Dreams and Dragons: July 2018

Hey'a, everyone! The season of Snow White retellings has begun, and I'm excited to feature two such stories by marvelous self-publishing authors: The Witch of Belle Isle by Annie Louise Twitchell and Death's Mirror by Rebekah DeVall. I got to do a mini-interview with both of these lovely ladies, and we'll get to that in a minute— but first, a bit about the books and authors.

The Witch of Belle Isle

About the Book:

A war between brothers. An apple between friends.

Trapped in the prison camp on Belle Isle, Henry longs for freedom--and instead finds a girl named Faith. How far would you go to save your enemy? And how far would you go to save your friend?

This short story is a Snow White inspired historical fantasy.

Find it on: Amazon || Goodreads

About the Author:

Annie Louise Twitchell is a homeschool graduate who is obsessed with dragons and fairy tales. She enjoys reading, writing, poetry, and many forms of art. When she's not writing, she can often be found reading out loud to her cat, rabbit, and houseplants, or wandering barefoot in the area around her Western Maine home.

Find Annie on: Blogspot || Facebook || Instagram || Twitter || Author site

Death's Mirror

About the Book:

"How do your human stories begin? Ah, yes. Once upon a time..."

Death tells the story of Snow White.

Find it on: Amazon || Goodreads

About the Author:

Rebekah DeVall prides herself on being the girl who wrote 200,000 words in 21 days. She’s a Christian author with a penchant for killing characters and a love for writing real female protagonists described as “the example of a Christian hero that young readers need to see”.

Find her on: Blogspot || Facebook || Instagram

Mini-Interview with the Authors

What inspired you to write these stories? And what are some books or movies that influenced your writing along the way?

Annie: The Witch of Belle Isle was largely inspired by a story I read a really long time ago. The story was in a Guideposts magazine and it was about a Jewish boy who had been in a concentration camp during World War 2, and the girl who saved his life by secretly supplying him with apples through the fence of the camp. I don't remember much more than that, but when I was working over the ideas for this story, that settled into my mind, and became in large part, the backbone of this short story.

Rebekah: Ah, Death’s Mirror came about in an interesting way. The story began in the back of my head for Rooglewood Press’s fairytale contest. I was deep into Google, searching out meanings behind the story, when I came upon an article that referenced Prince Charming as being a metaphor for Death.

First thought – No. Way. I am not writing that. But the story grew on me, and here we are! Around a year after the first drafting of the story, and I’m still intrigued by that premise.

Books or movies that influenced Death’s Mirror. Definitely The Book Thief, the movie in particular (I have yet to read the book). The narrator is very similar, and the ending is… shall we say, not-so-different?

What was your favorite part of writing these stories? Your least favorite?

Annie: My favorite part was throwing myself into the setting. It's a horrible place, the setting for this story, but I'm honestly really proud of how I captured it. And at the same time... that's one of my least favorite parts. It hurts so bad. I think the least favorite part, for me, was the editing. Over and over and over and overrrrrr.

Rebekah: Funny story – I wrote Death’s Mirror around 4th of July of 2017. The rest of the family traveled, except for one sister who was off at work for the afternoon. Perfect day to write a semi-creepy story, am I right? The house was empty, no interruptions...

If you’ve read the story, you know that Death as a narrator has quite the voice. It honestly scared me just a little bit. Then what should happen when I came to writing the climax except for aforementioned sister coming back into the house, singing at the top of her lungs. She scared the living daylights out of me.

So yes. I believe my favorite part of this story is what happened outside of the story.

Least favorite? Beta-reader feedback. That feedback is already harsh enough. It’s really really hard to send something that’s so personal off for other people to read, and let’s just say one of those beta readers was less than friendly.

If you could spend a day with one of your characters, either in their world or ours, who would you spend it with and what would you do?

Annie: Okayyy, well, do I have to chose from this story? If it's from this story, I would spend it with Faith. She and I would probably go read books together, or go wandering over the island unattended like the mild rebels we are.

Rebekah: There’s a certain Castle in the Sky that Death references quite often. I’m looking forward to visiting there someday. ;)

What’s the best piece of writing advice you’ve ever received?

Annie: "Breathe." -Rebekah DeVall.

The other piece is something my mom said when I published my first novella. She told me that some people were going to hate my stories, but that's okay. There will be others who will love them, and those are the people I'm writing for.

Rebekah: Your journey is your own.

I originally heard this from the Go Teen Writers blog. It’s easy for us, especially as younger authors, to fall under peer pressure. It’s easy to look at other authors’ successes and bemoan the fact that we don’t have that. While others are finishing their first drafts, we’re still stuck on Chapter 3. While others are getting traditional publishing deals and “making millions,” we’re barely scraping together enough to pay an editor for works we want to self-publish.

But here’s the deal. You do you. Some people work faster. Both Annie Twitchell, who’s doing this tour with me, and I write fast and publish relatively quickly. We also write shorter stories.

I’m sure Annie will agree with me when I say – if we’d tried to be like others, tried to slow down and churn out just one 80k-word novel a year, neither one of us would be happy.

Your journey is your own. It may take you nineteen years to be published. It may take you nine months.

Enjoy the journey. <3

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That was fun! Thanks, Annie and Rebekah, for answering my questions and letting me a part of the tour. And thanks to all of you, readers, for stopping by! Don't forget to check out the rest of the blog tour stops (listed below)!

Have a great day!

-Sarah (Leilani Sunblade)

Sunday 22nd: