They’re fantasy – but not classic fantasy with orcs and swords and sorcery. They’re romance – but not classic romance with heart throbbings and he-loves-me-he-loves-me-not. They have a whole lot of cooking and hand-making things, and small children, and people being kind to each other and finding new friends and family and home. They are, in short, very cozy, but they’re fantasy. So I made up a name for them: I called them “Cozy Fantasy“.
I really did make up that name myself. You know, to go with the “Cozy Mystery” genre (e.g. Agatha Christie). Because at that time, there was no name for the genre I’m writing in, or at least none that I could find.
But then, a year or so ago Shanna Swendson started a new book series. She called it cozy fantasy, and, she said, “‘Cozy fantasy’ has become a huge trend.”
Whaaaaat? I thought I made that up myself! And now it’s out there, and other people are writing in that genre, and it’s trendy! How cool is that?
So of course I got on the bandwagon (that I’ve technically been on for the last ten years already) and joined forces with my fellow Cozy Fantasy writers. On Sunday, Dec. 29th, Martin Millerson is part of a big Cozy Fantasy sale, the “Cozy the Day Away” sale. For a whole day, a big list of Cozy Fantasy books is on sale, for anything from discounted to downright FREE!
Incidentally, E.L. Bates joined me on the bandwagon, and Magic Most Deadly is part of the sale too. There’ll be some cool books for sale: go check it out!
Cat was ordinary—until the day a blue bowl whirled her off to a magical medieval world…
Catriona, ex-librarian, dumped by her boyfriend, is just trying to restart her life when she gets sucked into and carried off by a blue pottery bowl. Suddenly thrown into a world where she can’t move for mysteries, how is this modern town girl going to cope alone in the woods with a comatose man and a muddy baby? And there’s that hint of something sinister…
That’s the book as it stands right now, and it’s still available as FREE EBOOK on Amazon and all your other favourite ebook sites! (At least it’d better be. On Amazon the book price sometimes snaps back to asking for money. If that’s the case, let me know and I’ll get them to fix it; but you can also go to Smashwords and download the free copy for your ereader – .mobi for Kindle, .epub for pretty much all other readers. Or contact me and I’ll send you a copy!)
And now for the big announcement:Seventh Son is getting a makeover! (The book, not the person – he’s fine as he is.) You see, in the ten years since I first published it – thirteen years since I wrote it – I’ve grown as a writer. And I’ve become an editor. So when I recently re-read the book with an editor’s eye, I realized that while I still really like the story, I could make it even better with a rewrite.
But don’t worry, the story itself won’t change! I’m just rewriting some of the language (giving it a stylistic edit, in editor’s terms). Sort of like those “digitally remastered” old movies – same movie, sharper image and brighter colours. And speaking of colours, I’m hoping to eventually put on a new cover, as well. While I love the covers that Steven Novak created for the series (he’s great, highly recommend), I want to change them to something that reflects the tone and genre of the books a little better. But when that happens I’ll let you know.
Meanwhile, I’m really enjoying hanging out with Cat and Guy and Bibby and all their friends again, right there at the beginning of their story. It was the blue bowl that started it all…
Life, the Universe, and Ten Years of Being an Author. Happy Birthday, Seventh Son!
I’ve been having a bit of a hard time lately, for one reason or another. So I went on the internet to ARD Mediathek (Germany’s public broadcasters’ streaming service) and turned on some fairy tale movies. I needed them, needed that reassurance that the world is a place where things will work out and everything is okay in the end. German and Czech fairy tale films are fabulous in that regard—they come across as so real, the tales are so much part of that culture, you can sink into the story and come out happy at the end.
From Cinderella (1919) by Arthur Rackham
But I was left a little dissatisfied that day. I wasn’t sure why at first. The films I watched were lovely fairy tales, with princesses and magic and intrepid heroes and heroines, and bad guys that were defeated, and a happily ever after. One was called “Der Geist im Glas” (“The Spirit in the Bottle”), and “Die verkaufte Prinzessin” (“The Sold Princess”) was the other.
