New Project Announcement: Silence

I’ve discovered, through trial and error over the last few years, that it’s a lot easier to actually get writing projects done when I have people waiting to read them. Especially when I’m sharing the projects as I write them. And I don’t have a writing group or anything right now, and I never really know what to do with my Patreon, so I’m going to try doing this: 

I’m writing a story right now called Silence. I hope it will be novel-length, but I never really know until I get there. It’s about a mermaid. I would not call it a retelling of The Little Mermaid, but honestly, YMMV on that. Starting next week, I’ll be posting a chapter of this story on Patreon every week. (With possible occasional skipped weeks for holidays, real life interference, etc.)

Silence will be available for everyone, Patrons or not. Patrons will have access to each chapter five days early, and will also have access to occasional bonus content consisting of deleted scenes, outlines, previews, posts about inspiration, posts about the history of this story-type, etc.—basically whatever I feel like, TBH.

One important thing to note here: it’s much easier to stay motivated to write if I’m sharing as I go, but that only works if I know people are reading. So if you’re here, please engage with the posts. Like them or comment—it can be something simple like a heart or a smiley face, or something longer, and I’ll try to respond to any comments, but please keep any criticism constructive and polite. Remember, this is a rough draft that I’m sharing as I write it, and it will go through plenty of editing before standard publication is an option. I’m happy to hear about any issues you notice with the story, so I can make the next draft better, but remember to be nice! (Also, feel free to point out any grammar or spelling issues.)

You do not have to be a Patron to read Silence, but you do need to be a Patron for access to the bonus content. If you are not a Patron, do please consider following my page, which is free!

Chapters will post for Patrons on Sundays and for non-Patrons the following Friday. Bonus content will post whenever I feel like it. A proper summary/back cover blurb/whatever is coming soon. Unfortunately the layout of Patreon is not super convenient for posting writing (I would love it if I could set things up to feel a little more AO3, a little less LiveJournal), so I’ll try to set up some sort of master-post where you can access each chapter easily, but I’m not sure yet if that’ll work.

My Patreon is here.

The Shoemaker Prince

So I wrote another book. The Shoemaker Prince is a collection of thirteen short stories based on or inspired by folklore, and it’s coming out on November 2. Digital preorders are open now through most major retailers, and print preorders open through the Wax Heart website on October 12. And I’m super excited!

Some of these stories I wrote as recently as August—I think one I actually finished in early September. It happened to me, very suddenly, as stories sometimes do, and I knew it belonged in this collection.

Other stories I’ve been working on for a very long time. I wrote the first draft of “Violet and Zorzal” when I was sixteen, and I consider it my first real story—the first one I wrote down in its entirety that was for myself and not a school assignment. Before that, my stories existed only in my head.

I began “The Girl With No Heart in Her Body” when I was somewhere in the eight to ten range. It’s a story about a girl born literally heartless, and I think it was my small child attempt to make sense of my undiagnosed mental illness—most of the stories I remember telling myself at this age were about girls with something missing, and no one around them understanding what was wrong with them or why they couldn’t just be like everyone else. The story has obviously been updated significantly since my mental first draft twenty years ago, but it’s still very important to me.

Other stories include:

The title story, about a boy with amnesia, red shoes, and a pet cardinal.

“The Princess Who Refused to Marry a Merman,” a story about a sailor princess with a missing, enchanted fiancé.

A retelling of “The Frog Prince.”

A retelling of “The Frog Princess.”

A retelling of “Puss in Boots” from the perspective of the princess that the cat and his owner are attempting to hoodwink.

At this exact moment, my personal favorite stories are “The Princess Who Refused to Marry a Merman” and “The Ogre Bride,” both largely original stories, though obviously heavily inspired by folk traditions. So keep an eye out for those, and the other eleven!

