How I Fell Into Fantasy And Fairy Tale Projects

My mini-novella Blanca is
now on Kindle.

"We voted, and we decided we're going to write fairy tales."

I arrived late to the meeting, and I missed the discussion and the vote about the anthology our writing group planned to write. The famous author in our group had written a dozen--or maybe two dozen--fairy tale adaptations, and they decided we would all contribute a fairy tale to an anthology. They were smart.

I tried not to seem terrified at the prospect of writing a fairy tale adaptation.

"What do you think, James?"

"Awesome!"

"Are you sure?"

"Uh huh."

I'm not sure how I chose to adapt Snow White. I chose Spain because it seems like a Spanish tale. I chose insanity as opposed to an actual magic mirror. The evil queen is Snow White's biological mother, and she has motives other than physical beauty and which are arguably noble.

I threw together this cover
to share the story on Wattpad.

At the group meetings that followed, I sat and listened, and I cracked dumb jokes. Mostly I cracked dumb jokes. I also learned a lot. At home I worked on my fairy tale and other projects. I ended up with a mini-novella, that I was pretty happy with. It went through edits and I fixed things and made it better.

I now love the fantasy/fairy tale genre. My tale Blancanieves (the Spanish name for Snow White), was published in 2017. This year I have another tale in the 2018 volume. Peter And The Lost Boy is a short version of the novel I am working on, and it will be out in October in A Medley of Fairy Tales Volume II.

Anyone who has read my selection of stories, Dead On The Corridor, should know that my tales are not for the faint of heart. In Blancanieves, for example, there is a throat-slitting scene, and at least two other violent deaths. I don't do Disney cartoons.

My novel, The Shadow of Neverland, is intended for audiences ages 12 and up. I should be finished with it sometime in early 2019, heaven help me.