Willow Brown, Ordinary Fairy

The Reason Facebook Loves You

2012-01-06T12:17:00.003-06:00

Facebook loves you. Facebook adores you. I'm confident that Mark Zuckerberg lies awake at night and dreams of you. He dreams of new ways to make you happy, new adjustments he can make to how Facebook looks and works to keep you using it, keep you visiting. Better yet, to make Facebook indispensable to you, and to make you urge all your friends and family to use Facebook, so we can all be one big happy Facebook family and sing Kumbaya together. All 800 million of us Facebook users.

Yeah, Mark's a great guy to want to do that, right? Of course, while he's doing that he'll also collect a lot of information about you, but he means well, right? Of course he does. He means very well - for himself. You see, Mark doesn't just keep that information in some big Facebook server. He sells it, whenever he can, to whoever he can. That's how Facebook makes it's money. Advertising. That's really all that Facebook is - one very large, smoothly run advertising machine. All those ads you see that pop up on the right are paid for by the advertisers. They pay either for every thousand times the ad appears or pay for every time someone clicks. A click generally brings in about 50-75 cents for Facebook, depending on a number of factors.

Facebook is also an auction house, selling advertising space to the highest bidder in a complex plan that covers us 800 million users in great detail. Did you know that advertisers can choose the criteria for where that ad appears? And the scary part, to exactly who it appears. All that profile data that you fill in when you join allows targeted advertising. So do all your likes. Facebook tells you to like something, to check in, to tell us what restaurants we like, what stores we frequent so all your friends will know what you're doing and more about you! Gosh, I 'm feeling warm and fuzzy just thinking about it!

Then they sell targeted ads based on all that information that you gave them absolutely free - data that most marketing companies (which is what Facebook really is) must pay millions to collect. I'll admit, it's pretty slick. I've run Facebook ads for An Ordinary Fairy to attract people to my fan page. You can be very specific, by age group, gender, location (down to individual cities, if you like), and most importantly, all those likes of yours. So I target women aged 18 and up who live in the US and UK who like Fairies. It works. I have 1,750 fans. Which cost me about $2,000 to collect.

I read a great article on all this in USA Today a few weeks ago, but unfortunately lost the link. The point of the article was this: Never delude yourself into thinking that Facebook is a free service put out on the Internet by Mark Zuckerberg out of the goodness of his heart for your benefit. Don't ever think that you're his customer. His customers are all us advertisers - you, my friends, are just his product. You, your attention, and your data are what he delivers to his advertisers.

Sorry, but you're just another bag of potato chips.

Black Friday Sale!

2011-11-24T18:49:00.004-06:00

Okay, not really just for Black Friday, but this seems like a good time to put An Ordinary Fairy on sale to start the lead-up to the release of the second book in the Willow Brown Stories, Willow Brown, American Fairy. The ebook price for both the Kindle and Nook versions have been lowered to just 99 cents (or the equivalent in other currencies). The new book should be available around Christmas, in time for all of you who expect to receive a reader for a gift!

Here's the new cover:

And here's the back cover blurb:

"Noah Phelps looks forward to a quiet visit at his parents’ Wisconsin home, accompanied by his lover and fairy friend, Willow Brown, but a late night phone call shatters their serenity. Tragedy has struck in the life of Willow’s best friend and fellow fairy, Rowan Westfall: her partner, Ruthie, has suffered a fatal accident.

After a hasty trip to Rowan’s Kentucky home and a strange meeting with the sheriff, it appears all was not as first believed. Suspicion grows when Ruthie’s computer is stolen. The three friends hunt for answers, but sink deeper into mystery, as Noah learns what it’s like coping with two spirited fairies. Just as they near the solution, a fairy Hunter comes onto the scene, disrupting their progress and threatening the two fairies’ lives.

Noah continues his struggle with Willow’s secrecy, until conflict erupts between them. Only an unexpected crisis reunites their magic, forcing Willow to reveal her past. Aided by a band of misfit teens who know Rowan’s secret nature, Noah and Willow must use all their skills when the Hunter strikes."

Willow Brown, American Fairy - Update

2011-11-06T22:10:00.003-06:00

I've finished all the final revisions to Willow Brown, American Fairy, the second book in my series about Willow and her mere human companion, Noah Phelps. I've reviewed all my editor's suggestions, adopting some and, well ... choosing not to adopt others. I also put in some last minute new stuff that adds to the fun, like explaining those balls of light that Willow created in An Ordinary Fairy.

The next step is to send the manuscript to my crack team of proofreaders. I ordered copies this morning via Lulu self-publishing, a quick and cheap way to create books for this purpose. I should have them in the proofers hands before Thanksgiving.

So what does a writer do while he waits for the proofers to be done? First, I'll take a break from writing anything for a couple of weeks. I'll read a couple of novels on my Kindle. I've got several lined up. I'll also finish the cover for the new book and start a little promotion on this blog and Facebook. And after a week or two, I'll start sneaking in some time on the third book, titled Willow Brown, Plain Fairy for the moment, of which I've completed about 55 pages.

After the proofers finish, I'll make the corrections and we'll publish. Maybe before the holidays. Maybe not.

Twig the Fairy

2011-10-15T07:13:00.011-05:00

Isn't she cute? Meet Twig the Fairy, a whimsical creature who has been attracting much attention on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/twigthefairy) and her website (http://www.twigthefairy.com/). Twig is a friendly figure who makes regular appearances around the country at rennaisance faires and other fun events. She doesn't speak, but you always know what she's saying via her mime skills and her magic flute. And yes, she has mushrooms on her hat. Can she fly? Actually, when it came to flying school, I think she sort of dropped out. She posts every day with a heartwarming bit of fairy wisdom and usually a glitter of fairy dust. Kids are her favorites , and she has just launched a project to write her second children's book. She sells photos of herself, coffee mugs, refrigerator magnets and so on. She creates her own vocabulary as needed, like "Don't take me gliterally!"

Here's another favorite picture of mine:

This fairy is fun, beautiful, heartwarming, and very savvy at marketing. As of this moment, she has 224,777 Facebook fans. No, I didn't type that wrong. A simple message, a charming image, and she's created a great brand. Just checked - now that's 224,778.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WILLOW!

2011-09-20T21:11:00.004-05:00

Today we celebrate the birthday of my favorite fairy, Willow Brown. Little Willow is the heart and soul of An Ordinary Fairy and of the books to follow. Feisty yet lovable, muscled but beautiful, unpredictable but disciplined. A neat freak. An ace hacker, as well as a flying ace. How many people do you know who can do a back flip into a barrel roll?

Noah Phelps, Willow's "mere human" companion and lover is very different. He's six feet tall; she's four foot nine. He wants to know everything about her; she keeps it all secret. He's slender; she's slightly ... stout. (Please don't tell her I said that.) He's afraid of heights, actually phobic about it; she's a fairy and doesn't even think about cruising at five hundred feet. He's thirty-five; she's ... well, you'll find out ... she's very sensitive about her age.

I've known Willow for many years, though she didn't have a name until I began An Ordinary Fairy. Her image was always clear in my mind, though she did develop muscles and got a little shorter as her story developed. She was always blonde and had deep brown eyes. Noah didn't have a name either, but he was always a photographer and always saw Willow fly unawares. And their romance was always an integral part of the story.

Oops, authorial rambling ... gotta watch that. Anyway, in honor of Willow's birthday, I've renamed this blog, and as soon as Amazon can get the change processed, I'm dropping the price of the Kindle edition of AOF to 99 cents for the next week.

Happy Birthday, little fairy.

Brand Names and Mind Games

2011-08-30T20:43:00.003-05:00

One day last week my wife Suzie held up the paperback book she was reading for me to see. "Look at this cover," she said. "The author's name is printed twice as big as the title of the book."

"That's right," I said. "The author's name is the brand, not the book title." We went on to discuss how many other books are sold by the author's name. Walk into any bricks and mortar bookstore and you'll see a lineup of bestsellers, and I guarantee, every one will have the author's name in type at least as big as the book title, many time twice as big. Many times, the author's name is at the top, where you'll instinctively read it first. (At least in the left-to-right western culture.) Think of the books that go by the author's name as brand name:

Danielle Steele

Stephen King

Dan Brown

Janet Evanovich (Who could remember all her crazy titles, anyway?)

Tom Clancy

Kim Armstrong

Jodi Picoult (Just checked two of her books, her name is three times bigger than the title)

Debbie Macomber

These author's have promoted their own names as their brand, and they're golden for the reading public. Put a book out with Jack Ryan, Stephanie Plum, or Robert Langdon on the cover and you'll some response, but not like those listed.

Of course, there's another whole side to the brand name dichotomy. That's the author who develops and promotes such a strong character that the character comes to life and becomes the brand name. James Bond is a brand name that has lived on way beyond the original author. (Who was the author? See the bottom of this post.) Mike Hammer (created by Micky Spillane). Sam Spade (created by Dashiell Hammet. Okay, I had to look that one up.)

More recently, the biggest brand name character of them all has raked in millions for his creator - Harry Potter.

So what's my brand name? I have the distinction of sharing the same name as a famous British playwright. Uh, John Osborne, if you didn't figure that out. Though he's been dead since 1994, he still hangs on to the brand name. Google my name and you'll fall asleep paging through listings looking for me among four million hits. However, search for my name on Amazon.com and I've recently become the top two hits!

My brand name, however, is not John Osborne. I'll take the J. K. Rowling approach - Willow Brown is my brand name. She's the strong character you need for that role, with a sparky personality and a powerful visual image. If I had thought of all this before I published An Ordinary Fairy, I would have titled the book Willow Brown, Ordinary Fairy. The rest of the books in the series will be titled that way: the upcoming second book is Willow Brown, American Fairy. I've toyed with idea of changing my Facebook page to "Willow Brown, Ordinary Fairy", but you can't change without creating a whole new page and enticing my 1,650 or so fans to follow. Not sure I want to do that.

So who wrote the original Jame Bond series? Ian Fleming.

I Hate Waiting, Reprise

2011-08-02T20:15:00.003-05:00

The wait is over. My editor, Dawn Johnson, returned the manuscript for my second novel, An American Fairy, which continues the story of ordinary fairy Willow Brown and her mere human companion, Noah Phelps.

She messed with my commas. MY commas!

She messed with a lot of other stuff, too. I think she went through three red pens, marking errors and making suggestions and criticisms. I can't say much about her suggestions without giving away some of the plot ... and I don't want anyone knowing how dumb I am sometimes. I've read through her comments, read her cover letter summary five times, and have dried my tears. I did not throw the manuscript across the room, despite the temptation.

So what's the next step? Do nothing. I step back for a few days, read a good novel, walk the dog, mow the grass ... and think about how to proceed. But not too much. Then I'll make a pass through the manuscript and make the obvious changes - misspells, word usage, sentence structure, etc. This is done from the back of the book working forwards, since the edits are on a hard copy. I found out the hard way that if you start at the beginning, Microsoft Word renumbers as you go and soon you're out of sync with the hard copy and, well, lost.

