Tompte

Tompte, (a short history of Thaw's most important horse)

Okay! Well, you've picked a fun subject today!
 This is the back info on Tomtpe, the most important horse in the Thaw books. At least he knows that he is. You see, he is not just any horse, but a very special horse. He belongs to a prince of Demargen and that makes him a royal horse. Or a royal's horse, if you want to be picky.
 Tompte thinks there's not much difference between the two.

 Okay, so the quintessential Prince Charming's horse is of course white. Always white. 
 The war leader's horse is black, and also the bad guys horse.
   A lot of time the girl's horse is a yellow or beige color...
  But the prince's horse is always a white/gray.

 (For those of you less into horses than some, "gray" is a color pattern that actually isn't gray all the time. In fact a horse that is a "gray" is invariably born dark, (whether that is black, brown or chestnut) and then as they grow their hair "grays out". Different graying-genes have different time-spans; some family lines start going white as young as two years old, while others go slower and so retain some color late in life. These slow-gray-ers make for the gorgeous dapple-grays and steel-grays that will hold that phase of the pattern for several years.
 In the end, though, they all end up white. 
 Like a snowy haired old man or woman, "white" horses are rarely born white. They are grays.

  Some slow graying genes can actually hold onto the mane and tail color for a long time, and it is the last to go. On others it goes white right away. The gray gene is probably one of the most baffling and untrackable horse colors for equine geneticists to figure out... and they haven't gotten it coded yet.
 So it remains in the realm of "horse sense" and those still in the business of buying and selling horses rely on their own experience and the long history of horse-trading stories when dealing with grays.
   How long will they hold their color? Will they be dappled? Or that worst of all fates; flea-bitten? 
 A fleabitten gray is generally a horse that was born chestnut, and even though its hide goes white, specks of if stays red. This is considered among the least attractive of grays, and not at all prized.
  
  There is a stack of horse trading lore dealing specifically with grays, how some unscrupulous traders can "color" dapples onto a white horse to make it look prettier and fetch a higher price, or to make it look younger for the same purpose. 
 But that is not our subject today.)

 As we were saying, the Prince's horse must be white, and although at first I thought I might break the mold and give our prince a different colored horse, Tompte soon shook his head decidedly and insisted that he was white. And all white, having grayed quickly and thoroughly, so that although he is still in his prime, (what Tompte considers to be his prime, at any rate; around eight or so) he is pristine-ly white, as befits a prince of Demargen's royal house.

 Because you see Demargen has a reputation to uphold. With twelve dashing, gallant princes ahead of him, all Hess's brothers have set the bar high in military exploits. For though the known world has not had a war in almost a thousand years, the art of war has been kept alive with jousts and robust competitions, which Hess's older brothers loved dearly and did very well in. 
  The reputation goes back further than that, though, for old King Leopold in his day, was a force to be reckoned with on the field as well. 
  And so Demargen must keep up its chin and shine its buttons, because even though long ago it lost it's claim to the then empty Noran throne on a battlefield, it is not to be trifled with now. Or ever.

 So Demargen cadets train harder than any other kingdom's cadets. Demargen officers salute snappier, and with more meaning, than any other kingdom's officers. And Demargen princes are drilled in the school of honor and ability, turning out thirteen perfectly polished princes to unleash upon the world; which receives them in various ways, but is invariably impressed with their military precision. 

 And Tompte is a part of that, of which he is duly aware.
  And though his boy may attend the Noran coronation on his own, he is not alone. For he has a prince's horse, who knows his duty.


 This horse turned into quite the character as I was writing, he just sort of developed his own "voice" even though of course he can't speak. But looking back on it, I realize that the horse from my past that was channeling onto the page was just such a beastie... a half Welsh, half Percheron that was 13 hands tall, mostly white and as full of importance as a horse can get. 
 His name was "Buddy", which if he would have understood English he certainly would have objected to. He probably would have insisted on being named "Prince" or at the very least "Duke". 
 Perhaps "Charger" would have been a better name for him, since there was nothing that could stop him. 
 He rode and drove, and pulled a wagon as if he'd been born to it. (Which of course he partially had, on his Percheron half.) He had a hitchy little trot that just wouldn't give up, flicking his white feathered hooves with each step, he looked the part of a proud harness horse.
 He was just about six inches too short to be the sort of impressive he was aiming for! 
 But he was cute as a bug... with a deep, Percheron jaw and a nice Welsh muzzle... arched white neck with thick wavy white mane flowing over it. 

 But he was a good horse.  At eleven years old, I learned to ride on Buddy, and even though he had all the heart in the world, his pulling horse build wasn't designed for speediness. My brother would race away from us on his Arab mare, and Buddy and I would be left loping along in the dust. And then we'd run out of dust, for even that had settled by the time we came along. 
 But I was never worried with Buddy because he never bucked, didn't spook... he was so solid and confidant he never met a worry. And he always knew the way home, even if I didn't.

   He was so coordinated he could stand on an ice-slicked sloping path... and run in place to keep from falling down. Seriously, this was actually witnessed one winter... he just moved his feet so fast he didn't have time to slip, until he could edge himself off the icy patch.
 This degree of dexterity is referenced in Prince of Demargen when Hess asks Tompte to jump back over a wall onto the road toward him, and Tompte does so from a standstill. It takes great coordination for a horse to do that, not to mention great back muscles.