You’ve never heard of them? Neither had I. That’s because they’re not classic fairy tales. The one claims to be loosely adapted from “motifs of a Grimms’ tale”, the other to be “inspired by Bavarian legends”. Whatever—there’s nothing wrong with adapting tales, or even just taking loose inspiration from existing fairy tales and making something of your own with it.
No, that’s not what frustrated me about those films, as I came to realize the next day after I had some time to think about them. What got my goat about both those films is that they shoehorn “issues” into the story. They clobber you over the head with such matters as feminism and inclusivity and “thou shalt believe in magic”. The characters spout off, in a repeat loop, about how princesses can’t be rulers or girls can’t be miners and oh, it’s so unfair and an issue to be solved; or they heavy-handedly draw attention to the fact that there’s MAGIC in this story and oh, that’s so unusual and the science-minded heroine doesn’t believe in it and needs to learn her lesson (even though she accepts without so much as a blink the wicked spirit from the bottle that’s got them all into trouble).
Don’t get me wrong—it’s not the issues I take, well, issue with. Feminism and inclusivity are a no-brainer, as far as I’m concerned. I have no problem with turning the doctor’s apprentice in “The Spirit in the Bottle” from a boy into a girl, or with casting People of Colour in roles that were traditionally “golden-haired”. That’s all great. But what I object to is using a fairy tale as a vehicle for an agenda, instead of letting it speak for itself. That’s using a delicate instrument as a hammer to pound in a nail.
You see, that’s the whole thing about fairy tales: they don’t need to have anyone superimposing a “lesson” on them! Fairy tales teach and empower without anyone getting on a soap box for the purpose. Jack climbing the beanstalk and outwitting the giant makes us feel like giant slayers ourselves; Cinderella going from drudge to princess makes it possible for us to do the same—without someone preaching at us about having self-confidence, or about the evils of step-sibling exploitation. The stories make their point without spelling it out (“spelling”, haha. See what I did there?). They show what they’re saying, they don’t need to tell.
For several years now I had a quotation on the top of my list of notes: “Ich glaube mehr an Märchen als an Zeitungen.”—”I believe in fairy tales more than in newspapers.” The person who said that was Lotte Reiniger, the first creator of animated film. That’s right, years before Disney’s Snow White, Lotte Reiniger made stop-motion films from silhouette cutouts (Scherenschnitt, scissor cut, in German), including the 1926(!) feature-length “Adventures of Prince Achmed”. She created many amazing fairy tale films, and she knew what she was talking about when it comes to fairy tales.
From Adventures of Prince Achmend (1926), by Lotte Reiniger/Primrose Productions – Christel Strobel/Primrose Productions (copyright holder), CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=68075134
I believe in fairy tales more than in newspapers. What’s that supposed to mean? It means that what fairy tales* have to tell us has more validity, more truth to it than the ever-changing, deceptive clamour of the news industry.
Using a fairy tale as a vehicle to preach about whatever current “issue” you feel people (in this context, that invariably means “children”) need to be instructed onis to not take fairy tales seriously.
Part of what I love about European fairy tale films is that the tales seem normal there. The film makers find the most likely local castle, put the actors in historic-ish costumes, and start shooting. And because the settings aren’t artificial stage sets, but real places that have weeds growing between the cobbles and lichen on the old wall bricks, the stories themselves seem that much more real – magic and all. We believe the weeds in the cobbles, we believe the magic, and we believe the power of the characters to overcome their problems.
But having the un-real-ness of the story shoved in our faces, be it by one of the characters doubting the existence of magic like any modern product of the enlightenment or by having the actors monologuing about how women should have the same rights as men, breaks the illusion. It breaks the setting, almost like breaking the fourth wall. And the silly thing is that it’s totally unnecessary.
Anything is possible in a fairy tale. If you want to send the message in your fairy tale adaptation that women should have the same rights as men (as they should, of course), and that “a beautiful princess” can just as easily be brown-skinned and black-haired as blonde and blue-eyed (which goes without saying), then just show them having those rights or those looks, and your audience will accept it. You’ve made it normal.