(Because people often ask: This book can be purchased in print or digitally, from Wax Heart Press or from most major booksellers. All purchases support me both financially and in terms of sort of passive promotion. I get the same amount of money for print purchases no matter where you buy them, but while I get a fraction of the profits from ebook sales elsewhere, I do get 100% of the profit from ebook sales through waxheartpress.com. You’re also charged a dollar less for buying it from there. I make about the same amount of money from print sales and from ebook sales through Wax Heart Press, and a bit less from ebook sales through other channels. But I am super grateful for any purchase you make, and you should absolutely do what works best for you!)

 

 

The Impossible Enchantment

Last time we finally finished our long search for “The Impossible Enchantment.” So today  I thought it would be fun to go through the whole story, as the version I told from memory a couple weeks ago, before finally tracking down the source, was lacking in several details, and outright wrong in others. Which, well, in my defense I hadn’t read it in about fifteen years.

Once a king fell in love with a beautiful but unkind woman. When they had been married for some time, the woman offended a fairy, and as punishment was taken into her service. When a few months had passed, the woman gave birth to a daughter; the fairy sent her home to her husband, and kept the child to raise as her own. 

When the queen of the fairies discovered how kindly her subject treated the daughter of the woman who had offended her, and by extension the entire fairy race, she became very angry. She sent the girl to live trapped in a palace by the sea, with only one servant for company. There, she said, the girl would stay until she held in her arms a man she loved, who loved her as well.

When the girl had been at the palace for some time, a merman took a liking to her, and began to bring her gifts. He was very ugly, and the girl wanted nothing to do with him, though she did accept his gifts. One day the merman brought with him his sister, who, unlike her brother, spoke the girl’s language. The two quickly became friends, though the girl still wanted nothing to do with her aquatic suitor.

She told the mermaid of her plight, and one day the mermaid brought to see her a fairy of her own race. The girl asked the sea fairy to break her enchantment and free her from the palace, but alas, the fairy had no power on land. She encouraged the girl to accept the merman’s suit, for she would then turn the girl into a mermaid as well, and she could live quite happily with them in the sea.

The girl began to consider this seriously. Her servant was alarmed by this turn of events. It occurred to her that the girl had lived in this place for many years now, and may not remember what a proper, human suitor ought to look like. Surely, if she were reminded, she would not consent to marry someone so ugly as the merman.

The servant, who was a painter, created for the girl a portrait of a very handsome man, and the girl agreed that, if human men looked like this, surely she could not settle for an ugly merman instead.

There was, meanwhile, a prince on a ship sailing not far from the island, who happened to catch a glimpse of the girl in his telescope. He fell instantly in love, and with the help of a fairy he knew, sent a message by pigeon, asking for her hand in marriage.

The girl replied that she could not possibly agree to marriage without first seeing what he looked like, and so he sent a portrait by pigeon as well. The girl was delighted to see that the prince strongly resembled the painting made by her servant, and agreed promptly to the marriage.

The difficulty, then, was how to reach the girl, for the enchantment around the palace was too strong for the ship to pass through.

While the prince pondered this difficulty, the girl explained to the mermaids, both her friend and the fairy, that she could not possibly marry someone so ugly as the merman. They were greatly upset by this, and planned to tear down the foundation of the palace and drown her.

The prince arranged for his own fairy to turn him into a hummingbird, and flew to the enchanted palace. The mermaids had by this time made good progress at destroying it, and the girl and her servant were very afraid. But as soon as the prince turned from a hummingbird back into a man, and he and the girl embraced, the terms of the fairy queen’s curse were met, and the girl was free. She, her servant, and the prince were all transported instantly back to the fairy who had raised her.

This fairy took the girl back to her father; her wicked mother had by this time died, and the old king was overjoyed to have family again. And so the girl and the prince were married, and all lived happily ever after.

 

The Ugly Merman

 *Update: After writing this and just before posting it, I found the story! It’s “The Impossible Enchantment” by Comte de Caylus, recorded by Andrew Lang in The Grey Fairy Book. I do think I got it a bit confused with “The Blue Bird” by d’Aulnoy, as well. More info in an upcoming post!*

So I’ve talked about this before, but I’ve read a lot of stories over the years—far more than I’ve been able to keep track of. And sometimes, I desperately want to read a story again, but I can’t remember enough key details to find it. This particular story is one I’ve been searching for for well over five years—this isn’t even the first blog post I’ve made about it.

