Meet some of your fellow JuNo WriMos in our Featured Author series each Wednesday and Friday through June.
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A ‘Jane of All Trades’ in a long line that has included farmers, slack-rope walkers, mechanics, forgers, teachers, horse-thieves, and writers, featured author Eden Mabee shares stories of a universe filled with magic, tech and political intrigue. She’s a self-proclaimed WriMo addict and photography dabbler.
Hi! Nice to meet you all. Welcome to JuNoWriMo, my fourth year of this challenge. It’s a great bunch of people to write with. Come join us for Twitter sprints and chatting about craft via our Facebook page.
For this year’s JuNoWriMo, I’m continuing to work on my Swan Song Series, a set of five planned novels, and will be placing the majority of my emphasis on the first book, Courting the Swan Song. The series crosses genre boundaries somewhat, but the first two books hold to the “Coming of Age” fantasy form. Here’s a quick overview of Courting:
Only child and heir, Alanii Vestimiir has decided that his father’s plans for him are shortsighted and suffocating. He’s off to become a soldier and serve the crown in the way he sees fit. In his attempt, he runs afoul not of only his father, but two powerful noble houses who stand poised to tear down his family and possibly involve their country in a war that might destroy them all.
Along the way, Alanii has to deal with all sorts of normal teenage problems: squabbles with friends, pretty girls, perfectionist teachers, etc.–who said growing up was easy?
Many elements went into CTSS. In writing my space opera, Release, secondary characters such as Alanii founded stories of their own, demanding to show how the brutal universe of the story come about through more than their actions. Before that, my best friend and I wrote fanfiction together, where I learned elements of story writing and developed the seeds of the Swan Song Series. Another MC, Atyr (book 2, Singer of the Swan Song), came out of those stories grew to be her own person as my vision of their universe became clearer.
Since CTSS comes out of writing I’ve been doing since high school, one would have thought I should be further along in the story. I am, and I’m not. A ‘finished’ version, that is very much a First Novel, has been duly been appointed a drawer where it can spend its days peacefully, while I scavenge its corpse for useful tidbits. Integrating elements from this very rough work has meant that I work on the first three books of the series concurrently (books 1 & 2 happen during the same in-world time, and book 3 follows soon after, starting where the original book began). However, this June, finishing a complete draft of CTSS is the plan.
Come visit me on my writing blog Many Worlds From Many Minds, or follow me on Facebook and Twitter.
My name is Missy Kirtley. I’m a writer. I’m also a housewife and a mother. I’m in my thirties, live in the Bay Area, California, am college educated, and I love cats. I’ve been telling stories since before I could actually hold a pen in my hand. The first piece that I had published was an article for the local paper called “Santa Claus is Magic” when I was in the fourth grade. Since then I’ve been going nonstop. I studied screenwriting in college, and was planning to move down to LA to make movies before I met my husband. Career went off track as I got married and had babies. I’ve won NaNoWriMo three years running, and just finished Camp NaNoWriMo this year for the first time.