Monster Encyclopedia: Gota

This unfortunate creature’s main skill is hiding. It’s second primary skill is absorbing. A gota looks like a large, blobular lump of jello, with tentacles that it can use to grab. It frequently hangs out in tall grasses, intending to trap its meat. If a deer or cow or human accidentally steps into the gel, it sticks. It begins to numb and then slowly suck the prey in.

Its organs float inside, giving it an odd appearance. They are slow moving, but can be difficult to escape from once they’ve latched onto you. In addition, swords, arrows, etc. don’t work well, as they just absorb the weapons. Weapons only work if they hit a key organ, like the brain.

These gargs are disturbing to look at and a bit gross, really. If they are good for anything, no one has figured it out yet. Food, definitely not. Weapons—not as far as anyone can tell. Because the gel causes a numbing sensation, some have suggested that it might have be useful as an anesthetic, but no one has quite figure it out yet.

Recommendation: watch your step!

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Monster Encyclopedia: Nincs

Like a small, fast combination of a horse and a muskrat, this creature has its uses. Its hair is tough, wiry, and just flexible enough to make a perfect option for bowstrings. While definitely wild and opinionated, these creatures can be domesticated—sort of like how bees can be domesticated. They prefer to live in the woods, dig dens under trees and fallen logs, and eat bugs and worms.

They live in families of up to twenty. They can sometimes be found in cooperative relationships with other gargs. They don’t only eat bugs that live in dead logs and dirt, but also bugs that attach themselves to other creatures—like ticks and other parasites. If they feel threatened, they will attack with vicious intensity, and release a hormone that will alert all the other nincs within the vicinity to attack as well. If that happens, I suggest you run.

They have a long mane, two horns, a long tail, and two sharp teeth. Their coloring can vary, but they tend to be shades of brown and black. Sometimes they can have shades of bluish and greenish, too.

Recommendation: don’t bother them and they won’t bother you.

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A Special Update for Rutherford Fans

For all the Rutherford Fans out there, you probably haven’t noticed that I haven’t been doing as much with him lately. And that’s true. I’ve been much more focused on my science fiction projects, and truth be told, for the most part, that is where I am shifting my energies.

That said, I’ve embarked on a new Rutherford-specific project! While there probably won’t be many more Rutherford books, I have decided to turn them into videos to make them as accessible to as many people as possible. They will also be turning into e-books soon, and available on all e-book platforms.

In the meantime, please enjoy the first first video reading of Rutherford the Unicorn Sheep Goes To The Beach .

Monster Encyclopedia: Musker

Meet the musker! Small and pest-like, muskers are known to infest a variety of places, including farms, cities, and anywhere people live. They will eat anything and prefer to inhabit warm, damp places. They have very sharp teeth, and any number of tentacles, as well as a neck frill that can make them seem much larger than they are.

Muskers tend to live in families of anywhere from three to a lot. So if you encounter one, be on alert—there are probably more nearby. That said, they are unlikely to attack creatures larger than they, so as long as the musker you’re facing is smaller than you, it’ll probably run.

Recommendation: always check behind the boiler, and carry a knife.

This monster appears in Book 3: Lamplighters Society. Stay tuned for a release date!

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What I Love About Fairy Tales

My next fairy tale, Hook’s Regret is almost here! And I have to say, I’m loving this series. I’m already drafting the next one, a retelling of Snow White and Rose Red, and have several ideas for future manuscripts.

I’ve always been a lover of fairy tales, and have read retellings of them for as long as I can remember. Folk tales, legends, magical mysteries—it didn’t even matter to me if the story was actually a fairy tale retelling or not. I even loved stories that just had the feel of a fairy tale. Of course, fairy tales have long been the subject of academics and research over time, but I never cared too much about that end of it (though, don’t get me wrong—I have written my fair share of essays on fairy tales!).

Instead, what I have always loved the most about fairy tales is that there are never really any limits. Absolutely anything could happen in a fairy tale. Beyond the obvious “happily ever after” that most people now think of, there are also so many versions of fairy tales with the “worst ever after” (the little mermaid turning into foam, for example? Or Cinderella making her step family dance barefoot on broken glass?). Dwarves can appear out of nowhere and children can fly; wolves can be good, bad, or in between, and if you’re in the mood for a cannibalistic old woman that lives in a house made out of candy? Sure. Why not?

And because the stories have been told so many times in so many ways, it’s not just that anything can happen, but anything does happen! Dragons and elves, princesses and paupers, a weird short guy that can turn straw into gold (what an odd skill set) and that steals babies? People being kept in towers and humans turning into bears and frogs and wolves and trees. Forests and castles and lakes and villages. And then when you widen your search and explore more than just European fairy tales and start reading ones from Africa and Asia and South America—so many cultures and people have developed so many different stories and folk tales that are engaging, interesting, and sometimes teach the strangest lessons (strange now, but perhaps not when they were written)—and I can’t get enough.

More recently, retellings have become more and more elaborate—Disney movies, for example, not just the cartoon versions but the live action ones. And not just Disney! When I was sick last year, I sat down and had a princess movie marathon and watched probably ten different versions of Cinderella—girls in California that just want to go to prom! Or the one where the high school girl just wants to be a singer, or just wants to be a—fill in the blank with whatever you want. Then there are books like Cinder or Sarah Maass’ Court of Thorns series. And of course you can explore fairy tales in video games like Kingdom Hearts or Cinders or Fairytale Fights. There’s Child Thief by Brom. Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman. Once Upon A Time. Endless options for reading, watching, listening to, and experiencing the wonderful world of fairy tales.

I think my favorite fairy tale retelling of all time is Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine. Not the movie, the book. I read it every year (sometimes two or three times) from the time it was published (1997) until I was about 25. And I just read it again recently when I purchased Levine’s newest Ella story, Ogre Enchanted (which is also great, by the way). I honestly can’t tell you exactly what it was about the story that captured my imagination as a child, but now, I love the main character’s strength, the simplicity of the writing, the uniqueness (and complexity) of the story, and of course, the nostalgia that comes with picking up the first copy I ever owned and flipping through the pages.

My favorite Disney fairy tale is Tangled.

My favorite Grimm fairy tale is Snow White and Rose Red.

My favorite Arthurian tales is Yvain and the Lady of the Fountain.

I love stories of Anansi and Baba Yaga and Amarok and the tales of the Greek gods. I took an entire class on Viking Romance and another on original African lore. And I learned just this minute about Australian fairy tales, which apparently I will need to read up on.

The possibilities of fairy tales have made it all the way from my childhood into the writing I do now. My mom likes to tell me how insane my imagination is, how she never knows what I’m going to come up with next. But it’s not really insane to me—it’s simply that I believe that anything could possibly happen because fairy tales said so. Why be confined by logic and reason, when there’s an entire universe of ideas just hanging out, waiting to be written down?

So, yes. Fairy tales. Wonderful, insane, captivating, and mind-boggling. Not only do I plan to keep reading them forever, I plan to keep writing them. #neverenough