The Fairest Of Them All

STORE OPEN!

Yasssss finally, I’m here to give you news about the store I have been promising for months and yes, is finally open! You can find all the products here: http://lemoncielart.storenvy.com

The S4 from The Last Hours:

James Herondale, Christopher Lightwood, Matthew Fairchild, Thomas Lightwood

pulvis et umbra sumus

ignis aurum probat

facilis descensus averno

Characters, from left to right. Portraits: Jesse, Grace. Second row: Christopher, Alastair, Anna, Thomas. Seated: Matthew, Cordelia, Lucie, James.

chain of gold headers.

It’s that time! Time for the BOOK TRAILER for Chain of Gold. Catch a snippet here and head over to Christine Riccio’s Youtube channel  to see the whole thing. 

Cordelia couldn’t understand why she was so worried about Lucie. Several withdrawing rooms had been opened up, and Lucie could have wandered off to any of those, or returned to her own bedroom. She could really be anywhere in the Institute. Matthew had told her not to worry before he’d hurried off somewhere, but Cordelia couldn’t shake her sense of unease.

“For pity’s sake!” someone called, interrupting her thoughts. It was a man’s voice, low and baritone. “Someone come help her!”

Cordelia glanced about: everyone seemed to be looking surprised and chattering to each other. In the distance she could see a loose circle of people standing around whatever was going on. She picked up her skirts and began to push her way through the crowd.

She could feel her hair coming out of its carefully arranged curls and spilling down over her shoulders. Her mother would be furious, but really. Why didn’t people move? They were Shadowhunters. What on earth were they doing standing around like sticks while someone was in distress?

She wriggled through a small knot of onlookers and there, on the floor, was a young man holding Barbara Lightwood’s limp body in his arms. Oliver Hayward, Cordelia realized. Barbara’s suitor. “We were dancing,” he was saying, looking bewildered, “and she just collapsed—”

Cordelia dropped to her knees. Barbara Lightwood was ghastly white, her hair dark with sweat at her temples. She was breathing in short, erratic bursts. In times like this, all shyness deserted Cordelia: she could only think of what to do next. “She needs air,” she said. “Her corset is probably tormenting her. Has anyone a knife?”

Anna Lightwood pushed through the crowd and moved forward, kneeling down opposite Cordelia with fluid grace. “I have a dagger,” she said, drawing a sheathed blade from her waistcoat. “What needs to be done?”

“We need to cut her corset off,” Cordelia said. “She has had a shock, and she needs to breathe.”

“You might leave that to me,” said Anna. She had an extraordinary husky voice, honey and sandpaper. She reached to lift Barbara out of Oliver’s lap, then ran the dagger down the back of her dress, delicately separating the fabric and then the thicker material of the corset underneath. As it sagged free of Barbara’s body, Anna glanced up and said absently, “Ari—your wrapper—”

Ariadne Bridgestock swiftly drew her silk wrapper from her shoulders and handed it to Anna, who swaddled Barbara in it to keep her decent. Barbara was already beginning to breathe more regularly, the color in her cheeks returning. Anna looked at Cordelia over Barbara’s head, a considering look in her blue eyes.

“What on earth?” Sophie Lightwood had made her way through the circle of onlookers, her husband, Gideon, just behind her. “Barbara!” She turned to Oliver, who stood nearby, looking utterly distressed. “Did she fall?”

“She just collapsed,” repeated Oliver. “We were dancing, and she fainted—”

Barbara’s eyelids fluttered. She sat up in her cousin’s arms, blinking up at her mother. Her cheeks flushed bright red. “I’m—I’m all right,” she said. “I’m all right now. I had a spell, a silly dizzy spell.”

Cordelia rose to her feet as more guests joined the loose circle of bystanders surrounding Barbara. Gideon and Sophie helped their daughter to her feet, and Thomas, appearing from the crowd, offered his sister a worn-looking handkerchief. She took it with a wobbly smile and dabbed at her lip.

It came away stained with blood.

“I bit my lip,” Barbara said hastily. “I fell, and bit my lip. That’s all.”

“We need a stele,” Thomas said. “James?”

Cordelia hadn’t realized James was there. She turned and saw him standing just behind her.

The sight of him startled her. Years ago, he’d had the scalding fever: she was reminded of the way he’d looked then, pale and sick. “My stele,” he said roughly. “Inside my breast pocket. Barbara needs a healing rune.”

