And now moving on . . .
The book is out, the book tour is over, and we’re all on to finishing other novels and getting our lives back for a nanosecond. We certainly don’t have time to plan another collaboration, at least not for another year, and we’d be insane to start talking about it now, but . . .
We really like fairy tales. And we’d kind of like to write a fairy tale. Not “a modern fairy tale,” Cinderella in the city, but a real old-fashioned fairy tale in a fairy tale land full of princesses and wolves and grand viziers and a forest with a big bad lurking in its depths, but we absolutely don’t have time to write another collaboration, so we won’t be doing that any time soon.
But if we were, it would start like this:
In a land far away, in the glittering city of Silverfalls, on the edge of the Silverwood Forest, the wind picked up.
It slid through the winding streets and over the cobblestones, around the pink and cream quoined corners of the little shops and under their gingerbread garnished arches, through narrow alleys with dark, damp corners and down wide thoroughfares with Don’t Block the Box signs, as if it were looking for something.
Up on the hill in the pink marble castle, a man of lean and austere look noticed the wind and frowned. He opened a casement in the highest tower and looked out over the land toward the farthest and darkest part of the forest where it seemed to him that wind rose up, curling over the trees, before it slid down to the twisty trails that led to the city. “Hell,” he said and closed the window. Then he packed a light bag, which contained everything he owned that mattered, walked down the tower stairs, and went out into the night.
Down on the thoroughfare, a younger man with a cheerful, open countenance misled the pretty young woman beside him with confidence and hope until the door opened to let late revelers into the bar, and he felt the wind. He straightened, a stillness coming over him. “What’s wrong, honey?” the woman said, and he looked down at her and answered, “It’s a bad wind, but it will be all right.” He was, of course, lying. A few minutes later, when she wasn’t looking, he went out into the night.
At the edge of the woods, in a reproduction cottage with everything anyone could want, a sixteen-year-old girl in black and white stripped leggings and a Magic Rocks T-shirt pulled a comb through her tangled black curls and put on a red hooded cape that was just enough too small to look wicked. When? she thought, looking in the mirror, but then a branch tapped at her window even though there was no tree there, and when she opened it, the wind wrapped around her and lifted the edges of her cape. Now, she thought, and picked up the leather backpack at the end of her bed, slipped down the stairs, and went out into the night.
This story is not about them.
This story is about a con woman, a princess, and a grandmother, and it begins “A con woman, a princess, and a grandmother walk into a bar. . .”
No, it begins like this . . .
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What’s sad is how much I want to read this now. Your essays on the enduring romance of fairy tales are incredible to me and because I was studying the connection between myth and fairy tale when I read them first, I wanted you to write a book involving mythology. I had read somewhere that Bet Me was supposed to be a fairy tale and I didn’t think I’d ever get my wish that you’d do a more magical fairy tale.
Maybe now I should wish that you’ll start doing book tours in D.C.
There was a period in my childhood when I checked out a book of fairy tales every time we went to the library. And we went every four weeks when our current batch of books was due. I checked out other things as well but always a big fat book of fairy tales. You know, The Red Fairy Book or The Blue Fairy Book or anything that looked like it was crammed full of stories about princesses, humble younger sons, djinns, and the like. It was the only area in the nonfiction section of the library that I ever visited.
It’s just cruel of you to tease like this.
Ooh! I know you’re too busy, but this will be SO fun. Whenever you get around to it.
…and they call the wind Mariah.
I have to know where they were going and if the wind was an evil wind calling to the good or a good wind calling to the evil. Darn.
Anyway, glad you had a successful book tour and all are now home safe and sound.
Oh My!
I could really, really read the rest of the Fairy Tale.
Maybe someday soon.
Sooner?
did you guys collaborate on this? it’s absolutely wonderful and very refreshing. plus it’s long past due for someone to have rewritten fairytales to accomodate the nonchovenistic state of mind.
Okay - that was just plain evil to plant that seed
No fair!
How do you think we feel, we don’t have time to WRITE it. It’s making us crazy.
Oh, you tease!
