Category: A Fantasy Life by Janet Cornelow

A Fantasy Life

By Janet Quinn Cornelow

Barbara Clark, aka April Reid, and myself, aka Janet Quinn, had a book signing last Saturday at Sunshine Books in Cerritos. It was quiet, but we had fun and sold some books. Linda McLaughlin came and visited with us and took pictures.

I started reading a fantasy series written by Lilith Saintcrow. The main character is Dante Valentine who is a necromance. I didn’t sort them when I started, so I am reading them out of order which makes for a bit of confusion at times. She does write well enough that the books stand alone, but a character that was dead in the last book I read is alive again in the next one. That probably isn’t bad since I always read the end first anyway to see who is going to live.

What fascinates me about these books is the world that Saintcrow built. I like dark urban fantasy where the heroine can take out the monsters. This world is filled with creatures that have different powers. There are Magi, Shaman, Necromances, and various creatures who are not quite human. There are also demons and Lucifer who have a great deal of power over the world. There are even humans, which are pretty much throw away creatures that no one seems terribly impressed with.

The author has also created a world post Christianity that lives by rules formed after the fall of Christianity. There is a glossary in one book explaining all the terms that she has created. This is a very complicated world housing good and evil beings who fight each other to defend their own lives. There are even those who Death has refused to take.

Saintcrow had to have spent a great amount of time building this world. She has covered everything from religion to education. It is a great example to look at if you are thinking of doing world building.

A Fantasy Life

By Janet Quinn Cornelow

Gideon is the hero in my Augeas story that is part of my Whiskey Shots Vol. 17. He is a warrior set against Dorjan in a battle to save the Ancient Ones from annihilation in “The Betrayer.” He is also a human in a world of magic and a member of the Lord’s Guard.

When an editor sends you the edits on a book, it is probably the least enjoyable part of writing. Usually, you have time to work on it and do a last check. However, when I found out on July 15 that Amber Quill wanted to release Betrayals on August 3 and could I get the edits back by July 25 if I got them by the 19^th, what was I suppose to say, “No.”

I got the edits on the 19^th, returned them on the 22^nd and emailed back and forth on the 23^rd to clear up the last few problems – except for the one both the editor and I missed. The galley arrived on the 24^th with a request to have it back within three to five days. I am on day four with 109 pages to go.

Besides eyestrain from staring at the computer screen and working on the edits and galley around my other two jobs, life is wonderful. Isn’t this what being an author is all about?

And just to make the weekend more interesting, the neighbors decided we needed a new fence. It was a little rickety after twenty some years. When do the fence men arrive? Four o’clock on Saturday afternoon. Came back on Sunday. Of course, this means I am locked in with Chewbaca, my 75 pound dog. He is spending his time guarding me from the men who might sneak in and attack and barking ferociously at the men in his backyard. Unfortunately, Chewbaca does not understand the fine art of walking so he can potty. After all, he has a dog door and uses the backyard whenever it suits his purpose. I’m waiting for a very large accident since he hasn’t been “out” for 24 hours.

Art work by Jasmine Tanner – http://veildandy.deviantart.com

A Fantasy Life

By Janet Quinn Cornelow

Oisten lives in the kingdom of Augeas where half the population are magical beings.

Magic is one of my favorite things to write about. When I started writing my witch book, I had two friends tell me I should look up the Wicken religion. My thought, was why? I didn’t want to write a story about the religion of witches, I wanted to write about magical beings.

My witch book is a light fantasy. My witch is a Bewitched type of witch. Haven’t you ever thought how nice it would be to blink your eyes or snap your fingers and have the house cleaned or your manuscript finished. It has crossed my mind, especially the house cleaning part. It beats nagging the kids.

Like anything in fantasy, magic has to have rules. The television series, Charmed, had rules that the sister’s had to follow. The major one was they couldn’t do magic for personal gain. So what good would magic be if you couldn’t use it to spoil yourself.

Deciding what your magical being can do is important. My witch, BreeAnna, has the power to move from spot to spot and change the size of objects. She also has the power to conjure up what she wants or needs. She is the fun type of magical creature with very strong powers.

The Ancient Ones of Augeas have different types of powers. Each one may have one or two magical abilities. Some can make themselves invisible. Others can move through space. Still others can read minds or cloud minds. None of them have the power to conjure.

The next fantasy I am going to write will have magical beings, but what powers they will have I haven’t decided. I know their technology will be run by magic rather than electricity or batteries. I am sure I will have several conversations about the possibilities with my youngest son, who is my expert when it comes to magic abilities.

Now all I need is the ability to zap up the manuscript.

Art work by Jasmine Tanner – http://veildandy.deviantart.com

A Fantasy Life

by Janet Quinn Cornelow

Rayna was the first character in the Augeas series. She had been sitting on the front porch with Grandmother for several years before I figured out who she was and where she belonged. There are now six Augeas stories and more in the works. Unfortunately, I write faster than my artist draws so my picture collection is behind.

This month has been filled with all the publishing part of the writing process. I’ve had to do edits and a galley with more galleys coming. However, as I read the galley for the re-release of Yesteryear’s Love, I thought about the fantasy part of time travel. It isn’t as hard core fantasy because the characters just move between one time frame and another and the author has to stay true to both time frames. Of course, if the characters went forward in time, then the author would need to create a new world.

With time travel the first thing an author has to figure out is what propels the character through time. There are many options, but finding a new one is a challenge. I chose a stain glass window. I came up with all types of reasons why the stain glass window was a portal. It was charmed before it was imported to nowhere. It was over a scared spot that the Native Americans knew about. Actually, none of it matter. It moved people through time and space and how it did so was never explained nor needed.

Then, if the character returns to her own time, how much time has passed since she left. Does time move at the same rate so that if she is gone for a year, a year has passed in her time? Or, does no time pass and does she return to where she started? It can work either way or something in between.

Then, if the character is going back in time, what about bathrooms? Who wants to use a chamber pot or the outhouse. It’s amazing when flush toilets came into being and the different types of bathtubs that were around in the 1800’s. Aren’t bathtubs, hot water and toilets important? It’s bad enough to do without microwaves, cell phones and computers.

Art work by Jasmine Tanner – http://veildandy.deviantart.com

A Fantasy Life

by Janet Quinn Cornelow

When writing fantasy, sometimes something out of mythology can trigger and idea that is just too good to pass up. A chimera seems to be one of those things.

A chimera is a mythological creature first mentioned by Homer in the Iliad. The creature is always referred to as a female. She is immortal, not human and made up of a lion in front, a dragon in back and a goat in the middle. Sometimes she has three heads. She also breaths fire. That has to be the dragon part of her. Most of us remember her from school. A scary creature who may have mothered the Sphinx and the Nemean Lion.

The interesting thing is that a chimera can also be a human being. (No dragon head or breathing fire, but just as interesting.) This condition occurs through the fertilization of two ova by two sperm, followed by the fusion of the resulting zygotes and the development of an organism which is actually two organism in the guise of one. A human chimera could have a heart with one DNA and a liver with another. Most chimeras never know that they are two people fused together. After all, how many people are going to have their DNA checked on different parts of their bodies to see if they are one or two people. It’s a rather creepy thought.

However, in fantasy, it is an intriguing idea. What kind of a character would a chimera be? An evil creature? The original one was. How can the other characters tell a chimera from everyone else? They’re not going to run out and do DNA tests either, so there has to be a way to tell. Otherwise, the whole idea falls flat.

Now that I have discovered this unique individual, I have to put her in a story. Dark fantasy. A chimera would never be in light fantasy.