K.M. Shea's Blog, page 32

Bookplate Giveaway

It’s time for our Christmas giveaway! This year we’re giving away a new type of swag–signed bookplates!

Here’s the rules! Thirty randomly selected winners will receive two bookplates each. This giveaway is open to US and International readers! It runs from December 1st through December 15. Winners will be notified through email–so make sure you give us a working email!

Click here to Enter!

And now for the boring legal stuff: No purchase is necessary, winners have five days to confirm their address after they are notified. If they don’t respond in time, a runner up will be chosen. The stickers will be mailed to the winners once an adequate address is provided. K. M. Shea reserves to right to cancel the giveaway or substitute the prize as seen fit. This giveaway is not sponsored or endorsed by Facebook, Instagram, Amazon, etc, but run solely  by K. M. Shea.

Whew, glad that part is over. Good luck to all the Champions who enter, and I hope you enjoy this Christmas giveaway!

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A December Celebration

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays my dearest Champions!

December is my favorite month of the year because I love all things Christmas, and I’m so excited I get to share these special times with all of you!

This year we have free books every weekend. Yes, you read that right–you can get so many free books this year! Here’s the official schedule, but I’ll post reminders for you, so don’t feel like you have to memorize them!

King Arthur 1-3: December 5th-9th
Princess Ahira: 12th – 16th
Red Rope of Fate & The Luckless: 21st – 25th
A Goose Girl: 24th – 28th

Additionally, the K. M. Shea team is also running a giveaway! This year we’re giving away bookplates signed by yours truly to twenty-five randomly selected Champions! This giveaway is open internationally and will begin today and end December 15th. (Click here to enter–though I’ll post about it again tomorrow so you can come back then if you need to!)

I have a few extra Christmas surprises up my sleeve, so make sure you check back frequently!

Until next time, Champions, have a fantastic week!

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New Paperback: A Goose Girl

You asked, and Rock-Star-Assistant-Meg has granted your wish! A Goose Girl–book #1 in the Entwined Tales series I did with my author pals–is now available in paperback! (Amazon is still linking the ebook and paperback together, so you might need to check my Amazon Author Page to find it.)

 

Goose Girl is a novella, so it’s a REALLY SMALL paperback, but for those of you who have been dying to have the complete Entwined Tales collection, now you can! A big thank you to Meg for making this happen. I’ve been doing so much the last few months I didn’t have the time to think about it, but she persevered because she wanted it to be available to you Champions for Christmas!

As a side note, Reign of Magic won’t be making its paperback debut before Christmas–we have some typos to clean up before it goes to the press–but it will be out in 2020!

Thanks for reading, Champions, and have a lovely weekend!

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American Champions! (And a belated or early Happy Thanksgiving to all the Champions who celebrate it on a different day!)

K. M. Shea.

Writing Weaknesses: Romance

So you’ve got a kick-butt plot with lots of action, humor, friendship…but romance? Ehh…

I consider romance one of the hardest aspects of writing. Give me a magic fight or a clash between armies any day, but a kiss scene? Noooo! (See, even us full time authors have stuff we need to work on!) The good news is that as I’ve worked to improve the romance in my books over the years, I’ve amassed some helpful resources, which hopefully can help You!

The Writing Gals: this youtube show is held by four sweet romance authors who discuss all aspects of writing and publishing, but they have some amazing videos about romance. (For real, this has been one of the biggest game changers for me when it comes to romance.)

How to Write Swoon Worthy Sweet Romance: This book takes you step by step through the plotting process of writing a romance book, but it’s really helpful even if you write fantasy or thriller because it helps you see the kind of relationship progression you need to have in your subplot romance.

Some of the best advice I’ve received in the realm of writing romance was from my author friend Lindsay Buroker. While speaking at a conference, Lindsay explained that romance can be used as a hook, and should progress with the unfolding of the plot. She specifically pointed out that TV shows are phenomenal at doing this. Shows like Castle, Firefly, Pride & Prejudice, Doctor Who–all of them spawned fans who were invested in the characters’ relationships, even though these relationships aren’t the main point of the show.

I’ve also found watching K-dramas to be a huge help! My choice of poison are the comedy-romance K-dramas–or Korean Dramas. (You can watch them on Netflix, Hulu, and a few are available on Amazon Prime.) K-dramas are masters of pacing. They know when to nudge the characters through the various levels of a relationship, how to intermingle it with humor or the main plot of the series, and they are masters at making chemistry for sweet romance. It’s worth it to watch a few shows to see the various ways they ignite the romantic ‘spark’ so to speak. I can personally recommend “What’s Wrong with Secretary Kim,” “Because You’re Beautiful,” and “Secret Garden.”

That spark is important, because if you can get your characters to have chemistry, that’s half of the romance battle. And chemistry doesn’t mean the romance is “hate to love,” though it can be!

