Tales of Goldstone Wood

J is for Jester

2012-01-31T06:00:00.001-05:00

But we're not talking about just any jester. The time has come for us to discuss the strange jester-slave in the house of Duke Shippening.

First, however, let me take a moment to remind my dear blog readers that this A-Z series contains many SPOILERS! So if you have not yet read Veiled Rose, you might want to steer clear of this particularly series so that key plot points and surprises aren't given away!

Okay, moving on . . .

Early on in his exile, Lionheart finds himself in Shippening, the Duchy just north of the isthmus separating Southlands from the Continent. The Duke of Shippening (whom some of you might remember as one of Una's suitors in Heartless) is a despicable man, the last work in classic barbarous villain-types. But it is in his household that Lionheart, newly robbed of what money he brought with him from Southlands, finds work.

And there, Lionheart meets the duke's jester-slave.

This Fool was a strange person . . . He was abnormally thin, too thin, really, to continue living. His jester's garb of brilliant colors sagged on his frame; yet his wrists, though tiny and more delicate than a woman's, were not emaciated and bony. He was an albino, whiter than snow, and rather beautiful in a way. (p. 237)

Lionheart's earliest memories of this jester date back from his childhood when Duke Shippening sent the strange man to the Eldest's House. There Lionheart saw him perform, and thus was born his lifelong ambition to become a jester himself.

Seeing the same jester now, many years later, Lionheart is less thrilled. He finds the man strange, otherworldly, and not a little mad. He is deformed as well: Each of his fingers boasts an extra joint. One day, when the jester wanders out to the kennel grounds, Lionheart approaches him and hears him with his eyes closed, speaking in a strange language.

"Els jine aesda-o soran!"

When he opens his eyes and looks at Lionheart, he switches to a language Lionheart recognizes, saying, "I blessed your name, O you who sit enthroned beyond the Highlands."

This creature, Lionheart begins to suspect, is not human.

For those of you familiar with fairy tales, Lionheart's suspicion must be swiftly confirmed by the jester-slave's reaction to iron. "If you will break my chains, I will grant you a wish," he tells Lionheart. When Lionheart protests that the jester has no chains, the strange man indicates an iron collar around his neck. It is not locked; in fact, there as an easy, workable latch, and anyone could easily remove it. And yet the poor Fool touches it only with pain. "Iron," he says, "Iron chains."

Faeries, you see, have an aversion to iron. In most ancient folklore, fairies avoid iron and harmed by even the smallest touch. And the jester-slave of Duke Shippening is no exception.

Lionheart is not so quickly convinced. Despite his recent experience with the Dragon, his mind is still fairly rooted in the realities he has always believed. But there is one who recognizes the truth of the jester-slave on sight: A merchant named Sunan.

This merchant, a guest of Duke Shippening, took one look at the jester and exclaimed, "Your lordship, who is this person?"

"My idiot, of course," says the duke.

Sunan is impressed. As he later on tells Lionheart, "He [Duke Shippening] is not the buffoon he projects to the world. And his alliances are powerful, though even I cannot guess at them."

Sunan knows that for Duke Shippening to command a Faerie slave, he must have very powerful connections indeed.

Even a slave, however, may rebel. And so does this jester when ordered to sing for the duke and his guests. He steps forward and sings a song of Fireword . . . the sword that can slay dragons.

Infuriated, the duke orders his men to beat the poor jester. But Lionheart, in a moment of pity, steps in to the rescue and, though he doesn't know what good it will do, snaps free the iron collar.

What happens next I cannot say, for I would hate to give away a good plot point, even with the spoiler warning at the top of the page!

I will say that I enjoyed very much inventing this character. He is the classic image of the weeping clown, a strange contrast to the idealized dream of a jester that Lionheart has in his head . . . and foreshadowing of the darkness to come when Lionheart at last achieves that dream. But the jester himself, while otherworldly, is not evil. He speaks warnings to Lionheart and, when his warnings prove useless, gives him hope of where he might find the answer to his great question.

"I need to know how to kill a dragon," Lionheart tells the jester.

"I must remain in your debt," the jester replies. "That knowledge I may not impart to you."

I believe a Faerie such as he will see to it that his debt is repaid. Maybe one day we will meet the liberated jester-slave again in the twisting paths of Goldstone Wood?

The Winner of the Unicorn Caption Name Drawing!

2012-01-29T16:41:00.001-05:00

Let me announce this winner by listing the caption along with the photograph:

It serves one master, I am sure-and lives forever to serve him/her. Perhaps it is a creature that one cannot see with mere mortal eyes. For all you know, it could be standing next to you, but blind as you are, you would never see it, never hear it - except for those whose eyes have been stripped from their scales by overcoming great adversity beyond one's imagination.

Congratulations, Eszter! The winner of this name drawing!

Please send your address to me: aestengl@gmail.com. I will be certain that you get your free copy of Moonblood as soon as it prints (and before it even hits the shelves!).

Great job to the rest of you. There was some pretty tremendous imagination at work here, and if I'd had to pick a favorite, it would have been impossible. Keep your eyes open for more opportunities in the near future, and thanks for your participation!

I is for Imaginary Friend

2012-01-26T06:00:00.001-05:00

For the most part, the allegory in Veiled Rose is not as emphasized as that in Heartless. However, at the time when I wrote Veiled Rose, the spiritual themes present were much more personal to me. So let's take a moment to analyze the spiritual twists of my second novel, starting with Rose Red's Imaginary Friend.

Rose Red has several strange influences on her life, several voices that speak to her and draw her various ways. The first of these is Beana, her goat, who is a voice of practicality and homey love to the poor, rejected girl. The second voice is that of the Mountain Monster in the cave. This is a far more seductive voice, whispering lies and half-truths, working guileful persuasions to manipulate the girl according to his will.

But the third voice is that of Rose Red's Imaginary Friend.

He was a prince, of course. Rose Red, being a romantic child at heart, would hardly imagine anything less. But he always appeared to her in the form of a wood thrush (p. 44).

She assumes he must be imaginary, however. Just as she assumes that she must imagine Beana's talking, and that she only dreams of the Mountain Monster. But all these various voices are so real and so strange, poor Rose Red must sometimes wonder if she is a little mad.

But they make a distinct three-way influence on my little heroine's life. Beana speaks to the practical, the earth-bound, the sensible side. The Monster speaks to the dangerous, the lurking evil that hides in the heart of every living creature. And the Imaginary Friend calls to the spiritual heart of her. These three influences, while three distinct characters on their own, also form for us a complete picture of the girl herself. Through these influences we see Rose Red in her entirety, simple country girl, dangerous goblin, and spiritual warrior.

But especially the voices of the Monster and the Prince grow confusing in her mind as time goes on and the dangers mount.

"You left me alone," Rose Red accuses the Prince at one point.
You are not alone, my child, he assures her.
"You're no better than the Dragon," she says. "You want me for yourself."
I want you for yourself, he replies. I want you to be everything you were intended to be before the worlds were formed. Everything this death-in-life has prevented you from becoming
"You sound like the Dragon. He calls me a princess."
I call you my child.

There is a distinct difference between the Monster and the Imaginary Friend. Both call her to walk certain paths, both urge her to live a certain life. But the Monster constantly demands something from her, he demands that kiss. While the Imaginary Friend, by contrast, gives her protection, first in the form of Beana (whom we later learn is one of the Prince's knights), and later in the Asha lantern, a gift of Faerie make that protects her in the dark places of the Netherworld.

We both want your love, your loyalty, the Prince tells her. And you cannot give it to both of us.

Nevertheless, Rose Red struggles to believe that the Prince can be anything more than imaginary. How often have I too found myself in unhappy circumstances and immediately leaped to the conclusion, "God doesn't care," or even, "God isn't there." It is the most human (and most sinful) reaction, and it doesn't matter in the moment how many times God may have proven Himself to me in the past. My human nature still rallies to fight the spiritual nature being nurtured in me.

The same is true for Rose Red. Even as she journeys through the Netherworld with the protection of her Imaginary Friend actively surrounding her, she still doubts. And her doubt leads her to the point of desperation and even despair.

The beauty of the story is the way in which the Prince doesn't abandon her, however. Even when she rejects him, basically throws his gift back in his face, he remains constant, true, and present, though she cannot sense him. Hers is a story that reflects the truth of:

"Even though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I will fear no evil." Psalm 23:4

In the end, the Prince whispers encouragement to Rose Red once more, and she knows at last that he is not imaginary.

"I will always protect you," he promises. "But that does not mean you will not know pain." (p. 339)

In the struggling times to come, we must hope that Rose Red will remember that moment, when she was rescued from the clutches of the Dragon in the very stronghold of his kingdom. We must hope that when the darkness descends once more, she will know the truth of the Prince's promise and there find comfort and strength. But it is a hard lesson for any of us to learn, a battle that must be fought again and again . . .

H is for Hill House

2012-01-24T06:00:00.003-05:00

Hill House, though abandoned, had remained unscathed during the years of the Dragon's occupation.

Thus begins Veiled Rose, book 2 in the Tales of Goldstone Wood. It is, I think, one of my favorite opening lines I've written.

As a comparison, would you like to read some others?

Two children, a brother and a sister, played down by the Old Bridge nearly every day, weather permitting.
(Heartless)

The unicorn stood before the gates of Palace Var.
(Moonblood)

Once upon a time, great Etalpalli, the City of Wings, was ruled by a Faerie queen.
(Starflower--most recent draft, subject to change)

Let me tell you a story.
(Book 5 draft--subject to change)

The Queen of Arpiar bore twin sons, but only one could inherit the kingdom, so she was faced with a choice.
(Goblin Son. Sorry, this one's unsold, so you don't get to read it. Maybe someday!)

First lines are important. Not as important as first chapters (sometimes, I think beginning writers are told to place too much emphasis on a killer first line), but important nonetheless. It sets the tone of everything to follow. Often (though not always!) it is the first thing the writer puts down on paper for the particular story in question, so it is equally important for that first sentence to catch the writer's attention as the reader's.

Veiled Rose was a difficult story for me to pin down. Second books often are. While this was not the second novel I had ever written (nor was Heartless the first), it was the first sequel. They say the strength of a writer can be told, not by their debut, but by their follow-up novel. Does Author In Question have more than one story to tell? Or will he/she merely rehash the old one in a new setting with different eye-colors for the leads? It's a question far more significant to the writer than to the reader. It's a question that every writer must answer by the all-important labor of writing that second book.

So, knowing only that I wanted to tell a story about Lionheart (a hero/villain from Heartless) and with the character of Rose Red alive in my brain, I set to work on penning a sequel.

The first one I wrote was deemed un-publishable by my editors.

Yikes! I have to tell you, that is not a response any writer likes to hear on their first-ever sequel! While I had honestly believed that I had penned a story alive with great characters and significant plot-threads, my editors, alas, saw only caricatures and rambling rabbit-trails.

I was devastated. I really thought I had something in that original draft of Veiled Rose. But, looking it over a month or two after receiving their comments, I had to admit that, yes, the plot really was rambling around and, due to that rambling, the characters were not coming across as vividly as I had believed.

However, I also saw potential. So after a certain amount of pleading, my editors did the unthinkable: They told me I could have a second stab at it.

Looking back on it now, I'm nothing short of amazed at the trust they demonstrated by going ahead with the project. After all, I had done nothing to merit that trust! But by God's good grace, they signed off on a hastily-scribbled synopsis and moved on ahead with production . . . leaving me with approximately two months to come up with something they could truly love and get behind.

Two months.

May I just mention that those were two months during which I was becoming engaged, moving all my worldly goods to my fiancé's house, and moving myself temporarily to Wisconsin to plan a wedding? While simultaneously trying to work two other jobs?

Yeah, definitely dropped the two other jobs during that time. The cats and I lived on starvation rations.

So it was that, with an un-publishable first draft under my belt, a handful of notes in my hand, and my head desperately whirling with thoughts of weddings and movings and all sorts of major distractions, I sat down at my desk and wrote that first line:

Hill House, though abandoned, had remained unscathed during the years of the Dragon's occupation.

I won't say it was magic. I won't say that suddenly all my writerly problems were solved.

I will say that God's grace poured down on me in that moment.

When I wrote that line, suddenly scenes, once elusive, took shape in my brain; scenes and characters and twists of a far more focused plot. I saw Hill House where the boy Leo spent an incredible, life-changing summer. I saw the mountain cave where an isolated goat girl was tormented by a manipulative monster.

A whole new story--scarcely recognizable from the original draft I'd written the year before--took shape in my mind. And a book that should never have been written poured from my heart.

I met the deadline by God's power alone. And my editors were pleased.

I came down ridiculously sick (Rubella. Bleh.) a few weeks later, breaking out in red rash all over my body with two weeks to go before I was supposed to walk down a certain aisle wearing a certain white dress. But the book was finished, the rash disappeared, and at the end of the craziest summer of my life, I found myself married and the author of a publishable sequel.

And it all started with that first line.

Hill House was a fun setting for me to invent. The name itself was inspired (as some of you may have guessed) from a famous novel I had read in college, the one-and-only horror story to have crossed my literary path: The Haunting of Hill House. An excellent book, but not one I'll recommend unless you really want to scare yourself out of some sleep.

Hill House in my story is significantly less haunted, though there are plenty of secrets and mysteries in the countryside surrounding it. It belongs to Leo's aunt, Dame Willowfair. When Leo and his cousin, Foxbrush, fought as boys, Foxbrush often planted a winning blow by declaring, "This is my mother's house, so you have to do what I say!" (p. 14). Nevertheless, it is at Hill House that young Leo finds more freedom than he has previously known in his life. Freedom . . . and a true friend.

I hope you found yourself swiftly pulled into the story of Leo and Rose Red when you read that opening line and the scene following. And I am more thankful than I can express that I had the opportunity to share it with you! Personally, I like it even better than Heartless.

And Now . . . UNICORNS!!!

2012-01-22T18:31:00.000-05:00

Briefly interrupting my A-Z series to give you an opportunity to win a copy of Moonblood, due to hit the shelves this coming April. Are you interested?

Moonblood is a story of many dangers, frightening monsters, and epic stakes. And one of the most fearsome characters of all is the unicorn:

Here's a nice picture of a scary unicorn! If you would like to have your name entered in the drawing to win a copy of Moonblood, write up a caption for this picture in the comments section below. Let your imagination fly! Tell me who this unicorn is, where it comes from, what it wants. Is this one good? Is it bad? Is it an indifferent elemental spirit? Be creative!

I'll look forward to seeing what you come up with. I will announce the winner of the name-drawing next Sunday!

Isn't it nice to have a non-Dragon-related contest for once?

G is for Goldstone

2012-01-19T06:00:00.001-05:00

Of course, the whole series is named Tales of Goldstone Wood, so Goldstone must be a remarkably important part of the series. And yet, we don't see a whole lot of Goldstone in Veiled Rose.

Or do we?

We know for certain of one important moment when Lionheart, having made the long trek to Parumvir, finds himself turned away at Oriana Palace's gates. Dejected and frustrated after all the long years of his exile, he makes his way down the hill and approaches the Wood.

The shade cast by the trees looked inviting. Any relief from this blistering heat would be welcome. Lionheart doubted any of the fabled monsters that purportedly lived within that shade would suddenly creep to this portion of the wood to devour one rejected jester. So he flopped down with his back against a tall, spreading maple at the edge of the forest . . . (p. 306).

Of course, he falls asleep.

Any one of you, dear readers, would be perfectly able to appraise Lionheart of his error here. I mean, seriously. Who takes a nap in a Faerie forest and doesn't expect to suffer consequences?

Consequences Lionheart certainly does suffer in the form of a terrifying dream. Some strange Other comes to him and sings into his mind in a dark voice.

You know the Princess Varvare . . . When you see her, you will send her to me. I will wait in the Wilderlands (p. 306-307).

This is, I believe, one of the strangest little interludes in the novel. What, by Lumé's crown, is this creature? And who, pray tell, is Princess Varvare?

So must Lionheart himself have wondered when he startled from uneasy sleep. After all the bizarre sights he had witnessed over the last several years, this one must have neared the top of his list for bizarreness. And he won't receive any answers concerning that mysterious vision through the course of Veiled Rose's storyline. He will have to wait for Moonblood . . .

Later on, Lionheart spends some time with Princess Una in Goldstone Wood, down by the old bridge. Nothing particularly untoward happens during that visit, and as far as Lionheart might surmise, the Wood isn't nearly as strange as reported.

