Hey everybody! Popping in to say hello on a Tuesday! I wanted to reach out today and offer two brand new links of new listening material for you all.
Recent Podcast Appearance
Last Thursday, I had the privilege to have a wonderful conversation on my good friend, Eddie’s podcast series, The Weekly Grind. We had a fantastic time talking about writing, his current work, and my upcoming debut novel, Chasing Fae. I would love it if you guys would take a listen!
Chasing Fae Official Playlist
I’ve been itching to share something unique, so today I’m making my official Chasing Fae playlist public! Each song on this Spotify playlist corresponds to a specific chapter or a specific scene. I used many of this songs to draft various important moments in the book. I’ll be releasing more details and descriptions of each song and its significance via my beta reader community soon. So if you haven’t yet purchased a copy of Chasing Fae, I would highly recommend picking that up soon right here!
That’s all for today! More updates to come. Happy writing, everyone.
CHASING FAE IS HERE! My debut YA fantasy novel is out for preorder today, and exclusive signed copies and access to special content will be available until MAY 15th. – Recently extended!Secure your copy today!
A potential author picture for inside the cover of Chasing Fae
Hooray! Today marks Fluff About Fantasy’s one year anniversary and the website’s one hundredth post!
I am so proud of what I have been able to accomplish in the last year. I’ve grown such a vast audience in such a short amount of time, and I want to thank all of my readers who have been with me since the beginning. I have immensely enjoyed contributing stories about my experiences writing fantasy and what I have learned along the way. This is one of my favorite projects to work on during the week, and your support is immensely appreciated. To celebrate, I wanted to share with you the stats of all of my and Fluff About Fantasy’s platform from the first year. Tracking the progress has been really fun; I’m so happy with how far I’ve come as a person and as a writer through this site.
Created Free Revision Checklist for Beginners – not getting a lot of takers so far. STILL AVAILABLE!
Listed on Feedspot’s Top 60 Fantasy Book Blogs And Websites For Fantasy Readers and Authors from July 2019 through January 2020 (present).
58 Countries in the first year (in order of number of views): United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Ireland, China, Australia, Bangladesh, Philippines, Germany, Sri Lanka, France, India, New Zealand, South Africa, Hong Kong, Netherlands, Denmark, Switzerland, Czech Republic, Turkey, Singapore, Spain, South Korea, Poland, Taiwan, Macedonia, Iceland, Nigeria, Sweden, Brazil, Finland, Bulgaria, Malaysia, Hungary, Romania, Pakistan, Armenia, Thailand, Jamaica, Slovenia, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Aruba, Mexico, Croatia, Vietnam, Russia, Uruguay, Israel, Guernsey, Tanzania, Indonesia, Austria, Norway, Morocco, Chile, Italy, Lithuania.
Inspiration boards for each House semi-regularly updated with new ideas
Pinterest stats fluctuate so much, but currently seeing 7.6k Monthly viewers
If you’re not already keeping up with me and Fluff About Fantasy on all of the social media platforms, make sure to follow, like, and subscribe! Chasing Fae is due to be released July 2020, and you’ll want to be the first to hear all the publishing updates. Much love to everyone, and happy writing!
After posting my big news, I really didn’t know what to post next. I’ve got two more days until my big anniversary post, and everything I was thinking of seemed anticlimactic. Maybe on Sunday, I will go back to a post about fantasy writing, or maybe not. I may ride this out a little bit and switch back to fantasy writing posts on Saturdays.
So today, I thought I would share some of the thoughts that I’ve come up with today on how I want to begin marketing for Chasing Fae. I would really love for writers and readers alike to comment their opinions and any ideas that you have for places and people I should reach out to. Please please please share! All of the input I can get is very valued.
Email Newsletter for Chasing Fae
I desperately need to create an email newsletter. I know that it is one of the best ways to connect with fans and share up-to-date news about your books and your writing life. I have just never been able to find the right time or the right way to go about it. The last time I tried to create a newsletter, I started a really cool template on MailChimp. I really liked that platform, but when I went to send a test email to myself, I realized my home address was printed at the bottom of the newsletter. I was a bit horrified, so I tried to turn that off. It turns out that because of international spam law, a mailing address has to be printed. I thought about using my William and Mary PO box, but I haven’t made a solid decision about that yet. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.
