Kate Copeseeley's Blog - Posts Tagged "fantasy"

Not in life, or writing, thank goodness, although I've been nice and busy with a sick baby the past week. Sick babies are the saddest creatures in the world, with their sad eyes, and upset tummies or runny noses.

No, I've given up, instead, on Writing Contests. They are not worth the energy, it seems to me. I spend hours and hours and hours on my entry, refining and editing, only to find that the winner is some blind woman who taught herself how to spin ordinary orange wool into bread for homeless children.

Which is fine. I can lose a contest with the best of them. The frustrating part to me is not knowing how I did overall. Did I suck? Was I okay with a weak plot? Was the dialogue great, but the prose terrible? Was it the subject matter -i.e. is Fantasy a dumb subject to take up?

I've made a private resolution. No more contests without feedback. Contests are great, and motivating, but if you don't have the chance of hearing what is good and bad about your entry, I've got no interest.

Good luck to all you writers with blind weavers of bread.

I'm really excited right now, my sister -my amazingly talented, graphic artist sister- came up last week and we worked on the cover of my new book, Compis. It seems like a bit too soon to do it, since I'm only about halfway done with the book. Almost exactly halfway. But it was so fun to do that I couldn't resist.
Keep your eyes peeled in the next few weeks, because I'll be posting a preview of the cover, and also releasing a few samples of the new book for early reading.
I was pretty excited to finish Six Keys, but this is the book that feels like my baby. I've poured a lot of my heart into the characters and I really like where they are going.

So, thanks to a comment posted by a reader, and some research, I did decide to enter my new book in the Breakthrough Novel Award that Amazon is sponsoring. Why you ask? I so decisively stated earlier that I would never enter a contest again.

I don't have a icicles chance in hell of winning it, I know that. I've looked at the other contestants from previous years. But I don't care, because all I have to do is make it to the 2nd round. If I make it to the 2nd round, I will get 2 reviews by their panel of expert. Can you imagine? Actual feedback from someone who isn't a family member or friend.

It's too tempting to pass up. But in order to do so, I had to have a product. I originally planned for this new novel to include 4 sections. The total product would be over 400 pages. I thought that would be a nice hefty size for a novel, and it would leave me with a trilogy.

If I end the new novel (which is revised up to part 2) after the first two sections, tidying it up for the contest, I have two options. I can hold onto it until I've finished the next two sections or I can release it now, at about 200 pages -it has a cover. It would also mean my trilogy would have 5 books, and the wait for each part would be a little longer, as I would have to write a new section at a time, instead of sandwiching 4 together for one big read.

I'm torn. It is my new dilemma. Which is more palatable for an ebook? 200 pages or 400 pages? I haven't read enough to have a decent opinion.

Just after I posted that blog about bad fantasy books, I just read one called The Princetta. I posted a review, which you can read here:
The Princetta

Or you can just take my advice and avoid the book altogether.

I also remembered today that I promised to post The Angel and Her Gun here on goodreads for anyone that might be interested. It's also on Kindle and B&N for $.99, but this way it's free! I love free stuff, don't you?

The Angel and Her Gun

If I have time tomorrow, I will be sure to post my list of favorite fantasy. Or at least a list of my favorite sub-genre, teen fantasy. :)

This list has not been an easy one to write, which is why instead of trying to write a general fantasy list, I decided to hone it down a wee bit to teen fantasy.  And believe me, it will still be hard work then.  :)


So let's begin, shall we?  Oh, I should say, these aren't in order, because, my God, that would be impossible for me to do.  Oh, and if you haven't read most of these novels... Well... chances are you weren't born until after 1995.