But is this episode in Parumvir the only time we saw Goldstone Wood?

Maybe not.

Remember back the summer of Lionheart's eleventh year. Remember how he slipped out of the house late one rain-soaked afternoon and became lost on the mountain. He climbed all the way above the tree line, and when he entered the forest again . . . it wasn't the same forest.

The difference was subtle. One would hardly notice it at first. Leo was several paces in before he realized the smell was wrong. It didn't smell like rain. And though he could see the undergrowth spreading thick beneath the spreading trees, where he walked, there was none (p. 78).

The familiar forest of his summer surroundings has vanished, and in its place stands a malevolent Wood. A Wood that laughs at him and draws him down into its depths where he glimpses a phantom wolf and a ghostly woman with hair of fire. Terrified, Leo runs, and realizes that even the mountain is gone, given way to a flat forest.

But when he calls to Rose Red, she finds him and leads him out once more.

We wonder, following this strange adventure: Is Goldstone Wood perhaps much bigger than the stretch of forest seen in northern Parumvir?

Again, we might just have to wait to learn a little more on this subject come Moonblood.

F is for Foxbrush

2012-01-17T06:00:00.000-05:00

Here's the thing about Foxbrush . . . I don't think he is anywhere near as obnoxious as Lionheart thinks he is.

I'm not saying that he isn't obnoxious, at least to a certain extent. He's an egghead, not to mention a snob, and he wears oil in his hair.

But let me, here in this article, make a defense of young Master Foxbrush of Hill House.

He is, if you remember, Prince Lionheart's cousin, son of Dame Willowfair. It is to Willowfair's home, Hill House, up in the mountains, that Lionheart is sent to spend the summer of his eleventh year, thus necessitating a great deal of time spent with Foxbrush.

Foxbrush and Lionheart have almost nothing in common.

They are about the same age and, we learn later on, look remarkably alike. But that, we swiftly learn, is where their similarities end. When we meet Lionheart, he has just stuffed a bunch of chess pieces into a satchel, intending to use them as battling soldiers in a garden war. When we meet Foxbrush, he is reading a book called Economic Concerns of the Trade Merchant's Status. And they're both eleven.

See a difference there?

Foxbrush is also far more concerned with his own dignity and appearance than Lionheart. While Lionheart is perfectly willing to attempt fire eating in the stables or upside-down lute-playing, Foxbrush prefers to keep his clothes straight and his cuffs clean. While Lionheart does everything in his power to avoid any summer classes (to the extent of ambushing the postmaster's boy to intercept a letter from his mother), Foxbrush does long algebraic equations for the fun of it. While Lionheart likes to push the limits of authority, Foxbrush prefers to be every adult's favorite child.

Where Lionheart is willing to give the ostracized Rose Red a chance, Foxbrush thinks it far better advised to stick the general opinion surrounding the girl, to label her a monster, and to run.

And aside from all that, Foxbrush is such a perfect know-it-all!

Foxbrush's face emerged from behind the book, this time wearing his patient expression, the one that made Leo want to poke him in the eye (p. 15).

Yes, from Lionheart's (and indeed, from Rose Red's) perspective, Foxbrush may appear nothing less than loathsome.

But then again, isn't that just the point? We only see Foxbrush from Lionheart's, Rose Red's, and occasionally Daylily's perspectives. What might we see, however, were we to take some time looking at the world from Foxbrush's point of view?

A very different story, in fact.

Foxbrush is, in fact, quite a good boy. He follows the rules down to the letter, and is very hardworking, especially when it comes to his studies. Yes, he is remarkably concerned with his dignity, but is that really so dreadful a trait? And he's a bookworm.

Now, I certainly never would have the guts to tackle Economic Concerns of the Trade Merchant's Status as my summer read. But I can appreciate that young Foxbrush is doing what he can to better his mind. And while I couldn't do long algebraic equations to save my life anymore, there was a time (back in college algebra class) where I found them rather intriguing and even enjoyed myself while studying for that class. So Foxbrush and I do share a bit of sympathy.

Confession time: I'm also a know-it-all.

Maybe it comes from being a Big Sister. Or possibly just a former homeschooler. Might be genetics, I couldn't say for sure. But know-it-all-ness definitely runs through my veins, and I have a "patient expression" of my own that I'm sure drives more than a few of my acquaintances nuts.

But from my perspective, that expression is, in fact, quite patient. If somebody is doing or saying something I consider particularly idiotic, is it not better to resort to patience rather to angrily explode? So might Foxbrush argue when faced with the frustration that is Lionheart, his cousin, and his polar-opposite.

And seriously, readers, didn't you feel at least the tiniest bit sad for poor lovelorn Foxbrush when he watched Lionheart pursuing Daylily? Daylily who looks on him with about as much disdain (possibly more) as Lionheart does? Can he really help it if he's naturally such a bookworm and . . well, let's be honest . . . a nerd?

This, then, is my defense of Foxbrush. Hardly what you'd call a romantic hero, no. But not necessarily such a bad guy. It's hard to remember that when we see his harshness toward Rose Red, especially when, coming out of a dragon-poisoned slumber, Foxbrush catches up a poker and attacks the poor girl.

Despite this violence, however, I stand by what I say: I don't think Foxbrush is really such a bad guy. He's simply slumped into himself and his books and never had the opportunity (or taken the opportunity) to discover the man he might be.

E is for Eldest

2012-01-12T06:00:00.000-05:00

"Tell me what you want."
In the end, there is only one choice he can make.
"I will be Eldest of Southlands," he says.

The Eldest of Southlands has been a position of ruling since the most ancient times of Southlands' history. Through the course of Veiled Rose, we get a brief glimpse of one of the very first Eldests during Rose Red's journey through the Netherworld. A portrait hanging in the gallery of the Eldest's House depicts Panther Master, who ruled Southlands in the age of the Wolf Lord. It is a romanticized portrait of him, painted several hundred years after his lifetime. But it demonstrates just how old the office of Eldest is.

Back before the Eldests ruled a unified Southlands, the land was broken up into various warring tribes, ruled by tribal elders. But that was long ago, back when Southlands was cut off from the rest of the world, hidden behind its ringing mountain range, secluded and isolated. Since then, roads have been carved through the mountains, and Southlands began to trade with other nations and to assume more of the cultural norms of their more powerful nations. The surviving elders, now united under the Eldest, became barons instead.

But the Eldest, though called king as well, retained his ancient title.

At the time of Veiled Rose, Southlands is ruled by Eldest Hawkeye, Lionheart's father. At his right hand stands Queen Starflower, however, and one cannot help but wonder how much power she actually holds over the nation, possibly as much or more than her husband. For the last many generations, the Eldests have all been men. This (as we will learn in a later book) was not always the case. Long ago there were female Eldests, powerful sovereigns in their own right.

The concept of the Eldest was one I toyed with back in my sophomore year of college. For a creative writing class, I wrote a short story version of Starflower (now set to release in novel-length form this October), and invented the title "Eldest" for that story. Since then, the history and culture of Southlands has expanded significantly. But I maintained the office of Eldest over time. It's interesting to me seeing the kings of a far more contemporized Southlands called by the title of their ancient tribal rulers. It shows a proper spirit of connectedness to the past.

But will Prince Lionheart succeed in gaining his dream come true and step into that honored office, succeeding his father to the rule of Southlands? We will have to wait and see . . . .

D is for Daylily

2012-01-10T06:00:00.003-05:00

The prince raised a hand to salute the crowd, then reached behind and drew someone up beside him. She was radiant, smiling, dressed in elegant fur wraps against the winter cold. She seemed ready to burst with joy as she waved to the people and clung to her prince’s hand.

The picture we get of Lady Daylily of Middlecrescent is a strong one when we first glimpse her in Heartless. From Una's perspective, we see a beautiful, blushing bride, a young woman deeply in love and anticipating a blissful wedding.

A rather stark contrast to the Daylily of Veiled Rose.

Lady Daylily is a young woman of rare beauty (a redhead in a country of dark complexions) and intelligence. She is the only child of the powerful Baron of Middlecrescent, and is introduced to us as a willful child, a child full of potential. She is no more than two years old when her father begins to formulate his Plan: The plan to marry her off to the crown prince of Southlands.

Daylily, is not too keen on the notion when first informed. At age sixteen, her willfulness has cooled into a cool, calculating mind, but she is not without an opinion.

"You like the boy, don't you?" her father asks.
"He's a blessed idiot," she replies.

But when Lionheart (under duress) invites her to join him for a summer holiday in the mountains, Daylily, ever the dutiful daughter, agrees. She packs up her belongings and heads for Hill House with every intention of bewitching the Prince of Southlands and securing a fine match for the house of her father. And no one looking at her could possibly guess how little she liked the notion.

So we are introduced to the most distinctive part of Daylily's character. She, more than anyone else in this novel, wears veils, wears masks. One must wonder if she herself knows her true heart and mind. For when she meets Lionheart for the first time since he was ten and she was nine, her impression is of a gawky clown, and she dismisses any possibility of ever loving this man she must make her husband.

Yet, two weeks later, when she learns of his determination to find Rose Red once more, is that jealousy we see flashing from her?

And later on, when Daylily meets Rose Red and sees her covering veils for the first time, she begins to wonder. What secret is Rose Red hiding? Why does this goat girl with her country accent and awkward ways seem to enchant Prince Lionheart in a way that Daylily herself, with all her beauty and grace, cannot?

Why should she care?

We are never entirely certain what Daylily's feelings are toward Lionheart. Does she love him? Does she hate him? Does she want to marry him for himself or for his position? Her father has his own suspicions following his daughter's holiday at Hill House:

"Iubdan's beard," he exclaims, "you've gone and fallen in love with the boy."
To which Daylily, with a contemptuous look, replies, "You think you know me, Father. But you don't." (p. 169).

But perhaps the baron knows her better than she knows herself. She has so long hidden behind veils of decorum and flirtatious manipulation, perhaps she has lost the truth of herself.

It isn't until the Dragon comes to the lowlands, and his poisons invade Daylily's every waking sense, drawing forth the true dreams of her heart and slaying them before her eyes, that we begin to see the first honest glimpses of her true nature. This young woman is not the confident beauty we saw briefly in Heartless. Sitting at the very foot of the Dragon's bloodstained throne, she is broken, and in her brokenness, we catch a glimpse of real honesty.

"Do you think Leo cares for me?" She asks Rose Red. "I've watched my dreams die. Every one of them, burned to oblivion. I will never marry Prince Lionheart. I will never fulfill the expectations placed upon me. I wish--I wish you would go and let me die" (p. 333).

Even here, though, she holds onto her mask. Is she despairing because she knows she cannot have Leo's heart? Or is it simply the knowledge that she will never be queen? Does she even know? She is so lost in her own disguises that even here, at the point of death, she cannot find herself.

In the end, however, the Dragon's poisonous nightmares prove false. Daylily, returned to the mortal world, lives to see Lionheart return and ask for her hand in marriage. It isn't the Death of Dreams, but the Lady of Dreams Realized who commands Daylily's fate.

Lionheart left her. He did not see her sink to her knees. He did not see her weep. No one did. And when she finished, Daylily vowed it would never happen again.
She had her dream. And it was dust and ashes (369).

I have had several fans write and tell me that they thoroughly despised Lady Daylily, considering her the villainess of this novel. While I completely understand this sentiment, I must confess that I actually like this troubled young woman. I find her very real and relatable, tragic and pitiable, but not unsympathetic. Like Princess Una, Daylily is a slave to her own desires, but unlike Una, Daylily isn't even certain what those desires are. She has set herself up in the role of strong, unreachable beauty, and she desperately clings to that role, afraid of the vulnerability should she allowed herself to truly love or truly be loved. She is insanely jealous to the point of cruelty, and yet, one cannot blame her. She is everything Prince Lionheart should want in a woman, a brilliant match . . . and yet it is Rose Red he always turns to for friendship.

So yes, I like her. I found her fascinating to watch as she moved across the pages of this novel, taking on a life of her own and a real vitality that added to the story in ways I could never have predicted. And her story isn't finished yet . . . no indeed. There is plenty more to tell about the Lady of Middlecrescent.

C is for Cave

2012-01-05T06:00:00.003-05:00

There is a cave at the top of the mountain that no one can find save Rose Red and her talking goat. But when Rose Red, one summer day, leads Leo up the mountain to show him this secret place, Leo recognizes it immediately. The cave features in a legend told in Southlands: A legend of two brothers, one of whom kills the other.

"The Legend of Ashiun," Lionheart tells Rose Red, "is one of the oldest Faerie stories there is. I have it in a text back home. One of the engravings shows the older brother approaching the gateway to Death's Path. It was a cave that looks exactly like this . . ." (p.35).

A wolf's head, shaped in stone, uncarved. That's what the cave on the mountaintop looks like.

But it was still just a cave. Leo sagely stated as much.
The girl tilted her head at him. "Shows what you know" (p.34).

Rose Red, even at that young age, is aware that there is much more going on with this cave than Leo realizes. But it is Leo who first gives her some idea of how old this secret, nearly inaccessible place might be. He tells her the Legend of Ashiun, and how two Faerie brothers passed into this cave, the one searching for the Dragon himself, the other, seeking to save his brother. The lost brother was at last saved, but only after he had killed the other.

A sad fate for two famous warriors, servants of the Prince of Farthestshore. And a tale to which Leo knows no happy ending.

But the story continues for the cave at least. For though knowledge of its workings has passed into nothing more than myth, it is still what it has always been: A gateway between the mortal realm and the realm of Death.

Every night, when Rose Red dreams, a dark voice calls to her. And she rises up in spirit and, flowing through a dreamlike landscape, she climbs the mountain to the cave and enters in. There, in a pool of hot water, she sees the face of the Dragon, disguised in a man's form. There, every night, he tries to convince her to take his kiss.

What becomes of Rose Red at her continued refusal, you will have to read for yourself. For the moment, at least, we will consider only the cave.

Though at first the cave may seem to have a set location, we quickly learn that the gateway to Death's Realm is not so limited as all that. As the story progresses, and Rose Red leaves the mountain to serve as a chambermaid in the house of the Eldest, she incites the wrath of the Dragon. He comes down to the lowlands, takes the Eldest's House, and grafts it onto his own, otherworldly domain.

So it is that Rose Red finds herself standing in a doorway of the House that should lead to a simple servant's stairway. Instead:

It gaped like jaws, and there was no stairway spiraling up. Instead, a tunnel lay beyond the door, a tunnel leading down, down, into darkness. As Rose Red stood in that doorway, her hands clutching the frame, she thought she heard a trickle of water, a stream, deep inside.
It was the mouth of the mountain monster's cave. Here, in the Eldest's House. A stench like death rose up to meet her (p. 231).

No matter where she runs or how she tries to hide, she cannot escape the darkness pursuing her. She cannot flee the path she is called to walk.

But there is more to the story than destiny and doom. Though the Dragon may do all he can to convince her that this gateway and this darkness belongs solely to him, he is not so powerful as he portrays himself. Even in Death, hope may be found . . .

The development of the mountain monster's cave came from short stories set in this world that I wrote back in high school and early college. Originally, this cave played a key role in the Legend of Starflower, though, oddly enough, it doesn't feature even once in the novel Starflower coming out later this year. But it survived to have a role in Veiled Rose and a small but important part in Book 5, which I am currently drafting.

I always enjoy seeing which aspects of those original stories I invented so many years ago make it into my professional work. Rose Red herself and the whole story of Veiled Rose developed much, much later. But they move and breathe very naturally in the original world I was writing about at age 17!

So the moral of this story is: Never throw out any of your writing, no matter how simplistic or silly it might seem to you. Sometimes all it needs is to sit a few years, giving you time to experience the life you need to in order to tell the story the way it really wants to be told. But in the meanwhile, let it sit, let it marinate.

Oh, and work on other projects!

B is for Beana

2012-01-03T06:00:00.003-05:00

Pronounced like a bean, as in the legume.

I have heard people refer to her as Be-ANN-a. Which, yes, is significantly prettier. But not very Southlands and not very goat-like to me. So no, it's just Beana, a humbler name, feminized a little bit, but basically just the name of a little smelly goat.

Which is what Beana is. The goat and primary companion of my little heroine, Rose Red, who lives high in the mountains. But of course, this is a fairy tale, and even a goat may be much more than she seems.