 Buddy could gallop away fully hobbled; tie his front feet together and he'd simply left them both of the ground at once and hop off like that. Pretty soon he was literally galloping around doing that, so the decision was made to side hobble him. Most horses move their lateral feet in opposite directions and so tying left hind to left front effectively stops them from going too far.
 Not Buddy. He took maybe half a day, and then figured out how to "pace", moving both laterals forward at the same time.
   We liked to keep him in the yard where we lived at the time in the mountains, so he could eat the grass down. But he kept turning mobile on us, until we finally ended up tying his front feet and a hind foot.
  That kept him restricted... poor Buddy. Not even he could figure out how to lift all three feet of the ground at once. Though he did try for some time, just in case.

 His antics were so amusing and impressive, that we soon let him go completely, where he could charge about the place as he liked. He enjoyed this very much, and the sight of the little white horse grazing tranquilly along the creek-bed below the house was like something out of a fairy-tale. Then he'd get the notion to gallop up the trail to the barn, all rounded neck and floating mane and rat-a-tat-tat thundering hooves on the forest path. He seemed to enjoy showing off his freedom to the other horses in the pens.

  Buddy is a memory horse that will not be forgotten... and his indomitable spirit, good looks, physical prowess, and quirky character lives on in Tompte, (who is taller, like a riding horse should be.)
 But he too would make a white vision of loveliness grazing lush spring grass along a gurgling creek in a tiny mountain valley.

  And there the both shall ever live in our dreams.



 (Scroll through the Pinterest boards for more inspiration for the Thaw books!
  Winter's Child board.
  Winter Queen board.
   Prince of Demargen board.)

From Whence Came the Roses

When we went back to Anderson's original Snow Queen tale one element that really jumped out was Snow Queen, roses show up in many others including the Red Shoes, (not one of my favorite tales!) at the end when the angel shows up in the room with the girl, (now footless) and also pious; and touches the walls and ceiling with a rose, transforming them into a church.--

the repetition of roses within the tale. -- This wasn't just confined to Anderson's

 So... roses were a major theme in Anderson's mind, and they definitely come out in the Snow Queen. First the childhood friends Gerda and Kai either play together in their rose gardens, or lean over the rose planted window boxes in their second story bedroom windows.

 Later when Gerda is searching for her friend she comes to a house where the lady wants to keep her, so the lady makes all her roses go underground so Gerda will not see them and remember the friend she's searching for. Gerda's tears wakes one the bushes and the rose comes back topside, and tells her that Kai is not buried, for it would have known if he was in the ground. (Anywhere, I guess... the ground is a lot more communicative than we suspected, apparently.)

 So, roses had to play a part in our tale as well... and as I wrote they began to unfold into a sort of symbol of our Princess Girthild's enthusiasm and zest for life in spite of life's obvious drawbacks. Early in the story "Girta" plays in the garden alone, trying to walk the stone wall of the rose beds. She slips and falls headfirst into the thorny bushes, but when her Nurse pulls her out and scolds her Girta appears more disappointed in her failure to complete the challenge than the fact that she is scratched and her dress torn.

 So here they could be viewed as symbolizing life, and possibly illustrating one of the chief differences between the royal sisters. Ilise focuses mostly on the painful, sad parts of life and draws away more than she should, hiding from it all.... while Girta disregards any risk, ignores the possibility of downsides, and rushes headlong into life, blithely certain that her force of will alone will make things turn out right.

 (Both are of course quite wrong, but how they come to deal with that is another, longer, story.)

 Later nurse sets Girta to snipping blossoms as a distraction, and Girta is enchanted with the prospect of going all over the castle giving roses to all the guards.
 (This childish eagerness to distribute gifts could be seen as more than a simple pastime, perhaps the roses are standing in for the love that Girta wishes to receive, and so she hurriedly hands it out to anyone she can reach?)

 When Girta leans over the castle wall and sees young Kai, she throws him roses too... she doesn't differentiate at all whom she reaches out to. (This could be seen as foreshadowing... unknowingly desperate to be loved, she gives it eagerly without the usual precautions.)

When another boy visits Girta eagerly fetches roses for both Ilise and the visitor, blithely handing Ilise a red rose and the visitor a yellow one. Ilise, conditioned to Girta's excitability, simply accepts the gift, but the boy rejects the yellow rose, citing the thorns. Girta is dismayed, but the repercussions of the boy's act will echo long into adulthood for him.

 Later, when she is grown, both she and Ilise are presented with golden jewelered roses, their petals gilded with enamel to look like perfect reproductions of  the original.
 Ilise receives a white one, the color of innocence, purity and sincerity; but unconsciously mirrors the cool frosty world in which she exists. To her the gift means little, it is simply a trinket presented by a visitor.

Girta's is crimson red; the color of fire, exuberance, and of course, passion. This rose begins to take on more and more meaning in her mind as the tale progresses, until the reader could almost think that she sees it as the return on all the roses, and love, she gave away throughout her childhood. They have come back to her, condensed into a rose that will never die, a love preserved, forever.
 Toward the end of the tale her view on it changes again, but if there is one thing consistent about Girta, it's changeability.

 Later, when Girta is hotly pursuing her search, she comes to the Rose House, which we left with exactly that name. It seems logical that a lady so devoted to growing the flowers would happily christen her home in the same vein. When further along in the story we encounter the only inn in the nearby village of Rasnaburg; called "the Rooster and the Rose", it is not hard to imagine that the lady of Rose House also owns the inn. Possibly this fascination with the flower is a familial thing, since the inn and the house have most likely worn their names for several generations.


 When at last Girta hotly discards the crimson enamel rose, it is a gift she will not receive again. In time she will recognize it on the gown of another, and she herself will receive a rose of a different color. It is true that sometimes the things we are so certain will make us happy are the very things we throw away, but then can their loss truly sting if they were not really meant for us? One beautiful thing can be admired by many, but truly belong only with the perfect match.