Revamping My Facebook Profiles
Fluff About Fantasy currently has a Facebook page, and frankly, it doesn’t get a lot of traffic at the moment. I want to spend some time making some unique posts on that platform outside of posting links to every Fluff About Fantasy post. Closer to the release date, I’d like to host a live video Q&A session! I’ve never done one before, and I would love to try it out. I’m also toying with the idea of creating a Facebook author profile that focuses on my work as an author and/or a Facebook group specifically for Chasing Fae. I don’t know if I need all that just on Facebook, but I think each type of Facebook profile has its own merits.
Who To Reach Out To In Anticipation Of The Book Release
I have a lot of people to reach out to!
I’ve spoken briefly to my high school back home so far about promotion for my book, and they are excited about my work! I’m really happy to be able to share this with my former classmates and the current student body. I haven’t reached out to the right people at my college yet, but it is only day one. These will be my first places to promote my book through newsletters, any public announcements, and hopefully, communicating with librarians to potentially house my book.
Regional newspapers would be a good place to send a press release to if I can find the courage to make the connection. I’m looking at three cities right now: Charlotte, Williamsburg, and Richmond (the biggest city close to me). I also want to find websites and magazines devoted to young adult books and/or the fantasy genre who may have a place for me to submit a guest post with my bio or welcome authors to promote their work. Still working on that research! If you have any good names or websites, please comment below!
That’s the bulk of what I have so far. Thank you so much for all your support in this journey so far. I can’t believe I’m finally kicking off the publishing journey! I’m going to have so much to share with you over the next coming months, so stay tuned!
Every story that I have ever started has drawn upon inspiration from my world, whether that be my family, my friends, or events that have happened in my life. The first book I ever wrote was actually about a fictional version of my family and their adventures in a strange, slightly fantastical land (but cut me some slack, I was only ten). Big moments and important people in my life do eventually manifest themselves as book characters, albeit with some significant modifications. Today, I thought I would share some of my favorite pieces of Chasing Fae that have been created from significant elements of my life.
Grace
Grace is a strong, independent woman who has found herself in a situation that she has no idea how to remedy. She is taking care of her mother and their home by working full time, and she’s planning this grand adventure to find out how her older brother died. She has this indomitable stubbornness that just radiates throughout everything she does. She’s honestly my favorite character that I have ever written.
Grace started out as the person that I wanted to be. I wanted to be able to take charge of my own life and stand up for everything I believed in with confidence. When I started Chasing Fae midway through my senior year, I was still very much hiding in the shadows. I had a lot to say, but no real way to say it without feeling shut out from my peers. I never seemed to say or do the right things, so there was a long period of time that I just stopped trying. Grace wouldn’t have stopped trying. She said what she thought without any care for the consequences, and although she does have an introverted side to her, she had no problem being bold when necessary.
But as I continued to develop and work on Grace, she took on a whole new life. She was a living, breathing character with rough edges and an emotional side that I had never anticipated her having. Her sadness manifests as anger and frustration, and when she keeps it tampered down for so long, she is bound to break. That emotional rawness that’s hiding behind this stubborn surface is something that I really admire about this character. I’m very proud to have written her into existence.
Leo
Leo is Grace’s older brother who has just died at the beginning of the book. I’ve touched a lot on where the inspiration for him came from in Sibling Bonds, but I want to dive in a bit more into what the character means to me.
The friend who acted as an older brother to me has been in and out of my life over the last year and a half, and it hasn’t been the prettiest. Every time I try to walk away and let it go, there is always that emotional side that ties me to answer one more text, send one more message. There’s this love and appreciation that just seems to override my instincts sometimes, to my benefit or detriment depending on the situation. I know that he is anxious to read the book when it does finally get published, and I do wonder sometimes how he will view the character, whether he will see any of his past self in him.
Leo, for me, is the closure that I needed. It is very critical that he is dead initially. Grace and Leo’s relationship has had its ups and downs, luckily more ups than otherwise. But she takes away this purely good, strong, and loving memory of him that she carries with her throughout the trilogy. In the first book, she’s chasing his memory, chasing whatever brought around his death. But readers are going to see her really connect with that grief and be able to open up as a person eventually.
The Upper Realm
The Three Realms was actually my first real attempt at worldbuilding, and the universe definitely has taken on a life of its own.
