Forget About That Happy Ending

I blogged at Eros and Thanatos about getting permission to write without a happy ending:

I felt a sort of moral obligation — in my own mind, I had permission to write about dark things as long as they worked out okay in the end (and another editing story is about how Lon Sarver gave me permission to write about even more dark things than I originally allowed myself). In the ending as it stands now, you could argue that things are okay, at least for certain people, but the characters haven't all been "good." Maybe they weren't even trying to be.

Read the rest here.

Incidentally, the story I'm talking about in the post is "The Three Wives of Bluebeard," which will be out soon from Forbidden Fiction.

How I Write Fairy Tale Retellings

I posted at Forbidden Fiction describing how I come up with ways to retell myths and fairy tales:

I think that most retellings of fairy tales and myths are about answering questions raised by the stories but not resolved — or about adjusting the traditional answers given. This is why I can read literally dozens of versions of Bluebeard or Cinderella without ever getting tired of it. Each author has a different take on the questions that bother them or how they answer them.

You can read the rest here.

Announcing The Six Swans

My novella, The Six Swans, came out this weekend from Coming Together. Here's a description of the book:

The young King Evan struggles to become a man and ruler amid the choking influence of his mother’s spies and machinations. When he meets a silent, beautiful woman in the woods, he can’t resist the pure, honest sensuality of her touch. Bringing her to the castle as his wife and queen is Evan’s declaration of independence. The king’s hard-won happiness falls apart, however, when his mother accuses his new wife of murdering their first-born child. Evan believes that the private, physical language he shares with his queen tells him everything he needs to know, but as tragedy strikes again and again, his love and faith are tested to the breaking point.

"The Six Swans" retells an old fairy tale of a princess who must take a vow of silence to save her brothers from a curse, the king who falls in love with her despite the seeming insanity of the curse conditions, and the sexual connection that’s strong enough to overcome the isolating power of the princess’ vow.

I've written a lot about this publisher. The tagline is "Doing Good While Being Bad." All proceeds from sales of The Six Swans go to Kiva, an organization that gives microloans. The book is on sale for $1.99 from online retailers including 1PlaceForRomance, Smashwords, and Amazon.