with her bed head fur when she gets up in the morning.

What do I do with my spare time?

I read a lot, I spend a lot of time with my dog, I troll the internets for information and research material, and I play video games. (I am a certified geek.) I also like baking, which is kind of a bad thing for my waistline. In the summer I like going around to rummage sales to look for cool furniture and props. When I was but a wee little girl my family got a costume chest which we bust out and use for everything from Halloween costumes to taking themed black and white photos. I love looking for accessories and items to add to our costume chest. I also like scrapbooking, although lately I haven’t had anything to scrapbook. Hm��

Anything else?

I’ve got a major thing for fat penguins and short, stout owls. And chunky ponies. Hahah, I guess I like chubby animals.

Thanks for reading, Champions. Embittered is finished and the test reader gave it her stamp of approval, so this week I shall start editing. Until Wednesday, take care!

I am so close to finishing Embittered, I’m just a few pages short! I’ll certainly finish it up this weekend, though. After that it is editing, which practically takes as long as writing a King Arthur and Her Knight book, but it looks like the first week of February release is within my grasp. I’m reaaaaaaaally hoping I don’t get killed for the ending of this one. It’s not a cliff hanger, but it might leave people…overly intrigued in certain characters. But who knows, I might change the ending a bit after my test reader goes through it.

As we dwell upon King Arthur and Her Knights that brings me to the fun Arthur fact of this post. The sword fighting style Britt uses is historically accurate. (Or at least as fictionalized and accurate as I can make it.) I know we typically picture duels with parries and dancing back and forth, but it wasn’t like that at all. I did a lot of research and looked at some medieval manuscripts that a bunch of very nice professors/sword enthusiasts posted online. These manuals have illustrated pictures that show various techniques. Believe it or not but it wasn’t exactly unusual for someone to toss their sword aside and tackle their opponent before beating on them with their fists.

Swordplay wasn’t honorable–or at least not the honorable we think of. In Embittered Britt is involved in a sword fight (surprise!). One of the moves she uses is basically wedging a sword between the armor pieces of the leg and the foot. I got this idea because one of the sword manuals shows a guy literately STABBING his opponent’s foot, pinning him to the ground so he could slug him. (No, I’m not making this stuff up.) Grappling was also a common technique, and typically instead of parrying a blow it was encouraged to dodge it and then leap at your opponent since they just made themselves wide open.

In spite of the Arthur legends that talk about sword fights lasting for a whole day, these sword fights were really difficult and very fast. Typically they were finished in about three to five minutes. Fighters adopted the mindset Britt has–attack first and keep attacking to keep the advantage–which is why the fights were still incredibly taxing. (It was also why they were short.)

Now yes I did some research about this topic, but don’t take my word for it. There are a lot of varying records about fighting in the middle ages, but I decided to trust the ones that had from the middle ages to back them up. The bottom line is we don’t know for sure what fighting was like–which is why King Arthur and Her Knights is still a fictionalized take on battles and fighting.

On a more pleasant note, again I want to give a shout out thank you to the wonderful readers who have been reviewing B&B. I’ve been trying to keep up with emailing out the extra chapter so if you reviewed B&B and sent me an email to tell me over 48 hours ago and I never got back to you please let me know!

So I’ve been getting a lot of comments between Amazon reviews and goodreads that people are hoping I will keep writing adaptions of fairy tales, as I did with Beauty and the Beast. I have news for you B&B fans, I am planning to do another fairy tale. A whole bunch of fairy tales, actually. I was going to keep it secret for a bit longer, but I’m bursting to share, so the next fairy tale I will be writing (after I finish Embittered) is a retelling of��.

This is an illustration by Anne Anderson. She is a Scottish illustrator who died in 1930.

The Wild Swans

There’s actually two versions of this fairy tale, the Wild Swans (by Hans Christian Anderson) and the Six Swans (by the Brothers Grimm). The stories are nearly identical, the only thing that varies is the number of brothers and some of the details of when the sister gets married. The basic story is this: A king with many sons and one daughter is bewitched by a wicked witch and marries her–being that his wife is dead. This wicked witch wants to rule after the king dies, so she curses the sons to take on the shape of swans–although they can briefly turn human for 15 minutes (or an hour according to some versions) every night. The witch tries to curse the daughter too, but she fails and the girl flees with her brothers to a far away land.