CS Lewis  -This is the first fantasy I ever read, as I think with most people my age.  Yes, I admit it, I was born before the age of Harry Potter.  I am officially old, because let's face it, that will be the first fantasy book most kids read now.  Anyway, my mom read The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe when I was about 9, I think.  Up until then I'd read a lot of Nancy Drew and Louisa May Alcott.  I hadn't even read Alice and Wonderland.  That book is still one of my best memories.  It's not the same, reading it now, but there is a special place in my heart for Lewis.  He is one of the reasons I fell in love with reading.  Favorites of his books: LLW, Voyage of the Dawn Treader, The Horse and His Boy, and The Magician's Nephew

Tamora Pierce -She was the second fantasy author I'd ever read.  I can't say enough good things about her, especially as a woman.  Her character in the Alanna series taught me, as a young girl, that I could do anything and break any boundary.  It sounds sappy, but those type of books, combined with parents who were the supportive people they were, led me to go on and major (and succeed) in a field that was less than 10% women.  Favorites: Alanna series, The Immortals series, and Trickster's Choice series.

JK Rowling -Yes, yes, of course.  Fabulous, imaginative.  I read these as a 22 year old and I was still enchanted enough to buy the whole series.  Rowling is the reason both of my brothers read now, and I bless her for it!  I am excited to introduce my son to the series when he gets old enough (Alas, it won't happy for several years yet.  *sigh*).  Favorite: Order of the Phoenix  I always come under fire for that one, but really, it's the first time that Harry realizes that he is ready to fight Voldemort and his Death Eaters.  It's when the DA is founded.  It's when Harry starts to realize that this will be a battle he ultimately fights alone.  

Anne McCaffrey -A classic writer whose work is found mostly in the adult section, but many of her books feature teenagers.  The Pern series has several teenagers featured as main characters. True, many of them grow up, but it doesn't change the fact that they are all about finding yourself and overcoming hardships.  Side note: When I was a teenager and my parents went through their whole, "Let's take a road trip to see Mt. Rushmore" phase, I packed a TUB full of her books and I read them from California to South Dakota while my siblings watched Aristocats over and over on the little TV in our van. Good times.  Favorites: Dragonsinger, Dragonsong, Dragon Drums, Dragons Dawn, The White Dragon.  Excellent, all.

Robin McKinley -You can't tell from some of her new books, yes, I think she has faltered, but she did for fairy tales, what Gail Carson Levine has tried to do.  I can't remember the first time I read Beauty.  It might have been the third or fourth fantasy book (or series) I've read.  I was enchanted.  I devoured every other book she wrote, with mixed results.  Not of a fan of The Outlaws of Sherwood.  And even though I enjoyed Rose Daughter, I still wonder what the heck she was thinking.  Favorites: Beauty, The Blue Sword, The Hero and The Crown, The Door in The Hedge, A Knot in The Grain.

Philip Pullman -I didn't read these until I was an adult, but wow.  The story is so wide in scope, reaching across worlds and beliefs and at the center is this poor little girl who's been abandoned by both of her selfish parents and then used brutally by them, as well.  I also loved the idea of a soul that could be seen.  I wish it were like that here and you'd know what people are like when you meet them.  Favorites: probably the first in the series, The Gold Compass

Diana Wynn Jones -I can't remember how I stumbled across these books.  I think it must have been when I was working as a nanny for two little boys.  I was in the children's section a lot, and read The Christomanci Quartet.  Then I found out that her books were in the YA section and I was thrilled!  Favorites: I think my favorites would be Howl's Moving Castle (also one of my favorite Animes of all time) and The Game -which is a novella she wrote that uses Greek Mythology. 

Piers Anthony -Another adult writer whose books feature mostly adolescents.  To read these books, you must like puns and you can't mind some goofiness.  I think he was the first writer I read and realized, fantasy can be funny!  That's a big deal.  Favorites: A Spell for Chameleon, Heaven Scent, and The Color of Her Panties
Christopher Paolini - I was blown away when I first read Eragon.  I couldn't believe it was written by a 16 year old, although I was less surprised after I found out he was homeschooled.  (Shout-out to my fellow house prisoners!)  Though it is obvious to me that he was strongly influenced by Tolkien, there is no denying that his story and characters follow their own design.  The first two especially, I could not stop reading.  Very good.  I wish I could say the same for Brisingr.  *sigh*  That book DID remind me of Tolkien, in that I would have liked to trim about 300 pages out of it.  Seriously, the dwarf wedding? A waste of paper!  I'm hoping for redemption in the next book.  Favorites: I'm still quite partial to the first, Eragon.  It was so nice meeting Sapphira.  

