Gif Synopsis of Claiming the Prince: Book Three

Please read Book Two Before Continuing! Spoilers Ahead!

Read it? Great. Now for the epic conclusion to Claiming the Prince. At the end of Book Two, Magda fled back to the mortal world, having saved the Pixie Lands from the Elf King. But she lost both her loves, Endreas and Kaelan. Endreas became the Elf King. And Kaelan was claimed by Sagara, Radiant of the Green Ways.

Back in California with her cousin, Damion. Magda struggles to find the peace she had prior to Kaelan and Endreas. This isn't helped by the fact that Damion has found himself a kickass mortal girlfriend, Ciara, and made something of a happy life for himself.

But then, Damion is taken by red caps. An army of tiny little men who have to keep their caps soaked in the fresh blood or they die.

They've been sent by the genderless god, Eris. They try to take Magda too, but she's helped by the hag who lives in the trailer next door. When the hag removes her cowl though, her crone disguise vanishes. She reveals herself to be Kaelan and Endreas's long-lost mother. The former Elf Queen, who everyone believed dead.

The Elf Queen helps Magda get back to Alfheim to find Damion. But Ciara shows up right as Magda is leaving and throws herself through the portal with Magda.

Magda arrives on Eris's island, where the god has been imprisoned for thousands of years.

Eris has a job for Magda. Long ago, when the other gods imprisoned Eris, they did so by stealing Eris's crown and staff. But what the gods didn't realize was that by weakening Eris, they were also weakening creation. Eris was the one who created Alfheim and all the magical creatures within. After all this time, the god is finally weakening. To save Eris and Alfheim, Eris needs Magda to find the crown and staff and return them to the god. The hitch? These objects were given to the most powerful people in Alfheim. The crown was broken apart.

Each of the seven rays of the crown were given to the seven Pixie radiants. They are known to Magda as the Enneahedron, the object her cousin Lavana tortured her to recover.

The band of the crown went to the Pixie Queen. It is the Crown. The one all of the Radiants are about to fight to the death to take in the Pixie capital of the Spire.

As for Eris's staff, that was given to the Elf King. When it was plunged into the floor of the palace and became the Elf King's throne.

Eris commands Magda to steal the Enneahedrons, vie for the Crown, and somehow convince Endreas to return the Throne/staff to Eris. To which, Magda replies...

But Eris, weak as the god is, promises to help Magda. The god, when it killed her on behalf of the former King, by taking Endreas's and Kaelan's heart-places from her, salvaged small pieces of each heart-place. With them, Eris splits Magda and makes her two separate, nearly identical people. Except one has Kaelan's heart-place and the other, Endreas's.

The half with Endreas's heart-place, called Magdalena, goes to the Spire to contend for the Crown and to find Endreas (who is with Lavana, still trying to fullfill his prophecy of bringing peace between the Pixies and Elves.) Magdalena, suffering none of the soft-heartedness and misgivings she experienced when she was joined with her other half, travels immediately to the Spire and kills Lavana at once. Finally becoming the Radiant of her family's province.

Endreas is there and seeing that Magdalena has returned, taken control of her family, and will now vie for the crown with the other seven Radiants, tries to make amends.

Magdalena, no longer torn between Kaelan and Endreas, wants to forgive him, but he did lay seige to Metis, kidnap and hold her prisoner for a year, and used magic on her.

Meanwhile back on Eris's island, Magda the thief, is attempting to figure out how to steal the Enneahedrons and save the world. She has Ciara to help her, but the magic of Alfheim is quickly transforming Ciara into a magical creature known as a dhampyr. Like a vampire, but who can go out during the day and has many more magical powers.

The only way for Ciara to keep from becoming a dhampyr permenantly is to return to the mortal world. But Eris is holding Damion as insurance that Magda doesn't run off and leave Alfheim to its destruction. Ciara decides to stay to help Magda and save Damion (and the world.)