I’m going to focus on the Upper Realm because of its depth and richness in detail. I spent nearly four months on the Upper Realm alone as I was formulating my ideas about where the book was going to go. The Twelve Houses are based off of the twelve signs of the zodiac; I’m a intermittent fan of reading my horoscope and attributing zodiac traits to book characters. I never saw myself creating any less than twelve. Once the idea was there, it stuck, and I couldn’t do anything else. I liked the idea of incorporating opposing elements to create this perfect balance. Those elements became incorporated into the main alliances as well. Elemental magic has always been one of my favorite types of magic to read about in a fantasy novel, so I wanted to incorporate as much of that as possible.
The logical ones came first: Fire, Water, Wind (as a substitute for air), and Earth. Then light and darkness followed by day and evening, sun and moon. Then I was up to ten. I had to think for a while about what the last two elements would be. I finally came up with peace and war because I wanted to create two societies that would truly represent the balance. The House of Peace would not possess a standing army and would focus on education and the arts. It would be a universal trading partner. The House of War would be situated in a place with natural defenses (the mountains and the river) and be primarily cut off from the other eleven Houses. They would be entirely self-sufficient in a desire not to rely on anyone for assistance, and their soldiers would be the strongest in all the Realms.
The Upper Realm is what made me realize how much I LOVE worldbuilding.
I’d love to hear about what elements from your story draw from your experiences in real life. Please share in the comments below!
Hey everybody! I am aware that my presence on this site has been someone lax lately. I promise I’ve got a lot of reasons big and small of why my life has been so busy, and today’s post is about making all of those announcements as well as some new changes to the site!
Announcement #1: Scaling Back
I am so passionate about Fluff About Fantasy that it has been absolutely killing me not to be able to write two posts a week as IÂ did last semester. But to give you an idea of how this semester is going, I’m taking essentially three history classes and two languages, including starting an entire new language (German). Now while I love all of these classes, the reading load and the work load is nearly double what it was last year. I feel like I’m moving forward towards my academic goals with fantastic speed, but it means my time has dramatically shifted.
Because of this, I’m going to officially cut down to one post a week on Saturdays. This way, I can put out a clear and interesting post of decent length out to my readers without placing too much stress on myself. I want to put out information that you all are going to want to read and want to use in your writing endeavors.
I hope I won’t lose any of my readership by scaling back! I’m still looking to expand and grow; it’s just going to take a little more time than I thought.
Announcement #2: My Departure From The Pantheon
Today, I officially left the writing project, All in The Pantheon. I have loved writing for Aphrodite for the last six months, and the people at the Pantheon are some of the most wonderful people I have ever met in my life. But my time has become too short, and I have had little to no time for my own writing pursuits like Chasing Fae or Fluff About Fantasy or my new upcoming book (see Announcement #3). I had to make some tough choices about what activities to cut out of my overcommitted life, and unfortunately, this was one of the things that had to go.
It was so tough having to leave. My last couple days with them were fantastic; I got so many well wishes from everyone. My friend, Nikki (who writes for Nike) did not want to let me leave at all. I love her so much; she’s always been one of my favorite people at the Pantheon. But she also made me super emotional! My friend, Ashley, (who writes for Nyx) adopted me through their #AdoptAMortal initiative on Twitter before I had even announced my official departure! It was super exciting and made me feel a lot better about whether I would still hear from these fantastic writers. I got added to a new group chat with some of the writers so I could keep in touch, and I’m still on the unofficial Discord chat.
If you haven’t started reading the amazing stories at All in the Pantheon, you should head over there now! My stories will still remain up for a while, so catch them while you can!
Announcement #3: Book Creator News
The Book Creator program that I’ve enrolled myself in is going fantastic so far! I’ve loved learning from Professor Koester and the other young writers taking part in the program. I’m still in the researching and interviewing phase for now, but I’m starting to get really excited about the writing process. I’m looking right now at a potential July 2020 release through this program. Stay tuned for more news!
Announcement #4: Other Social Media Accounts
I’m working on expanding my social media presence across multiple platforms to gain more traffic. I would appreciate it if you would all help spread the word!