Beana makes her appearance in the first chapter of Veiled Rose when poor Leo, desperate for adventure, goes monster-hunting in the forest of the mountain home where he's been sent to spend the summer. With her yellow eyes and little horns, Beana is surprising enough to give Leo a bit of a start when he bumps into her . . . but then, she's just a goat. Quite the disappointment for a boy expecting monsters!

Beana, however, might be more exciting than most monsters. We learn pretty quickly that she possesses the power of speech. Just why and how, we don't learn for quite some time. But we can see that she is devoted to Rose Red, and while, technically speaking, she belongs to the girl, we can't help but think that Rose Red belongs equally to her goat.

Beana is a dry soul, to say the least. Dry and a bit over-protective, perhaps. Rose Red is not allowed to go down the mountain near where other people live. Rose Red is not allowed to climb up to a certain cave above the tree line by herself. Rose Red is not allowed to run about without her veil, and she is certainly not to think about leaving the mountain! All this bossiness does get a little bit trying sometimes, and leads Rose Red at least once to stake up her goat and leave her in the yard while she sneaks off to play with Leo.

"Bah!" said the goat. She stamped and shook her little horns. "What's eating me, she asks? Cruel, cruel girl! Running off like that without so much as a by-your-leave, and leaving me tied to a stake all day! In the rain! Like some animal!"

"Beana, you are an animal."

But for all this bossiness, Beana is a loving goat. She truly cares about Rose Red and wants what's best for her. She tries to convince her that he friendship with Leo will lead to hurt . . . and, sadly, is proven right again and again.

Beana does not realize, however, the dreadful dreams under which Rose Red is suffering. When Leo offers for Rose Red to join him off the mountain, coming to the lowlands to be his servant so that he can watch out for her, Beana is dreadfully against it! She is terrified about something down in the lowlands . . . something she wants to keep Rose Red away from at all costs. But she doesn't understand how equally desperate Rose Red is to escape the Dream that comes to her most nights and plagues her, asking her for a kiss.

It isn't until the Dragon, furious at Rose Red for leaving the mountain, comes flaming down into Southlands, killing as he goes, that Beana begins to realize what Rose Red has been enduring all these years.

But Beana is not afraid of a dragon. No, as stated above, we have to remember that in fairy tales there can be much more to even a goat than first meets the eyes! When Rose Red is imprisoned within the walls of the Eldest's House, held captive by the Dragon himself, Beana, all alone, storms the gates, demanding the vast monster let her through!

"Don't try these silly games with me!" she shouts at him. "I'm not afraid of you."

"I know you're not," the Dragon replies. "What you have failed to consider is whether or not I am afraid of you."

How can a Dragon be afraid of a simple little goat, talking or otherwise? This Dragon who destroys where he wishes, laying waste to nations, devouring warriors, decimating even into the depths of mortal dreams. In Heartless, we saw him defeat and even kill three of the brave Knights of Farthestshore without even a trace of effort. How could he possibly fear little no-nonsense Beana?

And yet, the Dragon, speaking from the safety of behind the gates, says to her: "I do not forget an offense such as yours so quickly, Lady of Aiven. Thief. Trespasser."

So. More to the story than we perhaps realized. The Dragon and Beana have a history of some kind. A history which the Dragon remembers with at least a certain measure of trepidation. So Beana was once known as the Lady of Aiven. She once stole something of value from the Dragon, and trespassed within the borders of his dreadful Netherworld domain to do so.

And, as she reminds him even now: "You know your own doom. I spoke it myself all those centuries ago."

Centuries? Beana is one old goat!

But who might she have been, this strange companion and guardian of little Rose Red? We don't get a great many hints within the context of Veiled Rose. We only receive one good piece of information, and that is in the context of an enigmatic song sung by an enslaved Faerie whom Lionheart meets on his many travels. Part of the song goes like this:

She stood upon the shadowed hill
And downward turned her glist'ning eye.
She looked on Aiven great,
Upon the closed gate,
But saw the Final Water flow,
The darkened water flow.

I saw her watching from the hill,
Fair Aiven, burnt so red and sore
Before the bleeding sun.
So strong the spells were spun!
The clouds could never stem the blood,
Not catch nor stem the blood.

And in the end, the song concludes with this sad stanza:

The trees alone stand on the hill,
For she has passed along her.
The veil is o'er my eyes:
Who speaks of truth or lies?
For Fireword has gone from Aiven,
Borne away from Aiven.

Fireword, as you may remember, is the name of the sword belonging to the Prince of Farthestshore; the same sword which this woman--presumably the Lady of Aiven--carries away in this song.

Yes, indeed, there is much more to this goat than meets the eye. Which means, in turn, that there must be much more to this humble goat-girl whom Beana guards so jealously! But just what that might be, you will have to wait and find out . . .

Note: Beana was named for the only goat I have ever known personally. My wonderful pal, Manda, and her family up in Wisconsin had a veritable farm full of various animals, including one crooked-nosed goat named Sabrina, called Bina for short. (And when I say crooked-nosed, I do mean crooked-nosed . . . her nose had been broken, and was set at a distinct angle.) She was cute and quirky, and when I started writing the initial draft of Veiled Rose, Bina's name immediately jumped to mind for the goat character. Respelled Beana, it seemed a perfect fit to me!

When I first began writing the goat into the story, I actually didn't intend for her to be the Faerie knight that she turned into. She was just going to be Rose Red's goat. But before I'd even gotten through a chapter, Beana opened her mouth and started talking. "Oh," I said to myself and gave a little shrug. "So it talks! I wonder why . . . ?"

I love it when my own books take me by surprise like that.

A is for Ay-Ibunda

2012-01-01T13:00:00.005-05:00

Here we are, at the start of a New Year and a new blog series from yours truly!

2012 is a busy writerly year for me, including the release of Moonblood fast approaching. To celebrate that upcoming release, I am going to write a new A-Z blog series for Veiled Rose. Those of you who have already read the novel can use these for a refresher in preparation for Moonblood. Those of you who haven't . . . well, you might want to be careful! There will be spoilers throughout this blog series as I write up articles on various aspects of this novel. You have been warned.

So to begin, let's look a little more closely at that mysterious local find within the pages of Veiled Rose . . . the temple, Ay-Ibunda.

"Go to Lunthea Maly and seek out the Hidden Temple of Ay-Ibunda. The oracle there . . . she will tell you what you wish to know."

Thus says the otherworldly sylph to Prince Lionheart when Lionheart asks him how to defeat the dreadful Dragon. The sylph himself does not know the answer to Lionheart's question, but he knows who might and where she might be found.

The problem is, Ay-Ibunda is the hidden temple. There is only one mortal man alive who knows where it may be found, and that man is the Emperor of Noorhitam, a vast, multi-cultural empire in the Far East. And how can Lionheart, a disguised and exiled prince, hope to speak to an emperor?

That is all part of the story you must read for yourself. But let us look a little more closely at what can be known about Ay-Ibunda.

There are three primary people groups who make up what is now known as the Noorhitam Empire: The ruling Pen-Chan people, who are recent conquerors (as in, within the last five hundred years); the Kitar, who are the old conquerors (since conquered by the Pen-Chan); and the Chhaya, the original people of that land who ruled it long, long ago.

The Chhaya were, for the most part, a nomadic people, but they did establish a handful of fine cities. The first and foremost of these was Lunthea Maly, the City of Fragrant Flowers, built in a sheltered cove on the coast. There, this peaceful people fished and traded with those who passed that way, and developed a fine and elegant culture.

But then, the Kitar swept through (this was all many hundreds of years before Veiled Rose). They conquered the Chhaya and took over their city. Using this city as their capital, they established a powerful kingdom and called Noorhitam. And, somewhere in the midst of Lunthea Maly, they built a temple: Ay-Ibunda.

Since then, many rulers have come and gone from Noorhitam. The Pen-Chan, after a long and brutal struggle, finally bested the Kitar on the battlefields, and placed one of their own emperors upon the throne. To this emperor was passed down many strange secrets about the realm he know mastered. And one of those secrets was the location of Ay-Ibunda.

Ay-Ibunda is no normal temple built upon mortal soil, as we swiftly discover in our reading of Veiled Rose. By the time this novel takes place, the boy emperor of Noorhitam has only just come into his rule, and his uncle, a Kitar noble by the name of Sepertin-Naga, would like to keep some of the secrets of Noorhitam from him. Little does Sepertin-Naga realize how closely linked to his city the boy emperor is. Though he has never seen the Hidden Temple before, the young emperor has no trouble navigating the strange, twisted streets of his city and, at last, coming to gates.

"There was no lurch. There was no flash of light. There was no discernable sensation. One moment they were walking up the market square, listening to the shouts of fruit sellers and fishmongers; the sun was swiftly climbing and shining hot upon the streets, baking those who moved about their lives.
The next, the world was shrouded in mist, and they stood at the gates of the temple" (p. 289).

Ay-Ibunda, it would seem, was not built upon mortal soil. It was, perhaps, built somewhere in the Between . . . a dark region of the Between.

When we pass through those gates and see what Lionheart and the young emperor see, we begin to learn what sort of temple this is. It is no holy place, devoted to pure worship of a Creator. Instead, it is a place of darkness, strange chants, and secret ways. There are statues in the courtyard, statues that are simultaneously man and woman, or dragon and bird. They are beautiful but grotesque, frightening.

This is a temple devoted to the service of Death and Life-in-Death, the Dragon and his Sister.

Those Kitar conquerors brought more than new rule to the old Chhayan kingdom. They brought the secret worship of dreadful things.

And yet it is here that Lionheart is told he might discover the secret to the Dragon's demise.

I had a wonderful time inventing the Noorhitam Empire and the variety of cultures that make up its life and dynamic. Just before writing this novel, I had the opportunity to travel to Okinawa and there visited Shuri Castle and many beautiful gardens and jungles. This inspired bits and pieces of Noorhitam, though it has since morphed into something altogether its own. I would like to think that some of the flavor of the beautiful Asian nations permeates this part of Lionheart's travels. It was one of my favorites to write; I hope you enjoyed reading it yourself!

And I also hope to one day tell you much more about Noorhitam, the hidden temple, and the brave boy emperor. But we shall see . . . we shall have to wait and see . . . .

Bookish Resolutions for 2012

2011-12-31T06:00:00.006-05:00

I have decided to post publicly my reading resolutions for 2012. If I post them, there is a far greater chance that I will actively pursue them. So root for my success, dear readers, root for my success!

This list of ten volumes are all things that I feel I should have read by now as a former English Major. But somehow I have managed to get by all this time without cracking the cover of any them. This year, it is time to amend that fault. Here are my goals for this upcoming year of literature:

1. Les Miserables--Victor Hugo
2. For Whom the Bell Tolls--Earnest Hemingway
3. Anthony and Cleopatra--William Shakespeare
4. Tess of the d'Urbervilles--Thomas Hardy
5. The Princess Casamassima--Henry James
6. A Brave New World--Aldous Huxley
7. The Grapes of Wrath--John Steinbeck
8. Catcher in the Rye--J.D. Salinger
9. The Color Purple--Alice Walker
10. The Scarlet Letter--Nathaniel Hawthorne

Only ten, I know. But I am on an every-nine-month deadline, with novels due in both April and December, so I'll be doing good to fit these in! Some of them are quite large too.

I have read books by many of these authors before. I've read Victor Hugo's Hunchback of Notre Dame; Earnest Hemingway's Farewell to Arms; lots of Shakespeare; Far from Madding Crowd by Thomas Hardy; Portrait of a Lady by Henry James; Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men; Hawthorne's The Marble Fawn, and a dozen or so of his short stories. But the above listed novels have managed to slip through the literary cracks. I am quite determined to fill in those cracks now as best I can!

This last year has been a year of primarily rereads for me anyway. Which has been great! Many of the books I have reread I haven't looked at in years, so it felt like coming to a whole new story. But it's good to keep building on your literary fortifications.

My writing goals are much simpler: Finish the draft of Book 5 (currently under the working title Dragonwitch, which is subject to change) and the draft of Book 6 (working title, Shadow Hand). I will also be polishing up Starflower for an autumn release and beginning to gather notes and ideas for future projects as yet unrevealed. So lots of busy, but not quite so concrete of goals . . .

Tell me, do you have any reading/writing goals you are setting for 2012? Or any creative goals, for that matter, photography, painting, music, etc. What are you going to do to ensure that you reach them?

Tuesday's Dragon

2011-12-27T06:00:00.001-05:00

Maleficent

Also known as: The Mistress of All Evil

I debated for a while who should receive the honor of final dragon in my Tuesday's Dragon series. But when it came right down to it, I really couldn't see myself writing about any dragon other than the magnificent Maleficent, antagonist of my favorite Disney film, Sleeping Beauty.

There simply is no more majestic or terrible dragon.

Yes, I know she's a film dragon and not a literary dragon, so perhaps she shouldn't qualify. But, as you will see in my article, she has all the pathos and significance of any dragon from Tiamat on!

Maleficent of the film is an evil fairy, the character molded from the evil fairy in the classic Little Briar Rose tale by the Brothers Grimm. Maleficent undergoes significantly more development than the original fairy. Her powers are greater, and she sequesters herself away from all others fairies in a remote castle full of goblins and dark things. She carries a staff with a glowing orb, teleports herself in clouds of black smoke, and rides upon lightning bolts. She is a fabulous villainous, a potent evil if there ever was one.

She is also a shape-shifter. She can take on the form of a hypnotic green light, like a will-o'-the-wisp, leading the unwary astray. But most famously, she assumes the guise of a truly enormous, monstrous, black dragon.

One thing I love about Maleficent is that she is entirely without comedic campiness, unlike most other Disney villains. The story of Sleeping Beauty has more than enough light comedy from the perspective of the three good fairies who work so hard to guard and protect lovely Briar Rose. But Maleficent is so evil, so completely given over to her own power and pride, that she no longer possesses a sense of humor--save in that terrible moment when she reveals her dragon nature to the brave Prince Philip. The look of pure horror on his face delights and amuses her and she laughs a terrible, heat-filled laugh.

Her complete possession of dignity and majesty is part of what makes Maleficent a truly magnificent villain beyond all other villains. Her anger is like an elemental storm, full of lightning and sick green fire. And in her final furnace-fueled fury, she explodes into the form of a dragon, and we cannot help but wonder if this, this is her true shape after all!

Painting for the film done by the amazing Eyvind Earle

One of the things I appreciate the most about Maleficent, and the Sleeping Beauty movie, for that matter, is this lack of silliness or camp in the development of the character. The makers of this film and story understood and respected children, I feel. As I child, I loved and enjoyed the funny moments of the good fairies trying to sew and cook and clean (to varied degrees of success) without magic. But when the time came for the prince to fight the dragon . . . no. This was not a time for laughs. This was a serious business, good vs. evil. This was epic and this was important. And beautiful. A great and terrible contrast was being played before my eyes, and any silliness involving Maleficent earlier on would have taken away from the intensity of what was being communicated.

The towering power of evil. The green, venomous fire and smoke. All pitted against one small prince, armed only with a shining sword.

Do you readers of Heartless see an influence on my own work? An influence that began from the time I was a tiny child, watching this terrible scene of evil's power vanquished by a lone, brave man armed only with the "shield of faith" and the "sword of truth." There was strong allegory at work in this film which, yes, movie-makers today would roll their eyes at. But I didn't as a child, and I don't now.

Artist Eric Cleworth animated the dragon for the film. He based her movements off of a rattlesnake, sinuous muscles moving a powerful body over a rocky terrain. The enormous, awe-inspiring sound of her flaming was taken from an actual US Army flamethrower. She is the only truly awful dragon seen in an animated Disney feature. (The witch-queen/dragon in the film Enchanted only want to be as amazing as Maleficent).

She has been brought to dreadful life via the Disney World animatron Maleficent:

Now that must be a sight worth seeing in person! Have any of you seen this? I wish I could!

What I have seen in the dragon lurking beneath Sleeping Beauty's castle at Eurodisney, France. I don't know if this dragon was meant to be Maleficent or not. But it was, far and away my favorite part of the whole Eurodisney experience!

Smoke billowed from her nostrils. She turned her head and roared. She watched you with evil eyes, and you could see the bones of her victims beneath her snout. And, worst of all, the great chain binding her to the stone was broken. She hadn't noticed it yet . . . but how long? How long?

Loved it.

Maleficent has also been featured in the famous video game series, Kingdom Hearts, in which she plays a major antagonist's role.

