#ayearofauthor

[cawolters]

December...? DECEMBER!?

What about September?

November?

October?? What did I miss??

Yes, well, no you didn’t miss any vitals updates. I have reasons for why I haven’t been active on tumblr, and the most honest reason is that I didn’t feel like writing and posting on here since spring.

The writeblr community is so so great, one of the best in the web, but the platform is driving me nuts. Flagging, shadow bans, tag dysfunction and draft erasing/crashing, have just completely smashed my love for making fun and elaborate posts.

However, lots of updates has been made and i keep seeing wips I want to tag list and people i want to hang out with, so I’ll stick around for another decade or so! Hashtag always lurking.

The more polite reason for my absence, and equally truthful I might add, is that I was very busy the last few months —COMMISSIONS! LIFE! IRL NETWORKING!

And now I’ll tell you about it all, starting by answering the Q on everyone’s tongue:

1) Is Flash Fiction Friday Getting Revived in 2020?

In short, yup.

I need it, you need it, the world needs it. We need to WRITE folks. And the lovely prompt Friday will be back with week no 30 (!!) on:

Friday the 10th of January!

I have a capable team of creative and lovely writeblrs on the job as to how we an ensure consistent posting —and just and FYI, we might even end up with giving the FFF it’s own blog.

Run free, be with the people my beautiful prompt creature, inspire! And give me something to read!!

Stay tuned for updates and tell me is you want to be added to the FFF tag list.

Now next up is my scrip update!

2) Querying ‘The Serpent Kiss’

All is well in the land of querying.

or... well almost.

Alrighty, lemme explain below.

So, if you’ve been following me for awhile, you know my third child (whom is not currently teething or using my lipstick as a crayon) is my dark new adult fantasy trilogy —The Serpent Kiss <3

If you donno what I’m talking about, here’s a quick summery of the query process:

I finished the English first draft, two and a half years ago (I think?) and started looking into querying after my fifth draft was done.

I decided very early on that I would feel more comfortable working here in Denmark, where I already have a literary network, and actually understand the cultural unwritten rules when working with publishers!!

Since then I have been rewriting, tweaking, had beta-readers, editors, a sponsored translator (who translated the script from English to danish) BEFORE I started querying seriously in Denmark.

During the time where the book was being reviewed, I’ve kept in touch with houses who showed interest in the book from the get go (encouraging me to push onward), done a lot of social media work (especially on Instagram since the publishers all mentioned the importance of that platform) and attended books cons to physically mingle (it makes a difirence —really).

Ah, and now, finally, we’ve starting to get serious replies back from the Danish publishers.

Let’s look at what they’ve said so far.

(And mind you, this is Denmark. We’re a tiny country and we DON’T have adult fantasy books written by danish authors, so their critique is based on that. YA is what’s sellable and had been for years, buuut I also know that tendency will shift, so that’s what I’m really selling. A new trend basically. Always understand what pov the critique is coming from and don’t stop at the first rejection)

3/5: ‘no thank you, there’s no marked in Denmark for your book’

1/5: ‘we love it but rewrite it to YA and we have a deal’ — I said, no thank you

1/5: ‘we love it as is and we want to give you a deal, but we have to work out the legal kinks, and we will give you final answer by the end of January!’

So I’m awaiting the final judgement!!

But not really, it’s not the final judgement. If the deal falls through, and it might, never pop champagne before signing, I still have four more houses I could send the book to here in Denmark.

And, I could still go the international route and query over seas.

Yup! That’s the update on that!

Next up? The general writing!

3) A Year Of Author

“It’s really hard being a writer... Not on the days where you’re writing, but on the days where you’re not!”

— @CAlisaWolters, Instagram confessions

My year of full time professional writing, meaning mainly relying on my text/skill/art to heave in the cash, is six months down and going — OK!!

Here’s what I’ve learned/done so far:

I’m writing 4-7h on commissions, the second book of the trilogy, short-stories, poetry and another little YA project every day. Yes. Every day. And that’s very very cool and also exhausting mentally. My advice to others: HAVE OBLIGATORY DAYS OFF! (Oh yea and I also won nanowrimo but the project is a secret shh).

I’m somewhat alone most of the time but being a closeted introvert, I don’t mind, but I miss coworkers. That’s why Café dates and write-ins with writer pals IS IMPORTAINT.

Also! Speaking of socializing, I’ve been to five writers cons/events and I definitely recommend making it a priority for all professional authors. BRING BUSINESS CARDS!!

I have a set routine and I’m really happy with it! Early mornings is the best! And Monday is where I don’t write, but keep up with social media and answer mails and run errands! MAKE A ROUTINE!

And that’s the update on THAT!! Phew I’m getting winded, are you? Fear not we one have one last thing to cover. Promise.