No more so than usual, but this week, I feel like I need to just lay around in bed for a week and recuperate. Unfortunately, there is much to do. I’m preparing to go back to school which means packing. And cleaning. And frankly, I’m not very good at either.
I’ve been trying to write for several days now. All kinds of projects to work on: Aphrodite and Apollo’s storyline must go on, I have a few more queries I would like to send out, and I should be working on character building for the sequel to Chasing Fae. And of course, there should have been a blog post on Wednesday.
But it has finally happened where my creative juices have temporarily run dry.
I have a couple pieces in the works to boost the blog’s traffic and visibility in the writing world, but I am begging to hear from you. You, readers, are the ones who drive much of what I write on this blog. If you want to see more interesting things from this blog, please comment below with the following:
Any information you would like to hear about any stage of the writing process
Magic power in the Three Realms comes from the energy in a Fae or demon’s soul. A magic user feeds the spells with his or her willpower. While the magic that is present in the general world is inexhaustible, the magic present in an individual person is exhaustible. It can usually be recharged with rest, sleep, or certain potions if exhausted. If used up too quickly or too strongly, the magic user will fall into an unconscious state, whether temporary or in extreme cases, permanent. If magic continues to be used to the limit consistently, death is inevitable.
Limits of Magic
Fae are born with a certain small number of inherent magical gifts, or specific types of magic that they have a greater affinity for. This type is called inherent magic. However, noble Fae are born with a greater number of inherent gifts because of their bloodline.
Fae can also learn other types of magic that they do not have a natural affinity for. However, it takes years and years of study to perfect their talents, and even then, some people cannot achieve other types of magic effectively. There are a handful of mages who have power nearly equal to that of a noble Fae because of their propensity to learn. They spend their whole lives studying and usually teaching magic.
Some spells are limited by the time they can be cast. An example of this is a spell that depends on the position of the sun or moon.
Casting A Spell
Casting a spell requires up to three distinct pieces. The first and most general one is intent. The intention of the spell must be focused on intently in order for it to work. In the beginning, Fae must focus for an extended period of time to get a spell to work. More advanced magic users only need a few seconds. The second one is the correct wording. Some spells require a recitation of words coupled with the intent to complete it. This usually starts out as a verbal command and then eventually, with time and practice, can become a non-verbal command. The third one is the correct materials. Certain protection spells or soul-seeking magic must occur at specific times with specific items handy. This can consist of anything from ordinary plants to magical artifacts. These items can usually be obtained from magical craftsmen or magical merchants. However, occasionally, it takes a far rarer type of item that can only be found in certain geographic locations or in certain centers.
Some spells can be stored in charms or amulets for later use.
Some spells require long drawn out rituals, usually ones involving elements of nature (sun, moon, ocean, etc.).
Two or more magic users can combine their power to amplify a spell. However, it is extremely taxing on the both of them and usually not worth the energy loss. It is only used in dire situations.
A mage’s powers often grows stronger over time with age. The level of power in a Fae is measured by:
Presence of noble blood.
Number of inherent gifts.
Education.
Execution of non-inherent magic.
Types of Magic: Levels and Tiers
My magic system is broken up into three levels, each with five tiers. At each tier, you step up the strength of each type of magic. At each level, you also increase the strength. Using this method offered me a clear path of seeing how strong an individual character was, how others measured up against one another. It’s been incredibly useful. I have tables and everything. I started typing those, but they would make this article about twenty pages long. Let me know if you’d like to see that in a PDF in the comments below!
Here are the types of magic that exist in the Three Realms:
Animation Magic: The ability to bring in animate objects to life
Disintegration Magic: The ability to disintegrate matter
Elemental Magic: The ability to control or manipulate the elements of nature (water, fire, wind, earth).
Absorption Magic: The ability to absorb energy and convert it into something else like physical strength.
Augmentation Magic: The ability to enhance or weaken someone else’s powers.
Conversion Magic: The ability to absorb one form of energy and convert it into another form of energy.
Energy Manipulation Magic: The ability to manipulate another person’s powers into something else.
Force Field Generation Magic: The ability to project powerful fields of manipulated energy that often act as shields.
Negation Magic: The ability to mute the powers of another person.
Sacrificial Magic: The ability to draw power from the death of another.
Sensing Magic: The ability to sense or recognize magical power.
Sourcing Magic: The ability to draw magical power from energy sources.