And I’m not in the mood to read a fairy tale and provide snarky commentary, so I thought I’d use this post to tell the story as I remember it. And if it seems familiar to you, please, please let me know. I’m desperate, guys.

Once there was a lovely princess who had been imprisoned in an island palace. The prince she loved would visit her when he could, but he could not visit often, nor could he save her. For he had been turned into a bluebird, and it was a long flight for little wings.

The princess had one steady companion over the long months of her confinement; this was a mermaid who dwelt in the sea below the palace. They had become very dear friends, but the mermaid wished to be dearer still—she wanted the princess to be not just a friend, but a sister.

It happened that the mermaid had a brother, and she wished him to marry the princess. She did not care that the princess had already given her heart to another, for mermaids are selfish, soulless things.

Now, while all mermaids are beautiful creatures, all mermen are hideously ugly, and her brother was no exception. The princess consented to meet the merman, only to be polite, but he was so ugly that she could scarcely bear to look at him.

She explained to the mermaid, as politely as she could, that she could not possibly marry her brother.

The mermaid was enraged. She summoned all of her friends from the depths of the sea, and they set about flooding the palace, for she was determined to drown the princess.

And that is where my memory fails me. I’ve been through pages and pages of search results, using every search term I could possibly think of. So let me know if you’ve got any ideas.

Thumbelina

All right. A break from Beauty and the Beast today, since I’m starting to run out of steam. A couple hours ago I watched Don Bluth’s Thumbelina, so I thought that would be a good fairy tale to talk about.

It’s weird; I thought I remembered this movie very clearly from my childhood, but it was almost completely unfamiliar. Thumbelina, the character, was exactly as I remembered her. But there were so many things I didn’t recognize at all, and specific things I thought I remembered, like Thumbelina’s mother (younger in my memories) and the ending scene (dozens of fairies emerging from flowers), weren’t there.

So I don’t know what I was remembering. I did some quick research, and there don’t seem to have been any other Thumbelina movies I may have confused it with.

Anyway. This, like The Princess and the Pea and The Snow Queen, is one of Hans Christian Andersen’s few straightforwardly happy stories. I reread it just now, so I haven’t had a chance to really process my thoughts yet; this’ll be a little rambly.

One thing I wasn’t expecting is that Thumbelina’s mom specifically asked for a tiny child. (And got her from a witch for 12¢.) Why would you specifically want a Polly Pocket daughter? She’d be so easy to hurt. You could step on her or knock her off a shelf. You could set a glass on top of her or vacuum her right up.

And, like, what kind of life is this poor kid gonna have? It’s gotta be hard making friends with people 12 times your size. And forget about romantic relationships. This whole story made a lot more sense before I realized that Thumbelina’s size was her mom’s idea.

Everyone wants to marry this tiny girl. A frog, then a mole. Why would they want to marry a tiny human? What’s wrong with other frogs and moles?

I’m a little concerned that Thumbelina never made it back to her mom. Everything starts when she’s taken in the night by a frog to be her son’s bride. Thumbelina escapes that and winds up stuck with a May-fly, until he decides she’s ugly because she doesn’t look like a May-fly. She spends an entire summer on her own in the forest, gets taken in by a field mouse , and spends the entire winter and following summer with her.

That’s a bit of a pattern for Andersen, actually—it happens in The Snow Queen, too. Girl with apparently loving parents takes off, goes on an adventure that takes literal years, no big.

Anyway, she’s supposed to be marrying the field mouse’s neighbor the mole, but ends up running off with a swallow, then meeting a fairy prince just her size and marrying him. And then he changes her name from Thumbelina to Maia. I don’t know what that’s about, exactly, and I haven’t been able to find any analysis in a cursory internet search. A project for another day, I suppose.

