Sarah Scheele's Blog, page 17

New Year, New Promotion

To kick off the new year, I'm part of a multi-author giveaway bundle. Kellyn Roth and a bunch of other ladies have teamed up to offer editing, critique, blog tours, etc, and are holding an event to celebrate the opening of Reveries Co. Consuela is the book I'm giving away. Check out it and the other books by visiting the Rafflecopter giveaway here. The event lasts 4 days. 

There's a lot of GREAT authors here, so I'm sure you'll want to follow some of them.

Facets of Fantasy Blue will be free on Kindle Jan 4 and Jan 5. Download your free copy to get the sales rankings up (and enjoy the book too, of course!) :) This book is an alternative to the full Facets of Fantasy Purple, and contains only the fantasy stories, not the sci-fi. 

Here's the blurb: Three fantasy stories that take you to amazing worlds--three mysterious royal families in need of investigation. A boy learns a dull political convention might hold a palace secret and more adventure than he could hope for. A girl leaving her ancient country home finds unlikely allies in her family’s ancestral enemies, elf-like spirits who can take the form of wolves. And a girl from a minority group that’s never noticed by the monarchy is forced to attend a royal ball—in someone else’s ridiculous dress—when she receives an unexplained invitation.

The Most Looked-At Posts

I'm doing a review of this year's work and this blog title is self-explanatory. I've blogged more than in any previous year because I wanted to lay down a consistent web presence at last, instead of hopping around. Most posts fall out quickly and aren't looked at again. But some made it to the top consistently in views each month, or at least near the top which is amazing considering how old some of them were. So I've made a category called (Duh), "Most Viewed Posts."

The majority of these posts deal with personal relationships, especially feedback and unattractive behavior. A few are about characters, especially heroines, but social topics took precedence over actual discussion of books this year. The list excludes posts from December. They are of course near the top in views because they are new and haven't had time to sort. November is still pretty recent, but I've had a couple months with multiple posts near the top and November could be one of them. So I've included November posts. 

Most Popular Posts of Last Year  (excl. December)

Fighting On
Victoria 2.0
Heroine Spotlight ~ Faye
Ryan Johnston
What I Find Attractive
Faye and Helene: The Gal Pals
Memories and Moving Ahead
5 Words That Should Be Illegal
Step by Step
The Backwards Game
Yes, Yes, It's Hot
Heroine Spotlight ~ Violet 

My Favorite Christmas Songs

Since it's Christmas and my brain is too full with managing the holidays to think of a blog post over the weekend, I'll just take a hint from my CD player and list my favorite (and least favorite) Christmas songs. 

Favorite
Hark the Herald Angels Sing
Oh Come All Ye Faithful
Patapan
God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Christians Awake
Hallelujah Chorus


Least Favorite
Away in a Manger
Silent Night
It Came Upon a Midnight Clear
The Christmas Song (Chestnuts)
Joy to the World
Good Christian Men Rejoice

Songs That Are Kind of Meh
Good King Wenceslas
Oh Little Town of Bethlehem
Deck The Halls
O Come, O Come Emmanuel
Angels We Have Heard on High
Oh Holy Night 

And there will be more updates. 

Ryan and Essie: Building An Ancient World

When creating something that's truly imaginative for readers, a place they've never been before--such as the planet of Caricanus--you can rely to a certain extent on other similar works they might have come across. Outer space adventure and wonderfully inventive planets have been shown to audiences in a very detailed way through movie and television franchises and through innumerable well-crafted science fiction books. Over time an expectation has developed of how the outer-space setting might appear.

Especially in an adventure story, you've got guns and high-tech, unreal weaponry we all wish we had here (or not, depending on who is doing the wishing, a 9-year-old boy or his parents), and numerous languages, different alien races into which writers and worldbuilders put a lot of care and attention--and, of course, a sort of social structure. Politics, usually, a way for the tensions in these worlds to come to life as expressions of what these people believe. But while Ryan and Essie has a lot of those similar tropes, areas of the planet are more ancient than futuristic. That area of the story is more like creating a fantasy world, with a mythology that goes back thousands of years and has a mystical angle.