The sister learns (typically through a fairy queen) that if she knits stinging nettles into a shirt and makes a shirt for every brother while never speaking a single word the curse will be broken. She decides to do the task–even though her brothers assure her it is impossible–and while she spends months knitting the king of the country they are staying in finds her. The king, naturally, falls in love with her at first sight. Being that she is mute and doesn’t fight back, the king is able to carry her off to the palace, intending to marry her. (My version of the story is going to stray from that line, though, as I am not a big fan of love at first sight.) One day, while the king is off riding around again, the king’s mother accuses the sister of witchcraft–because she’s always knitting and she’s got these big swans that like to flock around her–and tries to have her burned at the stake. The daughter finishes the last shirt just as the villagers are lighting the wood on fire (talk about a tight deadline) and she throws the shirts on her swan brothers, turning her royally ticked off brothers back into humans. (Let’s just say they don’t take too kindly to the whole almost burning their sister thing.) Now that she is freed from rescuing her brothers the sister is able to speak and defend herself against the claims of witch craft, which she does so just as the king returns. The king’s mother gets whacked, and the brothers and sister live happily ever after in the king’s kingdom, apparently abandoning their bewitched father.

There are several versions of this story beyond the Wild Swans and the Six Swans, but all of them follow the basic plot of the brothers getting cursed and their sister knitting shirts of stinging nettles and almost being burned at the stake. (Who accuses the sister of witch craft and why she is accused of witch craft typically varies from version to version.)

I’ve been looking forward to this story for a while because it’s one of the few fairy tales where the girl not only rescues herself, but her brothers as well. I will put my own spin on it of course, as I mentioned the plot line with the king falling in love with the mute sister is going to see some big changes because I want to use this fairy tale to illustrate the sacrifices we make for love.

Finally, as one extremely sharp eyed reader in an Amazon review has already guessed, the main cast of this fairy tale will be the seven princes and the adopted princess of Arcainia–the little country Prince Lucien was gung-ho to take over before Severin told him off. (I LOVE foreshadowing!)

Greetings, Champions. Enchanted (book 2 of King Arthur and her Knights) has a splendid new cover! Myrrhlynn spruced it up a little bit and most notably added the dark, forbidding clouds. (I think it matches the mood of the castle when the Knights of Camelot realize Morgause is visiting.)

Embittered is halfway finished. (Well over, actually.) By the end of today I should have roughly a third of it left to write. But today I wanted to talk a little bit about Enchanted. For those Champions who haven’t read it, King Arthur and Her Knights is about Britt, a college grad who gets pulled back into King Arthur’s time after she touches a rusty sword while vacationing in Britain. When she arrives Merlin explains to her that the real Arthur has run off with a shepherdess, and that the Sword in the Stone has chosen Britt to rule in Arthur’s place-while in disguise as the real Arthur. Enthroned (book 1) is all about Britt winning her throne and defeating those who will not acknowledge her. In Enchanted Britt is forced to defend her throne against Morgause, the wife of King Lot–the King who led the forces against Britt in Enthroned–who has come to stay at Camelot with her four sons.

The idea for Enchanted was birthed from a single page of Sir James Knowles “King Arthur and His Knights�� as well as the traditional stories Knowles based that page off of. In this single page (It’s really more of a long paragraph) Knowles states that Lot’s wife came to Camelot to spy on Arthur. However, while there she basically is charmed by Arthur and tells him what her husband charged her with doing before she goes home–leaving her four kids with Arthur so Arthur can use them as hostages.

The traditional stories have something similar–again it is barely touched upon–and in a great deal of tales it’s generally agreed that Gawain, Lot’s oldest son, comes to Arthur’s court because his mother leaves him behind to serve as a hostage. This didn’t sit very well with me, first of all because King Lot is Arthur’s biggest threat for the first few months/years of Arthur’s rule. He’s a smart dude, so I find it hard to believe that he would send his wife when it’s fairly obvious she doesn’t have the stomach for cloak and dagger missions. In the stories that don’t have Lot’s wife fall for Arthur, Lot’s wife is Morgause–a witch who is even more twisted than her husband. Morgause is the kind of person you would want to send on a spying mission, so I decided to combine the stories and send Morgause to Camelot.

I wanted to go into detail on a part of Arthur’s life that storytellers mostly brush over because I feel often we take it for granted that when Arthur was crowned everyone loved him and BAM his Kingdom was huge and perfect from the start. I also wanted a chance to give a more satisfying explanation as for why Lot’s wife would come with the mission to spy and then give her husband’s greatest enemy the tools to defeat him. (Aka: his kids.) I have a lot of fun writing King Arthur and Her Knights books because it’s so much fun to try and explain things that are typically glossed over. In this case I got to write out Morgause’s character, and greatly enjoyed it!

Thanks for reading, Champions. I will see you on Wednesday.

