Welcome! When this blog post is posted, my book will have been out for just over a month! Wow, time flies! I know at least a few of you have started reading The Cardinal War so I wanted to start talking about more specifics of the book rather than just myself, as interesting as reading about me may be ;).

So this month, we will be talking about Eileen [Aye-leen], one of the two main characters of the story as well as the first character that was created for this book. I find when I write, I tend to add elements of myself into the story or in this case opposites of myself, at least in terms of physical appearance. My hair is a very light blonde so I knew in my story I wanted the exact opposite for my main character, also I did think the dark hair color with pale skin would look striking in illuminating lightning since the beginning takes place in a storm. Now there will be no major spoilers in this post as I will mostly talk about her as a character and a bit about her past, we will save her future for a later post. I will be talking about her wings but that is a detail discussed in the first chapter of The Cardinal War, so if you have not read that far, get to reading!

I mentioned in a previous blog post that the wings was something I knew I wanted to be a central feature of the story. To start with, I created the four manors and separated them with their differing wing color focuses. That left the Emperor’s manor to be something striking and different from the others. This is where the contrast comes back in with Eileen, I wanted something to go against her dark hair and what better than pure white wings, well almost pure white. I do not go into too much detail about why she decides to cover her wings, but in an area where most wing colors fall in the brown, grey and black spectrum, even a common street thief would be aware that her wing color was unique. She would not have the knowledge of the Emperors wing color as this was kept fairly secret, especially due to the fact that the Emperor has been sick and out of public eye for some time. Eileen learnt quickly growing up that she was different, so to block the stares and whispers she created a cover, for both her wings and her life.

A simple story, a fire burning down her home, not only explained why she covered her wings but also why she was living on the streets. If anyone bothered to speak to her when she was trying to snatch a meal or some change, she could earn some sympathy as she always said this is how she lost her parents as well. Especially with everyone having something as delicate as feathers on their person, no one questioned why she would not want to show the damage. Eileen created such a form fitting cover that she had never had an issue with her true wing color being revealed, until the rain mixed with being shoved caused the edge to slip. Growing up on the streets, and being very familiar with this particular thug group, she would have quickly realized that being exposed to them would mean being exposed to everyone. You may wonder why she was so worried about the world finding out she had white wings, but remember that for pretty much her whole life, Eileen lived on the streets learning that she had only herself to trust. She had a basic knowledge of reading and writing from whoever raised her, that memory was a bit foggy, but otherwise she learnt what she knew from street sense and observation. Trusting no one, other than the minstrel group she learned to have confidence with, was a way to stay alive and fed.

The minstrel group, while they as a whole will be talked about in a future blog, I will briefly mention how she met them. One cold day where Eileen had had little success in thievery, she stumbled across the group as they were setting up. Seeing that they were distracted with their instruments, Eileen crept close and tried to steal a coin purse. Turns out the one woman, Ceridwen, was well aware she was there and stopped her before she succeeded. For some reason, instead of retreating, Eileen felt a calming presence radiating off her and stood her ground. Before long, the two were talking and Eileen had food in her belly and a few coins in her hands. She also had an open invitation to watch the group preform whenever they were in town and she could learn as well.

As I mentioned earlier in this post, I will talk about the future of Eileen in another post, but I wanted to give some background behind the young thief to go along with the story.

Thank you all for coming on this journey with me and happy reading!

Hello again everyone!

Well I started to write this blog in the middle of the month when I was not sure when exactly my book was coming out but as of September 24 it is available! But since that is still pretty recent, I did not want to delve into the specific characters or setting just yet in my blog but next month I plan to introduce Eileen in more detail!

For this blog I am going to focus on writing, specifically some of the background behind the Cardinal War and what my writing process is in general. I considered the timing recently, and I believe I actually wrote the bulk of The Cardinal War when I was the same age as Eileen, twenty-two; I am twenty-nine now. At the time of writing, I was studying at Grant MacEwan in the Arts and although I was writing many essays for school, I still found time to write for pleasure as well. I wanted a character that I related with in terms of age and I had recently finished reading a book in which the characters had wings. I immediately knew with The Cardinal War, I wanted my characters to have wings as well. I did not have all the details if they would be able to fly or what color of wings they would have, but I knew that was one feature I wanted to emphasize. Upon finishing the first draft of The Cardinal War, I did not know I would want to publish this book at some point, but I did know as I was writing it, that it was my favorite story I had written to date.

I had only just before that started out in longer stories, previously stories had only been a couple pages, but another story called Elvera, had reached 30 typed pages. Reaching this milestone and having the ability to flush out the plot and characters largely inspired me to write longer stories. The words for The Cardinal War just kept flowing and I wanted to develop some of the relationships and characters in the story. Ironically, at this point I find it difficult to write short stories and I think all my stories going forward will be at least the length Elvera was if not the length of The Cardinal War or even longer!

As much as I say I am going to talk about my current writing process, I do not actually have a strict process that I follow. By that, I mean I do not tend to sit down at a certain time every day and write a set amount of words. I tend to simply write when I feel inspired and keep writing until my inspiration stops for that particular section. When starting a new book, I do begin with creating an outline so I at least know my goals for the story and roughly, what I want chapters to cover. I then tend to write the ending, so no one should ever go through my notes unless you want spoilers. Writing the ending first helps me know what my goals are and how I need to lead the characters and plot throughout the story. At that point, I tend to write a chapter that inspires me. This may be one heavier in action/plot that I am more in the mood to write at the time or it may be a more relaxed conversational chapter. I find if I try to write in a specific order I hit writers block more frequently so to avoid this I write what my feelings connect with. This has also resulted in me having multiple stories being written at the same time but overall I tend to focus on only one or two at a time so I do not confuse any of the details. BONUS Information: I am currently working on a prequel that centers around Daithi and a story with new characters that takes place in Strongwater, another city within the Frythiel Empire.

Going through the editing process of this book was a wonderful and information filled experience. I had reviewed and edited as much as I could but it was far different having another set of experienced eyes looking at it. It was also someone who does not know me so they were able to give honest feedback but also very helpful feedback. I was able to see areas where I could expand my story telling and describing visuals as well as ensuring I vary up my language. I hope that you will find not all my characters smile softly now. The editing process also gave me ideas and ways to expand future stories before I even get to the editing stage. I am hoping future stories will be longer and more detailed which will hopefully add more enjoyment and I will be able to get even more out of the editing process when I go through it again, not just on my own but with the experience set of eyes as well.

That’s all for this blog but stay tuned for next month where we will learn more about Eileen!