A Gilded Drowning Pool | A Book Review

 Disclaimer: I received this book from a publisher, in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. 

Greetings Adventurers, 

It's been ages since I wrote a book review, so now is the time to break my fast of not writing reviews and write one. This book is part of a series that I have never read before, but it's now a series I would like to read. I received this book early, and it will be released on May 9th. 

The book is the fifth book in a longer book series titled, The Roddy and Val DeVere Gilded Age series. However, I read it as a stand alone, and I believe it can be read without having read the other four books. 

The Review: 

(Image from Goodreads, https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/123575213-a-gilded-drowning-pool?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=VJMjkmoZZA&rank=1) 

Genres: Historical fiction | Murder Mystery  

 I have always been a fan of historical fiction and mysteries, so this book immediately got me interested. While set in a different time and different place than books I usually read, the book itself reminds me a lot of The Murdoch Mysteries (but with a woman lead instead of a man).

Providing a heading with the date and location reminded me of other novels such as Frankenstein or Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. The author is a historian, so I imagine this influenced her choices in her writing. Like Where the Crawdads Sing, though, I would have liked the dates to continue throughout as it makes more sense for me as I read. 

The book itself was set in 1899. So, a year before the turn of the 19th century to the 20th century. I am not deeply familiar with the time period in America, but the author seems incredibly knowledgeable about it. At times I had to look up information, but that was not a failing of the book, because a reader could read it without having any idea of what is mentioned. Instead I was driven by my own curiosity to look things up. Another thing that is worth mentioning is the main character. I like that the main character, "Val," is a daughter of an Irish immigrant. My great-great-grandparents were immigrants from Ireland. So, that was a happy moment for me as a reader, because interestingly I have not read many books from the perspective of a character like that. The character herself is intelligent and is married. She and her husband work on the cases together. But she also works independently, and is shown to be strong on her own. She reminded me of detectives I had liked in the past, as she solved the case in a sophisticated way. She reminded me a bit of Enola Holmes, but a grown up version of her.

However, from the title of the series, it seems like both of Roddy and Val are main characters. I found Val to be more of a main character than Roddy. It could be because the whole story is told from her perspective, but she gets the most attention and detective work in this book. That might not be the case for the other books in the series, but in this one Val seemed like a more prominent main character. 

While the writing style is plain-- it does not sound like it comes from the time period-- it works for that story, since other stories have been written in a similar fashion. The opening paragraph was strong and set up tension with horse imagery, "[a] horse that kicks can kill anyone near its hind legs. A stable hand, a groom, a coachman, or a care-less owner will risk their lives if struck by the animal’s lightning-fast speed and power" (Tichi 1). I've been thinking a lot about opening sentences as a writer myself, and this one works because it sets up what is going to happen, not with a person-- but with a horse. The build up for the detectives going to solve the mystery was well done, for the characters received a message through telegram to show that they were going to go where the body was found. I preferred that to them stumbling over the body (in this case), because it seemed like a call to adventure, a call to the crime scene that is-- since Val had not been wanting to leave where they were currently staying. 

When the Hudson River Valley was mentioned by the characters, my mind instantly connected that to Sleepy Hollow. But the characters don't end up going there. In one of the chapters, when they came to the Hudson River Valley, reminded me strongly of Irving's writing. When they got onto a boat, for example:"Dark wisps from every smokestack signaled on-time departures when every giant sidewheel would churn the waters named for the Dutch explorer who sailed here nearly two centuries ago" (Tichi 33). This reminded me a little of Irving..."In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always prudently shortened sail and implored the protection of St. Nicholas when they crossed, there lies a small market town or rural port, which by some is called Greensburgh[...]" (The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, P.1). Despite the differences in what they're describing, I wonder if the author had researched anything about Irving when writing this, for there are references to what the Dutch did in the Hudson throughout. And also, supernatural elements are not the main theme of Tichi's book (there isn't a headless horseman running around for example), but there is a character named Cassie who sees auras and has visions. She is important to the ongoing mystery and seems to know information that was not ever given to her. 

The plot had many suspenseful elements: the idea of people wandering about on the property, the mysterious drowning, and who caused it. I felt like I was on the edge of my seat because of the way the author built up the tension-- in some cases, the fear turned out to be nothing, but it worked to set the scene for the suspense of the mystery. I won't be revealing who or what the killer was, but the author builds up the mystery well, laying clues throughout, making the reader want to solve the case along with the detective. It makes you wonder if those who you trust are trustworthy, or those who seem as if they could do the murder, don't. 

