My Brother Bought Me $25 Worth of Paranormal-Fantasy Romance : An Unboxing

 

As you may have seen in my recent Christmas Haul post, my brother bought me a pretty exciting present this year: a $25 box of Romance novels he purchased wholesale through an eBay retailer, themed around the premise of "Paranormal Romance." 

Here's the backstory as to why this is all so hilarious, because I realize that this is not the typically gift purchased by a 19-year-old college dude: 

My brother has never really been one for Romance romance, per se. He's an avid Fantasy reader, a genre in which there's typically at least a hint of romance present, but he's never felt any special kind of kinship to cupid's genre... the furthest he's gone was probably a couple of years ago, when he and I decided to read Stephanie Meyers' Twilight one summer. The reread was a great time, and one of the best parts about it was his teenaged perspective on some of the most iconic aspects of that book. 

Once I started reading Romance myself, a couple of years ago, he's enjoyed sharing this genre with me, too... not necessarily as a dedicated fan of the genre itself, but a willing participant in listening to my own effusions about what I've been loving (and hating) in the books I've been reading. 

(In particular, one of my favorite series from the past year - Sarah MacLean's The Bareknuckle Bastards trilogy - became so popular with him, that he still is able to refer to it, months later, by name. He's never read the books, and doesn't plan on it, but simply listening to my own half-garbled ramblings about the characters and plot beats made enough of an impression on him so that he's been bringing it up in random conversations ever since.) 

So, when a certain eBay retailer began making the rounds on BookTube and Bookstagram earlier this year - like in this video from Chandler Ainsley - of course I joked about it with my brother, just a little. I have a bit of a habit (or at least I did, back in the pre-Covid days) of trawling the shelves of my local Value Village for compelling backlisted mass-market-paperback Historical Romances I found intriguing; now there was this convenient way of amassing a large quantity of them, all at once, for only a little over a dollar a piece! 

On a lark, I added it to my Christmas list, and sent it off to my family, not really thinking anything of it. It was only after a chance conversation with my brother towards the beginning of December, that I managed to guess it outright: my brother had purchased a giant box of romance novels for me as a present. That was only half of the challenge, though, as he assured me that he'd included a set genre request that he was positive I wouldn't be able to guess. But that just made me laugh. 

"As long as it's not vampires!" 

to be entirely fair, it wasn't just vampires

So: 20 titles, for about $25, all backlisted, all, by his choice, Paranormal Romance. To my brother's credit, it really wasn't just vampires, something I was easily able to ascertain simply as I took each of the books themselves out of the box. Torsos and tattoos and claw marks and pensive stares... oh my.

All in all, unboxing all of the titles only made me more excited to delve deeper. Within 24 hours, I'd sat down with my book journal and a pen, and painstakingly researched each on Goodreads, in order to ascertain their average rating, how many ratings had been uploaded in total, and sleuth out some general plot theming. 

Two were set in small, fictional towns in Oregon, while two others dealt specifically with haunted houses in Savannah, Georgia. One involved a family of magic users in New Orleans, while two others were not of this earth at all, involving aliens and a cyborg with intergalactic origins. Amongst all twenty, there were dream-walkers, psychics, angels, aliens, ghosts, immortal fae beings, protectors of Olympus, and even a Celtic demigod, with vampires and werewolves ending up as a bit of a minor population. (Even within the two werewolf books involved, both of them involve a male werewolf falling in love with a dog-adjacent female professional: a veterinarian, and a K-9 handler!) One book features a focus on a spirit from the "Navaho nation," which - thanks to its 1994 publication date - will no doubt be the most problematic in the whole box, while another book included doesn't even appear to be a Paranormal Fantasy at all, and instead, has to deal with a Las Vegas mob family. 

Needless to say, I'm positively thrilled. 

So, here's the rundown of what, exactly, was in the box:

Master of Wolves, Angela Knight

The third book in the Mageverse series (a title I had to read three times through, as I thought it was "Megaverse" twice), this book has an average of 4.16 out of a little under 4,000 reviews, and was published in 2006. A werewolf goes undercover with the police force of a nearby town to find out who covered up the murder of his best friend, when he ends up catching feelings for... the K-9 dog handler for the precinct. 

