"Dreamless":calling all fan artists!!!

My new novel, "Dreamless," will be out next February, but it's currently without a final cover (the one currently attached to the book on Amazon.com is definitely not it). Sadly, I can't make the decision on what the final cover will be, but I can ask any lovely fan artists who are out there if they would be willing to dip into their creative stores and whip me up the cover of my dreams.

For inspiration, this is the back cover text for the book:

For most princesses, a sleeping curse means a few inconvenient weeks unconscious followed by a happily-ever-after with their true love. Seventeen-year-old Elena's curse, however, was designed without a cure, which means that she's getting a century-long nap for her 18th birthday whether she wants it or not. After years of study she's still no closer to finding a cure, even with the help of an undead godfather and an enchanted mirror-turned-therapist. 

With only a year until the deadline she's learned to accept her fate. Sadly, there's one prince who doesn't seem to have gotten the memo and who’s continually trying to activate the curse so he can be the one to wake her up again. Only slightly less annoying is Cam, her new bodyguard and former childhood acquaintance who disagrees with Elena at pretty much every turn. When the curse threatens to come early, however, stealing her consciousness at random moments, they both realize that fate is a lot more complicated than they'd ever imagined.

And this is the link to the draft version of chapter one I posted here all the way back in 2013:

http://jennifferwardell.blogspot.com/2013/11/sneak-peek-exclusive-look-at-dreamless.html

Since this won't be the final cover, the covers will be in the category of fan images and therefore open to interpretation. I'm open to all kinds of art, from drawing to photo manips. The winner will be used in my marketing for the book (fully credited), and will receive a "Dreamless" eARC the moment I get my hands on them. 

Disney’s “Cinderella,” “Beast Charming,” and “good” girls

Copyright 2015 Disney

There’s such a thing as being too nice.

Mainstream fairy tales, I’ve found, almost entirely disagree with me on this point. The latest example can be found in Disney’s upcoming live-action adaptation of “Cinderella,” where Lily James’s Ella is so good and sweet that she never even raises her voice to her cruel, manipulative stepmother. She’s pretty much sweetness personified, and the local animal life is literally drawn to the goodness radiating out of her. She keeps reminding herself to be kind – one of her mother’s last admonitions before she dies tragically – but doing so never seems to be at all hard for her. She also doesn’t seem to do much, with the fairy godmother and freakishly intelligent mice pretty much doing all the heavy lifting.

The heroines of a lot of fairy tales seem to be like this, with the author always making sure to highlight the character’s gentleness and purity of thought at every opportunity. Even more than being beautiful – though that’s always quite a factor, too – being nice seems to be the vital element in what distinguishes fairy tale heroines from the random background characters. You’ll get the happily ever after, but only if you’re so sweet and gentle sugar wouldn’t melt in your mouth.
Basically, only if you’re perfect.

I, on the other hand, am about as far away from perfect as a person can possibly be. My friends insist that I’m a nice person – though “can be” a nice person is probably more accurate – but I can also be as crabby as a nap-deprived toddler and have so little patience sometimes that it can’t be found using modern scientific instruments. I can get almost psychotically competitive in certain circumstances – I’ve actually been forbidden from playing a particular video game out of fear that I’ll injure human life or property – and I will think insulting things about people who probably have no idea how much I dislike them.

Characters like Ella should probably try to make me aspire to be a better person, but mostly they just drive me nuts. I love nice people in real life – even though they make me feel guilty – but even the best people have a flaw of some kind. The “classic” fairy tale heroine, on the other hand, is more like a beautifully carved marble statue than a living, breathing human being, and the world she lives in has no place for someone like me. If only those kind of people get happily-ever-afters, then I’m in deep trouble.

Which is why I decided to change that. In “Beast Charming,” Beauty is a basically good person who loves her sister, wants to help people, and always tries to do the best job she can. She also has a temper – her shouting fights with her father are epic enough to draw crowds – and a tendency towards sarcasm and insisting she get the last word. She’s had to fight for every drop of self-esteem she has, and she’s secretly afraid that she’ll never be quite enough for anyone. Still, she doesn’t let any of that stop her.

In short, Beauty is nowhere near perfect. And if someone like her can fight her way to a happily-ever-after, maybe there’s hope for the rest of us. 

Don't get fooled by Photoshop

Photoshop claims yet another victim. Seriously, this woman
would be incapable of standing if her thigh muscles were
really that non-existent.

