My first fiction series releases this week (tomorrow, actually). It’s an epic fantasy series that contains mermaids and dragons and all sorts of magical creatures. They are secondary characters, more or less, and the main characters are children who are running for their lives from a king who is trying to capture a magical boy. Magic is the only thing that makes a king, which means that a magical boy who is not born to the royal family is a danger to that royal family. So the king pursues and the children run. The story of the children is all wrapped up in the story of the king and his family, and all sorts of fairy tale villains will make their appearance in different seasons of Fairendale, which, right now, according to my writing schedule, will probably span another four years.
The first season will be available June 1, with the first episode of the season free for people to try. I’m really excited bout this release, because, like I said, it’s the first fiction that I’ve formally released to the public, even though I’ve shared some snippets of my fiction on blogs and in my newsletter. So I’m hoping that readers will fall in love with Fairendale as much as I have.
I eventually have plans to produce an audio book version of the series, but for now I’d like to read you the prologue of season 1, episode 1:
“If one were to visit the kingdom of Fairendale, it would take quite an extraordinary mind to imagine what loveliness it wore once upon a time.
This is the land all fairy tales wish they could inhabit. It is the kingdom where the Violet Sea lends its tributaries with grace and generosity, where mermaids wait just below the shallow waters to call out to those brave enough to cross their bridge from the village of Fairendale to the kingdom grounds, where colors of every hue shimmer in the great green grass and the brilliant blue sky and the lacy flowers of orange and yellow and scarlet.
The kingdom, as it used to exist, lived in a perpetual fall, that season of crisp, cool air whispering in ears and stroking cheeks and sneaking into bedroom windows to lie beside sleeping children. Now the wind is hard and biting and bitter, as if anger blows across this land. And anger is certainly justified in its blowing, as we shall soon see.
It was not so very long ago that Fairendale lost what remained of its loveliness, dear reader, but to its people, a whole lifetime has passed.
They have forgotten what their beloved children used to sound like. They have forgotten the music of laughter. They have forgotten the pleasure of busy chatter. They have forgotten joy.
This once-grand kingdom has faded into a colorless shadow land, dark and sinister and cold.
The children were the light of the kingdom, you see. And now they are missing.
Why are they missing?
Well, now, that is a story worth telling.”
I hope you enjoyed that preview. This whole series is just lovely.
Reading
I love great middle grade fiction. Middle grade fiction is my favorite genre to read, because it’s so sweet and innocent and yet also deals with some deep subjects, like divorce and disappointment and friendship and overcoming what seems like insurmountable obstacles.
Two middle grade books I recently enjoyed were Goodbye Stranger, by Rebecca Stead, and Raymie Nightingale, by Kate DiCamillo.
I’ve followed both of these authors for a very long time and have loved everything they’ve written. The latest from Rebecca Stead is about the power of love and friendship. The main character, Bridge, survived a skating accident and is now wondering what’s going on with her friends, because they’re suddenly interested in boys and things Bridge doesn’t really care about yet. She’s trying to navigate this new world, while, at the same time, trying to figure out why she was spared in the accident.
I loved the whole theme of becoming different people during this volatile time in a person’s life—which is right around the seventh grade—because it’s a transformative time in kids’ lives. I also liked that the book was written from multiple perspectives—including that of a high school girl. The book had a lot of meat in it, touching on cyber bullying, the new world of texting and the disappointment of divorce. It was everything I’ve come to expect from Rebecca Stead.
Raymie Nightingale touched on some of the same themes as Goodbye Stranger, but in a much different way. I’ve loved Kate DiCamillo for a very long time, and part of what draws me into her writing is her elegant poetic style. Raymie Nightingale is a story of friendship in the midst of tragedy. Raymie Clarke has hatched a plan that she thinks will get her father, who left her and her mother, to come back home. She’s going to win the Little Miss Central Florida Tire competition so her father will realize what he’s missing and decide he still wants to be married to her mother. It’s such a tragic beginning for the book, but, as is the case with most of Kate DiCamillo’s books, it doesn’t end tragically, though it’s not a happily-ever-after sort of ending, either. But Raymie finds strength in two lively girls. The girls all come from homes that are broken in some way or another, so they really find strength in each other. They meet for the first time while waiting for their twirling lesson to start, and their friendship blooms.