But those issues are not the point of a fairy tale. The point is that the doctor’s apprentice (whether boy or girl) saves the day by outwitting the wicked genie in the bottle; or that the beautiful young ruler (whether fair- or dark-skinned) wins the struggle for the throne against their evil uncle with the help of the young miner who is in league with the spirit of the mountain. And we, the audience, save the day and win the throne right along with them—that is why we love fairy tales and keep coming back to them again and again. If we quietly absorb some new ideas in the process, get some new images planted in our imaginations, so much the better, but for the love of Grimms, keep your didactic bulls out of the china shop.
Take fairy tales seriously, believe in them for the time you’re hearing them, reading them, watching them, and you unlock their power. Relegate them to children’s stories that need to be made more “modern” and “relevant” by preaching on the issue du jour, and you’ve spoiled it.
I believe in fairy tales more than in newspapers: I do, I take my fairy tales seriously.
And they lived happily ever after.
From Cinderella (1919), by Arthur Rackham
*The term “fairy tales” could just as easily be replaced with a generic “stories” here. Fairy tales are a distillation of Story, are “Story Pure”, as it were; it’s not about magic and princes, but about the power of Story. However, that’s a topic we’ll have to save that for another day.
“No,” said the expert, looking up from his close scrutiny of the issue. He raised the magnifying glass and peered through it at the spot on her chin. “No, you are not, are you.”
“On the other hand,” she said, trying not to feel like a lepidopterist’s specimen, “I’m also not very good at about a dozen other things. That ought to count for something, shouldn’t it?”
“Heddle,” she muttered. “Warp. Weft. Raddle. Warping board. Bobbin. Shuttle. Harness. Shed, reed, ratchet. Sett, castle, breast beam, cloth beam. Heddle, warp and weft.”
“Stop!” he shrieked. “Stop throwing curses at me! And put down that, that, that spell book!”
She glanced up at him with a mild, enquiring look, then closed the book in her lap with a finger pinched between its pages and turned it over to look at the spine.
In gold-imprinted letters it said THE BEGINNING WEAVER.
The world has become a bad place in the last few years. So many things are going wrong, so much strife, so much floods and fires and earthquakes and wars and rumours of wars.
But Story can set a counterpoint. Story allows us to escape the trap of perceived reality.
And that’s the key, isn’t it—perceived reality.
Story allows us to perceive a different reality. It lets us experience a different world, one in which plots resolve, problems come to a conclusion. Unlike the so-called real world, where everything is just a muddle, Story brings order to the world. As renowned folklorist Max Lüthi says*, the story world shows us not what could be, but what is.
Why do I tell Story? In order to create worlds and places for people to enter into, worlds of truth. Worlds of justice and joy. Worlds not without problems, but worlds where those problems can and will be resolved.
Story is not escapist in the sense of letting us run away from our problems. But is is escapist in the sense of setting us free from the confines of our perceived reality. It allows us to see the bigger picture, opens our eyes to what is actually there. Even when it is Story about ostensibly “unreal” things, about elves and fairies and little dwarfs under the mountain. Maybe especially then.
We need Story—the World needs Story. The world needs Story to make sense of itself, to keep from sinking into a morass of muddle and chaos.
And that is why I tell Story. Unabashedly and unapologetically, I tell stories of joy and pleasure and home and warmth and family, where tiny people live in tiny homes and big ones get whirled away into other worlds where they find belonging.
Because in entering into these worlds, entering into Story, we can step out of the bondage of perceived reality, and we can find what is really real.
The world needs Story. That is why.
[*Lüthi, The European Folktale: Form and Nature (Philadelphia: ISHI, 1982), p.89. I quoted the full piece in a post on my research blog some ten years ago, here.]
“So You Want to Write a Book?” is now available, all six parts in one document, on the website to download as .pdf (here) – just in case you want to save it to your computer, or print it out or something, and peruse or re-peruse it at your leisure.
[Cue sonorous voiceover] Previously on “So You Want to Write a Book?”: Part 1, How I got started; Part 2, Other Ways of Writing a Book; Part 3, WRITE THAT THING; Part 4, What next?; Part 5, Getting it out there. How I wrote my first book by just starting to write; how to plan a book step by step; how to actually write that book; how to edit it once it’s finished, and how to self-publish it.
