K.M. Shea's Blog, page 55

Swan Lake Short #1

I’ve got tons of comments and messages from you amazing Champions that I badly need to reply to, but as Swan Lake is closing in on 25 reviews, I thought you would be more interested in having me unlock the first short. So here it is in a PDF file: Flying.

I’m really happy with the feedback I’ve gotten thus far, so a big thanks to everyone who has reviewed Swan Lake! If you haven’t reviewed it yet, please do! The reviews help me with sales rank, but they also help me a lot in my writing process because they let me keep track of what people are looking for and like. But…I also really want you guys to unlock the next extra super fast because it’s a short story told from Rothbart’s pov, and it was so fun to write, and it digs into his thoughts, and I WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!!!

Ahem.

So…let’s just say I’m eager to discuss the story, shall we?

As Swan Lake has been out for less than 48 hours, I’ll refrain from discussing the story, but this weekend I’ll be replying to comments so if you haven’t read it yet you may want to steer clear of those areas as they may contain spoilers. Alright, I’ll cut myself off there before I start dropping hints left and right. Have a lovely weekend, Champions, and enjoy the extra!

Swan Lake is Launched!

The wait is over, Swan Lake has arrived!

I can’t wait to hear your reactions! The book is a little shorter compared to the likes of the Snow Queen series, but so much happens in it so it feels a more intense/adventuresome than some of my other fairy tales. (Yes, I’m looking at you, Beauty and the Beast.) I’m not going to talk about it much because I know only a few of you have had a chance to read it, but I still have a few things I wanted to cover.

I’m holding my usual review challenge for Swan Lake’s launch! For every twenty-five reviews posted on Amazon and Goodreads, I’ll release a new Swan Lake short story/extra until it hits 125 reviews. You can see the top post of my blog for a few of the freebies’ titles. I’m pretty excited about these extras, because I used a lot of the feedback on what you really liked reading about in the Snow Queen extras when I was deciding what books to write.

Tacked on to that, this is just a reminder that I do keep an eye on the reviews for feedback. I have particular stories I want to write, but you guys do influence the way I tell them, so thanks in advance to everyone who reviews!

Also, I’ve updated the Timeless Fairy Tales Timeline, adding in events from Swan Lake. Caution: The timeline contains spoilers for several fairy tales! If you haven’t read all the fairy tales you might not wish to view the timeline.

Remember to mark your calendars for June 19 and 20, when Wild Swans will be free to celebrate Father’s Day and the first day of summer.

Okay, that’s everything. Have a fabulous day, Champions. I hope you enjoy Swan Lake!

Book News

Greetings, Champions! I’m pleased to announce that Swan Lake is now available for pre-order! Woohoo! I am a mash of excitement and apprehension with this puppy. I’m excited because Odette, the heroine, was so much fun to write. To start with, she’s sarcastic–which is my FAVORITE to write because it opens the doors to humor–but she is also exceedingly practical and a bit mouthy. I hope you guys like her as much as I do. I am nervous, though, because this is the first story I’m publishing after the Snow Queen books. The Snow Queen books had a phenomenal reaction, and a lot of new Champions joined our ranks as a result of it, which is amazing, wonderful, fabulous, and a whole string of adjectives I would list here that would make my editors tell me to narrow down my word choice…but it’s also a bit intimidating because Rakel is now something of a standard my characters have to live up to.

So, I’m really looking forward to hearing what you all have to say about Odette and her crew.

Next, more book news! Red Rope of Fate is getting an audiobook! It’s my first audiobook ever, and it’s being produced by Tantor Media. Lucy Rayner is the narrator, and she’s got some serious narrating creds. She narrated the audiobook version of Maleficent and Brave. (If you want to here a sample of her work, click here to go to the Maleficent Audible page, there’s a sample you can listen to. Try to listen to the whole thing as the sample starts with her in the middle of a piece of dialog.)

So far the processes has been a lot of fun! I worked with a production assistant to pick the narrator, and I got to email back and forth with Lucy to confirm some of the pronunciations. They are still working on producing it, so Red Rope of Fate‘s audiobook will be available sometime in mid to late July.

That’s all of my exciting news for now. Have a marvelous weekend, Champions, and thank you for reading!

Cover Reveal: Swan Lake

Good day to you, Champions! Great news: I’m hopeful that Swan Lake (Timeless Fairy Tales book 7) should be available for preorder by the end of the week! In the meantime, I thought I would hold the cover reveal!

