All posts by Jen D

What I'm Up To, Writing

Happy Independent Bookstore Day!

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Today is Independent Bookstore Day! It’s a day to celebrate booksellers outside of the corporate ranks, the little place in your town, the used bookstore on the side street, places like that.

It’s also a place to celebrate online independent stores, like those on itch.io, selling you books that you might not be able to find in the big stores.

For example, if you go to the Taeliana Books itch.io store you can buy my independently created book The Ballad of the Grey Swan in DRM-free epub and PDF formats.

And if you go to the top level of itch.io, there’s a lot of other authors there selling their books. Mine might not be your cup of tea, but maybe someone else’s book could be!

Keep the indy bookstores alive!

Books, Fiction, The Ballad of the Grey Swan, What I'm Up To, Writing

The announcement: I have published a novel!

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Yes! That’s the big announcement for today, the thing that’s been being counted down to in the margin and in my other posts. I have published a novel! My first novel. And I’m excited.

It’s called The Ballad of the Grey Swan. It’s a swashbuckling fantasy novel inspired by things like:

  • my love of Dungeons and Dragons and fantasy
  • the works of Alexandre Dumas like The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers,
  • books like War for the Oaks which involve people rising up to be the equal of magical powers
  • swashbuckler movies
  • my desire to have a fantasy novel that reflects trans people and gay people as just people living their lives (well, as normal as you get in a fantasy world, but you get the idea) until things get weird
  • and an image I got in my head and had to get out one way or another.

Click to continue reading.

People, Taeliana

A D&D Archfey Patron: The Prince of Fireflies

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Ah, The Prince of Fireflies.

He is also known as the Great Voyeur, the Watcher Over Lovers, and the Bleeder of Hearts.

The Faerie of Taeliana are incarnate stories, and the Archfey are the incarnations of the most powerful themes in stories. The Prince of Fireflies is love stories, no matter how they end.  As an archfey, he does things for his amusement and to further the stories he embodies. (There is a difference between the fae and the faerie, which will be gone over later.) Click to continue reading.