Touch the Dark, Karen Chance

The first in its series, this book averages a 3.71 out of 35K reviews, and was published in 2007. It involves both a ghost-talker main character who has to work under a master vampire... and its description involves the joy-inducing inclusion of both "a bloodsucking Mafioso" and a "vampire Senate." 

The Guardian, Sherrilyn Kenyon

Not only is this the twentieth installment in its Darkhunter series, but it also stacks up a pretty impressive 4.34 average rating out of 18K reviews. Originally published in 2011, this is the one with the most dizzying concept, involving Dreamhunters, the Nether Realm, a missing god of Dreams who is needed on Olympus, and more. Please tell me I don't need to read the previous nineteen installments in this series to get a good grip on it? 

Dream Eyes, Jayne Ann Krentz 

The second in the Dark Legacy series, this book has a 3.98 out of 5 on Goodreads, with approximately 6,000 reviews. Published in 2014, it involves one of my favorite setups of the whole collection: a psychic counselor, protected by a psychic investigator, trying to track down a serial killer who's seemed to be targeting, you guessed it, psychics. Marvelous! 

The Crossing, Joy Nash

Number six in the Immortals series, this has a 4 average from 1,200 reviews, and was published in 2008. A Celtic demi-god rock star has to start taking life more seriously, when someone makes an attempt on the life of a fae child in his care, and involves a protagonist named "Artemis," who appears to be some kind of witch. 

The Phantom of the Bathtub, Eugenia Riley

Out of all of the books on this list, it has one of the lowest number of ratings - 3.46  average out of 246 total - and I'm willing to blame at least part of that on the jaw-droppingly hideous cover. Published in 2006, this is the one that I've been cheekily summarizing as "Everyone in this haunted house wants to kiss me," as a recently moved-in tenant battles out a love triangle involving not only the mysterious hunk next door, but the ghost of a sweet-talker who lurks inside her bath. Updated info for this read on Goodreads also promises ghosts in the square, a werewolf in the garden, an axe-slashing woman, a knife-wielding houseboy, and many more. 

Servant: the Acceptance, L. L. Foster

The second of its series, this read has a 3.87 out of only 511 ratings on Goodreads, and was published in 2008. This is one of the two books involving angels in this box, but at first glance, appears to be the eminently less readable one: a "God warrior" angel is sent to Earth, to serve as protection for streetwalkers, and comes face-to-face with the only person who makes this celestial being feel "human": a detective named Luther Cross. Heavy handed names aside - Grabielle as a riff on Gabriel, the dual gut punch of both "Luther" and "Cross" - one of the worst things about it, is the terrible cover. 

Nico, Sarah Castile

Remember the one I said wasn't even a Paranormal Romance? This is it! Though with a darkened, tattooed six pack on the cover, I think it's fine to make a mistake. It has a 3.94 out of 2,600 ratings, and was only published four years ago, and follows a Las Vegas mob king who falls for a girl from a rival crime family. Not vampires, but still sounds decent! 

All I Want for Christmas is a Vampire, Kerrelyn Sparks

How topical, for something that was a Christmas present! The fifth installment in the delightfully named Love at Stake series, this title carries an impressive 4.22 out of 12.6K reviews on Goodreads, especially because it was published back in 2008. This story involves not only a vampire-hating heroine, but a reverse bodyguard trope, a best friend stuck in a psych ward, and desperate attempts to prove that the vampire population is real to a deeply apathetic police force. 

Dangerous Tides, Christine Feehan

The fourth in a series about the Drake sisters - a magical family full of inherited gifts - this installment is rated a 4.3 out of 5, with 11.5K reviews, which I feel like is a pretty good showing for this list. It was published in 2008, and the sister in question has been blessed with the ability to heal people, which is pretty in keeping with the concept of water, and the title of the novel. As an overall concept, it's pretty tame compared to some of the others on this list. 

