The Legend Mirror guide

The second edition of The Beast of Callaire is coming out in a couple month's time (late August), with a totally new cover, book design, updated text, and just general overhaul. So I thought it would be pretty cool to post the guide to The Legend Mirror that you can find in the front of the books. 

If you ever wanted a clear guide to Legend-Bloods and Numina, you now have it!! If you got your version of The Beast of Callaire from Smashwords, you can now download a new version with the guide in the front. And if you haven't read The Beast of Callaire, from tomorrow all Kindle editions will have the guide, and in a couple days you'll be able to get it from Barnes & Noble too!

And for those who can't update the versions they already have, you can find the guide below!

~Saruuh

A GUIDE TO THE BEINGS OF

THE LEGEND MIRROR

NUMEN

These ancient beings can be classified into two categories, Gods and Creatures. These are a species, like human or canine.

GODS (e.g. Juno, Jupiter, Venus)

How mythological? The original Gods the Romans worshipped.

Magic? Enough to cause a world war.

Dangerous? Hella.

CREATURES (e.g. the Manticore, the Phoenix)

How mythological? The original Creatures of folklore and bedtime stories.

Magic? Enough to Change forms at will and tear through armies of Legendaries.

Dangerous? Hella.

LEGENDARY

Legendaries are the descendants of the Numina, and can be classified into two categories depending on how much Legend is in their DNA. These are also a species.

LEGEND-BLOOD (e.g. Yasmin, Cornelia, Mavers)

How mythological? Pretty mythical.

Human DNA? None at all.

How many Legendary or Numina parents? Two.

Magic? If they have God ancestors, it’s very likely.

Do they Change form? If they have Creature ancestors, it’s very likely.

Dangerous? About as much as a lion.

CROSS-BLOOD (e.g. Vic, Guy, Willa)

How mythological? Fairly mythical.

Human DNA? Yep.

How much human DNA? Depends. A Cross-Blood could have one human parent, a human grandparent, or a human many-greats ancestor. It all results in a weakening of Legend, and makes them a Cross-Blood—though some are much stronger than others.

Magic? Unlikely, and it’s weak in the rare cases its present.

Do they Change form? Extremely unlikely, since they wouldn’t have enough Legend to spark the Change.

Dangerous? About as much as a household cat.

Breed of Legendary

Depending on what Numina ancestors a Legendary has, they can belong to one of two (or both!) of the following breeds. Returning to the canine example, if you have a dog they might be a Labrador or a Poodle. If you have a Legendary, they might be Dei or Crea.

Example: the child of a human and a Legend-Blood descendant of Mars would be a Cross-Blood Dei because 1) human and 2) God. Things get tricky when a child is a descendant of a God and a Creature—for example, the child of a Legend-Blood descendant of Juno and a Legend-Blood descendant of the Phoenix would be a Legend-Blood Crea and Dei (like Yasmin Wikke!)

DEI (e.g. Minnie, Guy, Mavers)

Descended from Gods? Yep.

Descended from Creatures? Nope.

Can be either Legend- or Cross-Blood? Yep.

Magic? Yes, although Cross-Bloods with majority human DNA will only have weak Majick—Aqua Majick with an ability to only influence water temperature, for example, instead of being able to manipulate water into any form like most Legend-Bloods with Aqua.

CREA (e.g. Ran, Willa, Vic)

Descended from Gods? Nope.

Descended from Creatures? Yep.

Can be either Legend- or Cross-Blood? Yep.

Magic? Extremely rare, and only ever elemental Majick connected to their location of Change. If they change near the sea, they’d most likely develop Aqua Majick, for example. Majick in a Crea only ever occurs when the Legendary has a God ancestor.

PURE

The children of all-human ancestors.

Any mythological ties? Nope.

Any magic? Nope. 

Words & Wonders (2)

Welcome to Words & Wonders, a weekly journal of writing updates, links I've found useful or interesting, and book recommendations. I hope W&W will prove to be useful to you writers out there as well as offering an insight into my writing progress for my readers. Don't forget to leave a comment with your own writing progress!