I think Wild Swans is my favorite cover Myrrhlynn has made for me, and I had no idea how she was going to top it for Swan Lake as the themes are somewhat similar, but she blew me away with this one! The girl pictured is, as you probably guessed, Odette. She’s a really fun heroine–perhaps a little gruff but she’s an absolute sap when you get to know her. The hero, Alexsei, who is not pictured is just about the exact opposite. He’s openly sweet, but he’s got a hidden spine of iron he busts out whenever he thinks someone important to him is in danger. (If you can’t tell, I had fun putting these two through their paces. They’re very demonstrative, unlike many of my other characters.)

Focusing back on covers! Myrrhlynn also made a new cover for the Robyn Hood books, and Rumpelstiltskin!

   

I used the smaller versions so this post wasn’t huge, but you can click on them if you want to see the big versions. I’m really happy with the new covers, and with Swan Lake’s, so a big thank you to Myrrhlynn for putting them together. What do you think, Champions? Which of the covers is your favorite?

Fan Art: Sacha

Hello Champions! I’m dropping in today because I wanted to show off some beautiful fan art sent to me by one of your fellow Champions, Sacha!

This is Gemma of Rumpeltstiltskin and Hvit! (I ADORE Hvit, and he doesn’t get enough page time, so I was tickled pink when I saw this!)

I know I’ve said this several times before, but I think it bears repeating: I couldn’t draw to save my life, so it’s incredible for me personally speaking to see my characters brought to life. I’m always thankful when readers find my characters compelling enough to use their own talents!

This is Phile of The Snow Queen books–I think Sacha perfectly captured her mischievous temperament, don’t you?

I’m hoping to get around to a site redesign, and when I do these puppies will have a permanent home. In the meantime, thank you, Sacha, for sharing your talent! Have a great day, Champions, and stay tuned! (I’ll be ready for Swan Lake‘s cover reveal in a few days!)

Enchanters

Okay. We’ve talked about the price and limits of magic, but we’ve skirted the role of enchanters in enchantress is, so that’s our long overdue subject for today!

As you’re probably aware, enchanters and enchantresses are the most powerful magic users in the Timeless Fairy Tales world. Because they are so powerful most of them have a price for using their magic. As I mentioned in the previous post, sometimes they can edge around the price by using something to supplement their magic. An example, someone intending to cause darkness and chaos could use the blood of innocent creatures or people—like the sea witch. Or, someone whose heart is in the right place could use things like love to supplement their power. Angelique always uses the power of love when modifying curses, because love is the only thing that strong enough to overcome such dark magic.

As you can see by my examples, obviously enchanters and enchantresses are capable of doing more than core magic. You have not yet seen Angelique’s core magic, but you have seen her do some illusion magic, curse breaking, and a bit of weather magic. That’s because now, with centuries of schooling under their belts, enchanters and enchantresses have been able to harness their powerful core magic and use it for auxiliary powers. They can harness their powers through spells, or the use of magical artifacts.

However, just as there are limitations to their core magic, there are limitations to their auxiliary powers as well. To begin with, they aren’t that strong. A weather mage will always be able to beat out an enchanter or enchantress in terms of weather magic. This is true for just about every magic they can use. Someone whose core powers lie in that particular discipline will almost always be more powerful at it than enchanter or enchantress. Only the low-level mages would be less skillful.

You can see this kind of reflection in real life. Let’s use me as an example. As a writer, my greatest strength lies in my ability to write fiction. However, because I’m a writer, there are additional skills I’ve picked up along the way. For example, I’m a fairly skilled observer– because you never know when I could use something the book– I’ve had to improve in marketing and business matters to shore up my career, I’ve gotten much more skilled at budgeting, the list goes on.

The basic idea is that the enchanters and enchantresses are so powerful in one area, that their power spills over into all other areas of magic. They cannot do everything, and they have to be taught it. (As you might remember, Angelique is very limited in the number of curse modifiers she knows because her teacher only taught her two.)

Besides having a lot of power, enchanters and enchantresses are also different from other magic users because they’re limited in the kinds of jobs/positions they can fill. They can help anyone who asks for their aid–whether it’s royalty or a peasant–but they cannot hold a position outside of the Veneno Conclave. This is a rule to keep magic from being unevenly distributed–or the rich countries would try to hire all the top tier magic users, and the poor countries would be extremely limited. IF an enchantress or enchanter swears alliance to a particular country–in example, Queen Ingrid of Arcainia, who was an enchantress before marrying the King of Arcainia–they have to forsake their magic and swear to never use it. Historically, this has only happened a few times. Queen Ingrid is the most recent, but otherwise it hasn’t happened in well over a century.

