Rachel Alexander's Blog, page 251
March 14, 2019
On a similar topic, what advice would you give to creators and artists for dealing with negativity, especially online or for the first time? So far my experience with Tumblr, FanFiction, and AO3 has been 99% positive, complimentary, and supportive, but I'
My best advice is to remember the 99%.
I mean, that’s a helluva ratio. You’re doing good. And it is impossible to please everyone 100% of the time with 100% of what you write.
When you’re battling imposter syndrome (as most creatives do), the tendency is to not feel secure in your own process or confident about your writing when you get that first negative review.
And it’s worse when people are just downright nasty.
I was lucky enough to get noticed by Publisher’s Weekly, a publication trade magazine. I was told by industry peeps that most authors scramble to get reviewed by them. And PW absolutely pilloried Receiver of Many. Like, whoever was on review duty for that day hated it.
But later that same month, I got a review for Receiver of Many from Buzzfeed that vaulted my book sales into the top 1% of the bestsellers lists of Amazon and iBooks for a few days and led to optioning databases contacting me for information should my books ever got shopped for adaptation. Which they then were, which I never imagined in my wildest dreams.
So by that token I feel like I‘m still doing something right.
And despite that bad review from PW, Destroyer of Light is the highest rated novel about Hades and Persephone on Amazon, and Receiver of Many sit at about 8th or 9th on that list. And both books have been reviewed far beyond the scope of my initial readers on AO3, Literotica, and Fanfiction.
So the way to look at a bad review is to first look at all the good comments surrounding it. That’s what I do, then move forward on any constructive criticism that’s genuinely offered.
As for nasty comments, I either clapback or ignore it. Because at the end of the day, fuck ‘em.
lackydodah:
They used to shout my name, now they...
:
They used to shout my name, now they whisper it
Heavily influenced by the talents of asphodelon ‘s beautiful art work and kata-chthonia ‘s own fan novel. With a dash of the song Yellow Flicker Beat by Lorde.
legalfangirl:
My Dream Casts of “Receiver of Many” (if it was /...
My Dream Casts of “Receiver of Many” (if it was / ever become a movie *yes please!*)
1. Aidoneus - Lee Pace (Credit to CRASH Magazine & Blossom Berkofsky)
2. Persephone - Sophie Turner (Credit to HBO)
3. Hekate - Cate Blanchett (Credit to Peter Jackson & WingNut Films Company)
4. Demeter - Lena Headey (Credit to HBO)
5. Sisyphus - Sharlto Copley (Credit to Robert Stromberg & Walt Disney Pictures)
6. Thanatos - Ian Somerhalder (Credit to defy Magazine & Angelo Kritikos)
“Receiver of Many” is a fan fiction by Kata Chthonia
P.S I didn’t include Zeus, Nyx, and Hermes since I haven’t found anyone I deem suitable to portray them. Any idea?
Just felt like letting you know that I've been getting sooooo many Hades vibes from Ghost's Life Eternal. (Last track on the Prequelle album). And quite a lot of Thanatos vibes off of Pro Memoria (track 7) . It may just have been because that was my "on re
My sister literally just told me that I should let you know that she LOVES YOU for listening to Ghost and that she is in the video for Faith (in the very front row)
I am actually riding in her car listening to this album (at her insistence) because she’s a Ghost super fan. So I’m on track 4 right now and track 7 is coming up ;)
The Good Counselor Chapter 6
Seventy years have passed since Elysion was created, and Persephone’s efforts to conceive a child with Hades have been in vain. But a secret rite on Samothrace might bend the Fates and give them all that they have ever dreamed of, or pave a path of untold suffering.
* * *
The Good Counselor, Chapter 6
“What I’m trying to say,” Demeter shouted after Persephone, “is that he’s behaved quite differently since Eumolpus died. Usually he’s here more often.” She quickened her pace and muttered under her breath. “Too often…”Persephone strode paces ahead of her mother through the ripened field, saying nothing. The autumn sundown winds whipped past them, rising off the sea and threatening rain. Demeter would rather be speaking about anything else. Any talk about Hades rankled Persephone, no matter how innocent Demeter’s intentions. Sometimes it seemed as if her daughter was searching for any reason to find fault with her. She only wanted her to be happy, even if it meant happiness with the Lord of the Dead.
“You should at least ask him if he even looked into that matter about Orpheus.”
“Before we created Elysion…” Persephone spun about. “We opened ourselves to each other, completely. We can each tell if the other is holding something back.”
Demeter rolled her eyes.
“What?”
“Yes, I know. That’s what the hieros gamos does, for fatessake. You think that Zeus and I didn’t share that same sacred connection? That you’re the only one who’s ever felt what you feel?” She worried for Persephone. Her marriage was new, less than a century old, and she acted as if she and Hades had been together as long as Gaia and Ouranos.
“He’s not lying to me if he doesn’t tell me everything right away. Fates help me if we described every detail of our separate lives. We’d have time for little else.”
“This isn’t a meaningless detail, Persephone. Not after that… adventure you had in Alikarnassos at that harlot’s suggestion—”
“Aphrodite is allowed to be wrong, sometimes. And stop calling her that.”