Meanwhile, Kaelan has been claimed by another Pixie Radiant Sagara. But in the six months since then, he regrets the decision. He goes to Eris to help him forget Magda once and for all and make Sagara happy. But the god offers him another deal. Instead of forgetting her, maybe he can break the claiming magic binding him to Sagara. Then he'll be free to be with Magda again.

Kaelan agrees, but there's a catch.

In order to break the claiming magic, Kaelan will have to transform into the thing he hates most. That is, the form he was forced to live most of his life... an imp.

As an imp, Kaelan can help Magda in her mission to steal the Enneahedrons, but in order to free himself from Sagara, Magda must see that it's truly Kaelan beneath the imp-skin. Of course, Kaelan can't say anything and if Magda doesn't see the truth before the end of month, Kaelan will have to remain an imp forever. The deal's a little like this, without the singing or ball gowns...

So, back at the castle, Magdalena begins fighting for the Crown...

And Magda the thief, aided by Ciara the dhampyr, Kaelan the imp, and Hero the rat, starts traveling across the Lands to steal the Enneahedrons...

But when she almost dies, Hero takes her to Endreas to heal her. And he begins to suspect something, since Magdalena is in the Spire and healthy and there's a second Magda dying in his arms.

When Endreas discovers the truth about the two Magdas, he also learns the truth about Kaelan, that he's an imp. He captures Magda the thief and Kaelan. Fearful that Magda the theif will ultimately be rejoined with her other half and that he may lose her to Kaelan, again, Endreas tells Magda the truth. That the imp who has been helping her is really Kaelan. This means that Kaelan will have to stay an imp forever. Kaelan is crushed.

Endreas isn't convinced that saving Eris will really save the world. He's heard another story about the god, that saving Eris will actually bring about the destruction of the world. Magda the thief tries to covince him otherwise, but he's unmoved. He's guarded himself against the magical rebel attacks by doning a magical object called the cross. Slowly, it's turning him cold and heartless.

When Magdalena learns that Endreas has taken her other self prisoner, she goes to Magda's rescue.

Thinking Magdalena has betrayed him, Endreas takes the heart-place back from her, putting Magdelena out of comission right before she has to vie for the crown. Also, it's the last piece of his heart. The cross is slowly destroying it.

With time running out, Magda the thief is forced to go to the Spire and fight Sagara for the Crown.

At the same time, Ciara and Hero use a hag's cloak, a gift from Endrea's long-lost mother, to force him to face his inner demon, who takes the form of a dragon.

Though she nearly dies, Magda wins the duel with Sagara and claims the Crown.

She takes the reassembled crown to Eris, but it may be too late.

But Endreas removes the Cross and brings the Throne/staff to Eris just in time.

Eris and Alfheim are saved. And the two Magda's remain separated. Magdalena and Endreas are reunited.

But Kaelan is still an imp.

But Eris, restored to full godly status, tells Kaelan that if he leaves the magical world of Alfheim, the magic forcing him to be an imp can be stripped away. But then he'll be mortal and never able to return to Alfheim.

So Magda and Kaelan return to the mortal world, leaving Endreas and Magdalena to rule over Alfheim.

Read all three books in the Claiming the Prince trilogy now. Only on Amazon.com READ NOW

GIF Synopsis of Claiming the Prince: Book Two

Please read Book One Before Continuing! Spoilers Ahead!

Read it? Good. Then you remember that Magda left her homeland of Alfheim after suffering defeat in a duel against her cousin Lavana for the right to rule their family's land. She's with Kaelan, the Elf Prince who used to be an imp. (No pointy ears, though.)

They've been hiding out in a rebel exile camp in the Pacific Northwest, along with a couple of surly brownies and Magda's warrior cousin, Damion. Meanwhile, the rebels have been plotting to put Kaelan on the Elven Throne and to kill his father and twin brother, Endreas. But since Magda has a magical link to both brothers, called a heart-place, she'd really rather not get involved.