However, the ban that the Veneno Conclave placed from any and all magic being used in Arcainia was unprecedented. Most believe it was placed because the Conclave was worried other magic users would see it as their duty to come help Ingrid and Arcainia. (Before Queen Ingrid married the King, the Ogre was still ruling over Carabas. Other magic users very likely would have banded together to overthrow the ogre out of kindness to Ingrid, giving them an unfair advantage. As such, the Ogre remained alive until a particular miller’s daughter and her mouthy cat strolled onto the scene.)

Okay, this is a long post, so I’m ending it here. Have a lovely day, Champions! Thanks for reading!

Winners & Red Rope Updates

Good day to you, Champions! Today is another newsy, update filled day.

First of all, congratulations to the five winners of my Mother’s Day raffle:  Cindy K, Catherine K, Becky G, Johanna D, and Gia! All five winners have been emailed, and will receive their prizes as soon as they get back to me let me know which K. M. Shea e-book they would like. Thank you to everyone who entered—I hope you all had a happy Mother’s Day!

I do have more news to share on Red Rope of Fate. With the help of some of my fabulous Champions, it has come to my attention that anyone who has read Red Rope of Fate through Kindle Unlimited and then purchased the new edition of Red Rope of Fate, is still going to get stuck with the old version. Your Kindle and Amazon account have something of a memory, so even if you deleted the book off of your account and repurchased it you’d still end up with the old edition. To get the new version, you want to talk to Amazon customer service.

How can you know if you have the old edition or the new version? Easy! The first words of the new edition are… “Elves and Humans could not communicate. Tari had known this since she was young.” If you don’t have that, you’ve got the old version.

To contact customer service, go to any Amazon page and scroll to the bottom. Under the “Let Us Help You” at the very bottom there is a “Help” tab. Once on the new help page, scroll down to the “Browse Help Topics” and at the bottom of the topics list you’ll see “Need More Help?” click on that and it will bring up a sub-menu. One of the sub-menu options is “Contact Us” which will take you to a new page. It asks what you want help with (Digital services) and what the exact problem is, then asks your preferred contact method–the website says a phone call is best, but most Champions have said instant messaging works great as well. (Email, not so much.)

Then tell them you have a book in your account that you want updated because there is a new edition available.

This will work for those of you who have not gotten the updates available button, although by now everyone should have it. (Another helpful Champion who spoke to customer service said Amazon mentioned it might take a day or two for the updates available box to pop up on your account, but as it has been over a week if you haven’t gotten it now you probably need to contact customer service.)

Thus far, everyone seems pretty happy with the changes to the book– which obviously makes me a happy, happy author. Swan Lake is going through some final edits with editor #2. Hopefully next week or the week after I’ll be able to send it back to editor #1 for the last proofread, and then it should be available for preorder in early June!

That is it for today! Thank you for reading, Champions, I hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Mother’s Day Raffle

Happy Mother’s Day, champions! Originally I had planned to release a post about the roles of enchanters and enchantresses in the Timeless Fairy Tale series today, however, there ended up being a few new, more pressing, updates I need to share.

To begin with, Red Rope of Fate has gone through a massive edit/rewrite. I’ve uploaded the new version, so it is available to purchase, but for those of you who have already bought it, I talked to an Amazon support techie, who made update available in your user account. He said, “We’ve sent an e-mail to customers who own the book to notify them of the update. These customers can download the update through their “Manage Your Content and Devices” page.” So keep an eye out for the email, or check out your “manage your content and devices” page.

The Red Rope of Fate rewrite includes several new scenes told from Arion’s point of view, and I trimmed down a lot of lengthy explanations. Hopefully, you will enjoy the changes!

Up next, is the KM Shea starter pack! In order to encourage newsletter sign-up, I will now be giving away a “starter pack” to anyone who signs up for the newsletter. The starter pack includes a two page King Arthurs short story, a four page Red Rope of Fate prequel story, and a short fairytale-esque story. (The fairytale story has no ties to the timeless fairy tales world, it is a completely original story.)

If you sign up for the newsletter, a link to the starter pack will be included in your welcome email. The link will take you to a site where you can download the.mobi file for your Kindle, or view the PDF file. I am aware that many of you have already signed up for the newsletter, so in May’s newsletter– which will be going out shortly–I will include a link to the starter pack so everyone gets a chance to download it.