The Empath, Bonnie Vanek

The only other werewolf book on this list, this title is ranked a 3.48 with 431 reviews, and was published in 2007 as the first of its series. It plays into the classic romance trope of "fated mates," with a werewolf seeking out his mate, an empath, in order to bring her home and strengthen the pack from which he was recently ousted. The mate, in a wonderful play to type, is a veterinarian. 

The Summoning, Heather Graham

While the cover looks a lot more like a Suspense / Thriller than a real Paranormal Fantasy, it is - I kid you not - the 27th in its series, from the Krewe of Hunters. Set in Savannah, this book follows a woman living in a haunted bed-and-breakfast, who routinely holds seances as entertainment for guests, and really, shouldn't she know better, then? It was published only last year, and is rated as a 4.08 with around 1,700 reviews. 

My Fair Succubi, Jill Myles 

The third in its series with a 4.1 out of 1.4K rating, this was published in 2010, and while other books on this list feature love triangles, this one is a doozy: a succubus has to chose between a fallen angel named Noah, and her old vampire master, named Zane. We'll see how this one plays, though word-correct would have me mention here that "succubus" is the appropriate solitary form for the being, while "succubi" would suggest a plurality. 

Midnight Lover, Rosemary Laurey

Number five in a series, with a 3.9 rating out of only 298 reviews, published in 2007. Not a lot that's promising from those stats alone... until you read a little of the material. "Dark Falls, Oregon"? Getting better. A heroine who's "a reporter out for a hot story" while working in a paranormal organization, and a vampire CEO who doesn't trust her? We're almost there. Just straight up putting the words "vampire corporate espionage" on the back cover might have been a better selling point. 

The Portal, Sharon Pope 

The 33rd installment in the Silhouette Shadows line, but not a part of any series, this book has a 3 rating, right on the target, out of only 10 reviews... which should be expected, being that it was published in 1994. While the date excuses the nearly-awesome cover, it definitely doesn't the subject matter, as an archaeologist excavating a "Navaho" site lets loose a "shadow man" spirit from the other side, named Zakoura Kree. It's not worth it getting into everything wrong with that description, when it's only what we know from the outside cover... though I'm willing to guess that what's inside is probably worse. 

How to Lose an Extraterrestrial in 10 Days, Susan Grant

This installment is the third in its series, with a 3.99 rating out of only 514 reviews, and was published in 2007, which explains every artistic choice represented on the cover. These choices appear to have gotten much better over time, in what I can judge from a quick Google Image search... which is also how I learned that this book was repackaged for Amazon just this past year as Cyborg and the Single Mom. (You go get that ebook money, Susan Grant!) This book follows an ex-evil fugitive cyborg hiding out on earth, and the single suburban mother who keeps his presence a secret. In the words of my brother, "It sounds like she really knows her audience."

Minion, L. A. Banks

The first in its series, with a 3.45 out of 6,000 review, this book was published in 2004. If I could give you a truly insane five-word summary of one of the books on this list, it would be this one, and the response I'd give you is "spoken word artist vampire hunter," as that is the occupation of our heroine. Whether or not she's any good at either career path is something we'll have to find out. 

Hostage to Pleasure, Nalini Singh

There were two names on this list that made me do a double take, because they're easily recognizable for fans of Romance, and this was one of them... which makes sense, because despite the fact that this book was published in 2008, it was already the fifth in its series, and when you search her name on Goodreads, there are seven full pages of results. It has a 4.19 out of 5 stars, with 28K reviews under its belt, making this one of the more popular titles on this list, and follows two rival alien species from different planets: one, a psychic being who's been enslaved with a neural implant, and the other, a leopard shifter. There is only so much more I can say about the cover materials about this book before someone's brain is going to explode. 

The Darkest Lie, Gena Showalter 

The other name on this list that seriously set off my "I know you" radar, this is the sixth in its series, published in 2010, with a 4.29 rating out of 5 stars, with over 33.9K ratings to back those numbers up. Far and away, this is the closest on this list I'm going to get to a "guaranteed enjoyable" read... which is weird, when you consider how out-of-the-box this concept is: a keeper of the demon of lies, Gideon, is "forced to his knees in agony" whenever he speaks the truth, but can tell when other people are acting false, which makes it pretty weird when a woman he's never met, claiming to be a demon-possessed immortal and his long-lost wife, turns up. (And in case you're wondering about Showalter's current title numbers, her Goodreads page claims she's written over 70 books, and I'm inclined to believe her.) 

