A.R. Bledsoe's Blog

How to Self-Publish Your Book in the Age of Print-On-Demand

Self-publishing is FULL of decisions and choices with hidden fees and requirements. It can be scary especially when you’re on a tight budget. Believe me-I know! I had to search SO MANY articles and even then they were not clear on pricing or what was best because they were normally trying to sell you a service. After publishing my first book, I think I’ve found something that works for me. Hopefully, I can help you do the same without all the stress!

In this article I will go over

the process of editing and designing your bookthe legal requirements of selling, where to sell, and how to get yourself out there.

I hope this guide will help you feel confident enough to make informed decisions on your book’s future. It’s as all-inclusive as I can make it so hopefully you don’t have to do any further research. If you have questions, email me and I’ll try to help!

Editing & Designing Your Book

For editing my novel, Google gave me a price range of $900 to $1,200 for a content editor (someone who does the content editing) and then $400 to $600 for a copy editor (grammar and spell check). Grammarly is a cheap and helpful tool if you need to cut costs. You can use the free version or pay monthly/annually for premium features. If you need to find an editor you can check out freelance editors on Fiver. I fortunately knew someone who was willing to edit my book so I cannot vouch for the processes I mentioned (besides free Grammarly).

For designing the interior page, I used InDesign to design the pages of my book. I am familiar with InDesign but I still had to watch a bunch of Youtube videos to figure out things like page numbers, table of contents, etc…

But you don’t need to invest in big software you have to learn. In my research, I found that some people have used Word for interior page design. Lulu offers in depth tutorials and a list of programs you can use for interior pages. Read their article here.

For designing the cover page, I recommend using Canva or Adobe Express if you don’t have access to other design tools like Photoshop and InDesign. You can also hire a design professional like me or from Fiverr.

For designing the copyright page, here are some templates to use. Read below on a breakdown of each element required for this crucial (and expensive) page.

A page spread from my book in InDesignLegal Requirements to Sell

First of all, your book should have a copyright page to protect your book when you sell it. Global Distribution channels (used by print-on-demand companies like KDP, Ingram, and Lulu) require you to have these elements on it: 

Title/SubtitleAuthorCopyright DatePrint Book ISBNLibrary of Congress number (optional)

Here is the breakdown of what goes on a copyright page:

Get an ISBN.

An ISBN is short for: International Standard Book Number. It’s the name for the serial numbers around the barcode of a book.

ISBN on copyright page

Your options:

Buy an ISBN from Bowker. It’s $125 for the ISBN*. You must have this to sell your book and must buy one PER FORMAT (so hardback, paperback, etc). ISBNs are optional for digital products like an ebook or audiobook. Bowker is the official place to buy an ISBN, beware of scammers who say otherwise! Buy an ISBN from Bowker here. *NOTE: Bowker offers a barcode to go with the ISBN, but most print-on-demand companies will automatically give you a barcode to go with your ISBN for free.

TIP: I used Ingram, a print-on-demand company, to purchase a discounted ISBN at $85 (which was still sold through Bowker). But I didn’t have to print books through Ingram to use my ISBN.

Free ISBN. You can get a free ISBN if you go through a print-on-demand company (I go through my top three below). You can get a free ISBN through them or buy your own. The only thing with a free ISBN is you can only sell your book through that company—I think it’s like giving them exclusive rights to sell your book.

Make your book library-friendly.

NOTE: It’s not required to sell but it helps put your book in libraries—and you’ll have your book at the Library of Congress!

Your options:

You can just get an LCCN. LCCN/Library of Congress Control Number: you must preassign this to your book before publishing. They will give the number to you which you put in your book. The number is free, but you must ship a physical copy of your book to the library of congress for it to be official. Preassign here.LCCN Copyright Page ExampleOr you can also buy a CIP data block too. If you want to really make sure your book gets a chance to be placed in a library. You can look at getting a CIP data block. It costs on average of about $90. (This is relatively new and it helps librarians organize the book in the library.)CP Block Copyright Page Example

Register Copyright— Online Registration: $65

It’s not technically necessary to officially register your book (according to US law your work is protected from the moment it’s written). But when it starts flying off of the shelves, the thieves will be tempted to steal–and they could take you to court no matter how much proof you might have. Registering your copyright gives solid, unquestionable proof that your book is indeed yours and–from what I hear–takes court out of the equation. Click here to register your book.

Printing and Selling Options

For one, I had to ask myself do I want to sell my book myself or pay for someone else to do it?

1. Sell on Your Own Options

Amazon. I chose to pay Lulu Printing to print my books for me and then I sell them myself on Amazon as an Amazon Seller it’s $0.99 per sale for the individual plan*. There are also purchase fees. My book has $5 total in fees with the list price of $12.99 per book (after Amazon fees and print cost I make a profit of $5/book). A perk of selling through Amazon is you get discounted shipping if bought through Amazon. 
(NOTE: I’ve experienced that the initial setup causes you to have the premium plan which is $40–once purchased, make sure to downgrade before the month is up!)

Online Store. It’s expensive and better for those who are in the upscale stage of their business. An online store can cost at least $26 per month plus transaction fees. On top of that, you have to deal with tax fees and filing sales taxes. For first-time broke authors like me, Amazon is an excellent route to go if you want to sell your books yourself and don’t want to deal with sales taxes. Learn more about Amazon’s tax policy here.

2. Global Distribution

You can choose to have a print-on-demand company print AND distribute your book through Amazon, Barnes, and Noble, etc. The upfront cost is $0 (besides the cost of receiving a physical proof of your book). This is the cheapest route to go but also the least profitable. I made $2 per book and had to list it way above market price versus on my own where I made $5 per book selling at market price. I only recommend this option for those who aren’t wanting to build a personal brand and are willing to spend as much money as the other options into marketing.

My Top 3 Print-On-Demand Companies Lulu PrintingThis is what I use because I found it has the cheapest and best print quality compared to KDP. Also, it’s easy to use however it has the longest time to ship (up to 14 days)…Use this code for 10% off: LKAB317CDKindle Direct PrintingFast shipping, but low printing quality. They will sell your books on Amazon for you (though you can do this with Lulu and Ingram as well)Best option I know for selling ebooks through AmazonIngram SparkI never tried this but I hear it has good quality and they just got rid of their upfront fees.Get Your Book Out ThereCreate an author profile on Amazon and Goodreads (it’s free). Through these you can promote your books and collect reviews!

I hope this information helps! The self-publishing world is constantly changing so please let me know if I missed anything or if the info has changed!

The Writing Journey of A. R. Bledsoe

I hope to help all writers by sharing my journey. Contact me for illustration, book design, advertising, and writing queries.

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Writing Stats for Book Two // Week 6

Writing Stats for Book Two // Week 6

Week Four: Halfway There

Words Written: 14,700+

Chapters Completed: 4 (chapters 12-15)

Coffees drunk: 2

Stress Level: 5

I feel like I say this every week but I truly mean it when I say this week has been a whirlwind! As you can see in my words written stat, I wrote nearly FIFTEEN THOUSAND words!! To put it into perspective: I average roughly 11,000 words a week right now.

On top of writing four more chapters, I also spent a lot of my time filling in details and adding more dialogue between characters. I normally have a hard time revising, but it ended up being a lot of fun and rewarding as the details brought the story to life.