In the Writing Cave, this week I have:

- Struggled with the plot of the third Legend Mirror book. It was supposed to be two story lines that take place concurrently, but I realised there needs to be another happening too, which means another POV. And it got super complicated and hectic for a while midweek. BUT I've bulked out my main story/voice so Yasmin doesn't get drowned out by other POVs, and I'm happy with where I've ended up. 

(The third storyline does involve writing poetry, though ... which is a relatively new thing for this series! I'm crossing my fingers that it works out. Here's a snippet:

And so Pluto used his great power

to fashion a second eruption in

the belly of Vesuvius,

and the survivors of the first quake

did not survive the second.)

- Written 5,926 words of The Legend Mirror book 3. I'm sure there would have been more words if not for the major plot hiccup but I'm feeling happy to have written anything at all.

- Second drafted 44 pages of The Dryad of Callaire, and my output decreased fairly significantly compared to the last few weeks. I'm around 75% done with this second draft, though!

In my life:

- I am so darn hyped for Eurovision. I've been watching the semi finals, and my faves are Israel, Belgium, Latvia, and Australia. I also think I like Malta, but I can't remember who they were, oops. For livetweeting be sure to follow me on Twitter!

- It's the time of year I fall in love with Emmelie De Forest again. I love her music so so much, and if you haven't heard of her please listen to her album Only Teardrops (my favourite songs are Force of Nature and Soldier of Love because they're atmospheric and emotional, but if you like an 80s synth vibe, listen to Change!!)

On the internet, this week I found:

- What Lessons From What Stories, by Chuck Wendig (language warning for this post!)
 - Creating An Authentic Historical Atmosphere by Elizabeth May

Hope all your Eurovision faves do well!!
~Saruuh

Words & Wonders (1)

Welcome to my new feature, Words & Wonders, a weekly journal of writing updates, links I've found useful or interesting, and book recommendations. I hope W&W will prove to be useful to you writers out there as well as offering an insight into my writing progress for my readers. Don't forget to leave a comment with your own writing progress!

First off I wanna PSA a giveaway I have going on Facebook, where you can win a Guardians dove brooch. Just comment on the status with your favourite book/TV/film rebel, be that Katniss or Peter Pan. It's open internationally!

In the Writing Cave, this week I have:

- Written 3,940 words of The Legend Mirror book 3, whi\ch is pretty dire for me during drafting. It's difficult to get back into the routine of writing after so long with no laptop to write on, but I think I'm getting there. Nothing can ever be as bad as writing The Wandering, when I had a 3 month writing block slap bang in the middle of drafting.

- Second drafted 45.5 pages of The Dryad of Callaire, and I am LOVING Susan Dennard's second draft method. I'm catching so many big picture issues that may have been otherwise overlooked. 

In my life:

- My laptop is terribly broken and in two parts (the screen back is literally hanging off) and I'm still waiting for the parts to arrive in the repairs shop. It's been three weeks since he was unbroken :(

- I found out my favourite show got cancelled. Farewell, Revenge, you were good (and awful) to me.

- I've rediscovered my love for Freelance Whales's Weathervanes, which happens literally every summer and is awesome.

On the internet, this week I found:

-Nothing, because I'm in a dark semi-internet cave while I focus on getting back into writing (because of my dire word output this week!) but I promise there'll be links in this section some time in the future! 

Here is a book I have loved recently:

The romance and characters in this are just perfect, and it's action-packed and has a great spy dragon thing going on! If you're interested in my full review, you can read that here.

