Recycling Titles and the Problem With Fairy Tales

As I'm now nearly careening toward the finish line with Voices in the Briars, I'm getting myself ready for the next book on my to-do list. I'm also at that somewhat vulnerable point where I'm looking all over the place for inspiration. I blogged recently about doppelgängers and how a piece of music got me rethinking a story idea that kept getting stuffed back in the trunk. 

This time around, I got another needed boost at the day job while I was listening to my favorite Halloween-themed ambient playlist, which reminded me so much of one of my favorite fairy tales when I was a kid. Back then I remember it being titled "The Boy Who Didn't Know How to Shudder", but apparently the Wikipedia page for it calls it "The Story of the Youth Who Went Forth to Learn What Fear Was". That's a mouthful, innit? 

But I was able to find parallels between the playlist I was listening to -- since the sequence of the songs followed an actual storyline -- and the Brothers Grimm's fairy tale (which I still love following a reread). With that connection also came a recycling of an old fanfic title of mine -- whose bare bones plot actually inspired the idea behind The Twilight Gods years after I wrote it -- because it was the only title that actually fit the plot of this new story.

And since the muse-feeding was in full swing, I got the main plot pegged, and it's pretty rock-solid, soooo...

Why, yes, I'm exceptionally proud of this title. :D And it'll enjoy a second life as a published book (wholly different story in case that wasn't clear) that I'm aiming to release in 2026 following Doppelgänger. The cover art is pretty set though I might be tweaking the colors and overall effects later. So add this to my calendar, yes? 

As for the second part of this post's title, it's an ongoing challenge for me whenever I write something that's my take on a fairy tale. Rewriting fairy tales or giving them your own spin allows you a pretty basic story template to manipulate, but fairy tales being fairy tales, they're all very generic and broad in terms of plots and characters. So it's up to you to expand on those further, color them with your own special ideas, etc. 

Voices in the Briars is my own version of the "Bluebeard" fairy tale, but it's a gothic horror and gay romance that's set in Hungary (as a nod to the legend, however false, of Elizabeth Báthory). The original fairy tale also has variants, and I opted to go for the Estonian one that involves the bride's childhood friend who's instrumental in helping her escape and subsequently marries her. So since part of my focus is on that friends-to-lovers trope, I have to give my MCs a pretty expansive backstory to justify what happens in the second half of the book. 

With nothing to go by even by way of a passage or anything on the Estonian variant, I'm pretty much on my own coming up with that history between Lóránt and Dávid. The tricky part, of course, is not letting the new details run off with the story so that you're tumbling down a wholly different canyon before you know it. I've done that so many times before and ended up dumping the draft and starting over. Not fun. So far it's been a bit of a tightrope act with this WiP, but now that I'm finally hitting my stride with the actual fairy tale part of the book (the first third is dedicated to the two boys and how their lives are entwined), the template's guiding me more effectively.

And I can see something similarly tricky in the pipeline for Compline (a gothic retelling of "The Pied Piper of Hamelin") and The Shadow Groom (see above). Compline will pose more of a challenge since the original fairy tale reads more like an analogy than a straightforward story, but I'll need to read up some more on its possible sources before diving in. The Shadow Groom, which will also echo the dark humor of the original Brothers Grimm version, won't be as nutty to take on, but I expect it to be a lot of fun. Seriously, read the fairy tale. I laughed at some of the scenes because of how ridiculous they are plus the fact that the boy is an utter dingbat all the way to the end. 

At any rate, it'll be great to turn that story into a dark comedy with a healthy dose of dry humor a la Nightshade's Emporium.

And the Bunny Takes a Nibble

So while my Hungarian hunters are busily staking vampires in my WiP, I figured I might as well take advantage of this faint smudge of free time to share a new bit o' shiny. It's really weird how one thing -- pretty innocuous and even gorgeous -- can give a darker idea a nudge. Again and again. Then a massive kick in the 'nads for good measure when things not only gel, but actually make a hell of a lot of sense. 

Anyway, while re-centering myself with some favorite music on YT (mostly classical since it always calms me down), I realized I haven't listened to Karl Jenkins' Palladio in a dog's age. It's one of my favorite modern compositions, and it occasionally cuddles ye olde plotbunny and feeds it some much-needed noms though I really hadn't been inspired by it completely.

Until now.

The piece itself (this is actually just one movement but is the most famous one*) was written in honor of Andrea Palladio, an Italian architect from the Renaissance who championed an architectural style that was all about symmetry and balance. Jenkins' piece perfectly encapsulates Palladian architecture, but one can also argue that it can stir up some darkly twisted stuff given the right time and environment.

*points at brain*

Dat be my brain, y'all, all of yesterday. I'll be able to rescue a languishing plotbunny that was originally intended for The Twilight Lover, which underwent a bit of surgery and came out of it a wholly different story, and I ended up ditching the original idea yet again (it'd been resurrected, killed off, resurrected, killed off, etc. for quite a few years now). 

And this time it'll work -- thanks to the idea of symmetry and balance, which can be turned into something quite creepy and unsettling. So I now have one more solid story to add to my running to-do list, and Doppelgänger will follow The Bells of St. Mark's Eve. We'll be back to my favorite genre of Victorian ghost fiction in this case, so I'm stoked. 

* this performance actually drops a very short section of the piece, but it doesn't detract from the final effect; it's also (so far) my favorite interpretation because it's snappier and more emphatic than others, which usually take on a slightly slower and more graceful approach

'The Dubious Commode' Gallery Now Up

Finally! The gallery page for The Dubious Commode is finally up and running, and you can go here for some bits o' stuff behind the book as well as the entire Ghosts and Tea series. The final version of the manuscript has also been uploaded to Draft2Digital for e-book and print publishing, and it'll be out on July 1. Farewell, Hoary Plimpton! It's been a blast through and through. 

