Tag: kitsune

Fantasy Creatures Blog Tag

Happy weekend (end of the weekend) everyone! Today to continue the fantasy month fun, I’m going to do the Fantasy Creatures Blog Tag by Jenelle Schmidt! Thanks, Jenelle! If anyone would like to play this game, consider yourself tagged and click through to Jenelle’s post for the list of rules and a “clean” set of questions. 🙂

And now, without further ado, the Fantasy Creatures Blog Tag!

1. In a strange twist of fate, you are transported into a fantasy realm of your choice. The catch? You have also been transformed into your least favorite fantasy creature. Where are you, and what are you?

Ooo, such an interesting question! So for me, I absolutely hate vampires, so I suppose I am a vampire.

But fantasy realm of my choice? That’s a bit harder. As discussed last week, I really love urban fantasy, but those realms are so close to our own. So…I think I’d end up in Anne Bishop’s The Others.

First off, as a vampire, I’d be one of the Sanguinati, which is a bit better than traditional vampires. They still have accents and dress very old world and drink blood, but they can turn into clouds of vapor and drift around. Also, the supernatural creatures are in charge! Fear us, humans!

2. What fantasy creature do you wish featured in more stories? What is your favorite story that has that creature in it?

I know these are both becoming a bit more common, but I want more mermaids and more kitsune (or fox shifters).

For mermaids, my favorite is absolutely the Lost Voices trilogy by Sarah Porter. They are SO GOOD, and the mythology around the development of mermaids is so sad but also so gratifying: those deeply betrayed by humanity are embraced by the ocean and become mermaids, no matter where they decide they are no longer part of the human race. It’s about finding acceptance and peace after having a life where a girl has had neither.

As for kitsune…I’m still looking for a favorite, so if you have one, be sure to share it below! There are a couple on my list, like Wicked Fox and Kitsune-Tsuki, but I haven’t gotten to read them yet. And I can’t list Janeen Ippolito’s Steel City Genie, because even though she HAS a kitsune (half-kitsune), she’s a secondary character.

3. As you are reading this, a voice rings in your ear proclaiming:

A hero true, a leader strong,
A quest is where you do belong,
So arm thyself, and take your stand
With an item to your left your fate is at hand.

Besides the fact that this prophetic voice is clearly incapable of sticking to a meter, what ordinary item do you now find yourself armed with? (And, for bonus points, what helpful magical properties does it now possess that will help you on your quest?)

I’m sitting kind of weird, so to my left is actually my purse. And guess what? It’s now a bag of holding. BOOM.

4. You happen across an ad in a catalogue promising a magical fantasy cruise that will allow you to stop in any three realms of your choice and explore each for several days before returning you home (and the ad promises your safe return or your money back, guaranteed!) Assuming this is not a hoax and that the tour guides will actually be able to cater to your requests, what three realms will you tour and what do you hope to see/who would you like to meet along the way?

Realm 1: The Others, again. I just love those books. I want to see/meet Simon and Meg for sure, and I’d love to meet the Elemental girls! I’ll have to see Lakeside as well as the retreat for the Others in Lake Silence.

Realm 2: The Siren by Kiera Cass…I want to meet the Ocean. Ocean is an actual character that speaks to the siren girls, and it’s such an interesting and well-done concept, and the Ocean has such a fascinating personality.

Realm 3: How could I not say the world of Harry Potter? I would have loved to meet Lupin and see Diagon Alley and Hogwarts and meet the Weasleys.

5. Congratulations! You are a fantasy hero/heroine about to start your adventure. You get to choose a small fantasy creature to accompany and assist you on your quest. Who/what do you choose?

Hi yes, I will choose a niffler. Might be a terrible idea, but they’re just so cute!

6. Elves or dwarves?

Hard question, but I think I’d go with Dwarves!

7. Do you prefer your dragons (we had to have at least one question devoted solely to dragons!) good or evil or a mix of both?

I prefer my dragons good, like the metallic dragons in Dungeons and Dragons. I’d love some fierce creatures to help me on my quests!

8. World building is a complicated undertaking full of many details. As a reader, what is a small detail you really appreciate seeing when it comes to diving into a new realm? What is something that helps you lose yourself in a fantasy world?

I love seeing that the writer thought out things like idioms and sayings that fit with the world they characters are familiar with, phrases that reference the religion or fairy tales of the culture. It helps ground me (and helps me lose myself) in the fantasy world.

9. You have been transformed into your favorite fantasy creature. Problem is… you’re still in your own bedroom and your family is downstairs, completely unprepared for this shock. What creature are you, and how (if at all) do you break the news to your loved ones? (Or how do you get out of your room?)

Though I love kitsune, I’ll go with mermaids because it’s more interesting for this question and giving me serious H2O vibes (Love that show forever!).

Okay, so I transform into a mermaid, and I can’t really hide that, soooo…they’ll find out! I won’t be able to get out of my room without help anyway. I’ll just let them be surprised. 😉

Concluding thoughts

Just a reminder that you are free to participate in this tag on your own blogs! Also, don’t forget to check out the fantasy month post to look for information on the giveaways, games, and other participating posts for the month!

And please share some of your own answers with me below!

Starting with a Spark: Ember of Foxfire

It had been a while since I started a completely and wholly new story. Yes, there were a few starts, a couple short stories, a couple incomplete beginnings that have since been largely abandoned, but nothing I’d intended to be a real new world.

You see, I have been working on a series of fantasy novels since 2011. I finally completed my editing process in the month of March 2016 and sent it out to my first potential publisher. I had spent years upon years, countless hours and brain cells, thinking and living and breathing that world.

And then it was time to step back and wait, and I was left in a story vacuum.

After editing for so long, bouncing back from a huge dry spell, and needing something new purely for the joy of creation, I needed fresh inspiration. I thought about how things had started for the previous series. That was simple: I had been watching I Dream of Jeannie and really wanted to tell a story from the perspective of a genie. And it grew and morphed into a new, complex, colorful world filled with characters I loved. Stories I had to tell. Worlds I wanted to explore.

But what about now? All I had was my current fascination with urban fantasy. I was sucked into worlds of werewolves, floating on ocean waves with sirens, dreaming of creatures who prowled the night and fought evil right in our own world or in variations of our world.

And I love it.

But, truth be told, I’m not a huge fan of vampires, I’m not feeling the urge to write beautiful mermaid tales, and the world is saturated with werewolf fiction. So where did that leave me?

I narrowed down that I wanted to write urban fantasy. But I was still without the “fantasy” element. I scoured online lists of mythological beings, writing out notes on selkies, swan maidens, and kitsune, just to name a few. And of everything I read, I kept coming back to the kitsune. I searched for other kitsune fiction, and while it was there, it was sparse and questionable. But I wanted to read about fox shifters. They didn’t have to be perfect kitsune. But they were different and powerful and had a hierarchy already built in to their growth and development. It was the first spark.

And then a character started forming in my mind. A half fox shifter, half human girl just entering her independence in the human world after years of learning from the other fox shifters. She was young, naive, and not exactly popular with her peers because of her parentage. But she was also brave and strong and wasn’t afraid to be both girly and tough.

But what would happen to her? I’m not a huge fan of romance, especially the love-at-first-sight kind that plagues a lot of urban fantasy, so I knew I wanted it to be romance light or romance free. I knew she would have a fully fox brother who was older and more experienced than her. And then I read more about the kitsune. I created a similar North American kitsune lore. I developed the basic plot of what would happen to my character. I knew where she was going and what she would be facing. I knew how she would have to grow. I saw her trials, her enemies, and her friends. I had finally met Ember.

And there it was. I was ready to start creating again.