For a moment Cordelia wondered why he couldn’t fetch it himself, but his hands were clenched at his sides, hard as stones. She reached out and fumbled nervously at his chest. Silk and cloth under her hand, and the beat of his heart. She seized hold of the slim, penshaped object in his pocket and held it out to Thomas, who took it with a look of surprised thanks. She hadn’t really looked at Thomas before—he had bright hazel eyes, like his mother’s, framed by thick brown lashes.

“James.” Lucie had slipped between James and Cordelia and was tugging at her brother’s sleeve. “Jamie. Did you—”

He shook his head. “Not now, Luce.”

Lucie looked worried. The three of them watched in a silent group as Thomas finished the healing rune on his sister’s arm, and Barbara exclaimed again that she was just fine and had only had a dizzy spell. “I forgot to eat today,” she said to her mother, as Sophie put her arm around her. “That’s all it is.”

“Nevertheless, we had better get you home,” Sophie said, glancing around. “Will—can you have the carriage brought around?”

The crowd had begun to scatter; clearly there was nothing more of interest to see here. The Lightwood family were headed to the door, Barbara on Thomas’s arm, when they paused. A pigeonchested man with a black handlebar mustache had rushed up to Gideon and was speaking to him excitedly.

“What’s the Inquisitor saying to Uncle Gideon?” Lucie asked curiously. James and Matthew only shook their heads. After a few moments, Gideon nodded and followed the man—the Inquisitor, Cordelia supposed—to where Charles stood speaking to Grace Blackthorn. Her face was turned up to his, her eyes bright and interested. Cordelia remembered all the lessons her mother had given her in how to appear interested in conversation at social events: Grace seemed to have already absorbed them all after only being in society for a short time.

Charles turned reluctantly away from Grace and fell into discussion with Gideon Lightwood. The Inquisitor was moving through the crowd, stopping to speak to several Shadowhunters as he went. Most seemed to be about Charles’s age: Cordelia guessed he was somewhere in his twenties.

kkennnicolee said:I really find your work inspiring. When I find myself in a writer’s block, my favorite book to re-read is Clockwork Princess. That passage about Tessa, Will and Jem? *Chefs kiss* What was your creative process for creating such a detailed world and well-rounded characters? I’ve done so many different outlines, I get lost in the process of it all and find it hard to actually translate it onto paper. 🖤

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Whee, writing questions. I enjoy them! OK, so, a couple of things: No one kind of writing process is going to work for everyone. It isn’t a one size fits all type of thing. You have to find out what works for you.

I can certainly talk a little about how I do things. I am a relentless outliner — as I’ve mentioned before, my outline for Chain of Iron is a horrifying 60,000 words. Part of that is that my publishing schedule necessitates that I write quickly, and outlining is one way to make that possible.

That said, I often notice that for a lot of people starting out writing, outlining is where they get bogged down. They fill notebooks with thousands of words about their characters and their world, and they wind up stuck in the process of making notes about character and world building without ever writing any actual story. It’s easy to wind up there because outlining can expand and expand, as can the process of adding endless details about your world (what kind of lamps do they use? Who’s on the money?) or magic system. 

So you get lost in the maze, but the thing about a maze is that you find out whether its solvable by running someone through it. In this case, you find out if your characters work and your world works by writing story. Only actually writing your characters interacting with each other and the plot will present you with the questions you need answered. You may not need to know what’s on the money but you may (as I have had to do for Sword Catcher) need to learn a lot about how armies work, or unusual details about crocodiles. But you likely won’t know that starting out. Put your characters in situations that pull the best and worst out of them; that’s how you’ll get to know them.

Clockwork Angel had about six different beginnings I threw away before I figured out who these characters were and how they worked. But I never would have figured those things out without those starts. So don’t think But if I start writing and don’t use what I write, it will be wasted effort. That effort isn’t wasted; that effort teaches you what you need to know and therefore, where you’re going.

If you ship characters because they look hot together, you are valid.

If you ship characters because their relationship is an ideal and relationship goals for you, you are valid.

If you ship characters because their relationship is very intense, dramatic and full of conflict but you wouldn’t wish such relationship on your worst enemy, you’re valid.

If you ship only healthy ships, you’re valid.

If you ship something horribly unhealthy to cope with your trauma, you’re valid.

If you ship something horribly unhealthy because you want to explore a certain taboo and the darker side of human nature, you’re valid.

If you ship something horribly unhealthy because it excites you and gives you feels, you’re valid.

If your preferences in shipping align with your morals, you’re valid.

If your preferences in shipping have nothing to do with your morals, you’re valid.