A live-action film titled Maleficent staring Angelina Jolie is rumored to be in the works. This will be a retelling of Sleeping Beauty from the perspective of Maleficent.

Not sure how I feel about this. A sympathetic Mistress of All Evil is simply not as wonderful or interesting to me. But I'll be curious to see it in any case. Tim Burton was rumored to be set as the director, but it sounds like he's going to back out, leaving a directorial slot available to some hopeful.

Most recently, Maleficent has found her way into TV land via the ABC series, Once Upon a Time. Kristin Bauer plays her:

This does not impress me.

Where is the dignity or majesty? In the short clip I saw a few weeks ago of Maleficent's big scene, the actress played up the camp, and the script was as sad as it could be. The TV show might be wonderful (I hear people telling me all the time that I would love it), but if they can't handle their villains with appropriate dignity, what can they handle? I mean, she has a small black unicorn for a pet rather than her terrify trademark crow! I mean, really . . . a small black unicorn?

Yet again, I must ask: How are the mighty fallen?

This in no way damages the awe of the original Maleficent for me, though. She will live on in my imagination as the pinnacle of dragonishness and the great inspiration of all who aspire to write sinister dragons into their fairy tales!

Maleficent on a scale of 1-10

Evil: 10
The Mistress of All Evil rates a perfect score here, of course.

Scariness: 10
Terrifying! Marvelously so! She frightened me to the point of flee-to-grandma's-arms panic when I was little, and I have loved her for it ever since.

Poison: 8
Look at the green in her flames. How can that be anything but poisonous?

Hoard: 0
She lives in a dark and dreary castle in the farthest remote of remote farthests. No sign of any treasure or even a tapestry or two to lighten the mood.

Cleverness: 7
Can't give her much more than that. I mean, her vengeful curse on the princess was pretty diabolic. And she did carefully plan to kidnap Prince Philip to prevent him from thwarting her scheme . . . but, being the dreadful villainess that she is, she let villainy get in the way of practicality. Wanting to draw out Philip's torment, she didn't kill him right away, but merely locked him in her dungeon.

Let that be a lesson to all you villains out there. Kill them right away. Otherwise, they will escape and slay you. Trust me. It will happen.

Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, we have come to the final Tuesday of 2011, and this is the last of my Tuesday's Dragons. It's been a lot of fun! I've enjoyed all the research and hope you have enjoyed reading what I've learned. Happy reading and dragon-slaying!

2011-12-24T09:28:00.000-05:00

Tuesday's Dragon

2011-12-20T06:00:00.001-05:00

Kazul

Also known as: The King of the Dragons

Kazul, a dragon of the Mountains of Morning, is quite a remarkable lady. Especially considering that she is the king of the dragons.

To most of us, this might seem a bit unusual. But to the dragons who live in the world of The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, as created by Patricia C. Wrede, it makes perfect sense for a lady dragon to be king. After all, the office of King is just that . . . an office.

And besides, no one wants to be Queen. That's a boring job!

Kazul is remarkable for other reasons besides her rule. She's a doting grandmother, of one thing. She's also a fair and open-minded sort, willing to give folks a chance to prove themselves. For instance, when a discontented princess named Cimorene traveled all the way from her kingdom of Linderwall to the Mountains of Morning and asked to become a Dragon's Princess, some of the other dragons wanted to eat her. After all, no proper princess would come offering herself to a dragon! And if she's not proper, what good is she?

But Kazul decides to give Cimorene a try. After all, Cimorene is a decent baker and scholar.

"I like cherries jubilee," says Kazul, when the other dragons question her decision. "And I like the look of her. Besides, the Latin scrolls in my library need cataloguing, and if I can't find someone who knows a little of the language, I'll have to do it myself" (p. 19).

Yet another way in which Kazul is unusual. Who ever heard of a dragon with a library? Oh, she has a proper hoard too, complete with magic rings and suits of armor and even geni-filled bottles (don’t open those!). But a library?

A literary dragon is exactly suited to Princess Cimorene's tastes . . . and Cimorene's cherries jubilee is suited to Kazul's. So they make a fine pair, the two of them and eventually become friends.

Not that Cimorene ever becomes too comfortable with Kazul. After all, even a friendly dragon is a dragon and must be treated with utmost respect! And there's always the fire to be considered. A wise princess must take every precaution, including researching an anti-fire spell to protect herself . . .

It turns out to be a good thing Cimorene took the time for this spell. Dragon-sneezes are, well, nothing to sneeze at! And when Kazul gets a whiff of some deadly dragonsbane--just a whiff, mind you--she is plummeted into a violent illness, complete with sneezing attack, that would have incinerated Cimorene in a moment without that protective spell!

That sickness is almost enough to setback Kazul's future as the king of the dragons. For just when she falls down ill, word comes that the current king has been poisoned with a heavy dose of dragonsbane in his coffee. A new king must be selected! And Kazul, sick or not, is determined not to miss out on her chance.

But I hate to give away plot points. So you should read Dealing with Dragons and the subsequent Enchanted Forest Chronicles to learn more about Kazul on the dragon who live in the Mountains of Morning.

Kazul has found her way into several fun artistic interpretations. The Enchanted Forest Chronicles have been popular enough to merit several reprintings, which mean lots of covers! This one is my personal favorite (and the cover on the copy I own):

You may recognize the style of the brilliant Trina Schart Hyman, my all-time favorite illustrator (of St. George and the Dragon fame). I love her intelligent, possibly a little grumpy, but benevolent depiction of Kazul with her claws curved lovingly around a serving of chocolate mousse (Cimorene's other cookerly talent).

Here's a more recent cover:

I don't think that's meant to be Kazul. Looks a little too perplexed. Maybe it's Woraug, the evil dragon with designs on the throne who becomes Cimorene's nemesis?

And the image seen above but in cover format:

And here's a cover for a four-in-one anthology:

That one has my vote for the scariest depiction of Kazul.

Dealing with Dragons has even been translated into Hebrew! Check out this fun cover:

I also found this interest fan-art of Kazul and Cimorene:

A little video-game-y, but fun!Kazul on a scale of 1-10

Evil: 0
Kazul is a dignified, but good dragon. Treat her with proper respect, and you'll be fine.

Scariness: 7
Not scary to her friends . . . but dishonest wizards and foolish heroes had better watch out!

Poison: 0
Not poisonous. But pretty hot fire!

Hoard: 10
She gets a 10 because not only does she have all the classic jewels and gems (rooms of them!), she also has a library. Enough said.

Cleverness: 9
Kazul is a very clever and intelligent king.

The Winner!

2011-12-16T16:51:00.001-05:00

All right, ladies and gentlemen! The winner for our Name Needed contest is ready to be announced.

For those of you who need updating, the contest was to select a name for a dog character in my upcoming novel, Starflower. The name needed to be Southlands-appropriate and fit for a female hunting/fighting dog, a scruffy gray lurcher.

This is a lurcher, in case you were wondering.

There were so many to choose from, it was almost impossible to pick! But, after great deliberation, the dog has been named. She will be called:

Frostbite.

Huzzah!

This means that Anonymous is our winner. So if Anonymous would please email me, I will be certain he/she receives his/her winnings (a signed copy of Veiled Rose.)

Thank you so much for your participation, everyone! For those of you interested, here were some of my favorite runner-ups:

Firefiend--by Amber

Harefoot--by Jenny

Fearfang--by al

Hemlock--by Elizabeth (Elizabeth Anne! The reverse me!). Also suggested by taylor2taylor74

Stormcloud--by Clara

Ashdust--by Clara

Tala--by Clara and Sister (but it isn't a Southlands sounding name, so I couldn't use it.)

Lyrk--by Maren (again, not a Southlands name, but a great name for a lurcher!)

But there were so many great ones to choose from! Thank you so much for your participation, and keep your eyes open for more name-drawings and contests!

Tuesday's Dragon

2011-12-13T06:00:00.006-05:00

Smaug

Also called: Trâgu, The Golden, The Magnificent, The Dragon of Erebor

You knew you would see him on this list eventually. Possibly the most famous dragon of modern literature, Smaug is an essential component of any dragon listing. And with good reason!

Smaug was heavily inspired by the famous dragon in the Beowulf epic and, indeed, so closely resembles that dragon that one could easily call Smaug his "literary descendant." Unlike Beowulf's nemesis, however, Smaug is far more sentient and, therefore, more evil. But just like that dragon, Smaug keeps a vast and fabulous hoard, a pile of gold on which he slumbers amid greedy dreams. And make no mistake, just like his predecessor, Smaug knows every last piece of his hoard!

There are four known dragons who inhabit Tolkien's elaborate and brilliant world of Middle Earth: Ancalagon, Glaurung, Scatha, and Smaug. In the later part of the Third Age of Middle Earth, Smaug is the greatest dragon yet living, possibly the greatest that ever was. With violence and fire, he took the land of Erebor for his own, driving out the dwarves who dwelled in the Lonely Mountain, and stealing all their treasures. He ruled that land and terrorized the inhabitants for two whole centuries before we finally meet him for the first time in Tolkien's first novel of Middle Earth, The Hobbit.

In that book, we see an echo of the Beowulf themes that must have been an enormous influence on Tolkien. We meet his protagonist, the hobbit of the title, Mr. Bilbo Baggins, assuming the role of the runaway slave from the original epic. But that thief slipped by accident down to the dragon's hoard; Bilbo goes on purpose, a reconnaissance mission for the dwarves with whom he is traveling.

Thirteen dwarves, as led by Thorin Oakenshield, solicited Bilbo to be their personal burglar, a useful asset, they feel, on a quest to reclaim their treasures from Smaug's hold. So Bilbo journeyed with them to the Lonely Mountain and is sent at last down to the treasure hold. There he beholds the hoard of Smaug for the first time:

"Bilbo had heard tell and sing of dragon-hoards before, but the splendour, the lust, the glory of such treasure had never yet come home to him. His heart was filled and pierced with enchantment and with the desire of dwarves" (The Hobbit, Chapter XII).

Many artists have painted and sketched their own personal visions of Smaug's treasure trove. My personal favorite is the picture at the top of this page by Greg and Tim Hildebrant. It was in the hardbound copy of The Hobbit that my parents owned when I was growing up. But two of the other most famous versions have been John Howe's:

And Alan Lee's

Definitely starting to feel some dragonish glory now!

Surely with all that treasure to keep track of, the dragon couldn't possibly miss a single cup? Or so, Bilbo reasoned. But no sooner had Bilbo escaped with his purloined goods, and hardly had the dwarves had a chance to admire his achievement, when Smaug awoke.

"He stirred and stretched forth his neck to sniff. Then he missed the cup!
Thieves! Fire! Murder! Such a thing had not happened since he came to the Mountain! His passes description . . ." (The Hobbit, Chapter XII).

So, just like Beowulf's dragon, Smaug comes bellowing forth in full fury. His hide is armor plated and impervious to all harm save on his tender underbelly. But even this has been so crusted over with gems after centuries of sleeping on treasure, that no mere sword can hope to pierce it.

This is Smaug's boast to Bilbo when, after the fire of his first fury passes, he returns to his lair and there meets the hobbit thief. He boasts and even proves his words by rolling over so that Bilbo may see the glorious armor he has accumulated over the years. Only Bilbo, though his eyes are dazzled by the glitter, sees something else as well: A bare patch in the hollow of Smaug's left breast.

And when Bilbo later communicates this message to the dwarves, he is overheard by thrush.

(Hmmm . . . A thrush! Now isn't that just the oddest literary connection? It's been so long since I read The Hobbit, I didn't actually remember that part!)

Anyway, as it turns out, there was a day when the Men of the Lake-town had been able to speak the language of birds. And there is one who still does: Bard the Bowman. When the time comes, and Smaug, in a rage once more, is burning and destroying Lake Town once and for all, the wise thrush comes to him and whispers: "The moon is rising. Look for the hollow of the left breast as he flies and turns above you!"

So Bard shoots his final arrow, a black arrow. And it sinks home.

Thus ends the flaming, furious, dreadful life of Smaug the Magnificent, greatest dragon of the Third Age.

And one can't help but think it was just in time for more reasons than one! Not just for the people of Lake Town or the dwarves. After all, it wasn't long after these events that Sauron rose up from Mordor and summoned all the dark powers to his thrall. What might he have done with an evil as mighty and deadly as Smaug if given half the chance? Interesting speculation . . .

Smaug has found his way into numerous depictions. Many great artists have illustrated him, not to mention the famous illustration rendered by Tolkien himself:

Yes, we have seen Smaug more magnificent. But there really is nothing quite like seeing an author's own interpretation, is there?

Smaug has made his way into Movie World via this 1977 filmadaption:

What a charmer he was back then, eh? Kind of like a scale-covered cat.

Smaug even made it into Video Game World in 2003.

Complete with Video Game hoard.

But, of course, everyone is the most excited about the upcoming 2012 feature film of The Hobbit.

Though I can't help but wonder if we'll see any of Smaug in this part 1 movie? We might not get much Smaug-ishness until 2013 when part 2 releases. In the meanwhile, we do know that Smaug will be voiced by the marvelous Benedict Cumberbatch.

If you have seen him in his Sherlock Holmes role you know he has the perfect voice for a dragon! I'm excited. You should be as well.

Smaug on a scale of 1-10

Evil: 9
Smaug is a satisfyingly and wonderfully evil villain!

Scariness: 10
I can only remember one dragon who ever scared me more! (More on that one later.)

Poison: ?
I can find no references to Smaug being poisonous.

Hoard: 10
A sublime hoard that includes mithril silver and the dwarves' brilliant Arkenstone.

Cleverness: 4
I'm not giving him more than 4. After all, he did roll over and show Bilbo his weakness. Seriously, Smaug? After centuries of people wanting to slay you? You've gotten to comfortable in your scariness.

Name Needed . . .

2011-12-09T14:42:00.001-05:00

Hey, guess what. This is my 100th post!

I think we need to celebrate. Who's up for a game?

In my upcoming novel, Starflower (2012), my heroine has a dog. A rough-and-tumble lurcher female, whose former owner wanted her to be a hunting/fighting brute of a dog. She looks something like this:

Problem is, she needs a name. And not a pretty name like Starflower might give her . . . no, she needs a name appropriate for the vicious fighting dog she was meant to be. Want to help me out?

Please feel free to list as many Southlands-sounding names as you like in the comments section! (Southlander names are like Lionheart, Foxbrush, Catspaw, Hawkeye, Starflower, etc.) I will pick the one I like best for the name of Starflower's lurcher, and whoever it was who gave me the winning name will win a free, autographed copy of Veiled Rose.

So go ahead! Begin listing! The winner will be announced a week from today and the prize sent out soon thereafter. Have fun!

Manuscript Graveyard

2011-12-07T11:01:00.002-05:00

Here I sit on this (surprisingly warm) December morning, heaving a sigh because the (altogether-dreadful-and-never-to-be-seen-by-living-eyes) rough draft of Book 5 is now complete. Redrafting awaits, yes! But for a moment, I may breathe.

And as I breathe, I can't help but reflect on other novels begun in the last few years that have not made it so far even as the (altogether-dreadful-and-never-to-be-seen-by-living-eyes) rough draft. My list of abandoned projects is not as extensive as it might be . . . I'm a pretty stubborn cookie when I set my mind to it. But there are definitely a handful of pieces that I have begun and discarded. Some with very good reason! Some . . . well, there might be potential in them. Someday. Maybe.

Thought you might like a peek into my own personal Manuscript Graveyard:

1. Phantom Dancers--A seriously boring, rather full-of-itself, ghost-story retelling of "The Twelve Dancing Princesses." If I ever touch it again, it will need some major revamping!

2. The Mute Princess--A comedic novella about a princess who has a brilliant gift for eloquence . . . except when she meets the love of her life. Then the curse of her evil fairy godmother descends, and the princess falls completely tongue-tied and can't speak a word! Kind of cute. Might pull it out again someday, just for exercise.

3. Cinderbelle--A retelling of "Cinderella" and "Beauty and the Beast" starring one of the bad-tempered older sisters who is sent to the Beast instead of the sweet and beautiful youngest. I mean, who wants to keep that around the house anyway? Let the Beast have her! Heheh, I rather like this one. I might have to finish it one day.

4. The Song of Love--A comedy novella about an art thief in post-WWII Venice, loosely parodying The Maltese Falcon. When was I ever that ambitious? Can't imagine how that one got started!