After fixing the little stuff, I take a knife to the story and make some big cuts. First, the prologue has to go - twelve pages. Then a big section that really has little to do with the story, but is mostly just for fun - twenty pages. That takes out 7,000 words in two quick hits.

Then the hard part. Cleaning up language and action. Making it believable. Check the facts. Make the dialogue realistic, though I'm pretty good at that - Dawn didn't mention any problems there. Of course, she found plenty of other stuff. Make the characters deeper...

Then, after a few weeks, it will be ready for the proofreaders for a final check. A few weeks more while they read and I read it again aloud to my wife, the Proofreader in Chief. Then make the final fixes. Then, we publish.

I still hate waiting.

The Magic of Rewriting History

2011-06-22T21:31:00.003-05:00

One of my favorite things about writing is the ability, or sometimes necessity of rewriting. While it can be pain, it's also a luxury, a luxury I'm sure writers fifty years ago wished they had. Need to change a character's name when you're on the last page of your book? No problem, any major word processing program can do it in seconds, even if you had 800 occurrences.

Even more fun is when you change the story. Trickier, not so slick and easy, since it's a manual process. For example, I'm early into my third novel in the Willow Brown series. Noah Phelps, her human lover, is the point of view narrator for all the novels (so far). In the third book (called A Houseful of Fairies, at the moment anyway) Noah was going to arrive at Willow's home in late September. Yesterday I had an epiphany and developed a major shift in the plot of the book. Like, totally different, but much better than the original idea. However, to make events work out, Noah has to arrive three months earlier in June.

Now, for Noah to show up sooner, some things have to change. In Illinois in late September, things are starting to get drab. Cottonwoods and the linden trees around Willow's cottage have lost their leaves already, but in June, the lindens are in full, fragrant bloom. So I had to rewrite those details. The days are longer in June, so when Noah goes for a walk at sunset, it's two hours later than in September. That means I have to find something for him to do for those two hours, or just remove the sunset.

Still worse is introducing new ideas that you wish you had thought of when you wrote the first book. Once you're published, you get locked into events already recounted. This is mitigated in my case by Willow Brown's irritating tendency to keep everything secret, so I was able to add some cool facts about fairies in the second book (An American Fairy), when her best friend Rowan blabbed away with Noah. Like fairies and mushrooms, for example. And by the way, I refuse to take the Hollywood approach and resurrect dead characters in later works. Sorry, with me, when you're dead, it's over.

So we writers can change history. At least, our little part of it.

I Hate Waiting

2011-06-02T20:11:00.002-05:00

My life has been very busy of late. This is always a very busy time of year at my day job with the University of Illinois. We're closing in on the end of our fiscal year, so everyone is rushing to spend the last of their budget money before June 30th. That's my job - to spend someone else's money, which I have to admit has a pleasing aspect. It's even more pleasing when I can figure out ways to save them money. This year seems more busy than usual. Perhaps it's my age...

When I come home, there's lots to do there, too. We just finished building a corral in the back yard for our Labradobbie, Tucker. No kidding, it's a corral, complete with split rail fences. He sort of runs like a horse, so it seemed appropriate. We redid the flower garden, finally started a vegetable garden, put more rock in the driveway ... and somehow visited the grandkids and attended our daughter-in-law's college graduation. All while it rained every other day, I swear.

So the days go fast until just before bedtime, when I remember Dawn. Dawn Johnson is my editor friend. She has a sharp eye for what's wrong with a story, what's marginally okay, and what's just plain stupid. She's a terror about commas, which is a problem, because I'm very protective of my commas. ("Back off, lady! They're mine and I'll do what I want with them!") She also counts exclamation marks! And claims I use too many!

Dawn has had the manuscript of my second novel, An American Fairy, for about three weeks. She's the first person besides my wife to see it. I'm scared witless what she's going to think of it. Too short? Too long? Not enough humor? Too much humor? Too much romance? The right amount of magic? And how many typos and word use mistakes will she find? Most important, will she like the story?

So the days go fast and slow. Waiting on Dawn. I hate waiting.

(Check out Dawn's cool blog site, Menopause Press, at http://menopausepress.net/?page_id=21 )

The Anatomy of a Cover

2011-04-30T07:15:00.016-05:00

Creating a successful cover for a book is vital. You need to catch people's eye, convey what the book is about, tell them your name, and make them want to find out more - all in 6 by 9 inches. The appearance must be professional. Home made covers stick out like a sore thumb. Don't get fussy and try to tell half the story, use decent art and make the image stick, something that the reader will recognize immediately when they see it again. Did I mention use quality art? Fantasy books with what I call "avatar art" really turn me off.

My quality art is by Julie Fain, a fairy and fantasy artist from Oklahoma. Here's a link to her website: http://juliefainart.com/ Julie specializes in silhouette art, which fits perfectly when you want to preserve a little mystery. She did the cover for An Ordinary Fairy, and recently completed the art for An American Fairy, the next book in the story of fairy woman Willow Brown and her human companion, Noah Phelps. That gorgeous cover was a happy coincidence. I was searching various websites looking for a good cover image when I happened across Julie's website. There I found an image she called Fairy at Sunset, which fits exactly with the story. The first time Noah sees Willow fly, she's at a pond at sunset. The image was such a perfect match that Julie didn't even need to make any adjustments, other than a slight resizing. We added the title and my name and it was done.

For the cover of AAF, I originally asked Julie to create something new: an image of a fairy flying in front of a US flag:

I sort of liked this, but my wife rejected it immediately, as being too "Tinker Bellish" as she put it. I returned to Julie's stock photos and found an image that was much better:

This image fits a scene in the book, where Willow's friend Rowan is walking alone in the woods after an argument with Willow and Noah finds her. The dress on the fairy wasn't right though. In the story, Rowan was wearing her racing gear, which is a very small bikini that wouldn't be visible in a silhouette view at night. So I asked Julie to undress her. This was a challenge, since the original image was drawn with the dress, rather than adding it to the fairy. Julie went to work and drew Rowan a "nice digital butt" as she said, and also cropped out the wider scene to concentrate on the central image:

Add the title and my name and you're done:

The First Anniversary of An Ordinary Fairy

2011-04-16T07:34:00.004-05:00

One year ago today I clicked the "Publish" button on CreateSpace.com, culminating a four year journey from "That's a cool idea for a book!" to being a published author. The response by the public seems good. Sales continue to increase, and the book's Facebook page has 422 likes as of today. I won't quit my day job for a while, but I'm pleased.

It's fun being a writer. Nice tidbit to share about yourself when meeting people. Sometimes I like to say I just finished the first draft of my second novel, which really raises eyebrows. I hand people a business card that is the AOF book cover. I talk about the creative process, the thrill of being published, and of course, where they can buy the book. "What's it about?" they always ask. I give them the two minute synopsis.

Now, books about fairies aren't for everyone. Some people who ask about what I've written have excitement in their eyes that fades to disappointment when they find out. That's okay. I knew that going in. I still give them the pitch. Sometimes they just nod and say "Interesting" when I know it isn't. But many people say "Where can I buy it? Can you autograph it for me?"

Yesterday, a guy who works in my department at the University told me he'd heard I had written a children's book. I gently corrected him (AOF is definitely not for kids) and gave him the spiel. Another contact. Another marketing opportunity. What fun!

Fairy Lore - An Ordinary Fairy Style

2011-03-27T20:52:00.003-05:00

Fairy legends have been around as long as there have been humans. Nearly ever culture and country has them in some form or another. Most of what we're familiar with in this country comes from European influences. When embarking on writing a novel about a fairy woman, I made a crucial decision: I intentionally did not research fairy lore. My reason was simple. I preferred to create my own myth.

While An Ordinary Fairy contains a lot of the basic fairy stuff, like close connection to animals and wings and flight, I included a few twists as well. What I left out was the huge amount of lore and myth that's available if you go looking. This created a problem during an early review by an editor acquaintance, who just happened to know about fairies. She questioned the fact that Willow's cottage has an iron security gate across the door. "Since iron is poisonous to fairies, that could never happen," she told me.

So I consulted with Willow and she gave me a good explanation - you can't believe everything you read. Fairies call it Guarding the Mystery - to protect themselves from discovery, they've cultivated the myth that they are - a myth. Much of the fairy lore you read (according to Willow) is planted misinformation to throw fairy Hunters off the scent.

Are Willow's traits unique? Nope. That's tough to do without creating something that's not recognizable as a fairy, so you have to keep some of the standard stuff. What's unique about Willow is her personality. Feisty while insecure, laden with issues and secrets, and short-tempered but playful. She's tough to figure out, as Noah discovers the first time they meet.

Another thing about my fairies - they're tech savvy. Willow doesn't own a phone or television, but she loves her laptop computer, and she's an excellent hacker.

It's Read an Ebook Week!

2011-03-06T20:53:00.002-06:00

Today through next Saturday is Read an Ebook Week. Like it or not, ebooks are a phenomena of our time. Ebooks have begun to outsell physical books, and are sneaking into the major bestsellers lists - even the NYT (that's Nose-in-the Air Times) has admitted it, and has listings for ebooks. In January, newcomer and self-published author Amanda Hocking sold 450,000 books, nearly all electronic, spread over nine titles. She's taken the McDonald's approach - she sells lots of hamburgers at 99 cents, rather than steaks. I've read one of her 99 cent books, and believe me, they're definitely not steak.

The publishing industry is undergoing a revolution, as self-published authors bypass the whole industry and go direct to their readers via online booksellers, ereaders, Facebook and Twitter. And blogs, like this one. The recent Border's bookstore bankruptcy can be blamed, in part, on the ebook revolution.

Ebooks aren't for everyone, I'll admit. You have to invest in a reader or sit in front of your computer to read your books. Not every book is available in electronic format. And the publishers still have a stranglehold on pricing for bestsellers, insisting it costs as much to deliver an electronic copy as it does to produce a hardcover, which is pure bullshit.

My own experience with selling ebooks has been good. For An Ordinary Fairy, the ebook version at $4.99 sells 3.5 to 1 as many as the paperback at $15.00. I make about the same royalty, so I don't really care.

So try it. Samples of most ebooks are available free - up to 20% of the book, which is more than enough to decide if you like the format. Happy e-reading!

The Mystery of Willow

2011-03-01T20:02:00.005-06:00

A companion website presence to this blog is my Facebook page, An Ordinary Fairy by John Osborne. (Check it out, there's a link on the right.) I post there more frequently, because the process is simpler and the size limit is smaller. And frankly, I have a lot more Facebook followers than blog followers. (299 vs. 9 as of today.)

