#faeryrebels

I was thoroughly delighted by @tombstone_crepsley_cosplay’s new post today, because it was perfect timing — today’s entry in #mybookalphabet is K is for Knife! . Knife is a character that I sketched when I was 16, years before I ever wrote a word about her. But as soon as I’d drawn this a fierce-looking, dagger-wielding young woman with white hair and dragonfly wings, I knew she had a story and I was going to tell it someday. It took me six more years of pondering to figure out exactly what that story would be, and another fifteen of off-and-on revising and resubmitting — including two total rewrites — before the book was good enough to attract the attention of an agent and publisher. But thanks to some wonderful early encouragement and feedback from Claire Eddy at Tor Books, I never stopped believing that *someone* in publishing would want to hear Knife’s story if I could just figure out how to tell it right. . As those of you who’ve read the whole #noordinaryfairytale aka #faeryrebels series know, Knife goes through a lot of dramatic experiences and equally dramatic changes over the course of the books. But she’s still one of my favorite characters to write, at any age and in any setting. She makes a couple of cameo appearances in the #flightandflametrilogy, and I’m working on a short story that involves her right now — though at a different time of her life and through very different eyes than we’ve ever seen her before… . . . . #rjandersonwriter #enclaveescape #enclavepublishing #noordinaryfairytale #speculativefiction #christianfantasy #fairybooks #fairybook #fairiesofinstagram #booksaremagic #bibliophile #igreads #instaread #lovetoread #booksarelife #bookaddicts #whattoreadnext #readallday #bookworms #booksofinstagram #bookaholic #booknerd #yareads #yafantasy #fantasybooks #fantasybookseries https://www.instagram.com/p/B_-7FyegdK8/?igshid=19ygg1kszx1jl

Are you a fan of Ghibli films? If you’re a writer, did watching them inspire you? . I’ve always loved animation (in high school I thought seriously about taking it up as a career), but I’d never seen a Ghibli film until a few years ago, when a reviewer of my magical mystery A Pocket Full of Murder said it reminded them of Ghibli movies. So I figured I had better watch a couple and see what they were talking about! . This screencap is from The Secret World of Arrietty (2010) which I finally watched for the first time this week — I’d always been curious about it because it sounded a lot like my debut novel Knife. . As it turns out, there are some uncanny parallels for sure, though the characters in Arrietty look much more like Timothy and Linden (from my second book Rebel) than they resemble Knife and Paul, and are also significantly younger than my own mid-teen characters. But I was amazed by how many elements I thought were unique to my story cropped up in Arrietty as well. If I hadn’t written the first draft of Knife in 1993, I could understand people thinking I’d poached ideas from this film — or, if my book had been published a few years earlier instead of mere months before this movie first came out, vice versa! (It also made me think wistfully how amazing it would be to see an animated movie of my faery books, but that’s another story.) . Anyway, Arrietty is a charming film and as usual with Ghibli, visually stunning. I love the care that goes into the backgrounds and small details of these movies — they’re really a treat to watch. . If you’re a fan, do you have a favorite Ghibli movie or one you’ve found especially inspiring? . . . #animatedmovies #animation #ghibli #ghiblimovies #ghiblifilms #thesecretworldofarrietty #arrietty #rjandersonwriter #knifebook #noordinaryfairytale #faeryrebels #enclavepublishing #speculativefiction #fairies #fairy #faery #faerie #fae #fairybook #fairybooks #faeriebooks #faeriebook #fantasy https://www.instagram.com/p/CCRPMKrgR5Z/?igshid=jog5k79f9hgv