At his insistence, I then proceeded to rank-order the entire lot. 

Here's how they ended up stacking up, just after a first-glance-peek and a little Internet recon. Top line is "Excited," middle is "Ambivalent," and bottom level is "Less than Stoked." (I would make it "Less than Stoker-ed," but again, rather a dearth of vampire books in this set.) 

Any chance you've read any of the titles from within this collection? Which do you think I should pick up first? Let me know, in the comments below!

I Can't Believe It's 2020 and I'm Doing a Christmas Haul

Okay, okay, I know what you might be thinking: this feels a little gauche, doesn't it? You would think I would know better than to brag about the material possessions I was gifted - through the generosity, love, and family time of Christmas - especially in this, the flaming trash heap that has been 2020. 

Particularly because I haven't even managed to come up with enough regular, non-haul blogposts this year, either. You've barely gotten a glimpse at what I've been reading, let alone what I've been adding to my bookshelves! (To be fair, though, that kind of imbalance between reading and purchasing has been another constant of my 2020, too.) 

Might as well duck my head, stay a swift course, and head towards the horizon of the new year with as little fanfare as possible. Might as well keep my mouth shut until the slate is wiped clean again. 

Or... I could just tell you. 

Hang the consequences! I got cool new stuff, and I want to tell you about it! Especially because as you might have guessed, a lot of them are books. And isn't that what you kind folks are here for, anyways? 

(Plus, a lot of them were thrifted. You'll see in a minute.) 

From Sibling #1, the List Detective: Vintage Cooking and Back to Kitchen Basics  

My eldest sibling - the closest in age to me - really honed in on one of the top requests from my list: the long-sought, difficult-to-find An Everlasting Meal, from Tamar Adler. Hardcover editions of this book are practically considered modern collectibles, and I've been searching for a paperback copy to call my own since I read it for the first time last December, and my sister absolutely came through. I screamed when I opened it, and I'm already considering making it a top entry on my TBR for 2021. 

On top of that, she also picked up another request from my Christmas list, which had a pretty large focus on the intersections of agriculture, sustainability, economic responsibility, and more, so she grabbed The Good Food Revolution, by Will Allen (with Charles Wilson). Both of these titles were purchased from Powell's in Portland - one of the top bookish meccas I've missed in the past year of sheltering at home - which was basically just a gift in itself, as well. 

The place she really outdid herself, though, was in a set of books she didn't even have to pay for: Thoughts for Food, Thoughts for Buffets, and Thoughts for Festive Foods, all claimed off a "give away" stack at her girlfriend's grandmother's house. They don't contain pictures - they barely contain anything other than instructions! - but they're definitely vintage, based on the copyright stamp, as well as the fact that I can find next to no information about them online anywhere. 

From Sibling #2, the Thrifter: Value Village Superhaul 

My second youngest sibling - one who also gifted me a cute set of tortoiseshell earrings, a green frog-shaped candle, and an amber glass baking dish - felt that their present could be beefed up a little by the addition of some Value Village-sourced cookbooks, too. To be fair, I adore vintage cookbooks (as you might have surmised from this list), and the ones they picked up held a bit of surprise. 

The Chocolate Collection is really something akin to a Taste of Home cookbook, if they had partnered with M&Ms for a full third of it. While some of the recipes inside are frustratingly, well, full of M&Ms, some of them - like those for homemade pudding, no bake pies, and fanciful cheesecakes - definitely seem promising. 

They also picked up a near-perfect copy of Julee Rosso and Sheila Lukin's seminal work The Silver Palate cookbook, which is honestly a real find, and would have made for a great present, if only they hadn't fallen into the classic pitfall of knowing someone's taste perfectly: I already have a copy! Thankfully, my mom doesn't, so the cookbook has been dutifully added to her shelves, too. 