A fun thing I've tried on the Facebook page is posts by Willow, the main character of all my novels. (She's the ordinary fairy.) Those who've read An Ordinary Fairy know she's a skilled hacker, and she uses those skills to sneak in and post her own thoughts on my page. Willow has strong opinions on many topics, but she likes to have fun, too, so her posts are always interesting and usually timely with the season and any holidays.

One phenomena is that Willow's posts are much more popular with my followers than my posts. I can post and get one "Like" and no comments. She can post a picture of flowers and talk about spring and get nine likes and three comments! Okay, she's cute, I know, but really?

The New World of Personal Book Reviews

2011-02-10T21:13:00.004-06:00

We read a lot in the media these days about how the book industry is changing. Notice I didn't say publishing industry. That's just one piece of the overall industry. There are authors, agents, publishers, printers, distributors (unseen by the public, they buy books from the publishers and sell them to the retailers), and finally, the booksellers. Then there's what I call the auxiliaries: the magazines about books, the newspapers that review books, and of course, the reviewers themselves. This whole massive industry had a strangle hold on book publishing for decades. And they have been very, very impressed with themselves. To the point of arrogance.

Notice I said had a strangle hold. In the last few years, dramatic changes have swept the industry. Authors don't need agents anymore, or publishers, even. You've always been able to print your own book, if you wanted to bear the financial burden. Now you can do it for nothing. Zero, zip, not one cent. Marketing that used to be inaccessible is cheap and easy. An author can reach millions of people at a nominal cost to do his own promotion. Prospective buyers can read sometimes twenty percent of a book before they buy it. All because of the Internet. And I haven't even mentioned the impact of ebooks.

An interesting trend in the last couple of years has been the advent of personal reviews: the reviews posted by everyday people who read books and like them (or hate them) enough to go back to where they bought the books and post their thoughts. And people read them. Many people have found they trust the opinion of several dozen of those everyday people over the thoughts of perhaps one professional reviewer. As newspapers shrink and give up their book review space, those personal reviews become even more important.

Not that they're perfect. Consider reviews on Amazon, for example. Last night I looked at a book that had 212 reviews, including over 100 five-star reviews by people who thought is was fantastic, but also twelve one-star reviews that called it the worst book ever written. The downside to open, public reviews is that they can become a weapon. There are actually unscrupulous writers who hire people to write poor reviews about their competitors books. Amazon (and the other online booksellers) police as they are able to prevent this, but watching millions of books isn't easy.

For self-published authors, online personal reviews are vital. The mainline book industry tries very hard to ignore us. Most newspapers and periodicals have a specific policy against reviewing self-published books. "We have to draw the line somewhere," they say - with their noses stuck very high in the air.

So far, An Ordinary Fairy has very good online reviews. They all have a common thread that warms an author's heart - two thirds use nearly the same words: "I couldn't put it down." Some are friends, I'll admit, but more are from the people who pop up from somewhere I've never been, people I've never met, who post a great review.

So - when was the last time you posted a book review?

Can Fairies Really Fly?

2011-01-27T21:19:00.002-06:00

I'm shocked you would even ask the question! Of course they can.

Willow Brown, one of the main characters of An Ordinary Fairy (she's the ordinary fairy, BTW), is a highly skilled flier, in fact, one of the best in the fairy world. Perhaps a few words on the different types of fairies would be appropriate.

First, fairies have insect wings, not bird wings with feathers. They are classified into sub-species based on their wing type. (BTW, fairies are the almost the same species as humans - homo aviatus. And they can successfully cross breed with us, though the results are interesting.) All fairies' wings are attached somewhat differently than on the corresponding insect, allowing them to pivot downward, which allows ease of movement in tight spaces and concealment under clothing. The wings are supported and moved by a large structure of muscle, bone and cartilage on the upper back. Hence, fairy women don't wear low-back clothing. Fairy men don't have that problem, since they don't have wings at all.

The largest group is the Butters, who have butterfly wings. Many people consider them the most beautiful of all fairies. They tend to be a little stuck on themselves and perhaps a little slow-thinking, but as my information comes from Willow, it may be slanted. They don't fly very fast, and tend toward jerky movements in the air. A related group is the Moths, who for obvious reasons, live on third shift and only come out after dark.

The next group is the Bumbles, who have small, black-veined bumblebee wings. They fly very little, due to their tendency to be, shall we say, portly. Many of them become healers and mid-wives. Because of their body size, they blend in well with humans, and many take on regular professions.

The smallest group is the Wasps. They are tall, thin-limbed and have long wings. They tend to be very territorial and can have unpleasant dispositions. They fly very well, though not as well as the last group.

Last, comprising about twenty percent of all fairies, is the Dragons. Willow Brown is a Dragon, with two pairs of dragonfly wings. Dragons are by far the fastest and most agile fliers, able to perform wonderful in-flight acrobatics. Some are better than others, just as some of us humans are better athletes. All fairies are very muscular and solidly built, in order to accommodateflying. How does flying work? I'll quote Willow's explanation to Noah: "It's sort of a combination of physics and magic."

Just ask Tinker Bell.

An American Fairy Update

2011-01-17T16:05:00.003-06:00

As of yesterday, the first draft of my second novel, An American Fairy, is finished. AAF is the second installment in the continuing story of Noah Phelps, photographer (and mere human) and Willow Brown, fairy woman. You'll meet Rowan Westfall, Willow's best friend and fellow fairy, and a host of other fun characters, as the three friends search for the answers to a tragedy that befalls Rowan and her partner, Ruthie Kingston.

And that's all I'll say for now.

Notice I said "first draft". The easy part is over. Now come all the grammar reviews, spelling reviews, fixes, adjustments, tracking down misuse of the Terrible Twos (to, two and too). An editor or two will work it over, and I have to read it out loud to the Proofreader-In-Chief, my wife, Suzie. All that before turning it over to my proofreading team. I still haven't settled on a cover, either.

Look for An American Fairy sometime next fall. I think.

200 Fans on Facebook

2011-01-08T21:26:00.002-06:00

As of today, An Ordinary Fairy has accumulated 200 fans on its Facebook fan page. (Link in the right column.) If you're not a fan or haven't visited, check it out. There are some fun posts over there, including some made by my favorite hacker, Willow herself.

Now, if all those fans buy a copy, and each one tells three friends and they all buy a copy and so on ... well, Willow will be very pleased.

To celebrate having 200 fans, the ebook versions available through Smashwords.com are currently discounted to $2.99 through Sunday, January 16th. Just go to http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/16323 and use coupon code UE55V when you check out.

Thanks for your support!

Faery Tale, by Signe Pike

2010-12-30T21:18:00.002-06:00

I recently read this book, in the interest of discovering what people are saying about fairies out in the world. It's a fun read, but a serious read as well. Ms. Pike embarked on a journey (literally) to find the fairies, or faeries. Her travels took her to Mexico, England, Scotland and Ireland, where she visited and questioned as many authorities as possible, but also the everyday folk, the innkeepers and farmers. Her question: "Do you believe in faeries?" Their answers were many and varied, some exciting and some disappointing.

Ms. Pike shares her experiences with wit and insight. She encountered many fascinating persons, some real, some imaginary and some ... well, mystical. At many ancient sites she experienced things most people only dream about, or only joke about. Mixed with those stories are her marvelous anecdotes about the people she met, including a group of middle-aged English bikers on the Isle of Man.

Faery Tale is a beautifully written book, weaving a fascinating tale of adventure and mysticism with the author's own heartbreak and loss as she adjusts to the death of her father.

Chester Jones, the Villain

2010-12-07T19:38:00.002-06:00

Every story needs a troublemaker. In writing, the term is antagonist. The bad guy, the criminal, the cowboy with the black hat, the bully, the no-good boss, the ugly stepmother, the enemy dictator. The wizard gone bad. Generally, the antagonist is the real reason for the story. Something he does or is threatening to do causes the hero or heroine to act.

Chester Jones is the antagonist in An Ordinary Fairy. He's the town bully, but he's a businessman, a loner, who uses financial power to get his way and control people. His family owned the estate Willow lives on for a hundred years before Willow's parent's bought it in 1976, thirty years before the novel begins. They disappeared a year later, and now Chester, the only remaining Jones heir, wants the property back. He's harassing Willow to get her to sell. Hence, the story.

Physically, he looks the bully type. He's 6' 4", and large, though not overweight. He's in his late fifties, with a dominating, arrogant manner and a permanent sneer. He's always dressed in a suit, unless he's killing something - he's an avid hunter. Worst, he has a nasty habit of leering at women, and especially at Willow Brown.

Gosh, I hate this guy! And I haven't told you the worst things about him!

Chester was intentionally imagined so tall and large to emphasize the difference with tiny Willow - he's 19 inches taller than her, and outweighs her by 150 pounds. One of the fun things is that he doesn't often appear in the story - he only has three scenes of significant length. But he's always a dark presence, shadowing everything Willow and Noah do, from the very first pages.

Willow Brown, The Ordinary Fairy

2010-11-26T08:51:00.002-06:00

Ta Da! And now for the main event!

Willow Brown is the heart of An Ordinary Fairy. You can read the brief description of her in the book summary, but here's a little more information: she's blonde, beautiful, has small dark brown eyes and a very muscular build, which accounts for her relatively high weight to height ratio. Oh yes, she has wings - dragonfly wings, though hers are attached differently than they are on the primitive insect, which allows them to pivot down her back. Hence, a Dragon fairy (such as she is) can dress in normal street clothes and conceal their true nature. They wear a lot of loose clothes to conceal the hump where the wings connect and can't wear backless or thin outfits. More on fairy lore in a separate post.

Originally Willow was loosely based on a real person, but very soon after I started writing she became her own person. My image of her detached itself from the person and took on a life of its own. Actually, Willow's entire character (not just appearance) evolved as I wrote. She became shorter, stouter, and cursed with issues, which cause some friction between her and Noah. She became a computer geek (she's an expert hacker), and is handy with tools.

Willow was the very first character to be imagined. She just popped into my head one day, and the rough story line and the other main character, Noah Phelps, soon followed.

Noah Phelps

2010-11-19T19:34:00.003-06:00

Noah Phelps is the main character of An Ordinary Fairy, and the story is told from his point of view. Not as first person (which is hard), but in "third-person limited point of view." The reader follows Noah, and sees and experiences only what he feels or thinks. The Harry Potter books are written mostly with this POV, though there are occasional jumps to scenes without Harry at all.

Noah's name was simple to create. I was watching the movie version of Nicholas Spark's The Notebook, and realized the main character, Noah, was much like my Noah. Phelps is a family name - my Grandmother Osborne's maiden name. I googled that name and found out there was a Revolutionary War hero by the same name - the spy who saved the day at Fort Ticonderoga. That was too big a temptation to pass up, so the real Noah Phelps became my Noah Phelps's ancestor. He's mentioned twice in the story and has a most unusual tie-in.