The halfway point in my story brings my heroine to a new perspective as she learns about the people she was forced to join on her journey. She begins to see that the “we protect our own” mentality doesn’t bode well for kingdoms and the world as a whole. She begins to realize that she just might need their help, but she also needs to tell them her plans— which right now are off-limits. As they reach the end of the halfway point of the book, they are forced to work together to get out of their hiding place, alive. Next week I write about their escape and the new people they will meet that might help her with her plans to save the island of Vītor.

This week’s blog is short because I have a lot of work to catch up on since Labor Day weekend (and also feeling under the weather Tuesday).

Enjoy today with a glass of jū-jū [joo-joo] juice and see you next week!

Visit arbledsoe.com for more info and to purchase her short story “Wipple and the Sîren”.

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Week 3: Eating Wild Grass

Words Written: roughly 9,500

Chapters Completed: 3

Cups of Coffee: 3

Energy Drinks: 2 (it’s not a new bad habit [hopefully])

Stress Level: 5/10

This week has been one of those crazy weeks where I have three full days’ worth of writing done in five days. The amount of work I accomplished this week versus the other weeks gives a bit of a deflating feeling— not going to lie. I was blowing my expectations out of the park and then bam! week three gets slammed with unforeseen interruptions and ends early with a planned family trip.

I kept telling myself, you’ll catch up writing on the way up or maybe you’ll find time to write when you’re there! But of course, family vacations don’t allow for such things and aren’t supposed to be spent working. I finished chapter three the first night of the trip and decided to end it there for the week. I calculated that even if I completed only three chapters a week I would be off by two weeks, which in the long run, I can accept. It was hard making the decision to stop trying, however, for I put so much pressure on myself to achieve my weekly goals. But (thankfully) my priorities were in order and my family came first.

As I was on the trip, I had some time to reflect and think on the journey I’ve had since college. Me and my middle sister are at the age where our friends are either hitting their stride or still finding their way. I’ve felt for the longest time that I was lost when truly I had enough faith and time and money to do everything except follow my passion. Now, I am doing what I am meant to do, and I’m the poorest I’ve been, I’m more stressed, more tired, and I feel the most alive and content than I have ever felt.

If you think about it. It sounds like being in love. You feel all the feelings far more intensely, and yet what you are pursuing outshines the pain it’s putting you through.

I read this week in the book of 2 Kings in the Bible a small prophecy by a prophet to the King of Judah who was super stressed out. This enemy king kept telling him that what he was doing wouldn’t stop him from coming through. Logically this enemy king was right for he had destroyed many kingdoms that were larger than Judah. However, the prophet gave the King of Judah this prophesy and word of encouragement:

“…This year you will eat only what grows up by itself, and next year you will eat what springs up from that. But in the third year, you will plant crops and harvest them; you will tend vineyards and eat their fruit.”

2 Kings 19:29 NLT

I had a picture of wild grass in my mind when I read the first two lines for I had just finished a chapter where I went into detail describing a beautiful meadow of grass that grew in a great body of water.

I thought about my three-year jump-start career plan and I reread the verses. Somehow the words caused my spirit to catch hold of them.

I shared it with my husband and said, “This year I’m eating wild grass.” Thankfully he’s used to me saying weird things like that, and he got the picture.

The year of eating wild grass (or really plants, but whatever, the image can’t be removed from my mind) encompasses a lot of faith. The King of Judah had to have faith that what the prophet said would happen. He had to have faith for two years that there would be enough wild food for him and his kingdom to eat. Right now, my wild grass doesn’t look as good as fruit, but I can’t eat it until I plant the seed, and I can’t plant the seed until I have it. This year I’m making the seeds.

Next year, I’ll be editing it and publishing it.

The year after, I better eat the stinking fruit.

I get that this prophesy, within context, is for the King of Judah, but I can’t shake the feeling that rose in me when I read those words. It was the encouragement I needed this week. It gave me the courage to say, “I’m okay with eating wild grass for a year or two, I know on the third year, the fourth, the fifth, or tenth year, I will eat the fruit and it’s going to finally replace my grass breath— and even better than that, the tree will keep reproducing so that I won’t have to eat wild grass ever again.”

Visit arbledsoe.com for more info and to purchase her short story “Wipple and the Sîren”.

Week Two: World Building

Words Written: roughly 11,000

Chapters Completed: 4

Cups of Coffee: 4 (skipped a day )

Stress Level: 2 (any stress was over not writing action scenes after being so used to doing that the first week)

Week Two once again was a great writing week. It was a lot of character and world-building wrapped up together. My heroine met two large cultural groups this week and had to fight one of them— which meant a lot of logic building as well. The area of the World of Ore that Book Two focuses on is inhabited by people with elemental abilities. Fight scenes require a bit of planning and logic to make sure my hero characters don’t seem overly powerful to the point where the fight isn’t intense. I also want to make sure the enemy is scary and proses a true threat (if not, my whole story will flop).

I felt reasonable pressure to get the story right, but a lot of it was taken off of me because I had already fleshed out most of the logic from the prior month of story planning.

I did a lot of world-building during that month, but there were some things I knew I wouldn’t have a clear picture of until I started scratching out my rough draft. Reading and writing bring a world to life in ways in which daydreaming and planning can’t scratch the surface. Details make the world feel real and characters give breath to the lungs of the story.

Reading and writing bring a world to life in ways in which daydreaming and planning can’t scratch the surface.

World-building, as you write, can be messy—even if you did a lot of it beforehand. I’ve had to go back to other chapters to add or change a detail about my world that I had just thought of. But it’s worth it if it adds depth. I’ve also learned to be careful about this. I once read that a good indicator of knowing when to stop adding is if the addition begins to subtract. Design is like that. If you add too much fluff, the essence of your piece will get swallowed up. I want my world to feel big and intensely detailed, but I don’t have to overwhelm my reader with details to drive home the message. Give the important details and allude to the others beyond. Unknowns are great. I feel like J. R. R. Tolkien does that beautifully. He authenticates his world with vivid details of the present like the landscape and the people, but then he alludes to ancient days with vague descriptions and ancient songs.

Give the important details and allude to the others beyond.

I’m by no means a master or know-it-all, but I am learning and I always will. Perhaps I will read this later on after gaining more experience and wonder what kind of coffee I was drinking, but I strongly feel that your world is as deep as the time you put into building it and it’s bigger when you don’t give it all away.

Come back next Wednesday at 10:30 to read how Week Three of writing went!

Visit arbledsoe.com for more info and to purchase her short story “Wipple and the Sîren”

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Week One: Starting Again

My first full week of writing was surprisingly fruitful! Here’s last week’s stats:

Words written: over 11,000 words

Chapters completed: 4

Cups of coffee: 4 (drank tea instead one day)

Stress Level: 4 out of 10 (the main source of stress was the first day of writing—it was hard getting back into the swing of things)

Let me tell you, taking a full month to dream and prep for this book was a GAME CHANGER. I can’t stress to you enough how helpful it was to spend four weeks dreaming and scheming from 9 to 5. I don’t have everything planned or figured out, but I have a goal of where I need to get to for each chapter. Perhaps to some people, this revelation for me was a no-brainer, but I’m an artsy fartsy person and the amount of stress I had in setting anything in stone was truly terrifying. I also worried that wasting a whole month of not writing just to daydream was not going to make a difference, that I would veer away from my outline as soon as I began to develop my characters (I had a hard time developing my characters during the planning process so I gave up and resigned myself to at least coming up with backstories for them).