Catching up on #authorlifemonth Day 2: My Books. * * * Two are missing because of Reasons, but the first pic shows all the cover art variants of the #noordinaryfairytale aka #faeryrebels series (UK, US, and German), while the second shows off my prized Nebula Nominee pin for #ultravioletbook and the Canadian Library Association “Best Bets” stickers for both books in the #pocketfullofmurder duology. * * * The third pic is the bookshelf where I keep all my published books, and the delightful character dolls that @brittbooks made for them. You can also see my Christy Finalist medallion (for the #enclavepublishing edition of Rebel) which is nicer and more substantial than many actual awards! * * * By the end of 2020 I will have published nine books and be looking forward to the publication of my tenth, and that’s a pleasure I’ll never take for granted. It’s an honour to be able to tell stories and have other people read and respond to them, always. #writersofinstagram #writinglife https://www.instagram.com/p/B8NK908pgsa/?igshid=1iigx62xbgv9n

TELL ME: Are you a bold, impulsive adventurer, or more of a careful, plan-ahead type? What would it take to push you into taking a big risk? . I’m asking because #mybookalphabet letter for today is R for Rhosmari, the heroine of ARROW — who is definitely a cautious planner. But she also cares deeply about doing what’s right and protecting the people she loves — and that drives her to leave the safety of her magical Welsh island home and step into a strange and often dangerous new world. . Rhosmari is described early in the books as having deep brown skin and thick, “clove-coloured spirals” of natural hair, because at the time I wrote ARROW I’d seen very few descriptions or portrayals of faeries who weren’t white. I also made her the most beautiful faery in all the books and gave her the most gorgeous butterfly wings (they’re Blue Morpho, if you want to look them up!). . Writing Knife, the heroine of Book 1, was fun because I could count on her to do the bravest and most reckless thing in any given situation. Linden, the heroine of REBEL, was full of passionate feelings and naive but well-meaning impulses that could easily get her (and Timothy) into trouble. But Rhosmari… well, I’m not claustrophobic, but otherwise she’s a lot like me. She’s got a scholar’s temperament, not a warrior’s, and she prefers to think carefully before she acts. She’s wary of trusting the wrong people, and the worst thing she can think of is making a mistake that hurts her and those she loves. . So of course, that’s exactly what happens to her in ARROW. Because no matter how well prepared you try to be, life seldom turns out quite the way you plan… . . . #fairies #fairy #fantasy #fae #fairytale #faery #fairybooks #fairyfriday #faeriesofinstagram #magical #enclaveescape #enclavepublishing #noordinaryfairytale #faeryrebels #yabooks #IReadYA #yareads #speculativefiction https://www.instagram.com/p/B-0Bm3HAmbX/?igshid=r5s103ryphag

It’s time for another letter in #mybookalphabet! And this time it’s W, for Wink! . Wink, short for Periwinkle, is one of the first two characters we ever meet in my faery books, as she’s fostering the young and headstrong Bryony (later known as Knife). She’s a tiny redheaded seamstress with a fluttery manner who wears her emotions all over her puffed sleeve, which makes it easy for other Oakenfolk to underestimate or even look down on her. But there’s a good deal more to Wink than meets the eye… . Given that the heroine of KNIFE is taller, stronger, fiercer and braver than any of her faery sisters in the Oak, Wink very much included, it would have been easy to write her going about her adventures all alone. Especially since her deepest and most life-changing relationship ends up being with someone outside the Oak, and wildly different from any of the faeries she’s grown up with. Yet being close to my mother and friends with other girls was so important to me growing up, especially in my teen years, that I couldn’t imagine Knife not needing other women in her life too. So her ongoing interactions with Wink as foster-mother, ally, and eventual trusted friend also play a big part in Knife’s story. . Sometimes people we’re tempted to dismiss as silly turn out to have unexpected depths, and Periwinkle is certainly one of those. Many times as I was writing the faery books she said and did things that surprised even me, let alone Knife! And though she’s not a fighter or an adventurer and hardly ever sets foot outside the Oak, she nevertheless ends up playing a significant and valuable role in every one of the books where she appears. . Q: Do you have a favorite female friendship in fantasy literature? Or is there a female character you were tempted to think annoying and useless at first, but who ended up really growing on you? . . . #fairies #fairy #fantasy #fae #fairytale #faery #fairybooks #faeriesofinstagram #magical #enclaveescape #enclavepublishing #yabooks #IReadYA #yareads #speculativefiction #christianfantasy #noordinaryfairytale #faeryrebels #knife #knifebook #wink #periwinkle https://www.instagram.com/p/B-IqRA1g_vs/?igshid=hq6fyen1weg4