The clues were revealed steadily and mostly conveyed through dialogue instead of through research. The book relied upon social interworking between characters for the mystery to work: they heard about the murder through social connections, and got information through that, which added to the lively feeling. However, despite the feeling that the place was alive, the side characters were rather flat and not memorable. Some mysteries want the suspects or people the detectives talk to be memorable; others don't. This book went for the latter. So, I found myself more interested in the relationship between the detectives than I was in the suspects at times.

I normally find books that are so dialogue heavy difficult to follow, but this one was easy for me. I could keep up with the pacing because Val always brought up the questions over and over again, about who was the killer, why would they do this, so I could be up to speed and not fall behind. 

When the killer was revealed at the end, I was surprised. But I didn't feel like the author pulled something out of thin air. Instead, it came naturally. There was a red herring that I truly believed for a moment, the certainty of it from the character's perspective was what made me believe it. 

The ending hinted at a sequel. Since this is a part of a larger series (being the fifth book), there had to be room for the series to continue. But as a mystery, it resolved the plot well, and I am happy to have read it. 

This is a small note, but there were cocktail recipes, which reminded me of my reading groups at The Rosenbach where often the host posts recipes for alcoholic beverages relating the book. So if you're someone who makes cocktails and enjoys trying them, the book lays a short recipe in some chapters how to do so. I have not tried them, so I can't state how they taste or whether they are good. But there is a sort of audience interaction one can do between the characters and the reader, by trying what they make.

Overall, this was a fun and gripping (but not too intense) detective read. So if you're interested in adult cozy historical mysteries with a female lead, you will enjoy this. 

                 Overall rating: 

Descriptions: ⭐⭐⭐ (my own personal taste, but common for the crime genre to have simple descriptions). 

Dialogue: ⭐⭐⭐⭐ (not much to say about it, other than it moved the story forward). 

Characters: ⭐⭐⭐ (the characters weren't as memorable as I thought they would be. But it's more plot driven than                                                       character driven) 

Plot: ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐(overall a gripping mystery that made me want to keep reading). 

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Have you read books from this book series? If so did you enjoy them? What's your favorite murder mystery book? 

-Quinley 

How Camp NaNoWriMo Has Been Going For Me (Part 2)

                    

                   Click here to read part one                        

   I'm back with part 2! This will be more of a wrap-up post of my Camp NaNoWriMo experience compared to the first post-- which was talking about what was actively happening during it. Also, if you have not read it already, I recommend going back and reading part one for context. 

Also, one quick blog update: if you want to check it out, I have made profile pages now for my characters: Cerawen here and Vonivera here, since they didn't have profile pages before.

                                                              Let's begin: 

My Writing 

  And now I am going to talk more about of what I've been writing this month. 

The first news I wanted to share is that I reached my word count goal! 🎉 🥳

(Just want to point this out--I love how the winner badge is making an allusion to Don Quixote)

Here's the winner certificate by the way, I really like how it looks Fantasy themed: 

And if you're wondering what "BOTBT" is, it's the title of my book, Becoming the Body Thief in acronym form. For some reason NaNoWriMo's certificate wouldn't allow a long title. In the past it has allowed to put my other book title: All Is Not Lost For All Will Begin Again on the "author of" section. But I digress. 

However, even though I got to my word count goal, I still had plans to work on my novel this month because it is far from finished. In other news, I did three guest prompts in a writing group I'm in (not running but in). One of them was a picture prompt I came up with: 

The painting included in the post (though there are others not seen) is Ophelia by John William Waterhouse. 

I'm currently running my own group and am trying to get it to be more active (believe me running a group is hard work, but worth it). It is fun to have a really active group using one of my prompts and to see people's responses. There is just something about seeing people respond to something you have written yourself. It was cool, because people shared so many beautiful excerpts from their novels-- one person even wrote a whole song in response to the prompt. And this honestly reminds me why I like teaching workshops. You get to see people's artwork, and knowing that you inspired them is always a good feeling. 

In even more exciting news involving the same writing group: 

(My character Annabelle (left) and A.J.'s version of Karen from D.C. Super Girls (right)) 

I was talking with a member of the writing group I am in, and we decided it would be fun to do a crossover between our stories. We have plans to publish it once we publish our novels. We have to wait until then, because it is set during the time of my novel, Becoming the Body Thief and two characters from A.J.'s novel, The Protector are involved in it. 