With the last book, I had trouble sticking to the chapter outlines that I had created day by day. I realize now how silly I was to think that creating an entire outline over a month would somehow lead to the same outcome. I’m also approaching this book from ground zero whereas, in the first one, I had slowly developed bits and pieces of it over a couple of years. I can easily toss out characters or change their characteristics for the sake of the plot without going through the pain of severing my attachment to them.

This book is a little different from the other as I am writing from the POVs of two separate characters who are currently living in two different worlds (socially) and are set on an inevitable course to meet each other. I have always loved stories like that, the suspense of wanting two characters you love to finally meet, and the anticipation of how they will react to discovering each other. I felt that suspense as I was writing the whole week. Thankfully the two meet relatively soon in the story (I hate dragged-out suspense). I actually finished that part today and I couldn’t help but beam the whole time. It’s humorous and probably crazy sounding, but I feel as though I’m reading the story as I write it— and I’m just as excited as the reader to figure out what happens.

It’s a short blog post today, and it will probably continue to be short, but hopefully more insightful on what I’ve accomplished every week! If I continue at the pace I am going I should be done writing Book Two by mid-October. That would be the same amount of time I took to write Book One— except this time I spent the whole first month not writing!

Visit arbledsoe.com for more info and to purchase her short story “Wipple and the Sîren”

Legend of Gerîanā: Chapter One

A story of Ore by A. R. Bledsoe

All rights reserved.

Chapter 1: The Last Trial

“Open your eyes,” barked a command. 

The small, dark-haired girl sighed and opened her eyes. The command came from her mâ, the leader of their herd. 

The nine-year-old girl peered down to the watery depths many feet below her. Water of marbled dark blue and foamy white sloshed against the craggy cliff they stood upon. The pink and orange rays of the sun spilled out across the frigid sea.

All eyes of the girl’s herd were on her, she was among the few to make it this far into the trial. 

“Gerîanā,” her mâ snapped. The girl knew she was coming to the end of her mâ’s patience. “Jump.”

And so she did. She did not hesitate, not even to take in another gulp of air.

The cool air rushed past her tanned face. Her short, black hair whipped behind her. Her bare, dirty feet pointed down to the turbulent water that waited most impatiently. Its spray felt cold as she neared. 

Now! Transform now! Her mind begged her body to obey, to obey just as she had always obeyed her mâ’s commands.

Nevertheless, she plunged into the sea, water enveloped her body and swirled around her, filling her ears and nose. 

She felt as if the cold water had infiltrated her heart. Despite the cold, her lungs burned, longing for the cool air above.

She floated for a moment, suspended in the darkness of the depths of the freezing sea. Her heart felt as heavy as an anchor, pulling her down into sorrow and disappointment.

The little girl, Gerîanā [jer-eye-u-nay], had failed. 

The daughter of the herd’s leader hadn’t done what everyone expected her to do. She hadn’t transformed like the people in her herd. She hadn’t found her animal form. 

Large bubbles surfaced around her, tickling her toes and legs as they rose. A white, furry head appeared from the dark water that surrounded her. It was Belūa [bel-oo-u], a large, friendly man and even larger polar bear in his animal form as he was then. 

The child latched on tightly to the slick neck of the bear and without a word, he surged up to the surface. Gerîanā coughed and her blue lips spluttered. Her lungs drew in air through her chattering teeth. 

She looked up and saw her mâ’s worried face, which peered over the cliff edge. Her mâ’s face softened, but Gerîanā turned away. She leaned forward and hugged Belūa’s wet, furry neck and allowed him to whisk her away around the rocky cliffs and back to shore. 

Once on the shore, she slid off his back and fell onto the course, grey sand. She lay there with no desire to move, hoping to lay like one of the large rocks that dotted the beach. The polar bear gave a low woof and prodded her wet face with his wet nose. His hot breath felt wonderful, and normally his sniffing would have made her laugh, but it seemed nothing could lift the heaviness in her chest.

“Oh, I’m okay Belūa. I mean, I’m not hurt. Just cold and…and…” her words trailed off. She wasn’t prepared to face the reality of what happened or at least hear it said aloud.

Belūa grunted and rubbed his head against hers in a more gentle, consoling way.

“Thank you, Bel. It was my first Vertevē [ver-tu-vee] Trial. I know not everyone transforms their first time.” She repeated the words he drilled into her over and over when she grew anxious in the days leading up to the trial. Belūa gave an approving sniff, then backed away and returned to the water to retrieve the next child who might have not transformed as she.

Gerîanā didn’t want to leave. If she hadn’t been so cold she would have remained on the shore until her parents forced her to leave. However, the sun was nearly gone and the cold air was only getting colder so she got up and made her way toward the smattering of trees lining the shore. 

It seemed like a lifetime since she had begun the trials that morning, there at the very bottom of the cliff. She had been so full of hope even until the last trial of jumping off the cliff. How could she not transform? Was she weak? 

An elderly lady rushed to her with a furry blanket the moment Gerîanā stepped beneath the cover of the woods. 

“Oh Gerîa,” she simpered using a nickname that only her Grand (means grandmother to people of earth) was allowed to use, “I rushed down here as soon as I heard the splash.” She vigorously rubbed the small girl’s arms with her hands over the blanket. “You feel any warmer?”

Gerîanā nodded even as her lips continued to chatter. “They have no business doing the trials during the cold season, I’ve always said it,” her Grand went on as her solid, big-boned arms pumped up and down, rubbing her arms.

“I’m better, I’m better Grand. Can we go home?” Gerîanā asked finally. She thought she could see the outline of Belūa approaching the shore. She didn’t want to stick around and greet the next kid who didn’t transform. She didn’t know why but it made her squirm with shame to see someone else meet the same fate as her. She loathed herself for feeling that way, but it made her feel normal and all together unspectacular. 

“Well, I would whisk you away to my cave but we will need to meet with Felīxa and Adonarī first,” Grand replied apologetically, mentioning Gerîanā’s parents. 

The little girl’s shoulders slumped, she was wanting to postpone this meeting as long as she could. She couldn’t bear to see the look of disappointment or even worse, pity.

“I tell you what,” her Grand said, holding Gerîanā away from her to look into her eyes. “How about I give you a ride back up to the top?”

The little girl paused and then gave a small smile, “Okay.”

In the blink of an eye, Gerîanā’s six-and-a-half foot Grand was a towering, black mountain bear. Amidst her sea of black fur, specks of silver hair caught the light of the rising moon as it shone through the leaves of the trees around them. Her Grand was always a powerful and beautiful sight to behold both as human and bear.

Gerîanā gripped her blanket around her with one hand and with the other she climbed onto her Grand’s helping paw and was boosted onto her back. Gerîanā grabbed hold of her fur and leaned into her Grand’s warmth allowing it to remove the chill from her bones. 

With a low growl, the giant bear warned Gerîanā that she was about to take off. 