There’s no diet in the world that will make you look like the models you see online and in magazines. The models themselves don’t even look like that.

See, there’s this little thing called Photoshop.  And it turns out that, no matter how skinny a model or actress is in real life, the people who run the magazine or website want them to be even skinner. For their skin to be even clearer and their breasts to be even bigger. Wrinkles? They don’t exist in Photoshop land – a quick brush with the blur tool and they’re gone forever.

Sometimes, you don’t even need the “before” picture to tell. Those shots where the skin on their face looks so smooth and tight you could bounce a quarter off it? That’s not a magic skin crème – it’s someone in the art department who went a little too crazy on the computer. Not even Scarlett Johansson has that kind of face in real life, and if she can’t manage it that officially proves that it’s impossible to pull off.  

Besides, would we really want to? It kind of makes them look like aliens from another planet.
If someone ever invents a Photoshop that works on real life, they will immediately earn a gazillion dollars and legions of people would happily bow down to them as their new overlords. A quick swipe with the erase tool, a couple of taps on the “bright” slide bar, a little judicious stamping, and we could all look like those poor half-naked women draped over the couches in all those high fashion ads.

But right now, in a world where that kind of miracle technology doesn’t exist, we have to stop looking at those fantasy images and thinking that they’re something we need to work towards. That we need to be as skinny as those models we see in advertisements. That our chests need to be as round and as perky. That we can age in such a way where wrinkles don’t exist.

Those things are just as unreal as the idea of waking up in the morning with wings growing out of your back.

Think of those glowing, alien pictures of non-existent women in the same way you do paintings of nubile warrior women or ridiculously sexy space babes who were always inexplicably attracted to the hero. You’d never think you had to actually be one of those women, would you? If nothing else, those metal bras always looked incredibly uncomfortable.

Remind yourself of that, every time you start looking longingly at a Photoshopped waistline. Tell your sisters, friends, daughters and granddaughters, and repeat it until you see it start to sink in. Trying to twist, tighten or shove your body into a shape that doesn’t actually exist in nature can only bring you pain. At best, it leads to heartache and constant frustration. At worst, it leads to eating disorders and the kind of self-hatred that can screw up entire lives.

Exercise so you feel healthy and strong. Use that skin crème because you love the way it makes your skin feel silky soft. Change your diet because you want to wake up with more energy in the morning.

Whatever you choose to do, you’re showing the world how awesome, beautiful and powerful real women can be. In the end, that’s so much more amazing than any magic Photoshop can pull off.  

Textual Salvation

"Power of Words" by Antonio Litterio

I've kind of been going crazy for the last several days. Something had had been working is suddenly not working anymore, the IT people deep in the heart of a faceless corporation that I desperately need to talk to won't acknowledge my e-mails, and to top it all off I was in a constant tailspin of worry that I wasn't figuring out a way to fix these things immediately. You know, my entire future was on the line, I was blowing my chance, failure was imminent, that sort of thing. It was all I could think about, and because there was nothing I could do to fix it I had absolutely zero interest in doing anything else.

Then I had a realized that I had a metric ton of writing to do, and the deadlines were about to hit me over the head.

It was like a miracle. All of my anxiety about my future and success suddenly narrowed down to the simple fact that if I didn't get these writing assignments finished, I would be screwed in very concrete and practical ways. I'm a journalist by trade, so I respect deadlines in a way I respect few other things in my life, and here was a whole stack of them in front of me.

My worry narrowed down in a wonderful way from things I couldn't control to things I could. Even better, I could control them by writing, which is something I would rather be doing than nearly anything else in my life. I'm terrible at social interaction, marketing, long-term planning or convincing people to respect me, but I am freaking great at putting one word in front of another.

I might not have been able to fix my life, but I could absolutely sit down and wrap up the blog assignment I had finally found the perfect idea for. I couldn't predict the future, but I could definitely start slugging my way through the pile of articles I had been putting off for days that had a very immediate deadline. I had little interest in being inside my own head, but I could happily fulfill my obligation to characters whose company I vastly preferred to my own.

Writing saved me, as it has before and as it undoubtedly will again. I see a purpose in it in a way I can't always see a purpose in myself, and I can give myself over to it wholeheartedly when the inside of my head is just a little more than I can take at the moment. Every time I write an article, a story or a poem, I am validating my own existence one more time. Yes, I may be kind of messed up, but look at this awesome thing I made.

