Category: Writing

Forging the Blade, Second Edition

Posted C. LaVielle2 CommentsPosted in Publishing and Marketing, Tarot, Writing

I have always thought that the first edition of a book is special, the one to own if you’re going to buy the book. Maybe I somehow convinced myself of this because first editions are often quite expensive, due to the fact that they are no longer in print. However, I never bothered to follow this logic one step further. Usually, the first edition is no longer in print because the author/publisher has created a second edition and taken the first edition off the market. I know from first-hand experience that creating a second edition is a pain, and no one in their right mind would do this unless they firmly believed that there were major flaws in the first edition. And there was a major flaw in the first edition of Forging the Blade, not to mention a few niggling errors that we didn’t catch first time around. I have been told from the time I began studying tarot that the major arcana, when… Read More »

The Gates of Hell

Posted C. LaVielle6 CommentsPosted in Hell's Gate, Writing

In 2015 my husband and I spent several days in Paris. The friends we were traveling with were surprised that, out of all the amazing stuff to do in the City of Light, we decided to visit the Musee Rodin, a relatively small museum that was in the throes of renovation and that featured only one artist. I went because I was plotting Hell’s Gate (which will be out soon) and needed to have a picture in my mind of what the Gate, a device that strips away the magic of anyone who walks through it, looks like. Years ago, I had seen portions of Rodin’s “The Gates of Hell” at the Rodin exhibit at Maryhill Museum of Art , and decided that my Gate would look something like this. But I really wanted to see the entire piece. My husband went because he’s my husband and he loves me. He also likes art museums. Rodin began work on “The Gates of Hell” in 1880… Read More »

The Book Launch for Mainly by Moonlight Was a Success! Even Though the Books Didn’t Make It.

Posted C. LaVielleLeave a commentPosted in Uncategorized, Writing, Young Adult Fantasy

After I got done being hysterical: Oh shit oh shit oh shit! I can’t do a book launch with no books! People are coming because they want the book and Another Read Through wants to sell it to them and so do I. What’s the point of a book launch if there are no books to launch? Etc., etc., etc. And then I took a deep breath (always a good thing, but, yes, this is probably the most over-used phrase in modern fiction, but I really did take a deep breath, in fact I took several) and it slowly dawned on me that a book launch is not just about selling books, it’s also about celebrating the birth of a new book, the manifestation of an idea born out of gallons of blood, sweat, and tears. OK, fine, I could work with this. I did have plenty of copies of Book One, Forging the Blade, so I decided to sell it for $10 instead of… Read More »

Fact and Fiction in Storytelling, or, How Do You Really Forge a Blade?

Posted C. LaVielle2 CommentsPosted in Forging the Blade, Major arcana, Tarot, Writing, Young Adult Fantasy

If you want to tell a story that keeps your readers turning pages, you must convince them that perhaps it could be true. Or, at the very least, convince them to suspend their disbelief for the duration of the story. This won’t happen if they spot even small errors in your work. It breaks the spell and they stop reading–something writers strive to discourage–and say “Wait! That’s not right.” And even if they then continue to read, they will be suspicious of everything else you tell them. In chapter 14, the Temperance chapter of Forging the Blade, the Damian goddess, Brigga, forges a magic sword for Molly, the main character. She uses Molly’s blood to bind her to the blade. As the sword is forged, Molly is also forged into a warrior. I figured that forging a blade would be a perfect metaphor for Temperance. This is a key chapter in the book, and to make it work, the reader must totally believe in the drama of a… Read More »

Molly, Astrology, and Character Development

Posted C. LaVielle3 CommentsPosted in Astrology, Forging the Blade, Writing, Young Adult Fantasy

  When I began writing Forging the Blade, the concept of character development was a total mystery to me. All I knew was that I had this teen- age girl in my head that wouldn’t go away, but steadfastly refused to give me any helpful hints about who she was. When I would ask, all I got was a petulant, “You know who I am, write the freakin’ book.” Our twin boys had just graduated from high school, and I had watched, listened, and learned as they went from freshmen to seniors. Fortunately they were (and still are) bright, adventurous, active, and healthy. But they are also impulsive, assertive, quick tempered, and tend to assume that the world revolves around them. OK, this is a personality type that I knew and had been dealing with for years. Could I make Molly—that was definitely her name— a female version of my kids? “Yes,” she replied, “I’m like them, but I’m not them.” Fair enough. Todd and… Read More »

FORGING THE BLADE is now available in paperback from Amazon!

Posted C. LaVielle3 CommentsPosted in Forging the Blade, Getting Published, Tarot, Writing, Young Adult Fantasy

Yay!!! Happy dance. Yes Yes Yes.  Air punches. My baby is finally out in paperback. The cover was what was holding things up. Two months ago the first proof came back and the cover was too dark. The beautiful teal blue at the base was a murky blue grey. After two weeks and another round of proofs, CreateSpace’s phone consultants finally were kind enough to tell me that CreateSpace can’t/won’t make changes to my pdf file. I needed to make the changes. This is an important piece of info for anyone uploading their book to CreateSpace. They do not want responsibility for changing your files. All CreateSpace does, and all you are paying them to do, is create a book from the file that you give them. So I emailed my illustrator, Ture Ekroos, and asked if there was anything she could do. There was and she did it and sent the new file to my graphic designer, who built up the cover from the new… Read More »

FORGING THE BLADE is now available on Kindle!

Posted C. LaVielleLeave a commentPosted in Forging the Blade, Getting Published, Tarot, Writing, Young Adult Fantasy

I’m so excited to have this out in time for a cozy holiday read or last minute gift. Enjoy.      The paperback version will be out soon on Amazon and at a Portland bookstore near you. I’ll let you know who has them when they’re actually in the store.

Self-Publishing: The Back Cover: More Than You Ever Wanted to Know About ISBNs and Copyrights

Posted C. LaVielle4 CommentsPosted in Forging the Blade, Getting Published, Writing, Young Adult Fantasy

The front cover of a book is all glam. It’s what catches the reader’s eye and pique’s their curiosity. The back cover, however, is all business. On a trade paperback, which is what Forging the Blade will be, the most noticeable element is the blurb, one of the most difficult things an author ever writes. It usually begins as rewrite after rewrite of query letters to agents and is later distilled down to its essence for the book cover. In a few, screaming sentences it must tell enough about the book to convince someone that they really want to read it; but it must never give away the ending and or get tangled up in too much plot. Trust me, it’s an excruciating exercise. I can’t even begin to count the number of rewrites my cover blurb went through. I chose to include a tarot card to give color and interest. This is where I learned about copyrights. Even though the most popular tarot decks were first… Read More »

Self-publishing: The Front Cover

Posted C. LaVielle6 CommentsPosted in Getting Published, Writing

Of course we all know we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, and of course we all do. We can’t help it. We pick up a book and there’s the cover, giving us a picture, a glimpse, into the pages and pages of the story that we are considering spending hours of our limited time reading. We grasp at every clue we can to decide whether that time and money will be well spent. A good cover is really important. It’s actually in CreateSpace’s list of  factors that determine how well a book sells. I considered having a friend, who is a graphic designer, put together a collage type cover for me and she came up with some marvelous designs. The problem was that she couldn’t find a picture that came close to what my main character looks like, and since YA fantasy is totally character driven, it’s important to give the reader an image to take with them into the story. I was… Read More »