How Much Time Do You Have?

Following up on Linda's post from the other day, I also believe reading is one way to create some winter magic of your very own. But what if your schedule is jam packed? Or packed with jam?

Winter magic -- snow, cold weather, ice crystals, and lots of celebrating! Let's keep this short but sweet, friends. During the winter holiday season, you may not have as many blocks of time to read. You're busy. Aren't we all? But a little light reading -- losing yourself and your stress in a quick story -- might make all the difference between a good day and a bad one.

May I suggest the following FREE FREE FREE micro story anthology? All the stories are designed to be read quickly, between work, errands, and so on. Tiny Treats -- A Holiday Collection

My story is about a heroine with nobody to kiss at New Year's due to some magicus interruptus! Here's how it starts...

***

At precisely 12:00 am on New Year's Day, when he came at her for a celebratory kiss, Ana's date turned into a pumpkin.

"Crap!" Ana snatched up the large gourd before any of her fellow revelers smashed it. The residual effects of the spell should prevent bystanders from noticing the transmogrification, but the spell to change Jimmy back into the human he’d been ten seconds ago wouldn’t work on pumpkin pulp.

She was going to kill that damn cat. This time, she was really going to do it.

Leading with the pumpkin, she pushed free of the throng. Confetti and balloons drifted from the ceiling as the crowd broke into a drunken rendition of Auld Lang Syne. Her stilettos pinched her toes with every stomp.

Not that the date had been going fabulously—it was hard for a sorceress to relax with a normal, even one as cute as Jimmy—but she’d been dateless for too long. The last man who’d truly interested her... Well, the less said about him the better.

Except she’d be saying a lot of things to him here in about twenty minutes. Threatening things.

***

HAPPY HOLIDAYS to everyone, and have a grand new year with much chocolate and stuff.

Jody Wallace

Smart. Snarky. Seductive. And that's just the books.

http://www.jodywallace.com * http://www.meankitty.com

Winter Theme Week: Snowy Excerpts!

"Snowy excerpts are like snowy egrets except not even a little." -- Jody Wallace

In just a few short, holiday-frantic days, I'll be releasing the second in my Dreamwalkers paranormal/urban fantasy series about the humans who can drag monsters onto our plane simply by dreaming about them and how they fight the products of their imaginations. DISCIPLE is set several months after my already-published -- and very very cheap, only 99 cents!!! -- novella TANGIBLE, which introduces Maggie, our heroine, who's about to find out about the secret world of dreamers in this excerpt...

***

One week later. Richmond, Virginia.

Margaret Louise Mackey, feet icy in wet tennis shoes, hesitated at the mouth of the shortcut she always took home from the coffee shop. Fresh snow blanketed the ground, having piled atop the old layer while she’d sipped mocha lattes and postponed bedtime. There were no footprints in the narrow alley between the townhouses, no tire tracks, and not much light except the gibbous moon.

There was nothing to fear in that darkened alley. She’d walked it every day for the past month. Growing up, she’d skipped up and down it on a regular basis.

Yet tonight terror locked her joints, dried her mouth and made her heart pound. The crisp scent of snow in the air, the painful bite of winter on her exposed skin, and the angle of that gibbous moon had all happened before.

Last night, in the nightmare.

Not her first nightmare since the funeral, but this one had been different. This one had felt real. If dreams came true—which she’d seen no proof of in her life or anyone else’s—halfway down that alley, she was going to die. Ripped to pieces by vampires straight out of the television shows she’d been glomming to keep herself awake at night.

Maggie considered returning to the sidewalk and heading for the house that way. Longer but...safer? And more pathetic. And she didn’t trust Richmond drivers in this late winter snow. In any snow. Wouldn’t take much for one of those idiots to skid onto the sidewalk and into her.

She’d lost enough family members to bad drivers lately.

A gust of wind slammed her from the side, snow swirling into her face, sticking to her hair and cutting through her fleece pants to freeze her legs. The coffee shop was a fifteen minute walk from the house and it alarmed her that she could barely feel her fingers and toes.

Much more of this and she’d be nursing frostbite in addition to insomnia, bad dreams and grief. She wanted to be safely home, tucked under the comforter on the couch, eating something junky and watching television.

The therapist had assured her grieving was necessary but she couldn’t allow her nightmares to dictate her behavior. Dreams were only that. Dreams. The brain working through its garbage and stress—a mental colonic.

With an eyeroll at her own melodrama, Maggie headed down the alley at a quick pace, her half-numb feet crunching through the pristine snow.

***

TANGIBLE is available at most ebook retailers near you! And everywhere on the internet is technically near you, right?