 And Girta's zest for life is not done yet, not by a long shot.
She is much more than any color of rose, and her check-mate is yet to come.



 (Scroll through the Pinterest boards for more inspiration for the Thaw books!
  Winter's Child board.
  Winter Queen board.
   Prince of Demargen board.)

Dealing with the Spiritual in Fiction: Paranormal... and Fairytales

Dealing with the Spiritual in Fiction: Paranormal... and Fairytales

 Although there is a growing trend for fiction that involves major spiritual beings, (it's called Paranormal, and has been hot in publishing) most Fantasy titles stay clear. (Somewhat. Lines are blurring everywhere, but I'm talking generalities.) Fantasy and Fairytale genres tend to lean more toward the "magic is the power" way of thinking... (which, personally, I'm not super comfortable with, either.)
 That's one reason why I was so surprised to find heavenly influences featuring so prominently in the tales of Hans Christian Anderson, an author whose writings I had never really cared for. Giving them a new look in researching my latest series, I realized how heavily Anderson opted to have angels appear in his tales.
  Think of the Red Shoes... (have you read that story? Talk about gruesome! Ow!) At the end the penitent girl (now footless) has turned her heart so pious that she wishes above all things to go to mass, an angel appears, touches the walls and the ceiling with a rose (what is it with roses and Hans Christian Anderson?) and the room becomes the church, with the girl seated right in the middle of the worshiping congregation. (At least the version I read. In others I hear she dies of joy. Fun stuff, Anderson!)

  In the Snow Queen Anderson again employs heavenly messengers; at last reaching the Snow Queen's icy palace, Gerda prays and her breath takes the form of angels who resist the snowflake guards and allow her to enter.
 Although I'm not a fan of Anderson's works -- they are much too rambling and with no through-line whatsoever, not to mention very little of the fascination many other fairytales command-- I was uniquely intrigued by his marriage of angels and fairytales.
 It made me rethink some of my positions.

 I am rather on the conservative end of speculative fiction, I feel that while there are many vistas spread wide open, some are totally out of bounds. The recent rash of paranormal is definitely one of those places; for me, I feel it plays lightly with things that are very serious and very much beyond our ability to know. Demons are nothing to be trifled with, and angels cannot be translated into human terms and then danced about like puppets on a string.
 The seemingly popular "star crossed angel/demon lovers" theme is gravely ill informed, since biblically it would seem evident angels, as Chirst says "neither marry nor are given in marriage". Since marriage is the appointed place for love as the "star crossed lovers" definition would have it, then angels are not composed with that as an option. In fact, since they are truly spiritual beings, it would only make sense that they would have no level that mirrored the animal-like aspects of reproduction at all... we mortals are near to the other mammals on this earth being all born of creation, but angels are spirit beings and would be as intrinsically different as light itself. And just as light can never, ever get wet; no matter how much water it goes through, it simply has no physical state.
 So too, I believe, angels must, (if capable of such a "free choice" notion as "love",) must function fully in agape love, as an extension of the Father whose face they see continuously.

 Anyway, I take spiritual realities very seriously, and will be the first to admit that I am in no way capable of actually knowing what is going on in that invisible realm. But since it's so important, I'm reluctant to make wild stabbing guesses and turn it into a plaything to twist in the hands of my imagination.
 It's serious stuff, and I respect it as such.

 So previously I had gone with the route of not having anything "angelic" in my tales, since I wasn't sure where crossing a line might happen. (I realize others have run hog wild, but I'm still responsible only for me.)
 But as I approached the middle of this story, with it's origin's distinct inclusion of prayer and angelic assistance, I began to wonder. What do we know about angels? How might they possibly work? And even if we don't know, is there a way they could be handled in the realm of fantasy that might bring them respect from minds in our own world?
 "Angelos" simply means "messenger" in Greek, and as I read the only trustworthy tome (I feel) we have on angels, it becomes obvious that they are all over the scale. They had different jobs, different ways in which they interacted -- or didn't -- with mortals, and certainly different appearances.
  Like drastically different! The description of the ones that guard the Holy Throne... I tell you what, I've got a great imagination, but I cannot for the life of me concoct a mental picture of that.

 Since there are so many types and kinds of them, I was uniquely struck by the passage in KJV Rev. 16:5 that says "...I heard the angel of the waters say..."
 Our understanding of exactly what something like that means is necessarily imperfect, but what about just as a jumping off point for a obviously fictional world and a fairytale setting?
 If there is an angel of the waters in real life, then might not there be angels for the seasons? In a fairytale, couldn't that be a way that the Creator of that world might work His will in that realm?

 In the end I decided to go ahead and accept that as part of the world that was emerging in my writing, and as soon as I did it opened up so many new opportunities for the story to point more openly toward Ultimate Truth. I think it was a necessary part of the tale, and I'm glad I went with it.
  Whether I'd include angels into any other of my worlds, I can't say. I'm still reluctant to tread too far over a line on this subject, and so I think I'll stay on the cautious side of careful.
 But this did open up some places that I hadn't gone before with my own perspective on our world, and I have to say that I'm humbled and a little amazed how the pursuit of writing can bring us deeper into the understandings of even such a little thing as the magnitude of ignorance we have on the forces arrayed in our favor as children of the Most High King.