Anyway, this has been fun to write because it allows me to explore my characters in an alternate universe. When Karen/Bumble Bee (A.J.'s character) appears some things that happen in the original story change a bit in the new universe. And our crossover is way more lighthearted than my novel is, which is fun because it gives my characters a break from all the torture I'm putting them through. My cowriter on this project, A.J. actually has a blog, so if you want to check it out, you can do so here. 

And...world-building! (Switching back to talk to you about my current novel writing.) I came up with a monster that was inspired by Medusa. Like Medusa (depending on the version of the myth you hear) she was cursed to be in this form: A water snake/maid form, forever. 

There hasn't yet been a hero that has defeated her, since her wounds in battle will be able to heal quicker than normal. As for her origin story, she was cursed by Nisis (the female side of the god, Nisis/Nyro) to be the trapped in this form forever, after defying the god/goddess by doing something unspeakable in their temple. I should also add, I was inspired by water snakes when creating this monster. Her snake tail and her hair are actually based on two real water snakes. I will be getting into her backstory more in the future. 

Excerpts from Becoming the Body Thief 

 

I realize I have not really shared excerpts for most of my novels recently except Dolls of Wax, Eyes of Glass. So, I thought I would share some excerpts from my novel. These excerpts feature the characters Venus and Ophelia; however, they are in different scenes, and the characters are from very different areas of the world's society. But I thought I would go for a common theme, which would be magic that comes from the gods: 

When Venus (as she called herself) performed, she performed in a way that was so mesmerizing almost like the sirens, who would lure sailors to their deaths. She would perform songs of old to a rowdy crowd, one of: criminals, gamblers, and some rich people who seemed to get themselves involved in the mix, for hardly good reasons. 

She would dance along the stage, her red loose fitting dress flowing along with her, she moved fluidly like water. And used her magic, which came in whenever she sang. For she had learned her magic from the god of music and in performing used it to bring people into the tavern. It was in the very least, as the owner of the tavern said, a way to attract customers. For everyone was soon enticed by her beauty, her singing, her dancing, and her magic that they would come in hoping to see that, and then stay for a drink or more. 

 

* * * * 

This was one of the very few spells that required one to have magic from both gods, usually spells required just one. For gods, like humans and elves, tended to get into arguments quite a bit, and it was rare to have them both work together. But in this case, the gods had a very neutral and generally friendly relationship with each other. 

Ophelia had been working on the spell for months, and still had not managed to get it right. Every time she had tried it, it seemed to fissile out. Like it wasn’t strong enough. 

Why this was happening she was not sure, for she was able to hold a wind storm and even make plants grow without them dying down suddenly or wilting. But perhaps, it was because this was her first time combining both earth and air magic together. Even the simplest spells she had done, the healing spells for example, she had only used one element at a time. 

But now, she focused on it, she needed something to take her mind off of her wild thoughts. She opened her hand, and tried to envision the spell— it was a mixture of earth and air. She felt like she needed to think of what would combine those two things— the trees leafs blowing in the wind to and fro on a summer’s day, the...she stopped, the spell she had felt beginning to grow in her hands suddenly diminished. 

* * * * 

Books I've Been Reading 

This is continued from part one of the blog post. I have a lot of updated thoughts on the books I've been reading, as well as thoughts about books that I didn't mention in part one. 

(Images from Goodreads, here and here)

This year I've noticed I've read a lot more poetry than before. This time, I'm actually seeking poetry out rather than reading a poem every once in a while. Recently I read "Ode on a Grecian Urn" (excuse the fact that the image has the title wrong) I love the allusions it makes to Greek mythology, and my favorite line from it has to be this one: 

  "In Tempe or the dales of Arcady?

       What men or gods are these? What maidens loth?

What mad pursuit? What struggle to escape?

               What pipes and timbrels? What wild ecstasy"

I will also say some of the lines from the poem were inspiring for my own writing. If you can't tell already, the world my series is set in is Greek mythology inspired (and Tolkien inspired as well). So, certain lines stood out to me. Also, here's the link to the poem. By the way it's in the public domain, so the Poetry Foundation is able to post it. Also, the site has a lot of Keats's poetry on it. 

And, I am currently rereading Hamlet. I am doing this in a dramatic reading with a group and at the same time reading my own edition of the book (because the reading was abridged). So far, in the group reading I have read for/played a variety of roles, including Polonius, King Claudius, Ophelia, Horatio, and Player 1. 

Hamlet has been inspiration for a lot of my writing and acting. In fact, the first monologue I memorized (and performed) was "To Be or Not To Be." It is always fun to revisit stories like this-- because I know the characters so well, and they are like old friends. 