The real exciting addition to this present, though, was in the inclusion of a cookbook I've never even heard of before: The Margaret Rudkin Pepperidge Farm Cookbook. I quickly realized, upon doing a little research, that the fact I had no idea what it was, was pretty embarrassing on my part. Not only was it the first cookbook to ever make the New York Times best-seller list, but it is widely considered a classic cookbook of the '60s. The founder of the Pepperidge Farm line of supermarket staples - like Goldfish, Milano cookies, and what was, in the '50s, the first refrigerated puff pastry offered on the market - uses this healthy tome as a sort of cookbook-cum-memoir, detailing her life and culinary experiences, including a chapter on cooking from "vintage" cookbooks herself! 

From Mom and Dad (and also myself): an "Aspirational Farmer" stack 

It's the classic mom-and-dad conundrum: what do you get your kids for Christmas... especially when you've got four of them, all in their adult years? The appropriate answer, I think, is to give them carte blanche on at least a couple of their presents. This is always an especially good idea when it comes to books, as it allows for the present-receiver to unwrap their own deliberate selections... as well as source them from the most cost-responsible retailers possible. All it takes is an hour or two surfing Book Outlet, and voila: a stack of books for your kid for Christmas, for under $30. Everybody wins! 

So, thank you, Mom and Dad, for this exciting new selection of reads, pretty much dedicated to the small patch of land I keep in our backyard, whose reinvigoration I am already looking forward to in April. The titles I picked out: 

Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, Novella Carpenter

The New Farm: Our Ten Years on the Front Lines of the Good Food Revolution, Brent Preston 

The Everything Backyard Farming Book, Neil Shelton

Grow What You Love: 12 Plant Food Families to Change Your Life, Emily Murphy 

Grow Cook Eat, Willi Galloway

The one small outlier on this list, is a different sort of mental focus, but still in keeping along the same vein: Good and Cheap: Eat Well on $4 a Day, by Leanne Brown. I originally heard about this book on an episode of the Dinner Sisters podcast this Fall, and really loved not only the recipes highlighted from the book itself, but also, the message behind the publication: Brown developed the concept during her Masters in Food Policy at Brown, and it was written in order to provide a free PDF of nutritional inspiration for those on very tight budgets, particularly the SNAP program of food stamp benefits. After the free download became a viral sensation, the print run was funded primarily through a successful Kickstarter project, with every purchase making another available to a family in need. It became the #1 cookbook ever funded on Kickstarter, and then quickly progressed to a New York Times bestseller during its second print run. In total, according to Leanne Brown's website, "over 96,000 printed copies of Good and Cheap to people in need," and "have also sold more than 115,000 copies" to low-income family groups and organizations "at huge discount." 

From my Younger Brother, the Reader: Filling in Some Blank Shelf Space... in a Big Way 

Earlier in 2020 - shortly after Covid shuttered his senior year of high school early, which also brought an end to the typical seven-to-ten hours a day he spent there - I finally relinquished a bit of a grasp on my bookshelves, and decided that it was time to let my then-18-year-old brother try his hand at reading some Tamora Pierce. 

What I didn't expect, was how quickly he'd make his way through her entire canon... including, surprisingly, the books of hers I'd never actually wound up reading myself. 

One of such series was the Alanna books, her first of their kind in the Tortall Universe. While I'd originally tried to read them in my early twenties, I did so only after I'd already fallen in love with Kel, Ali, and Beka... and unfortunately, it was pretty difficult to get into her earlier works, when I'd been reading so much more of her contemporary series. So, I passed on the rest of them, and simply contented myself to rereading Beka Cooper: Terrier for the sixth or seventh time. 

This did not work for my brother, who very quickly thereafter, insisted on filling out the rest of my collection for me, bestowed with the promise that I'd do my best to quickly catch up "to his level." I can't tell you exactly how I felt in having my eight-years-younger brother call me a "fake fan" of one of my longest literary obsessions, but it wasn't great, and I'm looking forward to reading as much Pierce as I can in the new year. 

While the Alanna books were a welcome collection to add to my already-bursting shelves, they also weren't the only reads my brother thought it was important to give me for Christmas. Not when another one of the requests on my list looked so alluring, too. 

