mcaquila

[mcaquila]

This was basically all of 2021, with more story ideas than I can remember. It was….something. (If you look at my posts that year, you'll see this in action.)

[mcaquila]

I can't believe it's already been a week since the Kickstarter began! The bonus stickers have just been completed; there are 4 total, and we're looking at updating the campaign page soon.

I'm quite happy with how all of the stickers turned out, but this one of a water garden faery is one of my favorites 🪷

[mcaquila]

This artist is so good with color that when @spookyscribe and I were thinking of composition ideas, we were like... what if we used Josephine Wall art as inspiration?

It can be easy for pieces with such a huge wide range of colors to go wrong -- but @praise-the-lord-im-dead nailed it!

Here is a sneak peek of the stunning artwork @mcaquila and I commissioned for our audiobook Kickstarter campaign from artist KrasneTigritsa @praise-the-lord-im-dead

Check out our Kickstarter page to see the full image! Prints are available as an add-on to any tier. Also take a look at the stickers and other goodies!

When M.C. and I were deciding what scene to commission, we realized that out of the group of characters, we had never had official artwork of Vera done. Vera shows up first in Book 2, and she's a half Water Spirit with empathic musical abilities. She's also a rather clueless lackey of the Cait Sidhe, her adoptive brother, and his schemes. She is such a fun character, and this artist really brought her to life!

Inspired by the works of Holly Black, Julie Kagawa, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and classic Celtic and English folklore, the Winter Fae's Blight series follows faery Deirdre and two human brothers, Iain and James, and their ragtag group of allies as they try to stop a brewing war between the human military and the Faerie Courts across a 7-book series.

Why Kickstarter? M.C. and I have always wanted an audiobook version of The Changeling's Fortune, but we wanted to hire real narrators and pay them fairly for their time and skill level. Through this campaign and your support, that dream will be possible!

If you're a fan of YA fantasy, faery folklore, and classic adventure stories, check out this page and support real artists. Thank you.

[mcaquila]

Even if you get pretty good at setup and payoff and other elements of comedy… ultimately it's still subjective.

That's why comedy is so easy! 🙃

[mcaquila]

Water Nymphs inhabit lakes, ponds, streams, and rivers—provided they are well shaded or, preferably, contain underwater caves to protect their sensitive eyes and skin from the sunlight. They are opportunistic faeries. A crocodile basking on the bank of the Nile, for instance, may seem a lazy, slow creature—until the thirsty gazelle ventures too close for a drink.

One of my favorite parts of working on the audiobook Kickstarter was creating a couple pages from Servants of the Winter Court -- a field journal penned by an unknown author that is both a help and hindrance to the protagonists. We had to do the nymph page (if you read The Changeling's Fortune, you'll get it) -- above is one of the images from that page.

I'm quite happy with how it turned out (and it looks even better in the full page!)

[mcaquila]

The Kickstarter is live! 🎉🎉🎉

Inspired by the works of Holly Black, Julie Kagawa, Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and classic Celtic and English folklore, the Winter Fae's Blight series follows faery Deirdre and two human brothers, Iain and James, and their ragtag group of allies as they try to stop a brewing war between the human military and the Faerie Courts across a 7-book series.

Every author dreams of hearing their stories come alive through an audiobook! My co-author and I believe that human-written stories need real, human narrators to do the work justice. The Winter Fae's Blight series is told through multiple POVs, so we wanted two narrators to allow the characters to shine.

The Kickstarter will run from June 10 to July 9, and features a wide variety of digital and physical rewards. Check out the link above to learn more! 😊

[mcaquila]

Sticker Designing

It's been years since I've tried to design stickers. The idea was to have 4 designs total, and I started off by choosing some critters from the Winter Fae's Blight story world:

We have a plethora of owl faeries in the Summer Court. It's mostly an excuse to have loads of giant owls everywhere.

Byron, a witch's familiar and magical magpie.

The Cait Sidhe and the roughest design. Modeled loosely after a panther (and also after one of my co-author's cats...).

In the 3rd book of the series, the setting is basically a Renaissance Fair with real magic -- and real faeries. Including water garden flower faeries. This was inspired by them......then I went and reread the scenes with them, and realized I was way off.

(Plus, the above design just wasn't cute enough.)

