The holiday season is a busy one, and I have a couple upcoming November events to tell you about.

ESA 26th Annual Holiday Market, Craft Fair, and Silent Auction

First up, I will be at the Etobicoke School for the Arts’ Holiday Market this Saturday, November 12, from 10 am to 4 pm.

I’ve donated a signed copy of Chaos Calling to the silent auction. 

This high school is part of the Toronto District School Board and uses this event to fundraise to support their arts-based programming. According to their most recent updates, over 85 vendors are participating this year with unique, handmade crafts.

I’m told the bake sale is not to be missed.

Ontario Author Holiday Meet & Greet

Some lovely indie SF/F author friends in the Greater Toronto Area put together this Ontario Author Holiday Meet & Greet event in Hamilton, ON, at Crown and Press from 1 to 4 pm (it’s also on a Saturday).

Canadian Indie authors attending:

• Laura A. Barton (fantasy)
• Jendra Berri (fantasy & SciFi)
• Will Forest (romance with SF/F elements)
• Nathaniel Luscombe (speculative fiction)
• Megan McSpadden (romance)
• K. A. Riley (SciFi and fantasy)
• Justine Sobocan (non-fiction)
• Sandy R. Stuckless (fantasy)

The venue is associated with Hamilton artist Julia Veenstra, a talented Canadian painter whose work I love. When lockdowns hit in 2020, I bought several of her prints to brighten up our living space, including one for my office.

So, that’s a little piece of serendipity around this event that made me smile.

If you’re in either the area, I hope to see you there!

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What’s Vocal? Here’s the backstory

Based in New Jersey, Vocal is a competitor to Wattpad in the digital publishing space. Both companies share a similar goal: to build a digital hub where writers attract an audience and get paid.

Ten days ago, I’d never heard of Vocal. You probably haven’t either. But they partnered with Ayman, a breakout BookTok star, to promote their newest contest.

Like many #BookTok people (the hashtag for book people on TikTok), I’ve watched a lot of Ayman’s content. She’s entertaining, well read, and extremely connected to other popular BookTokers.

For example, when the New York Times did a story about how #BookTok is changing the publishing industry in March 2021, she was one of the people they featured. She also happens to read fantasy.

You’ve got to hand it to the Vocal marketing team. Their ads were EVERYWHERE in my feed. I instantly recognized Ayman’s face and was happy to see her getting some sponsorship money. So, I watched her video explainer.

It’s a simple premise. Write the prologue or first chapter to a fantasy story and win anywhere from $10,000 (grand prize) to $50 (25 runners up) for your work. Stories were due by 11:59 p.m. on Monday, June 6.

And, the catch? The story has to start with the sentence, “There weren’t always dragons in the valley.”

Picking a premise for my $10k fantasy prologue

Sometimes when I see a contest premise, I draw an immediate blank. My experience was similar with the $10k fantasy prologue. After I’d read the rules and requirements, no inspiration jumped to mind. So, I had a look at many of the existing entrants.

Unsurprisingly, I saw lots of Dungeons & Dragon-style photos and premises. They looked cool, but didn’t spark an immediate idea for me. Annoyed with myself, I went for a walk with Jerry, my husband and long-suffering soundboard.

“I’m not feeling the D&D stuff,” I told him. “It’s not my bag. And I don’t think going there will help me standout. What else could I do?”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “You write action. How about a heist story? I don’t come across so many of those in fantasy.”

It’s true. Scott Lynch pioneered the sub-genre of fantasy heists when he published The Lies of Locke Lamora in 2006. There are other books, but that’s the big series.

And, like the Ocean’s 11 franchise was until Sandra, Cate and Rhianna got in on the action in Ocean’s 8, it’s very male.

We shot some ideas around. I kept coming back to the one D&D character I’d ever made, a dwarf named Kevl. Interesting name, I thought. I’ll start there.

All the fun and no novel-length plot headaches

Only, when I sat down to write, Kevl the dwarf showed up as Kivel. She had a welding torch in hand and a penchant for surfing with her best friend, Jayne.

Cool, I thought. Let’s roll with it.

I had a lot of fun building their friendship and giving you a glimpse of their world, while adding some fun-times complications. Writing something other than The Xenthian Cycle was also a nice break in my writing routine. Particularly when I didn’t actually have to diagram the actual heist plot (yet).

I solicited feedback from my regular beta reading pool and hit the deadline. Thanks to Diana, Jen, Mary, Tanya and Jerry for the quick turnaround.

You can read “The Adamantine Heist” here. Wish me luck!

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Every time this date rolls around, I wish a friend of mine a happy birthday. Usually that same morning, I wonder how the whole Star Wars thing started for George Lucas.

Was there a shred of inspiration that caught him by the throat and didn’t let go?

If so, I can relate.

Was it more like a slow unfolding? In interviews, Lucas’ official original story for Star Wars sites a collaboration with a friend and a desire to write an upbeat, inspiring space opera for teenage boys.

I believe that story. But I also know how easily the raw writing experience gets written over with editing and marketing narratives.

I still remember how mine happened, but after seven years, the details are blurrier than they used to be.

That’s why it’s so important to find story totems that connect you to the mood of a piece. And this trailer for the eighth Star Wars movie has been one I returned to time and again.

May the Fourth Be With You: Core Inspiration

As my publication date for Chaos Calling got closer and the project moved from manuscript preparation and into production, I found myself listening to that first 30-second clip of Rey speaking over and over.

I’ve carried this story inside me for a long, long time. The jobs I had and the person I was at the start of this journey do sometimes feel like they took place in a galaxy far, far away.

But the hour approaches. And this novel is finally waking to its life as a public document outside my control.

TikTok, however, is all about the remix. So here’s my homage to The Last Jedi and a few of the many Toronto locations in my book.

@emwilliamscanada A long long time ago, I dreamt about putting these Toronto locations into a fantasy action novel. #fantasybooks #maythe4th #maythe4thbewithyou #fantasyauthortok #indieauthor #indieauthorsoftiktok #newbooks #selfpublishedauthor ♬ original sound – E. M. Williams

It’s been a long road, but we’re only four weeks way now. If you’re a Kindle reader, you can pre-order your copy of Chaos Calling as an ebook on Amazon now.

And to all the fantasy fans out there: May the Fourth Be With You.

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