Happy spring, my friends!
It’s probably been warm and verdant for a while where you are. Here, we’re just on the cusp (though the temp was 33F this morning). Our grass is green, the daffodils and dandelions have sprung, and several of the trees have delicate new leaves, lime and chartreuse in shade, they’re so bright! In a week or so, everything will pop. (Please, God, Yahweh, Allah, Odin, Krishna, Ra, Cernunnos, Danu… don’t let it freeze overnight! I want our lilac tree in full bloom this year.)
Daphne enjoyed her birthday on April 28th. She had a fabulous day at school where her classmates sang to her, made her cards, and everyone enjoyed a cupcake.
At home, we decorated the dining room in a spring and fairy theme, since lately she’s been into her little garden figurines. She devoured two more cupcakes that evening after we gave her our gift, a scooter.
We also had a little party that Saturday, after her Grandma and Grandad arrived for their first 2026 visit from Texas.
Her dad made a delicious cake, and she opened the rest of her presents.
This was the first year she seemed to truly understand what a special day it was, and she was cheerful all week, a win-win for everyone.
She also started equine therapy!
I’ll share more about that in a later post, but suffice it to say, she loves it. I do, too.
Hubby and I have been busy filling orders, mostly for Secrets of Strixhaven cards, in our online card game shop, Mythic Moose.
I’m back into the swing of my Pilates practice, and my speculative short story, The One Who Wouldn’t Jump, was accepted for publication in the forthcoming anthology What Hides in the Shadows.
Its structure and pacing need a little TLC, though, so I’m going to dive into those developmental edits as soon as I get this post drafted.
Finally, beginning this Friday, May 15th, I’ll be sharing my latest novelette here on WordPress.
It’s a companion story to my Celtic-inspired fairytale, Elspeth and the Fairy, which, though published last September, is at its heart a celebration of spring, of new life and hope.
I loved working on this romantic, optimistic little tale of steadfastness, renewal, and resilience (you can download it in the free e-copy of the anthology here). It helped me combat the anxiety and dread many of us were facing in the wake of current events.
On Elspeth’s publication day, I felt a strange ache. I simply wasn’t ready to be done with this story.
So, the day after it came out, I sat down to write the same ending but from a different perspective. I wanted to explore the POV of another important character, one who I only had room to present as stoic and serene in Elspeth, but who struggled with much more beneath the surface. What were things like for him? What exactly did he go through? How did he grow? How did he change? How might that add to the richness of the first story?
Unlike Elspeth, however, which is a simpler composition (a fairytale through-and-through), this novelette is a more detailed romantic historical (or historical-ish) fantasy. It involves more intense emotional stakes with magical, world-altering fantasy elements, including a fight scene between the protagonist and a monster (my first!). Its motifs include class disparity, hidden identity, and a beauty-and-the-beast type of forbidden love.
(If I were better at Canva I’d insert a cute little mock book cover here, with all those tropes and arrows. Alas, I suck at that program, and messing around with the free version, or paying for an upgrade with more template options, just isn’t how I want to spend my time or money.)
I wrote this novelette first and foremost for myself, and I wanted it to have an older feel than most fantasies currently have. This piece is an attempt, therefore, at a kind of spiritual-romantic mythmaking, and a central driving question is, who truly sees another soul?
I also wanted to keep everything in scene, so that’s how this story ended up the length it did. It’s approximately 13k, divided into four parts with seven chapters total.
(If you’re not familiar with “in scene,” that simply means grounding everything in real time through action, dialogue, and sensory details, as opposed to summarizing events. It’s what develops a story into an immersive experience, what makes it feel real and immediate.)
Here’s my plan for posting:
Part I, Restoration: May 15 Ch 1, May 18 Ch 2
Part II, In the Forest: May 21 Ch 3, May 24 Ch 4, May 27 Ch 5
Part III, On the Hilltop: May 30 Ch 6
Part IV, A Wedding Gift: May 31 Ch 7
A chapter will drop every three days until the end of May. After that, things will quiet down again, I promise.
Ultimately, working on this novelette has been another wonderful learning experience, and I will share it here as a simple offering for spring. Right now, I’m keeping its title to myself so I don’t spoil anything for anyone who might want to read Elspeth first.
If you try this novelette, I hope you enjoy it. Though I do believe you will have a richer, fuller experience if you read Elspeth and the Fairy beforehand, I did work hard to make this novelette a stand-alone. You should be able to understand everything without reading Elspeth’s side of things first.
As always, I hope all is well with you. I’d love to see anything you’d like to share in the comments.
Thank you for reading!
XOXO,
Jenn
Jennifer Shaw 