(images from Goodreads here and here) 

I have a lot of thoughts about Dracula, but I'm probably going to talk about these more in later posts. 

I have a lot of thoughts about Where the Crawdads Sing. The plot-twist was really surprising. Even though I partly figured it out, it really made the story more intense. Also, I liked how the images of nature were used to foreshadow the murder. 

 The writing itself is very poetic, and the way that scenes are described in it is very well done. 

I really enjoyed the book, and I want to reread it again in the future. I also love how poetry is weaved into the story, with Kya quoting poems throughout and relating them to certain events/emotions.  

Lastly, I have just begun reading Nights at the Circus by Angela Carter. I had previously read Angela Carter's Book of Fairy Tales, so it is fun to read one of her other books. I like all the references to Greek and Roman mythology in this book. Fevvers refers to herself as a "Cockney Venus," and there are references comparing Fevvers's wings to Cupid and to Icarus. 

Some Fun Things 

I have three fun things to share this time around. 😃

The first is, I ended up dong two (one-shot) Dungeons and Dragons campaigns.

But I will discuss only one of them, since the storyline for that one has finished. It was basically a continuation of another one shot, so the same people from the prior campaign were in this one. Anyway, I role-played as my D&D character Jinx, who I talked about in this post. At the beginning of the campaign, Jinx did not have the best experience. He literately almost died because he was attacked by his what he decided to be his holy symbol (ravens) (The number of near death experiences Jinx seems to have is astounding.) Anyway, he may or may not be be scared of ravens now. Adding onto that, Jinx had the worst possible fate that could befall someone with his charisma level. He got a large amount of stinky mud dropped onto him....which was very unpleasant.

However, things got better later for Jinx and the others. The characters (Jinx and the others) started bugging one of the NPCs (None Player Characters) who was their close friend. They bugged by telling him that he was in love with the person they were trying to find. Actually, it turned out they were right. Because of this, at the end of the campaign, Jinx initiated the wedding for the NPCs as...kind of the priest. He's pretending to be a god, so it makes sense. 

(Jinx and the Goblin)

And to make things even better for Jinx. Jinx made a friend with a goblin, who now throughly believes Jinx is a god (a god of mischief, that is), and wants to go adventuring with him. 💖 Anyway, it's really fun, and I love playing D&D and hanging out with the groups I'm in. 

Continuing from part one, the second thing I've been doing is building rooms for my characters in virtual worlds. Webkinz actually had a challenge where you could win a stage. 

And I ended up winning it. This helped complete the second part of the tavern from my novel. I'm going to make a third part that looks closer to the first part, since it is a pretty large tavern. But for now, I feel good because I finally have the stage where Venus performs laid out which really helps me envision the scenes. (Of course without the animals-- given that there are no anthropomorphic characters in my story). 

Also, it is great that I was able to find a stage in Webkinz, one that even looked like the one from my story. Because a lot of the stages in Webkinz were either retired or something only Deluxe members could get. So, thank you, Webkinz, for creating that challenge so I could make that part of my tavern. 

And lastly, I recently created a Soundcloud account, which you can check out here. On Bandlab, I usually show my songwriting process, so on SoundCloud I thought it made sense to upload the fully finished songs. I just thought I would let you know, given that I didn't want anyone to think that someone else was uploading my music. 

And...that's it. That was my experience this month at Camp NaNoWriMo in July of 2022. And I'm now looking forward to November Novel Writing this year. 😃

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How was Camp NaNoWriMo for you? Have you read any of the books I mentioned or had any fun D&D experiences? 

-Quinley 

I Finished the Second Draft of The Mystery of the Body Thief

Greetings travelers, 

I wanted to let you know that I finished the second draft of the Mystery of the Body Thief on the 20th of May! The reason I didn't post this earlier was because I had a lot of other posts planned, and I wanted to take some time to write this post. (And not rush it). 

It feels so great to have the second draft done, because now I can move onto the third! And I have a lot of plans for the third draft. 

Here is a little bit of a behind-the-scenes for drafting. To keep myself organized I've been creating folders for the different drafts of my novel: 

I do this because I've written different scenes in different documents, and it is easy to lose them or confuse them because of that. I do not want to confuse the first draft with the second draft, nor the third draft with the second, or anything else along those lines. 

           But let's now move onto what is next for The Mystery of the Body Thief:

Synopsis-

Genres: Fantasy | Murder Mystery  Series: It is the first book in the Lady Annabelle Mystery Series. 

