I'm thinking about the recent romantasy turn in fantasy/romance novels and how the Cantata books may have fit, say, 10 years ago. But in that time I grew old and then decided I didn't want to force spiciness onto my novels and removed most of it.
I still think one of the spiciest scenes is when they are reading books together and...not a single piece of clothing was discarded. 😉
Slow burn indeed. Mind you, I enjoy reading #romantasy every now and again. I'm just not sure I'm the right person to be writing it. Spiciness is just too much work and I'd rather be focusing on other things!
There's a fair bit of romance in Cantata of the Fourfold Realms but most of it is low-key and organically building up.
I find all the articles about setting reading goals so puzzling. My "reading goals" come naturally-- to enjoy the four plus books I always have going at once--1 (or more) fiction, 1 (or more) research/history, 2 (or more) dharma-related for small group discussions. I love reading!
And then there are the audiobooks I listen to on long walks... #bookaholic#books#reading @bookstodon
How would you describe your work-in-progress's ideal reader?
I have been saying this since my teens -- "I'm writing for that lonely booknerd who discovers my book by accident in a library or bookstore and when they read it, they will feel like they are coming home."
I feel this is a rather tall order, really. But if even one lonely booknerd feels like my words are like coming home, I've fulfilled my brief.
This is the last week re: the discount across ebook platforms for WATERMYTH (ends 29 FEBRUARY 2024), although I am participating in #smashword's promotion period in March so you can wait till then if you were wanting to grab a copy via smashwords.
Short description: Regya has been set a task: to take the potentially deadly Mermaid Storytelling Exam. She has been placed in Yrejveree, the mythical island of exiles to which many Amors have brought their Psyches. Can a mermaid armed with the powers bestowed by her storytelling craft, her Javanese engineer housemate and her mermaid landlady defeat these beings intent on conquest?
Do you like slow-burn epic fantasy mashed up with domestic fantasy? Ever read an epic fantasy that started in a kitchen and thought, "Damn, I wish there was more of that!"
Well, so did I and that is what I took into writing this series!
Think kitchens, a Kitchen Witch, lots of loving descriptions of food amidst byzantine conflict, political machinations and wars between merkingdoms. Plus, mermaids and faeries in a postcolonial portal fantasy universe. That's the Cantata of the Fourfold Realms, and Watermyth is the first novel.
In 1996, I wrote a 17-19 page* poem revisiting the myth of Cupid and Psyche from the perspective of a Psyche who never found her Cupid again. A year later, I created a hypertext project about the island upon which my Psyche found herself. In 2009, I began the project that would become the Cantata of the Fourfold Realms, around the premise of "What if instead of ONE Cupid, there was an entire civilization of them?"
Watermyth, the first book of my slow domestic fantasy takes over epic fantasy with mermaids, sirens, faeries, weremaidens and a whole lot of myth and history,