I think ... no, I hope, that Robin Williams's movies saved him for a long time. Like everyone, I wish they'd been enough to hold him here with us even longer. And I wish for you all the inexpressible gift of finding some form of expression that might help save you. 

Thaw

The gray times

are the hardest.

The emptiness somehow worse

than pain would be.

as if your heart has forgotten

how to be alive.

Winter, too,

is cold and grey,

and the callous silence

of frozen ground,

the promise of spring

locked just out of our reach.

But waiting

is not the same as death,

no matter how eternal it seems.

The ground will thaw,

the sun will warm,

and the emptiness inside you

will bloom

again.

-Jenniffer Wardell

Beast Charming cover reveal!

The book itself may still be almost a year away, but the cover for "Beast Charming" is finally here! There may be some minor tweaks to it between now and the actual launch - in my experience, cover artists twitch over the final details of their work almost as much as writers do - but it'll look basically like this:

Personally, it made me do a ridiculous little happy dance. What do you guys think?

"Fairy Godmothers, Inc." extended scene: The Statue Incident

Welcome to the “Fairy Godmothers, Inc.” special edition! Under this tag I’m going to roll out some extended/alternate scenes that didn’t make it into the book. When we get to the longer scenes, I’ll even give you guys the option to experience the scene with or without author commentary.

For this one, however, I can get the commentary out of the way before the scene starts. This is an extension of the scene that starts out chapter 5, specifically between pages 56 and 57. I snipped this bit due to protest that Kate is more emotional here than she usually is, and I will admit that it’s probably not necessary for the scene. But I think it gives a glimpse of Kate that I’m not sure we see anywhere else, and I still mourn it a little.

OOO

“Possibly, though that depends on how much emphasis you’re placing on the ‘you.’” John hesitated. “I might have some vague chance in getting the Queen to ask for one, but with this little lead time I’m not even sure she’d be enough to persuade Madame Stewart to marshal her forces and get everything pulled together. For something like this you’d have to go straight to the Madame herself, the Queen’s personal entertainment organizer, and she won’t even give me the time of day after that unfortunate incident with the ice archer.”

           

Rellie stared at John for a second, then giggled. “You’re really weird.”

           

“He is not weird,” Kate snapped instantly, whipping around to glare at Rellie. “Those ice sculptures are absolute menaces anyway, and you don’t even have any idea what happened in the first place.”

           

You could have heard a wand drop in the resulting silence. Horrified, Kate barely resisted the urge to clap a hand over her mouth as she saw Rellie’s eyes widen in surprise. Slowly, she slid her gaze over to John, who was staring straight ahead and looked like he was fighting the urge not to … what, she didn’t know. But knowing the way her life usually went, it probably wasn’t going to be something she wanted to hear.

           

Kate took a deep breath, making herself ignore the lead weight that had suddenly dropped into the pit of her stomach. “So,” she began, not quite meeting John’s eyes. “You were telling us about the possibility of a fancy dress ball?”

           

“Yes.” John very deliberately cleared his throat, still not quite willing to look at Kate. “What I was trying to say is that I doubt I’ll be able to convince the woman of anything on my own. But she loves Rupert, both because he’s pretty enough that he matches the statuary and he actually enjoys eating those disgusting canapés she makes. If I can convince him to persuade her we need a last-minute ball, we should be fine.”

000

And later, on page 59….

000

She felt a tug on her skirt from Rellie. “I’m not sure about this whole dancing thing, but if I trip I might tear the skirt of the really neat dress you made me.” The girl made her eyes go big and plaintive as she batted her lashes up at Kate. “Do you really want to have to go through all the yelling it took to make it all over again?”

           

“Besides,” John said quietly. “It’s not every day I find someone willing to defend my honor.”

           

Kate stared hard at John for a long moment, feeling something inside her chest catch. “Thursday night, then? Ten o’clock?” she asked finally, still waiting for him to say no. It was absolutely ludicrous to expect someone to have their schedule open with only two nights advance notice. “Just across the street?”

Poetry confessional

So… I was really into poetry in college, as I’m sure many of you were/are (I’ll have to tell you about the depressing poetry contests, sometimes) but I hadn’t written in years. As Mark Twain said, “Contentment does not lend itself well to verse.”