But then they hear that their old friend, and Kaelan's ex, the nymph Honeysuckle has been kidnapped by the Elf King. Kaelan, able to shapeshift and hide his true indentity from his father and brother (both of whom want him dead), returns to Alfheim to help Honey, leaving Magda behind in the human world. The moment Kaelan is gone, Endreas kidnaps Magda.

He uses magic to make her forget everything about Kaelan and her time with him. For the next year, she lives with him happily, on a dragon's island in the Elven Realms.

But then she starts to see a mysterious white rat and is plagued by the sense that something's not quite right. When she chases after the rat, it leads her to a green-eyed prince who seems to know her...

Endreas tries to steal her away again, but the memories come back and Magda escapes with some help from her dragon friend.

But before she can return to Kaelan, she's captured by the Elf King. He's aided by a witch who might actually be a god. Honey, the nymph, is also with him.

With the witch's help, the Elf King takes his sons' heart-places from Magda. And kills her.

But before Magda's body is disposed of, Honey revives her (with a little help from the gods.) Still, Kaelan and Endreas can feel the severed connection and believe she's dead.

After being killed and resurrected, Magda, rejoined by Hero (the white rat), takes some time to get her head together.

Just when she's decided it's better to let everyone think her dead and to quietly slip back into exile in the mortal world, she spies a massive fleet heading north--toward the Pixie Lands.

Hero uses his new powers to take her Kaelan, who is a little more than shocked to see her.

Kaelan's been with the rebels, preparing to battle the Elf King. Most of them are understandably suspicious of Magda's miraculous return. Especially another pixie Rae who has her eye on claiming Kaelan for herself.

Magda warns them of the Elf King's approaching fleet, which is headed to the port city of Metis.

They go to Metis to meet with the Radiant there and to prepare for the battle. But Magda can't help herself, and she visits Endreas on his ship to find out where her finger-knives are and to ask why he's invading her homelands with his father, whom Endreas has always hated. But he assures her that he has a plan to deal with his father.

He also tells her that Honey has been shacking up with the King. Magda doesn't believe it and goes to see for herself (with some magic teleportation.) She finds Honey with the King and tries to get her to leave, but Honey assures her she's right where she wants to be. Also, she's been hearing the gods talk to her. Magda doesn't believe it, until a strange voice speaks through Honey to her.

Magda returns to Metis for the battle. Things are still tense between her and Kaelan.

And she makes matters worse when she kind of, sort of sleeps with Endreas.

When Kaelan finds out, he's understandably pissed.

The Queen of the Pixies, known as the Crown, arrives in Metis to parley with the Elf King to try and stop the invasion. But instead, he kills her.

The battle ensues and Metis burns.

Kaelan boards Endreas's ship and attempts to kill him. But Kaelan is mortally wounded.

In the meantime, at the moment of the King's apparent victory, Honey kills him.

Then Honey gives up her own life to save Kaelan.

At the end of the battle, the witch-god appears and tells Magda that all of the life-saving and what-not was really the god helping her out. And the god expects something in return someday soon.

After the battle, Endreas retreats and the Pixie lands are safe, but now the Crown is up for the taking. Magda tries to make up with Kaelan, but he decides to let himself be claimed by the rebel pixie Rae instead.

Endreas doesn't want anything to do with her, either. In fact, he puts a bounty on her head.

Left with no other choice, Magda flees back to the mortal world once more.

Read all three books in the Claiming the Prince trilogy now. Only on Amazon.com READ NOW

Part 2: A Visual Synopsis of Claiming the Prince Book One

Please read Part One of the Synopsis

Read it? Good. Then you remember that Magda...

has just been captured by her cousin, Lavana, who proceeds to torture Magda in order to discover the location of the Enneahedron, which Lavana needs to strengthen her claim to the family's province.