5. Troll Hunt --A short story based on my own childhood in England during the Gulf War. This one's actually finished, but needs to be illustrated. Don't know when I'll ever get around to that, though!

6. The Song-Holder--A convoluted retelling of "The Snow Queen" and "The Marsh King's Daughter." Meant to be co-written with my sister-friend, Erin. Too mixed-up to support itself, however. But some interesting ideas down at the core. Might shake it out again one day.

So there you have my Graveyard of Forgotten Stories. Even professionals go chasing up rabbit-trails sometimes. Often. More often than I like to admit . . .

But please do note, for every forgotten story, I have finished at least two others. Don't abandon your work unless you see absolutely no alternative! And never throw it out entirely, because there might be a gem hidden in the midst of all that nonsense that will glint with inspiration for you one day . . .

Tuesday's Dragon

2011-12-06T08:18:00.002-05:00

Eustace

Also known by his surname: Scrubb

Here with this most distinctive dragon in children's literature, we find ourselves coming back to the themes begun with Fáfnir in old Norse Mythology: The dragon transformed by greed.

Eustace did not begin life as a dragon. In fact, he was far worse, a snotty little boy with a superior attitude toward everyone and everything. One of those people who can Never Be Wrong, and are, therefore, nearly impossible to like.

And ultimately, the only hope for someone who can Never Be Wrong is to be placed in a position where there is no possible way to argue that he is right. That's exactly what happened to poor (but completely had-it-coming) Eustace Scrubb.

On a fantastic voyage across the oceans of Narnia (as recounted in C.S. Lewis's marvelous Voyage of the Dawn Treader) Eustace and his fellow sea-voyagers come to an island that is, unbeknownst to them, inhabited by a dragon. A dying dragon, as it turns out. Eustace, who wandered away from the rest of his company, comes upon the poor beast even as it is drawing its last, struggling breaths.

He also comes upon its treasure trove.

From the way Mr. Lewis describes this dragon's hoard, it would have rated a solid 9 if not a perfect 10. Coins, rings, bracelets, diamonds, diadems, gems, cups, plates, everything a proper dragon hoard should contain, in fact. Eustace swiftly succumbs to the charm of it, slides a diamond-studded bracelet up his arm and over his elbow, and eventually falls asleep dreaming greedy thoughts of gold and wealth.

Similar, in fact, to the dreams Fáfnir the dwarf must have dreamt when he coveted the red gold of Loki. And like Fáfnir, Eustace woke from those dreams to find that his outer form had given way to the truer form that waited just beneath. The form of a ghastly, gnarled, enormous, fire-breathing dragon.

It came as something of a shock.

And sometimes a good shock is exactly what a pest like Eustace Scrubb needs. Utterly humiliated and unable to hide his shame (it's hard to hide thirty-odd foot of gnarly, scale-covered self after all), he is obliged to return to his company and let them discover for themselves what he has become.

Oddly enough, now that he is unable to feel any superiority to anyone present, Eustace finds himself for the first time in his life being liked . . . and liking in return. He undergoes a change of heart and searches out ways to help those he once despised. Though he can no longer communicate with speech, he communicates through actions, proving himself able to learn from his humiliation.

But none of this can save him from his dragon form. As Eustace begins to discover, no good deed will ever counterbalance the greed and wickedness that brought him to his hideous state. The only hope for one such as Eustace Scrubb is undeserved grace.

Which is extended to him by the great lion, Aslan.

In one of the most compelling scenes I can remember reading, Eustace tells how Aslan led him in his dragon form to a beautiful well, a fountain of bubbling, cleansing water. Before he could enter it, he must shed his dragon hide. But no matter how many times Eustace scrapes off his horrible scales, shedding layer after layer, there is always a new, terrible layer to be found underneath. He will never be clean enough to enter that well!

So Aslan must do it for him. Rending him deeply with his terrible claws, Aslan tears the dragon hide from his flesh. And Eustace by now is so desperate that, though it pains him terribly, he is ready to undergo the transformation. What a blessed relief when he is finally free of those hideous scales, when he enters the water and finds himself once more in the form of the boy he was . . .

Or rather, the boy he was always meant to be, humbler, able to think of others, with the potential for real heroism budding in his heart.

Eustace's subsequent adventures post-dragon you will have to read for yourselves in The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, however.

There are several great depictions of Eustace. The most famous, of course, is the wonderful Pauline Baynes's original illustions such as the portrait of the sobbing dragon above. David Wiesner (of Tuesday fame) also did a fun cover for one Dawn Treader edition:

Yet another weepy dragon. I wonder if dragon tears boil?

Eustace has been portrayed on film twice. This first was this BBC production of Dawn Treader:

I grew up watching this one and always rather liked the dragon puppet. For a movie without CGI advantages, this one did a fine job with convincing dragons and a darn freaky sea serpent!

Earlier this year, the new Voyage of the Dawn Treader was released with plenty of fancy special effects and plenty more changes to C.S. Lewis's original storyline and intended meaning. Not my favorite movie. But the dragon Eustace was beautiful!

See similarities to David Weisner's image? Makes me happy.

Eustace on a scale of 1-10

Evil: 8

Definitely redeemable, but Eustace is a pretty sinful, messed up young fellow when his story begins. His own greed brings on his transformation, and only grace can bring him back.

Scariness: 4

His friends and comrades were frightened of him at first (and he was more than a little frightened of himself!), but Eustace is ultimately not a very terrifying dragon.

Poison: 0

I don't think this dragon is poisonous. Couldn't find any references to it anyway . . .

Hoard: 9

At least a 9! While Eustace doesn't keep any of this hoard in the long run, for a little while, he is a very wealthy dragon.

Cleverness: 3

Eustace tends to think himself a bit cleverer than he actually is. But he's not clever enough to avoid dragon treasure and dragon dreams!

Tuesday's Dragon

2011-11-29T06:00:00.002-05:00

Errol

Also known as: Goodboy Bindle Featherstone of Quirm

Errol is . . . not a Noble Dragon.

In the wide, weird, wonderful world of Terry Pratchett's Discworld, there are many dragons. Alas, most of them are rather pathetic excuses for dragonhood, and poor, dear, teary-eyed Errol is the most pathetic of all. Where the Noble Dragons are arrogant, powerful, graceful, winged monsters of majesty, Errol is a bit of a mess.

But a very sweet mess, as you can see!

When we first meet him in my personal favorite Discworld novel, Guards! Guards!, Errol belongs to Lady Sybil Ramkin, founder of the Sunshine Sanctuary for Sick Dragons. Dragons, you see, are a popular pet among the upper crust in Ank-Morkpork city. Not the big Noble Dragons, of course. No, we're talking about their humbler cousins, the Swamp Dragons. Which, alas, are almost permanently sick. You see, they have the ability to rearrange their internal organs so that they can attempt to digest whatever food they take it into their heads to eat (basically, anything that's combustible). But it's a difficult biological process, and as a result, the poor dragons find themselves constantly ill.

Which means a lot of the poor things get abandoned when their owners find them too difficult to care for. So, they end up living coming to the Sunshine Sanctuary where their diets can be properly monitored. And thus was the case for poor Errol.

That is Goodboy Bindle Featherstone of Quirm that was. But fancy breeding and registration has not spared the unfortunate fellow from those ailments common to dragons. If anything, he was worse off than the rest of them because he was no ordinary swamp dragon! In fact, Lady Sybil, had never met a dragon quite like him . . . and declared him "a complete whittle," truth be told!

This did not stop Captain Vimes of the night watch from taking an interest. He brought him home to the guard house. For once in his life, poor Errol finds himself loved and accepted by those outcasts and misfits of society, the night watchmen!

But there is more to Errol than meets the eye! When need arises and a Noble Dragon threatens his beloved Lady Sibyl (virgin sacrifices are, after all, to be expected when a Noble Dragon comes to town), he reorganizes his own digestive system . . . into a supersonic jet engine!

Can you spot Errol in this picture?

But, if you want to see how that battle goes down, you'll have to read the brilliance that is Guards! Guards! for yourself.

In the meanwhile, be mindful those poor unfortunate creatures abandoned to sanctuaries and shelters who might just need a little love in their lives to make all the difference! Mightn't there be a shelter out there someplace where your Errol awaits?

Errol on a scale of 1-10

Evil: 0

No wickedness to be found in this sweet little mess of dragonishness.

Scariness: 3

Other than the fear that he might a) eat your fire irons or b) spontaneously combust, he's not a particularly frightening little guy.

Poison: 4

Well, he can be a bit . . . smelly.

Hoard: 0

No hoard. This poor fellow doesn't have much of anything save a need for understanding, a scratch under the chin and . . . well, maybe some more fire irons.

Cleverness: 5

Errol isn't exactly what you'd call a brain . . . but he may just have what it takes to save the day!

From the Kitchen of Anne Elisabeth: My First Cookie Invention

2011-11-23T14:19:00.002-05:00

I love to bake. Especially now that I am married and I can guarantee that whatever I bake will be eaten by a willing husband. But I usually depend upon a recipe.

I have gotten more daring with cooking. I'll vary up and experiment all over the place when it comes to meats and sauces, casseroles and stir fries, spices etc. But baking I have always considered a much more precise art (which it is), and I cling to my recipes for guidance (and after the fiasco of the lemon poppy seed cake as seen here, you may understand why).

This last weekend, however, I invented my very first cookie recipe:

An Anne Elisabeth Original:

Butter-crumble Almond Chocolate Drizzle Cookies

These were a valiant attempt to recreate my husband's childhood. Or at least, a small part of it. He told me that he particularly enjoyed Sunday school at one of the churches he attended as a little'un because they always served Almond-Chocolate Shortbread. I thought, "Hey, I can do that!"

Turns out I couldn't. These don't taste anything like what Rohan remembers from childhood Sunday school. Nevertheless, he has declared them "Inspired!" and they are his new favorite.

I thought, since this is the first time I have invented my own cookie recipe, that I would share it with all of you! If you make, let me know how it turns out.

Here are the ingredients you'll need:

3 cups flour
6 tablespoons sugar
3/4 teaspoon salt
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons butter (room temperature)
3 egg yolks
6 tablespoons ice water
1 1/2 cups sliced almonds

For chocolate glaze:
16 oz bittersweet or semi-sweet chocolate
2-3 Tablespoons butter

Preheat oven to 400 degrees

First, combine your flour, sugar, and salt. With two forks, cut in your room temperature butter until it looks like corn meal. (Basically, I cut until it looks about right, and then cut a little bit more! It's important that all of your flour is coated with butter so that it will bind properly.)

When you've finished cutting in the butter, mix your egg yolks and ice water in a small bowl. Add to your flour/butter mixture and stir until dough forms a ball.

Press your dough into your bar pan. (I don't actually own a bar pan, so I put wax paper on a cookie sheet and used that instead.) Press flat. (Too get it as flat as I wanted, I put a sheet of wax paper over the dough and rolled it out with my rolling pin. Didn't flour the pin or the dough because you don't want to add more flour at this point.)

Once your dough is nice and flat, press the almonds down on the surface until they stick properly.

Bake at 400 degrees for approximately 20-25 minutes until dough is golden brown around the edges. (I have a gas oven which heats up very fast, so keep that in mind. If you have electric, you might need to let it go a bit longer.) Let cool completely.

While cookies are cooling, melt chocolate and 2-3 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan, stirring until smooth. Start with two tablespoons. If your chocolate starts to look "grainy," add the third. (I used 8 oz. Ghirardelli bittersweet baking bars, but realized it wasn't enough and added another 8 oz. of semi-sweet chocolate morsels I had on hand. The result was very yummy.)

Pour chocolate over cooled cookie bars. Let set for at least fifteen minutes before cutting. Chocolate will still be VERY gooey at this point! Wait until chocolate hardens before serving. I cut them into little squares and then refrigerated them for a couple of hours.

I liked them particularly well cold, but they are awesome at room temperature as well. Too rich while the chocolate is still hot, I thought.

Another variation I plan to try will be substituting craisins for the almonds and maybe adding a dash of cranberry juice to the chocolate mix!

Let me know if you end up trying this recipe! This is our current favorite cookie recipe, and I hope you'll enjoy it too!

Name-Drawing Giveaway!

2011-11-23T06:00:00.003-05:00

Heya, friends! If you would like to enter a name-drawing giveaway for free copies of either HEARTLESS or VEILED ROSE, head on over to my facebook page, like it, and leave a comment under the "WHOO HOO! 401 likes!" status.

It means a chance at more free books, so you know . . . why not? :)

Tuesday's Dragon

2011-11-22T06:00:00.007-05:00

Tiamat

Also called Thalattē in Hellanistic Babylonian,
or "Ummu-Hubur who formed all things"

Tiamat is not actually known for certain to be a dragon as such. She considered a "chaos monster" or a primordial goddess of the ocean from ancient Babylonian texts. The Enûma Eliš, the Babylonian epic of creation, lists her as the mother of gods and goddesses as well as the mother of dragons and serpents. But she's not necessarily a dragon herself, though later Babylonian art depicts her as such:

She is most famous for her battle with another Babylonian god, Marduk. Marduk, the god of thunderbolts, determined to establish himself as the head of the pantheon of gods, killed Kingu, whom Tiamat had put in charge of the Tablets of Destiny. Infuriated, Tiamat, who had loved Kingu, went to battle against Marduk. And she lost.

Marduk took the dead body of Tiamat, and from her ribs, crafted heavens, turned her weeping eyes into the source of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and spread her tail across the sky to form the Milky Way:

It is interesting to note that this story of Marduk and Tiamat is not one that deals with ethics or morality. Neither Marduk nor Tiamat is considered good or bad. Though Tiamat is an agent of destruction, she is not considered wicked. As the author of British Dragons says:

"The issues involved (in the Enûma Eliš) are not ethical, but cosmic; these myths are concerned with the creative process that shaped the universe and restored order after a threat of chaos, or of grave deficiences in the natural order" (p. 24).

The story of Tiamat and Marduk has had a profound effect on dragon lore. We see it reiterated in many dragon-slayer tales, particularly the "storm god fighting the sea serpent" aspect. Tiamat, as a goddess of primordial oceans, is often depicted as a sea serpent. The tale is retold in the form of Thor (another thunder god) battling Jörmungandr (another sea serpent). Also Zeus (yet another thunder god) battling Typhon (a many-headed dragon) is similar to the tale.

So whether or not Tiamat was intended from the beginning to be a dragon, she has effected dragon mythology throughout the ages!

Sadly, that effect did make its way into cartoon world:

Oh dear, yes. She has been immortalized forever as a many-headed dragon queen pitted against six spunky teens and pre-teens in the Dungeons andDragons TV series.

("I liked that one!" my husband says. "We are no longer speaking," says I.)

Poor Tiamat. How are the mighty fallen!

Tiamat on a scale of 1-10

Evil: 0

She is a dreadfully scary primordial goddess of chaos and destruction . . . but, as stated above, the old Babylonian myth is not concerned with morality, but considers its deities to be above such things. Ultimately, she is no more evil than a hurricane.

Scariness: 10

Um, she's a primordial goddess of chaos and destruction! She doesn't have to be evil to be terrifying!

Poison: 1

I can find no reference to her being poisonous.

Hoard: 8

She possesses the Tablets of Destiny, which I think count as a pretty decent hoard, all in all.

Cleverness: 5

Will give her a flat five here. I'm not going to say she isn't clever. But hurricanes aren't respected for their cleverness, and neither is she.

Do You Believe It?

2011-11-19T13:04:00.000-05:00

One of the biggest pitfalls I think every fiction author faces is that of writing what they don't truly believe.

I see it happen all the time. I struggle with the issue regularly. After all, we are just trying to tell a "fun story," aren't we? We certainly don't want to come across as moralizing or legalistic! I know I don't, and I know I struggle with falling into that trap.

But there's a flip-side to every coin. How often, for the sake of "just telling a story," do we find ourselves writing things that don't reflect our actual beliefs?

Here's a classic example of what I'm talking about: How often do we say (both in secular and Christian fiction) that it's the inside of a person that counts, not the superficial exterior? Pretty often. But how often is that what we actually write?

While there are exceptions to the rule, almost every romance novel I have read depends on the extraordinary hotness of the heroine and the incredible muscle-tone of the hero to create the romance. To create the tension. Even to define the character. (Can he even be a hero without toned abs? Can she be an interesting character without a stunning figure and violet eyes?) We write them as super-models, movie stars, demigods, and yet we expect people to believe that it's the inside that counts.

