ELIXIR BOUND is the book that made me an author, but it’s so much more than that. This book and its sequel, ELIXIR SAVED, are memorials to my sister Kylene. In ELIXIR BOUND, Katora, who has a sister named Kylene, goes on a quest to become the guardian of a secret healing Elixir. The Elixir Chronicles are like a wish in book form. A wish for more for my sister.
I’ve written about Kylene a bunch of times here on the blog (see “Still Mourning Kylene 20 Years Later”), and her too-short life continues to be a large influence on my writing. One of my works-in-progress is a picture book about a girl who loses her sister.
Mourning is a life-long process. Writing is one of the ways I try and make sense of this wonderfully complex thing we call life. Naturally, my feelings about Kylene come up a lot in my writing.
Yet, the Elixir Chronicles are fantasy quests with magic, whimsy, and adventure. There are deaths — particularly one in ELIXIR SAVED that is a bit devastating — but death and mourning aren’t main themes. The books are more about living. The characters are figuring out what kind of life they want to live and trying to put that into action.
In that way, it’s like giving Kylene — albeit a fictional one — a second chance at life. Second chances are a main theme of ELIXIR SAVED. Yup, these books are big wishes that I know won’t come true. But it still felt good to write them, even when the writing was incredibly hard at times.
The ebook of ELIXIR BOUND is currently on sale for $1.99. It’s part of the Narratess Indie Sale, which officially kicks off tomorrow. There are over 370 fantasy, sci-fi, and horror book by indie authors and publishers on sale or even free.
The next book in the Family Holiday Tales series GRAMMY’S HALLOWEEN SCARE is out in the world! Once again, illustrator Phoebe Cho has created an atmospheric setting for characters that pop off the page. We get new characters in Grammy and her black cat Jellybean, but we also get the return of a bunch of spooky kids who you might recognize from the other books in the series. Grammy’s tale is the culmination of many things I love with Halloween, witches, and crows all making an appearance.
GRAMMY’S HALLOWEEN SCARE can be found at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Bookshop.org, and Kobo. It took a surprising amount of research to make this book come together, so here’s the story of what inspired me to write it.
A witchy page from the book THE BEDTIME KNIGHT, written by Katie L. Carroll and illustrated by Erika Baird.
Halloween is my favorite holiday. Anyone who’s ready my middle grade novel WITCH TEST knows I have a soft spot for witches. A “witch” even makes an appearance in my picture book THE BEDTIME KNIGHT.
When it came time to figure out what holiday I wanted to highlight for the third Family Holiday Tales book, I wanted to do something other than Christmas, so Halloween was the obvious next choice for me. I’d already featured a mom and a dad in the other books in the series. A grandparent was a logical next choice, and a witchy grandma felt like a no-brainer!
I also had to figure out what I would use as the rhythmic inspiration for the book. MOMMY’S NIGHT BEFORE CHRISTMAS is based off the famous poem by Clement C. Moore “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas,” and DADDY’S 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS can be sung to the tune of the classic Christmas carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” For my witchy grandma, there wasn’t anything obvious that came to mind. It also had to be something that was in the public domain.
Then I remembered this song I used to sing in music class around Halloween time. It started with kids singing, “There was an old woman all skin and bones, ooo-ooo-oo-ooo.” It end with a deep-voiced “boo!” for a jump scare. A quick search, and I found the musical version from when I was a kid. There was no YouTube back then, so we didn’t have a video to go with the music.
I loved that silly, slightly scary song. A little more research led me to the book SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK by Alvin Schwartz and illustrated by Stephen Gammell. Those books terrified me as a kid…in a way that I loved! The book version (below as performed in the audiobook by George S. Irving ) was even more disturbing than the one I used to sing. It also gave me the important clue that it was from an old folk song.
Even more research led to me to more versions of the song, each one seemingly more disturbing than the last! The different recordings of the song were simply haunting (see “Skin and Bones” sung by Jean Ritchie and scroll down for this unknown singer performing “Skin and Bones”). I wasn’t able to trace the exact origin of the song, but my research showed it was certainly old enough to be safe to use as inspiration for my book.