Horatio wakes up from being in a coma, but he doesn't remember anything that happened before he fell into unconsciousness. All that he remembers is a name, "Annabelle!" 

Also... Detective Inspector Time finds himself having to solve a case without Lady Annabelle.

Murders have been happening throughout many different kingdoms, and no one knows who exactly is behind it all.                

                  What's Next for The Mystery of the Body Thief? 

So as not to rush either story and to give more time to both, I have decided to divide the novel (which was originally 255,185 words) into two books. So as to be thoughtfully written rather than something that is just dashed off, this is going to be a book series. I suppose it is good that I already have three books planned out for it as opposed to just one. 

On another note, I have realized that the names are very inconsistent. I have characters whose names are common and others whose names are unusual (ones that I made up myself). I realized, after compiling a blog post as to what changed in my story, that the common names were left over from the novel originally being in the genre, Alternate History. To give it more of a High Fantasy feeling of another world, I decided I needed to rename some characters. 

I am in the middle of renaming Annabelle, Angela, and Marigold. Some names will stay the same like Horatio's. I realized, even though something like Lord of the Rings has fantastical names, they also have some real names (they are few and far between), but they are woven into the story enough that they don't sound strange. At the moment the naming for my story is all over the place, so I am going to try and fix that in the third draft. When I do change their names expect their profiles on this blog to be updated with their changed names. 

In the third draft I will also be continuing to world-build. I have more ideas for what the world is like, and the magic system has become much more clear to me, than it was before (before it was barely there). 

Also, since I was rewriting and reworking the story from 2018-2020, it meant that I had to give myself an outline for the third draft in this drafting. The scenes are much like Dolls of Wax Eyes of Glass's first draft, but that was because I was trying to make sense of stuff that I wrote years ago. And, I wanted this draft to give me an idea of how somethings will play out in the third draft. So I now have an outline that isn't my 2018 writing to work with. 

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What are your own approaches to editing? What are some of your favorite Fantasy names? 

-Quinley 

What the First Draft of The Mystery of the Body Thief Was Like

I am having a bit of technical difficulty with the video of Phoenix answering viewer's questions. There is a weird doubling effect in the video. This caused the editing of the video to be slowed down. I don't know when I am going to be done editing it, since I am still trying to sort that technical difficulty out. But, I will post it when it is ready. However, I figured while you were waiting, I'd talk about what the first draft of The Mystery of the Body Thief was like. I am halfway done with rewriting and editing the second draft. 

I think this is worth talking about since the story itself went in a very different direction than I thought it would go in the second draft. But if I had stayed with the idea of the first draft and with how the series would have gone this is how it would have gone... 

Also if you would like to check out some posts about the novel, that were written while I was writing the first draft, I recommend checking out this one. And if you want to read about how the story is now, I suggest checking out this post.

                                                   Let's begin: 

                                             The 5th book instead of the 1st-

Originally this was going to be the 5th book in the series. I had sketched out several other books before it, which...didn't end up working. As I was writing The Mystery of the Body Thief, I realized that it would work better as the 1st rather than the 5th book in the series. 

There are going to be prequels, though. They won't necessarily follow the same plot-lines that the original four other books I had in mind had, but they will show what Annabelle was like before the events of book 1 and 2 of the series. She did in fact solve cases before them. 

                                   Annabelle was going to end up with D.I. Time- 

(A drawing I drew a while ago of Annabelle with her and D.I. Time's children) 

Even though this plot-line did not end up happening, it was a possibility that it would end up happening in the series as I originally planned it. 

I had thought giving Annabelle a love interest would be interesting as a subplot. And I decided that D.I. Time would be the perfect character for it, because they were both detectives and liked solving mysteries. But then the characters had a mind of their own and Annabelle decided that "no, I am not going to marry D.I. Time and you cannot make me." So, that plot-line did not end up happening, and I am glad that it didn't. 

However, in the second draft it is being used as a conflict that D.I. Time loves Annabelle, instead of there being a romantic subplot between them. I can't say how it is used exactly, because of spoilers, but it does cause a lot of trouble and confusion for them. 

There was an all powerful sorceress (who had multi-colored hair)- 

(Some of the concept art for her)

This idea ended up not succeeding at all, partly because when I did start world-building the idea of an all powerful sorceress who knew the future (but didn't really try and stop it from happening) didn't fit with the world. 

She had an interest in card reading, zodiac signs, and other things, and she was also very, very, magically powerful (and randomly had hair that could go through all the different natural hair colors one could have). 