Hope you're all having a great weekend!
~Saruuh

APRIL: Of DRYAD snippets and a BEAST blog tour

How long has it been since I last wrote a post? Three months? Jesus. That I had literally nothing to report for those months is quite sad. I'm disappointed my monthly post schedule has fallen behind, but at least I have something to show for it now. By the end of this week, I will have finished the first draft of The DRYAD of Callaire, which means things can finally start happening. I can edit it and fix everything and write the draft of the next book! Covers for DRYAD and the redesigned BEAST cover will be revealed! The Legend Mirror will make a scary debut on Netgalley. Lots of things.

This month I'm taking part in Camp Nanowrimo, and so far I've written 24,293 words which is pretty awesome. April is also the month of The BEAST of Callaire blog tour with Diverse Book Tours! Here are some posts you may have missed:

My interview over at Twinja Book Reviews

Why do you find diversity important in your writing?

I write diversely because I can walk into any bookshop in any city and see myself, a cis white person, reflected in every single book. Because there are so many people out there who can’t do the same, and because I wish there were books for them in every bookshop, too.

I wrote 30 Random Things about The Beast of Callaire and The Legend Mirror. You can find 10 on Howling For Books, 10 on Donnie Darko Girl, and 10 over at Constance Burris's blog! There are some hints about future TLM books in there, too, so you don't wanna miss 'em.

3 – One of the characters isn't who they claim to be.

BEAST was featured by THHernandez and Authors To Watch where you can also read an excerpt.

Talons unfurl from my fingers. My vision sharpens all at once and I know I look beastly, that my eyes are the most golden they’ve ever been.

On top of this (so many things happening!) Angie at Pinkindle and Tamara Philip reviewed The Beast of Callaire. Here's what they're saying:

"I also really liked how this wasn’t a story about coming out or accepting ones sexual identity. Yasmin just happens to be gay and that’s that. She has bigger things to worry about than who she’s attracted to."

"This book is a definite must read especially for someone looking for something DIFFERENT and diverse in the YA genre."

Now for the snippets I promised in the title. To make up for the lack of posts these past few months, below are two unedited snippets of DRYAD, one from Fray, one from Yasmin. The Dryad of Callaire is out this August and will be able to pre-order from July! Add it to your Goodreads.

“I’m all human, actually,” I say. I keep my voice even, as though I’m not scared, as though I’m not even moved by his presence. I know enough from experience that it’s more frightening when your opponent is deadly calm than when they’re blazing fury. “But I have a lot of Majick. More than I had this morning, actually. Enough to knock out an Incar, and more than enough to deal with you.” 

---

I hear the others climb out of the van and stand behind us but I’m too transfixed on the boy in front of us to look at them, because I recognise him. The last time I saw him he was still, sat in a basement cellar, staring at nothing. There were more of them, though. At least a handful more. I scan the road and scrubby trees around the gates, expecting more than one boy, but I can’t see another stranger. I reach out with my Majick but all I sense is us, and him. He’s wrong, inhuman—not even Legendary, not even Numen—he’s made entirely of Majick but that’s not what feels wrong. The Majick is tarnished, dark.

“He’s dead,” Mavers says.

I hope you enjoyed these glimpses at DRYAD and followed the Beast of Callaire blog tour!
For more regular content, you might want to follow me on The Lux Guardians and The Legend Mirror facebook pages, where I post weekly :)

Hope you're all having a great April!

~Saruuh

Liebster Tag!

I hmmed and ahhed about whether to answer this on my reading or my author blog, since I try to keep my author blog clean of memes, but since this blog is for writing and books, eventually I decided to write this here! About fifteen years later than I was actually tagged in it ... oops. I am the worst at remembering.

Faith tagged me in this post and I am happy to indulge my love of answering questions about myself. Here's the thing:

Since I am a rulebreaker (read: lazy) and don't actually have many author friends, I won't be tagging anyone, or writing any questions. 

What was the first story you ever wrote?

The first story I ever wrote was actually a book called FATE. It was terrible and rife with plot holes, info dumps, and a screaming lack of character development, but I loved the characters and still do. One day I plan to rewrite it and make it awesome. But who knows. Maybe first novels are meant to stay hidden.