Then… I kind of went through a super stressful time lately, and my first poems in years suddenly fall out of my fingers. And, since you’re a captive audience, I’m subjecting you to them.

000

sweetclipart.com

Nero fiddled while Rome burned

But no one thought to ask

If it was he who struck the match

If the slide of bow across strings

Was a mock of the city he’d felled

Without an army at his back

A celebratory dance

For the destruction he’d conjured

Or if he saw the flames

Only when others did

Tasted death as it was carried on the wind

And reached for the fiddle

So he could spend his final moments

In song

000

Somewhere, the world is ending

There may be warning signs

Arguments in the night

Whispers of disappearing money

The slow fading of the light in their eyes

But that final morning

Always keeps its silences

Never admitting

That this will be the last moment

Before your own private apocalypse

There will be no time to mourn

No companion with you in the bunker

Only blue skies

That seem a thousand miles away

And the memories of a world

That lies shattered at your feet.

Friday Chat: Elsie Park, author of "Shadows of Valor"

Today I’m lucky enough to have fantastic author and all around fabulous person Elsie Park stop by and talk to us about her new book, “Shadows of Valor” (seriously, people, go read it – it’s exciting, classic romance at its finest). First, though, sit back and listen to the story of how she made the magic happen.

1. What first gave you the idea for “Shadows of Valor”?
A bunch of medieval ideas that I thought might make a good movie or story came to me over a period of days and weeks, but at this point, I’d never written a novel in my life. I’d done essays and short stories in school and for personal enjoyment, but nothing serious. But this time, on a whim, I decided to jot them down. As a stay-at-home mother of a 10-month old, I was looking for something to do other than chores, dishes, laundry, groceries shopping and changing diapers. Not that those things didn’t take enough of my time, but I needed something a little more exciting – LOL.

2. What was the research process like for the book?
I spent days, weeks and months researching books and online about the specific medieval time period in which I chose to write (1300 A.D. England), and I had pages of notes and bookmarks marking piles of books up the wazoo. And then, when once I felt like I could proceed with my story, I’d run into countless other things later on that I had to look up and clarify before I could again continue writing the details. Sheesh. Even with all the research I did, I still don’t feel like any kind of an expert. There’s just so much to learn. I only researched what applied to my story and time period.

3. What was your favorite thing about writing “Shadows of Valor”?
My favorite thing was writing a cool mystery/drama/romance/plot that weaved together create an intriguing story. Creating characters that I liked and that held a tiny piece of myself and my loved ones and friends was really fun. That’s the fun of writing. An author can write whatever they want and use whatever inspiration they receive and from whomever. Reminds me of a humorous statement I saw about authors. I’m paraphrasing, but it was to the effect of: “Beware, I’m an author – Anything you say or do may end up in one of my books!” *laugh* So true.

4. What would you say was the hardest thing about writing “Shadows of Valor”?
It was difficult to write my dialogues in the old English (which I didn’t end up using in my final version anyway because it read somewhat like Shakespeare and readers tripped over it). All that work for nothin’ *shrug*.

5. If you could go around to everyone who buys the book and tell them one thing, what would it be?
I hope you love and appreciate the tale of Sir Calan and Elsbeth. I hope you can find similarities within yourselves that bring you closer to the characters’ struggles, triumphs and feelings of love.

6. Fictionally speaking, what are your plans for the future?
I’m writing another medieval story set in 1300’s England/Scotland involving a minor character from SHADOWS OF VALOR and giving him his own story. There will be mystery, intrigue, trials, triumphs, villains, action and, of course, a love story (always PG-rated, like your cute novels *smile*)

7. Does it bother you how much I apparently love the word “what”?
*LAUGH* To be honest, Jen, I hadn’t noticed at all so I can honestly say it hasn’t bothered me. But now that you’ve brought it to my attention . . . *smile*
Thank you so much for having me as a guest on your wonderful blog, Jenniffer! I await your next tale, BEAST CHARMING with anticipation!