Finally, today marks the beginning of my Mother’s Day raffle. It’s free to enter, and out of the entrants five randomly selected winners will receive a K. M. Shea ebook of their choice. It opens today, and will close Thursday night, May 12. This raffle follows all the usual terms and conditions– I reserve the right to change the prize, shut down the raffle, etc– and you can only enter once.

As you might recall, there isn’t a rafflecopter widget for wordpress, so I have to use a link. So click here to go to the raffle!

Finally, I want to conclude with a shout out to all of you mothers! (And when I say mothers, I mean all of you wonderful ladies who have had an impact on the generations that come after you. Not all mothers have given birth, and that doesn’t make you any less amazing or inspiring to those who look up to you.) Being a mother is an incredible, tough, and simultaneously heartbreaking job, but I am so grateful for all of you! Enjoy your special day, and have a fabulous weekend! Thanks for reading, and I promise next week I’ll get that post out!

Email Blues

Whelp. I’ve made an unfortunate discovery this week. Way back in December, I tried fine-tuning my spam filter for my kmshea email. Unfortunately, it seems my inbox took that as an invitation to black-roll just about everyone who filled out a “contact me” message form and sent me an email. So, it turns out I’ve been missing about 90% of the messages and emails that were being sent to me over the past few months, and I only figured it out this week.

This is particular horrifying to me because I’ve made it a personal goal to be available and plugged-in, so to speak, with my readers. I’ve felt quite pleased with myself because it’s been going so swimmingly–or so I thought. Little did I know I was failing badly in the realm of email. So to anyone who has tried to contact me via email since December 2015, I am so sorry. I have the problem fixed, and I’ve managed to recover my emails back to mid-March so I have replied to all of those messages. Unfortunately, it seems like my December through March 15th emails are gone. If you emailed me then, please feel free to email me again! Normally I’m really good about responding, so you can usually count on a response.

Again, I apologize for this tech malfunction. On a lighter note, you can look forward to a new post tomorrow about Enchanters and Enchantresses in Timeless Fairy Tales! Thanks for reading, Champions!

Writers, don’t be discouraged!

Today I’m going to talk about something that would normally cause me to shiver in horror and run away: I’m going to discuss the first book I ever wrote, The Awakening Call.

Those of you who are longtime Champions know that I avoid talking about the first book I wrote like it is sick with the plague. I wrote it when I was about 13-years-old. It was a sci fi story that had a flavor of X-Men to it as a lot of my characters had mutant-esque powers. It’s awful, it’s clunky, and while I would prefer to forget about it I feel like it’s necessary to keep it on my computer so I remember how far I’ve come. So why am I bringing up something I would much rather forget?

First of all, I figure you guys can always use a laugh. But the main reason is that I want to encourage the budding writers out there. It’s unfortunate, but while many people want to write books, most of them don’t even finish their first book, much less write more than one. A lot of it is because writing a book is a test of determination and perseverance, but some give up because they feel discouraged. They feel that their work isn’t good enough, or that they don’t have a story of worth to tell.

Here’s the thing, first books are usually terrible. Writing a book is a lot like learning to draw or starting an instrument. It will take a lot of practice and patience before you are able to produce a high quality novel. You can see this in my own writing. My Robyn Hood books were my second and third books released on Amazon. If you compare them to either of the Snow Queen books, it gets really embarrassing.

The Snow Queen books are so much better because I have two editors that went over it, but also because in general I’m a better writer. But let’s really drive the point home and compare passages from my newest, unedited manuscript–Swan Lake–to the first book I ever wrote, The Awakening Call. Click the read more link to see the two books.

The Awakening Call (KM: Brace yourselves–seriously.)

A voice cracked over a loud speaker in the hallways.

            Bleep, “Will Officer and Luteniut Tehl report to commander Shea’s office.  Will Officer Artemis and Officer Lana report to Commander Smith’s office please, thank you.” Bleep. (KM: I kept the spelling errors in to show you how bad this was, even WITH spellcheck’s help.)

            Officer Tehl, also known as Artemis pushed a small button on his telicast and replied.  “On our way!”

            Artemis is a tall, handsome, silver haired man with piercing blue eyes in his late 40’s.  His wife, Officer Tehl, or Lana, was a tall slim black haired beauty in her mid 40’s. (KM: Wow, nothing like a good “Bash-you-over-the-head-with-a-description” to start off a book.)

            “Artemis.”

            “Yes Lana?” Artemis asked turning around nearly colliding with his wife.

