How I Gave Myself a Fire Lizard

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is the item from your books you most want to own and why.

In mulling this topic, I've come to an interesting realization: I rarely have interesting "items" in my books. With a couple of outliers, I don't really include objects of power or other magical artifacts in my stories. There's the Star of Annfwn in The Twelve Kingdoms and Uncharted Realms books, but it's not something I'd necessarily want to have. There are a couple of objects of power in my Forgotten Empires trilogy - most notably the orchid ring - but I wouldn't want that, even if it could be mine.

Mostly, the interesting stuff in my books that I'd like to have comes in the form of personal powers. And I'm noticing now how often the ability to control weather - like being able to make it rain! - crops up in my characters. So, sure, I'd love to have Lia's connection to the land and weather in the Forgotten Empires, or Salena's storm-making magic in THE LONG NIGHT OF THE CRYSTALLINE MOON in the UNDER A WINTER SKY anthology and the other upcoming Heirs of Magic books. I think it would be totally cool to be a shapeshifter as in Twelve Kingdoms and Uncharted Realms.

But those aren't items. 

The closest I can come is a familiar, which is a living being, not an item, but can be "owned," more or less. So I'm picking Chuffta from my Sorcerous Moons series. That's him, on Princess Oria's shoulder on the cover of book one, LONEN'S WAR. Chuffta is a telepathic, tiny white dragon. More or less. It's complicated. He's also Oria's best friend and staunch companion - even though he suffers from an unfortunate fascination with fire that occasionally gets him into trouble.

And yes, Chuffta is totally wish-fulfillment because I always wanted one of Anne McCaffrey's fire lizards for my very own!

 

Jeffe's Sly FanFic Move

Our topic at the SFF Seven this week is "If you were going to write fan fiction, what show/characters/etc would you write?"

Now, I'm not an author who got her start by writing fan fiction. I totally respect that many writers developed their chops that way, but it frankly never occurred to me to do that. I fantasized plenty about the books I read, made up stories in those worlds where I got to be the hero - but I never thought to write them down. It seemed wrong to me.

The intervening years have seen a huge growth in the world of fan-fiction writing, and a legitimizing of it. Still, I've never done it and don't think I ever would.

That said...

In my Sorcerous Moons series, I gave my heroine a winged white lizard Familiar, who breathes fire and communicates with her telepathically. This is totally my version of Anne McCaffrey's fire lizards and dragons from her Pern books - one of my favorite daydream subjects.

So ... maybe the line between homage and fan fiction is a fine and narrow one. But it's an apropos topic for me, because ORIA'S ENCHANTMENT, book #5 in the Sorcerous Moons series, just released. Buy links are going live as I type this, but you can find them here as they're available.

The Temptation of Power

No longer a princess and not yet a queen, the sorceress Oria welcomes the rush of power the ancient mask brings her—though the obsessive connection to it frightens her and alarms her barbarian husband, Lonen. But retreat is not an option. She must wrestle the magic to prevent an annihilating war, even if she must make the ultimate sacrifice.

A World in Flames

If Lonen wants to reclaim his throne—and save his people from destruction—he must return by sunset on the seventh day. What he thought would be a short and simple journey, however, leads them deeper into the mountains—and Oria deeper into the thrall of foul magic. Until he must choose between two terrible paths.

A Heart-Wrenching Choice

Struggling with conflicting loyalties, Oria and Lonen fight to find a way to be together…
lest they be separated forever, and their realms go down in flames with them.