You might have seen one of these boxes floating around on BookTube earlier this year: a collection of twenty titles, purchased wholesale from a warehouse of backlisted mass-market-paperback romance novels, for about $25. Who could resist such temptation, right? Especially, of course, when you would get to choose the theme of what came inside the box, too. 

But there's a lot more information for that one to come later... mainly because I'm still mentally processing all of the abs on these covers, myself. So hang on for a couple of days, and I'll give you an update, on how exactly I reacted when I saw that my brother had bought me a box of twenty backlisted Paranormal Fantasy romance novels. 

What fun reads did you find under your tree? Got any cool plans for any giftcards you got? Let me know, in the comments below!

NaNoWriMo 2020: Fantasy Names are Hard, and Never Underestimate the Power of a Great Outline

If you had asked me what my NaNoWriMo project for 2020 was going to be back in July, I would have given you nothing except a mildly panicked grimace. Whereas in past years, I have had an idea kicking not just months, but usually years in advance, this time, I knew I was short on them. Thankfully, I was not short on initiative, because in August, I hatched a plan. 

I was missing the creativity and unbridled limits that come from writing pure Fiction, something I hadn't taken up the opportunity to write for what was, essentially a couple of years. My 2019 NaNo project was a personal Memoir, while the year before that saw Fiction, yes, but in the form of an adaptation, one that came with its own set of limits. Truthfully, I hadn't written from-the-ground-up, only-mine-and-mine-alone Fiction since the previous year, 2017, when my NaNo took the form of a series of short form Horror pieces. It's been quite some time since I pondered the idea of writing a full-length Fictional novel. 

So, I spent my July embarking on a secret project: collecting as many strange and exciting writing prompts as I could find in ready access on Pinterest. I decided that in throughout the course of August, I was going to try and write a prompt a day of pure fiction. With every entry, I hoped to generate at least 500 words of text, as well as a working title and blurb for what form this hypothetical book might take. Granted, this project was doomed from the outset: I was already contending with a wedding in the extended family, the prep work for which I was eagerly involved, and at least half of the month would be spent in a completely different state with my family.

Long story short, I didn't get to my 30 fiction pieces... but I did get to 20! And instead of the simple parameters I'd given them, they ballooned up and out, to 1,000+ words for a complete scene, titles that I already found compelling, and blurbs that felt readable even then, in their bare bones format. Now, instead of stressing over an absence of ideas, I suddenly found myself grappling with a surplus. 

Thankfully, my younger brother was game to serve as a secondary sounding board. He came up with the next step: I would pick my top ten, then my top five, and after I was confident in my choices, I would send them to him to review. I was actually able to winnow my way down to four... when the unthinkable happened. 

It was in rereading my favorite choices that I began to clue in on the fact that two of them in particular might not be so different after all... in fact, they might just be a part of the same story! Crazy enough, my brother - at this point many, many miles away from me, pursuing his Musical Education degree at an in-state college on the other side of Washington - independently came to the same conclusion when reading through my entries, too. All of a sudden, the choice seemed clear: the hybrid story of the two plot lines and characters I'd charted back in August, would become the basis upon which a whole NaNo project would stand. 

Which introduced an entirely new concept to the table: this new, fun idea, was a Fantasy novel. I've never written Fantasy before. 

I make it a point of personal preference that every project I undertake is something new and exciting for me... a chance to stretch my boundaries and learn something new. I've written Thriller, Satire, YA Contemporary, Horror, and Memoir... but Fantasy was a whole other animal in comparison. 

But it also has a lot of personal significance for both me and my brother, as one of our favorite genres. Playing D&D with college friends is the closest I'd come to engaging with it directly before; the rest of my experience comes from a life of loving books, movies, and TV shows that take place in these far off, fascinating places, engage with creatures and forms of life beyond the stretches of human experience, that rely on complex systems of magic for which there are rules, and foreign diplomacy for which there must be a colorful and strange map hidden in the front endpages. 

Fantasy, as my brother and I responded to each other, was hard. 