“Of all the Olympians you could have befriended— and you shouldn’t be companions of any of them, by the way— it still baffles me why she holds such a thrall over you.”
“Because she is kind to me.”
“Oh, kindness indeed…”
“Isn’t that what you taught me to value?”
“When it’s served on the back of hidden demands, it is hardly kindness. Besides, if that is how you measure your relationships with them, why do you shrink from meeting with Hera again?”
“I’m not talking about this with you again. If you’d been there, you’d agree with me. Hera and Amphitrite were lobbing me back and forth like an episkyros ball. It was disgusting! And Hera didn’t seem very pleased with my company by the time I left. She turned… cold.”
“And yet she’s summoned for you to return. Twice.” Demeter bristled. How she had been reduced to making a case for that horrible cow of a sister was beyond her. Nevermind that she had just been pleading for Persephone to seek out and speak with Hades! If the Demeter of a mere century past had been listening to her speak, she would think she was completely mad.
“I’m not going back.”
“A wise decision.”
“And not on your advice! I have nothing to say to anyone there.”
“Except that Eastern whore.”
“Enough, mother,” Persephone said, drawing an asphodel up from the earth.“Instead of letting her talk you into visiting any of her barbaric fertility cults, maybe you should summon your courage and demand Aidon—”
“I said enough!”
Demeter stumbled back as a great ring of fire swirled behind her daughter. Persephone stepped through and was gone. Demeter stood in her wake, a tangle of brambles and blackberries snagging and staining the edges of her skirts. She shook her head. “So dramatic…”
She walked slowly back to the Telesterion, her head held high, refusing to draw any more attention from the mortals. She knew that her daughter had been disappearing to secretive places over the years, and though Persephone swore up and down and even upon the Styx that she’d never done it, Demeter knew in her bones that she would slip away to her husband’s chambers in the Underworld. Persephone could do it. Apart from all the gods, her daughter could visit any realm whenever it pleased her. Demeter knew she wouldn’t be so rash in the middle of the harvest, though. She would be back at Hades’s side within days, anyway. Persephone had doubtless retreated to the inner sanctuary of the Plutonion, already piling up with pomegranates, dates, and olive oil.
Fine, she thought. Let her sulk in her cult’s shrine. It did nothing to change the facts. Aidoneus was being furtive. He usually came to Eleusis before harvest to see her daughter, and on the rare occasions that he had stayed long enough to run into Demeter he had been curt but cordial, and had enough respect for her to carry out any… marital relations… away from the Telesterion. She still choked on bile at the very idea.
Keryx stood at the gate, his grayed head bowed as he swung the doors of the Telesterion wide for Demeter to enter. She stopped. Something felt… off. She smelled irises and a vague undercurrent of sour milk. A woman cloaked in a fine weave of saffron colored linen stood at the foot of Metaneira and Celeus’s sepulcher. Mortal petitioners at Demeter’s altar across the room glanced this way and that, then quickly scurried away as Demeter stood by the door.
The woman turned, her eyes darkly lined, her lids dusted a bright turquoise. She pulled back her veil. “Good day to you, sister.”
* * *
“That color looks horrible on you.”
Demeter had turned all that was green and living to dust to regain her daughter. Her emotions had always run wild, and she couldn’t disguise the disgust in her voice. Other goddesses were more refined, Hera thought, able to master their feelings and summon them when appropriate. The distance Demeter had put between herself and Olympus was showing. She wasn’t who Hera had wished to see, but she would do for now. Besides, she rarely had the opportunity to catch Demeter Anesidora off guard.
“I agree.” Hera smiled. A wave of blue swirled across her himation and overtook the yellow of her veil and peplos. “But it would have been vulgar to arrive with a train of peacocks in my wake, nay? When in Eleusis, do as the Eleusinians do, and all that. Even if that means covering myself in the colors of your glorified pasture grass…”
Demeter scowled, baring her teeth. “What in Tartarus are you doing here?”
The door burst open and Persephone padded through, her feet bare and caked with mud. “Mother, I need you to listen to—”
Persephone’s eyes grew wide and she swallowed. She bowed her head and curtsied. “Your grace.”
Hera smiled at her. “Oh come, this is your temple. If anyone should bow it is I.”
Persephone cocked an eyebrow.
“I’m sorry for surprising you.” Hera walked to her, passing Demeter without a sideways glance. “Is there anywhere we can speak alone?”
“Don’t trouble yourselves on my account,” Demeter gritted out, then disappeared through parted rows of conjured wheat sheaves into the ether.
Hera was silent for a moment, then turned again to Persephone. “Oh, dear. I wasn’t interrupting anything, was I?”
“No,” Persephone huffed. “Nothing that can’t be sorted out later. If I might ask, though, what brings you to Eleusis?”
Hera demurred. Even though the girl before her was muddy almost up to her knees, and her hair was wind whipped like a mortal peasant, she still had all the bearing of a queen. Demeter’s influence could never spoil that. “I had not heard from you, even after sending Hermes with two separate messages.”
