Day: July 2, 2018

   My new website and blog.

 

The lamp post is on.

I had no idea when I started writing a book all the other things about publishing that did not actually involve writing a book.

Like marketing. Like making a website, and setting up social media. This is not something I am naturally comfortable with.  I had some technical help from some very nice gentlemen at Fiverr, halfway around the world from me, who helped get me started, but now I have to figure it out myself.

Did I mention that I am a) kind of a neo-Luddite, tech-wise, and b) really extremely shy?

So here goes.

It is my hope that I can use this blog to bring readers into the World of Story, and maybe a glimpse into my world as well.  And I hope I can be your Fairy Bookmother and share some of my favorite books, and book-related curiosities.

There are over one hundred books mentioned in The Lost Princess of Story. (Check out the list in the back matter.) Most of them are children’s books about magic.  And revisiting them in the writing process was pure joy.

Thank you for coming to visit. I hope you enjoy peeking behind some Doors and getting to know the World of Story, and some of those who have spent time there, better.

And maybe get inspired to check out some more of my favorite books along the way.

Thanks and love—

Your Fairy Bookmother,

Suzanne

 

Once a King or Queen in Narnia…

 

I have been counting down the days to the release of The Lost Princess of Story on various social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram) with Book a Day posts.

Every day I pay homage to a book that shaped me.  As a reader, as a writer, or shaped my life in countless ways.

Having visited Narnia, we are forever changed.  Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen in Narnia.

In The Lost Princess of Story, almost-twelve-year-old Lilla loves reading so much that she is sure she hears her books calling to her.  She is sure she can somehow get into the books, so sure that she almost knocks herself out cold running headfirst into a promising-looking wardrobe in a dusty corner of the AS-IS section of Brooklyn’s Red Hook IKEA.

Remember when books seemed that real? Remember when you beloved in something that strongly?  Lilla believes in books and magic.

She does not know that Doors are real, and that she will find one. Soon.

I know the publisher re-ordered the Narnia series, but to me The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe will always be book one.  To me, this is where it all begins.  A Door.

A Door in an empty room, a Door in a wardrobe that leads to a snowy wood and a lamp post.

I read this is first grade, somewhere between the ages of four and six. (I read early and often.)  And I have been checking every wardrobe, ever since.

What books have lived with you ever since you read them?  What books are worth re-reading, over and over again as the years go by? What new discoveries do you find when you return to the books you loved in childhood?

The light is always lit, still waiting for us in Lantern Waste. Once a King or Queen in Narnia, always a King or Queen in Narnia.

What is waiting for you?

Your Fairy Bookmother,

Suzanne

 

 

,      Fourteen days.

In just fourteen days, The Lost Princess of Story will be published on Amazon.

Those days are going so fast.

I always like getting a little glimpse at the writer behind the book, so here’s a little background information about how I wrote The Lost Princess of Story.

I’ve done all kinds of writing over the years.  Saw my words become movies and plays, wrote lots of publicity and reader’s reviews for agents and publishers of other people’s novels, wrote for newspapers, and assisted other writers with their books.

But I always wanted to write a novel.

I did, in fact, write many.

The first time I wrote a novel, I was in second grade. There is a belief that you must write a million words before you are ready to publish your first book, and I may have done that over the years.  I have written quite a few novel. They would go in a bottom drawer, or in a box that got thrown into storage in one of my family’s many moves.

This story, the one about the World of Story, has lived with me for a long time. Pieces of it date to a book I wrote in high school.  It’s current, Brooklyn-based form is about twenty years old.  My son remembers years of Story bedtime stories.

But it took 2020, that epic dumpster fire of a year, for me to sit down and get it all on paper.

I live in New York City, and as I watched my world shut down around me, I wanted to get it all down on paper—the city I loved, the city that might never be the same.  I had lived through 9/11, through Hurricane Sandy.  We are resilient, New Yorkers.  We would make it through.

But what would change?

I got COVID. In those early days, when to get a test my family had to wait on a long list, then drive out to Staten Island to a mobile testing site where National Guard with machine guns directed us to masked doctors who leaned in the car windows to shove swabs up our noses.  It was like a dystopian novel.

Even before 2020, I dealt with chronic illness and pain. But COVID took me down hard.  I have been blessed to have the doctors at Mount Sinai’s post-COVID center, but I have long-haul symptoms including heart damage.

There were a lot of months in bed.

That kind of thing makes you think.  It makes you see life differently.

I always wanted to publish a novel.  And in fourteen days, I am.

I don’t recommend it as best practices, writing in bed. But when I couldn’t do anything else, sometimes I could write. And edit. And a sentence, page, chapter and day at a time, it was an accomplishment when I really needed one.

I could not have written this book any other year except this past one.

There is a lot of 2020 in the book. Losing things and people you love. Learning to live with illness and disability. The things that break us, and change us, and make us stronger than we ever dreamed possible.

And how important it is to hold those we love close. How surprises, even miracles are everywhere, if we only look for them. How important books are.

Plus Brooklyn. And magic.

Fourteen days.

I can’t wait.

Your Fairy Bookmother,

Suzanne

 

Check me out on Facebook.  Suzanne de Planque@ChroniclesofStory