You can start with reluctant partners–like Fyn and dear Benji in Royal Magic–or make them more of comrades–like Quinn and Emerys in Twelve Dancing Princesses. Each couple has a very different dynamic, but their characters in each pair balance each other and are able to play together in different ways. (ie: Quinn can joke with Emerys and doesn’t treat him with the suffocating reverence that his own people do. Benjimir treasures Fyn’s fighting abilities and is proud of them instead of being intimidated.)

My personal best tip is to really play with the thing that sparks chemistry and try to make it unusual or different. It was a heck of a lot easier to let Rakel and Farrin’s relationship unfold given that they were originally on opposite sides of a war in the Snow Queen books. Incorporating plot points into their relationship (ie: They start out enemies and have magic battles) makes it a lot easier to write because in order to advance their relationship you have to let the plot unfold. It’s kinda like cruise-control for writing in a way.

On the opposite end of the spectrum you have Severin and Elle of Beauty and the Beast. They were wretchedly difficult for me to push together because they just weren’t interested! (My advice–don’t do this. Indifference is so, so, so hard to deal with unless you have a natural plot progression that will solve it.)

And that’s my advice on writing romance! To all you NaNoWriMo warriors out there, good luck! You’re nearly in the last stretch–you can do it!

And to all my other Champions, thanks for reading!

Author Guide: Updated & Improved!

The month is over halfway over, but this doesn’t mean the battle for NaNoWriMo has slacked–nooo! For some writers, they’re about to buckle down and get serious! Others will fight to keep the incredible pace they set in the first half of the month. But one thing is for certain: everyone attempting NaNoWriMo–whether you win or don’t quite make it–is incredible. Go you for trying!

To celebrate NaNoWriMo, I’ve done a big update to my Author Resource guide! (For the PDF, click here! Otherwise you can access it in the For Writers tab at the top of the website.) I added in a brand new section that goes over a few online tools I use: things like the newsletter service I use, as well as the program Rock-Star-Assistant-Meg uses to format my books.

I also added a few new reference books, heaps of podcasts, and some new youtube channels. A lot of the resources listed will be helpful even after NaNoWriMo is finished, so come back and check the guide out throughout the year!

But enough work stuff. By right about now, I’m figuring you NaNoWriMo warriors need some encouragement, so I’ve found some great Youtube channels that offer writing tips, book advice, or general encouragement–and the best part is all of these channels are entertaining as well!

Terrible Writing Advice: This is one of my most favorite youtube channels ever. Everything’s a satire, poorly-animated-on-purpose, and the narrator is hilarious as he mercilessly rips through some of our favorite tropes and genre tricks. (This channel actually helped me a lot in developing my Fairy Tale Enchantress series!)

Kate Cavanaugh: Kate is a member of what is called “Authortube,” which is a loose group of writers who have the aim of writing books, getting published in the traditional way or indie way, and become full time authors! (A few Authortubers are published authors, and they cover super helpful topics as well!) Kate’s videos are more vlog style as she records her writing process–the highs and lows. However, she’s high on the entertainment side of things, and does lots of fun challenges that she records as well. She’s fun to listen to, she’s actually doing daily vlogs for NaNoWriMo this year, and she’s a big numbers nerd so she experiments a lot with ways to increase her writing speed.

Hello Future Me: this channel uses references from pop culture to dissect various writing elements–like prologues, magic systems, redemption arcs and more. This channel leans more heavily on the informational/educational side of entertainment, but I still count it as being fun to listen to because I love the discussions that dig into nitty gritty details like the magic of Hogwarts or the limitations to Gandalf’s magic! (It’s the geek in me, I can’t help it!)

To all the Champions currently embattled with NaNoWriMo, good luck! As Positive Possum says, you can do it! To those who aspire to one day try NaNoWriMo, I hope you enjoy the youtube channels in preparation, and don’t give up! One day you’ll join us in this fight!

What Next?

Reign of Magic has had a smashing release, the launch fun is all over, so naturally you Champions are wondering what I’m writing next. Unfortunately, at this point my answer is “I don’t know.” And I’ve decided I’m not going to start on my next book until January.

Part of this is because I am throwing another Christmas event this year–which takes time to prepare–and I have another event I’m planning for in January that I need to work ahead on as well. But some of it is just that I’m really, really tired, and my physical and emotional health took a real beating during Reign of Magic, so before I write any more Enchantress books I really need to recover.

As I hinted at the top, I also don’t have any plans for next year–which is a real rarity for me. I will write Trial of Magic–the Fairy Tale Enchantress #4–but I have no idea when it will release at this point as I don’t intend to start on it for a while. This obviously is going to push back the series as a whole because my hope of finishing it in 2020 is no longer possible. I know the rest of the Fairy Tale Enchantress series is going to take longer to write, and I really don’t like the idea of leaving Second Age of Retha fans out for so long. But that series is almost as complicated as Angelique’s series, and at this point I mentally can’t handle that, so I also don’t know when the next Retha book will come.