The character Noah was a photographer from the very beginning of my imagining of the story. The very first scene I imagined was of a photographer hiding in the woods and witnessing a fairy woman flying, unbeknownst to her. In the original idea, Noah confronted the fairy with the photos he took, but I dropped that eventually as something that the noble Noah would never do. It was strictly a coincidence that I later took up photography as a hobby during a long period when the story idea lay dormant. That hobby didn't last, but it provided a lot of built-in background when I started writing. So when Noah uses photography, it's a been-there done-that for me, including a little thing called The Gremlin.

Noah is Wiccan. That idea formed much later, actually after I began writing. The existence of aWiccan community, school and store in Hoopeston led to that tie in, and became the reason Noah chose to come to Hoopeston. And that system of belief helped shape the character he became: good at heart, unwilling to harm, and open to the mystical. Which helps when you know a fairy.

Noah grew up on a dairy farm, but I can't remember where that came from. It may have just been something that popped out as I was writing, which can happen when the creative juices are flowing. (Noah and Willow, by the way, visit Noah's parent's farm in Wisconsin in the next novel, An American Fairy.) His farm background led to Willow's nickname for Noah: Cowboy.

The Story of the Story's Title

2010-11-13T15:03:00.001-06:00

An Ordinary Fairy was not the original title of the story. There was no title at all the first few weeks after I started writing, because I couldn't come up with anything I liked. Here's some of the early ideas:

Fairy Friend
Fairy Wood
Fairy House in the Wood
I Mean You No Harm
Pond in the Wood
Orphan Fairy
Fly for Me, Fairy

These all got nixed, especially the ones with the word fairy, since I thought for a while the fact that the main character was a fairy should be a secret until the reader discovered it. More than one proofreader didn't appreciate the surprise, though, so I dropped that idea.

The next batch centered on the name of the main character, Rowan:

Rowan's Pond
Rowan's Wood
Fly for Me, Rowan

On the paper with the list of titles, the last two are circled as the favorites, but I still didn't like the feel. I settled on Rowan's Woods, which felt a little better.

Then one day I was creating a list of fairy names, which I thought should all be botanical, like Rowan, Magnolia, Lily, Rose, and so on. The list grew until the name Willow came to mind. I immediately fell in live with that name and the title became Willow's Woods, which had the flow I was seeking.

Willow's Woods was the title for over a year, until I began to feel it was a little too "soft", I guess you would say. The title didn't convey anything about the story or the main character, besides the fact she owned a woods. I had just read A Probable Future and really liked that title. I went back to thinking of a new title, and then something that Willow says in Chapter Five hit me. She and Noah are talking, and when describing life as a fairy she says:

"Noah, there’s nothing mystical about us or how we live. We just hide in the open among society. We’re just ordinary people. We get married and have kids, we live, we die—”

Voila! Willow herself supplied the title.

Going Green with Recycling!

2010-11-06T06:52:00.003-05:00

It's early Saturday morning as I'm writing and still dark outside. Haven't done this for a while, due to a busy schedule of things to do and places to go. The coffee's brewing and there's a dog snoring in the living room nearby as there used to be. Our new friend Tucker came to live with us in June, a rescue from the Humane Society. He's a chocolate lab / Doberman mix and very different from our old black lab Jessie, who had to leave us in April due to old age. At thirteen months, he's a bundle of energy and one big, solid muscle. We've bonded quickly, though, and he's generally near wherever my wife and I are. And he always gets up the same time I do, even if just to lay back down and sleep some more in close proximity. I think he'll appear in one of the later Willow Brown books, as Jessie did in An Ordinary Fairy.

I'm going to be recycling some of the older posts from this blog for the folks who have only become familiar with An Ordinary Fairy recently. (Okay, not the sort of recycling you were expecting, but I did just change the background color to green, didn't I?) I'll post one a week for a while to help the newbies get up to speed. These posts cover some basic stuff about the book and introduce the main characters.

On a fairy-related note, my granddaughter Bethany and I have watched Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue, the third release in a four film animated series about everybody's favorite fairy. We watched the first time while camping, sitting around a campfire. Great fun! We rated this as our second favorite of the three, right behind the second release, Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure. Still a a really good movie, in which Tinker Bell meets humans for the first time.

Now off to work on Chapter Eighteen of An American Fairy. I've left Noah and Willow in a precarious position and need to save them. You won't believe what they're up to ...

An Apple a day...

2010-11-02T19:41:00.003-05:00

I need a little help please. The Apple iBookstore seems to have misplaced some ebook sales figures for An Ordinary Fairy. They reported decent sales for the United Kingdom for the third quarter of the year, but recorded no sales for the US. Odd, considering I did virtually no marketing in the UK, with my main focus being the US. If anyone out there purchased a copy of AOF via the iBookstore prior to 9/25, please let me know by posting a response. I need some examples of sales to send to my distributor so they can check back with Apple. I moderate posts on this blog, so please share what details you're willing to give me (like the sale date). Nothing will be publicly posted. Thanks!

What about f---?

2010-10-04T20:15:00.003-05:00

Some writers believe that to have a truly realistic story, your characters have to use as high a concentration as possible of profanity. Every other word, it sometimes seems. I've read books that I've just put back on the shelf because I can't stand it. IMHO, you don't need all that. I made a conscious decision when I started An Ordinary Fairy that the profanity would be limited, and no one would say "f---". When I finished the last draft, after the proofreaders had completed their work, I made a last cleansing pass through the manuscript and removed over half the remaining profanity.

I'm sure people think I cleaned up too much. Surely Chester Jones, the bad guy in AOF, would have said f--- at some point. Not in my book. I believe if your story is good enough and you make your character's actions believeable enough, there will be no issue. I have, in fact, recieved compliments for making such a non-shock story with very believable characters.

I admit, I have to chuckle at that, considering one of my characters has wings and can fly.

Don't tell Willow I said that!

Happy Birthday, Willow!

2010-09-13T12:46:00.005-05:00

Today, 9/21, is Willow Brown's birthday. Women don't like to talk about their age (why is that anyway?), and Willow is no exception, even if she is a fairy. She is, in fact, very sensitive about her age, and doesn't take Noah's kidding about it well at all. He's only thirty-five at the time An Ordinary Fairy takes place, while Willow is ... well, older than him. She's says she's fifty-six, but ...

Okay, I need to be careful here. It is no fun having a fairy angry with you. Especially a high-tech fairy who works for FairyNet Security and can hack your computer at will. And she does. Read my Facebook posts sometime. You never know for sure who's posting.

Anyway, how old is Willow? I ain't sayin'. I may be dumb but I'm not stupid.

Or you can read An Ordinary Fairy and find out for yourself.

Bethany's Fairies

2010-09-13T12:24:00.005-05:00

My granddaughter Bethany is a believer. She knows why pictures on the wall are skewed when you wake in the morning. She and I are avid Tinker Bell fans, and can't wait for the new movie (Tinker Bell and the Great Fairy Rescue, due out 9/21). She's convinced a fairy stole one of her earrings one night while she slept. Anyone knows fairies steal (they call it "borrow") things from unsuspecting humans, usually bright, shiny things. Anytime something's missing or can't be located in my daughter's house, the fairies quickly receive the blame.

We have a door in our back yard. When we moved in two years ago, the door was a table top in the laundry room. When we remodeled the room, the table was dismantled and the door stored outside for a year. Granny found it again this past spring and set it up in the backyard one day, in the corner of the fence, just behind the fire bowl where we sit at night and tell stories and make Somores. It's decorated with wreathes and flowers. When I came home from work and saw it there, I quickly realized it was the Fairy Door, where they gain entrance to our shady, closed-in back yard. We have two fairy statues in the yard to honor them. Bethany was wide-eyed when we told her the purpose for the door, as only a seven-year-old can be.

I hope she always believes, as I do.

It's International Chocolate Day!

2010-09-13T12:13:00.002-05:00

Hoorah! Who doesn't like chocolate? That has to be a short list of people. Absolutely no fairies would be on the list, because they LOVE chocolate. They each have their own special chocolate that they love (Willow's is Snickers bars) and usually have their own private stash that they guard jealously. While fairies are generally amicable types, don't mess with their chocolate. Major feuds have been known to erupt over a missing Hershey's bar.

Willow and Noah have an altercation over chocolate in An Ordinary Fairy. Seems Willow thinks he might have raided her panty drawer to steal a Snickers. She was more upset over the idea of him taking the candy than rifling her panties.

By the way, Noah didn't commit either of those heinous acts. Willow still didn't forgive him, despite the fact the candy bar count was correct.

A Word to Self-Published Authors

2010-08-11T12:41:00.002-05:00

It's easy to get your own book published these days. There are several on-line services that will do it for you very quickly (read "minutes") and handle worldwide distribution, at next to no cost, unless you purchase special services. One of those services that's available is editing.

Let me get out my soap box (which means I shift to all caps): PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE - IF YOU'RE GOING TO SELF-PUBLISH, HAVE SOMEONE EDIT YOUR BOOK! I've read many samples of self-published books at various on-line forums and bookstores and so many of them absolutely suck. A professional editor will help you with sentence structure, words you use too often, story mistakes, story ideas, and so on. They'll tell you where the story moves too slowly and where it's too fast. And best of all, they'll tell if you should shelve the whole thing and start over.

An Ordinary Fairy was edited twice. The first time was an overview that covered the story idea and structure, character details, timing, etc. The second was a complete copy edit to catch all the dumb stuff we all put in our writing, and to catch grammar and factual errors. Please find someone to do this for your book. BECAUSE IF YOU PUBLISH A PIECE OF JUNK, YOU PERPETUATE THE IDEA THAT ALL SELF-PUBLISHED BOOKS ARE JUNK! PLEASE, DON'T DO IT! FIND AN EDITOR! I'M TIRED OF MY BOOK BEING LUMPED IN WITH ALL THE OTHERS!

And I don't mean proofread. Proofreading is a fairly simple task, reading over to catch errors in spelling, missing quote signs, misuse of "to, two and too", and so on. You should use a big team of proofers (I had seventeen) to be sure everything gets caught. After they're done and you've made the corrections, take the time to read the book again - preferably in hard copy.

Writing An Ordinary Fairy took four years. The final draft was Number Twelve. Most of that time was spent learning how to write. You learn how to write by listening to editors and reviewers and what they say about your writing. And you have to READ. Read what the famous writers create. See how they structure sentences. See how they end a chapter. See how they show, don't tell.

Please.

My First Book Signing

2010-08-11T12:14:00.003-05:00

I'll be at the Hoopeston Public Library to speak and sign copies of An Ordinary Fairy on August 21st. For those of you who don't know, the story takes place in Hoopeston, Illinois, and in fact, one short scene takes place at the library. It should be a fun day. I get to talk about myself (which everybody loves to do), meet some new people, and see some old friends. I might sell a few books. I worked in Hoopeston for fourteen years so I know quite a few people from there. I'll drop by a couple of the other place's that appear in the book - Henning's Root Beer Stand and Flowers by Molly Culbert.