Due to some illness and eyestrain, I haven't been able to completely finalize the sticker designs, but I've gotten very, very close! That included completely revamping the flower faery.

I'm excited to get this and the others finished! I'll likely get rid of a lot of the purple border around them -- again, it's been a while since I last worked on stickers. But I'm excited with how things are coming along! :)

[mcaquila]

✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧ Counting down the hours until the Kickstarter launches tomorrow! ✩₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

[mcaquila]

Tomorrow, @spookyscribe and I are starting a Kickstarter to turn The Changeling's Fortune into a dual-narrator audiobook!

We're committed to getting experienced, human narrators and compensating them fairly -- so the Kickstarter is a must. The rewards are quite varied, ranging from ebooks to signed books to themed scented candles (which have been a lot of fun to sort out)!

Preparing for this has also involved making some custom, exclusive artwork and merchandise -- so you'll definitely be seeing more about this in the days to come 😊

[mcaquila]

If I had a nickel for every time this happened… I'd be able to buy, like, a carton of eggs. Even in this economy!

[mcaquila]

There's a rare type of writer whose books do make them rich and famous.

The rest of us go through the above. (We still love all the books we publish though.)

[mcaquila]

Ten-year-old me was so sure I would publish that story. Ha.

[mcaquila]

Now that I think of it, James gave similar vibes, especially in the earlier books... He was a bad influence on his older brother 😂

The last cover is now mine! ❄️ This is such a great depiction of Raisa; as beautiful and terrible as winter itself. 🥶

Thanks so much for the lovely new covers, authors!

[mcaquila]

This is absolutely definitely how all writers everywhere approach writing comedy. For sure.

[mcaquila]

Reblogging this because this is cool -- and I have American chestnut trees in the Spooky Story! In that AU Earth, the blight never happened, so the chestnuts are all over the place.

Also, the bark of these trees has these lovely distinctive grooves, makes them look potentially quite atmospheric and creepy:

A perfect spooky story tree.

Plus, chestnuts are delicious and perfectly autumnal 🍂🌰🍂

Revival of Near Extinct American History

Hey, yall! Turns out, there's an attempt going on in NYC where you can sign up to get a free American chestnut sapling. See, there used to be a bunch more of them until some sort of fungal blight was brought over (by accident, I hope). And this nearly killed them all off.

So, there's been an attempt to keep the species alive by crossbreeding it with the blight-resistant Chinese chestnut.

And now, they're givin' them away over there.

Admittedly, I am by no means an ecoterrorist nut job.

But, I love the idea of bring back such a big & important part of American & pre-American history. So, if anyone who happens to be living in or around NYC or possibly even just in an area where these majestic trees would be able to grow well & they're interested.

Then, I implore you to read this article: NYC American Chestnut Project

And maybe do a bit of research into how to care for these trees to see if it'd be something you might be interested in.

I don't know if any of my moots or followers or people that I'm following are in such a location to be able to do this or even if they'd be interested. So, my apologies if this doesn't apply to you.

But anybody can & ARE interested, then it'd be really nice.

@skyloftian-nutcase @alasse-earfalas @bigsoftmarshmallow @smilesrobotlover @expanding-hyrule @thesoulspulse @promise-keeper-papyrus @amethystocean-adr @aufigirl @starseedpatriot @skywards-and-beyond @sunset-peril @dannyphantom-justiceleauge @desertsanctuary-blog @gale-gentlepenguin @haaambugi @krossan @kaezerdoodles @luciannadecelio-blog @zoe-oneesama @calladraws101 @viviane-lefay @botwstoriesandsuch @nobodyfamousposts @nayru-s-clay-tablet @noodles-and-tea @mcaquila @melonbear51 @miss-miaumiau

[mcaquila]

Swap these two with any of my characters who have a close, fun platonic relationship. Luckily for them, my instinctive urge to kill and generate angst & drama doesn't (usually) come to fruition.

These two are Libra and Aires, in a story idea based on the 12 horoscope signs (I posted art of them on here years ago). I couldn't get it to work, but… maybe one day.

[mcaquila]

😆😆😆

It's so true.

Possibly my favorite book in the series and it has my two favorite characters featured on it! 💜 Definitely the best of the new covers. 🥰

The meme was definitely a case of “If you don’t laugh, you’ll cry.”