SHADOWS OF VALOR overview: Taking place in 1300 A.D. England, The Shadow (aka Sir Calan), a knight-spy working under the direction of King Edward I, hunts down and arrests smugglers who defy the law and evade paying their taxes. The Shadow’s duty is fueled by vengeance from a childhood experience against smugglers. Dealing with society at its worst, The Shadow becomes cynical and struggles to rein in his desire to execute lethal justice before turning the perpetrators over to local authorities. He feels his soul turning black with hate in his continual fight against evil. A childhood acquaintance, Lady Elsbeth, enters his life years later, bringing light to his soul once again, but she has a story of her own, accompanied by physical and emotional scars. Calan feel he needs Elsbeth in his life, but in an effort to keep his identity and duty secret, he must deceive her. This creates distrust and uncertainty between them, as she accepts another man as her suitor. But Calan must ask the question: What’s worth fighting for more? His long-standing desire to avenge a childhood friend or the woman who may be his salvation? What entails is a glorious tale full of deceit, greed, inner struggles, betrayal, and most of all—love.

SHADOWS OF VALOR was released September 7, 2013 through Jolly Fish Press. It can be ordered from any bookstore including Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com and will be available in hard cover, paperback and on e-readers (including Kindle, Nook, and Kobo, as well as any tablet, smartphone, or computer).

About the author:
Growing up in a small mountain town outside of Yosemite National Park, California, U.S.A., Elsie Park enjoyed playing soccer, playing piano, reading, writing, art and spending time with family and friends. Years ago she spent 18 months in Italy teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. Seeing the castles and old Roman cities only added to her fascination for ancient and medieval culture. In college she studied zoology, botany and criminal justice. She’s worked as a wildland firefighter, security guard and a police officer, but she is currently a stay-at-home mom, spending time with her children and husband. She loves thinking up new ideas for interesting stories and musical compositions to go with them.

E-mail: elsie_rees@hotmail.com
Blog: http://www.elsiepark.blogspot.com/
Twitter: @elsiepark1
Author Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/authorelsiepark
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/shadows-of-valor-elsie-park/1114940696?ean=9781939967077
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18216270-shadows-of-valor
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Shadows-Valor-Elsie-Park/dp/1939967074

The Writing Life: The Perils of God Mode

Being a god involves a surprising amount of paperwork.

            

I won’t pretend that we writers aren’t attracted to the craft, at least in part, because of raging control issues. In real life, most of us only have a limited number of things we have any real authority over, and most of those fall under the category of what to eat for dinner.

            

Writers, however, have absolute power within the boundaries of our particular world. If we want the sky to be green, all we have to do is say so. If someone annoys us, we can kill them off in as grisly a fashion as our heart desires. We can fill a thousand different conversations with the things we wish we’d said in life.

            

It takes a little time to realize that having all the power means more than just being able to do what you want. You have to do *everything,* from keeping track of each and every character to making sure that they have everything they need to give you the ending you want.

            

One character may keep a gun in a drawer next to his bedside, but if you don’t make certain he stops by his house to grab it before the final battle then he’s going to go in unarmed. You also need to make sure he has some skill at actually shooting the gun, and come up with a reason for him to have that training that makes sense. Making note of all these little things, and assuring that they’re both in place and believable, is the literary equivalent of a police officer filling out paperwork after a case.

            

The more complicated a story, the more paperwork you have to do. My Sleeping Beauty, Elena, is a sorceress, which means I’ve had to hear far more about magic than I ever wanted to. More specifically, I have to study magic, figuring out why a particular spell works and what will happen when I introduce this outside element to another spell. Because Elena would know, and has a tendency to explain such matters in a far more technical language than I use in describing anything, ever. Since she knows, I have to as well.

            

Most of the time, I adore dealing with even the finickiest of details. It’s like building an enormous, world-spanning dollhouse, and it takes someone who finds equal delight in making sure the walls are structurally sound and writing tiny little headlines on the fake newspaper on the coffee table. You have the power to send a bedset plummeting off the third story, and it can be fun to watch it smash on the rocks below. But you also have to be the one to sweep it up, and make sure that the upstairs bedroom gets a replacement bedset at some point.

            

Of course, you could simply blow the house up and solve all your problems. But then you’d have to figure out what kind of device would cause the right amount of damage, smuggle it into the house without anyone noticing, and decide whether or not you want there to be any survivors.  Depending on the answer to that question, you’re left with a whole new set of problems.

If being a god was easy, anyone could do it. 

Fairy Tale Material

If you haven't already experienced the genius that is A Softer World, go do so now.

Fairy tales are tricky things.