Flight Magic: The ability to levitate oneself or to fly.
Forensic Magic: The ability to backtrace a spell for the purpose of tracking down people who commit crimes.
Glamour Magic: The ability to disguise oneself.
Healing Magic: The ability to heal or heal from any injury.
Illusion Magic: The ability to disguise something as something else.
Divination: The ability to foresee or foretell future events.
Invisibility: The ability to be invisible.
Shapeshifting Magic: The ability to turn one’s form into that of an animal.
Gravity Magic: The ability to manipulate gravity and its effects.
Light Magic: The ability to generate or extinguish light.
Quantum Tunneling Magic: The ability to move through walls.
Medium Magic: The ability to see and communicate with the dead.
Necromancy: the ability to reanimate and/or control the dead.
Poison Magic: The ability to work with poisons more adeptly and/or possess poisonous abilities.
Possession Magic: The ability to occupy, dominate, and/or control another person from within.
Psionic Magic: The ability to communicate or perceive beyond the five physical senses, including empathetic magic, memory manipulation, mind control, telekinesis, and telepathy.
Sound Manipulation Magic: The ability to alter sound.
Durability Magic: The ability to have a higher resistance to injury than an average person.
Reflex Amplification Magic: The ability react faster than an average person.
Senses Magic: The magnified ability to see, hear, feel, smell, and/or taste.
Speed Magic: The ability to move faster than an average person.
Strength Magic: The ability to have more strength than an average person.
Water Breathing Magic: The ability to breathe underwater.
Herb Magic: The propensity for discovering/working with various herbs.
Plant Magic: The propensity for discovering/working with various plants.
Weapons Amplification Magic: The ability to strengthen the impact, defense abilities, and durability or weapons.
Wow, that’s a mouthful, huh? It’s fairly complex, but I really enjoy the way it all fits together. What do you think? Let me know in the comments below. Happy writing!
Hello everybody! First, I want to make an exciting announcement. Today, episode #7 of the Write Track Podcast released today on which I am a guest panelist. In this episode, two other fantastic authors and I discuss YA as a genre along with the host, Valencia Stokes, along with its strengths and biggest criticisms. This was such a fantastic experience; I had a great time recording this with these ladies. Listening back to it, I sound pretty professional. Blows my mind. I’d appreciate it if everyone would give it a listen. Click this link to take you to the website! This podcast is also available on Spotify and iTunes.
This brings up a great topic that I’d like to briefly touch on today, which is how to conduct yourself during a podcast. Doing a podcast was unlike anything I had ever experienced before. Surprisingly, it was really easy to get into it and communicate effectively. Here are my top three best tips that I can provide for doing a speaking engagement like this.
Prepare. – Now in this instance, I was lucky enough to receive a list of questions that would be asked beforehand. That gave me the opportunity to make some notes about how I wanted to answer each of the questions that I could have with me during recording. If that is the case for your podcast, I would highly recommend making some notes. It’s a great guide even though you will absolutely go off on a tangent. Don’t be afraid of it. If you don’t get a list of questions, make some notes about the topic in general so you will feel less blindsided.
Make sure your audio is set up. – No matter what recording platform you are using, all of them will use some kind of audio settings. If you’re recording over your laptop or phone, take some time beforehand to make sure your microphone and speakers are in good working order. Be prepared to fiddle with it if something goes wrong during recording. My speakers suddenly cut out, and the audio I was listening to dropped to a whisper. I had to hold my phone up to hear for a couple questions before I spoke. Luckily, I got it fixed, and everything went smoothly from there. Which brings me to my next point…
Don’t be afraid to adapt. – The conversation is going to flow in a lot of unexpected directions even if there is a loose outline in place. That’s the beauty of a podcast. Expect to come up with things on the fly. But if you’re invited to a podcast, you know your stuff. You know your topic. You just have to talk. Let it flow. Play off of what someone else has said. Take an opposing point. Make yourself be heard.
Thank you for reading today. Check out the podcast, and happy writing!
I am so pleased to announce that I am officially published in the historical field. The World War I Centennial website is currently being archived by the US Government for future research and therefore counts as a professional publication. I am absolutely ecstatic. To be published in my field at my age is a huge deal, and I’m incredibly proud of this piece. Please enjoy!