Stephenie Meyer -I debated whether or not to include Meyer, especially when I'm not including Cassandra Clare.  But in the end, I couldn't help myself.  You can hate vampires, you can hate teen fantasy, heck, you can even hate Meyer's writing, but you can't deny her story grabs you.  That is why I put her here.  Even though I thought her books were badly written (editors, where are you??), her story had me buying book after book, and let me tell you, I don't spend money on new books.  I'm the cheapest reader on the planet.  :)  Favorite:  New Moon, hands down, because Edward is such an asshat in most of the books.  If a man ever tried to "protect" me like that, I'd kick him in the balls.

How I decided on what to include:  Well, I picked authors that have a large body of work, because I think that's how you can properly judge how good they are.  That is why there are a lot of "older" authors on the list.  Why I didn't choose some of the obvious... well, Tolkien bored the crap out of me.  Those books were written for boys, no question.  I think there are girl characters in about 4% of those books, compared to all the men warriors and travelers.  That's fine.  They were written for boys.  They didn't do it for me, and this is MY list after all.  
Cassandra Clare... ah, Cassandra, I have a whole entry about her and some others (entitled "Where are all the Writers???")  First of all, the whole, "I might be sexually attracted to my brother" thing is just gross.  And your writing is subpar.  The story was interesting enough to carry me through to the end, but then the ending was SOOOO predictable.  
The Bartimaeous Trilogy... well, read that entry I just listed.  The Lightning Thief... I just couldn't get past the first chapter.  I can't give a personal opinion about that series, but I obviously can't include them in my favorite books.  
I have a lot of new authors that I would love to include, but they have only 1 or 2 books out as now, so I'm going to give it some time and see how they end up.
The inevitable question comes up... why don't I have any indies on my list?  Even Amanda Hocking has 2 series out.  It pains me to say this, but I haven't read them.  I want to, believe me I do!  But they cost money and right now, I'm unemployed.  The only books I read come from the library.  I could pirate her books, I'm sure, but how is that supportive of an industry I'm involved in?  So, until the library has her books or my book starts raking in the dough, it's not going to happen yet.
That being said, if ANY indie author wants to send me a digital file of their work to read, I'll do it, for sure! Hope you enjoyed my list. :)
There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars.

I'm thirty-two.  I've been out of the house for... wait let me do the math... on my calculator... 14 years.  I'm married.  I have one child and one more on the way.

And yet, I will always care what my mom says.  It's one of those things you don't get over.

So let me back up the train.  My first memories of my mom highlight her with a book.  She is the lady who taught me the meaning of the word bibliophile.  Which is cool, because I think that is what got me going on the whole reading journey -her love of books.  I think I just wanted to know... what was so great about reading?

Then I tried it out, and I was hooked for life.

I introduced my mom to YA fantasy.  She was always curious about what her kids were reading (she still is, with two teenagers in the house).  I'd read Robin McKinley or whoever and pass it along to her when I was done.  She's read everyone on my top YA fantasy list and even passed stuff on to me, occasionally.  She loved Hunger Games as much as I did.

So I knew I had to pass along my newest draft of Compis to my mom.

I know people who get nervous about their first reviews or when they get a blog mention.  I get nervous when my mom reads something I've written, because I know she has great taste and she'll be honest.  OMG, I wish you could have seen my face when I had her read my first story with a SEX SCENE.  hahahaha

Yet I've never been as nervous as I was this time, because I LOVE this story and these characters like they are a part of me.  You know how authors talk about the book they had to write?  This is my book.  I dream about this book.  I obsess over it.  YA fantasy is my thing, my passion.  I've wanted to write a YA fantasy book for, well, forever.

