Kisses are shared around the world and throughout all walks of life. Whether a brush of lips on a newborn’s forehead or a full-body experience that leaves you weak-kneed and gasping for air, humans seem hard-wired to do it, dream about it, and include in every romantic tale ever written. (more…)
Characters
Do Your Dragons Migrate?: Seasonality in Paranormal and Fantasy Fiction
I hate winter, especially since I moved to northern Virginia where freezing temps and precipitation rarely meet. While the rest of the northeast is getting blanketed with the fluffy white stuff, we’ve had nothing but a few flakes, plenty of sleet, and incessant rain. The kind that freezes not just the roads but the microscopic crevices in your bones and the cracks in your soul until you feel like you may never get warm again. While impatiently waiting for spring, I retreat inside to write, catch up on my favorite TV series, bicker with my family, and even do a little house cleaning. Which leaves my mind to wander into this article: how do the seasons effect my beasties and their more human neighboring characters? (more…)
Creating Believers Can Lead to Bestsellers in Any Season
With another Christmas over, I sit staring up at the tree, dreading taking it down in a few days. Especially since it will likely be the last year my oldest believes in Santa. And once one falls off the Polar Express, the other will be sure to follow. But there is one glimmer of hope standing between my family and years of jaded, predictable, cheerless yules.
When my daughter was three, we introduced a new family tradition and welcomed our very own Elf, which we named Jingle Frosty-bottom. Morning after morning through Christmas eve, she would race to find where the mischievous elf was hiding—in the branches of the Christmas tree, at the end of a long trail of candy wrappers, or on the proverbial shelf watching out for naughty behavior. She still jumped out of bed to look for Jingle this year at nine-years-old, despite the fact that our Elf on the Shelf is more kitschy that realistic.
So what would make a kid raised with 3D computer animation think this stuffed bit of felt and plastic that can’t even sit up on its own is real? Hint: it’s the same reason kids and adults alike waited in bookstores until midnight for each new Harry Potter release. (more…)
Elle McKay 