“I’m ready,” Gerîanā mumbled into her fluffy, black, and silver-speckled fur, and Grand began to lumber up the slope back toward the top of the cliff. 

They passed trial after trial which lined the path she had walked many hours before. Some trials looked like posts with leaves from the tropical part of their island, others were sacks filled with different rocks or minerals found in places far away. Each trial represented a different group of animals: the small and large carnivores, the hoofed animals, the mammals of land, mammals of water, scaled beasts of water, and so on. Each trial was supposed to identify what triggered a kafārba to transform into its animal form. As they went on, each trial became farther apart and fewer. She saw the embers of a fire marking the fire trial and she fought the urge to stretch out her still throbbing left hand from when she passed it through the flame. The trials near the cliff top were by far her least favorite. They were the hardest and sometimes most painful ones. 

Her Grand slowed as they reached the disengaging crowd of onlookers who had stayed to watch the remaining children complete their last trial. Five of the hundred or so children who had gone through the trials had made it to the last trial with her. Two of the children were her friends, both twins, named Nāuna and Hāunā. 

Some part of her hoped they hadn’t transformed as well. Her heart plummeted as she thought of the Vertevē Journey. It was a journey the children would take once they passed their trial. On this journey, they would learn how to transform without needing a trigger and how to use their animal forms. It was a rite of passage for kafārba children. Fish would travel with their older fish mentors through the sea and the hoofed would travel with their companions to various plains and so on, each traveling to a destination specific to their animal form. When they returned, they were officially accepted into their kafārba herd and recognized at the Vertevē Celebration held every third set of moons (approximately three years). Gerîanā had been so looking forward to the Vertevē journey. Her mâ, a lioness, and fâ, a wolf, were even leading a herd that year. 

It was this knowledge that made her failure to transform all the more disappointing. 

Grand made her way through the crowd as animals and people parted to make way. Gerîanā tried her best to sink deeper into her Grand’s fur as she pulled the fur blanket over her head. She felt she was being paraded for all to see. 

Grand stopped and Gerîanā could hear voices. Soon she heard her name being called. Reluctantly she loosened her hold on the blanket and slowly clambered down off her Grand’s back to face her mâ and fâ. They stood in their human form with their arms stretched out for her. Seeing them with smiles instead of disappointment made a sudden well of emotion flood her. She ran into their arms with tears slipping down her cheeks. They crouched to her height and welcomed her, letting her cry.

“Ah, my dear. You didn’t doubt we would love you still did you? How many times have we told you?” Her fâ held her away to look into her face as he spoke, “Not every child transforms in their first Vertevē Trial.” 

“I didn’t even transform until my third Vertevē,” her mâ chimed in. “You will, my dear, just not this time. It is a shock that the other four children transformed on the cliff trial as it is.”

Gerîanā looked up sharply at her mom in shock.

“Yes, your two little friends,” she chuckled. Every trace of a tough leader left her face. “I almost had to shove them in. Nāuna became a most beautiful cobalt raven, which makes sense now with her fine dark hair. And Hāunā gave us a little scare. He landed in the water and didn’t come back up. Belūa eventually found him as a little Nôna [known-uh] fish.”

“Oh poor Hāunā,” Gerîanā breathed. She in particular loved Nôna fish for they were known for being large and beautiful, with black, scarlet, and brilliant blue and long, yellow fins on their back and stomach which drifted behind them as they swam up and down the streams through their village. However, for all the reasons she loved them, she knew Hāunā would despise it. Though he was quite skinny for a boy, he had aspired to be a large meat-eating beast with sharp teeth and long claws.

“Ah, he will learn to appreciate who he has become,” her mâ said matter-of-factly. “As for you, we happen to come from a long line of large beasts. Your Grand, as you know, is a bear and even your Grandō (which means grandfather) had been a great lion. And we happen to live in a herd that is mostly made up of smaller creatures. Naturally, it won’t take most of the children as long to transform. So don’t be discouraged, darling.”

Dark grey fur filled the little girl’s vision and a warm, wet tongue licked her face. Shocked, she stumbled back, pushing away what she found to be a baby wolf. 

“Fārā [fare-aye]! Dear boy, let your sister be,” Gerîanā’s mâ exclaimed with a small chuckle. 

“F-Fārā?” spluttered Gerîanā. “I thought he was too young to join the trials?”

“Ah well,” her mâ looked disapprovingly at her husband and then back at her, “your fâ was in charge of watching him and…”

“And I thought there was no harm in letting him do the easier trials,” her fâ cut in defensively. He looked down and chuckled at her baby brother as his tail wagged so much it shook his whole body. “That’s my son, I say. He transformed early just like me.” 

Gerîanā’s face went red and her mâ harrumphed at him.

Her fâ, realizing what he had said, quickly changed his tone and added, “But you, my dear, will be just as strong as your mâ or even as large as your Grand. It does seem that the largest transformations take the longest.”

“That’s right,” Grand chimed in. “We’ll have to give you lots of vegetables and bigalow meat and soon enough you’ll be big enough to transform.”

Gerîanā felt heartened at this and she was even able to giggle when her brother, who had begun chasing his tail, caught it, tripped, and rolled onto his back. He seemed to think it was funny too because he just lay on his back, his tongue hanging out of his mouth and his tail wagging.

Visit arbledsoe.com for more info and to purchase her short story “Wipple and the Sîren”

 

 

What I’m Doing Differently with Book Two

Nothing compares to the high of finishing a book. I rode on that high until I started thinking of all the random characters and useless stories that litters its pages. My heart sinks even now thinking of the tumultuous editing phase it will be undergoing at the first of 2023. I still believe it’s a good story, but it’s incredibly messy and will take a lot to clean it up.

Before I jump into what I’ll be doing differently with Book Two, I’m going to pinpoint a few things that did not work this time around.

I started this story two years ago and had added to it only on the whim of inspiration and motivation.When I finally decided to become serious about finishing the book, I had a bunch of loose ends to try to connect. (I didn’t even think about taking them out for those random little ends were my “babies”).I was so focused on just writing that I failed to give myself enough time to plan out a basic plot for my story. Characters were randomly thrown in at the end when they should have made an appearance in the beginning and information that the character suddenly knows later was supposed to be given sooner. (Read my post, “Writing with a Plan”, for more on my non-planning struggles.)I battled insecurities and shear terror that my story would not come together like I wanted it to. Most days I started the day with the mindset that I would never finish my book.

Perhaps you can see yourself in these difficulties I highlighted. I’ve talked to other college students and new writers who have shared similar sentiments. Just know you’re not alone! As I said in my last blog: “It’s a terrifying act of faith, believing that your work will not be in vain- that people will appreciate and see the same thing you had seen all along.” (Read article here.)

If you believe enough in your story to write it down, then there’s someone out there who will believe in it enough to read it.

It was such a sweet time when I finished Book One. I took two weeks off to rest my brain and to switch mental gears. When I got back to working on Book Two, however, I felt as though my imagination train, which had been hauling an entirely different world for four months, was screeching to a halt and trying as fast as it could to go in another direction. It was almost physically painful. For one, I didn’t know what to do. Like I said before, I had started Book One a long time ago on a random stroke of imagination. I had slowly built up its world through relaxed day dreaming over two years. Now I’m expecting to write an entire book based on a world that hasn’t even been dreamed about yet! After some thinking and reading writer resources and many late night episodes of Alone (not a direct help to solving my predicament, but a great show nonetheless), I finally determined the steps I needed to take with Book Two.