The seven castles were supposedly built by humans who traveled through a wormhole to this planet during the time of the Earth's ancient world. Each castle is made of a different jewel, with signature features like use of water--the emerald castle is surrounded by a moat, the diamond castle has a waterfall and stream running through the center, the pearl castle is frozen, and so forth. Each one also represents something different and is structured in a different way architecturally as Ryan and Essie go through--what I guess could be called--a classic journey of discovery. The scifi part of the story is there as well, but there's an ancient feel to the planet that I think is very important. 

And there will be more updates. 

Harrisons Free Day!

A Year with the Harrisons is FREE on Kindle today and tomorrow! Be sure to grab your copy and help get the sales ranking up during the promotion. Oh, and so you can enjoy the book too, of course!

Heroine Spotlight: Alyce

Alyce is one of the heroines that people probably remember the best, because she appeared in two of my stories at one time. One of those stories, called (guess what?) “Alyce,” eventually blended with a historical story called Victoria and—as an individual entity—disappeared. But the other Alyce story is still very much around. I just haven’t posted on this heroine before. Earlier this year I mentioned a couple of Facets heroines like Violet Vail but neglected to discuss Alyce.

Millhaven Castle is similar to the now-vanished “Alyce” story in showing a period-historical type of fantasy world called Milland. Milland is divided into the majority, who belong to the mainstream culture under the rule of the Falknor house, and a small minority, mostly rural, called Sherbans. These people are dwindling and remember the old days before the Falknors came to power. When Alyce and other Sherbans are invited to a dance by the Falknor king, she finds he’s extremely rude to her and his castle and guests are absurd. But that doesn’t mean she isn’t very important to them.

Alyce tends to get into a lot of ridiculous situations and is given a lot of lemons, so to speak, so she’s very good at making lemonade. She has a calmness in the face of whatever’s thrown at her that isn’t passivity—it’s dismissing these situations as not going to have any effect on her. Although quiet, Alyce has a firm personality and you can’t change her. That actually bothers a lot of people she knows, such as Mistress Dickson, her mother’s friend. If Alyce has her own plans for the future, she’s never let on about them. Instead, she drifts with the people that she’s stuck among, seemingly without minding it. But in reality she is always on her own path. And Lord Timson finds this to be quite true when he tries—very ineffectively—to set her up.
​
And there will be more updates. 

The Harrisons and Their Music

One of the areas I had most fun with when working on A Year with the Harrisons--when it was first drafted or this year when it was published--was the music theme. Music is something I've always loved (I am practically glued to my MP3 player and I've run through more pairs of earbuds over the years than could be counted.) But it hasn't played a large part in any story except The Harrisons, at least so far. 

There are two aspects of music that spiral their way through The Harrisons. Mainstream popular music--a blend of pop and country, very likely to be heard on the radio or even in grocery store background music; and music played in churches. The church scene is quite diverse--classical cantatas, traditional choir music, modern worship choruses, and a dash of instrumental and orchestra, and a lot of story is generated by the conflict between people who argue about these different kinds of music. On the mainstream music end, a prominent subplot concerns the Harrisons' cousin Betty and her family, all of whom do popular music professionally. 

Snatches of lyrics poke into the story now and then. Even when Lamia gets herself into a little trouble befriending a boy whose brother is throwing a house party, the errant teenagers hum and sing themselves all the way to jail. Music isn't just a plot device in A Year with the Harrisons--it's part of the story's heart and one of the reasons it continues to resonate with people. Music is . . . well . . . resonant, after all.

And there will be more updates. 

Fighting On

Just when I think my work on old books is done and I can (finally!!) get to some new material, I get another setback. Of course, “setback” is an angsty way to put it and quite incorrect. In fact, each time I’ve had to redo a book or a portion of my website, it’s been a really good step and I’ve been grateful for the result. But when you’re trying to move forward to producing new books, delays to get things right again can happen. It’s just part of the process.