(Horatio (left) and the sorceress (right) made using this Lord of the Rings doll maker). 

This didn't work, though, because everyone would be wondering "why didn't she just try to stop it??" and "how did she get to be so powerful??" But certain elements of her character ended up getting dispersed throughout the novel. Ophelia has some of the aspects of the sorceress (some but not all) as well as having powers herself. Also, since magic is a thing that more than one individual could obtain, it makes sense that other characters would have powers (that could be learned) too. Two of the characters who ended up getting powers were D.I. Time and Annabelle herself. 

The world's setting was originally alternate history instead of a wholly original world- 

     The world was originally an alternate history set in Shakespeare's time, because I (once again) wanted to reference Shakespeare. But, I realized later on that I wanted a world that was more High Fantasy than Alternate History. Also, a lot of the characters were non-human, even in the alternate history setting, so it made more sense to me to have it be High Fantasy. 

While in some alternate history stories there are characters who are non-human (ex. Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair in Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell). In my story a majority of the characters are non-human as opposed to just one or one that wouldn't be noticeable. In addition, Dragon's Province (Dragon-spire at the time) seemed to be its own country not connected really to any real world place. Because of these things I felt it made sense to switch to High Fantasy. 

But it also made sense to switch because I wanted to make my own world with its own rules, its own magic system, and its own history, rather than write an Alternate History. While I do love alternate history, for a Fantasy series I really wanted to come up with a whole new world like Jim Henson's The Dark Crystal or other equally amazing Fantasy settings. I wanted people to step into a whole new world they had never heard of and get immersed in it. I thought maybe I could even get readers to do the kind of things they do with Hogwarts houses and Camp Half Blood cabins, where they decide what they would be if they were in the story (which of the gods or goddesses in the story would favor them in my story's case), or decide if they'd be an elf, a dwarf, a fairy, or a human. Anyway, that is one of the many reasons I switched it to High Fantasy. 

                                                   

                                                             I thought it was YA- 

(This is not The Mystery of the Body Thief, but it reflects what I thought the series was like around 2016-18)

     It turns out, none of the characters are teenagers. (Except for maybe Marigold? But she may be older), and yet younger me kept insisting (well not in front of anyone, just in my...head) that it was a young adult book, even though the only YA book I had read was Percy Jackson and (maybe) Harry Potter. My grasp of the genre was very, very limited. 

The target demographic was changed more to Adult rather than Young Adult. While this doesn't stop teenagers from reading it, they aren't primarily the target demographic for it. 

I didn't create a magic system- 

It originally had no magic system, because originally magic was something only a few people could obtain, including the all-powerful sorceress and a few other characters. And while in the first draft there were characters who were born with magic, there were a lot less characters who got magic from learning how to use it. Because of that, the gods and goddesses who taught characters magic didn't even come into play until the second draft. 

I admit that I did not put a lot of thought into the magic in the first draft. I knew magic existed in the world, but instead of having a reason simply for existing I just slapped it in without thinking about how it affected the world. Also, along the lines of the magic system, Ophelia, D.I. Time, and Annabelle didn't have powers in the first draft of the story. Ophelia wasn't even a priestess/healer: she was a nurse. And D.I. Time was pretty much just a detective. This post was the first time I actually started thinking about how the magic system worked. 

And that's all. There were other things that changed in the story as well, but they were small things or things that contained spoilers in them that I couldn't share without giving away the story. 

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed reading this. 😃

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If you're a writer, what was the first draft of your novel or short story like? How did it change over time? 

-Quinley

How My NaNoWrimo Was (+ P.2 of the Q&A)

                                                                          Click here to read part one 

                                             Greetings Adventurers!

I thought I should let you, the readers, know I recently did an interview with Elena Denver over at her new blog, Life is a Beautiful Ride. If you would like to check out my interview with her, you can do so here. 

But back to this post. Once again, thank you to everyone for sending in questions for the second part of the Q&A. And for those who participated in NaNoWrimo this year, I hope you had a good NaNoWrimo!  

Even though I will post a synopsis for those who don't know what my novel is about, I do suggest checking out this post about it. It will give you more info about my novel, The Mystery of the Body Thief, as it is the most up to date post about it. 

                                            Synopsis- 

 Genre: Fantasy | Murder Mystery  Series: The 1st book in the Lady Annabelle Mystery Series. 

Horatio wakes up from being in a coma, but he doesn't remember anything that happened before he fell into unconsciousness. All that he remembers is a name, "Annabelle!" 