Oh, I've heard people say that "attraction matters" and that's why they spend so much time describing the hotness of their various characters in order to create a "realistic" romance. Now, I'm not going to argue that point! Absolutely, attraction matters. I think my husband is adorable, and I enjoy his good looks!

But is he a movie star? Does he look like (Insert Your Favorite Romantic Lead: here)? He is very attractive to me, but was it body-builder muscle tone that drew me to him?

Nope.

It all comes down to writing what you believe. And what most people believe is that attraction is important, but that attraction can stem from a lot of sources and is highly subjective. After all, plain people are just as capable of passionate romance as the superstars! Don't you think it's possible a man might be romantic even if he has skinny shoulders and is a bit soft around the middle? Can't a girl with crooked teeth and a bit of weight on her be someone's dream come true?

I don't write romance books, so this has not been an issue for me at this point. (The heroine of my last novel is a goblin. So yeah. We kind of have to love who she is and not what she looks like.) But I have found myself running into other situations where I could write what I don't believe for the sake of easy storytelling.

Best personal example: I once outlined and planned out in detail a novel in which the main character earned forgiveness by a noble act. I planned to have this character, who was pretty messed up, atone for his own sin.

But I don't believe that.

I don’t believe that a good deed cancels out a bad deed. I don't believe in karma, and I don't believe that if we do something wrong, we can then do something right to make it all better. Some wounds we inflict cannot be fixed, no matter how many "good deeds" we might do to make up for it. Forgiveness is not something that can be earned by our merit. Forgiveness is something that must be offered without our deserving it. Forgiveness is an act of ultimate grace.

So I scrapped that story idea, and wrote what I truly believed. I wrote a story in which the hero strives to fix his mistakes but realizes that he cannot. It was a harder story to write. And it was a true story that reflected what I believed.

But I could have just as easily written my fun adventure story, let my hero earn his own forgiveness, and said, "Hey! I'm not trying to mean anything here! It's just a fun story!"

The problem is, stories often take on a message or meaning whether you intend it or not. And we Christian writers have to be SO careful that when we are writing, we are reflecting what we hold true. That we are bathing every project in prayer, seeking God's glory and not our own. Yes, we are just telling a "good story," and it is meant for entertainment. But as soon as you take the label "Christian," your writing comes under a much closer scrutiny.

Let me finish by saying that I don't believe every book written by a Christian needs to have a "good Christian moral" tagged onto it. I think every book needs to have something to say, or it's only so much babble. But what you are trying to say doesn't need to be summarized in a little moral message, and not every little twist of your tale needs to have some deep, allegorical significance.

At its heart, however, a novel must reveal what an author believes, be that author Christian or non-Christian. Fiction is about entertainment, yes. But it's also about communication. What are you communicating through your work?

Tuesday's Dragon

2011-11-15T06:00:00.001-05:00

Vollys

Vollys is the creation of notable children's book writer Gail Carson Levine, a character in her second novel, The Two Princesses of Bamarre.

I decided that after quite a lot of the Older Dragons it was time to write up a blog on one of my favorite dragons of recent history! Vollys is, in my opinion, one of the best dragons ever to find her way into children's lit.

The funny thing about this story is that Ms. Levine never intended to write it. After the success of her first novel, Ella Enchanted (a Newberry Honor Book), she intended to write a retelling of the classic fairy tale, "The Twelve Dancing Princesses." But as she worked on it, she number of princesses dwindled away until she was left with Meryl and Addie, two very different young woman, devoted sisters, whom she pitted against an entire kingdom of monsters. Not quite the same as magical dances!

Vollys is Levine's most successful literary creation. She is a raiding, pillaging dragon, completely sentient and completely convinced of her own right to take whatever she wants whenever she wants it. In a way, she's a very human character. A human broken down to the rawest, most depraved essentials. A human that is only just human, and therefore the most monstrous kind.

The princesses' nursemaid lists for them some of the many atrocities Vollys has committed upon the people of Bamarre: "farms burned, livestock eaten on the spot, families carried off, knights roasted in their armor, castles plundered. And all the humans--dead, or never seen again." (p. 56)

There were at least three known dragons living in Bamarre at the time of this story: Kih, Jafe, and Vollys. Princess Addie (for reasons I will not give away here) finds herself obliged to seek out one of these three and convince her to tell her a great secret. Before she goes, Rhys the sorcerer explains to her about dragons:

"They are solitary. They dislike other dragons and hate all other cratures. Yet they're lonely and they enjoy conversation. It's why they spin out the deaths of their human victims. If you're captured, you must keep the dragon entertained." (p. 123)

That's right. Vollys the dragon likes to capture herself a likely-looking human upon occasion. She tries to "make them last," rather like a good chocolate truffle that you don't chew but simply let melt slowly in your mouth. But her attention is difficult to keep, and when she grows bored . . . that's it!

"Believe me," says Vollys, "when I say I want you to stay a long time with me. I am sad when I am alone. My unhappiest hours are after I have destroyed a guest. I have never forgotten any of you. I have remembered my first guest for over seven hundred years. He had a short life breathing the air, but a long life in memory." (p. 153)

Vollys is deliciously creepy!

But she's also . . . interesting. Beautiful. Enchanting.

I do hate to give a good story away, however! So let me leave you there and encourage you to pick up The Two Princesses of Bamarre, my favorite of Gail Carson Levine's delightful children's books.

I hear rumor that there's a movie being made. But it is no more than a breath of rumor.

Vollys on a scale of 1-10

Evil: 9

She is dreadfully evil. But she also does have a small inkling of goodness in that she feels genuine fondness for her guests. It's a fondness prey to her ever-changing whims, however . . .

Scariness: 9

I found her quite delightfully scary!

Poison: 1

I don't remember and can find no reference to her being poisonous. She certainly has a hot, searing fire, though!

Hoard: 9

Vollys is described with quite a magnificent hoard full of many delightful curiosities. Seriously, do yourself a favor and read about her!

Cleverness: 9

Wickedly clever. Fascinating, in fact!

Tuesday's Dragon

2011-11-08T06:00:00.007-05:00

Falkor

Original name: Fuchur, der Glücksdrache
Also called: Falcor

Falkor is the loveable luckdragon from Michael Ende's strange and beautiful The Neverending Story. He is a denizen of Phantásien (or Fantastica as it is translated into English), and he is just as strange and beautiful as the story in which he dwells.

We first meet Falkor in dire straits, caught in the web of a monstrous spider who is creepy enough to give the famous Shelob a run for her money: Ygramul the Many.

But Falkor is not giving up without a fight! He battles the giant spider . . . but whenever he bites her, his jaws close upon a void! It is then we discover that Ygramul is no mere giant spider . . . she is made up of innumerable blue insects that swarm to take different shapes, including that of the giant spider! Thus her title, "the Many."

Falkor is no ordinary dragon himself. As the author says, "Luckdragons are among the strangest animals in Fantastica. They bear no resemblance to ordinary dragons, which look like loathsome snakes and live in deep caves, diffusing a noxious stench and guarding some real or imaginary treasure" (p. 64).

Falkor, instead, is a creature of "air, warmth, and pure joy." He has a luxuriant mane, a pearly, pink-and-white body, vicious fangs, and ruby-red eyes. He flies without the need of wings, because he is light as a cloud! They swim through the air, and they sing in golden, bell-like voices, a song that makes the hearer glad to remember to their dying day.

A more lion-like take on the luckdragon.

Surely, there was never a more beautiful or unusual dragon than Falkor. He is also a brave fighter and a loyal companion! When the brave Atreyu helps him to escape Ygramul, he joins the boy warrior on his quest to save the Childlike Empress. And, because he's a luckdragon, he's handy to have around! Though Ygramul fills both him and Atreyu with her dreadful poison--a poison that will kill them within an hour--Falkor is unconcerned.

"Every poison has its antidote," he says. "Everything will turn out all right. You'll see." (p. 72)

And, of course, he's right. But I won't give that part away!

Hmmm, not quite as accurate. Where are his scales?

Falkor is one of the best-remembered and best-loved aspects of Michael Ende's novel. And if you haven't read the book, possibly you have seen Falkor as he is represented in movies (there called Falcor). I was never a huge fan of the movie myself, but how can you not like the enormous, scale-covered, huggable puppy that is Falcor?

"I dare you not to hug me!"

Definitely not a figure of magnificence and pure joy as Ende envisioned . . . but huggable, right?

Falkor on a scale of 1-10

Evil: 0

Not evil at all! He's really quite loveable, whether in puppy or non-puppy form.

Scariness: 6

In the book, he's quite fierce when you first meet him. And I imagine his enemies would find him frightening! (But not in puppy form.)

Poison: 0

Luckdragons jut aren't poisonous.

Hoard: 0

Nope, no hoard for this fellow!

Cleverness: 7

He's clever enough, but gets by mostly on luck, which doesn't take a great deal of cleverness.

RT Book Reviews Best Inspirational Novels 2011 Nominees

2011-11-04T09:05:00.001-04:00

I just found out that Veiled Rose is a nominee for the Romantic Times Best Inspirational Novel 2011! Here's the announcement (as stolen from my friend Jill Eileen Smith's blog).

Dear Book Lovers,

2011 WAS ANOTHER great year for readers. So many fabulous books were published! We reviewed more than 250 books in each issue of RT BOOK REVIEWS—more than 3,000 titles for the entire year. Our ace reviewers and have scoured 12 months’ worth of reviews to compile the best of the best for the annual RT BOOK Career Achievement and Reviewers’ Choice Awards. For the Reviewers’ Choice nominees, our star team selected only those novels that deeply resonated with them. The Career Achievement nominees have continuously crafted superior books throughout their careers in each category.

Winners will be announced in the May issue of RT, just prior to our 29th annual Booklovers Convention in Chicago, April 11 -April 15, 2012. Winners will be honored at a ceremony on April 13, and awards will be presented to the authors in attendance. We hope you will be there to celebrate with your favorites!

So excited! Many thanks to those responsible for Veiled Rose's nomination!

For those of you curious, I'm including a list of all the Inspirational nominees according to category.

Inspirational Romance

THE GIRL IN THE GATEHOUSE
Julie Klassen
Bethany House (Jan.)

THE CROSSING
Gilbert Morris
Barbour (Feb.)

BATHSHEBA
Jill Eileen Smith
Revell (Mar.)

THIEF
Linda Windsor
David C. Cook (Jun.)

THE INCONVENIENT MARRIAGE OF CHARLOTTE BECK
Kathleen Y’Barbo
WaterBrook (Jun.)

Inspirational Novel

ANGEL SISTER
Ann H. Gabhart
Revell (Feb.)

MINE IS THE NIGHT
Liz Curtis Higgs
WaterBrook (Mar.)

WHO IS MY SHELTER?
Neta Jackson
Thomas Nelson (Mar.)

THERE YOU’LL FIND ME
Jenny B. Jones
Thomas Nelson (Oct.)

VEILED ROSE
Anne Elisabeth Stengl
Bethany House (Jul.)

THE HEART OF MEMORY
Alison Strobel
Zondervan (Mar.)

REMEMBERING CHRISTMAS
Dan Walsh
Revell (Sep.)

Inspirational Mystery/Suspense/Thriller

BLOOD COVENANT
Lisa Harris
Zondervan (Mar.)

THE BAKER’S WIFE
Erin Healy
Thomas Nelson (Oct.)

DIAGNOSIS DEATH
Richard Mabry
Abingdon (Apr.)

BOOK OF DAYS
James Rubart
B&H (Jan.)

Halloween Dress Up

2011-11-02T08:31:00.000-04:00

So we dressed up for Halloween. Can you guess who we were?

This one kind of clinches it:

Did you guess?

So I am not generally a huge fan of mustaches. But I'm not going to lie, my husband looked adorable in that Clark Cable-style mustache! I'm such an old-movie buff, and he looked like some dashing combination of Ronald Coleman, Errol Flynn, and David Niven . . . except better than all three!

So did you dress up for Halloween? If so, who (or what) did you dress as?

Tuesday's Dragon

2011-11-01T06:08:00.005-04:00

Draco

Sometimes associated with: Ladon, Tiamat, and other minor dragons.

Draco is one of the oldest dragons (or assortment of dragons) known to man. He is also one of the very oldest constellations,and has boasted varying importance throughout the history of the world. He is associated with several different dragons in mythology.

In Greek mythology, Draco is one of several dragons. He could be Ladon, the many-headed serpent dragon who guarded Hera's golden apples.

(This is Arthur Rackham's vision of Ladon. Remember him, famous for his portraits of Fafnir?)

Or Draco might be might be the dragon slain by the Greek hero, Cadmus. Cadmus, after sewing the dragon's teeth which grew into soldiers (hmmm, we've seen that story before!) went on to found the city of Thebes. After all, one can't found a city without a certain amount of proper dragon-slaying first, rigth?

(Another multi-headed dragon here! The Hydra had cousins.)

And there are some who say that Draco is a dragon fought by the goddess Minerva, the remains of whom she tossed up into the sky.

Minerva the goddess:

Oops, I mean:

But Draco's story might possibly go farther back still! The Sumerians and Babylonians of the Tigris and Euphrates Valley--we're talking more than 5,000 years ago, people!--had a legend for the constellation as well. Their Draco was a female dragon called Tiamat who existed at the very beginning of creation before earth and sky were separated.

She too was thrown into the sky and bolted to a star around which her constellation spins. And now, as Draco, she is the guardian of the stars:

"They have decorated the night sky for thousands of years and none of them disappeared. Why? Because god Marduk put on the sky an eternally awakened dragon, who guards them . . ." (Enuma Elish)

The star that bolts Draco in place, we assume, was one the early Chaldeans named Thuban, which is found in the body of Draco. In ancient times, the heavens revolved around Thuban, and it was considered the pole star. Even the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza contained an enormous shaft that pointed directly to Thuban. Proving just how important Draco as a constellation was to the ancient peoples of the world!

It is speculated that, due to the affects of axial precession, Thuban will be the pole star again by the year 21000!

Draco has had a profound effect on dragon mythology throughout the ages. In modern literature, we still see stories cropping up about him. For instance, in the movie Dragonheart, the Draco constellation is considered something of a "dragon heaven," where good dragons go when they die.

(This is what heaven looks like to dragons. Now you know.)

But this image cannot compare with the gorgeous imagery provided by the true Draco. Look at this nebula Draco sports!

(The Catseye Nebula found in Draco)

All legends and mythologies aside, this is one dragon who cannot help but declare the glory of God!

"The heavens declare the glory of God;

the skies proclaim the work of his hands.

Day after day they pour fourth speech;

night after night they reveal knowledge.

They have no speech, they use no words;

no sound is heard from them.

Yet their voice goes out into all the earth,

their words to the ends of the world."

(Psalm 19: 1-4)

Draco on a scale of 1-10

Evil: 1

In some of the legends, such as Cadmus's dragon, he is pretty scary. But in most of the stories, he is merely performing his required duty. So not evil. As a constellation, he is outright helpful!

Scariness: 6

Probably "scary" isn't so much the right word as awe-inspiring.

Poison: 0

This dragon isn't poisonous at all.

Hoard: 10

This this dragon is the guardian of the stars. I don't think you could find a more fabulous treasure trove!

Cleverness: 8

He's a pretty clever dragon to have served as a pole star throughout ancient history.

You See, the Thing About Deadlines Is . . .

2011-10-26T23:26:00.000-04:00

. . . it makes me a very bad blogger!

So sorry, dear readers, for my sorry lack of blogging these days. I am so wrapped up in Book 5, and really have hardly had brainpower for anything else. And the manuscript of Moonblood is on its way for my final inspection in just a few days, and I don't see myself having much inspiration for any real blogging (other than the pre-planned dragon posts) for some time. So many abject apologies! The well of bloggerly inspiration is well and truly dry.

If you're interested, however, you can have a look at the Ruling Despot of Rooglewood's blog. She seems to be finding time (and inspiration) to post even when I do not. If you need a laugh, have a glance.

And please, don't believe everything she says about me.

Tuesday's Dragon

2011-10-25T08:00:00.025-04:00

St. George's Dragon

Charming, eh?

Another nameless fellow, known only for who killed him rather than any great virtue of his own. In fact, this dragon has no virtue, as, here at last, we find a symbol of Sin Incarnate in dragon form.

The above illustration is possibly the most famous picture of St. George and the Dragon. And . . . he looks rather like the Jabberwocky.