4) Personal Life and Drag Kings ^_^

Where to start? Ah I know! I’ll start with the drag king storytelling event because that’s really what stands out!

I’m a mom, a wife, a bisexual, a general theatrical person and a genderfluid jellyfish who uses she/her pronounces, so when someone booked me for a storytelling event, I decided to go in drag. Naturally. Tsh duh.

I’ve really been experimenting with my gender this year, playing with apperence and comfortzones, and discovering that my real happiness lies somewhere between flooofy dresses and black buttondowns. And not just the clothes, but there attitude, the demeanor, the mental space of wearing cologne!! It might not sound dramatic, but to me it’s been A RIDE!

(I’ve been dying to go full drag for a long looooong time and I should’ve gone all out on the makeup —but next time!!! Also the event went so so well and I had the best time! I’m going to do it again!)

And NOW I’m done! Hah not really, but I won’t force you to spend all day reading my updates and this post is already so loooong 💕💕✨💕

The new year looms!! May it bring you love and confidence, and lots of new opportunities!!

Hug hug hug!!

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~Ciao

[cawolters]

✷ Babes in the Well ✷ (Liar Alliance snippet)

Good day to you! It’s been a minute, but here I am with a little thing that I think you guys might think will be a neat read.

It’s a little snippet of a scene I wrote between charming young King Deria and my newly hatched/refined character, gloomy necromantic Hinrich. 

(Hinrich is a Mask btw, a sort of ambassador to the Kings of the ten kingdoms in the empire.)

Where: Tall Castle at the beginning of book two

Who: Deria is talking

What: He’s wandering the Chalice Room, looking at paintings and thinking about magic when he’s interrupted by a gloomy apparition. 

WC: 1800

Themes: Ghost magic, politcal intrigue, secret coup!!

Is it gay?

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Well. Yes, on multiple levels, but not explicit in this scene.

Unfortunately. 

Plot needs pages too.

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✴ BLUE FLAG ✴

What a delightful day it was indeed. The sunlight in the mountains cast its gentle overcast glare over the hills as afternoon clouds drifted slowly over the subtly rising and falling hills deep down, down, in the valley, below my childhood home, Tall Castle.

The patterns of shy light and then sporadic sharp beams, raying out of the heavens and touching a little cottage outside the village, was more enchanting than magic.

Or, I would have thought that before I had seen the gold coin eyes of the Blade by the Empress’ side. Ah, and then her flat pieces of dull ebony to contrast his. They had been standing so close and then she had laughed. I saw it, a flower blooming in the deep dark night.

Magic indeed.  

I drifted away from the massive window and toward the far end of the grand chambers of the vacant Chalice Room . My father had called it the Chalice Room because of the grand ornamented stone goblets that ran along the walls on either side of a wide aisle, making an elongated space where politics could merge or divide in its rift.

It was here all the meets with the kingdoms were held. In the middle was the round stone table, large enough and fit for Kings and just a moment ago it had been stuffed with every inch of the continent. The Ten Kings, or, rather our four border kingdoms that could come to us within a week, had gathered here in the tallest of castles, but to what end?

I wondered.

My eyes followed the walls. Paintings, taller than two able men on top of each other’s shoulders, were hung between the lit oil-chalices. King after King draped in deep rich velvets, queens and offspring, squeezed into gilded frames. More often than not, there were more than seven people stacked together in dim rooms and posing.

As I walked, their lifelike eyes followed me. Even my own green gaze, almost hidden behind the black sorrow veil that honored my late father, seemed eager to stalk me through the fabric on my stroll. It would stay like that for five years, covered with black silk to grieve The Great Fifth King. The Wall To The North. Praise in his name.

My face twitched, entirely involuntary, and I quickened my pace for the next two paintings until I got where I had wanted to go.

I stopped at the end of the aisle and came closer to the portrait, larger still than the rest and looking almost empty as there were only three people in the dim light of a dark background. 

Kōrudo, The Cold. The Emperor.

Ohtani, The Sun Smile. 

His lovely tragic wife that looked like she had never smiled in a hundred years, and now she never would. And then, there, holding her mother’s hand; their little daughter. 

Empress Shiroin. The Pure One.

I almost laughed out loud at the nickname.

I had seen this portrait many a time of course. I had admired that oddity of the first girl to be born in the imperial line for a thousand years, but now that I had seen her in person, had had her presence just a breath away from mine, I never imagined an artist to be so wrong about a face.

The portrait looked like her, the likeness was there, no doubt, but he had caught her wrong. The artist’s hand must have begged him to dot those two fictive pearls of oil-white in her black gaze, add that tint of pink life on her cheeks and erase some of that hatred that blazed out of her face like the cutting rays of sun in my valley.

She had only been five when the painting had come into creation, so small a human, but in truth not looking like a human at all. Despite the artist’s efforts.

“Have you fallen in love?”