Happy New Year, my dearest Champions! I’m so grieved I have not written to you since last year.

I hope you all were able to ring in the new year with delight and joy. I am thrilled, for I’m well over one third through writing Embittered, book three of King Arthur and Her Knights. If all goes well I will be halfway through writing it by the end of the week. I am particularly driven to write it as the King Arthur Champions have been patiently and sweetly asking me when they can expect it to be released.

In the perfect world I would release Embittered the first week of February. Don’t mark the date yet, though, because�� well, I’m terribly frightened of commitment.

I want to give a shout out and thank you to everyone who has read and reviewed Beauty and the Beast. It’s number 14 in it’s genre of YA Fantasy, sub genre Sword and Sorcery. (It’s on the same page as Harry Potter. HARRY POTTER, oh my goodness!) Thank you for your support and encouragement.

That’s all for today as I want to try and get two more pages of Embittered written. It’s so much fun to pick on Lancelot, buwahah. Thanks for reading, and I will see you on Friday!

Merry Christmas, Champions, and Happy New Year!Today is the last day I’ll be taking a look at Beauty and the Beast‘s origins as I am changing gears for my next book, book 3 of King Arthur and Her Knights. So for my last topic I wanted to discuss the Beast or Severin as he is called in my version of the story.

In my previous post I discussed the different ways the Beast was cursed, and how I combined the stories to give homage to Villeneuve and Beaumont–the original writers of Beauty and the Beast. Lots of stories follow the general layout of Villeneuve and Beaumont’s tale. However, the one thing that varies from story to story is Beast’s exterior. Why? That’s because Villeneuve and Beaumont are pretty abstract in their descriptions of the Beast. In fact they use no concrete adjectives to describe him at all. He is reported to be beastly, ugly, horrid, etc. You can tell by Beauty’s reaction (and by her father’s) that the Beast is excessively hideous and frighting because it is described how she shakes in terror and almost faints. (As a side note it is worth noting that Beauty is also described abstractly as well. It is only said that she is beautiful, there are no specifics given to her looks.)

Chances are the storytellers were vague because it allowed their audience to use their imagination, and decide for themselves exactly what made Beauty beautiful and why Beast was so frightening.

This is one of the more widely recognized illustrations of Beauty and the Beast by Walter Crane.

Looking at older illustrated versions of the story, most illustrators went with a clothed creature who walked upright on hind legs. Most commonly the beast resembles: a boar, a lion, a goblin, a bear, or a wolf. Typically the beast wears nice clothes–the original Brothers Grimm version of the story mentions that the beast wears splendid clothes which might have started the fad–but beyond that the beast’s looks vary.

So why did I go with a beast who greatly resembles a black jaguar? For starters I wanted something that would be frightening and exotic to the people of Loire. Loire’s climate and ecosystem isn’t made for large cats. Wolves and bears yes, but jaguars? No. A black bear they would be familiar with, but a large cat they wouldn’t be, making Severin that much more frightening. Additionally, my reasons for picking a cat as a beast goes deeper than Loire’s geography. Before I even had Elle and Severin designed, long ago I decided if I did a retelling of Beauty and the Beast I wanted my beast to look like a cat. Large cats are a beautiful example of savage beauty. I didn’t want the beast to look repulsive, I wanted him to give off the feeling that he could rip a person’s throat out. He needed to be potentially dangers, but why? Because ugliness typically doesn’t make people swoon and tremble like Beauty did in the original story. (If you don’t get what I mean go to a zoo and sit by the tiger exhibit. Then picture yourself inside the cage with the tiger as you observe the tiger’s pretty teeth.)

Severin’s dangerous exterior highlighted the requirement that Elle would need to trust him in order to love him. As a pathological liar, trusting Severin with her life was a revelation. And, yes, I will admit it. I also made Severin a cat because then Elle could make an abundance of cat related inquiries and jokes.

Thanks for reading, Champions. I will see you all next year!

When I researched the origins of Beauty and the Beast for my book I found a lot of fairy tale commentaries. I know everyone is aware that the main theme of B&B is “Don’t judge a person by their appearance,�� but a lot of analysts take it deeper. I thought it might be fun to discuss some of the different opinions about the original fairy tale. (This is about the traditional story, not mine–although it’s similar enough some of the comparisons can still be made.)

Some people think the original versions (Written by Villeneuve and Beaumont, as you might recall from my previous post.) is actually a social commentary because the stories start in urban settings with Belle and her merchant father. Additionally Belle’s standing in the social ladder (She isn’t a princess like Sleeping Beauty or Snow White, nor is she  a lord’s daughter like Cinderella) shows a significant change in society’s social structure. The servants play key roles in the fairy tale when typically they are ignored or painted as background characters in other stories.