            Lana narrowed her green cat eyes, tossed her head and ordered.  “We should go this way, it’s faster.” She said pointing to a long hallway on the left. (KM: Why does Lana sound like she’s 13 when it’s established she’s supposed to be in her 40s? Because I was 13 when I wrote this.)

                        Together they walked down the long colorless hallway, their footsteps echoing on the empty walls.  Hundreds of doors cluttered the walls but Lana and Artemis walked on, ignoring them.  At last they reached the end of the hallway. (KM: The descriptions…they pain me)

            “Open.” Lana commanded the door.  It beeped, a few lights flashed, and then it opened.  Lana and Artemis walked into a white room with a big metal desk in the center of the room.  Behind the desk was a small mousy-looking woman with big, round, bottle cap glasses that magnified her eyes. They perched on her nose, as she peered down at them.

            “Commander Smith will see you now!” She squeaked.

            Artemis smiled, his white teeth glinting, and said.  “Thank you!”

            “Your welcome” She squeaked falling off her stool in surprise.

            Lana and Artemis made their way toward a tall gray door in the back of the room.  They straightened their gray Galaxy Command Uniforms that had a small 4 pointed star in the left shoulder, pushed their hands into the gel pad, waited while it read their fingerprints, than entered the room once the door swung open. (KM: If you’re still reading this by this point, you have my admiration.)

            The office was large and spacious.  The floor was covered in thick navy blue carpeting.  The walls were white with a few oil paintings scattered around.  There was a huge window in the back of the room that allowed the Commander to see out into space.  An oak desk was placed in the center of the room with two large comfortable blue leather chairs in front of it.  The commander was sitting in a large silk covered chair behind the desk.  She was paging through a file, unaware of her company.  She had short dirt brown hair with sharp brown eyes.  Her smile lines were barely visible even though she had just turned 45.  She had a kind, warm face with a tall muscular build.  This was Commander Smith, one of the nine commanders of the Galaxy Command Force, and Captain of The USS America, the huge space ship that Lana and Artemis were standing in now. 

Wow. That was worse than I expected. I’ll give you a moment to recover…Okay, let’s put that monstrosity behind us and move on to the first page of Swan Lake! (Disclaimer: This page of Swan Lake hasn’t yet been edited.)

Odette missed her fingers the most. That was probably the worst part about not being human—the inability to grasp things and pick them up. On second thought, she really missed her legs too, and her arms of course…so perhaps Odette just missed being human. Irritated, she dragged her orange beak through her white feathers as she floated on the lake’s surface and waited impatiently for the sun to set.

There’s much to do tonight. The first of the casks have arrived; they’ll need to be inspected. If they leak, it will be a disaster.

The setting sun was hidden by the thick forest that surrounded most of Swan Lake, but Odette could tell by the darkly stained sky that it wasn’t much more than a sliver on the horizon. She bobbed up and down in the water and watched a large white swan peck a fluffy gray fledgling—a cygnet—the only one of their flock.

Zina got back from her solo run to Torrens. I’ll need to hear her report and make arrangements to receive the rest of our payment from the client…

The water beneath Odette’s white swan body glowed. Droplets of water began to float, levitating in the air thanks to the magic that churned around her like a current. Bells clanged, and her wings were pulled back as water encircled her in a smooth cocoon. Light shone everywhere, and the pang of her body stretching out was a familiar comfort. Her feet—her wonderfully useful human feet—touched the sandy bottom of the lake, and the light faded.

Odette had swapped her white swan feathers for barely-tamed, dirty-water-blonde hair. Her eyes were no longer dark, but a bright hazel. She stood knee-high in water, surrounded by people where previously there had been swans.

Odette stretched her arms out in front of her, feeling the peculiarity of her human limbs compared to her swan wings. “Nadia.”

Nadia—a blank-faced woman with dark brown hair that hung over her eyes—nodded. “Role Call. Pyotr and Dima.”

Do you see what I mean? Even in it’s rough format, Swan Lake is a MUCH better read than The Awakening Call. Obviously I’m much older now than I was when I wrote The Awakening Call, but the quality of writing is so much higher, and it’s not all due to age, but also to practice. I have over twenty books available on Amazon, but I’ve written an additional eight or so that will never see the light of day. I don’t regret writing them because they made me a better writer.

So, writers, please don’t be discouraged! Do you see where I started, and you see where I am now? I know it’s hard to carry through and write an entire book, but it’s an extremely rewarding experience, and you won’t get better any other way.

Well, now that I’ve ripped that mandate off, I’m going to retire to lick my wounds a.k.a. re-bury the Awakening Call file. Champions, have a lovely week. Until next time!