Rachel Alexander's Blog, page 265
February 27, 2019
Have a kind of silly question, I publish 3 books of young adult fantasy , with my maiden name, but now I married, and I don’t know if I should change my name on my new books or keep my maiden name as it is, my husband seems ok with me keeping it , but idk,
I don’t think it’s a silly question.
Rachel Alexander is a pen name partially drawn from my birth name, so I never had to make that kind of a decision. But if I were in your position I would keep using my maiden name. Think of it as not your maiden name, but as your “professional name” from now on.
I’ve thought about using a secondary name to publish other material some day, but honestly? I worked my ass off building my writing career under this name. So why mess around with a good thing?
Your husband is on board, more importantly, you are on board, so if I were you I would stick with your current author name.
Hi!! Is there going to be owls in the good councilor? I just love those cute sky cats
That’s a good question. Possibly? I don’t know if I will specifically have owls in there, but I also very much love owls.
In semi-related news, you’ll get to see Askalaphos and his girlfriend Nychtopula in one of the preview chapters.
What will books four through eight be called?
You’ll have to go on a tag Easter egg hunt for those.
February 26, 2019
I'm the anon who asked about which other myths would be included, and I actually did catch the Herakles drop. I don't how how I forgot about it, and that just makes me even more excited to read TGC in its entirety.
I think you’ll like it. It also features another myth I haven’t even gotten into that comes after the end of the tease sample chapters and I have broadcast nothing about it in the preceding chapters and don’t think anyone will see it coming.
What happened to Thrice-Plowed Field?
I couldn’t finish it. The ending never came together the way I wanted, and I needed to move on because it was stopping me from working on The Good Counselor.
As soon as I stopped trying to make TPF work when it just wasn’t, TGC started flowing out of me like a river.
It’s a shame. I really liked the story, it taught me a lot about my own writing, and some day I’ll probably finish it. But for now it’s firmly on the back burner.
The Good Counselor Chapter 5
Here it is! The long-awaited Hera/Zeus chapter!
I know I took an absence last week and sadly that was unplanned due to illness. However, I do have to take another absence, this time planned, because I will be recovering from surgery. The next chapter debuts on MARCH 13 at the regular time.
Thank you so much for following The Good Counselor with as much fervor as you followed Receiver of Many when I initially posted it!
See you on the 13th.
Free previews published weekly every Wednesday night at Midnight, Pacific Standard Time.
The Good CounselorSeventy 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 her all that they have dreamed of, or pave a path of untold suffering.
Chapter 5Her chest heaved, her throat burned. But she refused to let tears fall. Hera wondered yet again, like so many other times in her long life, if this was the way mortals felt when their hearts broke and ceased to beat, and they passed from the living world.
Whores were one thing. That impulse that came not from his heart, but from that other part between his legs that relentlessly craved the embrace of new flesh. It happened, it ended, and she had deadened herself to that hurt long, long ago. Love was different. After their nuptials, after their hieros gamos, Hera had been blessed and cursed by their inextricable link. She could feel deep within her when he loved another. It was a pit in her heart— a hollow, like the well of the clay cup she gripped in her hand. The clay turned warm against her angry palm.
Tears fell onto its unvarnished surface.
This was betrayal more potent than anything she’d ever felt— more than even the early days, when he had deeply loved and lain with Leto and begat the twins on her. She had been furious, their marriage still so new and fragile, and his duplicity and denial so deep.
That hardly compared.
Everyone knew but her. Demeter; Hermes, who had told Poseidon, and likely others; and of course Apollo. How many had been laughing and pointing at her back all this time?
Zeus had promised Aidoneus and Persephone the only thing that should never, could never, be given away: their children’s birthright. It was the lowest mockery of their marriage and the one untouchable truth that set her apart from all others— that her children were legitimate, and the rest of his spawn were bastards.
Your favorite titan? And your favorite the ones who came before the titans? Sorry, I'm afraid of making a typo. All the best!
Favorite Titan: Iapetos
Favorite Protogenoi: Nyx
I was wondering if Aphrodite would ever have an affair with someone from chthonia or is she too traumatized from her earlier life to ever do that?
Oh no. It’s canon in my telling that she does NOT go down there, except in the most special and dire of circumstances.
In terms of common misrepresentation, who do you think gets the short end of the stick, Ares or Hades?
Hades. Portrayed as the Christian devil more often than not, even when the book source material is pretty clear that he is anything but. That’s why I’m going to lobby for creative control. #hadesprotectionsquad
Ares gets a bad rap, especially recently, but any and every appearance he makes in a movie or show set in Ancient Rome he is venerated as Mars.
Unlikely but maybe Jason Momoa for Hades?
You should forward that to my producer, Summer Helene on twitter @summerhelene.