Things I’m Doing Differently:

Daydreaming instead of writing. I dedicated the full month of July to daydreaming and building a chapter-by-chapter plot. Daydreaming gets a bad rap for being done when it shouldn’t be or getting in the way of doing real work. However, that’s how our brain works. In my medical school preparations I read a book on studying (nerdy, right?) and it revolutionized the way I prioritized my time. Your brain does more imagination work when you’re doing other things than when you are focused eight ours a time on one thing (like studying). The theory is that if you played as hard as you studied, you would allow your brain the freedom to roam other parts of its spongy self to come up with a solution for your problem. So this month was all about me playing hard and giving myself the freedom to create a world and be inspired while still working in structure.I’m making a stupid plot structure. I say this with great aggravation at my old self for writing Book One by the seat of my pants. I’ve been told that is a writing style, and I still believe I’m that kind of writer- but it sucks. Just as with toddlers, I need safe boundaries I know I can play within. So between all the fun adventures of teaching art at a summer kids camp and lead at a teen beach camp, I slowly began to build my story structure. It’s kind of cool how wonderful it was to start from scratch and build a plot. I kept thinking, “Wow, Book One is a load of trash, why didn’t I do this before?”STICK WITH THE PLOT LINE. As you can see, I’m very passionate about this, not because I observe such frequent tragedies in other books, but rather because I tend to be a free-going spirit and can careless for guidelines and rules — especially when my hair-brained idea is just too cool to NOT find a way to squish it in the story. Sigh.Get a “plot journal”. Halfway through my writing of Book One I realized that I needed a physical book to write plot notes and story details (like character profiles, clothing types, the community’s traditions, etc.) so that I could remember them later on. This helped me SO much so that the moment I finished Book One, I got another pretty journal to start jotting down ideas for Book Two.

And there it is! I’m sure this list will get longer as I learn about new ways to do things. The high from finishing my last book is long gone- in fact it has been trashed in light of what I have learned, but my hopes and motivation are not dashed. I am so grateful to have come to the other side of finishing my first professional book and having learned so much.

As long as I have a cup of iced sugar espresso, I’ll be going strong.

A. R. Bledsoe

Visit arbledsoe.com for more info on the author and her upcoming book.

Short Story: Wipple & The Siren

This week I will share a short story I have written in the World of Ore.

All rights of the story belong to A. R. Bledsoe as I am the author. It was completed June 2022 and edited by Elizabeth Forkey. If you would like an illustrated copy, I am sending it as a gift for $50+ donations. Donate here.

THE REALM OF ORE is a world that resides somewhere close to Earth. Most Orīans [or-ee-ans] don’t look much like the humans of Earth; however, despite their looks, they act much the same.

The eiffels [eye-fulls], for example, have small, thin bodies with great big eyes, pointed noses, and wispy hair that bounces to and fro with the slightest movement. If they sound familiar to Santa’s elves, they are in fact what you know as elves in your world. A long, long time ago they left the realm of Ore and found themselves on earth- however, that is a different story for another time.

There’s another creature on Ore that you’ve heard of as well. On earth, they are called mermaids, but they are actually sîrens [sigh-rens]. Most of the souls on Ore would tell you that they wished the sîrens acted like the mermaids in your stories. Unfortunately, sîrens are… Uh, how do I put it nicely? Ahem. Grumpy. Yes, the sîrens of Ore are quite grumpy. They don’t like to share their territory with anyone. Perhaps there were some nice sîrens in ages past, but no longer. May you never cross one. And if you do, you’ll be lucky to escape with your life!

This ancient tale starts with a little eiffel called Wipple. Wipple, like most eiffels, was an energetic and creative creature. He loved to sing as he worked alongside his friends (there are no acquaintances or strangers amongst eiffels). Wipple was a carpenter for a furniture shop called “Woodsy’s Woodsy Furniture” in Woodsy’s Village. Yes, the name is a bit cliché, but where eiffels master creativity in some areas, they lack it vastly in others.

Eiffels have trouble remembering most anything new that happens and so they normally name their children, pets, and villages after everyday, ordinary things. Their songs, as silly as they may be, are used to help them remember their history and where to find ordinary things like their village healer.

Unfortunately, this shortcoming often led eiffels into many predicaments and unplanned adventures. For Wipple, a most ordinary, run-of-the-mill eiffel, comedic failures were commonplace. In fact, one beautiful summer’s day, Wipple was walking the well-worn path from Woodsy’s Village through Woodsy’s Forest. Wipple passed one eiffel’s hollow after another as he trotted towards his own brand-new hollow. He smiled and waved and sometimes even danced a jig as he passed fellow eiffels who shouted a congratulation or invited themselves over to his new hollow on the weekend. They are a merry race and never have an issue with unexpected visits or parties. Normally these little excitable creatures didn’t need an excuse to invite themselves, but Wipple most definitely had one as it was his very first hollow.

Wipple passed the last eiffel hollow in the thick of the forest, and he then began to skip and sing the song he wrote to remember where to find his new home:

“On to mine Wipple’s hollow,

on to rest in my wipple willow,

Past the hollows and in the thick

Past five trees and a stick,

Past the birch and stone,

Past the…”

“Wait a moment…” Wipple broke his song as he halted suddenly.

Had he passed one stone or two? It seemed he passed four. He surveyed the ground and found they had not been stones at all but a nest of stony turtles.

“Oh, this is not good for me. No, not at all.”

Indeed it was not, for Wipple had most definitely lost his home; and—worser still—the sky was getting darker.

Wipple, as the eiffels say, strayed further from the path than a regular eiffel. He enjoyed alone time and chose to live in a hollow much farther than any other eiffel in the village. However, Wipple was most like all eiffels in this way: he was scared silly of the dark.

He knew why all the eiffels lived closer to the village and got off work at midday. He understood the risks of his decision to live in the thick of the forest, but he did not ever imagine himself getting lost after creating such a clever song!

“Up and down and all around, and not my wipple willow to be found,” he muttered in a half-song and half-talking way.

In fact, there were many wipple willows (for which he was named) all around, but not one that held his hollow.

He thought about turning back to his family’s hollow, where he had lived his whole life with his seven brothers and five sisters. He knew he could seek shelter there until the morning light; but he had turned many, many times around to find his way to his hollow, and he had plum forgotten which direction led there.

He looked down again at the stony turtles (solely intending to find a spot to rest his eyes as he thought) when the very sight jarred his memory. The memory was of a bedtime song his grandpa sang:

“Stony turtles point the way

The way you should follow

Their gaze is true though they’re blue,

Widdly-diddly-hollow.”

“That’s it!” the eiffel cried.

And, with this new thought, he skipped off in the direction most of the stony turtles faced with a burst of speed, racing the fading light.

He traveled in this direction for a long while until the light had gone altogether. Wipple began to run when it grew dark. His heart pounded in chorus with the night crickets. Noises in the thicket sent him jumping into the brambles, and the poor eiffel kept bumping into large wipple tree roots that arched several feet up from the ground.