 

Ice Maidens in Real Life

In the Thaw books the princess Ilise is a "winter's child", an answer to her barren parents' long years of

prayer for a baby.
 When they share a moment of closeness amid their sorrow and build a baby out of snow, they whisper secret plans that can never come true of the daughter they will never have.
 "I would name her Ilise." The king says, "I read it in a book. It is from the southern lands, and it means blessed."
 The queen drops a sweet tear on the snow baby in her arms, and the little snow figure disappears.
 Then a soft voice of the Winter Angel tells them that their prayers have been answered, and their Ilise, their blessed one, will be born next winter. "And she will be a special child."
  Overcome with joy, thus starts a fairy-tale that has unexpected results for the royal couple.

  Their child is pale, perfect, and lovely. Studious and proper, she is does everything just as she ought and there is no room for improvement on this delightful gift.
 But as her parents cuddle and coddle her, just how "special" the Angel meant becomes clearer with the years, and she goes from tracing the frost on the window to making it, from showing off her talents with pony ice sculptures to ice automatons, to the full blown fortress of ice that she eventually immures herself completely inside.

 Her story is too long to share here, but she is not the only one who freezes those around her and  shuts herself off from the world.

 There are those among us, though born of less fairy-tale means, that have the power to psychologically "freeze" those around us, and we too retreat into our towers and refuse to come out.
 Although in the real world this has limited repercussions compared to Ilise's dramatic problems; it is still not healthy and we need to find ways to release the grip of ice on our hearts and learn "how to thaw".


 I know this because I am/was one of them. A middle child finds it easy to feel forgotten, and a quiet one simply retreats further within.

 I was "the smart one", so while I couldn't make others feel "put in their place" through my athletic prowess or my charismatic personality, growing up I was often tempted to "put the chill" on someone simply by upstaging their incorrect information/ or pointing out a truer fact that cut their argument off at the knees.

 My family is rife with choleric personalities, so for someone who hates conflict (which I truly do) I found myself in that kind of hot seat quite a lot over the years. Since I didn't have the roaring fire of a powerful personality on my side, I had to reach for other ammunition, and since logic and facts were respected in my house, my intellect became my archery squad.

 Many of the fights never should have happened, but like most families, our parents were elsewhere and childish tempers raged... even well into the teens. (Actually, cross that out, because they still do from time to time.)

 Anyway, my point is that where some of my siblings grew fire, I became an expert on ice. I would shut down, tune out, and my words were my whip as I responded to my perceived attackers. I never let them see they'd hurt me, because that would give them the victory. What I don't know is if I ever hurt them. One of those things we'll never know, the "might have been".

 (To my credit I was always the "peacemaker" of the family, so I didn't let my strengths carry me away as drastically as I could have, since I was always in the back of my mind calculating how hard to recover from each barbed word would be.
 The ones with lethal hit points I generally choked back and kept in the arsenal.)

  I always thought of myself as the "good guy". After all, it wasn't me raising my voice and getting red in the face. My pulse would race, but my lid never flipped.
  It wasn't till I was in my late teens that I began to see just how damaging the "cool cucumber" bazooka could actually be; not so much to others... but myself.

   The more instances I saw of my kind, the more I noticed it could get very out of hand; so distanced from the world that some of us had quit feeling anything. Or had at least convinced themselves so hard that we believed it.
  As I assessed other people I met, and it became evident that whatever reason we had originally started to "shut down and tune out" as a defense mechanism was generally long gone, but the response was still there, shutting us down.

 Sometimes we were snippy and trigger-happy, jerking off shots at anyone below us within reach of our "freeze". We were showing the world that we were better than it. We were untouchable. We didn't need friends and we didn't care if you knew it.

 Even with a general desire to be liked and accepted, our "ice veins" couldn't be thawed, and our habits were chilling everyone around us.

 Others of our ilk had turned inward to the point that we stopped interacting at all, maintaining a stony-cold silence throughout any event; distanced by a gulf so wide that mountains might as well have towered in it.

 As an outsider I could see that what while we were cutting ourselves off from present joys, those past hurts were trapped inside our ice towers with us, as stinging today as they were the first time we faced them.

 As many different reasons we all had, almost all of them were in our far past. Whether the insults were real or imagined, from a wrong turn in a basically normal childhood or from real abuse in various forms, we were all now trapped by the very thing we believed was protecting us.

 And we had no clue how to melt it and step out of that cold prison.

 I didn't. I remember wishing I could react in a different way, even picturing the whole thing, but in the end I didn't have the courage or the strength to even try.

As I studied our collective problem more and more I finally came down to a base, fundamental truth.
 It was a form of pride that made us unable to release our cages.

  And all pride is selfishness... and so the first step was fighting myself, the worser parts of me that whispered "They hate you anyway, don't give them a chance to hurt you."
 "Nobody likes you, and why would they? Show them you don't need to like them, either!"

  The path to a better self is always strewn with ugly battles... and those various monsters seem to rear up again and again long after you think they're dead. But in the end they do get dead-er, and the inner warrior grows strong enough to withstand their weakened darts of doubt and shame.

   We "ice maidens" and "ice men"; we have so many things going for us. Invariably, we are strong, determined people with intelligent minds and an ability to focus that can be a massive benefit. But when our strengths are used against us, we flounder and freeze into a pillar that is stuck in the middle as life blossoms all around us.

 It still hurts when my attempts to be friendly are shot down, or when someone I love says something the stings. But I've learned how to thaw, and that's allowed me to be open to new warmth as it shows up, as well as the old hearth-fires that bond family members in palpable affection.

 I don't know how many others out there share my strengths, and my weaknesses, but I'd love to be able to touch their hearts and inspire them to melt, too.

