Amanda Frederickson's Blog: Musings - Posts Tagged "background"
Apples and Onions
I’ve just released my third short story ebook, and I’ve always thought it was cool when authors tell a little bit about the background behind their stories, so here’s a little bit about this latest tale: Apples and Onions.
It’s a fairy tale retelling (also among my long-time favorite things) of a story that’s a bit off the beaten path: The Lindorm King, or King Lindorm. A Lindorm is a type of dragon, which no one seems to be able to agree on a description for besides being long and thin. I stumbled across the fairy tale in school the year my science fair project was classifying types of dragons. Yes, my teacher let me get away with it.
Being a lover of fairy tales and especially thrilled because this one was new to me, I wanted to write my own version and even typed a few lines, but it didn’t go anywhere. The file sat untouched in my “fiction” folder through several computer transfers. Then, last year in the middle of revising Keystone, I flipped a page in my notebook and started scribbling Apples and Onions. It was one of those few, fantastic times when the story poured itself onto the page in its entirety in only two sittings. I scrapped the old lines entirely (poor things).
Then, recently I was going through notebooks hunting for Kingstone snippets (somehow almost anything I’m working on ends up spread out through tons of notebooks as I lose track of them or don’t have them when I want them) and came across it again. Obviously it needed a little cleaning up, but as a whole I was very pleased with how it came out, especially the dragon himself.
Now it's polished up and published with a pretty new cover image. ^_^
You can currently find the story in these places:
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FN677HU
Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...
My own Etsy shop:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/16475184...
It should also be available through other retailers soon.
It’s a fairy tale retelling (also among my long-time favorite things) of a story that’s a bit off the beaten path: The Lindorm King, or King Lindorm. A Lindorm is a type of dragon, which no one seems to be able to agree on a description for besides being long and thin. I stumbled across the fairy tale in school the year my science fair project was classifying types of dragons. Yes, my teacher let me get away with it.
Being a lover of fairy tales and especially thrilled because this one was new to me, I wanted to write my own version and even typed a few lines, but it didn’t go anywhere. The file sat untouched in my “fiction” folder through several computer transfers. Then, last year in the middle of revising Keystone, I flipped a page in my notebook and started scribbling Apples and Onions. It was one of those few, fantastic times when the story poured itself onto the page in its entirety in only two sittings. I scrapped the old lines entirely (poor things).
Then, recently I was going through notebooks hunting for Kingstone snippets (somehow almost anything I’m working on ends up spread out through tons of notebooks as I lose track of them or don’t have them when I want them) and came across it again. Obviously it needed a little cleaning up, but as a whole I was very pleased with how it came out, especially the dragon himself.
Now it's polished up and published with a pretty new cover image. ^_^
You can currently find the story in these places:
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00FN677HU
Smashwords:
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view...
My own Etsy shop:
https://www.etsy.com/listing/16475184...
It should also be available through other retailers soon.
Sometimes the Magic Works
It's funny how October 31st is still one of my favorite days of the year, but not for entirely the same reasons. The costume and candy anticipation has turned to character and plot anticipation. Don't get me wrong, costumes and candy are still the highlights of Halloween, but on the stroke of midnight, like a reverse Cinderella's carriage, All Hallows Eve becomes Day One of National Novel Writing Month.
Magic hour.
I looked back over my past Nanowrimo books and realized this will be my tenth November Nanowrimo project (don't ask me how that math works out; nine years but ten books). It makes my plans all the more fitting.
Way back in 2004 when I discovered the madness that is Nano, I had two weeks to decide and plan my project. At that time my friends and I were very active role players and any given free time that found a handful of us together resulted in random "moshes," in which each of us picked a character and someone picked a setting. With nothing more than that we built amazing stories together.
One stormy evening found a few of us with nothing to do, so we decided that we were in the common room of an inn on a stormy night. Instead of picking from my regular stable of characters, I decided to pull out a concept that had been fluttering in the back of my mind since high school. She was a traveling piper named Nakkita, and she had a secret: she was a runaway kidnapped princess. I just didn't know what to do with her.
I couldn't have known that her story wouldn't be complete without Kharduval August, the loyal knight, or Latasha Gildersleeve, the werewolf Moonsinger. I stole them (with permission from Nee-chan and Tree) and the seeds of Peasant Queen were planted.
I wrote the manuscript in a flurry of handwritten and typed pages, sliding under the wire on November 30th to score my first win. Needless to say it was thoroughly addicting even though my next two Nano novels barely made it off the ground.
To this day I consider Peasant Queen and Masquerade to be my best Nanowrimo novels. Peasant Queen was also the only time that I've written an actual ending during Nanowrimo. However, the manuscript had one fatal flaw. It had no middle. Right around the end of week three I skipped over half the guts and glory of the whole ordeal and went straight to the lead-up of the climax.
So this year for my tenth Nanowrimo project I'm dusting off Peasant Queen and rewriting it from stem to stern, guts and all. And I'm posting it all on Smashwords as I go.
It's going to be mayhem. Hopefully the good kind.
My Facebook author page is up and as mentioned before I'll be posting there when manuscript updates are live. I'll also be putting up my working map, portraits of characters, some settings and whatever other goodies I come up with as things go. You can find the page here: https://www.facebook.com/amandalfrede...
I hope you join me!
(Writing for Nanowrimo? Write with me! Add me as a writing buddy here: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/sar...)
Magic hour.
I looked back over my past Nanowrimo books and realized this will be my tenth November Nanowrimo project (don't ask me how that math works out; nine years but ten books). It makes my plans all the more fitting.
Way back in 2004 when I discovered the madness that is Nano, I had two weeks to decide and plan my project. At that time my friends and I were very active role players and any given free time that found a handful of us together resulted in random "moshes," in which each of us picked a character and someone picked a setting. With nothing more than that we built amazing stories together.
One stormy evening found a few of us with nothing to do, so we decided that we were in the common room of an inn on a stormy night. Instead of picking from my regular stable of characters, I decided to pull out a concept that had been fluttering in the back of my mind since high school. She was a traveling piper named Nakkita, and she had a secret: she was a runaway kidnapped princess. I just didn't know what to do with her.
I couldn't have known that her story wouldn't be complete without Kharduval August, the loyal knight, or Latasha Gildersleeve, the werewolf Moonsinger. I stole them (with permission from Nee-chan and Tree) and the seeds of Peasant Queen were planted.
I wrote the manuscript in a flurry of handwritten and typed pages, sliding under the wire on November 30th to score my first win. Needless to say it was thoroughly addicting even though my next two Nano novels barely made it off the ground.
To this day I consider Peasant Queen and Masquerade to be my best Nanowrimo novels. Peasant Queen was also the only time that I've written an actual ending during Nanowrimo. However, the manuscript had one fatal flaw. It had no middle. Right around the end of week three I skipped over half the guts and glory of the whole ordeal and went straight to the lead-up of the climax.
So this year for my tenth Nanowrimo project I'm dusting off Peasant Queen and rewriting it from stem to stern, guts and all. And I'm posting it all on Smashwords as I go.
It's going to be mayhem. Hopefully the good kind.
My Facebook author page is up and as mentioned before I'll be posting there when manuscript updates are live. I'll also be putting up my working map, portraits of characters, some settings and whatever other goodies I come up with as things go. You can find the page here: https://www.facebook.com/amandalfrede...
I hope you join me!
(Writing for Nanowrimo? Write with me! Add me as a writing buddy here: http://nanowrimo.org/participants/sar...)
