Tag: writing

Posted in Fae Child, The Fae Child Trilogy

Thirteen Days to go…

Posted on by Jane-Holly

Fae Child is not a traditional YA (whatever that means), because the protagonist is very young (8). However, the dual POV style I wrote it in means that for a chunk of the narrative we are following her adult father and his trials as he tries to find his daughter.

I think I was influenced by the Louis L’amour book “Down the Long Hills” which splits the narrative between two young pioneer children who are trying to find safety and survive in the wild, and the adult Native American who is tracking them. My father read us almost all the Louis L’amour books when we were kids/teens and this was one of my favorites. Having a child be a main character in a book meant for adults has always been fascinating to me.

That being said, I’m aware Fae Child is written very tamely and I think you should be perfectly safe to read it to your kids or allow them to read it on their own. And it’s short! Still a novel, though—I checked.

I am marketing Fae Child as YA because I split the difference between the adult and child POVs. Perhaps it fits as Middle Grade, but there are adult themes in it, as well as a body-copying, possibly mom-killing entity.

I hope Fae Child finds its readers, and that they love it. Maybe that is you? Enjoy! And stay tuned for Abbie’s continuing adventure in the sequel “The Furious Host.”

If you preorder Fae Child you can enter my giveaway for a new Kindle Paperwhite and some of my favorite ebooks! Click here for details: bit.ly/37nDMlP

Posted in Fiction, Publishing, The Fae Child Trilogy

The Furious Host

Posted on by Jane-Holly

Fae Child publishes in less than a month, and I am already nearly done with drafting the sequel, The Furious Host. Inkshares, my publisher, is running a contest for the end of 2020 and I have entered book two into it!

Eight years after returning from the Otherworld Abbie Brown has to go back, this time on purpose, when her parents go missing.

The Furious Host

I crowdfunded Fae Child, as most of you are probably aware, through Inkshares’ crowdfunding platform, but the newest contest does not require individual preorders in order to secure publishing. I think Inkshares may be pivoting away from purely crowdfunding, while also keeping that option open for authors, but that is just conjecture.

Regardless, this contest is driven by reader engagement (shares, links back, clicks, and page reads) as well as what stories Inkshares is interested in. Please click here: bit.ly/thefurioushost and follow the story. There ARE minimal Fae Child spoilers on the project page, but I tried to keep things vague.

So, click around but don’t read anything, haha! You may also preorder the book — if I don’t win publishing I’ll end the preorder phase and you will be refunded. I won’t be pushing for preorders like I did for Fae Child, and am just leaving it as an option for you to show your interest and support.

Thank you for your time and support, I appreciate you!

Posted in Short Stories

Passageways

Posted on by Jane-Holly

A long, narrow way, typically having walls either side, that allows access between buildings or to different rooms within a building.

When you hear the word ‘passageway’ you may think of a hallway. You have one in your home: a space that is in-between. Neither here, nor there. You don’t sit down and hang out in a hallway, you travel through it into other rooms. It is what referred to as a ‘liminal space,’ a threshold between two realities.

In this case, a threshold between the room you left and the room you’re going to. Another example of a liminal space is the airport. You don’t hang out in the airport on purpose, you travel through it in order to go from one destination to another.

In the same way the upcoming Passageways anthology is a hallway between different worlds. One of those doors opens to the universe of The Fae Child Trilogy, to a short story that I have written to give you a taste of what you can experience in my full-length book. Once you step out of my story you will find another door open to you, perhaps the one into the universe of The Faoii Chronicles (pronounced “fa-YEE”). Written by the very talented Tahani Nelson, her story will transport you into a world of warrior women and magic.

Another few doors might take you into the science fiction realms of Evan Graham, or S. E. Soldwedel, or to Susan Hamilton’s urban fantasy universe. The beauty of Passageways is that you don’t have to only travel from one place to another, you can go to all of the different destinations that are connected through this liminal literary space.

Once you get a feel for each writer’s style and book series, you can move more fully into their ‘universe’ and read their full-length novels. I am very happy to have been invited to take part in the inaugural edition of Passageways, and I hope you will pick up a copy once it is published at the end of the year.

Posted in Fiction, Short Stories

Writing Fairy Stories

Posted on by Jane-Holly
a second-person tiny adventure

I have been writing choose-your-own-adventure type stories on a well-known message board for longer than I’d like to admit. (Mainly because they’re still ongoing and I haven’t managed to finish one yet!) The current political climate/global pandemic has been a muse killer, and I haven’t been writing much.

Of course, I’ve edited Fae Child and done a lot of ‘marketing’ for its release. Which is to say, I’ve done a lot of staring at my laptop and pretending I know what I’m doing. And yet, regardless of all that, I wish to always be creating NEW stories. It’s the spark for creating something new out of the ether that has been hard to grasp lately, so I have been dipping my toes into the creative water, so to speak.

Writing something new, and yet familiar. Something collaborative (with the ‘players’ who read along on the message board and vote on options at different points in the story), and with an ENDPOINT so I don’t just ramble on for a year or so.

And so, Adventures in Winter was created, a story set in the Fae Child universe. And you can read the results on my Ko-Fi! I will be posting the story of Treadle, a Winter fairy/pixie who has more bravado than brains and is on an EPIC QUEST to find their kinfolk, Pan, and possibly recover a long lost magical item. Will they succeed? Will they die?! It’s up in the air at this point.

Follow along on Ko-Fi, and I hope you enjoy.

Posted in Mutants Uprising

Nerdist Contest Week One

Posted on by Jane-Holly

Hello all!

We are one week into the Nerdist Science Fiction contest, and Mutants: Uprising (billed as X-Men meets Call of Cthulhu) is holding steady in 2nd place. This is awesome, but other entrants are right on our heels, looking to dethrone us! Order counts are low all around right now, and YOUR preorder could make a huge difference in this contest. There are just a few more weeks in the contest.

So, what is “second person”? Usually books are written in first person (I went to the store and dropped my groceries in the parking lot) or third person (She went to the store and dropped her groceries in the parking lot). Second person puts YOU right into the action (You went to the store and dropped your groceries in the parking lot). Mutants: Uprising is written in second person present tense, immersing you in the world and giving the narrative an immediacy that you’re not going to find in another book.

I wrote up a new synopsis for the story:

Mutants: Uprising is a second person POV novel about humans with super-human abilities trying to overcome the shadowy organizations that want to control them. The story centers on Jane “Zombie” Meyers, a relatively new leader of an underground cell of the League of Mutants, a terrorist organization, who is trying to make a name for herself while rising above her enforcer roots. Along the way she uncovers a plot against the pregnant founder of a second-chance shelter for homeless mutant teens, and has to work hard to save her from harm, figure out what the ulterior motives of her enemies are, all while earning the other woman’s trust. Oh, and there are horrors from other dimensions trying to break into ours, and state governments who want to register all mutated humans “for the greater good.” All in a day’s work.

See Jane. See Jane Save the Day.

>>Preorder here!<<

Thank you for your time! Have a great day!