Tag: Forging the Blade

Hell’s Gate and Forging the Blade, Second Edition, Are Now Available on Amazon!

Posted C. LaVielle2 CommentsPosted in Forging the Blade, Getting Published, Hell's Gate, Mainly by Moonlight

You have no idea how happy I am to announce that Hell’s Gate, the book I’ve been working on for the past three years, and a much better version of Forging the Blade are now nestled snugly beside the second book, Mainly by Moonlight, on Amazon. They are ready to read in either paperback or eBook format. It was a long, head-banging process. If someone had told me how difficult and confusing it is to set up a series with a second edition as one of the titles for Amazon books, I would never have believed them. Fortunately, KDP has patient and knowledgeable techs. Hell’s Gate is a popular title with authors, so be sure to also type in C. LaVielle, and if you want the second edition of Forging the Blade, be sure to get the 2021 edition. I have author copies of all three books if you’re in town and want to buy them from me. But if you buy them on Amazon… Read More »

Forging the Blade, Second Edition

Posted C. LaVielle2 CommentsPosted in Publishing and Marketing, Tarot, Writing

I have always thought that the first edition of a book is special, the one to own if you’re going to buy the book. Maybe I somehow convinced myself of this because first editions are often quite expensive, due to the fact that they are no longer in print. However, I never bothered to follow this logic one step further. Usually, the first edition is no longer in print because the author/publisher has created a second edition and taken the first edition off the market. I know from first-hand experience that creating a second edition is a pain, and no one in their right mind would do this unless they firmly believed that there were major flaws in the first edition. And there was a major flaw in the first edition of Forging the Blade, not to mention a few niggling errors that we didn’t catch first time around. I have been told from the time I began studying tarot that the major arcana, when… Read More »

Fact and Fiction in Storytelling, or, How Do You Really Forge a Blade?

Posted C. LaVielle2 CommentsPosted in Forging the Blade, Major arcana, Tarot, Writing, Young Adult Fantasy

If you want to tell a story that keeps your readers turning pages, you must convince them that perhaps it could be true. Or, at the very least, convince them to suspend their disbelief for the duration of the story. This won’t happen if they spot even small errors in your work. It breaks the spell and they stop reading–something writers strive to discourage–and say “Wait! That’s not right.” And even if they then continue to read, they will be suspicious of everything else you tell them. In chapter 14, the Temperance chapter of Forging the Blade, the Damian goddess, Brigga, forges a magic sword for Molly, the main character. She uses Molly’s blood to bind her to the blade. As the sword is forged, Molly is also forged into a warrior. I figured that forging a blade would be a perfect metaphor for Temperance. This is a key chapter in the book, and to make it work, the reader must totally believe in the drama of a… Read More »

Molly, Astrology, and Character Development

Posted C. LaVielle3 CommentsPosted in Astrology, Forging the Blade, Writing, Young Adult Fantasy

  When I began writing Forging the Blade, the concept of character development was a total mystery to me. All I knew was that I had this teen- age girl in my head that wouldn’t go away, but steadfastly refused to give me any helpful hints about who she was. When I would ask, all I got was a petulant, “You know who I am, write the freakin’ book.” Our twin boys had just graduated from high school, and I had watched, listened, and learned as they went from freshmen to seniors. Fortunately they were (and still are) bright, adventurous, active, and healthy. But they are also impulsive, assertive, quick tempered, and tend to assume that the world revolves around them. OK, this is a personality type that I knew and had been dealing with for years. Could I make Molly—that was definitely her name— a female version of my kids? “Yes,” she replied, “I’m like them, but I’m not them.” Fair enough. Todd and… Read More »

FORGING the BLADE Will Be Out Soon!

Posted C. LaVielle11 CommentsPosted in Getting Published

Over a year ago I received my seventy-fifth and last “Sorry, this isn’t for us.” letter from an agent. There is an old saying that defines insanity as “doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different outcome.” Granted, I had been constantly rewriting the manuscript and the present version is very different from the first, but the concept and plot haven’t really changed. It’s an adventure story about a sixteen-year-old who gets trapped in a parallel universe and her struggle to return home. It is also a Fool’s journey through the tarot major arcana, beginning with The Fool, Chapter 0, and ending with The World, Chapter 21. The agents saw nothing new and therefore exciting about the story and weren’t sold on the concept of using the tarot major arcana to create the plot-line and so they decided it wasn’t worth selling. But whenever I give anyone the “elevator pitch” for the book, their eyes light up and they say something like “I’d… Read More »