But Magda isn't talking. So, Lavana tosses her into an iron prison. Iron, of course, being poisonous to Pixies.

She's not alone in the prison. Lavana has also locked up a Pixie Prince named Kaelan.

If Lavana has a Prince and the Enneahedron, her chances of taking the family's lands are much greater. But Kaelan doesn't want anything to do with Lavana.

There's also a lot of rats.

During one of Lavana's torture sessions, another Prince appears to question Magda on the location of the Enneheadron. Endreas.

But though he appears to helping Lavana, he has no loyalty to her...

When Magda is thrown back into the prison, she uses her ability to speak telepathically with animals and convinces the rats to help Kaelan and her escape.

After their escape, Magda and Kaelan part ways. Magda goes to find the brownie who has the Enneheadron. But she soon realizes she's being followed...

It's one of the rats who helped her escape. She names him Hero.

But there's someone else following her... Endreas. And he's not a Pixie Prince after all. He's an Elf Prince. Elves are the enemies of Pixies. Their King has long sought to take over Pixie Lands. But there's a prophecy that says Endreas can bring peace between the Elves and Pixies by marrying the Radiant of Magda's province. And he's decided that he would much prefer Magda over Lavana.

Attracted as she is to him, Magda's suspicious. You know, considering he's an Elf and he helped Lavana torture her.

Endreas leaves her, but promises not to go far.

On her way through the magical, danger-fraught forests of Alfheim, she's attacked by a nymph.

The nymph is Honeysuckle. She's in love with Kaelan and is afraid Magda will come between them. Especially since every so often, a Rae will go into her Shine. When that happens, there's nothing that can keep a Prince away from a Rae.

Magda reassures Honeysuckle that she's not interested in Kaelan, or any Prince for that matter. Honey reveals that Kaelan has only recently discovered that he's a Pixie Prince. For the first eighteen years of his life, he was under a spell that made him appear to be an imp. Even he didn't know the truth.

In the meantime, Magda discovers that the brownie has taken the Enneahedron to the rebels, those who wish to overthrow the Elf King. She, Damion, and Hero go with Honeysuckle and Kaelan to speak to an ancient forest spirit who may be able to help Magda recover the Enneheadron and Kaelan discover more about his mysterious past. But when they get there, the tree spirit turns out to be an empusa, a soul-sucking creature.

The empusa admits that she did aid Kaelan as a baby when he was brought to her by a wind spirit. She diguised him as an imp and hid him in her forest, but now that he's a Prince again, she wants payment for helping him out. She attacks them, starting with Honeysuckle. To make matters worse, at that very moment, Lavana catches up with Magda.

Can Magda battle a soul-slurping empusa who can slow time and her heartless, bloodthirsty cousin, and save her friends? Maybe with the help of a frog and a Prince, (not to be confused with a frog prince, which is a whole other story...)

Read all three books in the Claiming the Prince trilogy now. Only on Amazon.com READ NOW

Claiming the Prince: Book One A Visual Synopsis Part 1

Meet Magda

She lives in California, where she ekes out a living as a lifeguard.

Though she doesn't have much, she enjoys her quiet, peaceful life by the beach.

Then, this guy shows up on her doorstep.

He's her cousin and he wants her to come back home. Not here...

But here...

Magda is actually a Pixie Rae from a magical world called Alfheim. But she's not like the pixies in human stories.

She's more like...

After losing the battle for control of her family's province, she was exiled to the mortal realm, where she's content to stay. But her family's province is up for the taking once more and her cousin wants her to vie again... to become the Radiant aka. the ruler of the family's lands. But the only way to do so is in a duel to the death with another of her cousins, Lavana.

Magda's response...

Little does she know that her cousin has brought with him a sacred object, which Lavana needs to show her rightful claim. This object is the Enneahedron.

So, of course, Lavana comes after it.

And she brings an ogre...

Magda is able to get the Enneahedron away with the help of a brownie whose loyalties are suspect.