He had just face-planted into a rather solid wipple tree root and was nursing his throbbing nose when he noticed a glowing light far off in the distance behind a smattering of trees. His heart leaped because it looked as though he was coming back to the hollows in Woodsy’s Forest. With unbridled jubilation, Wipple sprinted towards the light. He burst through the underbrush of the forest and then suddenly waved his spindly arms like backward windmills to stop short.

One more step would have sent him head first into the deep pool before him.

“Oh!” he exclaimed,

Young Wipple was terribly surprised to see a pool instead of the hollows he had so hoped to find. But what turned his pale eiffel cheeks even whiter was the glow emanating off of the still water.

The soft yellow glow hung like mist over the water, but the opaque nature of the water caused him to believe that it came from deep below. He peered closer over the edge, clearly fascinated, forgetting his troubles for a moment. Then a soft noise reached his long, pointy ears. He held his breath to hear better, but he didn’t need to for long because the sound became louder. Someone or something was singing the prettiest song he had ever heard. Wipple couldn’t make out the words, but the melody seemed to float up from the water like the light from beneath its surface.

Tears sprang into Wipple’s eyes and he couldn’t help but smile. The song made him feel so deeply and incredibly happy.

“How-how songly is it?” he whispered in awe. “It’s…a song among songs.” His words came out slowly as if he were entranced.

And that was what he was. While he was distracted by her voice, a singing sîren slowly approached from the shimmering depths below.

However, this phrase he spoke also brought about another memory for the eiffel, which saved him from the fate that most unfortunate creatures found at this watering hole.

“Her song as sweet and songly

As you would ever hear

Yet it will also be your last

If it doesn’t bring you fear.

For the sîren draws near

Draws near, oh dear!

Draws near, draws near,

Oh fear, oh dear.

Draws near, draws near,

Oh dear!”

He scrambled back as he sang the last part of the warning song eiffels sing when they relieve themselves downstream. It was just in time; because, at that moment, the sîren lurched up and out of the water grabbing nothing but air.

She cried in dismay as she slipped back beneath the shimmering water empty-handed.

Hidden behind the bank, her song filled the air again a moment later. Wipple, now wiser, did not allow the beseeching melody to draw his feet forward, for fear had gripped him so! (A notice to you humans and all other races: eiffels are the only race that can do this, if you see or hear a sîren, RUN. Eiffels feel and think simply so they are less affected by deception of most kinds.)

“You-you have a songly song, you do,” said poor, frightened Wipple. “But it will not work on me, Wipple.” He pointed to himself, and his voice grew stronger with pride as he finished, “I have a song for that, and I know it well.”

The sîren’s song paused, and then a rippling sound filled the air. Wipple realized it was the sîren’s laugh. She spoke with cold humor in her voice, “Oh really little eiffel? And I thought you had forgotten why your kind doesn’t live here anymore.”

“Well, I certainly remember now!” Wipple cried followed by a nervous giggle.

“How is it then that you found this lonely, hungry sîren in the middle of the night?”

“I’m lost,” Wipple spoke gloomily.

“Naturally,” the sîren replied.

“What- what makes this water shine as it does?” Wipple ventured to ask, feeling braver by their conversation.

“Come closer, and I’ll show you,” the sîren said in a sing-song voice.

It was very tempting for the little Wipple, but he held his ground, “Can you not tell me?”

The sîren gave a melodious sigh, and her head appeared above the bank, “Oh I must say this is your lucky day. I have been very bored, more bored than hungry actually, so I shall tell you.”

Wipple, without further ado, sat cross-legged where he had been standing and listened with rapt attention.

He could see why the sîren would be so bored. Though deep, the watering hole was not very wide. From the indention of the rocky ground on either side of the water, it looked as though it had once been a river that had run along the forest edge to connect with Woodsy’s River.

The sîren was not ugly but was too fearsome and regal to look pretty. Her face held no expression. Her dull voice gave only a slight clue to how she felt.

The water shimmered on her silver scales, and the waves glinted off of her half-moon, grey eyes. She and the river reflected each other, glittering like two mirrors bouncing light back and forth, and the sight was as mesmerizing as her singing.

Wipple, however, was not to be distracted from discovering the secret of the glowing water.

“It is not the water that causes the glowing but the rocks below,” she explained. “‘Imbillows’ are what they are called by many-legged races.”

“Imbillows! Ha! What a name! Such a namely name!” Wipple squealed excitedly, rocking back and forth. “Would you spare one for me?”

“And take my only company away from me?” the sîren replied.

“Ooo I would come back!” Wipple cried, dancing now in his excitement.

“Ah, but you forget everything my little eiffel.”

“If you gave me a small imbillow stone tonight so I can find my hollow, I will see it and it will remind me. In fact,” Wipple now jumped up and down in happiness at his new idea. “I will bring together my friends and we will build for you a path around our village so that you would not be so lonely anymore.”

At this, the sîren fell silent. She turned her face away and Wipple worried that he had offended her. Finally, she asked, haltingly, “Could it…lead to the Sea of Seporus?”

Wipple thought for a long while because the Seporus Sea was a ways away. But then he remembered the Woodsy’s river song that sang of it leading to Seporus.

“Yes, I can take you to Woodsy’s River which leads to the great water. But promise me you won’t snag any of us along the way?”

“I promise, as long as you remember your promise,” the sîren spoke.

“I shall,” Wipple said more solemnly, though his feet couldn’t stop from dancing a jig. The sîren disappeared for a moment; and, after a long while (at least it seemed terribly long to Wipple), a shining imbillow stone shot up from the water and landed at Wipple’s feet. He took it and looked towards the water and then at it again. Then he turned towards the forest and went off to find his hollow, singing the whole way.

Now sîrens are shrewd creatures, but they also understand other races very well. The sîren knew that as long as Wipple remembered his promise, he would keep it.

Wipple never did find his hollow that night. When his tired feet couldn’t keep from stumbling, he curled up at the base of a large birch and fell asleep. When he awoke the next morning, the glowing imbillow rock was the first thing his blinking eyes saw. With a croaky voice, he broke out into a song about his promise with the sîren.

“I found a stone,

a glowing stone.

Afraid and alone was me!

In the dark I couldn’t see.

But a sîren gave it to me

‘cause I knew the song to sing!”

But, even more exciting (perhaps miraculous) was what also lay before him in the cheery light of morn. His hollow! It was all the more beautiful and “hollow-y” (as the eiffels would say). He had somehow gotten “unlost” in the dark.

Instead of diving into his hollow, however, Wipple dashed towards the thick of the forest, towards the Woodsy’s Hollows and Woodsy’s Village. The light of morning seemed to jar his memory of the way back.

When he finally came upon the first hollow of Woodsy’s Forest he began to sing:

“I found a stone,

a glowing stone.

Afraid and alone was me!

In the dark I couldn’t see.

But a sîren gave it to me

‘cause I knew the song to sing!

Knew the song to sing!

Now we must return to she

for my promise, please help me keep!

These glowing stones she’ll give!

No more fires to keep nights lit!

She’ll give the stones for free

if we build her way to sea,

her way to sea.”

He sang this song all through the hollows; and, to his delight, as he turned to look behind him, all his eiffel friends were trailing behind. Some were skipping and others singing and even more doing both.