            

We tell ourselves that they’re just for young people, and that the rest of us have grown up enough to stop believing in them some time ago. But then years later, we dig into our secret hearts and find ourselves hoping that a man will ride in on his white horse and save us. Or we’ll finally find the secret makeover that will let us turn into a beautiful swan and enchant some handsome prince. Because that’s the way happily-ever-after is supposed to go.

            

Personally, I’m not what you’d call fairy-tale material. I’m short, painfully average-looking, not skinny, embarrassingly uncoordinated and only mildly clever. My courage and determination tends to come and go in fits and spurts. If I was very lucky, I might be hired as a Fairy Godmother (and probably fired for insubordination a few weeks later). More likely, I would be Serving Girl #3 during one of the random scenes in a tavern.

            

Because my brain lives to annoy me, I've known all of this for a long time. Even as I devoured stacks and stacks of fairy tale books, I knew my story wasn't in any of them. People like me didn't become heroes, and they certainly didn't become love interests. Brave, beautiful and clever people got those spots, and unless someone gave me a full brain/body transplant I wasn't going to be able to pull that off. Clearly, happily-ever-after wasn't meant for people like me. All I could hope for was a lifetime of scrubbing tables and hoping that a tragic inn fire wasn't going to be a major part of the real heroine’s plot.

          

But… what if there was a story for the rest of us? What if there were a thousand stories? Do gorgeous, talented people really deserve all the fairy tales? Aren't their perfect teeth enough of a consolation?

            

So I wrote. I took all my dreams, hopes, doubts and terrible sense of humor and I spun the kind of fairy tale I wished I could have heard as a teenager. And then I spun another one, because it would be the height of arrogance to think my happily-ever-after would suit someone else. And then another. And another.

You’re not supposed to think this hard about fairy tales. They’re not supposed to mean anything. But fairy tales are tricky things, and they worm their way into your brain and deep down into your soul until you believe them without meaning to. Until you find yourself imagining that office workers, interns, and even Serving Girl #3 deserve their own happily ever after, and they don’t have to make themselves any more beautiful or clever to do it. They’re fine just the way they are, and they’re perfectly capable of saving themselves. 

Deities 101: The Mythology of the Pipe Woman Chronicles

We have a visitor today! The amazing Lynne Cantwell has recently released “Annealed,” the latest book in her Pipe Woman Chronicles series (Never heard of it? Check it out on Goodreads!) Her literary playground is the world of gods and goddesses, and she’s stopped by to offer us a Deities 101-style look at the power players in her world.

The Mythology of the Pipe Woman Chronicles
by Lynne Cantwell

When I began writing the Pipe Woman Chronicles, I made a conscious decision to make it a different kind of urban fantasy.  Instead of incorporating vampires, zombies, and other things that go bump in the night, I decided to mine various pre-Christian pantheons for the otherworldly beings who populate my novels.  Here's a quick primer.  If you’re interested in seeing what they look like, I’ve created a Pinterest board.  Feel free to stop by!

Kicking things off is White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman, the Lakota Sioux goddess who gifts Naomi with her extra-special powers of persuasion.  The Lakota believe White Buffalo Calf Pipe Woman brought them the sacred pipe they smoke when making decisions for the tribe.  She also taught them their seven sacred ceremonies – among them, the Sun Dance and the hunka, or making-of-a-brother, ceremony that both occur in Annealed.

Many Plains Indian tribes – including the Lakota and the Ute – include Coyote in their belief systems.  Coyote is a Trickster who can change shape at will.  He is always cooking up some scheme to enrich himself at someone else's expense.  The Ute have a number of stories about Coyote plotting to have sex with one woman or another.

Another Ute legend is that of Blood Clot Boy. (I couldn’t find a picture of him for the Pinterest board, sorry – although that may be just as well.)  He transformed initially from a clot of buffalo blood into a human-like boy, and a childless couple adopted him.  His chief activity was providing his family, and later his tribe, with plenty of buffalo – an important function for a nation whose subsistence largely depended on them.

Three Aztec (or, more properly, Mexica) gods figure in the Pipe Woman Chronicles: Quetzalcoatl, Tezcatlipoca, and Coatlicue.  Quetzalcoatl and Tezcatlipoca seem to be brother gods who swap control of the world at the dawn of each new age, or sun.  We are currently in the Fifth Sun, and the god in charge is Quetzalcoatl, the Feathered Serpent who some New Agers believed would return to Earth at the end of the Long Count that occurred last winter.  Tezcatlipoca, the Smoking Mirror, is another Trickster – a shapeshifter who commonly takes the form of a jaguar.  Early Christian chroniclers would often try to cast one local god in the “good guy” role and another in the “bad guy” role, and Tezcatlipoca drew the short straw for the Mexica.  But the evidence suggests that he was respected rather than feared, and that he would even help his followers on occasion.