Though Lavana doesn't capture the Enneahedron, she does capture Magda and takes her back to Alfheim...

To torture her into giving up the location of the Enneahedron...

Tune in next time for Part Two. Where we meet Endreas...

Don't forget you can read all three books in the Claiming the Prince trilogy now. Only on Amazon.com READ NOW

Or read more of the synopsis in Part Two of A Claiming the Prince Synopsis

“Finding Your Voice”: The Truth

A couple years back, shortly after making my first foray into the publishing world, my brother-in-law asked me what I thought about the perennial advice that a writer needs to "find their voice."

My response, "That's just bullshit writing teachers tell newbies."

I stand by that, for the most part. But I've been thinking about it more lately and I realized that what it really means, the only thing it can really mean for any beginning writer, is put in the work.

One of the biggest rookie mistakes (one I certainly made), was sitting down writing a novel, having a couple friends read it, doing a quick proofread, and then sending it out into the world. Or (please save yourself the pain and don't!) loading it up and publishing it.

Now, are there those lucky son-of-a-guns who can just write a novel, give it a quick pass, publish it, and rake in the accoloades and cash? Sure. Maybe. I don't know. Every author I've encounteed who seems to have "stuck gold" with a first book didn't go it alone. They certainly didn't just write it, check for typos, and publish it. But will there be an exception? Of course there will. And maybe you're that one. If so, you're a lucky you-know-what and please try not to rub it in. Most of us aren't so lucky.

For the vast majority, we must work. We must revise. Over and over. We must get and receive feedback, either from a critique group, a workshop, a few trusted, brutally honest readers, or agents or editors. We must write, not just one book, but many, many books before one of them finally proves strong enough to be able to send it into the world. And that is how you find your voice, or your style, or even just how you learn to write a book that anyone should want to read.

If you are one of those who likes to learn from others' mistakes, then learn from mine. Even if you've written dozens of novels and finished them, and finally have one that you think someone else might actually want to pay you to read, don't just put that first draft through spell check and then stick it in the mail. Or publish it.

Give yourself the gift of an honest moment and ask, "Have I put in the work?" Not just on this particular book, but over time? Have a read all the books on writing? Have I sought out all the resources possible to help me improve as a writer? Do I think all the time about my weaknesses and do I actively work on them? Do I want to write the best book I can so that I can build an audience who is anxiously waiting for my next book, or do I just want to have written a book and have published it?

I'm not a bestselling author. I'm not a marketing whiz. I don't sell products and services to other authors. But I do hustle. When it comes to writing, I put in the work. Do I come up short? Yeah, I do. All the time. But I keep working. I don't placate myself by saying "I've made this much money or I have this big of a mailing list, so I must be doing something right." I never let myself think that I'm the best I can be. So, for anyone who has ever asked me how I've managed to accomplish what I have, even as small as those accomplishments are compared to others, there's your answer.

Yeah, I found my voice, because I wrote, I rewrote, I got slammed and let other writers gut my work, I studied, I wrote more, I rewrote again. I kept it. In other words, I put in the work. And I'm still working. Because I do it, not for the money (thankfully; otherwise, my family would be homeless and starving), but because I love it. I love the work. If you have that, then you don't need to worry about finding anything. You're doing. You're writing. And if you struck the actual lottery and never had to worry about money again, would you still be writing? Would you still put in the work? If the answer is yes, then the writing-class platitudes aren't for you. They're for the people who would stop writing if given a choice. But you're not one of those people, right? You worry about not finding your voice, because you think about writing, all the time. But if you're putting in the work, then you don't need to waste your time wondering where in the heck your voice is hiding and why you haven't been able to "find" it. Writing isn't a game of hide-and-seek.

So, my two-cents? Stop playing. Put in the work. And maybe you'll have what have. Some great readers. Some decent books. A few extra schillings in the pot. And the satisfaction of feeling that, even if you only squeeze it in between the day job and family and all the craziness of the world, you're still able to do the work that makes you happy.