In other news, I'm roughly halfway through Voices in the Briars and will need to get going on the brainstorming front for The Perfect Rochester. And even though I'm always sorely tempted to look far, far into the future with possible story ideas, I'm fighting the urge and will keep to what I have currently set up all the way to The Bells of St. Mark's Eve. 

At this rate, I'll probably find myself getting way ahead on the writing front until I'll be more than 6 months out for my WiP's publishing calendar. But yeah -- I know I tend to go back on my resolution whenever the wave of energy and motivation hits me, so I'll have to remember (or remind myself) that three books released per year are my maximum. And so far that's what's set for this year and next. The Bells of St. Mark's Eve will kick off 2026, and it's a blank after that for the time being. 

Well, at the very least, I'd like to keep writing through the end of 2028, which will mark 20 years of me writing and publishing. I'm not going to jinx myself, though. I'll keep writing until I run out of things to say, and then I'll bow out gracefully. I don't see that happening anytime soon, but I'm growing more and more aware of my limitations as I get older. 

You know how it is. In this instance, reducing my output will be to my benefit, and with any luck, I won't be turning back on that again once I decide on it. But, hell, who knows?

Booyah, New Month (and Happy Pride!)

Wow, I lasted almost two weeks not posting anything here. Real life / day job crumminess got in the way, as it always does, and my way of coping was to fling myself onto the bed and pass out. I did finish my rewatch of Dead Boy Detectives, though, and fell in dorky love all over again plus I'm done with the final touch ups for The Dubious Commode, and I'm looking to submitting the final version to Draft2Digital this weekend. 

And a few more words about this book...

It's easily the least dramatic of the entire series with the angst levels dialed down. I wanted it to be an unapologetically upbeat farewell to Prue and the gang, and any conflict comes from a distant source. The book blurb will give you an idea exactly where, and because of that distance, the humor isn't as tempered by sadder stuff such as what the previous books have explored in their own way. 

Alas for me, it's proving to be a challenge putting together a gallery page for the book. I've already gone over a pretty succinct (at least I hope so) account of how I picture some of the main characters, and now I've decided I'll be diving even deeper and going over the roots of my love of epistolary fiction. More on that once the gallery page is up and running, of course.

Oh, and Happy Pride Month to my LGBTQ+ friends out there! Enjoy this amazing moment of Catholic insanity courtesy of Claire (yep, she came out as lesbian in the series, and the moment is posted here [word of advice: wait for a short but awesome comment from Da Gerry at the end]) and the gang. 

I'm itching to rewatch this series as well. Stumbling across random snippets on Youtube is really stoking the embers of my love for Derry Girls.

All Hail Long Weekends

Right. I'm off work today, and that means finishing up what's left of edits for The Dubious Commode, which is then followed by the manuscript's upload to Draft2Digital for store listing. Woot! I've also started on the print file and am on the last step, but I'll be holding off on that in case I spot random errors I missed and will need to re-upload the manuscript. If I jump right in and publish the print book, I'll need to pay to update it if I don't want to wait 90 days for that free change feature to kick in. 

Anyhoo, here's the blurb:

Another wave of suspicious calm follows Freddy and Jonathan's successful solving of the singing skull mystery, which means Fate isn't quite done with the lot of them. Prue carries on with her beloved priory upgrades, stocks up on Felicity's products (arcane and otherwise), and endures the trials of being still of the living world. Freddy and Jonathan are madly in love with each other as ever, their bond growing stronger by the day.

Things appear to go swimmingly for a time, indeed, with Jonathan's workaholic publisher paying Hoary Plimpton a visit for health reasons and Mr. Headley entering the picture with a dragon's hoard of romantic smut for aunt and nephew alike.

But Brody's artistic gift comes under unexpected scrutiny, threatening a horrible shakeup in the priory and a permanent upending of everyone's lives. Then Mr. Headley decides he'd dearly love to be haunted and acquires a few oddities with ghosts attached to them.

Family isn't immune from drama, naturally, as Linford's increasingly panicked letters suggest. Lucinda's trapped in her spiritualist retreat where ladies' pocketbooks are gradually draining their contents, and Antigonous involves his committee in the mystery of the haunted antique commode. It's a haunting that baffles everyone, forcing them to resort to a few foolish and drastic measures to get to the bottom of things—even reconsider old prejudices against the very people who hold the key to ghostly mysteries.

Prue and Freddy's madcap ghostly adventures conclude in this final installment of the Ghosts and Tea series.

As always, the digital book is priced at 99 cents, and the print book at $9.00. I come cheap, what can I say? Once the online bookstore links are live, I'll be posting them here. In the meantime, I need to get going on the gallery page for the book.

In other writing news, I'm roughly 1/3 done with Voices in the Briars, and more story ideas are coming hard at fast at me with regard to future books I already have in the pipeline. One of them was worked into the plot of The Twilight Lover, which changes its setting a little but certainly for the better since the original idea was a bit tired and overdone (at least in terms of what I've already written). Time for an upgrade, and I'm sure this'll work much better. 

Of course, that might also mean a possible change in cover art, but we'll cross that bridge when we get there. Otherwise, my publishing calendar remains steady, and no shuffling around is in the future as far as I can see. 

EDIT: Ayup, here we go! The book page over at Books2Read is up, and the list of stores will be added to the closer we get to the release date.