I never thought I could be a writer at all, never finished a book until Six Keys, so I focused on other things.  Then I had this dream (Okay, this will sound funny, but I get pretty much all my story ideas from dreams) about being in a tribe and turning into a person who could fly.  Man did that stick in my head BIG TIME.  I was in the middle of doing a major revision on Six Keys, so I absolutely refused to let myself write it.

But I couldn't get rid of it.  I became obsessed with the plot in a big way, so I bought myself a notebook and starting jotting down my ideas about the world of my dreams.  I thought out the characters and the land and the laws and the way the world worked.  And when I finally finished Six Keys, AND fulfilled my work obligations, I went for it.  Working part time and as a mom, I wrote 15,000 in a week.  Unheard of for me.  I got about half the book, 30,000 written by the end of the month and then, in another month I finished it.

It was a breeze!  The easiest writing I've ever done.  I still can't believe how quickly it went. Okay, enough gushing.

She loved it.  I'm just so relieved.  Whew!  :)

There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars.

I've gotten so used to using this blog to vent about my reader experiences that it feels weird to talk about my writing again.  Compis has moved into type editing(YAY!!! No, seriously, YAYAYAYAYAY!  I hate editing past the 3rd round or so, when you're not cutting or fixing plot issues and just nitpicking) and when I get my spiffy world map from my spiffy artist, it will soon be released.  I'm hoping for the 3rd week in April, but we'll see how long the final edit takes.

And on to that 80 days thing, I've written... (have to go check my word count...) 4,376 words.  That is two things:  First, the next short story in the Angelic Agents series.  Can't get enough of Gideon and Samora.  And of course, the sequel to Compis, which has no title yet, so I will call it the next in the Five Tribes series.



And now that we've moved past the business portion of the program, let's talk about my next indie review:

At this point in time, I have Marked by Kim Richardson on the agenda.



So Marked (book 1 in the Soul Guardians series, book 2 of which will be out in May, hopefully!) is the story of Kara Nightingale, a teenage artist living in what I assume to be Canada (which is an assumption, but there's a lot of French stuff around and the author is from Canada, soooo... I think it's a safe assumption).  Up until the story starts she's lived with her crazy mom who says she sees demons and avoided making friends for the most part except Mathieu, the one guy who can seem to deal around her mom.

On her way to a major presentation of her work, one that could mean everything to her future career, she is hit by a bus and that is when the real story begins.  Kara wakes up in an elevator, staring down a grumpy chimpanzee elevator attendant, and after realizing that she is stone cold dead, she is thrown into her new life as a Guardian Angel (GA).

This book is has one of the most interesting worlds I've read about in a long time.  My mom found it confusing, but then again, she comes from a more strict religious background.  There are several religious elements at play in the story, you have guardian angels, archangels, reincarnation(not in every case, though), the Chief (who I assume is God?) and of course, multiple levels of demons.

The GA's job is to in the best case, prevent their assigned case file from dying, at worst, save the souls from the dead mortal.  The demon's job is ALWAYS to kill and eat the mortal's soul, thus making themselves more powerful, and to capture and eat the GAs, if they can.

Kara is a Rookie GA, meaning that she's in training and she's been assigned to David, super hot GA with a cocky charm and flirty wit.  He takes her through all her first case files, teaches her the ins and outs of demon defense.

So that is the basic story.  Without going into spoilers, my overall impressions.  I liked the characters, David cracked me up, he was pretty funny.  The author does some great jokes about his addiction to winking at pretty girls.  Kara comes off more as a quiet girl with deep reserves of strength.  She was much better to me than Meghan in the first book of the Iron Fey series.  Kara didn't whine much, she felt understandable pain at her short life, but she also sucked it up and did her job as best as she could.  I thought her reactions in situations were realistic and I didn't once think, "What the crap?" like I did when I read Hocking's first book in the Trylle Trilogy, where she discovers she is in love with the guy after like a WEEK.  Seriously.