I've found my voice and I hear it saying quite clearly, "Good work."

Book Three Update

Cora, where have you been? What have you been doing? And most importantly, where is Book Three? It's on my desk, right in front of me. Right now. I'm taking this break only to reassure you that it's not forgotten, I am working, and the book will be published. When? I wish I could say. Late last summer, I began writing in earnest. Sometime in mid-fall, I was forced to take a break due to non-writing related work (Sadly, I do not yet make a living off my books. I must work elsewhere to pay my bills. Everything I make from writing goes back into the books). The holiday season rolled around, my kiddo battled numerous sicknesses, which were passed to me... You know, life stuff. Finally, in January I got back to it and finished the first draft. It clocked in at a whopping 200k. Which is about 70k longer than either of the first two. So I revised. 30k words were cut. Months passed. I also write YA under another name. I've been releasing an entire new series under that name. Finally, in June, the book made it's way to my beta readers. I just got the notes back from them. Next round revisions are underway. Thanks for hanging in there with me. Thanks for reading. And most of all thanks for all of your amazing messages and emails and reviews. I cannot tell you how crucial they've been to me over the last year. I can never tell how much honesty readers want from their author. Do you want to know the nitty-gritty ugliness of a writer's life. Or do you prefer to have the glossed over final package stuff? Does anyone really want to hear about the countless hours spent revising, agonizing, doubting? Or is it one of those "fake it to make it" things? If I just pretend as if this all comes easy and make the writing life appear glamorous and effortless, is that better? After all, I spend all my free time constructing worlds for readers to escape into. Should I do the same with my own life? If you wish to imagine me poolside, sipping my mimosa, casting flirtatous glances with my chest-waxed poolboy while I write perfect chapters the first time through with my thousand dollar pen, then please do. Or maybe you prefer to think of me in some quaint cottage in the forest, or the mountains, on a tropical island somewhere. I type away on a vintage typewriter, drinking whiskey on the rocks. I take long hikes to clear my head. Inspiration strikes while I'm sitting on a rock overlooking a waterfall and I smile as I scribble it down in my handmade, leatherbound notebook. "Ah-ha!" I think. "That's it!" Maybe I live the city-life. I spend my nights at indie rock clubs, at cafes with agents and other authors, discussing the business or craft. I attend the lastest art exhibits and hobknob with brilliant, yet troubled artists of every stripe. I live in a loft with a skyline view, or a garden apartment in a building full of colorful characters who offer me endless material and insights into the human conidition. You know what? If that's what you'd like to believe, I don't blame you. And if so, please stop reading now. Because in truth, I've got a headache and there's laundry and dishes piling up and the bathroom is filthy. Money is tight and it sucks and I worry about it. I have to pick up my kid from school in a couple of hours and I haven't gotten even half of my to-do list for today checked off. I constantly wonder if I'm wasting my time. I've been wasting my entire life. I need to get out and take a hike clear my head. But I don't have time for that. And I'd love to be ogling the poolboy, but frankly, I don't care for waxed chests and I also, the poolboy wouldn't want to have anything to do with me--my hair is a mess, I haven't showered, what am I wearing? Who knows? Who cares? Plus, I don't have a pool. When I go to the pool, most of the guys there are fifty years older , or twenty years too young. So... ew. Plus, you know, married. Happily and in many ways boringly, but happily. I squeeze in editing at the park, at the playground, at the end of the night. I scribble story notes on my phone or on the back of index cards, when I can't find my phone because a lot of times, I can't. I wish that I had lots of great blog posts about something... anything, really. But even writing this makes me feel guilty. I have stories to write. I have characters and readers waiting. That's what I am. That's the truth. A working writer. It's work. It's messy and hard and glossing it over feels like a cheat. But it's good work. It's the work I do for the love of it (clearly not for the money.) So thank you, all of you, who've written to me, who've read my books, who've made me forget about all of the unglamourous aspects of my life and of the work of writing. You make it all worthwhile.

