Thursday, June 21, 2012
The Secrets of the Vanmars-- A Guest Post
Hey guys! Today I'm lucky enough to host a stop on the blog tour for the new YA release of The Secrets of the Vanmars by Elisabeth Wheatley.
Over three weeks I
typed away in my room, until I emerged with a 261 page manuscript I prayed was
better. Everyone who read my early drafts seems to think so and that’s a
relief. But being a neurotic, insecure writer, I still have doubts.
After her adventures with the Key of Amatahns, sixteen-year-old Janir Caersynn Argetallam returns home to find Brevia on the brink of war with a neighboring country, Stlaven. Her foster-father and even Saoven—a brave young elf warrior—think it will be safe at the castle where Janir grew up. However, while trying to unravel a looming mystery, Karile—self-taught wizard and Janir’s self-appointed best friend—becomes certain that there is danger in the mountains surrounding Janir’s childhood home and that it has something to do with Stlaven’s most powerful family, the Vanmars…
Thanks so much to Elizabeth for stopping by! If you want to know more about her or the books she writes, head to http://www.argetallam.com ! Feel free to comment on this post about if you've heard of this series, or what you think of teenage writing in general.
About the Author:
Elisabeth Wheatley started writing short stories when she was as young as seven years old. She began working on what would eventually become The Key of Amatahns when she was eleven. The story went through countless total rewrites until Elisabeth began working on what would be the final version when she was fourteen. When she completed the draft at fifteen, her parents (being supportive) sent her manuscript to a professional editor in West Texas. The editor, Suzanne O'Bryan, was so impressed with Elisabeth's work that she recommended it to a friend at a small publishing house, Chengalera Press. Chengalera Press was also very impressed and wanted to publish the manuscript. The Key of Amatahns was reviewed and edited by Professor Emeritus of the English Department at Southwestern University, Dr. T. Walt Herbert. The Kindle version of The Key of Amatahns was released on June 30, 2011, when Elisabeth was still fifteen. The paper version followed days later. Elisabeth is currently working on the second and third installments in the Argetallam Saga, while continuing to attend high school in the Texas Hill Country. Her hobbies include beekeeping, cheesemaking, mythology, and studying American Sign Language.
And now a post from the author herself about the writing process!
Elisabeth Wheatley--
How did you get the idea for The Secrets of the Vanamrs?
Excellent
question. When I was working on the idea for my first book, The Key of Amatahns, I was already
thinking ahead to the rest of the series.
At
first, I created an imaginary world. I sort of had the intention of writing a
story to go with it, but the story as well as the world experienced many, many
total transformations before anything even remotely recognizable as the Argetallam Saga was created.
After I
had been tinkering with the construction of my world for awhile, I decided that
I would make my main character invulnerable to magic. Why? Because magic
freaked me out.
Don’t
get me wrong, I love books with sorcery and magic in them. But I am a big fan
of the now cancelled TV series The Legend
of the Seeker and the whole thing with the Confessors was scary. With one
touch a Confessor could make you her devoted slave for life. Not cool.
Hence,
my main character’s invulnerability to magic was envisioned. But having her be
completely devoid of enchantment wasn’t fun either, so I gave Janir some of her
own powers and magical abilities.
By the
time I finished my first book, I had a very general, murky idea of what I
wanted the future books in the series to be about. My original idea for the
second book (it had no name at this point) involved a siege and large battles.
While that might sound intriguing, when I went to write it, it came out all
wrong and I decided to rethink the plotline.
I then wrote
a completely different draft. It was nearly 300 pages long and it was total
rubbish. The plotline wandered and there was no real point to the story. Fortunately,
the worst scene in the book, (in my opinion, the worst scene I’ve ever written,
in fact) didn’t make it past my brother, who came at me reading the scene out
loud at the top of his lungs. A lot of my characters ended up looking silly in
that second draft. (To my characters: sorry about that, guys!)
Over
Christmas break, I barricaded myself in my room with tea and granola bars and
set to work re-rewriting the book that I had now christened “The Secrets of the
Vanmars.” My goal with my edits was to make the story more streamlined so that
it wouldn’t drag, have a more focused and suspenseful plot, show character
development, introduce a few characters I’d been dying to write in, and lastly,
set up the scene for book 3.
About the Books:
Book 1: The Key of the Amathans
Book 2: The Secrets of the Vanmars
Thanks so much to Elizabeth for stopping by! If you want to know more about her or the books she writes, head to http://www.argetallam.com ! Feel free to comment on this post about if you've heard of this series, or what you think of teenage writing in general.
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About Me
- Alexis Ladig
- Hi I'm Alexis and I love sharing my love of reading and writing with the world.This blog is an outlet for me to express myself and my opinions, and show other bookish people some awesome things to explore in the world of literature!
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