Others say the moral of the story actually lies with the Beast–and not just the obvious lesson that one should not be an odious brat to the elderly. The claim is that the secondary lesson of the story is men should not force themselves on women and should instead wait patiently and do their best to woo them, giving the girls the choice to say “yes�� or “no�� to marriage.

It has also been proposed that Beauty and the Beast is like most of the female/princess fairy tales (like Snow White, Cinderella, and Sleeping Beauty) and is about a girl’s journey to adulthood. When the tale opens Belle’s father is the most important person to her. When the Beast holds him prisoner Belle chooses to sacrifice herself on her father’s behalf. When she tells the Beast she loves him she has made a choice that he is now her most important person–signaling her exit of childhood and entrance to adulthood as she leaves her parents and desire to remain in her childhood home behind.

A rather cynical critic noted that poor Belle gets shuffled between “greedy and needy�� males (greedy and needy in that Belle’s father gets sick because he is parted from her for a number of months and the Beast almost dies because she’s gone over a week.) and the real moral of the story is that men are greedy pigs. As humorous as this claim is, I don’t think it’s quite on target–although I will admit the whole “dying because she’s gone�� thing is a bit melodramatic.

If you want a good laugh read s satire entry on Disney’s version of Beauty and the Beast. It is hysterical, citing Gaston as a conservationist and Belle as a schizophrenic. The author even notes that Gaston’s march against the beast’s castle was clearly a village intervention.

In a total change of gears, next week is CHRISTMAS so I’ll be taking a break from blogging for a few days so I can stuff myself with food enjoy the holiday season with my family. I will still be sending out extra chapters of B&B though, so don’t worry about emailing me over the holidays. Until then, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! (Er…day.)

I forgot to mention this on Monday, but I’ve been sending out the extra B&B short story for those who review B&B and contact me. (See the top post for details.) If you have attempted to contact me for this special offer and I have not responded in 24 hours please try again or post a comment to let me know. I try to respond quickly whenever I get an email, so if it’s been over a day and you haven’t gotten a reply it means I didn’t receive your message.

Oh, I have some good news for King Arthur and her Knights readers! I just started writing book three, Embittered, yesterday afternoon. I have been looking forward to writing this book since I started the series because in this “episode�� Britt meets and spends a significant portion of time with Lancelot.

I’m cutting this post short for that very reason (Embittered) because I greatly desire to make myself a cup of tea and dive into the complexities of Britt’s�� prejudices against Lancelot. I will see you on Friday, Champions. Enjoy the Christmas season!

For those of you who didn’t know, Myrrhlynn was able to get the final cover of Beauty and the Beast to me earlier this weekend, and here it is!

Myrrhlynn (pronounced like Merlin) is my cover artist who is a regular wizard with Photoshop. (Hence the nickname.) I apologize to those of you who suffered through viewing the previous place holder covers I whipped up. Myrrhlynn did another great job with this cover, I’m so glad she reads my books before I release them because she makes the images very meaningful. This cover depicts Elle in a dark cloak (Which is very fitting, as those who have finished the book will agree with me.) in a snowy forest. Chanceux Chateau–Aka the beast’s castle–is in the middle of a woods, making the setting in the cover perfect. Myrrhlynn chose to use a winter scene because about half to a third of the book takes place in winter. Snow is something of a plot device in certain parts of the story.

Keeping Myrrhlynn’s reasoning for the cover design in mind, today I thought I would reveal a bit of my writing/inspiration process. When I’m writing a story I try to get clear pictures in my head to make the places and characters feel more real. For Life Reader I mapped out the library building design and had a folder on my computer that had dozens of photos from incredible libraries. For King Arthur and Her Knights I viewed A LOT of armor photos, and looked at A LOT of castle blueprints. For beauty and the beast I collected a lot of different garden photos/art images–Each part of the gardens (like the rose garden, the walking hedge area, and the fountain in the flower garden) were inspired by different images. The same goes for the Chateau. I originally planned for Severin to have a castle, but as I looked for images and photos of french castles I learned more about chateaus and decided that was a more appropriate setting. I even collected photos of papillons, mirrors, and roses.

My point is that the pre-writing footwork isn’t just research, it’s also imagining. Granted I changed a lot as I went because I needed to mold the scenery for the sake of the story, but if I ever got stuck or bored I went back through and looked at my pictures for inspiration.

Thanks for reading Champions, and an extra big thank you to Myrrhlynn for another spectacular cover!