Part 6: What Else? – Living the Writer’s Life
So perhaps, this whole thing of writing a whole, big, fat novel is overwhelming at this point. “I’d like to,” you say, “but right now all that stuff you talked about, with outlining and writing and editing and what-not, that’s just too much.” But this “writing” thing still tugs at you…
Or you’ve gone and self-published that book of yours, the one that you’ve been dreaming of all your life. But by now the euphoria has worn off, and you don’t have another idea for another book. So you pack away your notebook and pen, you unplug your laptop, and you think, “Maybe this was a one-off…”
But hold on!
There’s so much more to being a writer than “just” writing a book. Don’t get me wrong, writing a novel is fantastic. But it’s a big endeavour, like climbing a mountain. We don’t need to always be climbing mountains; going for a walk around the block is a perfectly valid use for our feet.
So what else could you do to live the Writer’s Life? There is lots you could do, of course, lots and lots. But let me just fish out two points, two that I’ve found valid and valuable: 1.) Small Steps, and 2.) Community.
Small Steps I’m not going to climb a mountain anytime soon—I’m not terribly athletically inclined. But every so often I go for very short walks on my street. And by “very short” I mean, literally, ten minutes. I set the timer on my phone for five minutes, walk out the door, and when the timer goes off I turn on my heel and walk home again. Ten minutes, but I’ve walked! Outside, in the fresh air! That’s a win. For me to do anything, it has to start with a ridiculously small step. And it works for writing, too. Sometimes I set out to write what I call a Fragment, literally just a few lines. I’ve done it by the clock (that ten minute thing again), or by “so many lines”. I’ve set myself projects where for one month I would “do some writing” every day; as long as I put a few “writerly” words on the page, it counts (other than grocery lists, I mean). I don’t do it all the time—I go through phases with it, like with everything else. But when I do do it I enjoy it. You might wonder what the point of that is—what’s a few lines, what’s a Fragment? You’ll never get a book out of doing that! How is that going to get you closer to your dream? What it does is it keeps my writing muscles honed. It keeps me thinking of words to describe what I see, in real life or in my head (not infrequently one leads to the other). It keeps me in the writing groove. Most of my Fragments aren’t that spectacular, but sometimes, the little sliver of fiction that comes out of it is amusing enough that I’ve posted it here, under the tag #FridayFragment. It’s a win!
And that brings me to my other point:
Community I enjoy sharing my #FridayFragments on this blog, because even those little slivers of fiction deserve an audience. And I love it when I get a reaction, when friends let me know they’ve responded to the little vignette I’ve drawn, when I get a (virtual) chuckle out of someone. When I’ve put my work out to my community. The Writer’s life, like so many other creative pursuits, is a lonely life—I sit here at my computer, tapping away at the keys, all by myself… But really, I’m tied into a Writers’ Community out there. And I highly, highly recommend that. Writers’ groups, conferences, critique partners, local or regional writer’s guilds or federations or whatever they’re called, even writing events like NaNoWriMo—without them, I wouldn’t be where I am as a writer. One of the few silver linings of the Pandemic (ugh!) is that a lot of events went online, and many of them retained at least an online aspect even now. So even if you don’t have any in-person writers’ groups close to where you are, or you can’t easily leave the house, chances are there’s some online event or group you could join and make friends with other writers. Having a community can be a tremendous boost to your writing. Knowing that my monthly Zoom group will start with a Round Robin where everyone answers the question “How’s your writing month been going?” gives me motivation to actually have “a writing month”, in other words, do at least a bit of writing work of some kind. NaNoWriMo wouldn’t be half as much fun without the community of all those other crazies who try this 50,000-words-in-a-month feat. And knowing that whatever I write, Louise Bates, my editor and critique partner extraordinaire, is waiting for it as eagerly as I am for her latest work, is a gift beyond value. Oh, and one more thing: what I enjoy so much about some of the groups I’ve been in is that there are so many different types of writers. Fiction, non-fiction, poetry, novels, experienced, brand-new—if you write anything other than grocery lists you’re welcome (and probably even those, if you do them with purpose). So don’t be shy about what “level” you’re at. If you want to write you’re a writer. Go find your tribe.
And then go write that book, or that other book, or that other other book. Or those short stories or poems or essays or fairy tales that you’ve got bubbling up inside you.