 The universal laws apply to this as with any strangle-hold selfishness may be exhibiting itself through; and so the same rules can kill it back:

  Sincerely apologize as soon as possible after you realize selfishness scored a point.
A true, authentic apology is so hard to do, but think of it as kicking selfishness in the teeth. I tell you what, that little monster takes a major hit every time you go the distance to genuinely apologize and then make it right with a honest heart, and the next time the scenario rolls around it hasn't got nearly as much power over you, by a long shot.

 Ask those you know can help, when you need it.
 I've learned how to ask for affection when I'm feeling distanced and like no one likes me, instead of allowing selfishness to say "If they loved me, they'd know." Even though we may pride ourselves on reading others ( a trait "cool cucumbers" major in) a ton of people aren't that observant. (Besides, give yourself the benefit of the doubt. Maybe you don't know all the time, as much as you think you know.)

 And finally, be open to the idea of rejection/pain.
Westley says "Life is pain, Highness. Anybody who tells you different is selling something."
 While that may be true, life isn't all pain, and if we run into hurtful spots, a better way to deal with it instead of clamming up and scrambling back into our tower is to say "I can weather a bit of pain. This isn't going to kill me, I am stronger than this."
 Growing up rural, in the mountains and plains, on farms and ranches, we kids got used to pulling splinters our of our hands, skidding our knees across gravel, falling off of horses and getting our toes stepped on by hoofs large and small. The first time shocked us, but we soon adapted and would be more concerned about getting on with our plans or bragging rights than how much it hurt.
 Why can't we be that way with emotional hurt?
 In the end, we should be in such a hurry to do our next thing the "slights and stings of fate" should be no more than a temporary knock.


 And finally, we should always look to our Great King as our source of importance, not whether the world likes us or not, approves of us or not, or even loves us or not. The more we battle selfishness down into it's hole and put a lid on it, the clearer we are able to see that our Maker is the only One who matters... and our relationship with Him is our best and greatest alley.

 And with Him we can never be alone.
 


(P.S. Disclaimer: those out there that are "Fire hearts" have their own problems, and they need to take care of that. Don't let their behavior tilt your boat... we are responsible for our own vessel sailing straight, so just do our best with "fire ships" that could temporarily sink us. Charting a course for clear water is not the same as freezing over and sitting completely still. Please don't confuse the two! )

Inspiring Noran

Photo from Pinterest.

 The Snow Queen, the Snow Maiden, Schneekind, Snegurken... tales from Germany, Russia and
Scandinavia, share the deep rooted psychological fact of Winter as a major player in life.
 Although those countries have a great deal of differences in real life, they are much the same backdrop in their fairytales, and so they were easy to combine since their settings could be superimposed on top of each other without even a hitch.

 As a kid I loved those stories of the Swiss Alps, the Sammi herders, about Norwegian children skiing to school through snowy pine covered mountain slopes. (Did you read the article on the Sammi in Nat'l Geographic? I devoured that article very slowly, already picturing what the sentences described. It was sort of a "deliciously scary" type of thing because I really hate being cold, and yet the entire article was basically about people who are totally fine with the cold and do all sorts of stuff in it. Still, it's always fun to add to one's research, and I definitely pulled the colorful knitwear from the Sammi photos. All of them seemed to be a combination of blue, white and red in zig-zag or star patterns.)

 Not only have I had access to a rather large body of true tales and books set in Scandinavian countries, but I've spent several childhood winters in the high Northern Rockies, as well as one in northern Minnesota. Although I'm not a fan of winter, (and so I didn't use the cold so sharp it hurts the inside of your nose, 'cause that's just painful to even remember)  I did use the squeak of snow underfoot and other small things that I've experienced.
 The mountainous aspect was fairly normal for me, since I lived in a mountain environment for several of my formative years, (complete with a ranging herd of dairy goats that had to be escorted by my older siblings due to predators: yes, it was straight out of Heidi!) Transporting the assortment of facts and impressions from books into my own experience, the whole of Noran, Svesser and the Reindeer Lands to the north of them were almost "native heath" to me. I really didn't have to go far.

 One of the tidbits I picked up in a book about sailing was that during the "age of sail" when tall masted ships ruled the seas of the world, those masts almost invariably came from Norway. The pines there grew tall and straight, important for masts, and were tough and springy in their fibers, which was also pretty important. In fact, it was said that much of the exploration of the islands around Australia was in pursuit of a new land that might be rugged enough and north enough to grow that kind of pine, either native or introduced. But that never really panned out, and the gold standard in ship's masts remained pines from the mountain slopes of Norway.
 As a way of slipping that air of history in, I have made the timber industry and shipbuilding major aspects of Noran economy and trade. (Though this is not a story about trade, so I didn't get to use it much.)

 Since this a fairytale and no fairytale is complete without a castle, and it's mimicking Europe, and they have lovely castles there, I got to play with the fun part of that. I try to leave the names and important histories of side players out of the narrative, because it just tends to clunk up the flow. But I do like to know about them, and when appropriate drop it into the conversation, since the people who live there would be far more likely to say "Rasnaburg" then "the town near Rose House."
 So Noran's capitol city is Loslow... (since I adore the way Oslow sounds, but of course can't use real names here. So I indulged in the guilty pleasure of tweaking it just a smidgen, and "Loslow" sounds pretty neat to me, too.)
  Up the coast and inland some ways is the town of Rasnaburg, with the Rose House not too far away. It is owned by a matronly lady who has at least one son and who owns the only inn in Rasnaburg, and possibly much of the rest of the town as well. It is at this inn, "the Rooster and the Rose" that the search party stops to rest after a "just missed it" episode with the Princess Girta.
 The lady who lives at Rose House has a fascination with roses, for her rose gardens surrouding her house are her pride and joy, and she is not at all pleased when the serving girl says Tompte is chewing on the rose bushes.
 Her fondness for the flower shows in the title of the inn... and possibly it is a family trait, for we can assume that the inn has worn that title for several generations.
 This is exactly the sort of place where a small important person gets to thinking they have a greater scope than they do, and in Winter Queen we find the lady of Rose House playing a role as contagonist to Girta, and hoping for some slight reward for her troubles.
 As it is, she is harshly disappointed, but then you'd have to read the book to get the full story on all of that.