The quiet voice behind me, slightly distorted into more whispery voices speaking simultaneously, sent my heart racing and made me whip my head over my shoulder. 

When I immediately spotted the menacing cloaked figure of Hinrich, standing in the middle of the Chalice Room, appeared out of thin air, my stomach did a small flip as unease hit it.

His cloak moved as if under water, wavering around his ankles and framing his pale face irregularly. Hinrich’s mass was see-through. An undead ghost. The Mask of Kaiserhof.

I sighed dramatically in a smile, suppressing the urge to flee, and turned back to the painting. My eyes once more seeking Shiroin’s pits.

“Yes always, and with everyone. It’s not a sporadic occurrence it’s a chronic condition. You should adapt my philosophies, Hinrich, then perhaps you wouldn’t look like a wraith who wants to crawl down a well and haunt it.”

Though I had my back to him, I could sense the Mask had glided closer while I talked. His presence had changed the temperature of the room.

“My philosophies are my own, they don’t need outside pollution. And wells are only haunted by dead whore-babes. Not men. I fish for them when my work demands bones and rotting flesh.” He said, quietly, the wisp of a voice far away and carried to my castle with death magic.

By the Gods he was a creepy sort of errand boy. We had been dealing with each other since the Empress had first vanished and I had almost gotten used to it by now, his unsettling being and ghoul magic, but admittedly not totally.

“Gone to the Gods through a wet hole.” I joked lightly, “what an enchanting way to depart this world. Out the way we came in, and frequently visits, no?”

He wasn’t actually a ghost of course. I would not have had the stomach to engage if he had been dead.

When I turned, his mouth was sour, disgust crinkling one side of his straight nose sitting on his translucent face.  

“If you’re talking about sticking your cock in somewhere, it better be the Empress.” The light in the room did not fall on him, and he cast no shadow.

“Now now, Hinrich, manners. I am still a King after all.”

“Not my King.” He was a statue, staring at me and pissing me right in the face without a flinch. Then he added:

“Did she comply to the marriage?”

I threw my head back in a loud laugh. The Chalice Room made it sound like a roar.

“Comply?! Good Sir, Have you met her?”

Hinrich’s expression told me that he hadn’t and that he had no interest of ever doing so. All he wanted was his master’s orders carried out. He was an unsettling figure, but a good lapdog, to the right lap.

“If you cannot deliver, we will recruit one of the others. Errin’s King is unwed too.”

“Are you threatening me with ‘The sickling from the swamps’? I have the wall, the army, the looks and I am what they call a ‘team player’. I’m a quality bargain.” I smiled wider and tilted my head, “Besides. If you just wanted an unwed King to lock down the Empress with a ring, or stick something still up her dress, why not use your own?”

I knew exactly why. I was dealing a friendly blow, aimed right up under Hinrich’s arm at the only spot I knew he was truly sore.

“Hm, why hasn’t Eckhart apparition joined us here at Tall Castle to seduce the Grand Empress?”

In a blink his ghost was nose to nose with me. Hinrich wasn’t actually dead. His young, able, body was alive and well in Kaiserhof, but his spirit, tainted and twisted as it were, was right here with me. And though he was not haunting me, the illusion of terror, in that moment, was rather convincing.

I gulped.

Hinrich could not touch me, I had tested that when I had thrown a book at him the first time he came to me, but he was freezing my blood.

“Never take my King’s name in your dirty mouth.” His warning was slow and hateful.

There was a long pause where I could only see his sunken in eyes and feel the ice.

I slowly wet my lips with the tip of my tongue. My bones were shaking.

“Are we about to share our first kiss?” I whispered.

Another pause slid by, in which Hinrich processed my third joke of the day. Then he drifted backwards. Not amused at all.  

“Deria, the quick. You think you are so smart,” his gaze darkened “but you know nothing. Make her say yes. Force her to be your ring.” The word ‘ring’ was a quiet bark his mouth.

“Force her? And how would I do that. Let me tell you, she almost stabbed me twice already, I’m sure she’s eager to actually spear me through my throat the third time I give her an excuse.”

Heinrich didn’t hesitate.

“Use the war.”

My smile fell.

“… Retract my forces? Then the empire loses two thirds of the world army.”

The Mask didn’t blink and he didn’t answer.

“But… Then the war is not ours. The Elsalvians could win, we don’t know their numbers with utmost certainty. Hinrich, people would die -A lot of people, my people your people, everyone! And mine are the first to meet the doomsday fire on our doorstep.” I ran a hand through my curls. “It- it’s the thousand year war, by the Gods! I won’t risk all of humankind for a coup at puts me at the top. I am not starved for a power that comes at that price.”

“Do what you have to.”

“You’re not hearing me, I can’t agree-“ I started but Hinrich interrupted me.