A big Thank You goes to Linda Mitchell, Director of the library for setting up the event for me, and to my friend Cecelia Dixon, who helped get me in contact with Linda.

A quick update on marketing: AOF is now available as an ebook for the Apple iPad and iPhone, Sony eReader, Barnes & Noble Nook, and the Amazon Kindle. Amazon expanded the Kindle store to include the United Kingdom, so it will be appearing in that store soon, too. If you still like paper in your hands, go to Amazon or Barnes & Noble to get your copy.

Sell, Sell, Sell!

2010-06-12T07:18:00.002-05:00

An Ordinary Fairy is now available many places: Amazon.com in both paperback ($10.80) and Kindle ebook ($4.99) formats, Barnes & Noble.com ($10.80), Amazon in the UK, and even an Amazon affiliate in India that sells to eastern Europe and far east Asia. As of this week, it's available in several ebook formats on Smashwords.com for $4.99. Within two or three weeks, it will be listed in the Apple iBookstore for the iPhone and iPad, at $4.99.

It's out there just about everywhere I wanted it to be. I've done my part: I wrote the book (a really good one, based on reviews), published it and made it available lots of ways. The rest is up to you: the reader. I can place all the ads and do all the promotion I want, but the number one way books sell is by word of mouth. That's true for the mega-hits as well as the little guys like me.

So get out there and sell, sell, sell!

Amazon Robot Pricing

2010-05-03T21:20:00.002-05:00

Pricing of books for sale at Amazon.com is a deep mystery. I can only conclude it's run by a robot without a brain. An Ordinary Fairy was first posted to Amazon two weeks ago for $15.00, the full list price. The same price as CreateSpace.com and the same price I sell them for by personal delivery. Fine, everyone's on the same page. The books I deliver are the best buy - they're signed, no shipping and I include the sales tax in the $15.00.

So yesterday, the price on Amazon suddenly dropped to $10.80. (28% discount!, whoopee) I admit, the sales haven't been brisk, but I haven't gotten my marketing plan in gear yet, since the book showed up way before I thought it would. I presume that's why they lowered the price. I'll make the same royalty (I think), so I don't care, but I felt I would be remiss not to mention the bargain price.

I wonder if sales increase then the price will go back up? Maybe I'll email robot@amazon.com.

An Ordinary Fairy now on Amazon.com

2010-05-01T19:12:00.003-05:00

You can find An Ordinary Fairy on Amazon.com, in both paperback print edition and ebook version for the Kindle. Under both listings you'll find four new reviews (as of today) so you can see what people are saying about the story.

A word on how author's make money - at least the vast majority of authors, not the mega-sales well-known authors that traditional publishers (and the public) fawn over. Before we can get any money for our books, we have to spend huge amounts of time writing, editing and proofing our work. I estimate An Ordinary Fairy required 1,800 hours to complete. Most publishers won't pay for a book up front to new authors - they pay a commission, or "royalties", on books actually sold. But those books are sold to bookstores, who have the right to return unsold copies, so the royalty payments are withheld for a long time.

At least, all that has been the traditional model for years. Things have changed in recent years. Technology now allows books to be printed one at a time, as ordered. And the Internet allows an author to market and sell books directly to readers.

I chose this second path for AOF. Faster, greener (no unsold books to destroy), and I make more money. I make the most money when I personally put a copy of the book in your hands. When you buy from CreateSpace, the publisher, I make less, but still a decent royalty. From Amazon, even less, but the book is more accessible. If a bookstore buys the book to stock and sell (highly unlikely to happen) I make a whopping 86 cents per copy.

So go to Amazon.com to read the reviews, and then go to my CreateSpace.com page to buy your copy (link is on the left).

Published at Last!

2010-04-18T20:33:00.004-05:00

An Ordinary Fairy has been published! Many thanks to my proofers, editors and supporters for all their help.

Use the link under "Buy it Here!".

<=== It's over there, on the left, at the top.

Currently available on CreateSpace, the book will appear on Amazon.com in a few weeks, in both print and Kindle versions. Soon after, it will appear in other ebook formats.

Goodbye, my forever friend

2010-04-18T20:14:00.003-05:00

Last year I posted here about Shadow, Willow's black Labrador retriever, and about our real dog, Jessie, who was the inspiration. Last Friday we had to put down our much loved friend, who had been with us for all of her 14 years. She had been in failing health for a couple of years, but always bounched back despite congestive heart failure and mulitiple strokes and seizures. Her breathing grew much worse the last few weeks and she would go into coughing fits and pass out. Last week was the worst. She couldn't get her breath, especially at night. Friday morning about 1:00 am we made the decision.

The vet was very kind and showed great respect for us and our feelings and more importantly for Jessie. He was gentle and careful and eased her out of this world with care and grace. Soon after, we left for a weekend campig trip, which kept our minds occupied.

This evening we came home. Jessie wasn't here. She didn't greet us at the door with a toy in her mouth. Her bowls were still by the basement stairs. Her toys were in the basket in the corner of the living room. Her biscuits are still in the jar in the kitchen.

Quiet. So quiet.

Goodbye, my forever friend.

To Tweet or Not To Tweet

2010-03-10T12:27:00.004-06:00

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I now have three web presences: this blog, a website, and most recently a Facebook fan page. You can get to any of them from any of them, if that makes sense. Crosslinks, etc. And if you lose a link, just Google "An Ordinary Fairy" and I'm the top hit.

Technology has so changed the world of writing and publishing. I just finished the final, final, yes-I-mean-final pass through the manuscript, scrubbing and adjusting. At one point, I had five words hanging by themselves at the top of a nearly blank page which was the end of a chapter. Ugly. So I revised a sentence on the previous page, taking out one word, which took out one line and moved those five ugly words to the bottom of the previous page and eliminated a page in the book. Fortunately, Microsoft Word renumbered the pages, reset the headers and footers on each page (since the left header is different from the right header), and kept everything straight.

Almost. My chapter titles are justified left or right, depending on whether the chapter starts on a left-hand page or a right-hand page. Word does not keep track of that, so I had to change them all manually, for chapters six through twenty-seven. All because I took out one word. Not that I'm complaining - imagine if I was using a typewriter and paper to do all of this. My hat's off to pre-computer / word processor writers. Don't know how they did it.

So lot's of technology, but I draw the line at tweeting. Not gonna happen.

Lighter Than Air, or How to Write Your Own Song

2010-01-21T12:10:00.002-06:00

There's a cool scene in An Ordinary Fairy where Noah and Willow dance in the ballroom of the Big House. Noah hums a tune and Willow knows the song and begins to sing while they're dancing.

So what song is it? Originally I wanted to use "Let Me Be Your Wings" by Barry Manilow. He wrote the song for the animated version of Thumbelina, in which Thumbelina falls in love with a fairy prince, who sings the song to her when she's lamenting the fact that she can't fly like he can. I ran across the song quite by accident on a CD that I owned. To use the words to the song in the novel, all I would have to do is obtain permission. Sounds easy enough, but it became an odyssey.

There's a registry for musical artists. Visit the website and you'll find listings by song, writer, performer or whatever. Look up "Let Me Be Your Wings" and you find Barry Manilow listed under four different publishers who have put out various editions of the song. One was tagged as being the original publisher, as I recall, so I contacted them. Turns out they were an entertainment company that booked cruises, also, so it took a number of phone calls to get the name of the right person. Great, except he was never in. I managed to get his email address and after a couple of tries got an answer. He asked to see the pages immediately before and after the scene where the song appears, so I sent him the entire chapter.

Silence. For months, despite inquiries. Finally, he answered - only to tell me his company wasn't in a position to grant permission, I would have to talk to the publisher. "I thought that was you!" He gave me the name of another company. I visited their website and finally found a long complicated set of instructions on how to obtain permission to use words of a song. Somewhere deep in the instructions was a statement that they would have to be sent a copy of the book. How do I do that, it's not published yet! Then I saw that I had to secure permission as well from
all the publishers, not just this one. Which of course led me back to the first place I talked to.

Well, Barry missed his chance. Perhaps I should have tried to contact him - maybe he could have helped. Instead, I wrote my own song, words only, called "Lighter Than Air." Probably not as good, but a lot less angst. Maybe someday I'll find someone to write a melody to go with the words.

Publication Update

2009-12-21T12:37:00.003-06:00

I chose to send the final manuscript of An Ordinary Fairy out to a group of proofreaders (17, in the end) who could help weed out those annoying little mistakes that creep into a large document over three years of writing and revising. Turns out I chose some busy and thorough people to be in that group, so I've had to push my publication schedule back a few more weeks. I hope to have the final manuscript ready to go by the end of January. I've been cataloging the fixes as they come in (about 150 so far) and when I've actually applied them to the manuscript, I'll make one last read myself, just to be sure all the corners are tucked in.

I have the final cover art file in my hands - thanks to Julie Fain for allowing me to use her wonderful picture "Fairy at Sunset" for the front cover, and for providing the design and fabrication work for the back cover as well.

Stay tuned - I'll announce the final publication date and availability on amazon.com as soon as possible.

Fairy Dust

2009-11-18T19:53:00.005-06:00

A word about fairy dust. What is it exactly? Depends on who you ask. Tinker Bell would look at you like you were stupid, and say something like "Well, it's what makes everything happen in Pixie Hollow, of course!" In the Disney version of things, fairy dust is the source of the fairies' magic. Without it, they can't fly or do any of the other wonderful things they do. They carry it about all the time in little pouches made from leaves. The fairies leave a little trail of it behind them when they move.

Fairy dust can be purchased commercially as a decorative cosmetic made of finely ground glitter. Some pagans use it in the same or similar form as an aid to casting magical spells. Unfortunately, the term is also slang for both cocaine and crystal meth, a fact that makes Willow shudder.

When I imagined Willow, I didn't think of fairy dust until I was well into the book. I contemplated including it as a fairy trait, but there were just too many complications for a fairy who was supposed to be covert among humans. Was it something she carried, or was it produced by the glow of her skin? Did only certain parts of her body produce it? How long did it last? If her body didn't produce it, where did she get it? Did she have to sprinkle it every time she did something magical?

I decided to drop the whole idea. Willow breathed a sigh of relief when I did.

Why Must We Live With Slime?

2009-11-12T18:55:00.002-06:00

By slime I mean the low lifes that slink about the internet, seeking out perfectly legitimate websites and blogs to contaminate with their garbage. I apologize to anyone who had to look at the crap someone dumped on my last blog post, which I had to delete completely. It was all links to viagra sales sites - illegal ones I'm sure.

I group these people with hackers, virus programmers, spammers and all other forms of cybercriminals. There is simply not enough bad that can be done to them.