What I love most about Kate DiCamillo is that though she writes quick reads, they are not light reads. This book was full of profound insight into the life of a child of divorce. And DiCamillo is also a master of characterization. Just listen to this quote, about Louisiana Elefante’s grandmother:
“Louisiana’s grandmother did not believe in stop signs, or she did not see them, or maybe she did not think that they applied to her. Whatever the reason, the Elefante station wagon went past every stop sign without stopping or even slowing down very much.
‘They were going very, very fast, and the car emitted a lot of noises: screeches (from the piece of loose wood siding), thumps (from the door that would not stay closed), and a cacophony of mechanical grinding noises—the overworked and desperate sounds an engine makes when it has been pushed beyond its limits.“Also, from the backseat it was not possible to see Louisiana’s grandmother’s head, and so it seemed as if they were being driven around by an invisible person.
“It all felt like a dream.”
I love that there’s some humor involved in this, and Louisiana’s grandmother is a source of humor all throughout—stealing food from a funeral and showing up when the girls are watching their twirling instructor talk to the police about a stolen baton.
Both of these are books I’ll have on my shelf to read over and over again, because I don’t think one time is quite enough.
Learning
I’ve had my nose stuck in some research books, because I read a picture book for my kids a couple of years ago about Horace Pippin. Pippin was a black American painter who was self taught. But what is so remarkable about Horace Pippin is that he was wounded by a sniper shot in World War I. The shot paralyzed his right arm, which was his art arm. But instead of giving up, Pippin taught himself to paint, using his left hand to hold his right arm. He became famous in the last years of his life as one of the greatest American painters in our history.
After reading the picture book, I became fascinated by Horace Pippin. He exhibited the kind of perseverance we hope for our children. He was kind and peaceful and unafraid to share an imperfect art that he taught himself to create. So I knew I had to tell his story.
I’ve had a grand time researching this remarkable figure in history, and I’m looking forward to telling stories along the way about who he was and the significant example he gave to the American public.
Personal
While I was on Sabbath for Mother’s Day, my husband and boys brought me breakfast in bed, homemade cards that I’ll keep forever and ever and a video that they had made about all the reasons they love me. I cried, of course.
But after Mother’s Day was over, I started thinking about Father’s Day. It lands right in the middle of my book launch summer, and I knew that I would be hard-pressed to do anything even close to creating a video where my boys talked about all the things they love about their daddy. I started feeling a little pressure, because, of course, I needed to return the favor.
And then I remembered something that my husband has told me time and time again:
You don’t owe me.
See, we live in a world where people give us things and we think we have to somehow give them something back. It’s natural. But when you’re in a marriage, things don’t work that way. Just because I single parent-it one night so he can go out with the guys doesn’t mean that he is obligated to return the favor and single-parent it for me. Of course things will even out. But we don’t owe each other anything.
It can be hard to wrap our minds around this—that someone would just do something because they love us and they don’t expect anything in return, but I’m wondering now how I might be able to apply that even to my business. How might I be able to give without anything expected in return? Of course you couldn’t do it all the time, because there are bills to pay and mouths to feed, but how much more generous might it make us if we didn’t expect anything in return?
I think maybe it’s worth a try.
Watching
For my husband’s birthday, which is way too close to Mother’s Day to really give him a great celebration, we went to see Captain America: Civil War. I just have to say that I am so impressed with the screenwriters that work for Marvel. I’m not really a comic book sort of girl, but every movie Marvel has produced has been amazing. The dialogue is natural, the characters are well developed, the plot lines are always exciting and new. I love the science and the other-worldliness and the themes that run through the movies. I just love everything about them.
Christopher Markus and Stephen McFeely wrote this particular screenplay, and it was just as fantastic as everything else Marvel has produced. Well done, guys.
Visit racheltoalson.com to get a free book from my starter library. If you ever have any questions about great books to read or the craft of writing or creativity, leave them in the comments, and I’ll answer them in future blogs.