What was your favorite book as a child?

The ones I remember are Jaqueline Wilson novels and Terry Pratchett's Truckers, Diggers, and Wings. They lived in a department store!! I LOVED that trilogy like no other. (Except possibly The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents. I worshipped that stupid cat.)

You get to have dinner with your favorite fictional family. Who’s at the table?

The Ryves brothers from Sarah Rees Brennan's The Demon's Lexicon trilogy. My favourite fictional brothers. I wouldn't decline sharing a dinner table with Mae and Sin and Jamie, however.

What’s your favorite season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer? (If you’ve never seen it, I’m giving you the look.)

Three or four. I think four.

Do you prefer drafting or revising? Why?

Drafting because revising is tedious for me, although I've only recently got a properly organised revision method (with index cards and a colour code!) so I'll get back to you when I attempt it in May! Eek.

Do you have a process for naming your characters?

I have a bunch of different ways I name characters. Either selecting at random, or based on meaning, or by origin of the name. I also collect names I like in a document for later. I waffle a bit more about naming characters here.

How do you handle telling people you’re a writer? Do you tell them what you write?

I very rarely tell people I'm a writer. I actually very rarely tell people anything (I'm kind of a shut-in) but if I talk to someone on the internets, usually it would involve caps and exclamations. Most things I say involve caps and exclamations, though, to be fair. 

What do you listen to while you write?

Depends on what I wake up feeling like. Sometimes Lorde, sometimes Marina, sometimes The Audition, sometimes Bayside. It changes depending on the day, hour, minute, and I've been known to go from Haim to Bring Me The Horizon in an hour. Those are the weird drafting days.

Do you prefer to write in the morning, or at night?

I write more in the evening, going into night. Sometimes when the writing hooks me, I write until 3AM. Those are tiring nights. Most days, though, I'll start writing around 7PM once I've got everything else done.

Do you pick favorites with your own characters?

Psssh, me? Nah. Yosiah is my son, my child, my perfect ray of damaged sunshine.

What would your dream writing office look like?

Small enough to keep the heat in, big enough to hold a bunch of bookcases and a desk with a comfy chair. Also a sofa.

11 random facts about me

1 - I am having a terrible time drafting right now. No words are coming. None.

2 - I'm participating in Camp Nano next month and praying it'll drag me out of this writing rut.

3 - My writing beverage changes with the seasons. In summer I drink iced coffee. In winter I drink a lot of water.

4 - All my books have POC and queer characters in them (Yep, even The Forgotten -  Honour, Horatia, and Yosiah are all POC main characters, Miya is intentionally racially ambiguous. there are a bunch of POC minor characters. Yosiah and Timofei are both canonically bisexual, and in later books it's made obvious that Honour and Branwell are also queer, even if they don't quite know how to define their sexuality, and there is a f/f couple of secondary characters) 

5 - I design all the things for my books. Covers, book interiors, book formatting, marketing stuffs. It should be stressful, having so much to do, but it's weirdly fun. I love designing stuff. I actually run a design service, where you can get a free promotion banner and custom book covers:)

6 - My current WIP is The DRYAD of Callaire. My next draft, which I'll be launching right into once this is finished is the third Legend Mirror book.

7 - I just wrote out all these facts and missed number 7. This is a cheating fact because I'm too lazy to think of another one :|

8 - I'm hoping to release two Legend Mirror books this year, along with a couple short stories set in other worlds.

9 - In a semi-related fact, the BEAST of Callaire cover will be getting redesigned to be shiny and new so it matches the new releases. You can keep an eye out for those cover reveals in June/July.

10 - My YA sci-fi series The Lux Guardians is free to download and get in print. (Although the first book is currently out of print, since the waiting list was closed) Visit the page for download links or find them on the sidebar.

11 - I keep trying to read the same genre as I'm writing, but I'm far too impulsive a reader to stick to that for the full time of drafting. I'm currently writing YA fantasy and reading adult PNR.