Tinker Bell's New Duds

2009-10-12T19:35:00.002-05:00

Tinker Bell made the front page of USA Today! Check out her new outfit - the first she's had in 56 years.

http://www.usatoday.com/life/movies/news/2009-10-11-tinker-bell_N.htm

An Ordinary Fairy update: The book is in the hands of my crack proof reading crew (all 16 of them) and when they're done, we'll be in print. Hopefully mid-November. Soon after that, it will show up on Amazon.com.

Tinker Bell and the Lost Treasure

2009-09-16T21:29:00.003-05:00

Big news on the fairy front! Tinker Bell's second animated feature will be released October 27th on DVD and Bluray! Disney is producing four Tinker Bell movies, all of which will be released only on DVD and Bluray, rather than distributed to theatres. The first was cleverly titled Tinker Bell, and was released about a year ago. It was the first time in history that Tinker Bell actually got to speak.

Okay, I know I'm an old guy and shouldn't be interested in an animated story aimed mostly at kids. Well, too bad, I am. These are cool stories with great animation and after all, they are about fairies. While the fairies are very different from mine, they are fairies, which you don't see that often in the media, and so deserve my attention. And Tinker Bell as presented in the movies reminds me a lot of Willow Brown, as least as far as temperament goes.

A quick update on An Ordinary Fairy: I've completed the final proofing, and now the manuscript will be off to the proofreading crew. Hopefully, I'll be publishing in October.

Some Fairies Are Gay...and I Don't Just Mean Happy

2009-08-07T21:02:00.003-05:00

One night at a writer's group where we shared our work by reading aloud, one of the members objected, rather strongly, to the title An Ordinary Fairy. He believed the title would be offensive to gay people, citing the common use of the word "fairy" as a derogatory term for them. I didn't quite laugh in his face; he seemed quite sincere, nearly upset, so I held my tongue to simply expressing surprise at his reaction.

To set the record straight (no pun intended), it never crossed my mind that the title might offend someone. The title was strictly intended to convey the paradox of what Willow Brown is. In her eyes (and words) she's just an ordinary person. But what is ordinary about a person who can fly? The title tries to convey that contradiction. Please, no offense was ever intended.

In my imagining of the fairy race, they're just like us except for their special abilities and powers. And so, there are fairies of every persuasion, personality type, appearance, and yes, sexual orientation. In the second book of this series, currently titled An American Fairy, you'll meet Rowan, Willow's best friend and fellow fairy, who is bisexual and lives with a gay woman.

Announcing my website, An Ordinary Fairy

2009-08-01T18:08:00.008-05:00

I now have a website, anordinaryfairy.com. The link is at the top of the left-hand column.

<== OVER THERE!

Much of the website content is the same as on this blog. The important difference is that you can download and read the Prologue and Chapter One of the novel. The complete novel should be available sometime in October, if the continuing proofing process goes well.

Can fairies really fly?

2009-07-08T12:49:00.008-05:00

I'm shocked you would even ask the question! Of course they can.

Willow Brown, one of the main characters of An Ordinary Fairy (she's the ordinary fairy, BTW), is a highly skilled flier, in fact, one of the best in the fairy world. Perhaps a few words on the different types of fairies would be appropriate.

First, fairies have insect wings, not bird wings with feathers. They are classified into sub-species based on their wing type. (BTW, fairies are the almost the same species as humans - homo aviatus. And they can successfully cross breed with us, though the results are interesting.) All fairies wings are attached somewhat differently than on the corresponding insect, allowing them to pivot downward, which allows ease of movement in tight spaces and concealment under clothing. The wings are supported and moved by a large structure of muscle, bone and cartilage on the upper back. Hence, fairy women don't wear low-back clothing. Fairy men don't have that problem, since they don't have wings at all.

The largest group is the Butters, who have butterfly wings. Many people consider them the most beautiful of all fairies. They tend to be a little stuck on themselves and perhaps a little slow-thinking, but as my information comes from Willow Brown, it may be slanted. They don't fly very fast, and tend toward jerky movements in the air. A related group is the Moths, who for obvious reasons, live on third shift and only come out after dark.

The next group is the Bumbles, who have small, black-veined bumblebee wings. They fly very little, due to their tendency to be, shall we say, portly. Many of them become healers and mid-wives. Because of their body size, they blend in well with humans, and many take on regular professions.

The smallest group is the Wasps. They are tall, thin-limbed and have long wings. They tend to be very territorial and can have unpleasant dispositions. They fly very well, though not as well as the last group.

Last, comprising about twenty percent of all fairies, is the Dragons. Willow Brown is a Dragon, with two pairs of dragonfly wings. Dragons are by far the fastest and most agile flyers, able to perform wonderful in-flight acrobatics. Some are better than others, just as some of us humans are better athletes. All fairies are very muscular and solidly built, in order to accommodate flying. How does flying work? I'll quote Willow's explanation to Noah: "It's sort of a combination of physics and magic."

Just ask Tinkerbell.

I'm on facebook!

2009-07-06T21:12:00.002-05:00

Okay, I finally took the plunge and joined facebook. My daughter joined a few months ago and seemed to really enjoy it. I had two main motives in joining: first, reconnecting with old friends and family and second, promoting An Ordinary Fairy. Traffic to this blog is up, thanks to a mention by my cousin Carol on her facebook page.

AOF is moving along. I'm reading it aloud to my wife as a final proofreading, and then I'll get it into the hands of a few hard copy proofreaders. Then one last pass through the manuscript for fixes and ... time to publish. Hopefully in the fall.

Soon, I hope to have the Prologue and Chapter One available here and on my facebook page to download. Stay tuned.

A review of Crossover by Claudia Newcorn

2009-06-19T12:58:00.007-05:00

I recently finished an excellent book by Caudia Newcorn, the first in a three-book series about fairies called the Krisalys Chronicles of Feyree. Little fairies. Crossover tells the story of Danai and her quest to earn her wings in a world populated by dwarves, ael, (bigger than dwarves, smaller than humans) and fairies who can hide under a toadstool. Ms. Newcorn has crafted an entire world of her own imagining, with no connection whatsoever to our own.

Danai and her fellow sprytes must survive the nine Rites of Krisalys in order to earn their wings and be given the gift of flight. Guided by their solemn mentors and overseen by the mysterious and harsh Dolmen, they grow up fast as each day brings some new risk and reward. It soon becomes clear that Danai is chosen by some higher power to save her people from some great threat in the future, though the Dolmen denies it and calls her merely evil. She must overcome him, her own doubts and the love and loss of her friends to succeed.

This is a charming story in the spirit and style of Lord of the Rings. It's the best fantasy novel I've read to date. Ms. Newcorn created her own images and the language is fascinating. I love her name for things. Insects are manylegs, butterflies have become flutterbies and many more. My favorite is her name for spiders - webbers.

I recommend you try this book if you love fantasy, or just a good story that holds together and is true to its own internal rules. Book 2 will be available sometime this summer. I've place a link to Ms. Newcorn's website, where you can buy the book direct from her, complete with autograph. This is a quality self-published book. (Gee, there really is such a thing!)

Happy Anniversary, My Love

2009-06-19T11:02:00.003-05:00

This is totally unrelated to writing or my novel.

As of today, I've been married to the same fabulous woman for thirty-eight years, my sweet lady, Suzie. We met late in our senior year of high school. For various reasons we went to the same school for three years and never crossed paths. We actually met on a blind date. I proposed two months later, she accepted two months after that (guess she needed to be sure), and after a two year engagement we were married on a hot 104 degree day in an un-air conditioned church. Two kids, three grand kids and several homes later, we're still going strong.

We recently sold our home of thirty years and moved to a newer, smaller house closer to where we work, in the town where we've always wanted to live. I can walk to work when it's nice, and she doesn't have to drive home thirty miles in the middle of the night after a long shift at work. As the saying goes, we're happy as pigs in slop.

We've had our trials and tough times and stress, but she and I have always held tight together, and will continue to do so.

I cannot imagine life without her.

I love you, Babe.

A Review of Wings by Aprilynne Pike

2009-06-10T20:56:00.002-05:00

I pre-ordered my copy of Wings from Amazon so I could be an early reader. I found the book delightful. It's a little short (290 pages, with slightly wide line spacing), but cleverly written. Ms. Pike's take on fairies is unique and definitely nothing I've seen or heard before. One of my favorite little things in the book is the fairy's favorite drink - Sprite. Dummy me, I didn't pick up on that until halfway through.

The story is not very deep for adult readers, but we're not the target audience. I think it would be fine for younger teens, maybe too tame for older ones, but I admit teenagerhood is so far in my past I don't know. The characters are fun and believable. They say and do what real people would say and do. The main character, Laurel, is a neat character. She's the fairy.

My only criticism is the book is too short. Lots of loose ends are left hanging, obviously to set up for the next book. (I think there are supposed to be four.) I believe the ending could have been a little stronger. I disagree very much with the reviewers on Amazon.com who gave the book one star out of five. They clearly expect action from the very first word and are easily bored by good writing that takes time to develop ideas and characters. They should stick with TV and movies, which must be where they learned about stories. Hollywood has produced a generation that expects every story to take place within 44 minutes (1 hour show minus commercials).

I digress. Wings grabbed the number one spot on the New York Times Bestseller list for its class the second week after publication. A good start for you, Ms. Pike. Congratulations!

Thou Shalt Not Trust Thy Spellchecker...

2009-05-10T17:09:00.006-05:00

...no matter how good you think it is.

I believe the single biggest challenge to writing a novel is finding all the mistakes. In my 125,000 word novel, there are approximately 600,000 characters (not counting spaces). Finding errant keystrokes is monumental. I still find things in sentences I typed two years ago. Missing periods, missing quote signs, missing commas. Microsoft Word, as useful as it is, totally misses things. Other stuff it highlights is completely stupid. My favorite is when it underlines one word in a grammatically correct sentence and tells you it's a fragment. Of course it is, it's ONE WORD!

Our wonderful English language is full of those marvelous sets of words that make life miserable:

to, two, and too
there, their, and they're
affect and effect
your and you're
all and awl
threw and through
wood and would
lie, lay, lying, laid (even when I get these right they don't sound right, so I just try to avoid them altogether)
which reminds me of: right and write
alright and all right (they're both correct, so why does Word always highlight it!)
blond and blonde (a rare example of a masculine / feminine word difference in English)
blue and blew
red and read
way and weigh

Every one of these words is a proper English word, correctly spelled, but most of the misuses won't be caught by a spellchecker. Often, not even human ones. And for some reason, they are easier to find in hard copy than on a computer screen. Even that isn't perfect. I've found one of the best ways to find mistakes is to read the text aloud to someone, or do it alone if need be.

So not two belabor the point to much, watch these sets of too words.