GRAMMY’S HALLOWEEN SCARE is more fun than scary. It can be sung to the tune of the song I grew up singing, and I included sheet music with my lyrics in the front of the book. I’ve done a couple of read-alouds of the book, and the young audiences have loved singing along on the “ooo-ooo-ooo” part. Here’s a video of me singing the book!
Honesty time…I don’t enjoy book release days. Part of that is because by the time a book comes out, it’s old news to the author. My brain is like, “Been there, done that, let’s move on.” I’ve already been working on a bunch of other projects since I finished BLACK BUTTERFLY, and now I’m supposed to keep talking about that old project?!
It’s not that I don’t love the book that’s just come out. I’ve probably spent years working on it, which is most certainly true for BLACK BUTTERFLY (see “The 10-Year, 230-Rejection Journey of the YA Thriller BLACK BUTTERFLY”). I love all my books and want them to find readers, but I’m also ready to move on to my newer projects, which are much more exciting to me than my finished books.
There’s also the inevitable disappointment of release day. My release days aren’t exactly leading to big sales numbers, and I’m not sure what number might make it feel less disappointing, but I certainly haven’t reached that on release day. Maybe I never will, even if I started hitting big numbers. The sales numbers (or lack thereof) aren’t what keeps me going as a writer.
The excitement of a new idea popping into my head at the most unexpected moment. An idea sticking around in my mind long enough to quietly develop in the background until it demands I open up a blank page and start writing. The satisfaction of finishing a draft, typing The End, even though I know there’s more work to be done. Noticing an interesting theme in a draft and teasing it out with imagery and metaphor in revisions.
Those are the things that keep me going as a writer!
Once the book is released, there’s nothing left for me to do except try and get people to read it. And I’m not particularly good at that. I’m much better at writing and putting out a good story than selling one. I’m a writer, not a marketer. Though I do my best to do both things, it’s painfully obvious to me which is the one I meant to do.
With that being said, yesterday my YA dystopian thriller BLACK BUTTERFLY released. The day was “mid” as my 12-year-old so often says about his better days at school. Yet, I want to take this moment to recognize the huge accomplishment it has been to now have ten (!!!) published books to my name. That is no small feat. And no matter how “mid” the day felt, it’s a notable one for sure.
Is she the hero or the villain?
Black Butterfly wakes to a country devastated by terrorist attacks, supposedly at the hands of the Chinese government. She remembers nothing of her personal life—not even her name. All she knows is that she was in New York City on the day of the attacks. Though, she soon discovers she has an unsettling repertoire of violent talents.
Elijah and his found family of off-gridders from upstate New York take in Black Butterfly and mend her wounds. With nowhere else to go, she joins them as they head to a rally in Washington D.C. The eclectic group begins to feel like the family she can’t remember—or never had.
An encounter with Luca, a spy for a shadowy government agency, confirms Black Butterfly’s worst suspicions about who she was in the life she can’t remember. As more memories surface, Black Butterfly heads to the agency’s headquarters to find out who’s behind the terrorist attacks. It’s unclear whether she intends to reveal the truth or go back to her villainous way. And it’s more than her life she’s putting at risk.
My latest picture book DADDY’S 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS, illustrated by Phoebe Cho, releases today! Seeing it out in the world has reminded me how long it took me to write the first lines.
I’ve had people express the sentiment that writing picture books must be “easier” than writing novels because picture books are short. I wonder if these same people think that poetry is easy to write. Have they ever tried writing a poem or a picture book? Do they know what makes a poem or a picture book an effective piece of literature?
The months I spent writing and rewriting the first lines of this book would indicate it’s not easier. The months my critique partners spent hashing over different versions of these lines would also indicate that writing picture books is not easier than writing novels.
One of the things that made the first lines so tricky was that DADDY’S 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS is a play on the classic carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” So that meant I had an existing meter and rhythm to adhere to for the book. While it can be helpful to have a framework, there’s also the pressure to match it correctly.