 (Scroll through the Pinterest boards for more inspiration for Noran, and the Thaw books!
  Winter's Child board.
  Winter Queen board.
   Prince of Demargen board.)

 What do you think of when you think of a Northern country?

Print Release date set!! April 22nd!

Coming soon!

Do You Know Your Definiton of Success...?

 It's always important to know where you're going, and not simply chase what someone else "says is worthy". You've got to know your own definition of success, and then recognize it when you get there.
  As an author, here are some questions that are good to ask:


What made you decide to publish your work?

I have wanted to be an author since I first leaned how books came to be, and coming from a business-acumen type family, the money is what proves success. That is in my blood, so that's one thing that is always a consideration for me. I write very niche, and dreams of a big advance were tantalizing but unrealistic. I was scared to go self-pub, as someone without much of  a"people you know" network I figured that would be money wasted. (And that was right.)
 Attending a conference where the buzz was all about e-books got me to thinking about releasing in that medium, which I did for the first time in 2011. It was affordable, and was an invaluable step, it gained me some fans and I learned a whole lot through the process. Book 2 in the series released July 2013, and I finally feel like I have my head above water on all this online marketing stuff. I'm still not hardly any good at it, (and sales are super low) but at least I understand what marketing gurus are talking about!
  At this stage I am writing madly, fully committed to the process of becoming a successful author and intent on having the 7-10 books out that status seems to demand... I've followed indie authors who are successful, and their "slow start" mantra makes sense, so I'm in it for the long haul. I know my work is good, it's received praise from such a wide range of readers, so all I have to do is put the time in and be diligent. I believe, (with the Lord's help!) that I can make a small income off of my writing, and I'm setting my sights on the future.

What keeps you going on the tough days?

 I remember how much I was shaped by the books I read as a teen, and I really, really want to have my stories help youngsters, (and oldsters,) inspiring and directing them upwards on the trail of life. This, and the fact that the writing is in my veins, it seems, and I can't stop. Even if all the words were deleted every month, I would keep writing. (I just wouldn't agonize over finishing anything in that scenario, since it wouldn't matter! So I'd just do the fun stuff and skip all that editing! )

What would you consider success for your author career?

Straight up? Money talks: and I would like to make at least part of a living with my books. I know others are doing way better than that, (genre is big here though so... romance, erotica, and thrillers seem to be easiest to make a good living with) but if I could bring in a small slice of actual cash with my words, I'd consider myself totally successful. 

 Short of that, there are other levels; being recognized as an "author" when meeting in Real Life friends I've only known online.
     That's nice.
                      That's happened. 

 Being respected as a "good writer" in online circles. 
        That's nice.
                       That's happened.

 Having a fan friend me on FB because they read something I wrote and loved it. 
      That's super nice.
                       That's happened.

 As I become more adept at my social media presence and my connecting circles expand, that reputation factor will continue to grow, and at some point I hope to be a presenter at a(/some) conference(/s) on world building/ how to pick the best clothes for your author photos/ descriptions that sing... I'm not too picky. But that would be very nice, and I think that will happen.  (I've got big ideas on how to attend conferences!!! )

 Other than that? 7 books, in print, on my shelf, and knowing that people are buying them. That would also be a success... and I think it's in the future.

  It's always interesting to think about these questions! Re-evaluation is a major tool, and although I'm no closer to knowing exactly how to make this stuff happen, being clear on intentions helps one recognize steps when they come along.  

   How about you? What's your definition of success? 

 And when you look at the world and the writers in it, what makes you think "That author is a success!" I'd LOVE to hear your take on this one!!!

Slick E-book Sales Graph!

  With all the attention that e-publishing has been getting lately from just about everyone in the chain of book-to-reader, sometimes I wonder what is actually happening. Who is getting famous, making lots of money, etc.?

  Can we find some statistics somewhere, to get a better image in our heads?

The answer is... Yes! Actually, I just did; I came across this super interesting post by Derek J. Canyon over on his info-rich blog, Adventures in ePublishing. 

  He put together a highly interesting set of graphs and statistics, and this is my favorite. Straight up, the best selling e-book genres, all ina nice handy pie chart.  (I love pie charts! So easy on the brain.)

 What do you think? How much would the best-selling-ness of a genre influence you toward writing it?

Free Write to Free Up Creativity

Hey Everybody!
 If you are stuck on your ms. this is something to try: free write. Just start typing, throw the words down... they can be anything, everything, something stuck in your head or song lyrics, just don't stop. Don't guide them, just "blab"...onto the page, and let it go! (Yes, they totally stole my line. ;-) )

It can get you past the scared stiff feeling, adn once you loosen up your fingers you can then step back and assess what you're doing wrong in your ms.

 Mostly, if it freezes on you then you're trying to do something you shouldn't, plot wise, or else you don't know how things work. So get out the crayons and make a calendar, timeline, put in the main scenes you KNOW will happen. Then ask ?s of stuff, play around. Have fun!

'Cause if you don't have fun with it, your readers won't enjoy it either. Think of six different things that could "chain" out from the scene you know, and then come up with a seventh. Which feels more "true" to character? Which feels most FUN?! 

