Blog Tour

Welcome to Ri the Bard's Blog Tour! Shout out to Gabriel Beyers' who invited me to do this!  I am to answer the following ten questions about my current work.  If you wish to see his answers, you may check out his blog here. This is the first time I've ever released anything about this upcoming project.  I ask that none of it be redistributed for any purpose, at all.  Thank you for understanding.


1) What is the working title of your book?

Of my current project, the title that I seem to be leaning towards is Archer of the Lake.  I've considered others:  Beauty of Spring, The Snowdrop Crown, and the title that remained on the word document for months:  Misanthrope Elf, which is, as I see now, a bit of logical fallacy.

2) Where did the idea come from for your book?

Strangely enough, I had a dream.  It wasn't a vastly fantastic dream, but it stuck out to me quite a bit.  In the dream, around ten elves were sitting in my room with picture-esque poses, all still as statues.  Quite noticeable was an elf with dark hair and clothing sitting in the corner by himself.  The nearest one to him, like a Pale Lady, gave me the sense as though as she was the only one accepting of him.  The tableaux shifted, and then I saw the darker elf picking up a cloak the Pale Lady had.  Only, the cloak did not belong to the Pale Lady.  It was the cloak of another he-elf, and the darker felt betrayed, angry, and rather jealous.  And then, the dream ended.

3) What genre does your book fall under?

Fantasy, definitely, with all its magic and fantastical realm. I love fantasy. Some may also think it would be Young Adult or Paranormal Romance. I'm sticking to Fantasy.

4) Which actors would you choose to play in your movie rendition?

Oddly enough, I compiled this list months ago-- 

Character A - Female Protagonist
Amanda Seyfried

Character B - Male Lead
Garrett Hedlund (but only with this hair)

Character C - Supporting Male
Joseph Fiennes

Character AMAZING - Female Protagonist Father
Liam Neeson

I have other characters and alternates, of course, but I'll not list them here.

5) What is the one sentence synopsis of your book?

The budding she-elf of Sal'Sumarathar, Caelfel fights, often alone, the evil forces that have infiltrated her beloved woodland city in order to save her family, herself, and the one elf everyone hates. 

 It's not brilliant. I just came up with it, in fact.

6) Will your book be self-published or represented by an agency?

I am largely looking into self-publishing.  Then, I will keep writing, continue self-publishing, and enjoy the spoils my way.  If I gain vast popularity, perhaps then I will consider obtaining an agent to handle legal things for me.  However, for now I'll just focus on the actual creations and enjoy the experience of marketing and such for myself.

7) How long did it take you to write the first draft of your manuscript?

After I got the idea to start writing in February, I seemed to write nonstop all the way until May.  I wrote in class, which was a strange experience in and of itself to write and understand biology and history lectures at the same time.  It was amusing when my biology professor asked me questions the most to try to stump me, but I was correct 99% of the time and earned the highest grade in the class.  This was also when I got my job working an after-school program to look after children from preschool to fifth grade age for two hours a day.  I could write then while the children ran around the playground, only needing to glance up occasionally.  Then, in the summer, I got a real job that demands 30+ hours a week.  I had a summer class, so I wrote a bit then, but not nearly as much.  So, there's somewhat of a gap in the period I was writing.  When the fall semester started, I started writing a bit more, but the real job took occasional precedence, as did my constant need for sleep.  And, with my Creative Writing class, I had to focus my writing for that.  Now, I just need to finish the climax and ending.  Then, editing!

8) What other books would you compare this story to?

I believe I took a lot of inspiration from Tolkien's elves, but not strictly.  There was also reading Paolini's Inheritance Cycle that inspired me to fantasy in the first place.  Also, The Hobbit.

9) Who or what inspired you to write the book?

Honestly, the idea of the dream was much too good for me to give up.  See, I tell myself stories every night when I go to sleep.  Then, I get epic feelings of heroism that I hope translate into my dreams.  But, with so many stories I come up with, inevitably, there are a few that get lost in my memory through the passage of time.  I did not want to forget this one.  And, as I mentioned earlier, when I began writing, I met a rather awesome girl when I started work at the school.  She liked video games, stories, and writing.  And she helped inspire me to write more.

10) What else about your book might pique the readers interest?

It has romance, and not just any romance but my kind of romance which is much different and better than any other romance (in my professional opinion) because it is angsty and awkward.  There's also were-folk and elves and various other races and classes of my own creation.

Creating Fantasy

What I love most about fantasy is the ability to create your own world, and that is also probably the most difficult bit to writing fantasy.  There's the world, the country, political systems, not to mention races, and magical capabilities.

I read somewhere that, in creating a fantasy realm, you must make sure if a character is in possession of something--necklace, sword, shield, glass window--that the means for creating such an object is possible in the grafted world.  While that is sound advice, I don't think one should entirely focus on the means and hows when initializing such a project.  Those details can be hammered out later.