No, certainly not a whole lot of dignity for him in that most famous portrayal. The painting above even inspired U.A. Fanthorpe to write the following poem:

Not my Best Side

Not my best side, I'm afraid.
The artist didn't give me a chance to
Pose properly, and as you can see,
Poor chap, he had this obsession with
Triangles, so he left off two of my
Feet. I didn't comment at the time
(What, after all, are two feet
To a monster?) but afterwards
I was sorry for the bad publicity.
Why, I said to myself, should my conqueror
Be so ostentatiously beardless, and ride
A horse with a deformed neck and square hoofs?
Why should my victim be so
Unattractive as to be inedible,
And why should she have me literally
On a string? I don't mind dying
Ritually, since I always rise again,
But I should have liked a little more blood
To show they were taking me seriously.

Teeeheee! Follow the link to read the rest of this comical piece.

Nevertheless, Edmund Spenser, the author of The Faerie Queene, who wrote the most famous take upon this classic dragon, took him very seriously indeed, and described him like so:

Approaching nigh, he reared high afore

His body monstrous, horrible, and vaste,

Which to increase his wondrous greatnesse more,

Was swolne with wrath, & poyson, & with bloudy gore.

(Book I, Canto XI)

If you had a bit of trouble reading that, let me offer my personal translation:

Approaching near, he reared up upon his hind legs,

His body monstrous, horrible, and vast,

And to increase his wondrous greatness even more,

Was swollen up with wrath, and poison, and with bloody gore!

Not so comical anymore, is he? And definitely not suited to the image displayed above! For all that's the most famous depiction of the Redcross Knight slaying his dragon (and Princess Una, rather unattractive, securing it with her belt), it's not a particularly awe-inspiring sight.

I much prefer Trina Schart Hyman's elegant depiction!

That's the image of the dragon I grew up with, taken from this marvelous, award-winning picture book that is, I think, THE perfect portrait of the hero-against-dragon archetype. A huge inspiration on my own work, even down to a princess named Una!

But, back to the dragon . . .

The actual story of St. George and the Dragon had been around a LONG time before Edmund Spenser borrowed it for his epic. Some people speculate that the origins of the story took their inspiration from the tale of "Perseus and Andromeda." In fact, the origins might go farther back still, even to the old Babylonian tale of Marduk slaying the dragon Tiamat!

It was a fellow named Jacobus de Voragine who made the St. George version of the tale popular. Around 1260, he wrote his collection of stories, Golden Legend, which included the St. George story, which involves a poisonous dragon who plagues a certain countryside. To pacify him, the villagers feed him two sheep a day. When the sheep run out, he requires children, chosen by lot. One day, the lot falls upon the king's own daughter, so, dressed as a bride, she is sent to the dragon.

But by chance, our bold hero, St. George, rode by that very lake. Seeing the princess's plight, he fought the dragon and subdued it. They tied it about the neck with the princess's own sash and led it back to the village. There, St. George promised to slay the dragon if everyone in that village would convert to Christianity.

A bit of a bullying evangelist, you might say.

But, the people agreed, so the dragon was slain. But his legacy has lived on far beyond the Golden Legends! He, along with St. George, has been immortalized in stained glass and tapestries, paintings and poetry. To be sure, he's always the villain . . . and, to be sure, he always loses.

But as he said at the end of Not My Best Side: "I always rise again".

There will always be more dragons for our heroes to battle.

In a sense, this dragon has found his way into cinematic life via the (slightly campy) film, Dragonslayer. In that story, the dreadful dragon, Vermithrax Pejorative, demands a sacrificial virgin every so often, also drawn by lots. And one day, the lot chosen is the king's own daughter . . .

Her fate is, sadly, very different from Princess Una's. Not all heroes are St. George!

St. George's Dragon on a scale of 1-10

Evil: 9

In Spenser's version at least, he represents the Devil. Sometimes he's more animalistic, though, so I can't give him a perfect 10.

Scariness: 7

He's scary enough, especially as Spenser describes him! But many of his portraits through history have been less than frightening.

Poison: 9

This dragon is very poisonous. He envenomed the whole countryside where he lurked!

Hoard: 0

As far as I can tell, none of his stories includes any hoard at all. Poor dragon.

Cleverness: 5

I don't think he's dumb, per se. But it's hard to think when you're spewing that much fire!

Tuesday's Dragon

2011-10-18T08:07:00.001-04:00

DRAKON KHOLKIKOS

Also called Colchian Dragon.

This dragon was actually more of a giant serpent in the tradition of the "dragons" found in the most ancient dragon-centered texts, the Hindu Rg Veda, and the Babylonian Enuma Elish. Doesn't make him any less of a dragon, though!

This dragon, as seen in the picture above, guarded the Golden Fleece that Jason (of Argonaut fame) set out to find. Like most dragons in epics, it met an unlucky fate. Some stories say he was put to sleep by drugs the sly Medea fed him. Others claim that Jason killed him.

The dragon didn't necessarily go down without a fight. One story, painted on an old vase, says that the Colchian Dragon devoured and regurgitated Jason before the hero had a chance to kill him.

Drakon: "Bleh! Heroes is nasty!"

One way or the other, the poor fellow ended up dead, and Medea's charming father, King Aeetes, harvested his teeth. From those teeth, fully-grown warriors grew! So, in this one way at least, the Drakon Kholkikos lived on.

It is interesting to note that Dragon Kholkikos had a close relative (not literally, more literarily), Drakon Ismenios, who guarded a stream near Thebes. This dragon also lost his teeth, poor fellow, and from those teeth there also sprang warriors.

I must confess, I was a pretty confused cookie as far as this dragon was concerned for many, many years. You see, my first experience with the Golden Fleece saga was this movie from the 1960s:

Now, you can see from the cover that the guardian of the Golden Fleece is the Hydra (a multi-headed monster from Greek mythology). So I--8 year old innocent that I was--blithely assumed for years that it was the Hydra who guarded the fleece.

I also assumed that the Hydra must have given up his/her teeth, which were subsequently planted, producing these charming fellows:

Oh, Ray Harryhausen! How you have misled me!

So now, hopefully, you won't make the same mistake I did. No Hydras, and no grinning skeletons. Just a serpent and some pretty basic warriors.

Drakon Kholkikos on a scale of 1-10

Evil: 1

I mean, he's just doing his job! It's Jason and Medea who are the traitors, murderers, and thieves. Hoorah for Greek heroes.

Scariness: 7

He's pretty scary, I guess, but I think his teeth-sprung warriors might be more frightening than he is.

Poison: 1

He's a snake, so he might be poisonous. But he's so big, I suspect he's more like an anaconda than a viper. Just saying.

Hoard: 8

Quality vs. quantity. After all, heroes were willing to cross the world and risk their lives to achieve the Golden Fleece!

Cleverness: 2

If he had been truly clever, he wouldn't have spit up Jason after swallowing him, no matter how bitter a pill he was to swallow!

Tuesday's Dragon

2011-10-11T08:30:00.000-04:00

Beowulf's Bane

He doesn't have a name. He doesn't need one. When one proves to be the death of the greatest warrior king in known literature, one needs no other name.

Though this dragon will have his moment of fiery glory and terror, he begins as a more subtle danger in the dark. While Beowulf, victorious from two previous battles, first with the Grendel, then with its monstrous mother, rules his kingdom for fifty prosperous winters, the dragon sleeps fitfully in his barrow.

He ruled it well

For fifty winters, grew old and wise

as warden of the land

until one began

to dominate the dark, a dragon on the prowl

from the steep vaults of a stone-roofed barrow

where he guarded a hoard

(lines 2208-2214)

Like Fáfnir, this dragon has a treasure he loves with consuming passion. Perhaps he too was once a dwarf or even a man, turned to this dreadful state by his own greed. We cannot know for certain.

What we do know is that the epic Beowulf, though British, is heavily influenced by Germanic mythology, though the author himself is distinctly Christian. The earlier battles the hero fights are heavy with Christian symbolism. The Grendel is said to be a descendant of Cain, the first murderer.

he [Grendel] had dwelt for a time

in misery among the banished monsters,

Cain's clan, whom the Creator had outlawed

and condemned as outcasts. For the killing of Abel

the Eternal Lord had exacted a price

(lines 104-108)

Obviously, the author is more than happy to insert Biblical allusions within his story, possibly in an attempt (and a grand one at that) to bring Christian doctrine to the Germanic people now dominating Britain. Due to this previous use of symbols and allusion, it would seem natural for this author to make his dragon dragon a symbol of the Devil.

However, this is not the direction the poet takes the story. This dragon bears a much closer resemblance to Fáfnir, the greedy hoarder, than to Satan, the liar and deceiver.

Perhaps what the poet's hero is fighting is the clinging darkness of older beliefs. The subversive "dragon" that lurks beneath an otherwise prospering society. Perhaps the poet, through his tragic tale, is trying to warn his own people against the danger of falling back into the old beliefs and practices of Germanic tradition and religion.

But, this isn't a college paper, so I won't pursue that train of thought just now. Back to the dragon himself!

The dragon discovered this hoard while burrowing in the dark. The gold once belonged to a heathen king, long dead. The dragon doesn't care! Finders keepers, thank you very much, says he, and happily goes to roost.

But he wasn't the only one to find that secret passage. A poor man, a slave we are told, desperate to escape "the heavy hand of some master, guilt-ridden and on the run, going to ground." (lines 2223-2225), found his way to the dragon's lair. There he saw so many jewels, so much treasure, it dazzled him! Surely the dragon wouldn't notice if he took one gem-studded cup?

But, as Smaug would prove to us later in The Hobbit, a dragon knows every last piece of his hoard.

When the dragon awoke, trouble flared again.

He rippled down the rock, writhing with anger

when he saw the footprints of the prowler who had stolen

too close to his dreaming head.

(lines 2287-2290)

Beowulf had faced the Grendel, the ogre, and sea monsters already. Though old and gray now, he was not about to turn back from facing the dragon! But though he fought valiantly:

So the king of the Geats

raised his hand and struck hard

at the enamelled scales, but scarcely cut through:

the blade flashed and slashed yet the blow

was far less powerful than the hard-pressed king

had need of at that moment. The mound-keeper [dragon]

went into a spasm and spouted deadly flames:

when he felt the stroke, battle-fire

billowed and spewed.

(lines 2575-2583)

How's that for a descriptive battle scene? Gives me the chills!

Seeing their brave leader failing, all Beowulf's men deserted him, save one. Young Wiglaf, son of Woehstan, stood firm. And in the end, it was he who enabled the king to kill the dragon.

They had killed the enemy, courage quelled his life;

that pair of kinsmen, partners in nobility,

had destroyed the foe.

(lines 2706-2708)

Yes, it is the fate of dragons in epics to be slain. But not all of them kill their slayers in return! For though young Wiglaf survived the battle, Beowulf was dealt a mortal blow.

This dragon has found his way into many depictions. The version I have been quoting is Seamus Heaney's translation of the original text . . . which has been called, truth be told, "Beowulf Lite." So, not the very most accurate translation in the world! But it's a fun read. I've read at least three different translations of Beowulf, and honestly enjoyed this one the most (don't tell my professors!).

This dragon was also in the movie Beowulf, written by Neil Gaiman. I haven't seen it. Heard it was pretty dreadfully altered from the original, so I didn't bother. But the dragon looks relatively frightening.

Most movie versions leave the dragon out. After all, isn't it better to end with the hero victoriously killing ogres than to see him vanquished by the dragon?

And, of course, he made his way into comic book world!

Godzilla's baby, maybe?

And he was obviously another huge influence on Tolkien's Smaug, who, centuries later, would also sleep on a hoard and have a gem-crusted cup stolen from him, inciting his fury.

Beowulf's Bane on a scale of 1-10

Evil: 4

This dragon is a bit more animalistic, not really evil. Not saying I'd try to keep him as a pet or anything! But I don't think basic dragon-y behavior counts as evil, per se.

Scariness: 9

Definitely a scary dragon! Some of those descriptions are breathtakingly frightening! Just because he isn't evil doesn't mean he can't terrify.

Poison: 7

There is "molten venom in the fire he breathes." So his breath is poisonous, but the battle described is much more concerned with the heat than the poison.

Hoard: 9

From the descriptions of gold-crusted weapons, masks, and goblets, I don't know if a dragon could find a much better hoard!

Contest Winner

2011-10-07T08:21:00.001-04:00

The winner of the Who Said That? dragon quotes challenge is . . .

need2read!

(Again!)

Well done, finding all those dragon-quotes. Some of them were a bit tricky! Go ahead and email me your mailing address (again!), and you shall receive a signed copy of BOTH Heartless and Veiled Rose. You can also let me know to whom you would like them signed (in case you want to give one as a gift).

Thank you to everyone who contributed to this contest! It was a tricky one, and I doubt anyone could have gotten them all without googling answers. But I appreciate those of you who just listed the ones you knew . . . and some of you got some that I didn't expect people to recognize! Here is the list with its answers:

1. “No hunter of the sky should end his days as prey. Better to die on the wing than pinned to the ground.”

Saphira from Eragon

2. “You have the effrontery to be squeamish. But we were dragons. We were SUPPOSED to be cruel, cunning, heartless and terrible. But this much I can tell you, you ape, we never burned and tortured and ripped one another apart and called it morality.”

The Dragon "King" from Guards! Guards!

3. “I like cherries jubilee. And I like the look of her. Besides, the Latin scrolls in my library need cataloguing, and if I can’t find someone who knows a little of the language, I’ll have to do it myself.”

Kazul from Dealing with Dragons

4. “I kill when I wish! I am strong, strong, STRONG! My armor is like tenfold shields! My teeth like swords! My claws, spears! The shock of my tail, a thunderbolt! My wings, a hurricane! And my breath, death!”

Smaug from The Hobbit

5. “Believe me when I say I want you to stay a long time with me. I am sad when I am alone. My unhappiest hours are after I have destroyed a guest. I have never forgotten any of you. I have remembered my first guest for over seven hundred years. He had a short life breathing the air, but a long life in memory.”

Vollys from The Two Princesses of Bamarre

6. “Now, shall you deal with me, O prince, and all the powers of hell!”

Maleficent from Sleeping Beauty

7. “Understand then, old enchanter, they that sprung from me fear thee and thy kind. Thou art unto them the slayer folk, they that drove us hence.”

Calbhiorus from Mad Merlin (I've not actually read it . . . My husband asked me to include this one, so this is a nod to my Authriana-loving Rohan!)

8. “The half cannot truly hate that which makes it whole.”

Great Dragon from Merlin

9. “Never give up and good luck will find you.”

Falkor from The Neverending Story

10. “Gleep!”

Gleep from Another Fine Myth

Tuesday's Dragon

2011-10-04T08:35:00.000-04:00

Since the time of the ancient Babylonians, dragons have been hugely important literary figures. There's a reason why they still hold such a significant position in literature still today. So I am beginning a new series in honor of these dreadful, dangerous, beautiful, classic characters. At least up through Christmas, I'm going to feature a famous dragon every Tuesday. Hope you will enjoy learning a little more about these grand old fellows!

To start us out, we'll begin with one of the most influential dragons of them all.

Fáfnir

Also known as: Fafner and Frænir

Fáfnir is the classic gold-hoarding dragon. He started life as a dwarf prince, son of King Hreidmar and brother Regin and Ótr. Later, poisoned by gold-greed, he became a dragon.

Fáfnir's story is part of old Norse Mythology, and as such, is pretty grim. His brother, Ótr, a shape-shifter who had taken the form of an otter, was killed by the prankster god, Loki. King Hreidmar, furious at this evil worked upon his son, made Loki fill the dead otter's skin with gold.

But Loki didn't fill it with just any gold; he used gold he had stolen from another dwarf, Andvari. Loki included the ring, Andvaranaut, which is capable of producing more gold. But its former owner, Andvari, had cursed the ring and the rest of the stolen gold, saying that it would bring destruction to any who owned it!

Such was to prove true, first for poor Fáfnir, later for other heroes of old. Fáfnir coveted the gold Loki offered. So he killed King Hreidmar, his own father, and took the otter skin of treasure for himself! His greed transformed him into a dreadful dragon so that he could better guard and hoard his precious gold.