As I’m sure most of you know, the first part of the song is: On the first day of Christmas, My true love sent to me A partridge in a pear tree
The first part was simple enough to modify to fit my story: On the first day of Christmas, My children gave to me
It was the that last part that gave me such a hard time. I knew what I wanted to say, something about a gift under the tree, but how to say it proved more difficult than I imagined. One thing that tripped me up was singing the line and speaking the line are slightly different experiences. Picture books are usually spoken aloud, not sung, and I wanted the line to work both ways.
The other thing that tripped me up is that I’m not very good at hearing poetic meter (which syllables are stressed and unstressed). Sometimes I just can’t tell which syllables in a word or a line are read with emphasis and which are the “quiet” ones.
Just like in the song, these first lines are repeated throughout the book, so I knew I had to get them right. I knew my first attempt didn’t quite work, but I couldn’t pinpoint a solution. That’s where my critique partners came in. First of all, they let me know the line wasn’t working, but, more importantly, they let me know why the line wasn’t working. The meter was off.
I tried saying the line out loud. I tried singing the line. I counted the number of syllables over and over again to make sure I had the correct number. I sent them several more attempts at the line. None of them were right.
Then they so very graciously started tweaking my lines and offering up other suggestions. Writing it was truly a group effort. The result is deceptively simple sounding, but it works in the way I wanted to (I think!?).
Even now, I’m singing it in my head and judging it. Usually this is the part of the post where I ask what you think. But in this case, I’d rather not know. The line is out there, so I prefer to stay in my bubble of believing it works. As for what that gift is, you’ll have to read the book to find out.
The lesson here is shorter ≠ easier, and perhaps ignorance is bliss. And also, find yourself good critique partners!
DADDY’S 12 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS is the second book in the Family Holiday Tales. Daddy receives a special gift from his children, but that’s not all he gets. From sweet Christmas cookies to frozen fingers while sledding, the kids “gift” Daddy twelve days of Christmas he will never forget. Sing along with this family of two dads and five kids as they create special Christmas memories in a celebration of love and families of all kinds.
Today is release day for my YA psychological thriller ONLY DARK EDGES! It’s hard to believe I have now published eight books. Thanks to all of you for sticking with me through all these many genres and age categories. And please consider leaving a review for my books on Amazon, Goodreads, Barnes & Noble, or wherever you talk about books (reviews really do help readers find my books).
Only Dark Edges a modern-day, gender-swapped Hamlet retelling that’s about trying to find a way out of grief to what I’ve always called a “new normal.” But things are certainly conspiring against our main character Delta, so she’s having a hard time doing that.
I’ve written about grief before in my books, particularly in WITCH TEST, but Only Dark Edges was a particular challenge for me because it’s about the death of Delta’s sister. Those of you who have followed me for awhile know that it was the death of my own sister, Kylene, that inspired me to begin writing books (see “The Story of How I Became a Writer”). Having Hamlet as something of a framework gave me enough emotional distance from the book to be able to write something so emotionally charged.
I took a bit of an unusual approach to the book trailer with the voice over being a quote from Hamlet. I think it perfectly encapsulates Delta’s state of mind at the beginning of the book.
Hamlet meets You’ve Reached Sam in this YA psychological thriller that is both heart-pounding and heart-wrenching.
Delta’s spent the summer navigating the treacherous waters of losing her older sister, Gemma. Determined to brave junior year of high school without her sister, Delta finds solace in the arms of a new girlfriend. But grief takes a twisted turn when Gemma’s tortured ghost appears with a dire warning.
Beware the storm.
Plagued by the haunting suspicion that Gemma’s death involved foul play, Delta is plunged into a downward spiral of grief and paranoia. No one can be trusted—not her girlfriend, their friends, or her sister’s once-loyal boyfriend. Not even Delta’s own mind.
With a hurricane bearing down, two tempests collide at the abandoned Sea Glass Lodge. Accusations fly. Secrets unravel. And everyone is a target of the storm.
