Fantasy

Who took it?

Hi Readers,

Before we start this week’s newsletter, I, your host, Ran, Sarn’s son and sidekick, have a question for you. One of our long-time readers, Athena, asked last week if you, our wonderful subscribers, could interview us. Of course, you can!

If there’s something you’d like to ask me, or any of the other characters in Melinda’s books, hit reply right now and send them in. We’ll collect all the questions and figure out the most creative and fun way to answer them. Maybe your question will lead us on a mini-adventure, or a fun tangent. Who knows? Questions in the past have, so don’t be surprised if they do this time too!

So, dear reader, what would you like to ask, and who would you like to answer your question? Hit reply and let us know.

Good news! Forgotten Magic, which includes our Scribe’s story, “Spell of Scales & Steel,” is coming out on May 12. It’s the third a multi-author anthology in the trilogy that began with Hidden Magic. The second installment was entitled, Wayward Magic, because after you hide magic, that power can develop some odd notions. 😉 We’ll have a preview of “Spell of Scales & Steel” from Forgotten Magic right here next week.

And, Dragon Spells, the novelization of the dragon in the boiler room storyline that ran in our newsletter last year, is getting closer to done. It looks like it could be out by the end of May or early June depending on our Scribe’s work schedule and our editor’s, and how many extra scenes we, the characters, sneak in.

We’ve already conned our Scribe into adding a lot of extra scenes to Dragon Spells, tripling the word count, but you never know. We might need more. After Dragon Spells will come His Angelic Keeper: Hidden because Dragon Spells ties into it then Curse Breaker: Hidden because Auntie Sovvan’s book is closely linked to my next book.

Don’t tell my aunt this, but I’m trying to send her some bad guys. We have too many in the Curse Breaker books. Auntie Sovvan needs some more villains in her afterlife to keep things interesting. After all, she needs something to do when she’s not saving me. But she needs to resolve some things in her series before I can do that.

(The company our Scribe works for is trying to reopen in mid-May. We don’t know whether or not she will need to return to commuting to each day or continue to work from home. That uncertainty is adding some complexity to our release schedule.)

Okay, and now without further ado, I return you to our mini-adventure to find our current newsletter adventure, Holiday Troubles. I’m embarrassed that it went missing and hoping someone kidnapped it while we were back in our book world advancing the plot of our next book. At least then, it wasn’t our fault.

Okay, okay, I’ll stop rationalizing and get back to the search. Last week, we were about to ask my Scribe, Melinda Kucsera, if she’d taken the story, which is currently called Holiday Troubles, but that’s just its working title because we have to call it something. I really want her to say no. Let’s see what she says.

***

I left the protective circle of Papa’s very long arms and approached my Scribe as she set the bag of clothes fresh from the dryer down. “Last week’s adventure, Holiday Troubles, went missing. Do you know where it is?”

“I might.” Melinda picked up a towel and folded it.

I hadn’t expected that, and for a moment, I was gobsmacked. But I don’t do quiet well or for very long, so questions popped into my head. “Where is it? Tell me, so I can fetch it and we can return to finish it.” I picked up a sock from the pile. It radiated warmth into my cold hands. I might have hugged it for comfort until Papa laid a big strong hand on my back, giving me strength.

Melinda folded another towel and set it on the couch. I might have rested my head on it to soak in its softness and warmth. We never did get that boiler fixed, so her apartment was rather cold. Oops. Maybe if we fixed that, she’d give us back the adventure we were supposed to be starring in. It was worth a try, so I opened my mouth to suggest that, but Uncle Miren cut in with a more pressing question.

“Why won’t you give it to us?” My uncle took the towel Melinda had been folding out of her hands and dropped it back onto the pile of clothes waiting to be folded and put away.

“Because there’s a problem with it.” Melinda grabbed the towel and refolded it. She dropped it on top of the other one, and it landed on my head because I was still snuggled up with the first one.

Don’t judge. Adventures can get scary. You have to snuggle up and hug loved ones when you can. You never know when a monster, or an angry dragon, will show up, and I was safe here. I definitely wasn’t when we left off in our ongoing newsletter adventure, Holiday Troubles, which was part of the reason why I wanted to get it back.

That and, I’d been sleeping on the job when you last saw me in that story. So was Papa, but still. It was time to get back into action, but we needed that story, and Melinda wasn’t going to give it up without a fight. But we couldn’t fight a scribe let alone our own. We needed her, and she needed us.

I took the folded towel off my head and stood up straight. “What’s so wrong with Holiday Troubles that we can’t continue it?”

Melinda perched on the edge of the couch next to the folded towels, so she was more on my level. “Well, you guys added so many extra scenes to Dragon Spells, the story that precedes it, that you changed the course of it, and some of those changes affect Holiday Troubles. So Holiday Troubles can’t continue until I figure out how to fix that.”

I squeezed her hand. “But you’re going to rewrite Holiday Troubles when it’s done, just like you did for Dragon Spells, and we’ll need extra scenes in it too, which will change it even further. That dark lady who kidnapped you will want scenes too. She didn’t get to talk directly to our readers because we don’t allow villains that kind of access unless it’s part of a preview. It’s too dangerous to give them a platform in here.”

“That’s true,” Melinda admitted, but she didn’t sound convinced. “But you guys are still changing Dragon Spells. So even if I figure out a workaround for Holiday Troubles, you might destroy it by taking the preceding story in a new direction again. No, I can’t allow that. Holiday Troubles will have to stay missing until Dragon Spells is done. That’s the only way to ensure continuity.” Melinda stood up, closing the argument, but it was far from over.

Tune in next week for a preview of “Spell of Scales & Steel” from Forgotten Magic and other release week shenanigans. In the newsletter following that, this struggle will continue. Promise. Stay safe and well until then.


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