Let's talk about love here.  What I really really liked about this book is even though the main characters liked each other, even though there is obviously a love interest hinted at, and some really great boy-girl moments, there is NO RUSH to declarations of love.  That is my biggest pet peeve with YA books I've read lately.  It used to be in a story that a high school girl met a high school boy and you know, they DATED for a while before they fell deeply in love for all of eternity.  These characters were so normal and likeable in that respect.  Very impressed on that note.

I also, having read a lot of more serious YA fantasy of late, appreciated some of the more lighthearted aspects of this book.  The various simian elevator attendants were hilarious!  Not to mention the forgetful oracle office workers.

My only wish for this first book in the series would have been more backstory on Kara's mother, her art(which seemed like a fascinating part of her former world that I would have like touched on) and more on her friendship with Mathieu.  Like maybe some flashbacks?

Anyway, that's my review.  This book gets four stars from me and I'm eagerly awaiting the sequel.  Can't wait to see where the author takes this series!



Happy Reading!

So, as I suspected, I didn't get any writing done at ALL over the past week.  My book Compis came back from type editing, and I wanted to get through it, because after starting the next book, Aeris, I realized there were a few minor tweaks I wanted to make before uploading it to Amazon and B&N.  It was a good week, but with that and Easter(which is the reason why didn't do a Sunday check-in) it did not get done.

Actually, I've been having a hard time getting anything done lately.  When spring comes to our house, we get out our tools and start some much needed yard maintenance.  We live on 2/3s of an acre, so there is quite a bit to be done. Weeds, weeds, weeds... they are not so easy to pick when you are 6 mths pregnant.  Go figure.  We did some work on the back fence, weeded the iris and bachelor button beds, and cleaned out the sticky weed behind the grape arbor.

I'm not even half done, either, because I have to get my butt out to the front yard and pull up all those morning glory shoots so the tortoises don't eat them.  Yes, we have two tortoises.  Apparently they are deathly allergic to morning glories.

Enough of the domestic whining.  I actually do enjoy weeding, when I can ignore my huge growing belly.  Being outside in the spring is the stuff of magic here in Northern Cali.  My son takes after me, and we put on our big boots, weed the yard and garden, and slather on the sunscreen.  Much fun.

In other, more interesting news... please tell me you haven't tuned out YET...  I got my map back from the artist.  Isn't it pretty???



My artist, Lindsey Anderson, for those of you who are curious to know, is AMAZING and whenever I get the opportunity to work with her on a project, I know she will be professional, timely and give me an end result that will blow me away.

So now, Compis has a map.  It has about 30 pages left till my final tweaks are finished, then it's off to formatting before it gets uploaded.  Honestly, this is the part I love BEST about being an indie.  I get to see all the aspects of the pipeline firsthand, because I'm involved every step of the way.  That may not be for everyone, but man, it works for a control freak like me.  :)