But Fáfnir's other brother, Regin, wanted the gold for himself. So Regin sent his foster-son, renowned Sigurd, to take the gold and kill the dragon. Sigurd went about this in a distinctly non-heroic fashion . . . he dug a pit in the path that Fáfnir crawled to get to water, hid inside, and waited for the dragon. When Fáfnir came lurching and lumbering by (as dragons are wont to do), Sigurd stabbed him in the left shoulder, mortally wounding him.

One of the most famous images of Fáfnir, painted by Arthur Rackham.

Because it's a grand old legend (practically begging Richard Wagner to make it an opera), Fáfnir didn't die until he'd had plenty of time to say a piece. He found out that his brother had sent Sigurd and proceeded to warn Sigurd that all who possess the gold will perish. (Which was rather decent of him, when you think about it. I probably would have just said: "You want my gold so much? Take it and enjoy it . . . while you can! Mwaa haa haa!")

Sigurd, being a hero in the classic sense (i.e. none-too-bright), takes the gold anyway, and much drama ensues. But Fáfnir's sad story ends here.

It's interesting to note that Fáfnir is not considered a universally Bad Guy. Jacqueline Simpson, in her British Dragons, says: "Fafnir, whom Sigurd the Volsung (Siegfried) slew, was not only a treasure-guarding dragon but also a wise and powerful being, whose flesh gave anyone who ate the power to understand the language of birds, and whose blood conferred invulnerability" (p. 30).

In Germanic mythology, dragons were not the overt symbols of the Devil they later became. They were frightening, sure, and often at odds with the hero. But they weren't necessarily evil. Fáfnir obviously was a flawed character from the get-go for the enchanted gold to work such evil on him. But was he any worse than acclaimed Sigurd, who also murdered to take the gold? Probably not.

Fáfnir has certainly left his mark upon dragon literature! His gold-hoarding was likely a huge inspiration both for Tolkien's Smaug and Lewis's transformed Eustace (who turns into a dragon while greedily lusting after dragon-gold, rather like Fáfnir).

As stated above, he found his way into Wagner's enormous monstrosity of an opera. In that story, he began life as a giant rather than the dwarf and was called Fafner.

Sadly, he also found his way into comic book land. And looks like a Godzilla-wannabe. How are the mighty fallen!

I first encountered Fáfnir in Greg Hildebrandt's Favorite Fairy Tales, illustrated to glowing perfection just as Sigurd is stabbing him. A gruesome, gory, gold-lustful story.

I was ten. I loved it!

Fáfnir on a scale of 1-10

Evil: 7
Definitely bad, but not so bad that he didn't warn the hero about the cursed gold.

Scariness: 8
Fáfnir is nothing if not frightening! Did you watch that opera link?

Poison: 8
Fáfnir poisons the land in order to protect his gold.

Hoard: 6
He's got a nice hoard (including a cursed ring). But still, it only fits in an otter's skin.

Cleverness: 4
I mean, he crawled right over a man with a sword. Oops.

Who Said That? -- Dragon Quotes Contest

2011-09-29T15:13:00.000-04:00

Dear readers, do forgive my bloggish absence this last week! My Rohan and I have been out of commission (A cold. And an infection. And another cold. It's that time of year.) since Sunday and are just starting to crawl back into the realm of the living once more. That's my excuse for lack of blogging.

I should be one of those Good Authors who writes up blog posts well in advance . . . perhaps one day I will be?

Anyway, to make up for my lack, I am going to host a Dragon Contest with free autographed books as prizes!

(Gratuitous Dragon Illustration of Coolness)

Below you will see a list of quotes said by Famous Dragons. It’s up to you to tell me which dragon said which quote! Whoever names them ALL first will get a free, autographed copy of both Heartless and Veiled Rose.

If you cannot name them all, no worries! Name as many as you can. If no one names them all, a free copy of Veiled Rose will go to whoever can name the most.

Here are the quotes:

1. “No hunter of the sky should end his days as prey. Better to die on the wing than pinned to the ground.”

5. “Gleep!"

6. "Now, shall you deal with me, O prince, and all the powers of hell!”

7. “Understand then, old enchanter, they that sprung from me fear thee and thy kind. Thou art unto them the slayer folk, they that drove us hence."

8. “The half cannot truly hate that which makes it whole.”

9. “Believe me when I say I want you to stay a long time with me. I am sad when I am alone. My unhappiest hours are after I have destroyed a guest. I have never forgotten any of you. I have remembered my first guest for over seven hundred years. He had a short life breathing the air, but a long life in memory.”

10. "Never give up and good luck will find you.”

So many different dragons speaking here! Some quite posh, others . . . less so. Are any of them familiar to you? Your deadline is next Friday, October 7th, when the winner will be announced and the answers will be revealed . . .

Reads and Recommendations, Summer 2011

2011-09-20T11:27:00.001-04:00

Summer is a busy time for reading! As a professional writer, my #1 chore is to write, write, write. My #2 chore is to read, read, READ! So I spent a great deal of my time this summer both reading and writing. Here is a list of the fiction I read and decided to recommend this summer! There were other books on my reading list as well that did not make this cut. I saved the best for you!

1. Jane Eyre. I read this once before back in high school and appreciated it then. But the reading was different between 15 and 25! I appreciated Charlotte Bronte's skill with words and the very personal emotion she brings to her character, making Jane one of THE great literary figures in all British fiction.

Opening Line: "There was no possibility of taking a walk that day."

2. The Princess and the Goblin. This one was another reread, a book I read over and over again in my childhood. It amazed me as I read it to see HOW much George MacDonald has influenced my own work. I knew he was an influence, for sure, but it took reading his work in my post-publication days to truly understand. This book is one of the few I can honestly place in the Adored category.

Opening Line: "There was once a little princess whose father was king over a great country full of mountains and valleys."

3. The Last Unicorn. This was, I suppose, Summer of the Rereads! I read this book for the first time just two years ago and was captivated by Beagle's lyrical style. Needing a bit of refreshment after several Seriously Awful reads, I picked it up again. Just as captivating as the first read! Quirky and strange and heartbreaking. Unicorns rise up out of the ocean, a fiery red bull consumes with rage, and a prince lounges in a glade reading a magazine. This books makes me laugh and cry.

Opening Line: "The unicorn lived in a lilac wood, and she lived all alone."

4. A Tale of Two Castles. My YA read of the summer, though this might be more Children's than YA. Gail Carson Levine was a favorite of mine when I was younger. This, her newest story, was not my favorite of her work (that honor belongs to The Two Princesses of Bamarre, with Ella Enchanted running a close second). But it was charming in its own way, especially Meenore, the Sherlock Holmsian dragon. Ms. Levine has developed a much more sparse narrative voice than she used to use. While I appreciate the poetry she is attempting to achieve, I miss some of the fullness and spunk of her earlier novels. But this is coming from a Lover of Victorian Novels, so take that opinion with a grain of salt! Her story is a fun mystery, and she indulges in just the right amount of world building so that the scenes come alive!

Opening Line: "Mother wiped her eyes on her sleeve and held me tight."

5. Lord Jim. I have only ever read Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness before. While I found it intriguing, it also scared the daylights out of me! Lord Jim was not frightening so much as heartbreaking. Conrad takes his character to the very edge, showing first how his greatest weakness becomes his greatest strength, and then how that same strength takes him back into weakness. Amazing. And Conrad writes a great deal of it in Stream of Consciousness, a narrative voice I usually can't stand. Yet it was brilliant!

Opening Line: "He was an inch, perhaps two, under six feet, powerfully built, and he advanced straight at you with a slight stoop of the shoulders, head forward, and a fixed from-under stare which made you think of a charging bull."

6. Wyrd Sisters. I can't help myself. I always fall back on Terry Pratchett when under stress. There were a couple of stressful weeks this summer, and my husband, darling man that he is, bought this book for me to help relieve that tension! It worked like a charm. Wyrd Sisters is a comical (and yet sometimes frightening) retelling of Shakespeare's Macbeth, but with its own remarkable cast of characters and more than enough twists to keep you on your toes. No one writes people with the reality that Mr. Pratchett does. And the more bizarre the story, the more real his characters become.

Opening Lines: "The wind howled. Lightning stabbed at the earth erratically, like an inefficient assassin. Thunder rolled back and forth across the dark, rain-lashed hills."

7. Lords and Ladies. So, after finish Wyrd Sisters, I had to read the sequel. I had read this hilarious retelling of A Midsummer Night's Dream (scarcely a retelling . . . more of a nod-to) two years ago. Once more, I was enthralled by Mr. Pratchett's insanely other and dangerous faerie folk, the Lords and Ladies, pitted against the insanely ordinary heroes and heroines of his mountain kingdom of Lancre.

Opening Lines: "Now read on . . . Where does it start?"

8. Thief of Always. One word to describe this story: CREEPY. Rohan and I read it aloud to each other on dark and stormy nights. Reminded me of Neil Gaiman's Coraline, but maybe not quite as much fun. Still YA friendly, but only if you're in the mood for a bit of a scare.

Opening Line: "The great grey beast February had eaten Harvey Swick alive."

Of all my summer reading, those are the pieces that stood out to me. I also pursued quite a bit of non-fiction, and might write up a list of those recommendations later. We shall see, we shall see!

One Year

2011-09-18T12:59:00.002-04:00

A year ago today, I got up at sunrise, brewed a cup of tea, and sat with my Papa watching the dawn light spread out over the lake at his and my Mum's Wisconsin home. An hour or two later, I went downstairs, washed my hair, put on a pretty white dress.

And a few hours after that, I married the love of my life there in my folks' back garden!

And it was the most beautiful day of my life!

Thought perhaps you might enjoy seeing a couple of pictures from the day:

We had a cheesecake and Ceylon Tea reception in my folks' house afterwards. Homemade cheesecakes by yours truly and my Mum! My sister-in-law-to-be decorated them for us.

For today, I baked a White Chocolate Raspberry Cheesecake like one we had at our wedding. Going to put on the wedding dress again too, just for fun! It's hard to believe it's already been a whole year. The best year of my life with my handsome love!

Okay, forgive the Blog Post of Gushiness! Next week, it'll be back to literary topics, I promise.

Interview and Giveaway

2011-09-14T10:01:00.000-04:00

Hello, dear readers! If you would like to enter a drawing for a free copy of either Heartless or Veiled Rose, skip on over to Scribbles and Ink Stains. Authoress Abigail Hartman is running an interview/giveaway, and you can enter to win either one of my titles!

On another note . . . thank you again for all the sweet comments that I am STILL unable to respond to. My handsome husband looked around trying to figure out what's going on, but hasn't come up with a solution yet. So please, know that I'm not ignoring you! I just can't currently respond.

Technology. Sigh

Question #17

2011-09-13T11:48:00.003-04:00

We are down to the last question in our series! If someone would like to add more, that is fine . . . I'll continue this series through September or the end of the questions, whichever happens first. But as of right now, this is our final question.

Faith asks:

How do you handle strong critical feedback or overtly negative feedback?

For those of you who don't know, Faith King is the co-author of Awakenings, the first novel in a fantasy adventure series, Restoration. Which you should totally check out!

So that question.

I suppose the first answer that comes to mind for me is, "I don't."

That is, I don't handle it well. Nor do I usually try to handle it at all. Most authors I know make every effort to avoid the negative feedback, many by not reading reviews at all, either positive or negative. I don't quite fall into this category yet. I am very curious, and I do still occasionally check my reviews on Amazon or Goodreads or wherever. But I usually wish that I hadn't. Not because I'm not receiving favorable reviews! The majority reaction to my work has been positive.

But there are those few . . . and those few are the ones that stick.

The problem with negative feedback in this context of reader-response is that is extremely unhelpful to me as the author. I'm not saying it isn't helpful to other readers. There are SO many different reading tastes out there and SO many different books. Negative reviews help steer readers toward books that they will probably like rather than allowing them to waste time on something they probably won't. So yes, when you look at it from that objective perspective, negative reviews are a good and helpful part of the publishing world.

But they are completely unhelpful to a developing author. They reflect an individual's tastes that are obviously not the same tastes as the author's. Just because you happen to like to read and write something that person does not, does this mean that you should only write what that person enjoys? Certainly not! You need to write what you love to read. If other people don't like it, well, they probably don't enjoy the same books you enjoy, or don't enjoy them for the same reasons you do. You are two different people. You have two different tastes. So you cannot let negative feedback alter your work.

Robin McKinley was talking about this on her blog recently. She was saying how readers often complain that her work is "too slow." But the reality is, she thoroughly enjoys books like George Elliot's Middlemarch. Big, meaty, heavy, sloooooooow books that develop the world and the characters in a style completely different to the fast-paced frenetic writing popular today. Is her taste wrong? Nope. It's just different.

But people can be nasty in their reviews. I have seen brilliant authors accused of idiocy and laziness by readers who simply did not like a particular work. Sir Terry Pratchett suffers from Alzheimer's. Reviewers who don't care for his more recent pieces will hurl that in his face, saying the sickness is affecting his work. Utter and insulting nonsense! Yet people will say this and more. They will forget that there is an actual person on the other end of this whole publishing schematic and sling mud with vim. I have had reviewers call into question my intelligence, my morality, accusing me of ultra-conservative-patriarchal-repressions, bigotry, plagiarism, complete lack of originality, all sorts of horrible things.

Makes you really want to be a professional author, huh?

The fact is, receiving negative reviews, as painful as it is, also means that your work is getting out to a broader audience. If only people who like your work read your work, your audience is probably still too small. These days, I try (the key word here is try) to see it as a benefit when one of those nasty Two Star reviews pops up somewhere. That means that my work is getting out there. Yes, it's landing in the hands of some who do not like or appreciate what I am trying to do. But that also means its landing in the hands of some who might not normally read this type of work. And some of those people might actually like it.

The best thing to do is simply not to respond. Stay out of arguing and defending your work. If someone doesn't like it, you'll never convince them that they do. If they have already disrespected you publically, they're not going to back down and apologize. Being a professional author means being willing to stand up on the soapbox and have rotten fruit hurled at your face. And you can't hurl it back. You have to take it.

Now, there is a time and a place for proper negative feedback. For professional writers, your editors and publishing house proof readers are a legitimate and highly useful source of objective perspective. It's still not fun to hear it when they dislike this, that, or the other about your work. But the nice thing is, it's not in print yet! You can rework it to be something that both of you like. Sometimes, this means taking their critiques exactly. Sometimes, it means defending your choice. Sometimes, it means tweaking a theme or character in a completely different direction at first not perceived by either of you. No matter what, negative feedback from that source should be considered a blessing and a help, not a burden.

Negative feedback from a trusted critique partner is also something hard to take but important to appreciate. If you write and ask someone for their opinion, you should not expect all positive comments. And yes, some of those negative comments will be unhelpful, which will color your perspective on those that ARE helpful.

The fact is, a good writer is aware of the faults in their own work. Maybe she would like to ignore them, but she knows they are there. These days, when I send a manuscript to a reader for opinions, I let them read it, and then I send a list of problems that I am seeing or suspecting with the project. I ask for their take on those problems specifically, getting a fresh point-of-view. This not only forces me to be more critical of my own work, but also gets me objective opinions on problems when I am too close to see solutions.

When my reader agrees that the problem is very real, I ask for specific solution recommendations. How would they prefer to see this issue resolved? Again, their specific suggestion may or may not be what you use in the end, but it will help you start seeing from a new perspective.

I have started using this method with my more recent manuscripts and have found it VERY helpful. I am blessed with two or three excellent readers who know how to critique without trying to rewrite. Not everyone is so fortunate!

The worst negative feedback to receive is unsolicited feedback from well-meaning friends. That can be tough to handle. I have had friends who have believed it their duty to tell me perceived "faults" in my published work. Which, to their minds, may be very real faults. But at that point, whether they be just critiques or not, they are unhelpful. It's rather like telling a new mother that her newborn has crooked eyes. There isn't a great deal she can do about it, and after the enormity of her labor, she really could use a certain amount of petting and praising where this baby of hers is concerned!

Not always going to happen. This is the World of the Arts. A wretched and wonderful world it is!

I think the most important way to handle negative reviews is to keep in mind who and what you are writing for. You have an audience who will be touched and blessed by your work. You have an audience who will be insulted by it. You can't write for both at once.

And ultimately, you can't write for your own glory. The world of publishing can be so much fun! But it is also a humiliating field. If you make your own glory your highest goal, you will be one disappointed and frustrated little cookie. Write for your readers. Write with eyes fixed heavenward. Write for those characters in your head who are itching to have a life of their own.

Write because it is the talent God gave you and trust He has a purpose for your work.