Photo Credit goes to someone
definitely not me

There's also the danger of copying another person's world.  I would imagine gamers have problems with this.  I struggle to draw lines between video games and my own creativity.  I can only imagine the difficulties for tabletop or RP gaming like D&D.  It's so easy to mimic those type of general kingdoms.  It's like medieval Europe plus magic, or that's (what I assume) the general consensus for fantasy.  And then of course Tolkien with his Hobbit and Lord of the Rings trilogy.  I know I get inspiration from him.  He's like. . .the master of fantasy.  Or maybe that's fan worshiping.

When I created my fantastical realm, I did a very clear-cut process to develop it.  Or, maybe not.  I'm all about vague generalizations and abstracts, then I sew and stitch the specific details.

What I did first what to establish the one magical need in my world.  Elves--there had to be elves.  There's also a sorcerer and a seer, so there had to be magic in this world, which one would think would already be assumed in the case with the elves.

But the sorcerer and the and seer weren't in the initial list.  They came after I had somewhat-marginally developed the skeleton of the basic plot.  So in turn, when doing this--creating the plot, that is--the needs of your world shall arise.  Besides the sorcerer and the seer, I also had a wandering elf who roamed outside of little elf country.  Which meant, I had to at least draw a basic idea of what the entire world was like .  I suppose the good thing about sticking to one race is that, dependent on their level of interaction among outsiders, you can initiate isolation among them and only develop within elven country.

But my wandering elf needed a list of his adventures, so I made a brief list of other races and classes.   I had to create a few names, sketch a map of sorts and establish political systems and national boundaries, factions, wars, and so on.  The frustrating part of this was that out of this vast arsenal of "fantasy world" I had created, less than ten percent of the information will make it into the book.  Of course, I can use it for later stories--which I plan to--but often times, for the sake of the effort I just put into it, you'll see a lot of dropped names.  It's like, "HERE I SPENT HOURS DEVELOPING THIS, ENJOY IT."

I think that's largely behind Tolkien's problems with his tendencies to explain and detail everything.  Similar to how they release director commentaries and special editions of everything--with all the special features and behind-the-scenes footage--so you can appreciate the work that goes into it.  Except, the difference is that people actually care seeing footage of their favorite actors.  Readers may or may not be particularly interested in swallowing a random name that's difficult to pronounce.

Speaking of random names, I think it goes without saying that creating unique and believable names that aren't corny are essential to fantasy.  I pick my names through various methods.  There are name generators on the Internet.  Some valid, many ridiculous.  Admittedly, I've pinched a few names or sounds from them.  I also study various languages quite extensively.  Most of my elf names are derived from Old English.  I use German for places, Latin for another race, and French for others.  Occasionally, I take names from mythology.

Or history.  Reading up on history and mythology can help develop a fantasy world, at least in my case but I enjoy those subjects.  Including references to such things can build one's fantasy work, make it dynamic, and in some cases legitimize your authority in the field of writing to some readers.

But this is how I do things.  Ultimately, to each their own.  What might work for me may not work for another person.  And, I've found that through many boring pages of writing tips I've perused throughout the vast Internet, that not everything is for me.  Perhaps I'll go on about this in another blog post.  But, the ultimate, most important part of fantasy is making sure it's a world that you--the writer or the reader even--enjoy it for its mystical wonder.

In other news, I've jotted down a rough outline for my next project--dystopian.  I'm excited by this. I  meant to do it earlier but never had the willpower to do it.  It's currently not much.  It needs fine-tuning and further developing, but I am proud, nonetheless.  Perhaps I'll do a blog on creating dystopia, but I'll wait until I've actually developed my own until then.

The Gears are Moving!

To kickstart this new blog, I'm having a Mini Blog Tour with Gabriel Beyers, in which I will answer a few questions within the next week.  You may check out his blog here.  And, he also has a website.

In the meantime, I have just finished one of my final exams for my Creative Writing class.  It wasn't a particularly difficult final or a particularly difficult class, for that matter, but it was a class that I'll deeply miss next semester and any other semester while I am in college.  The instructor was a great mentor for writing, pointed me in several helpful directions, and stroked my already-inflated ego.  Repeatedly, he told me that I have the necessary elements and what it takes to sell, which is immensely encouraging for me as I'm starting out this business because I would love to do it professionally.

I've always felt as though I would do something big, probably attributed to my innate genius and cynicism.  I will do this.  I know it.  Perhaps the point of this blog post to is reassure myself of my capabilities and remind myself of my goals.  I will publish, and as I get closer and closer to that route, I feel as though I'm leaning towards the indie path.

But please note, Kelly Michaels will be a published author one day.

Pilot

My name is Kelly, and this is my première post on my new Blogger blog--THIS.

I was on Wordpress, and then decided I did not like the layout and template options that were offered, so I converted (which, brand labeling, only makes sense since I am an avid Google user).

The point of this entire blog is to establish my own independent presence, because I am a writer and, like any writer, I have nonsensical dreams of being published.  I have several works-in-progress that are developing closer and closer to their ultimatum.

I would love to include more here, this being my first post and all, but unfortunately I'm due to clock-in at work in thirty minutes and I'm still lamenting over the fact that I can't wear these really cool, green pants that are new.  It's all for the better, since I'll just get grease and nasty-smelling stains on them.