This is going to be a long post, because now I have to take an abrupt turn to the land of reviewing and have a quick discussion about ethics in reviewing.  This topic has been all over the Kindle boards, lately, and much on my mind.  There are several things being discussed, but I'm going to throw out all but the ones that involve my life as a reader/writer:Anyone can push that "like" button at the top of the page.  How can I trust that as a system of rating?  Well, you can't.  Sorry.  I have been to forums where people sign up to "like" each other's books.  That hasn't happened in Kindle boards, I am happy to report (at least that I've seen), but it happens elsewhere.  I am against it completely as a reader and writer.  I think it is misleading and I really wish that Amazon hadn't put this up on their site.  So, my answer is, read the reviews.  They are less likely to be shills, because it takes time and effort to read and review someone's work.  I have clicked the "like" button on books at Amazon, but ONLY if I've read them and liked them.  That is, however, a personal commitment.  I can't comment on the ethics of others.
Indie writers only give good reviews to other indie writers because they want other indies to look good.  I can't say that I've heard about this anywhere.  When I review an indie book, I try to give as honest a review as possible, just like I do for mainstream books.  If I don't like something, I'm going to point it out, probably with a lot of capitals in my sentences and some obnoxious opinions.  That is who I am.  I don't think I've pulled any punches on ANY of my reviews (go to goodreads and look at my record), but I do tend to be generous to ALL authors, simply because I respect the craft and how difficult it is.  I don't think I've given ANYONE a one star review, because to get something like that, I think a book would have to be filled with two word sentences, the same word typed over and over and over again endlessly or some other weird thing that could get published in a book.  It would have to be a pretty bad book to make me go that far.
Indie writers write bad reviews to competitors so that their own books look good.  This one, unfortunately, DOES happen out there.  There are some confused and sad people who find themselves suddenly the recipients of a CROWD of one star reviews, not because they deserve them, but because some schmuck gets a bunch of friends together and they do it on purpose.  It is evil, it has been documented by those authors, and Amazon has had to interfere.  This makes me sad as a writer and I think it denigrates the entire indie industry.  Again, though, for my personal reading, I give a rating that I think is fair.  There are some crap indie books out there, but I have yet to read one of them, mostly because I wait around till a book gets a lot of reviews before I buy it.  Not so I can have something positive to say about an indie, but because I feel like it's been vetted.  I don't have a lot of time, so I don't like to waste it.  This may change in the future, but for now, I'm reading stuff that I think I'll have a CHANCE of liking.  I do that with non-indie books too, so I don't think it's a crazy idea.
Mostly, the talk on the boards was sad to me, because I felt like I needed to reexamine my goals in trying to review indies.  For a minute, I thought about giving it up altogether.  Then I looked at my track record with non-indie books.  I've never hesitated to review a book or tell what I think about it.  Why should indies be any different?   I'm reviewing them as a READER, not a writer.  I think I've earned the right after my many many years of reading to review any kind of book I want.  

On that note, onto the review.  If you've gotten here to the end, you are amazing and I hope it's worth it.  :)

Today I'm going to review Wings of Evil by JR Tomlin & CR Daems.  After reading this book, I did a bit of research(you'll see why in a moment) on the authors.  I couldn't find anything on Daems, but JR Tomlin has another book out called Freedom's Sword that is a Scottish Historical novel.  I haven't read it, so I couldn't tell you who did most of the writing for this book.  Perhaps you could check out the other book yourself and see, I don't know.  I've got a full plate for reading right now.

I was really confused by this book. I had to re-read the synopsis just to make sure I hadn't missed something, but I think the authors would have done well to label this a juvenile book: ages 11-14.

The storyline is a good idea: A girl makes friends with some persecuted creatures and makes it her mission to save them. She travels through three countries, makes friends with a spy, and finds herself dodging evildoers every step of the way.

Unfortunately, this is not a book that would appeal to those in the YA genre and definitely not adults. The language, descriptions and dialog are simple, as though they were written for a younger person. When I was reading it, I was reminded strongly of Jenny Nimmo's Charlie Bone series, which is another example of writing to a specific audience, in the language that audience can understand.

Yet nowhere is this book labeled as YA or juvenile fiction in the description (I later found it under Amazon's categories as teen fiction). As a result, I think it will have a hard time competing in an adult market. The plot and characters don't seem to understand complex situations, for instance, at one point, Liada is almost kidnapped by what is certainly a child molester (or teenage molester?) but she has no idea why he would be interested in her, even though she knows that he makes a habit of taking young attractive girls.

She several times refers to herself as a woman or adult, yet when she is apprenticed to a master cook, she spends most of her time composing snarky comments in her mind and sticking her tongue out at him when he's not looking. These are not the actions of a woman, but more like a jr. high school girl.

Yet, I also find it hard to believe that the one part of the story that fascinated me, the cooking scenes, would be palatable to a juvenile reader. They go on in such detail and few children are interested in such domestic things, that I have to wonder where exactly the authors were hoping to place this book in the fantasy market.

My advice, adult readers, pass this book on by, but if you have a girl, 11-14, I think she will actually like this book. The creatures are interesting, the world is inventive and definitely a different take on the average fantasy genre.

Just do yourself and don't go by the book cover and the title, because I feel like they are also completely misleading to the actual content.

That's all for now.  Hope to have good news on the Sunday update!