Thumbelina was published two years before The Little Mermaid. I’ve talked about The Little Mermaid before, here and here. Specifically, I’ve talked about how Andersen was depressed and felt like an outsider, in part because of his sexuality. Now, Thumbelina and The Little Mermaid are both about young women who are outsiders. But there’s a significant difference.

Thumbelina is desired for her strangeness. A frog, a bug, and a mole all want to be with her, because she is different and beautiful. For a while it seems as if she might agree to marry the mole, who can provide for her and isn't a bad person, exactly, just very, very different from her. But ultimately she chooses to go back out into the sun, and wait for the person she truly belongs with.

The Little Mermaid falls in love, makes incredible physical changes for the man she loves, and still isn't enough. She never finds love or acceptance, and eventually chooses to die rather than hurt the man she loves in order to return home.

So I wonder what happened to Andersen in those two years. He wrote a story about someone who was different and celebrated for it, who persevered and eventually found love. And then he wrote a story about someone who was different, tried and failed to fit in, and died alone.

Overall, I definitely prefer the message in Thumbelina.

This post was available on week ago for Patrons. Click here to learn about supporting me on Patreon.

On the Nature of the Mer-Soul: A Question

(Yes, I am here again, and I will wring a happy ending out of this story if it kills me.)

Per her agreement with the Sea Witch, the Little Mermaid was to receive legs and a human soul in exchange for her tongue, contingent on her marriage to the prince. The direct physical exchange, tongue for legs, was made on the spot.

Both legs and the potential soul were cancelled in favor of sea-foaminess upon her unequivocal failure to marry the prince, i.e. his marriage to someone else.

Now, my question regards that potential soul—namely, is it indeed potential, or an item of actual existence? Did the exchange go tongue for legs, marriage for soul? Like a pay half now, pay half when the job is done kind of deal?

In that case the Little Mermaid would be a mermaid with legs until her marriage, at which point the soul would kick in and she would be human.

Alternatively, it may have happened all at once. For the price of just one tongue, you too can experience legs and soul for an unlimited time! (Fine print: Prices and shipping may vary. Only valid at participating locations. Final purchase dependent on successful completion of wedding ceremony. Side effects may include, but are not limited to, death and transformation into sea foam.)

In this case, the Little Mermaid would actually be a Little Human from her arrival on land right up until her untimely demise.

Then the question becomes, if the soul was ever present, when exactly did it depart? Did it cease to exist the moment the prince said “I do”? Or did it happen when the rest of her turned to sea foam?

And then we must consider the nature of the soul itself. The story has confirmed that souls may be created; does this mean that they may also be destroyed? But the text does specify, on multiple occasions, that we are dealing with an immortal soul. So our final question is, if the soul comes into existence at the same time as the legs, does it go poof when things take a turn for the foamy, or does it, true to its immortal nature, go up into Heaven while the body goes down into the sea?

(This is all, of course, being considered in light of the version where the mermaid dies, rather than the one where she becomes a Daughter of the Air and spends a few centuries earning a soul; that version opens up a whole slew of theological issues in regards to faith vs. works. We don’t have time for that. Maybe next week.)

And in the end, it all comes down to what it always comes down to, for me, when we talk about The Little Mermaid. Does she get the better end of the deal? Can we count this as a happy ending?

Missing:One Fairy Tale, Mermaid Involved

So when I was little, I used to google "obscure fairy tales," then go through twenty pages of results, reading everything I could find. And I found some good stuff. The problem is, ten to fifteen years later, I'm having trouble finding it again.So I am here today to ask for your help.

There is one particular fairy tale that I've been trying hard to relocate for about three years now. Here's what I remember:

• there was a princess trapped in a castle at the edge of the ocean
• she had a mermaid friend
• the mermaid really wanted the princess to hook up with her brother
• mermen are really ugly
• when the princess wasn't interested, the mermaid started flooding the palace
• there was a prince around, too
• he might have been enchanted to be a bird, possibly a blue one
• the princess might have been a painter?

If you have seen this story, please contact me via the comments.

(Seriously guys, I'm desperate. This has haunted me for the better part of a decade.)