Wipple didn’t stop until he came to the entrance of Woodsy’s village. When he finally halted, breathing very fast (for he skipped and sang the whole way), he told the gathering crowd of eiffels the story. He passed the imbillow among them so they could all see. In the morning light, it looked like a rock, but when they cupped it with their hands, they could see its faint glow. Exclamations broke out as the imbillow was passed from one to another.

“A sîren you say?” an elder eiffel spoke up. (Elder eiffels were the decision-makers in most eiffel villages, and they often were old and even cranky.)

“Yes,” Wipple replied.

“What about the song we sing to relieve downstream?” the elder eiffel asked, his wild eyebrows arched in concern.

“That song saved my life, it did. But when she saw I knew who she was, she didn’t try to harm me. She made a promise that if we helped her, she wouldn’t hurt us eiffel-y eiffels.”

All the eiffels looked around at each other. Some showed fright and others delight.

And then the elder’s deep voice boomed, “No eiffels are allowed near the sîren’s pool!”

Wipple spun toward the elder with his eyes wide and his mouth open in shock. “But—but,” he spluttered.

The elder shook his head and addressed the crowd of eiffels, “We once were a mighty race. We were afraid of nothing. But because of our pride, we were made small.” He turned to Wipple and said, “Our hearts might still want to do big things, but we must always remember that we are now small. If we want to survive, we mustn’t try to do big things.”

And that was that.

All the eiffels who had danced and sung along with Wipple, now quietly dispersed. Some gave him sympathetic smiles and pats on the back and others avoided eye contact altogether as they hurried back to their shops and hollows.

It wasn’t long until Wipple stood by himself, muttering about what he was going to do. The elder eiffel approached him with his fluffy gray brows knit together and his bronze, wrinkled forehead creased in worry. “Wipple, you must forget about this whole thing. Go back to your job and forget the— the,” his face contorted as if he were about to eat something nasty and said, “the sîren.”

“But I made her a promise, I did, and eiffels keep their promises— when they remember them.”

The elder eiffel shook his head at this and replied, “Tell me, young Wipple, why would you make a promise with a sîren?”

Wipple didn’t reply for a moment as he thought about what the elder had asked. Why indeed would he make a promise with a sîren? He reasoned that the glowing stones were pretty and would be much safer than fires to light up their hollows, however, he knew there was something more.

“It was the way she looked, I suppose,” Wipple muttered as if to himself. Then, with a sudden spark of realization, he looked up at the elder with wide, earnest eyes and explained, “She was not happy like us eiffels, Elder, and for good reason too! Even I would be grumpy if I were stuck in a pool with a beautiful tail I couldn’t use.” Wipple was suddenly overcome with such conviction that he jumped up and down and cried, “I must set her free! I won’t be able to sleep until I do!” And with that, he bounded off through Woodsy’s Woods towards the sîren’s pool.

Wipple didn’t pause to greet his eiffel friends as he had done earlier nor did they call out to him, however, their eyes followed him mournfully as he disappeared into the trees.

They muttered to themselves, “There goes a good eiffel. We’ll be sorry to miss him. Hope it ends quick for him.”

Wipple began his work as soon as he arrived breathlessly at the sîren’s pool.

The sîren, of course, was nowhere to be seen as it was at the brightest part of the day, but she heard the racket the single eiffel made as he cut down trees and began chopping them up.

It was hard work for an eiffel to do alone, but when Wipple’s spirits grew low he would declare, “Wipple made a promise, and a promise Wipple keeps- especially when he remembers them!”

This was how he worked for nearly seven moons [a week for humans].

He would wake up early each morning feeling sore and sleepy, but the moment the thought of the sîren crossed his mind he shot up out of bed and headed straight to the sîren’s pool to continue his work.

On the day of the eighth moon, Wipple visited Woodsy’s Village to purchase a few tools that had broken. By the time he entered the village square, he gathered a following of eiffels who could not believe their eyes. Wipple was still alive!

Wipple attended to his business, not sure what was happening but happy for the attention until a small eiffel finally declared what was on everyone’s minds, “Wipple…you’re alive!”

“Yes, I suppose I am,” Wipple replied, a little shocked at such a peculiar proclamation.

“The sîren didn’t eat you?” The little one exclaimed.

“No, I suppose not,” Wipple said, now busy juggling several bulky tools he had purchased.

Just then, a stone mallet fell out of his arms and was rocketing towards his small leaf-covered feet when the little eiffel caught it. Instead of returning it into Wipple’s arms, however, he held it tight and said, “If Wipple survived, I can too.”

A few others raised their voices in agreement and said, “Yes, we must help our eiffel friend keep his promise.”

The little eiffel and four other brave souls accompanied a very surprised and grateful Wipple back to the sîren’s pool with all the tools in tow.

The next day even more eiffels came with the returning group, and the same happened the next day and the next.

By the third moon, there were nearly fifty eiffels hauling logs and building fires and passing water buckets. They would occasionally stare at the pool, which seemed quite empty, and wonder if there was a sîren in there after all.

The sîren, however, knew they were there for she could hear their small voices raised in song as they worked:

“Wipple found a stone,

a glowing stone.

Afraid and alone was he

for in the dark he couldn’t see.

But a sîren gave it to he

‘cause he knew the song to sing!

Knew the song to sing!

Now we must return to she

for his promise we’ll help keep.

These glowing stones she’ll give!

No more fires to keep nights lit!

She’ll give the stones for free

if we build her way to sea,

to open sea.”

Eiffels are not diggers. As other races would have dug the sîren’s way to freedom (though they would not have ever made a promise to a sîren in the first place), the eiffels chose a more difficult but far more glamorous path.

They created a great fire and gathered sand from the old river bed in buckets. Passing it down from one to another, the eiffels created an assembly line of sorts. At their fires, eiffels would take a bucket of sand and throw it in. Another assembly line bringing water from the watering hole would supply the water which was splashed over the fire after a while of waiting. The eiffel at the fire would reach into the smoke and pull out a long slab of glass that the sand had transformed into from the heat. He or she then molded it while it was still hot with oven mitts (these were made of stone rather than cloth). Now you might be wondering how strong this glass could be, but sand in Ore is not like the sand in your world. White sand in Ore is made of diamond rocks. This glass was diamond glass, it was stronger than even metal itself.

It was well into daytime that the eiffels worked but soon they had all the glass parts they needed. They all parted tired, yet excited because there is nothing eiffels enjoy more than singing and working together and building something they had never created before.

The sîren emerged that night from her sleep (for sîrens sleep during the day). When she saw all the glass tubes stacked neatly together she shook her head, and her tail flicked humorously. “How do they intend to get me to that river?” she wondered.

Early the next morning Wipple returned to find that even more eiffels showed up than before to come and see what trouble he was getting himself into. Not only did they see, but they soon offered their help. All of them helped except for the elder who had also come to see what was happening. He stood and watched as the eiffels worked and sang, and his eyes would often trail to the ordinary-looking pool at the center of their work.

It was because of all these singing, working eiffels that they were able to finish their work that very afternoon.

A great shout and applause filled the air as the last glass tube was melded to the other. They all stepped back and surveyed their work. It was a large glass tube stretching from the watering hole to the start of Woodsy’s River.