[Cue sonorous voiceover] Previously on “So You Want to Write a Book?”: Part 1, How I got started; Part 2, Other Ways of Writing a Book; Part 3, WRITE THAT THING; Part 4: What next? How I wrote my first book by just starting to write; how to plan a book step by step; how to actually write that book; and how to edit it once it’s finished.
Part 5: Getting it out there – Self-publishing
So you finished your book (Congratulations once again!) and you’ve edited it to the best of your abilities into a lovely, shiny manuscript that you’re not ashamed to have seen by other people (even ones who are not your mother). Way to go!
Now you have a number of options: A) Put it back in the drawer and keep it there forever. (No, don’t! You’ve spent too much effort on it for that.) B) Shop it around to publishers and/or agents to get it traditionally published. I don’t have much experience with that process myself, so can’t tell you much about it, but there’s plenty of information on it on the interwebs. It’s a very good option indeed, but extremely difficult to be successful at (there are many, many more writers writing manuscripts than publishers are publishing on a yearly basis).
Up until the early 2000s, those two options were pretty much the only ones available (barring so-called “vanity publishers” who said they would “publish your book” for a fee, but really only charged you large sums of money for printing your book with not much other services and left you with boxes full of hardcover copies sitting in your garage). But then the landscape changed. Now, you have a third and very viable option for turning your manuscript into a real book: C) Self-publish it through an online bookstore.
Again, the internet is stuffed full of very good information about that process; go look it up, there are many people who have far better things to say about it than I do. But I’ll give you a brief overview of what it takes to self-publish your book and get it out there—or at least, how I do it; again, there are other options, and possibly even better ones. Ask Google, he knows.
How to Self-Publish Your Book 1.) Write the best manuscript you can. Spellcheck it. Spellcheck it again. (See Parts 1, 2, and 3 of this series.) 2.) Get it professionally edited. This is optional, but if you want to sell your book to strangers you can’t really do without it. It will cost you money, and probably more than you expect, but it’s worth it. 3.) Write a back cover blurb (a short description of the book that goes on the back of the print copy and on the ebook vendors’ sales page). 4.) Get a book cover. It optional to get it done by a professional graphic artist, but again, if you want to sell, it’s highly recommended. However, there are cheaper options available such as ready-made covers, and Amazon has a free cover creator built into their self-publishing platform. With all of this, you get what you pay for: a professional designer can make your book look good, but a free, cheap, or homemade cover could do the job quite adequately if you just want the book for yourself and your friends. 5.) Make an account with the online self-publishing platform(s) of your choice. KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) is for Kindle books and print books that are sold on Amazon. Smashwords is for all other ebook formats, and they distribute to other ebook vendors like iBooks, Kobo, Nook etc. (Those are the two I’ve dealt with, and they’re free to upload your book.) IngramSpark also does print-on-demand books (I think there might be a fee involved for setting up, and they’re based in the US, so not that useful for other countries including Canada); Draft2Digital is another ebook publisher that has recently merged with Smashwords. Those are just some options. 6.) Format your manuscript for ebook and print (the self-publishing platforms will tell you how). You’ll need to create a .pdf or .docx for the print version and a .doc or .epub for the ebook. 7.) Upload your manuscript. 8.) Enter all the relevant information the publishing platform asks for (tags, keywords, blurbs, pricing etc.). Again, they’ll tell you how. 9.) Hit “Publish”. 10.) YOU HAVE PUBLISHED A BOOK!!!
And that, technically, concludes our series “So You Want to Write a Book?”—because now, YOU HAVE ACTUALLY WRITTEN A BOOK! That’s fantastic, and I’m immensely proud of you. Next time we meet, let’s trade: I give you one of mine, you give me one of yours. And we’ll sign them for each other, because that’s what authors do!
But, actually, that brings me to one more chapter. Now that you’ve written this book… or actually, maybe you haven’t written the book quite yet, after all. Maybe you’re not quite there yet. Maybe you want to start being a writer, but writing a full-fledged novel isn’t quite in your wheelhouse, or it’s too overwhelming at this point. But you want to be a writer.
So what else could you be doing on the writing front? How can you live the writer’s life? Stay tuned…