Update, and Blurb Help request!

 Despite the blizzard and resulting snowed-in-ness, we are definitely moving forward here at Hearth Books. We hope to have the print versions  of all five of my books so far finalized by the end of the month and available to the public!

  We have received the initial print versions of all five released novels. Here's a pic of their lovely backs...

  (We applied the same principles all you lovely people voted on for JA, so the series is turning out with a lovely "look" to it! )

 We'd like to do a "New Cover Reveal" for the re-done cover on Traitor's Knife, as a mini-promo for all the print releases.
   (So anyone with a blog who wants to be involved with that please contact me! :-) )


 On to the main subject!
  We need to finalize the back cover copy for both Jeweler's Apprentice and Traitor's Knife.

 Here's what we've got so far:


Jeweler's Apprentice 

After stumbling upon a court secret, bookish Fia Brithin quickly gets sent mountain jewelers to prevent the information she unwittingly holds falling  into the wrong hands. But she soon finds that the mountains hold secrets of their own, and more questions rise.
Can anything bring peace to the neighboring war torn kingdom?
Is the legend  of the Sunlight Stone true?
And what is the stable boy hiding?
The answers she finds could endanger entire kingdoms.

~  or  ~

On her first visit to the King Hanor's palace, 16 year old Fia Brithin stumbles into a court intrigue. To keep the secret safe, the Chancelor sends her off as apprentice to a famous, and reclusive, high mountain jeweler.
...And straight into adventure.
Discovering gems with deep secrets and new friends with the same, Fia learns a whole lot more than just modeling wax. When to trust a stranger, and when not to; why not to try stealing from gem thieves; what heroism is, what royalty ought to be, and that the mountains themselves can sometimes be the greatest danger of all.


Traitor's Knife

Secrets.
Sabotage.
Murder.
 With Olayin House temporarily turned into a weapons factory, and the care of three orphaned children suddenly thrust upon her, Fia isn't quite sure what to think. However, she is determined to get used to the strange things that keep happening: the presence of the perplexing messenger Willex, a visit from her sister, and keeping the identity of her friend  Ilido a secret. But when a series of
sabotages start to ge people hurt, the young apprentice begins to suspect something  seriously dangerous is going on. Fia has little time to get to the bottom of what may not just be sabotages, but attempts on the life of the under-cover Crown Prince.

~  or  ~

When the loyalist cause enlists the mountain house into a weaponry, apprentice Fia is confronted with three refugee children, a disturbingly upstart former messenger, and accidents happening everywhere. Are saboteurs out to nix the weapons works... or is it the incognito crown prince they're after?

Which is better? Which is most "alike" for a series feel?

Mix and Match and offer suggestions, because my brain is so fogged I can't decide anything!!!

Thanks a ton!!!
  Elizabeth (a.k.a. E. Kaiser Writes)

Back Cover Poll! Jeweler's Apprentice

Okay, all you brilliant peoples!
  We've done a whole lot of work and have gotten things to this point, but there comes a time when the brain runs out of steam and can no longer make Big Important Decisions like... which way should the back cover copy be arranged?

So, we turn to you folks!

   Help us out! And tell us which arrangement appeals to you most?

A) Left hand Ponies.

B) Right hand Ponies.

 A) or B) ?

Comment below!
(You can even be anonymous, if you're not with Google/Blogger yet. :-) )

 

{ We're compiling a new Inner Circle ~ Book Influencers group, and we'd really like You to be in it, if you're up for it! Please sign up with an email we can send alerts to and make sure you don't miss out.
 (If you got here from your inbox, then you are already part of the team, and we appreciate it a TON. Thanks! :-) )  }

I Found Them!!! :-)

 Well, here we are in September already, and life has just been barreling past at a zoom-zoom rate!

 But, I did get my 20k in for August, and am well on my way to get my Sept. goal as well. (currently at 9k out of the 20k.)
 I had a languishing bout in August, which is always a bit scary, a word-dearth/inspiration sapped/hopelessness feeling episode is always potential for a minor panic attack in a writer!!!
 BUT!!! Never fear... rescue was on its way!! Friends lent me The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge, and all writerly gloom was banished in the glowing aftermath of that darling story!!!
  (See my review of it here)

It restored my hope in all things literary, and reminded me what caliber of enchanting tales I'd love to create... and thereby kick started my ambitions and inspirations in one fell swoop!

 From thence, I clattered the keyboard as scenes and plot points fell dazzlingly into place on the page.


    I always love a good spurt of "writer's fire" like that!!!



 Anyway, but on to other news!!!

 While writing Jeweler's Apprentice and Traitor's Knife I had gotten little snippets of scenes that happen in the 3rd book in that series, and had tucked all those delicious little tidbits away as fire-starter for when the time came to write that book.

 But, then, early this year, when I'd thought there was a good chance I could get to work on King's Ward (#3) I discovered that all those notes were lost.

  I could not find them ANYWHERE!!!

  I looked and looked and it all was impossible, and so, so.... disheartening, I couldn't even begin to contemplate starting King's Ward in the face of such devastating loss.


 (So, I did other things, and wrote on other stories... mainly Beaded Slipper, Runzella, and Twelve Dark Knights, as well as a few others, and also thrashed around in the behemoth that Reindeer King is fast becoming -over 100k at the moment, and it's story arc is not complete- Ack!!)


 Anyway, I'd bottomed out on RK, (needing some feedback on the opening chapters, to get some of the tangle straightened out in my head) and also had exhausted most pressing scene ideas for the other tales.