Once I stop feeling like an anxiety-ridden squirrel whose tail got run over by a truck, I will try to create a plan for next year. And in the meantime I’ve been prepping for Christmas, I may have written another Retha short story, and I’ve got a few surprises up my sleeve for 2020.

Thank you so much for your patience and support, Champions. All of you are so incredible, and I love our community so much! I’ll get through this, and in the meantime we’ll have some fun! Thanks for reading, and have a lovely week!

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Evariste’s Magic

As the final Reign of Magic themed post, we’re digging into a complex topic: the curse cast on Evariste, his magic, and how his feelings for Angelique affects all of that.

I wanted to cover this topic last to give everyone a chance to read Reign of Magic, because the whole post is basically one giant spoiler. So, if you still haven’t read it yet, consider yourself warned!

We know from Curse of Magic that Evariste is blocked from his powers by a dark curse, and the only way to break it is to act out his darkest desires. The spell itself tells Evariste he has to give Angelique a kiss of true love. (So a peck on the hand or cheek isn’t going to cut it.)

We also know from the events of Curse and Reign that Liliane and her minions have been harvesting Evariste’s magic and have used it to cast the various curses Angelique has encountered. (ie: Severin’s curse, the transformation spell Clotilde put on the Arcainian Princes, and we know from Evariste’s thoughts he was used to entrap the elves, etc.) Multiple people–including Liliane and Angelique–have noted that many of the curses they’ve cast have all had an exploitable weakness for love–specifically romantic love.

Reign reveals that this is no accident, but rather a trait of Evariste’s magic. He got captured protecting someone he loved, and in order to break the curse he has to give Angelique a kiss of true love. His magic has reacted to that and thus the weakness has been forged.

But Reign also reveals another aspect of Evariste’s magic, and this time it involves Angelique. As some of you might recall, when the spell that is torturing Evariste so he sees those he’s close to in pain, Angelique’s magic shreds the spell and breaks him free of it.

Though Evariste doesn’t dwell on it overly much–he’s more fixated on the aforementioned weakness–it still is worth mentioning that this is a pretty rare case of two mages whose magic works together. Getting mages working in tandem is somewhat rare. You see it in The Snow Queen Series when magic users team up together, but Evariste’s and Angelique’s case is even more rare because it’s not just fighting together, but rather magic ebbing and flowing regardless of the user’s (in this case Angelique’s) knowledge.

It is a topic future books in the series will address, but it’s one of the most blatant hints yet that that there are two sets of rules that affect magic. Hard, physical rules–like limits/prices, core magic always being stronger than learned magic, etc, etc–and emotional rules–like love can be used to break curses, and everything we’ve discussed in this post.

This is something I’ve kept in mind since I first created the world. You can get peeks of it in Wild Swans, Rumpelstiltskin, and the Snow Queen books. It was something I designed because I feel it reflects every day life and living. We’ve got a set of hard rules we live by that define what we can and can’t do, but things like love and friendship will help us test our limits and, in a way, grow stronger.

And that ends today’s Magic Class.

2019 NaNoWriMo

Greetings, Champions! It’s that time of the year again, NaNoWriMo! (Or National Novel Writing Month, but that’s kind of a mouthful.) For those who haven’t heard, NaNoWriMo is a month long event held every November when thousands of people join together with the goal to finish a 50,000 word novel before the end of the month.

It’s run by an official non-profit company, which you can check out at https://nanowrimo.org/ They have a ton of resources to help you track your writing progress–which let me tell you helps a lot with the motivation!

The official insignia of NaNoWriMo!

This year the timeline doesn’t quite match up for me, but for all of you who are joining this event I want to help out! This year I’ll try to do a few new blog posts–or maybe a video–but I also have some resources to share with you!

Author Resources webpage
Blog Posts with the Writing Tips category
My Pinterest Board for Writing Tips

The Pintrest board has been updated since last year with some new posts from some really amazing writers, so check it out if you need inspiration!

So, who is going to try it this year? Let’s commiserate in the comment section! (And even though I’m not officially joining, you can still add me as a writing buddy if you join the website! My username is KmShea–so very unexpected, am I right??)

Good luck to you Champions who are participating, we’re all cheering for you!

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Treat–or Trick??

Happy Halloween, Champions, I hope you’ve had some fall fun this week!

The team and I thought we’d bring back our “Treat–or Trick??” special from last year, and offer both of the Robyn Hood books for free as a sort of Halloween treat!

Amazon.com | All other Stores

We call it “Treat–or Trick??” because it’s free books, yes, but they’re some of my earliest stories and they’ve never been edited properly, sooo…yeah, not sure which it is.