PS - status update on An Ordinary Fairy: I'm currently about 80% complete with the latest revision pass through the manuscript. I'm adding much more of Noah's thoughts, which at the same time allows me to remove a lot of telling, replacing it with showing. When that's done, I'll do a hard copy pass to catch the errors you always introduce when you make a lot of revisions. Maybe by the end of June I'll have something for the proofreaders. Or July.

Fairy Lore

2009-04-09T20:49:00.006-05:00

Fairy legends have been around as long as there have been humans. Nearly ever culture and country has them in some form or another. Most of what we're familiar with in this country comes from European influences. When embarking on writing a novel about a fairy woman, I made a crucial decision: I intentionally did not research fairy lore. My reason was simple. I preferred to create my own myth.

While my story contains a lot of the basic fairy stuff, like close connection to animals and wings and flight, I included a few twists as well. What I left out was the huge amount of lore and myth that's available if you go looking. This created a problem during an early review by an editor acquaintance, who just happened to know about fairies. She questioned the fact that Willow's cottage has an iron security gate across the door. "Since iron is poisonous to fairies, that could never happen," she told me.

So I consulted with Willow and she gave me a good explanation - you can't believe everything you read. Fairies call it Guarding the Mystery - to protect themselves from discovery, they've cultivated the myth that they are - a myth. Much of the fairy lore you read (according to Willow) is planted misinformation to throw fairy hunters off the scent.

Are Willow's traits unique? Nope. That's tough to do without creating something that's not recognizable as a fairy, so you have to keep some of the standard stuff. What's unique about Willow is her personality. Feisty while insecure, laden with issues and secrets, and short-tempered but playful. She's tough to figure out, as Noah discovers the first time they meet.

Buy this Book!

2009-03-21T06:54:00.008-05:00

Well, actually, not my book yet, it's not ready, but when it comes out in May, I would like for everyone to buy a copy of a new young adult urban fantasy called Wings. It's a debut novel by Aprilynne Pike, a young woman from Utah. The story concerns a teenage girl who discovers she's really a fairy, sent to guard the entrance to ancient Avalon. There's a link in my favorite stuff to her website.

So why do I want you to buy someone else's book? Because I'm sick of vampires. Everything is vampires right now, in the urban fantasy genre, in young adult, in paranormal, in romance, in mysteries, even in mainstream fiction, the world is obsessed with vampires. Stephanie Myers' twilight series certainly accelerated the trend. Which is what brings me to Wings. (By the way, don't you love that title for a book about a fairy? Why didn't I think of that?!) I saw an article about that trend in USA Today, which talked about Wings. Harper Teen has a big publicity plan for this summer (Supernatural Summer), which involves several major paranormal authors touring together to promote the genre, including Kim Harrison and Kelley Armstrong, two heavyweight adult fantasy authors who noticed teen book sales and crossed over. Aprilynne will be included in the tour with them.

I want you to buy Wings. Tell all your friends to buy Wings. Tell all your cousins to buy Wings. Let the publishing world know there is interest in something besides people with bloody fangs. And maybe, just maybe, excitement about fairies will grow, and those of us who have written books about fairies can dust them off and submit them again.

I prefer not to picture Willow biting Noah, with blood dripping all over her pretty little face.

Good luck, Aprilynne!

Shadow

2009-03-08T07:55:00.005-05:00

Everyone knows fairies have a special relationship with animals, and Willow Brown in no exception. While I departed from many of the standard fairy lore ideas in the novel, I stuck with this one, with a little help from a lady friend who lives on a small farm in Indiana with six sheep, chickens, ducks, a cat and two award-winning Australian shepherds. (Just for clarity, those are dogs, not immigrants.) I'll call her Tree Hugger, since that's what a lot of people where we both worked for a time called her.

Tree Hugger has an unusually high level of communication with her animal friends. She seems to know what they're thinking most of the time, and can relay simple thoughts to them with mental images (since they don't do language as we do). She directs the thought with her hand extended toward the animal. I shamelessly stole this ability for Willow, and in fact, for all fairies. While Willow is good at it, her ability is only one way. Her best friend Rowan is very adept, and can also receive images back from animals.

I decided early on that Willow should have some sort of animal that lived with her in the forest, some sort of "familiar." The decision of what that animal might be was easy. What better companion for a woman living alone and defenseless in the woods than a large black dog? So Shadow was born, a black Labrador retriever that weighs in at 120 pounds, considerably more than Willow. "He's my intimidator," she tells Noah, "at least when he remembers not to wag his tail." Anyone who knows Labs realizes they're not the best guard dogs. While they generally alert you to a strangers presence, it often seems that's so you can play, too. Labs are the clowns of the dog world.

Our black Lab, Jessie, was the inspiration for Shadow. She's lived with us for thirteen years now, and life has been interesting since she came to us. She chose us when she was just three weeks old during a visit to a breeder. There was no doubt she was the one for us, even among nine squirming puppies. She's been a joy to have around, even when we have to clean up the messes when she steals food off the kitchen counter. Her favorite is butter, I think, though potato chips rank right up there. Then there was the time at our daughter's house that she consumed about thirty dollars worth of peel and eat shrimp. And the Halloween chocolate she ate, wrappers and all...and they tell you they did these things the instant you walk in the door, with the head down and ears drooping!

Jessie and I walked many miles together in the small town we lived in during most most of her life. We always went out after dark, year round, and walked our standard path. She knew every turn to make. She loved Frisbee and would chase that thing down 'til she dropped from exhaustion. And snow - we played Frisbee in two feet of snow once, what a hoot.

Our grandchildren don't remember life without Jessie, since she's older than all of them. They can dress her up, wrestle with her, sneak her treats and she loves to sneak into their beds when they're visiting overnight.

Alas, Jessie's on the downhill side of our journey together. Her snout and paws are covered in silver now, her eyes are a little murky, and she has several fatty tumors on her chest. She's had a heart murmur for a few years, something we just had to watch, and which continues to worsen. We dragged her from the house in Oakwood to an apartment for a few months and then into a new house in Urbana, changes that she weathered well despite her age. Her new place has a large fenced in back yard to play in and a wood deck. Unfortunately, shortly after we moved in last summer, Jessie tripped coming up the steps to the deck and blew out her knee, so our walking days are over. She and I both miss those times. I can see it in her eyes every time I leave. "Can I go, too?" She can make it only a half a block now and needs to return home. Her heart condition has worsened, and we thought we were going to lose her last fall when she had a bad reaction to some ear infection medicine and spent several days at the vet. This cold winter has been especially hard on her.

Most of Jessie's time is spent on the living room rug now, asleep. Her main activities are sleeping, pooping and eating, but her spirit is still there. She still meets us at the door when we come home with one of her stuffed animals in her mouth and that never-motionless tail wagging. She can still wake up and appear out of nowhere with that "I need a biscuit" look that becomes a steady stream of barking if you don't get up and get her a couple. And somehow, she can still steal things off the counter.

It's Sunday morning, and Jessie's asleep in the living room, dreaming of chasing the Frisbee, her legs thrashing about, accompanied by an occasional "Woof!" Soon she'll wake up and remember breakfast, and I'll have to stop writing to feed her, but I don't mind.

So you see why Jessie was a logical choice to appear in my novel. Not only do I know black Labs pretty well and so can write accurately about them, but perhaps she can live on in a new incarnation.

Sweet Rejection

2009-02-26T19:56:00.003-06:00

The biggest obstacle to writing a novel is rejection. You coddle your baby, you caress it, you dress it up, and then you hand it to your proofreaders and they find all sorts of mistakes, don't like the ending, can't understand the story, or have endless suggestions to make it better. Yes, you asked for it. No you didn't really want to hear it. And proofers are easy, since you probably know them already (family and friends).

My proofers were gentle, but they still led me to a lot of revisions, mostly taking out the fluff. I joined an online writer's community for a while (fanstory.com) and got a lot of good input (and some crap) when I posted the first eight chapters. More rejection...more revisions.

Next I hired an editor acquaintance to look it over, the first professional to see it. Ouch. More rejection...more revisions. I hired a grad student later to review what I thought was the final product. More rejection...more revisions.

How do I deal with all that rejection? It ain't easy. It usually takes me a few days to calm down. (Just ask my wife.) There's initial anger, incredulity, swearing and depression. But I get over it.

Five months ago I started sending query letters to agents. I targeted agents who specialized in fantasy. I contacted 32 agents. Seventeen just flat out rejected my idea from the start. Two asked to see more materials, and then rejected the more. But worst are the thirteen who didn't even bother to respond. I know they're busy, but they should have the decency to take twenty seconds to respond to an email concerning a book that required several thousand hours to complete. And the nineteen who did respond didn't offer a single word of constructive criticism. Not one word.

I took a chance and sent a query letter and materials to a small publisher directly. Much to my surprise, the CEO herself responded within 24 hours! (Debra Dixon at Belle Books - check them out at BelleBooks.com). She was not only kind enough to type a personal response, she also offered some advice on how to improve my writing, and then responded to a follow-up email I sent! Please buy their books!

Even though she rejected An Ordinary Fairy. Her advice was frank and painful, but I learned from it, as I've learned from all the rejections on all fronts. It's a better novel today because of all the rejections, and I have to hang my hat on that.

While on that subject, I'm putting seeking a publisher on hold until the economy recovers some - at least six months. Most publishers are shying away from new writers anyway from what I've heard. I'll spend the time polishing some more. (I'm in the middle of a major revision pass right now "deepening POV"). I'm considering putting the first few chapters on the blog for downloading to see if I can generate some interest.

And I might just self-publish.

Chester Jones

2009-01-27T21:19:00.007-06:00

Willow Brown

2009-01-05T20:44:00.007-06:00

Ta Da! And now for the main event!

Willow Brown is the heart of An Ordinary Fairy. You can read the brief description of her in the book summary, but here's a little more information: she's blonde, beautiful, has small dark brown eyes and a very muscular build, which accounts for her relatively high weight to height ratio. Oh yes, she has wings - dragonfly wings, though hers are attached differently than they are on the primitive insect, which allows them to pivot down her back. Hence, a Dragon fairy (such as she is) can dress in normal street clothes and conceal their true nature. They wear a lot of loose clothes to conceal the hump where the wings connect and can't wear backless or thin outfits. More on fairy lore in a separate post.

Originally Willow was loosely based on a real person, but very soon after I started writing she became her own person. My image of her detached itself from the person and took on a life of its own. Actually, Willow's entire character (not just appearance) evolved as I wrote. She became shorter, stouter, and cursed with issues, which cause some friction between her and Noah. She became a computer geek (she's an expert hacker), and is handy with tools.

Willow was the very first character to be imagined. She just popped into my head one day, and the rough story line and the other main character, Noah Phelps, soon followed.

I Found a Cover!

2008-12-13T20:31:00.003-06:00

I was surfing one day last week, checking out fairy art, looking for dragonfly fairies, which are difficult to find. I happened across Julie Fain Art, and I found Willow!