That was just mean. Because, I love this book…and it’s barely even a first page. Now that you’ve teased, you’re going to have to write it. And hurry up, already! If I were a fairy godmother-no, scratch that, an evil witch (the kind with big hair and killer heels), I’d cast a spell on you commanding you to write the rest of it. NOW. Sheesh.
Krissie’s writing a fabulous three book historical trilogy.
Lani’s almost done with a first draft of a paranormal set in Crazy Cousin Betty’s Waffle House.
I’m finishing Wild Ride with Bob this week and then Always Kiss Me Goodnight by the end of the summer if it KILLS me. First the demons, then the ghosts.
Nothing but good books ahead. Including this one in our spare time.
Ok, stop what you’re all doing and write the damn book now. I’ll read your solo projects later. Promise. I want this one now though.
Oooh, all those sound fabulous. One of each, please.
*sigh* FINE then. Since I loved Agnes and Shane almost as much as I loved Cal and Min I *suppose* I can wait for what will I’m sure be the bestest damn fairy tale ever. But maybe, just maybe, in your spare time you could just continue to show us little glimpses if we all behave and ask nicely? Oh hell, who am I kidding? ARGH I WANT IT NOW!!!
A prolog, (she whispers) ? A wickedly, wonderful whatever.
Your eagerly awaited solos are going to be fantastic. But the first question for the next year or so is going to be ‘have you started Divine Thoughts (if that is the name of the book instead of a topic herder) ?
Silverfalls ? Is that like Silver Falls ?
We don’t have a title yet. We have a starting cast of characters, the opening (WHICH IS NOT A PROLOGUE, YOU HUSSY) and a plan for our heroines–Rosamund, Cinderella, and Red–to spend three nights in the woods, with each night one of them telling what REALLY happened in her fairy tale.
We also have these other books to write . . .
I dunno. Sounds kinda like a prologue to me. You’d better send more to convince us.
That’s all we’ve got, unless you want the tentative cast list. We are really NOT writing this now.
Although Lani did set up a blog for us to dump our research into. Early thinking stage.
And now I must go finish Wild Ride. If it kills me and Bob.
I’m finishing Wild Ride with Bob this week and then Always Kiss Me Goodnight by the end of the summer if it KILLS me. First the demons, then the ghosts
Some of us will also hold you to Slow Men. Don’t think we’ve forgotten that offhand comment made long ago right here on this very blog — unless it was made at the old He Wrote:SheWrote blog. Oh, the where of it isn’t important. All that matters is that you said you were thinking of writing it sometime. That sometime could be after Wild Ride and Always Kiss Me Goodnight and before the fairy tales.
We could make statements out of your titles. Slow Men Always Kiss Me Goodnight after a Wild Ride.
I lurve you. But a tentative cast list would be way cool too.
Oh, serious tease.
Mary Stella: I’m still waiting for “Just Wanted You To Know and Other Stories” (the characters from Crazy for You). But I’d rather hold my breath for this one.
I so badly want to read this now, and I’m frustrated because I know it will be a year, maybe more, before I find out what happens next. I’ve heard of delayed gratification, but this is asking a lot of a person with very little patience!
Sounds similar to “Chocolate” with the mysterious wind and is definitely entrancing. Good luck on finishing your other commitments so you can work on this fairy tale collaboration full-time.
Not so much magic realism as fairy tale. We’ll probably stay purist on this one. Eventually. Could be two years. Could be never. Which is why no cast list. Because then somebody would get invested and we’ll never hear the end of it.
But thank you all so much for liking it. We do, too.
This sounds fanstastic…what a great opener. I’ve studied openers and first lines for years trying to figure out what it is about the good ones that makes me want to keep reading. This is one of the good ones, and it’s the “No, this is their story…” that did it for me.
I know you’re not writing this right now. And I know you’re not casting it.
But I’ve just gotta nominate Sara Bareille’s “Fairytale” for any future soundtrack.
I can’t wait to hear more about this book when the time comes!
I agree with whoever wrote it above: Slow Men MUST be written in the next 5 years. Riley’s story has been untol far too long.