Also... Detective Inspector Time finds himself having to solve a case without Lady Annabelle. Murders have been happening throughout many different kingdoms, and no one knows who exactly is behind it all. 

             How My Writing Went this NaNoWrimo-  

So, my rewriting and editing went pretty well during this NaNoWrimo. I felt as if I made some progress on the story, and though I am far from being done with the second draft, it feels very good to have a part of it done. During this month, I worked partly on my novel in order to get more of it written, and in the second part of the month, I worked on writing a play for a contest. I usually focus on one project per month, but this month I decided to divide my focus. Since I'm not done with the play, I plan to continue working on it into December. 

In terms of world-building, I began working on the clothes of the officers in the police department...

Made using Hero Forge 

Ever since I figured out what the healers'/priests' clothes look like, I have been thinking about designing the clothes for the officers in the Dragon's Province Police Department. I have been thinking about what different officers in different positions wear. Currently, I am using Hero Forge to get the general idea of what they look like. In the future, I do intend to draw them, but I find things like these help. I had also been thinking about modifying the design of the uniform on the left, because I realize how impractical that skirt would be in situations like running after a criminal. Also, I was thinking about making it look a bit more like Tauriel's outfit from The Hobbit, design-wise. 

So, I decided to brainstorm some more and came up with a new design. Here is the modified version of the outfit from the left. It's still not the end product, but it is getting closer:

Made using Hero Forge 

I have also decided that different color schemes in the uniform designate status of the officers. Officers have different positions, which are shown by the color of clothes that they wear (among other things). 

At one point during this NaNoWrimo, my computer crashed, so, it made it very difficult to write. During that period, I spent a lot of time writing on paper and repeatedly using a prompt a writing teacher of mine had given me. At the time, I was struggling to rewrite a scene that I wanted to add more depth to. 

I've also found that writing on paper allows you to be a bit more social with people while you're writing. While I like sitting behind a computer to write (because it doesn't make my hand tired), I feel writing on paper while sitting around a table and talking can also be nice. You can talk about your story sometimes while writing your story or just intermittently engage in conversation. 

It also allows you to be a bit more thoughtful with what you're writing. Often when I am typing, I feel like I am not thinking about every single word as I am writing it. 

(My writing and The Six of Cups). 

The prompt I used, that my teacher gave me, was using Tarot cards to get inspiration. At the beginning of NaNoWrimo, I had used them to figure out which scene to write. But during the time without my computer I decided to use it to add more depth to a scene: in particular, what a character should be thinking of. I ended up getting Six of Cups, which means nostalgia and happy memories. The card really helped me add depth to the scene (which, without spoiling my novel, I can say was about losing someone you loved).  

                                  Q&A

                          Now here is the second part of the Q&A!

If you see any of these [] on a question, that is because I edited it, in order to make it make sense in the post.  (Except for Maya's question. That one I didn't edit). 

                                 Question from Roberta at Offbeat YA  

Like Greg [in the previous post], the "murders happening in multiple kingdoms" premise intrigues me. I assume that you meant different worlds (like human world, elf world, fairy world, etc.)...or did you literally mean "kingdoms"? I know the right word for "worlds" would be "realms", but it still got me wondering.

This is fairly complicated to explain, so I will do my best in describing it. 

There are realms outside the world of the story, and elves and fairies come from these. Elves are somewhat related to fairies, but they are less ethereal, because they are trapped in the physical realm whereas fairies can shift back and forth between the physical and nonphysical. (To outsiders they appear to turn invisible, but in truth they are actually in another dimension.) 

In contrast to elves and fairies, humans, dwarves, and dragons (among other beings too) are believed to have originated in the world where the story takes place. Over the centuries some elves began mixing and living amongst humans (which is the reason why the elves and humans believe in the same gods and goddesses), whereas the fairies tended to distance themselves from humans and other "earthly" beings. 

So, there are still elves, fairies, and otherworldly beings that live in different realms in the world of the story, but most of the murders take place in the "earthly" realm. 

                                                Question from Anonymous: 

What is the weather like in these kingdoms? Is there a connection between our world and theirs? Is it distant in time or place or planet or dimension?

Dragon's Province (the kingdom the characters are in most of the time) goes through all the four seasons. However, there are kingdoms that don't have four seasons and tend to stay either warm or cold most of the time. 