“It’s a threat. The Grand Empress will have to take you as her ring, for the sake of the empire. She will fold. Use the war.” Hinrich drifted backwards, his cloak soaring and floating in water that wasn’t there.

“And if she says no? She’s not striking me as a humanitarian.” I bit. I was getting angry now.

“This will happen whether you want it to or not. You cannot stop it.” His strange hissing voice was fading, the winter cold was becoming more tolerable.

I gaped at him in disbelief before I found my reply.

“Maybe I can stop you. I could expose your little illegal spells to the worlds, the other kingdoms, and then you’d be burned before the rooster is crowing on the last day of this week.”

His face scrunched up as he snarled.

“Try, and you will know what true horror looks like.”

I opened my mouth but closed it again.

“That’s right. Do what you have to do. Or we will, King Deria.”

My name hung in the air for a moment and then the Mask was gone. Disappeared and dissolved like a drop of ink in the running river.

I stared at the spot Hinrich had just been. Contemplating how I was a mouse between two mountain lion. He had had a point. If I declined, they would stage their coup around me, shut me out and keep me in the dark while they worked their sorcery to manipulate the fate of the world.

My hands became fists of their own as I strode out of the Chalice Room.

“Fucking magic.”

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-Ciao-

[cawolters]

** Last Line **

Yay! I felt like sharing a snip I refined from the WIP: The Liar Alliance  I honestly love Shiroin and Deria’s dynamic. But I’m a little biased. I’m writing an involuntary kiss between them today and -!!!  .

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“Marry me.” He said in that bright irritating smile of his.    

I blinked.

“What?” It was a hiss of disbelieve.

“Be my ring.” Deria clarified.

I snarled. Bearing a corner tooth. I could not help it.

“This jest, little King-“ I started lethally, but he interrupted.

“I am as grave as the monk in his cathedral. I offer you two thirds of the world army, freely in return for your hand.” Deria did not look grave.

“It is not free if I have to pay with the limb attached to my Empire.” I said, still hissing, still snarling.

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And now i wanna see a line you guys are proud of! Tagging @bexminx @kainablue @james-stark-the-writer @cirianne @fukusigma and @adie-deeto share from your awesome wips <3

-ciao-

[cawolters]

Hello Lovely Writeblr!!

It’s time for this month's Author Newsletter (Missed last month? Read it here) and I’m excited to share everything with you guys.

Firstly my Year of Author began in July!

For those of you who hasn’t followed me intensely around on especially Instagram that I’ve bombarded with gleeful stories of office supplies (CAlisaWolters), a year of author is my chance of trying to make it as a full time writer here in Denmark!

The stars are lined up perfectly with husband and steady income and kiddies, and now we’ve decided to give my words a fair chance —giving me ONE YEAR to try out the life of an author.

No, hush, I’m not officially published yet so I’m not technically ‘An Author’, but I will be soon enough so bear with my reckless optimism!

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July was a month full of prepping novel writing, plotting, collabs, setting up the office space in my living room (I got the best wife gift from mr T! A HUGE whiteboard) and making a LOT of professional profiles and accounts for my Erotica/18+ Writing!

Including setting up Miss Cane’s IG (RhineCane). I’ve decided to be open on here about who Rhine really is, but not necessary on twitter (CaneRhine) or Instagram —for various reasons.

But all in all!

Yay!

And on that note, I also did a wonderful few 18+ co-writing stories and they’re about to be published on amazon - Kindle Direct - this month!

SoMe (social media) is going fine but I’ve been very scarce on my platforms because I’ve been prepping like a madman!

Phew! I don’t actually feel that at home in the social media world, but I’ve come to realize that nobody can give you the chance you deserve, if they don’t know you’re there in the first place!

So I’m yelling from the rooftops that I’m a writer and that I write excellent stuff. And though I’ve been swaying in my digital activity lately (eh since May???) it seems to be working!

I got paid for my first commission story!

Omg!! Wut!?! I’m worth MOnEY? Yes, indeed I am (like all professional creators) and into my lil savings account the pennies goes.

>>>> If you want to order a commission story (any genre) from me PM/DM me!

>>>> My pricing right now is 15$ for 500 words and 20$ for a 1000.

>>>> yes, 18+ ok! And no, the three Big No’s is not okay.

Now!

On the private front things are going so so well too. Kiddo (3yo) has been delightfully driving me mad this summer and baby C (1yo) had his first birthday and his very first hour in daycare with dad TODAY!

I sat at my desk and I Wrote, yes wrote, 505 words of my novel ‘The Liar Alliance’ (book two of my Rise of the Blood Dawn trilogy) in 35 min!!

I’m stupid proud.

They’re good words!! And the scene is pretty dang sharp!

I’ll def do a lastline tag later today because I have to flaunt this spike of semi-genius wording!

And remeber FlashFictionFriday is tomorrow!!

That’s all for now!

See you around!

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-ciao-