Coatlicue was probably imported by the Mexica from an older tradition.  She is considered to be the Mother of some members of the Mexica pantheon (although not the mother of either Quetzalcoatl or Tezcatlipoca, despite the conflation of their separate myths).  Her youngest son, Huitzilopochtli, led the Mexica from their fabled paradise of Aztlán to their final home in what is now Mexico City.  Legend has it that she is still waiting for Huitzilopochtli to come back home to her.

From sunny Mexico, we move to cold Northern Europe and the Norse pantheon.  I think almost everybody is familiar with these gods:  Odin, the one-eyed AllFather; Frigga, his wife; Thor, the hammer-wielding god of thunder; and Loki, who is yet another Trickster.

And from the Celtic pantheon, I’ve brought in Brighid.  Catholics know her as a saint. But before Christianity came to Ireland, Brighid was the goddess of smiths, poets, and healers.  There is a shrine in Kildare where a perpetual flame is tended in her honor in a twenty-day rotation: women keep the flame lit for nineteen days, and Brighid Herself tends it on the twentieth.  Or so the legend goes.

Part of the fun of writing the Pipe Woman Chronicles was getting all of these different gods and goddesses together and playing them off of one another.  I hope my readers will enjoy their interplay, too.

SYNOPSIS
It’s zero hour…
Naomi has just two weeks to find a new home for Joseph's grandfather. The old Ute shaman is fighting for his life against a mysterious injection of toxin he received at the hands of the Norse Trickster god Loki. If Naomi is to defeat Loki once and for all, she must learn what it is he seeks under the old man's wickiup.
She has just one week before she must mediate between the Earth's pagan gods and goddesses and the Christian God. If her efforts fail, all of humankind will suffer the consequences.
And her baby is due any day.
In this, the fifth and final book of the Pipe Woman Chronicles, Naomi is in a race against the clock to balance the demands of her body, her family, and her friends – and she must do it while the whole world is watching.
AMAZON BUY LINK - http://amzn.to/13GulSX
GOODREADS - http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/17922277-annealed

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lynne Cantwell has been writing fiction since the second grade, when the kid who sat in front of her showed

her a book he had written, and she thought, "I could do that." The result was Susie and the Talking Doll, a picture book, illustrated by the author, about a girl who owned a doll that not only could talk, but could carry on conversations. The book had dialogue but no paragraph breaks. Today, after a twenty-year career in broadcast journalism and a master's degree in fiction writing from Johns Hopkins University (or perhaps despite the master's degree), Lynne is still writing fantasy. In addition, she is a contributing author at Indies Unlimited and writes a monthly post for The Indie Exchange.

GOODREADS http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/696603.Lynne_Cantwell

FACEBOOK - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lynne-Cantwell/

BLOG - http://hearth-myth.blogspot.com/"

AMAZON - http://www.amazon.com/Lynne-Cantwell/e/B005JTP5NE/

TWITTER - https://twitter.com/LynneCantwell/

Fairy Godmothers, Inc.'s newest employee

Meet the latest hire at Fairy Godmothers, Inc.! (And the dragon I drew at this year's chalk festival...)

Anyone know what her name should be?

My little dragon problem

I have a little dragon problem.

Normally, I'm fairly discreet about it. I no longer doodle dragons all over everything - mostly because the work I do is entirely on the computer now - and my dragon t-shirts are now only a small part of my massive collection of geeky t-shirts. But there's one area where my love of dragons is impossible to ignore - the Magic on the Sidewalk chalk festival, which is held every May in Bountiful (where the newspaper I work for is based). Amazingly talented artists line the street to transform squares of concrete into art, and yet somehow I ended up with a long-standing slot of my own. I enjoy taking part, but the only thing I can reliably draw is dragons.

This is not my first dragon, but it's definitely the first I feel comfortable
showing the public at large.

Normally, I prefer traditional Western dragons to wyverns - I feel
like life must be instinctively harder without hands of some kind. This was my
attempt at bonding to the species. 