DISCIPLE BLURB WRITTEN OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD INSTEAD OF CUT AND PASTED:

Maggie and Zeke survived the events of TANGIBLE (SPOILER!) and now must make their teacher-student relationship work. Platonically. Their tolerance is tested when an enemy from Zeke's past ... dammit, basically the bad guy messes shit up. And also, there are vampires, dinosaurs, chthulhu, zombies, giant spiders, scheming weasels, secret bases, steamy sex scenes, shooting, violence, cussing, narrow escapes and explosions.

I have a great memory, don't I?



Jody Wallace

Author, Cat Person, Amigurumist of the Apocalypse

http://www.jodywallace.com * http://www.meankitty.com

The Winter Metaphor

Welcome to our Winter Paranormal Week on Here Be Magic!

We kicked off the theme with Nicole Luiken's take on Jack Frost. I'm going to continue with some thoughts on the role of the winter landscape in the first two books of The Twelve Kingdoms.

First,  in The Mark of the Tala, my heroine Andi - Princess Andromeda - is plagued with visions of a man dead in the snow.

The smell of blood saturates my memories, the crimson circle widening in the snow around his body, just as I’d seen it, over and over in visions. 

The image makes little sense at first, partly because she is unaware she's inherited the gift of prophecy from her long-dead mother, but also because it's late summer and there's no snow. As the story progresses, however, and Andi leaves her home to live in a foreign land, it begins to snow.

As we climbed, the trees broke the wind and the ice crystals became fat snowflakes. The ground disappeared under the fall of white, all sound but ours muffled.

Snow dominates the next few scenes as they travel through the mountains - until they enter Annfwn. Crossing the magical border into another land is moving from icy winter to tropical summer. This transition is key in all three books, moving back and forth between the seasons, demarcated by magic.

Waiting in the cold, wrapped in layers of furs, were thousands of Tala, all in human form. They stretched into the forest and down the ravines on either side. Countless sets of fierce blue eyes focused on me, their expectation strong in the air. They ranged along the border, which seemed to sparkle in the air. My blood sang with it, a low hum of recognition. Even if I didn’t have that, or the abrupt line where the crowded people ended and open land began, the other side made it clear. Where we stood in frozen, high-mountain early winter, the land beyond appeared to be in the bloom of late summer. Verdant trees spread enormous leaves to the setting sun. The forest floor, velvety moss studded with jewel-like blossoms, became a great meadow, waving with tall emerald grasses.

When Andi's vision comes true, it happens in winter, in the snow, though not exactly as she'd seen, largely because the choices she makes changes the order of events.

In the second book, The Tears of the Rose, Ami, Princess Amelia, follows a similar journey. Most of her story takes place in the dead of winter, which echoes the bleakness of her life. She moves through a winter landscape, from the storm-tossed shores of her home in Windroven, back to where she grew up - and then also up through the mountains to Annfwn.

Sometimes snow sifted down from the branches and the wood creaked when a hand of wind fisted through the limbs high against the wintery sky. It seemed other things moved there, too. Wrong things. My memory flashed onto those strange oily creatures that had invaded Ordnung when the Tala attacked and came after Andi. I tried to get a better look, but they were like the childhood monsters that disappeared when you lit a candle. 

When she reaches the place of Andi's vision, she finds an odd juxtaposition of winter and summer.

Not sure what I was looking for, I spotted a clear patch that held, of all things, a spot of green. Bright, acid green, like the White Monk’s eyes when he was most amused—or most hateful. Kicked-up snow mounded around it, but now melted, sliding off and making a damp, muddy ring. A patch of grass, incongruous in the frozen landscape, with a flower inside. A forget-me-not, but larger than it should be, the vivid summer-sky blue of Hugh’s eyes.

For Ami, also, entering Annfwn is a turning point in her life. The movement from the hibernation of grief into living again.

In Greek mythology, winter is the season of Demeter's grief, because her daughter Persephone was abducted to the Underworld, where she must forever spend six months of the year. The Twelve Kingdoms stories echo much of theme of that myth - about mothers and daughters, leaving home and finding home, about the stages of a woman's life and the emergence of life again out of death.

Winter Paranormal Week -- Jack Frost

Welcome to Here Be Magic’s Winter Paranormal Week! I’ll be kicking things off with a post on Jack Frost, but please check back throughout the week to find out about the Holly King and other figures.

JACK FROST

The original Jack Frost was a mischievous pixie who carves feathery fern patterns on windows and nipped the noses of children. He appears in several poems published in the 1800s.

Hollywood has produced numerous Jack Frosts, including two snowmen. In Santa Clause 3, Frost is a petulant villain played by Martin Short. More recently, in Rise of the Guardians, Jack Frost is a pretty preteen boy who skates around and grows from a loner to a hero.

 My version is nothing like those.

In my YA novel, Frost, Jack Frost is the least of his names. He is Cold and Nothing and Void. He lives in the Arctic, and he schemes to bring back the days when glaciers blanketed the earth. 