Working our way through #mybookalphabet, here we are at T is for Timothy! . Timothy Sinclair is the 15-year-old human protagonist of REBEL, the second book in my #noordinaryfairytale aka #faeryrebels trilogy. Born and raised in Uganda as the child of missionary parents, Timothy’s been feeling like a fish out of water at his English boarding school even before the book begins. But when he runs away to London and stumbles into the middle of a dangerous faery conflict, his life gets even more complicated… . When I first wrote REBEL there were a slew of YA urban fantasy novels featuring teen boy characters who exuded confidence, mystery and sex appeal, which made it hard for some of my readers to warm to Timothy being an ordinary, confused and somewhat awkward teenaged boy. He’s a bit emo (which his cousin Paul dryly teases him about in one of my favorite scenes) and also struggling with a crisis of faith, so he’s not always as winsome as he could be. But I love Timothy a lot, and really enjoyed writing him — especially in Arrow, where we get to see more of his bravery, compassion, and mischievous sense of humour, among other qualities that make at least one faery girl’s heart flutter (even after he nearly spills orange juice on her!). . Timothy’s experiences of growing up in Uganda, and his culture shock after moving to the UK, were inspired by my own family. My parents were missionaries in Kampala from 1967-70, and my three older brothers have vivid memories of their childhood there, as well as their struggles to adjust when our family moved back to Canada. Tim’s crisis of faith, however, was inspired by my own experiences of questioning and doubt as a teenager and finding my faith ultimately strengthened, rather than demolished, by being put to the test. I wasn’t seeing that possibility acknowledged in other YA fiction, so I tried my best to do it some justice in REBEL. . . . #fairies #fairy #fantasy #fae #fairytale #faery #fairybooks #faeriesofinstagram #magical #enclaveescape #enclavepublishing #yabooks #IReadYA #yareads #speculativefiction #christianfantasy #rebel #rebelbook #timothy #missionarykid #missionarykids #thirdculturekid #thirdculturekids https://www.instagram.com/p/B-fbl6GAASg/?igshid=u19pd7y180q2

Today’s entry in #mybookalphabet is another character from my faery books, Valerian. . Valerian is an herb that soothes anxiety and helps sleep disorders, which is fitting because she’s the Oakenfolk’s healer. She’s unusually perceptive, compassionate and mature compared to the often selfish and short-sighted faeries around her. In REBEL Valerian’s role changes from healer to queen-designate after the former queen of the Oak passes away, but she continues to be a humble servant as well as leader, and her calmness and wisdom make a powerful impression on everyone she meets. . Wise Women characters figure prominently in the children’s fantasy stories of George MacDonald and John White (see #booksthatmademe for more about those), and Valerian was influenced by those characters, as well as the female personification of wisdom in the Biblical book of Proverbs on which they were based. She isn’t perfect or all-knowing, but she does have the queenly supernatural gift of The Sight, which gives her glimpses of the present and future and helps her to make the right decisions for her people. And her humble, unselfish attitude toward leadership is also based on the example of numerous godly servant-leaders in the Bible, including Christ Himself. . Q: Who is your favourite wise mentor or leader in the books you’ve read? . . . #fairies #fairy #fantasy #fae #fairytale #faery #fairybooks #faeriesofinstagram #magical #enclaveescape #enclavepublishing #yabooks #IReadYA #yareads #speculativefiction #christianfantasy #noordinaryfairytale #faeryrebels #rebel #rebelbook #valerian https://www.instagram.com/p/B-PpsYdA3lB/?igshid=ms32x8ip932y

I just really needed to draw Martin and Ivy ^_^