What happens when you merge the separate parts of your serialized novels? Confusion. :) My apologies to all of the readers who have wondered why they see the various serialized parts of Claiming the Prince and think they're missing out on Book Three! Not the case! Book One and Two were originally published in six parts each. Book Three, as of today, is still being written. Cheers!

Claiming the Prince: Choices Parts Two & Three are now available for pre-order. Releasing June 19th and June 3rd. Part One will be out on June 5th. ORDER NOW

The first cover of the second season of Claiming the Prince, Choices, coming in June!

The final installment of the first Claiming the Prince serial novel is out! Yeah, you noticed how I said first, didn't you? There's more Magda, Kaelan, and Endreas to come. Hopefully this spring, but definitely by the summer. Claiming the Prince: Choices waits in the wings. Curse me if you must. I understand. Part Six at Amazon

Claiming the Prince: Part Five Two Princes, brothers and deadly enemies. And one Pixie who would rather be anywhere but between them. Magda’s been fighting her attraction to both Princes, but there’s a time in a Pixie’s life when even she can’t say no. That time has come.

Defining Fantasy Romance Read to Journey Photo texture by mercurycode Fairy brush by Obsidian Dawn

Cora Avery is fantasy romance. Read to Journey Photo texture by: mercurycode

Mission Statement

1. Share I'm not an expert. I'm not some wildly successful author. But still, people ask. They ask about my experiences. They ask about my process. They ask. And so here, l'm going to answer. 2. Deliberate I'm learning. That's a big part of this blog. Particularly when it comes to the genre of romance, I'm still a newbie. And I'm making a lot of decisions as I figure out how to write best, both for myself and my readers (few as they are at the moment). I'm going to fail, mess up, trip up. There's no doubt about that. But I hope to be able to engage the issues I'm dealing with in an open and honest way. 3. Gather I gain so much inspiration from the beautiful blogs I find here on tumblr, and so, I'm here as much to do that as to document my own journey. 4. Love Because that's what the romance genre is all about, right? As I told my critique partner, "If we're not having fun, if we're not loving this, then what's the point?" As much as I'm likely to be blunt and occasionally brash, I am always, always striving towards the positive and illuminating and life-affirming. I never set out to insult anyone, but I will challenge and question, because that's what I do to myself. As a writer and an artist, I have to be critical of my work. I've enough experience under my belt to have learned how to differentiate harsh, but useful criticism from plain old invective. It took a long time for me to sort out the two, because sadly, even some "professionals" have never learned the difference. But that's fodder for another post. That's it, folks. Oh, wait, one more thing. 5. Write