Anyway (lol), just a word of update on the books as they’re being processed now:

The Test of Devotion was out of availability for a while and I planned to discontinue it. But instead I’m moving towards a substantial rewrite of the book, similar to the ones I did for Harrisons and Victoria, to pull the ages of the characters down more towards children. This worked really well with those two books, so I have hopes for Devotion after doing it with the others.Jurant is back on the website, with a new description. In fact, there are new descriptions for everything. I installed little captions to highlight each book as you enter the website and it was fun coming up with these slogans—a sort of crystalline approach to the story’s content—for each book.The “Chronicles of Palladia” series is not going to include City of the Invaders. I’ve reduced mention of the book on the website and it’s now a static book from the past. Future books have spun off into a focus on Consuela and her friends, not on Katia, her brother, and their angle.Victoria: A Tale of Spain has merged with the former Alyce into a nice little story suitable for roughly 5th graders. I have a new cover in the works, although I do like the current one as well. But I think the fairy-tale aspect (Victoria was originally based on Snow White, Alyce on Cinderella) didn’t make it into the final book and the old cover would better suit a fairy-tale story.Still working on Bellevere House. I’d like to bring it into a bit more compatibility with the general tone of the website—this book is a bit of a sore thumb and I’d like to turn it into a green thumb in a dexterous way if I can. 
And there will be more updates.
 

Here Are the Slogans

Slogans—sluglines—little crystalline bits of the story. Whatever you’d like to call them, I have some of them ready for you! So I won’t keep you waiting, if you haven’t checked out the website’s cool new content yet. I’ve been working on these for a while and I’m finally letting out bits of the story’s framework—I guess that’s what it is. It’s like holding up a photograph of the story’s ideas.

Beneath the shade of the pecan tree, the Harrison’s home is welcoming. But you might find there's more to them than meets the eye --A Year with the Harrisons​Jenny must fight for what she believes in--and to protect herself from her father's mistakes--The Test of DevotionIs Consuela really to be trusted? There are a lot of scoundrels in Belaria and she might know about some of them—ConsuelaFor generations Victoria's family has lived in the shadow of the monarchy. A monarchy that has far too much interest in them--Victoria: A Tale of SpainOutside Jurant's imposing military school stands a forest and a garden. A garden with a power beyond imagination—JurantBoating, playing tennis, and navigating wild swamps. Unlikely friendships can lead to unwelcome surprises--Bellevere HouseThe beautiful city of Niferna. The medieval mansion of Vailsgabel. The pristine court of Millhaven Castle--Facets of FantasyIn dying mansions and towers filled with flowers and magic, two girls must make the decision to leave--Everwood and Renari comboA planet humans have seen before. 7 jeweled castles that hold their doom--Ryan and EssieAmethyst will get tangled up in more than she expected--Temmark Osteraith
See anything you like? :D
And there will be more updates. 

Memories and Moving Ahead

There are still a few loose ends that need to be tied up with my other books (Victoria’s rewrite was so total that it will need a completely new cover.) But I’m starting to look ahead to next year and to working on Temmark Osteraith. I wanted to do that months ago, but things can get set back. It’s important to lay a solid foundation and getting all my books in order was an essential part of that. It’s actually building a house to last instead of throwing some sticks together because you need shelter in the moment.

The world of Temmark Osteraith used to be the “Milland” world and appeared in a couple of stories about a girl named “Alyce” who got into all kinds of trouble. So it feels long ago—but also moving forward in an important way. I finished most of the story of what will now be Temmark Osteraith fifteen years ago and I’m such a different person now, in a lot of ways, that I think the audience attitude to the book now will be quite different from the audience for Milland. Or even for some of my other books published more recently.

Temmark Osteraith has maybe a bit of a wilder aspect, if you’d like to call it that, than the old world of Alyce’s Milland. It was this very off-beat, funny, kind of adventure in a period-historical type of world. Whereas in Temmark Osteraith we have a futuristic world, characters that aren’t even human, and a house that still a bit resembles an old mansion, but with an unpredictable personality of its own. A lot is different now from that original draft—setting, character names, some of the plot, you name it—but it still has things that are similar too. A bridge between the past and where my writing is today, to the extent I think it actually brings out the story that was always underlying Milland instead of replacing it.
​
And there will be more updates.