A friend of mine started reading Changeling under some pressure, I’ll admit and was thrilled when she finished and found out there was more to the story. After reading the short stories that come before the sequel, Abomination, and after telling me about how furious reading one short story made her because of how an otherwise endearing character was behaving, she was bugging me to print off what I have of Abomination for her to read. I did, and the look of joy on her face when I gave it to her was just too much. It warmed my cold author heart to see.

In Changeling, Aisling, the main character, has a necklace whose origins are unknown even to her parents. It is a leather leaf pendant on a leather string, with a blue jay feather attached. This necklace was inspired in part by a necklace of my own. It was one I bought at Creative Chaos, an artisan show in my hometown, from the Earth Nynja booth (they make leather and metal designs). It was, as you see above, a leather leaf pendant. I recently had the urge to truly make it into Aisling’s necklace, so I hunted down blue jay feathers on an Etsy shop online (six for good measure, even though I only needed one). It only took some crazy glue and black thread to make this.

I also recently got into an “extra” kick, thanks largely in part to my friend Elisa Nuckle. We had talked about how neat it is when authors include, for free or for cheap, extra information and facts about their fictional worlds. If anyone has spied the new Legends of the World page under Changeling’s header, you’ll have noticed that it’s one such thing. In preparing that page, I finished up a map of Althaea and got excited to write more about the nonfiction of the Changeling world.

Also, note that my domain name has been officially registered. That is also a huge factor in this decision!

All of this has come together to inspire me to get my procrastinating rear in gear and finally finish the thorough editing of Changeling. She has been edited through once, and gone through two beta readers, so it won’t be long before she’s ready for the public eye.  I’m so excited to release Changeling to the world. I already know that this series will be my magnum opus, and just the idea of someone else, a stranger, reading it and feeling something for the story I’ve created… it makes me so excited I can’t find words.

If everything goes to plan, I would like Changeling released in the wintertime, before Christmas. It seems suiting, as so much of the story seems to take place in the snow.

This is my pride and joy, and I am so excited to share it with the world.