In a crucial scene in the story, Noah sees Willow fly at her pond, at sunset. If you follow the link on my Fairy Stuff Links, and look for a print called "Fairy at Sunset," you'll see the scene exactly. I've communicated with Julie, and once I find a publisher, this print will become the cover for An Ordinary Fairy.

Louie Miller

2008-12-03T19:15:00.003-06:00

Louie is one of my favorite characters in the story, even though he only appears a few times in a supporting role. He's a sweet, lovable person who plays a big role in Noah meeting Willow. A farmer by trade, now retired and living in a house in Hoopeston, he's a member of a coffee club that meets every morning at Henning's Root Beer Stand.

The fun thing about Louie Miller is that he is based on a real person, an old friend name Louie Turner, who is a retired farmer. Some people say you should never do that with a book character, but it's worked out fine. The real Louie thinks it's a hoot that he's in the book. Louie taught me a lot about farming and the farmer's way of life, which was a big influence in imagining Noah's background.

So did I change anything about the real Louie? Well, I made him younger, so he's frozen at age 64 in 2006, which isn't quite accurate. I didn't change his appearance, mannerisms, or speech from the real Louie of age sixty-four. Nor his work ethic or what he believes in. There were only two changes. In the story, Louie's wife's name is Catherine; in real life he's married to Norma. And of course, he lives in Hoopeston, while the real Louie has been a life-long resident of western Indiana, just across the border.

Louie has only a small appearance in the second novel, An American Fairy. In the third book, which is titled A Houseful of Fairies, he plays a very important role.

Noah Phelps

2008-11-14T16:21:00.003-06:00

Noah Phelps is the main character of An Ordinary Fairy, and the story is told from his point of view. Not as first person (which is hard), but in "third-person limited point of view." The reader follows Noah, and sees and experiences only what he feels or thinks. The Harry Potter books are written mostly with this POV, though there are occasional jumps to scenes without Harry at all.

Noah's name was simple to create. I was watching the movie version of Nicholas Spark's The Notebook, and realized the main character, Noah, was much like my Noah. Phelps is a family name - my Grandmother Osborne's maiden name. I googled that name and found out there was a Revolutionary War hero by the same name - the spy who saved the day at Fort Ticonderoga. That was too big a temptation to pass up, so the real Noah Phelps became my Noah Phelps's ancestor. He's mentioned twice in the story and has a most unusual tie-in.

The character Noah was a photographer from the very beginning of my imagining of the story. The very first scene I imagined was of a photographer hiding in the woods and witnessing a fairy woman flying, unbeknownst to her. In the original idea, Noah confronted the fairy with the photos he took, but I dropped that eventually as something that the noble Noah would never do. It was strictly a coincidence that I later took up photography as a hobby during a long period when the story idea lay dormant. That hobby didn't last, but it provided a lot of built-in background when I started writing. So when Noah uses photography, it's a been-there done-that for me, including a little thing called The Gremlin.

Noah is Wiccan. That idea formed much later, actually after I began writing. The existence of a Wiccan community, school and store in Hoopeston led to that tie in, and became the reason Noah chose to come to Hoopeston. And that system of belief helped shape the character he became: good at heart, unwilling to harm, and open to the mystical. Which helps when you know a fairy.

Noah grew up on a dairy farm, but I can't remember where that came from. It may have just been something that popped out as I was writing, which can happen when the creative juices are flowing. (Noah and Willow, by the way, visit Noah's parent's farm in Wisconsin in the next novel, An American Fairy.) His farm background led to Willow's nickname for Noah: Cowboy.

Location, location, location

2008-11-04T12:05:00.003-06:00

One important rule of writing is "write what you know." In other words, don't try to write about life in a small town in Japan if you've never been to one or don't have excellent sources. You can get to know about a particular subject or place, however, if you have the time and resources to undergo the research necessary. Best-selling author Jodi Picoult is well-known for her research techniques. To write about a main character who was a fireman, she spent days and nights at a firehouse, learning what firemen do and how they think.

When it came time to establish a setting for An Ordinary Fairy, one thing was obvious: the fairy lived in a forest. But where? And just as important, when?

I'll answer the second question first. I've always pictured this story in the present day. The fairy outwardly avoided human contact and modern technology, but eagerly accepted the techy stuff that could make life easier. Hence, she lives in a remote forest with no telephone or television, but she does use electricity to operate her microwave and most important, her laptop computer.

So where should this forest be? I considered lots of places throughout the eastern half of the USA, since there are lots of forested regions. I finally settled on either Illinois or Indiana, with which I'm very familiar, and so would not need to expend much energy on research. I know what types of trees and wildlife you'll see in those states. For a long time the story was going to be in southern Indiana, but then I decided to move it closer to home, to Vermilion County, Illinois, right where I had lived for forty years. The first location was near a little town called Henning, but there were some things missing. Like a store, a restaurant, or a gas station. Henning was just too small. Next, I considered Hoopeston, a few miles to the north, which had all these things and which was familiar, since I worked there for fourteen years.

Then it struck me that Hoopeston was perfect, because one other important thing was located there: The Witch School, and it's associated magic store, The Broom Closet. After that thought developed, it quickly followed that my hero, Noah Phelps, was Wiccan, and had chosen Hoopeston as his base of operations while on a photography assignment because those places were there.

Hoopeston was missing one thing: the forest. That was easily rectified, and so Jones Woods was imagined into being a few miles southeast of town. The property is actually all corn or soybean fields.

Hoopeston furnished easy settings for the scenes in the book. Hennings Root Beer Stand, Ruby Nell's Pub, and Chester Jones's house are all real places that make appearances. The Big House (which I discussed in an earlier post) and Willow's cottage took up residence in the woods, and my setting was complete.

The Story of the Story's Title

2008-10-14T21:20:00.004-05:00

What is an Urban Fantasy?

2008-09-30T21:11:00.009-05:00

First, my disclaimer: I'm no expert on the subject of literary genres. I do know where An Ordinary Fairy fits, though.

There are many types of novels: Westerns, romance, mysteries, thrillers, science fiction, inspirational and so on. Each group, or genre, contains books that are all written to roughly the same pattern. Many of us read books of a particular pattern because it's familiar, like an old friend, and because there's a certain degree of predictability. Which is a contradiction, because don't we all like a surprise ending? Anyway, some of us (yours truly) would never pick up a western novel, not because we think the stories are no good, it's just not our preference. There are many very good books that I will never read, just because they're outside my little picture of what genres I like.

To complicate matters further, there are some novels that don't fit any genre, generally called mainstream fiction. Walk into any big bookstore and you'll see the genres each have their own aisle. But you'll also see a big area called "Fiction/Literature." These books tend to defy classification. What most of us call "literature" are the classics, with authors like Cooper, Hawthorne, Faulkner, Steinbeck, Hemmingway, and a host of modern authors I don't even know. (No expert, remember?) Most literature is written by incredibly gifted people that make wonderful use of the English language to tell stories that stir our soul and teach us about human existence at the same time. We finish these works enriched and enlightened.

Then there's the rest of us. Those who make proper use of the language, but spin a particular type of story, a genre, according to accepted patterns. There are ten or twelve genres, and over the last few decades, quite a few sub-genres have been born, so that there are nearly a hundred identified. Some of these have very creative titles, like "Splatter" - a sub-genre of horror that "cuts right to the gore" as they say. Or "Biopunk." Or "Dystopian."

Well, my genre is Science Fiction/Fantasy. I guess I'm getting old, because when I was a kid, Science Fiction was about space travel and fantasy was embodied in one book - The Lord of the Rings. Fantasy exploded and the line became blurred, so now you find the space travel books on the same shelf as the elf-warrior novels.

Within SciFi/Fantasy is a small sub-genre called Urban Fantasy - "a fantasy tale in which magical powers and characters appear in an otherwise normal modern context." (Quoted from Writer's Digest magazine.) Note that "urban" doesn't mean the story takes place in a city, though it could. More likely, this came from the term "urban legend." AOF takes place mostly in the woods of Willow's estate.

I struggled to classify An Ordinary Fairy for some time until I ran across the Urban Fantasy definition, because it has elements of several different genres. There's a romance, but if you took that part out, there would still be a story, so it's not a romance novel. It contains a mystery, but that's not the main driver of the story. The main thing that holds the story together is Willow Brown, the main character, and the magic of her existence and the excitement she brings to our otherwise mundane world.

A closely related genre is Magical Realism, in which "extraordinary forces or creatures pop into otherwise normal settings." (Quoting Writer's Digest again.) One of my favorite authors is Alice Hoffman, who wrote three great magical realism novels: Practical Magic (which became a movie), A Probable Future, and Turtle Moon.

Another favorite author of mine is Charles de Lint, who has written over forty urban fantasies. While you wait for An Ordinary Fairy to be published, you can read his Onion Girl, one of the best urban fantasies around.

What this blog is about

2008-09-23T12:08:00.005-05:00

This blog is about my adventure of writing a novel. After two years and many hours of work, An Ordinary Fairy is ready to submit for publication. More important than writing the story was learning how to write a novel. You don't just sit down and bang away at a computer and hope it all comes together. The process of writing is complicated - as of today my computer holds 187 files relating to the book. Lots of document files, but also spreadsheets to track time lines, character names and backgrounds, maps of the imagined scenes, and lesson materials from an on-line writing class.

So how did all this start? It began with an imagined scene of a fairy woman flying about while a photographer hiding in the woods watches. That one scene grew to be a 130,000 word novel. The idea first came to me more than ten years ago, but my life never allowed the correct combination of time, equipment, and inclination all at the same time.

In 2006, my schedule became lighter (as did my wallet) after a job change, so time became available. While my wife Susan and I were on vacation, she mentioned she would like to have a lightweight notebook computer to take to her college classes, which reminded me that I had a small notebook PC tucked away in storage. We were vacationing near Starved Rock State Park and the idea of the fairy story had been back in my mind. So I had time and equipment. (I grabbed the PC before Sue could get her hands on it.) One day as we drove along the Illinois river, I found the third piece I needed: inspiration.

I had thought for some time that the fairy would be living on a large plot of woodland property that had belonged to her parents. While she lived in a small cottage, there still existed an abandoned mansion in the woods, but I could never quite get the image clear in my mind. That August day as we drove, there it was: The Big House, as it would come to be called. Right alongside the river road was a huge four-story stone house, built of flat river rocks with bright white mortar.

From that moment the scenes began to gel in my mind, and I had a story. Not the entire story, mind you, because a novel tends to take unforeseen twists and turns, but the foundation was there. The first outline of the book had only eight chapters...which grew to be 29 and later dropped back to 27 in the final version.

Why did I want to write a novel? Well, it's a nice thing to have on your resume. Great conversation starter. But the most basic reason was far simpler: to entertain. My novel was written to be fun to read. As I hope this blog will be.

Next post, I'll explain what an urban fantasy is.