Wipple laughed and danced and ran to the mouth of the glass tube where it lay submerged a few inches in the water. The other end was submerged far deeper in the other river. Wipple opened the trap door over the mouth of the tube and water began to rush in. When the tube became mostly full, the group of eiffels carefully inspected the glass for any leaks. After fixing the few leaks they found, they all celebrated together.

They had done it, they had made the longest water-filled, glass tube that any eiffel had ever made. And they had made it for a sîren, no less.

A festival of celebration like none other erupted. They all danced together in pairs of threes and twirled in rings and bounced like crickets along the meadow. The elder eiffel had even joined them, playing his long wipple root flute (for eiffels cannot resist joining in merriment no matter their age). His accompaniment was good but rather sleepy compared to the four other zealous instrumentalists who played the flute, strings, tambourine, and even a large drum made of tree skin and bark. None left even as night fell. It was then that the watering hole started to glow and that the eiffels received another great surprise. Their glass tube glowed! The sand they used for glass had bits of crushed imbillow rock in it.

“How beautiful!” They exclaimed and they sang some more in delight.

Wipple failed to join in this wave of merriment as his mind was preoccupied with watching the edge of the watering hole, waiting to see the sîren appear. She did appear not long after and her eyes swept the whole scene. She growled softly and said, “Those screechy imps wouldn’t let me sleep for many days.” She looked up, meeting Wipple’s watchful eyes, and asked in a softer tone that betrayed a hint of hope, “Have you finished it yet?”

Wipple bounded toward her, barely containing his excitement, and cried, “Yes we did! We did!”

The sîren did not comment nor looked as though she cared but she did deep down feel a rush of excitement to leave her small prison-like water hole.

“We will open the door now!” Wipple cried excitedly.

The eiffels heard Wipple’s cry and they turned to see the sîren.

A hush settled over them and they stopped to watch.

“First, I must make good my promise, silly eiffel,” the sîren replied in a voice that wasn’t as cold as it had been before.

She dove below, submerging and re-emerging many times until there were at least thirty imbillows piled on the shore.

“These are from the deepest part. The others you should be able to swim down and take yourself,” the sîren explained.

Wipple passed the imbillows around to his eiffel friends and they all gathered together to stare at the beautiful glowing rocks.

“Now please,” the sîren began with a grimace in her voice. Their loud music had given her a headache and the fire lights burned her eyes. “Let me try your frightening contraption.”

As she spoke, the elder eiffel approached her. The sea of eiffels parted for him as solemnly passed through. He came to stand so close to the pool that his pale watery eyes and wrinkled face became illuminated by its golden glow. He stared at her for a moment with a troubled look on his face.

Wipple fidgeted nervously as he watched for he wasn’t sure what the elder eiffel might say.

“Dear creature,” he croaked in his low, ancient voice. “I have greatly misjudged you…We all have.” He motioned toward the crowd of eiffels around him as he spoke the last line. He then turned to Wipple and said, “Wipple, you have done a great thing this night. You have proven that even as small people, we can still have the courage to be kind—even if kindness is rather a big thing to do.”

Wipple couldn’t contain his gratitude. He wrapped the elder in a big hug (even for an eiffel) and exclaimed, “Let’s open the door!”

The crowd around him echoed his words with cries of delight. “The door! The door!” They cried. “Let the songly sîren free!”

Without further ado, Wipple lifted the door of the glass tube, and the sîren lept into it. She was sucked all the way in and glided through at a fair pace. The eiffels raced below her dancing and singing:

“The flying sîren

Watch her soar

O’re the woods

From shore to shore.

We made her fly

Without wings

She floats in glass

We did a clever thing.”

The sîren was free at last, she was headed to the great sea.

That night the eiffels paraded home with imbillows held high and their fires snuffed out. It wasn’t many nights after that night that all the eiffels had imbillows in their hollows. The imbillows became such an integral part of their life that a saying was made for them, “Where there’s light in the dead of night there is an eiffel sleeping tight.”

Little Wipple slept snug that night, finally in his very own wipple willow. The creatures of the moon listened as the happy eiffel sang in his sleep. He sang the song of the flying sîren and then of the glowing stones; and, if the forest creatures chose to stay till the morning light, they heard of the stony turtles and how they led him home.

THE END

Visit arbledsoe.com for more info on the author and her upcoming book.

Book One: The Eiffels

This week I will share another race that has a great part in the story of Book One. Before I dive into it, I wanted to give a quick update on what I’m working on.

I am in the process of finishing illustrations for the short story, Wipple and the Siren. This book will be available for purchase (hopefully) by the day of the Book One reveal. I plan to sell it to raise money for the editing of the big book and also gift it to those who make large donations (will specify an amount when the day comes). I am also spending several hours each day daydreaming and building the world for Book Two- I’m already SO excited for it by the way, especially in light of how happy I am with Book One.

The Eiffels

The eiffels are small people with large eyes and long noses and tall hair that will not come down no matter how hard they try. They are a whimsical race who can often be found singing whilst building, hollowing out a tree to make a home, herding, or sewing special clothing for the kafārba (see last week’s blog for details on their race).

Beyond their incredible creativity in building and herding, eiffels don’t have many other talents as their minds are flighty and forgetful. Because of this fault, their songs, though nonsensical at times, are extremely important for them. These ditties are sung to remember the great and little things that they need to remember. For example, some of them are made to remember where their hollows are or how to find the watering hole. Still, others are warnings like their song about sirens which they normally sing as they fish or when they relieve themselves downstream (for they are very adamant about keeping their forest clean).

Eiffels, at first, might seem simple and even silly, but their story is far from either of those things. During the Vêrinquôr [vare-in-quore] Divide, when the inhabitants of Ore were given their abilities and separated into races, the eiffels were made small because of their part in the attempted destruction of the realm. They had been talented beast tamers and used their army of creatures to help the evil power of death, called Îrenôr, to kill many good people. The eiffels born in the first couple of generations since the divide felt vulnerable and afraid. They lived as empty shells of who they once were. (My short story, Wipple and the Siren, actually gives a good example of their struggle and how they must find the courage to live bigger than what they have become.)

The eiffels of Book One live in two different areas of the valley (see map above). Whittle Woods is home to the eiffels who love to build (if you can’t already tell from the name). The other eiffels of the valley, who are more of the herding type, care for large cow-like creatures called bigalows in either the Darling Forest or the Troll Dell. (The female bigalows were called Darlings and the boys were named Trolls by the eiffels to help them remember the temperament of each.)

I love the eiffels because they represent all of us at some point in our lives. We all have times when we are tempted to look at ourselves and decide whether we are capable to do a big thing. I always hope we decide to look at God to do the big thing, whether it be a lifelong dream or simply an act of kindness. The reason why I hope this is because my faith always challenges me to do the big thing and gives me what I need to do it. I can look at God and know that He will always be enough for me to do more than what I would normally be capable of.

Next week I will share another race that is near and dear to my heart. They also are short but their characteristics and abilities are far different.

Enjoy a nice cup of iced raspberry tea and enjoy the rest of this hot, summer week

A. R. Bledsoe

Visit arbledsoe.com for more info on the author and her upcoming book.