Not my best work (the actual dragon is very tiny), but rain gave me less
time to work than usual. I'm afraid I either got a bit lazy or experimental,
which can occasionally amount to the same thing.

I imagine the rest of him is hidden beneath the walkway.

I was out of town in 2012, which means the friendly soul above is my most recent dragon up to this point. I'm currently working on this year's creation, and I'll unveil it in a post tomorrow once I'm finished. 

The Second Time: Book Signing Edition

Photo by Louise R. Shaw

Katherine Russell Rich said that uncertainty can give you power, but I’m pretty sure she was nuts. Sure, you need uncertainty in your life, because otherwise you’re going to spend your entire life in front of the television, but I haven’t noticed it make me any mightier. What it mostly makes me is panicked, though I’ve gotten to the point where the only obvious sign of this is eyes that grow to about three times their normal size (though, since they’re pretty small anyway, that might be a plus).

             

Still, when it comes to new experiences, the second time is usually easier than the first. My first book signing was last Saturday, with my second coming up this Saturday at the Barnes & Noble in Sugarhouse (if you’re in Salt Lake, come say hi!) Here are some things I’ll know this week that I wish I could have told myself last week (or maybe not – time travel is never a good idea). If you’ve had your own book signing, I’d love for your to add your own insights in the comments.

1. Breathe

            

A book signing isn’t nearly as nerve-wracking as I thought it would be. You’re mostly there to talk about your book and explain why it’s the greatest thing ever, a process you’ve already mastered when you were trying to get the thing published in the first place. As long as you don’t try to accost people and shove the book into their hands, you’ll be fine.

2. Think about all the people who might want to buy your book

            

You will be amazed (or at least I was) about the number of people who will come up and ask if your book would be good for kids/adults/romance fans/serious readers/casual readers/goldfish. Give serious thought to the answer – you don’t want to steer people wrong, but you also don’t want to leave out a potential audience. I’ve had everyone from 12-year-olds to women with their own kids say they loved “Fairy Godmothers, Inc.,” but when I was writing it I had no idea the spread would be that wide. 

3. Don’t freak out over the quiet periods

            

Those moments when you’re sitting alone at a table, watching everyone hurrying by to places that are clearly more interesting than you are, isn’t fun. The self-consciousness comes almost immediately, followed by the flashbacks to less pleasant moments of high school.

The key thing to remember is that these quiet periods are a natural part of any book signing, and it doesn’t mean that your book isn’t the most awesome book ever written. How many times have you hurried through a store to get where you needed to go and not even noticed anything else going on around you? That’s what happening here.

4. It’s surprisingly hard not to knock into things when you have wings sticking out of your back.

            

 I have so much more sympathy for Kate now.

"Fairy Godmothers, Inc." cover reveal

Drumroll, please....

*Dabs at her eyes*

I feel like one of those parents whose kid made it through the Gettysburg Address in the elementary school program. Is that normal?

PBS in my DNA

I’m a full-time journalist and about to be a published novelist, and I’m just now realizing how much PBS made me a part of who I am.

My earliest years are a combination of “Sesame Street” and “Mr. Rogers Neighborhood,” both ingrained in me so deeply that lines from different segments will still float through my head occasionally. It’s a standard line now that both shows make education seem fun, but they also taught me things I never found in a textbook. Through those shows, I found out that words have a wonderful rhythm that can be as fun to play with as any toy. I found out that everyone has their own story to share, and you can find out the most wonderful things if you’re just brave enough to ask a question. I learned that it’s okay to be scared, but that things will probably work out if you take a deep breath and jump in.

Then there was Bob Ross. I’ve never really painted, and most certainly not with oils, but when I was a kid he was the only creative person I knew. In a way, he opened up the entire world of creativity for me. You could watch him paint these beautiful, complicated scenes, and he would break it all down into these simple-sounding steps that made it seem like anyone could make something that beautiful and complicated. I know Ross really believed that, and he was warm and encouraging enough to feel like the kindest, most loving teacher in the world. There were no mistakes, only “happy accidents” that you could turn into something wonderful. On a more fundamental level, the fact that he loved what he was doing radiated out of him every second he was onscreen.

Bob Ross might not have succeeded in teaching me how to paint, but he definitely taught me that making something out of nothing is one of the happiest, most welcoming experiences a human being can have. How was I supposed to say no to that?