Verglas Map

Greetings, Champions! I come to you today bearing gifts–that I again had a bugger of a time trying to keep secret from you all.

I teamed up with the wonderfully talented Ilari Nikkarikoski, who drew a beautiful black and white rendition of Verglas!

So many of the Fairy Tale stories either visit or take place in Verglas, so I’ve really been wanting to do something with it. This particular map is actually from the Snow Queen’s era–in particularly it is quite accurate for the year after the War of Ice and Snow. (You can tell that because Ensom Peak has been renamed Fresler’s Helm) However, not much, as in barely anything at all, has changed since then so it still gives you a great idea of what the country looks like.

As it was with the map of the continent, this map is not done perfectly to scale, and all the details are not exactly right, so think of it as more of a reference or guide then a perfect representation.

Thanks for reading, Champions! I hope you have a splendid week!

Welcome to the New Website!

Welcome to our new home, Champions! I’m still “moving in” so to speak, so some things are a bit rough, but for the most part everything is up and running. To celebrate the move, Beauty and the Beast will be available for free 10/6–10/10! If you already have a copy spread the word to anyone you think would enjoy it!

Okay, the new site has a lot of fun goodies, so let’s dive right in! First up, the world of Timeless Fairy Tales has a map! Daniel of Daniel’s Maps took my scrawls and my awful, blobby writing-reference map and created this beauty:

The map is meant to be a reference, not a spot-on geographical chart–which means everything isn’t done to scale. (Math frightens me, and I didn’t want to try to fathom how many miles/kilometers each country was.) Still, I’m hopeful it will help everyone better picture how the various countries are positioned and how it affects them. You can find the map at its new home in the Timeless Fairy Tales tab under the books section, along with the Timeless Fairy Tales timeline.

The long awaited fanart gallery is up! Now that I have the ability to group pictures and link to artists, it will be much easier to display and post fan art. I’ve wanted this feature for a loooong time, so I’m thrilled I finally have something concrete to show for it!

There’s also a new tab For Writers. The big thing in this new section is that it has a PDF handout that lists a ton of helpful resources. I know there are a lot of budding authors out there, and there aren’t enough hours in the day to chat with everyone interested in writing, but I still want to be an encouragement-hence the resource list! I have personally used/read/watched/listened to all of the resources on the list, and they’re the best that I know of, so if you’re interested in writing give ’em a look! The handout also contains info that I get asked pretty frequently (in example: how did you find your editors?) and I intend to update it whenever I stumble upon a new resource or commonly asked question.

The page for bloggers isn’t up quite yet, but I waded through all my King Arthurs posts and linked up any book-specific posts to the right book page. (I did that with my fairy tales from the start, but even though I write themed King Arthurs blog posts I never got around to doing the same for them…until now anyway!)

This new website has so many new features and tools, I can hardly wait to put it through its paces! I’m still a little leery, though, because I don’t know for sure that everything is working. In particular, if a few of you who are subscribed to the blog would give a shout in the comment section that you received notification of this I would really appreciate it. (All subscriptions were imported over here, but I want to make certain it’s working.)

And that seems like plenty for today! Thanks for reading, Champions. I hope you have a pleasant weekend!

Final Freebie

Hellow, Champions! You’ve the final freebie, The Imperial Prince is a Beast is now available. All the freebies have been moved to the freebie tab now that you’ve unlocked them all. You can find them under the “Swan Lake” header. I hope you guys enjoy this last freebie. Gemma of Rumpelstiltskin makes an appearance, along with Hvit.

As Odile plays a pretty big role in this last freebie, I wanted to share another gorgeous piece of fanart! Your fellow Champion Rhea created this totally awesome image of Odile!

It’s a bit harder to see on this smaller image, but Rhea made some totally awesome embroidery on Odile’s dress, including a moth on the waist/torso area–which I thought was adorable and perfect! (The little blue moth is so cute as well! It almost made me feel bad for being so horrified myself when I was writing the scenes with that scary-big moth in it.) If you want to see it full size, you can check it out on Rhea’s Tumblr page!

I was especially happy with Rhea’s work because Odile get’s looked over a lot in Swan Lake. She doesn’t have Empress Sonya’s wit, Benno’s confidence, Nadia’s physical skills, or Odette’s general kick-butt attitude, and she’s very quite in comparison to all of the aforementioned females, so she tends to fade into the background a bit. Even so, she was still one of my favorite characters to write because she’s so incredibly sweet.

And last of all… in approximately two months, I’m going to launch a new K. M. Shea website! I’m working with an awesome team to create this new website–we’ve outgrown this one, and I need something a little more sophisticated for book sorting purposes. As a part of that, I’m going to start shutting down comments on the pages to help ease the transition. (It’s hard to keep track of everything when new comments are constantly popping up!) Comments will stay remain open on my blog posts, its just the pages that are going to get the shut-down treatment. I cannot describe how much I’m looking forward to the new website! I feel like this placeis held together with chewing gum and tape. The new one will be much more roomy, and better organized.

Have a lovely week, Champions. I hope you enjoy this final freebie!