But it was already there: the seeds of an idea germinating in my head, sending off shoots of character ideas and plot twists and the visions of a vaguely-Basquean castle towering above a bustling city marketplace, and the silent, strange woods behind a venerated school of magic. I knew I had to carry the story forward. 

Working Title: Ferdy Fernsby and the Jewel of the City 

It was the chance of a lifetime: a chance to get off of her farm, away from her overreaching stepmother, and into the wide world, where someone with money might find a use for her particular skill set. While lockpicking, stealth, and sleight of hand might not be a strong argument for employment in the boonies of farm country, they were absolutely an asset in the glittering city of Armarhia. 

If only Gemma had been the only one who had gotten the offer. An enigmatic and furtive backer had set the challenge – steal the jewel that protected the castle – to a whole network of rogues that spanned across the entire city. Now, the only group of people she’d felt included in in the past, had become her direct competition, racing to see who could reach the castle and the jewel first. 

But – unfortunately – Gemma isn’t completely on her own. For some reason, Jac has attached himself to her side, claiming an alliance that Gemma isn’t in any kind of mood to honor. However annoying having a rival rogue tagging along may be, it beats traveling alone. You never know when you’ll need to trip someone in front of a charging bear, right?

Together, Gemma and Jac have to traverse the city, find the hidden jewel, steal it, and deliver it to the hands of their secretive, unknown employer, before anyone else can… unless, of course, they kill each other on the way. But with so many others looking to take on that task themselves, they might as well work together… especially when the jewel ends up being much more trouble than any of the rogues had ever expected. 

    Ferdinand Fernsby was raised with the knowledge that he was destined for greatness. But there’s only so much magic you can learn growing the melons in your family garden, and drying out the laundry with a gust of wind… that’s why his mother bought him a placement at one of the most prestigious magic schools on the continent, far away from his own home kingdom. 

But while Ferdy has spent his days imagining endless libraries, fascinating classes, and connecting with the realm’s other most talented up-and-coming magic users, he in no way bargained for his unexpected classmate: the chaos-prone prince, Louis. While he struggles to keep up in his studies - combatting bullies and helping his accidental friend along the way - he finds out that it’s not just Louis’s own grasp of magic that’s going haywire… a malevolent force seems to be threatening Armarhia itself.  

    It’s only from an overheard conversation that he learns about the bounty on the jewel that protects their kingdom. There are plenty of forces who’d be interested in seeing those walls fall vulnerable, and Ferdy and Louis aren’t about to let that happen. 

    Now, the two boys are on a race against time to fix magic and save the kingdom… if they ever make it back to the castle at all, that is. Not only are other magicians and neighboring armies are out looking for them, but that’s not even mentioning the treacherous landscape that stretches between here and home.  

And to think, all he wanted to do was go to school!  

Usually, in my past NaNo experiences, this is where I would get to work: I'd put meat on the bones that I had grown, fleshing it out - albeit partially - into a functional outline, from which I could build into bigger and better ideas as I wrote it out throughout the project. However, like I said, there was that wedding to attend to, and September passed without so much as a backward glance; October, my birth month, similarly yielded no new ideas. By the time Halloween hit, and the end credits of The Lost Boys scrolled across our television screen downstairs, I figured I was doomed. 

So, on Day One of NaNo, I set myself an easy compromise. Just write a couple of chapter's worth of outlines, I reasoned. You can build off of them in the future. It's no use getting started without knowing where you were going. And it went well! In fact, it went so well, that the next day, instead of getting bogged down with writing an opening scene or something, I decided to continue simply writing my detailed outline instead. 

After a couple of days, I found myself encountering the same madness that had made an appearance in my August prompts: my couple of paragraphs a day, had suddenly gained enough detail and nuance to warrant three or four pages per chapter. I wasn't really writing a novel - there was no description, barest hints of dialogue - but suddenly, my work was looking more and more like I was really committing to the outline, the story flow, the escalation of the plot. By the end of the first week, I felt like I had made the right choice; by the end of the project, I felt like if there was ever a NaNo project of mine that could be a real novel, it would be this one. 

Notes from Writing: What's in a Name?