 (The way I manage my creativity to best production is to let it write whatsoever scene -from whatsoever book- it has a fancy to, thereby pinning down whatever fleeting images are in the cerebral cortex before they vanish. My creativity is a fickle thing, and not at all interested in performing on demand, so pouncing on scenes "wild caught" so to speak, from their natural, persnickety habitat is the best way to ensure that each scene has punch of it's own accord.
  I can summon a grim-reaper sort of creativity for those final, hard to nail down scenes, which is required to actually finish a book, since "natural crystal" scenes arrive willy-nilly and hither and yon, and never, ever comprise a complete, finished, start to finish storyline. So there inevitably comes a time when the jewel-scenes stop showing up for this story, in fact become exclusively arriving for other stories altogether, and that is the point where I must unsheathe my sword, gird up my loins, and wade into the fray all stern-faced: pinpoint what exact information still needs imparted, coldly deduce how best to inject it, and hammer out a scene that serves the purpose.
 I need not tell you these are not my favorite scenes, and they rarely contain any lyrical prose at all. They are carpenter scenes, constructed for purpose alone, and if I had to write the whole book this way I think I would not bother to do it. Too much work, and not any fun at'all.
 Many times I heartily dislike these framed scenes, but if they are cleverly surrounded by the shiny "wild caught" ones, a reader's eye glosses straight over them without noticing how brutally uninspired they are. Even my own eye does this, after time has forgotten precisely which ones were which, and the hand-hewn pieces blend with the landscape and escape notice.
 And that, my dears, is how I write books, and actually finish books.

 I write books for the moments of glittering, inspired words that pour forth.
  I finish books by teeth-gnashing, determined plodding. -Which, thankfully, doesn't last too long, possibly the last 6th. of the process.)

Anyway, in a temporary dearth of glittering scenes cavorting in the ferns, and not enough courage to go frame up ugly, spiritless scenes, I sat down at my desk. I had writing time, but no writing that was promising to do itself.

 So, all empty headed of words, I took the session and quietly explored the nooks and crannies of my laptop...
 (keeping a calm heart-rate and languid manner, for lost things can smell fear and it makes them turn invisible)
  ...vaguely convinced that the missing scenes must be somewhere on it.
    How could I have ever deleted them? Impossible to think!

 I've been down that agonizing road too grievously in my early, hastier years, for me to even entertain the idea of permanently deleting anything I might remotely like in future... and I am so crippled by this terror that I have a great deal too many copies of copies of my manuscripts laying around in my folders. (Too many, that is, for my hard drive's complete comfort, and also, for my own ability to correctly identify the precise differences in nature between various versions of any given ms.)

 Therefore, I had a hard time believing, truly accepting, in my deepest heart of hearts; that I could ever have conceivably deleted those scenes.

 Even by accident... because I'm practically phobic about that!

 So, there I was, clicking cautiously around and delving further and further into the darkened recesses of the laptop's folder-in-a-folder keeping system, when I opened a creaky old door and stood boggle-eyed and breathless, staring at the objects of my long despaired search.


 I'd found the "lost notes" on King's Ward!!!
   *Cue triumphant laughter, echoing in dim and dundgeon-y halls*

 So, they're back.

 You can bet I quickly transferred all bits and snippets into a proper project, and promptly labeled it King's Ward, and now I have solidified their claim on an actual story. A story that will be written, and hopefully between now and springtime, first draft complete at the very least.

  Altogether they added up to well over 10k, which is a very jolly start to a book. I always hate the "blank page" of a book I know I must write... it invariably sends my mind into a fit of "I don't know where to start it!" (somewhat true)  and "I don't even know one single thing that happens!" (which is of course a most blatant fallacy, but the mind is capable of the meanest kinds of tricks,) and also, "This book is sure to be no good at all! I'd be saving the world a great deal if I simply didn't write this one at all."
  Which my readers assure me is also a grave piece of swindling, and that in fact, there are people out there very glad that I persisted past this stage of mental self-intimidation and actually got the books completed,
  (For which, of course, I am most heartily grateful to those darling readers, and I cannot possibly express how much they mean to me!!!!)

 Anyway, having a nice, cushion-y ten thousand word start on a project is always so much more pleasant; you reach the mile posts that much faster, and therefore more heartening. The "it's 20k, nicely started now!" and then the "40k, well, well, almost halfway there!" then "50k. Well done! This is officially novel length, -though of course we all know this story isn't nearly 50% actually complete-..." and so on.

 Generally speaking, at 80k I begin to feel as if I've accomplished a great deal, and possibly might even finish this book. Then each increment up from that I start feeling a little light headed, and as we near 100k mild panic sets in that "this monster will never be finished! Ever!"
 After this I have heretofore been so fortunate as be allowed to send it out to beta readers, who take the beastie off my hands and let me breath and regain composure. (While working on a different book, with different word count levels.)
 After returning from betas, the ms always seems so incredibly much more like a book, and it ceases to be "a project" and becomes "a story", which is always tremendously heartening, and we go forward finishing from there.


So this is why I try to never refuse an "early arrival" wild caught scene for a book I still have far in my future. I take a moment and capture that little glittering thing, and set it nicely in a quiet house with a soft nest to sleep sweetly, slowing joined by anything else that wants to volunteer, until such date as I have time to actually start on their book.

 It can get confusing, having so many books flitting in and out of your head, but it's the best way to "wild catch" scenes and have them waiting, fresh once more, by the time you need them. (Up to years and years later!)


 It's so much more encouraging to start a book and have it already partially written "for free" so to speak.


 Do you ever "wild catch" scenes?

 Anyway!!! So now I'm inspired to start concocting King's Ward!!!