Cover by Relish Design Studios

I think my decision to make Frost my villain lies in the fact that I grew up on a farm in Northern Alberta. Every year, it seemed we would get hit with a week of -40 temperatures. (Fun fact, -40 Celsius is the same as -40 Fahrenheit.) And because this happened every year, instead of curling up in our warm beds, we would have to go out in it. Specifically, I would have to go stand out at the end of the driveway and wait for the school bus. I would wear tall winter boots, ski pants, long parka, large mitts over top of gloves, toque, scarf, the whole deal—and still freeze.

The return of the ice age felt VERY possible. Winter was not cute. Winter was deadly. And yes, here in Canada, winter is always coming.

Frost is set even further north in Nunavut, the newest Canadian territory, in the booming town of Iqaluit on Baffin Island. Although I never managed to convince my husband to vacation up there in December like I wanted to (go figure) I had a lot of fun researching living in the Arctic and throwing every kind of winter disaster I could think of at my characters. There’s a ski-mobile accident, a car goes through the ice on a frozen lake, a polar bear attacks, someone falls into a crevasse, there’s a blizzard, and of course, with every chapter the days grow shorter and the thermometer keeps plummeting…

The following is an excerpt from a game of Crack-the-whip which goes horribly wrong…

After practice, Cheryl found out why Johnny had gotten her to take her skates.  About half the team and Tracy and Cheryl hung around for a game of Crack-the-whip.  Since Cheryl didn't have a helmet, Johnny insisted on giving her his and going bareheaded himself.

Minik and a husky defenseman formed the anchor in the centre of the ice for the game to pivot around.  Everyone joined hands, making a line of nine.  Johnny linked first, then Cheryl.  She ended up third from the whip end.

Everyone skated in a large circle around the pivot.  After two complete rotations, the line had picked up enough momentum that Cheryl didn't have to skate.  She was pulled along by the other skaters in a dizzying circle.  The farther down the chain you were, the faster you went and the farther you travelled.

A small scream escaped Cheryl as they swung round the first corner, largely drowned out by Brendan's whoop and Tracy's louder shriek.  Johnny pulled on Cheryl's left hand, and Tracy pulled on her right.  Cheryl struggled to hold on, but Tracy began to slip free.  For a heart-stopping moment, Cheryl thought she would go with Tracy, but Johnny's grip on her hand stayed strong, almost bruisingly so.  "I've got you."

Tracy and Brendan sailed free.  Brendan braked easily, but, like Cheryl, Tracy had never mastered the T-stop and had to put out her arms to avoid smashing into the boards.  Then they quickly skated to center ice and joined the pivot end of the chain to become pullers.

Cheryl found herself at the end of the line; both the most dangerous and most thrilling position on the chain.  At its end Cheryl got the benefit of the widest swing, but if anyone's grip broke she would go flying.

"Switch grips," Johnny shouted as they headed into the next corner.

Obediently, Cheryl locked her fingers around Johnny's wrist, and Johnny did the same to her wrist, resulting in a stronger double-grip.  She needed it.  At the end of the line, the speed was faster, increasing the strain on her arm.

She was smiling, laughing even, when somebody halfway up the stands caught her eye.  Sharp white face, pointy chin, silver hair like dripping icicles and pit-dark eyes.

The line pulled her away before she could be sure, but Cheryl was instinctively certain it was The Stranger.  She looked back, but couldn't spot him again.

Couldn't, that is, until she faced forward and saw him standing a quarter of the way around the rink from where he'd been moments ago, only this time he was closer to ice level.

He was looking at her.  There was nothing of mercy in his eyes.  No human warmth, not even anger.

A shock of cold went through Cheryl.  "Johnny," she started to say, but Johnny was swearing.  Cheryl's eyes snapped wide-open as the side of the rink loomed in front of them. 

The pullers had misjudged.  Instead of skimming the side of the boards Cheryl was going to crash into them. 

They were going so fast...  She wanted to close her eyes, but kept watching in horror, certain that in a second she would squish against the boards like rotten fruit.  

Then Johnny's grip on her wrist tightened, and he pulled her in closer instead, with inhuman strength.  One of her shoulders touched his, and the other grazed the boards.

They were past. 

Cheryl had just taken a breath of relief when The Stranger appeared on the ice, right in front of her.

She cried out and tried to let go of Johnny, but his fingers bit into her wrist, and it was too late, she ran into The Stranger.  Instead of colliding with him, she went through him--needles of ice pricked her skin, like standing naked in a snowstorm--and screamed again, whipping along so fast, out of control--

Her mitten came off in Johnny's hand.

Cheryl spun off the chain toward the boards.  Whizzing.  Much too fast for Cheryl's simple snowplow to have any effect.  She smashed head-first into the boards.  Her too-large helmet tumbled off.

The last thing she heard was The Stranger's cold laughter.

Buy here. 

What other versions of Jack Frost have you run across? Which do you prefer?