An offshoot from my brother's conversations about Fantasy Being Hard, was a more specific set of qualifiers: Fantasy Names are Hard in Particular. As someone who has no patience for lackluster insertions of high-scoring Scrabble letters into Fantasy genre names at whim - ie, Nyx, Zephyr, Veraen, etc. - I felt like I was stuck either playing to stereotype, or unable to connect characters with names that suited them appropriately. 

In this way, my biggest foible, in writing Fantasy was - at least at the start - generating names that sounded significantly "other," but also made sense. So, I began to rely on a longstanding practice of mine, which I trot out not only when I'm writing in this genre, but in general: I become a movie director, and try to "cast" someone from the real world - or a similar character from another fictional work - into my own project, someone close enough to the character I'm trying to name so that the mental image maintains its clarity.

For instance, when writing in 2016, I needed a general, everyman sort of character, who would find himself in extraordinary circumstances in a satirical world; he became "Guy," named partially for the character from Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451, and partially because he became, literally, just some Guy. Another character in the same story was a hit man, someone who would occasionally become dark and prone to introspection, someone found in suits and sunglasses, but who still carried an innately redeemable storyteller's quality; because of this - and the fact that he was, at his core, a hit man for hire - dubbed him "Cash," like Johnny. 

In a Fantasy world, this came in clutch. The names feel at home in the world I created, but aren't always what you'd expect, and find their origins in a wide and ranging myriad of media, celebrity culture, and occasionally, gardening tools. 

• One of my main characters - a disaster prone Prince - originally started life as an "Albert," as I tried to cast around for a suitably gawky, clumsy name, that still preserved a connection to royalty. However, he eventually became "Louis," which feels a little more on the pedestrian side, yet which has ties to French royal lines. The change came because, as I continued to write him, he began to remind me of elements of a character from Disney's Meet the Robinsons who goes by that name. 
• I needed a dual set of competitors to work against two of my heroes; thereby, the two most prominent members of the Rogue's Guild came to be named "Peta" and "Duwain." Peta is an athletic and calculating powerhouse, who still manages to fit in nicely with the satin skirts and delicate manners of the elite... and she's named after one of my favorite professionals from Dancing with the Stars. Duwain, a colossal, muscular, imposing menace, who isn't afraid to use his stature against his enemies, is, of course, taken from Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. 
• For just one chapter, I needed a character who could serve as a vehicle, for information, for movement, for a sense of pushing the plot forward. So, his in-story use matched his name: because of his appearance as a dockhand and in-world experience as an expert trafficker of stolen goods, he was dubbed "Barrow." You know, like a wheelbarrow, which is used to cart stuff. 

Hold me to this next year: I've beaten NaNo six times now, but have yet to tackle that elusive mistress called "consistency and sleep." Maybe it's not so much seeing if I can do it, but seeing if I can do it while also maintaining a regular and healthy bedtime.

So, I finished a few days early... almost a week, actually. And for the first time for a NaNo project, because of its status as a general outline, I have been able to complete a full story arc, getting the whole thing, the way it progresses, down on paper. I haven't had that before... none of my other projects ever progressed to a place where I felt like it could feasibly have a completed ending by the time I finished it, even if the ideas were 60% there. But this year, it did. 

And you know what? Fantasy is hard. But it's also fun, and rewarding, and the sort of thing I love for a real reason. 

Unfortunately, as of right now, I have to put the project to the side. Because while I love and enjoy spending my time building a world and characters, writing snappy dialogue and flowery descriptions, and putting all of those particular puzzle pieces in place, I also enjoy reading some, too. And being that after this nuclear-runoff hellscape of a year, I am nearly 20 books behind on my Goodreads Challenge, that's what I'm choosing to focus my attention on, instead. 

But my story is waiting for me to come back. So are characters, waiting for me to fill their world with colors and mouths with conversation. It's just going to have to wait for January for now... which means that 2021 is already shaping up to be a pretty good year, in my book. 

(And because I just said that, it's time to knock on wood 'til my knuckles bleed.) 

Did you take part in NaNoWriMo this year? What's your favorite tool for coming up with character names? Let me know, in the comments below!