Author: suzannedeplanque

   Ten days to go!

 

Only ten days left until The Lost Princess of Story is available on Amazon.

Time is going so fast!

My thought today…

I need to pace myself.  This is a marathon, not a sprint.  Once the book comes out, I’ll have a month of book blog tour and promotions.

I’ve been going like crazy with the marketing. Book Two will probably be much easier. By then I have a feeling I’ll have a better grasp of what to do and not to do when launching a book. But it’s all still new to me.

I have been charmed and so grateful by how many writers have reached out to me and helped me along the way, in writers’ groups on Reddit and Quora and Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. So many helpful, gracious, lovely people who have shared information and help.

Soon the world will meet Lilla and Charlie and Sophie and Jamie and Bob and Luke and all the other characters. Soon the Doors will open and the world can discover the World of Story.

I can’t wait.  And I’m so anxious.

Your Fairy Bookmother,

Suzanne

 

 

 

   Book-a-day until I publish July 15.

 

The Hall Family Chronicles are a wonderful mix of magic and the real world.
It was a toss-up for me, should I pick The Swing in the Summerhouse, or The Astonishing Stereoscope?

    But I finally picked the former…

 

Because I always wanted a summerhouse.  I always wanted a stereoscope, too, but there is a deep yearning in me for a Victorian house with a summerhouse and outbuildings.  Like the one on the cover of the first book in the series.

 

    My dream house.

 

Of course, I live in NYC. Urban Brooklyn. No painted ladies in our neighborhood. There are some way the way out in Brooklyn, but not in “the Hills”, as The Lost Princess of Story calls our neighborhood, that Cobble Hill/Boerum Hill universe.  I am blessed to live in a tiny house, painted white, older than the Brooklyn Bridge. But no summerhouse.

I discovered recently that the house in the Hall Family books is real. Walden Street in Concord, MA.

What an appropriate address. (If you have read the books, you will understand. If not, definitely go check them out.)

I love that the house exists.  It is going on my list of literary tourism trips that I look forward to after lockdown is really over. (I know it is over for many, but even though I am vaxxed, my health has me being really cautious. I had a bad case of COVID and still have long haul symptoms.)

I love that the Hall’s house is real. I love that there is a series of kids books that explore Transcendentalism. I love the blend of the everyday and mundane with the magical, the exciting, and the dark that happens in the pages of these books.

I also love the swing that ticks down time.  Magical and a little eerie.

Give it a try. I think you will like it.

And don’t forget, my own book of magic, The Lost Princess of Story, is available on Amazon July 15.

Your Fairy Bookmother,

Suzanne

  Eleven more days!

Coming soon to New York City and everywhere else…

The Lost Princess of Story. Available for preorder on Amazon NOW.
Coming July 15.

Wow, it’s getting really close. Just eleven days to go.

(Apologies for those like me who notice the absence of a number post yesterday. I got befuddled with the Fourth of July festivities.)

Tomorrow starts the real countdown… only ten to go.

I can’t wait. And I wish I had more time.

In ten days, the world can discover the World of Story, where I have spent most of the past year and a bit. They can meet Lilla.  And Sophie and Jamie. And all the other characters I love.

I’m so excited about that.  Everyone who has read the book—alpha and beta readers, reviewers, ARC reviewers—have loved it.

But have I done enough? Marketing is so much harder than writing. I’ve read the books and advice and I’m doing everything I know how…but I’m just not sure it’s enough.

So soon, the book goes to the whole world.

There are between eight and ten million books on Amazon.

This is a prayer that Lost Princess will be seen, and loved.

Those of you who have read it and loved it, help spread the word. Post it, tweet it, bookstagram and booktok it—get it out there.

Only eleven days to go.

They are going so fast.

Your Fairy Bookmother,

Suzanne

 

 Book a day til I publish July 15.

 

Homage to the books that shaped me.

Magic by the Lake is the sequel to the more-famous Half Magic. These are part of Edward Eager’s Tales of Magic series.

At the end of Half Magic, Jane, Katherine, Mark, and Martha wonder if they will ever have more magical adventures. The book says it is a long time until they found out the answer to that question.

But Magic by the Lake says this:

”the book about it says it was a long time before they knew the answer. And here it was only three weeks later, and already Katherine was ready for more. But if you think three weeks isn’t a long time for four children to be without magic, I can only say that it seemed a long time to them.”

I love how Eager (or the narrator, take your pick) addresses the reader. I love how he pays homage to E. Nesbit’s books of magic and encourages the reader to check them out, I love the combination in his stories of the everyday and the magical.

All of them influence The Lost Princess of Story. There are over 100 references to books in Lost Princess, and, like Eager, I hope readers will be inspired to check out the books mentioned.

Magic by the Lake is a perfect summer read. It takes place in a summer rental cottage by the lake. The turtle that both helps and thwarts the children’s use of magic is cranky and funny and very reminiscent of E. Nesbit’s Psammead in Five Children and It.

N M Bodecker’s delightful black and white line drawings help set the place and time. I am particularly fond of the images shown here, that show Jane and Katherine as flappers in a wish gone wrong.

Magic by the Lake takes me back to summer as a child, when days were long and empty, just waiting to be filled.  Library day was the best day of the week.

Oh the decisions. What had to go back, what did I want to keep and finish, or read again? What books to pick at the library?

The joy of carrying out a new stack of books, so tall I could hardly see around them, Dipping into the books, reading a few pages of each one, trying to decide which one to read first.

The Edward Eager books were often in that stack, until my parents finally bought me my own set.

This book brings it all back. My mom’s woodie wagon, the heat coming off the deck of the pool at the country club, the stretch and tug of my navy, white-piped swim team suit, sun bleached from twice a day practice, break time when we had to get out of the pool, and the smell of suntan oil and soda pop in the grassy rest area.  And picking up a book to read, a book so full of magic that I did not even hear the whistle of the lifeguards that meant break time was over.

I was no longer at the club. I was somewhere in Ohio in the 1920s by a lake, trying to find the turtle and tame the magic.

Give it a try. I think you will like it.

Your Fairy Bookmother,

Suzanne

 

     Time is going so fast!

 

In just under two weeks, my first novel goes on sale on Amazon.

I am thrilled and a little overwhelmed.

When I started writing, just a bit over a year ago, I just wanted to tell a story.

I had no idea all the other things that went along with writing a book. The writing was the easiest part.  Then came editing.  And now, marketing.

I do not take naturally to marketing.

I want the world to discover my book. I love it, and I hope you will, too.

But, wow—less than two weeks.  Those days are going fast.

The Magic Begins. July 15.

I can’t wait.  And I’m nervous.

Your Fairy Bookmother,

Suzanne

   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