“Apologies,” Persephone said. “From midsummer to harvest, I have little time to spare. Too much needs be done to ensure that the mortals survive winter.”
“Of course, of course.” Hera cast her eyes to the ground. “I only thought… perhaps you could have spared a minute for me.“Persephone’s mouth opened, toyed with words, but no sound came out.
Hera raised her hand. "And then I thought, it was no wonder you didn’t want to visit me, after how abominably I treated you on our first meeting.
"She gave Persephone a sidelong glance, one that always worked to great effect when she needed a favor from Zeus. The Goddess of Spring softened. "Your grace—”
“Hera.”
“Hera, I… don’t know what to say. The ways of Olympus are not my ways, nor my husband’s ways. It wasn’t disappointment or hurt that kept me away, but realizing that I simply don’t belong in… that company.”
“Would it be too much for me to say that that is exactly why I need you? I went about it poorly. And I apologize. It would have been far better to meet with you alone instead of in a setting where Amphitrite is sure to bring out my worst.”
“But why do you need me? There are plenty of goddesses in your retinue, you have countless allies and friends…”
“I have all the servants I could want. Endless sycophants. But none among them are my equal. No one I can speak with in confidence, and no one who would be willing to listen.”
She scowled. “I do not wish to be your pet, Hera. Nor do I believe that you would find anything I have— or do— to be of much interest.”
Hera hid her surprise, pulling her shoulders back. The girl was smarter than she— and most others— gave her credit for. And in this world of men, she knew the dangers of that asset all too well. “On the contrary. There are things that I could learn from you. There is much I could stand to learn from you, in truth.”
Persephone sighed. “I can’t imagine what. You have been Queen of all the Gods for aeons—”
“Please. We both know how it goes here, in the world above,” said said, speaking lower. “We both know that I am nothing, in truth, but for the fact that I am married to Zeus and bear his children. There is little else.”
“No,” Persephone replied, frowning. “That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it? Perhaps Amphitrite is right about me.”
“You two are different women. It was, I must admit, uncomfortable watching that play out.”
“I thought about that, too. I fought so hard against her words because in my heart of hearts, I know she’s right. Perhaps I do have much to learn from you about reining in my husband.”
Persephone’s eyebrows rose. Hera thought for a moment that she had chosen the wrong words. Zeus was Persephone’s father, after all. And she had displaced Persephone’s own mother in his heart.The young goddess spoke. “If… you are hoping that… Aidoneus would somehow set an example for Zeus, then I’m afraid I cannot help you.”
Hera smiled. “I don’t expect to ever keep Zeus from his… wanderings. The Fates never had that in store for us. But… I would at least like to reclaim some standing with him.”
“I’m not sure—”
“Please,” she said, kneeling down. She picked a stray peacock feather from the floor. “Please, Persephone. As it is, I sit three steps below Zeus. Amphitrite mocks me for it, cruelly, but rightly so.” She stood back up and wove the feather into her hair. “If we are to change anything in this world, I now see that it must start with me, the Goddess of Marriage.”
Persephone tilted her head to the side and relaxed her stance, saying nothing.“What you and your husband have done…” Hera looked around them, her palms upturned.
“This is my mother’s temple,” she said just above a whisper.
“Is it, though? No matter how she harries you or how tall her statues, the mortals come here for the new crop after the fallow. The promise of life after death. From you. And Hades. And the two of you, through your love and your realization of each other as equal halves of one whole, have achieved something greater than any of us before or since who took part in a hieros gamos. What you created changed the world as we know it. You made it better.”
“That remains to be seen.”
“But it has. You’ve given the mortals boundless hope. What is the number of offerings currently lying in the Plutonion?”
Persephone looked away, and fought to keep her hands at her sides. “Too many to count.”
“The mortal world deserves to be better than what it is. For men and for women. I would like to see that come to pass above, by the same example you and your husband set below.”
She could see the wheels turning in Persephone’s head. The young goddess stood a bit taller, and Hera could tell she was formulating plans of her own.
“We should talk about this further. But I’m afraid my time this season has run its course. The autumn wheat harvest is tomorrow, and afterward—”
“Naturally.” Hera smiled graciously. “I won’t burden you. But when you leave Chthonia in the springtime, would you join me on Olympus when you are able, without Amphitrite, without servants or other wayward ears, and… perhaps then we can discuss this again.”
You have have already answered this and I missed it, but do you think you’ll explore other Greek romances, such as Dionysus and Ariadne?
I’ll definitely be exploring their relationship and others.
I'm not an avid reader so it's very rare that I find something I can not only finished but also read over and over again. I think I've read your books four times? Maybe? Thank you for that. It's refreshing for me :)
That is a huge compliment. Thank you for saying so! I’m hard at work on the next one.
Are the chaptors in the published book going to be the same length and those that are published on ao3? Or will some be meshed together? (Sorry, I only became a fan after the first two were already published, I don't know if this should be obvious or not l
No that’s a totally valid question :)
The parts that I posted prior to today were effectively chapters 1 and 2 of the actual book length chapters.
Then again, because the book is in its early editing stages that might also change.