Never Start with Backstory

When I decided to make the shift, from writing primarily fantasy with romantic elements to writing romance with fantasy elements, it was not easy. For much of my life, I'd avoided reading books that were strictly labeled Romance. Why? Because my house was full of them. Honestly. I wish I had virtual tour to evidence what my house looked like as a child. A 1950's box, three bedrooms, eat-in kitchen, one bath on the main floor. You couldn't pass a person in the hall without someone having to flatten against the wall. The bathroom door didn't open all the way because the towel cabinet was behind it. But as a child, I certainly didn't think of it as cramped. The neighborhood was working class. No one had big spacious houses. Tidier houses, sure, but I wasn't about to clean my room (at least not as child. Later, when the Legos were out of my life, it was easier to keep my floors clear of life's debris.) Plus, we had a fully finished basement with a half bath (that we rarely used unless left with no other choice because, honestly, it was creepy). The main living area of the basement was an L-shaped affair with brown shag and dark wood paneling, And in that little foot of the L, which wasn't really so little, were shelves my father had slapped together for my mother's ... collection. Three walls of 2x4s and plywood, already sagging by the time my memories started to form (and we didn't move in until I was four) under the weight of books. Paperbacks mostly. Almost exclusively romance. Don't get me wrong, my mother started out as a science fiction and fantasy buff. So it's not hard to see where my interests in the genres began. But the great weight of that pulp was romance. Bodice rippers of the 70s and 80s variety. Oh, the smell ... of must and dust and cheap paper and ink, stacked up to the ceilings. Those were just the books she'd read. The ones she was currently reading, or about to read, were in her room, piled beside the bed, in her car, on her dresser, in the corners. Once finished, they began their migration, piled at the top of the basement steps for a day or two, until they were moved off to their final resting places in the dark nook of my mother's horde. Some were taken to the second-hand book store eventually or donated. The ones she didn't think she'd read again. And she did read them again. My mother was a reader of the Olympian class and still is. I love my mother's love of books. I love that, with as little money as we had, there was always money for a book. I love that she let me read whatever I wanted, without question. When as a ten-year-old, I brought home a stack of Stephen King from the library, she didn't even blink (or maybe she did, but I didn't notice). I read them, and she let me. But for all of that, I avoided romance, like the clichéd plague. That was my mom's thing. And I wanted to do my own thing. Of course. I made no conscious decision to rebel in this way. I'm not sure I really consider it a rebellion. Rather, a taste difference. My brother got way more into epic high fantasy than I ever did. Everybody has their own thing, that is what is so great about genre fiction. There's something for everyone. Romance just wasn't my thing. Around the age of eight or nine, I recall cracking open some of those books, flipping through them, trying to decipher the reason for them. They read like soap operas to me. Boring adult stuff. Lady buys a ranch, where the rough cowhand in charge makes her life difficult, blah, blah, blah. Lady's ship gets taken by pirates, pirate captain is charmingly dangerous (swooning woman in arms of Fabio on the cover). I just didn't get it. Later, around the age of eleven, my friends and I did start to get it. Open any given book to any given page, find the throbbing, swelling, heaving part, giggle, giggle, giggle. Oh, we got it. Or thought we did. But I didn't get it not really. I spent many years in high school and college being gently guided away by well-meaning academics from genre-fiction towards the great canon. Towards high-minded halls of literary elites who spend their lives wrestling their prose into poetic submission over years. I was taught to view the genres I had loved with polite derision. To say things like, "Oh, yes, that's all right for fun, for the beach, for airplanes, I suppose, but have you considered Conrad's Heart of Darkness in the context of post-colonial deconstructivism?" But even as I was being groomed in this fashion, a part of me was never fully on board. I rolled my eyes every time I heard some graduate student start conversing about "the other." Until, of course, that person became me. And I was the one babbling at other English and Philosophy grads about 1800 Enlightenment poetics and Rousseau, blah, blah, blah. Only after college, only after I sat down at my computer to start writing, really writing (because I'd always been writing stories, or telling them, for as long as I can remember). But no, now I was going to do it. I was going to fulfill the ambition. I was going to be come an author. But when the words started coming, it was immediately evident that I was not writing for the National Book Award Committee, but for my ten-year-old self. I was writing genre fiction. *GASP* *HORROR* *SWOON* (Que Fabio... Fabio? Hello...? Where's that shirtless, pirate when you need him?) Mostly what I was writing was urban fantasy. I tried, oh, believe me, I tried, to write literary fiction, but I just couldn't. Rather than feeling lofted when attempting to escalate my prose, I felt defeated. The energy, the desire, the fuel was in genre fiction. Heavy on plot, action, dialogue. Light on character development, introspection, description of all kinds (so not high fantasy). I wasn't writing for the Ages, I was writing for the masses. And I loved it. I was home again. I was off. This was who I was. A genre writer. But it would be many more years, and one very persistent best friend, before I was convinced to crack open a romance novel, before I was convinced that in some ways, down in the basement of my mind, I had always been writing romance. And that it was time to bring those books up from the basement.

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