As to whether there is a connection to our world, it isn't an older version of our world (unlike Tolkien's Lord of the Rings), though in the first draft of the story it was...kind of that. (I wanted an excuse to quote Shakespeare.)  But in its current state, I would describe it as being another realm or planet. Because it is a whole different world from where we are, the politics, the religion, literature, and everything that comes out of it is very different. 

                           Question from Grace Thomas at American Girl Dolls Chat Club 

How does Lady Annabelle look like? Are you going to draw a picture of her?

My drawings of Annabelle from 2017 to 2021.

I have actually been drawing Annabelle since 2016, because that was when my first attempt at writing the series started. (But the drawings of her start appearing on my blog in 2017.) If you look in the archives of my blog, there are a lot of drawings of her. 

I've also dressed up as her... 

Me posing as Annabelle (for the profile photo you see on the sidebar). 

I've also made some avatars of her using this Lord of the Rings doll maker, which unfortunately doesn't work anymore because Flash got removed from browsers:

Because I've shown you what she looks like, her appearance is pretty self explanatory, but I'll describe it anyway. Annabelle has red hair that is a little bit past shoulder length, brown eyes, pale skin, and a beauty mark on her left cheek. 

                                             Question from Maya at Pretty Little Scribbles :

    What are some difficulties you've faced (character-wise or plot-wise) while writing your book?

 

I think writing in the third person has been difficult for me. I don't intend to change to first person because I feel it wouldn't work for this particular story, and I feel I need to get better at writing in third person. 

I have been facing two other difficulties in writing. The first is giving each of the characters in the story a unique voice. So far I am succeeding in that, but I worry about the reader blending the characters together if they sound too similar. 

And the second difficulty is the fact that I don't have names for the types of spells in the world and for the gods and goddesses in the pantheon. This will be changed in later drafting partly because this isn't the last draft. But still it is a bit frustrating to have to put stuff down like "fire spell" or "earth goddess" if I do not know what the names of the spells or goddesses are. 

   Approximately how long have you taken to write your book (and where are you now as of NaNo 21?) [ps. it's been really fun reading about your book so far!] 

I'm going to guess that I came up with the idea in 2017 and began writing in 2018.  

(This is because I tend to come up book ideas a year before and take the time to plot before I write). 

I finished writing the first draft on November 5th 2020 and have been working on the second draft since sometime in 2021. (I believe I began rewriting before Camp NaNoWrimo.) 

As for NaNoWrimo 2021, as of right now I have gotten to my word count goal. 😃

 

                                                           Question from Anonymous: 

                              How many kingdoms are there? What lies beyond their borders I wonder??

At the moment, I am still working on the geography of the kingdoms in The Lady Annabelle Mystery Series. I plan to make a map for it eventually; I can't give an exact answer right now but I will have one in the future. 

There are multiple continents in the world, which are each divided up into kingdoms. But the kingdoms  in this story are in a single, large continent (which can be traveled across by horseback, carriage, etc.). 

(Image from Wiki Commons, https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Robert_Henri_-_The_Reader_in_the_Forest_-_Google_Art_Project.jpg) 

As for what are beyond some kingdoms' borders. Often (but not always) forests form the border of a kingdom. These forests are usually full of untamed mystical creatures: some are gentle, but others are dangerous.  

Once I create a map for the different kingdoms in The Lady Annabelle Mystery Series, I will do a follow-up post about it. 

                                                    

                                                           Questions from Don:

           Does Annabelle as a detective use Sherlock Holmes techniques to solve crimes?   

While Sherlock Holmes is an awesome detective (and I'm sure she shares some (unintentional) similarities with him), Annabelle has her own ways of solving crimes. 

However, there are two similarities in their practice of solving crimes. They both use deduction and disguises. 

                                    Will [Annabelle] and Horatio be more than friends?

It is possible that they were more than friends. I cannot answer (for spoiler-related reasons) whether in the future they will be more than friends. Horatio believes they were just friends (but given that he has amnesia, he cannot be completely certain). However, other characters in the story have thought at different times that Horatio and Annabelle could have been secretly in love...

                    What if Horatio and Annabelle are brother and sister separated at birth?

That is a possibility too. However, Horatio would have to be an illegitimate half brother of Annabelle if that was true (because Horatio is an elf, and Annabelle is half elf half human). This is a possibility, but I can't really give you a direct answer, because that would remove mystery from the story. 

...And that's the end of the second part of the Q&A. Thank you to everyone again for sending in questions. They were really fun to answer. 

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             How was your NaNoWrimo? And do you like to draw pictures of your characters? 

-Quinley