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Faery Babies and Soul Suckers

April 8, 2019 by Cameron J Quinn

changeling research
Image from Pexels.com

In an effort to innovate and entertain in my next book, How to Diagnose a Changeling, I’ve been studying changeling lore. This is terrifying. I originally wrote this to explore the idea of being completely helpless to protect my children. Something I think most mothers fear. But if the villain is anything other than my own child, I’ll find a way to fight it. But what if your baby is gone. And in its place is something that looks like it and sounds like it and according to everyone else, is your baby?

You’d be completely alone, trying not to end up in an insane asylum, because you can’t save your child from within a padded cell.

Image from Pexels.com

This round, I’ve been focusing on traditional changeling lore and what I’ve found is awful. As with most legends, there are pieces of truth within the lore. Basically, this lore was born of the mistreatment of kids with behavioral issues, disabilities, or are left handed. Yep, left-handed kids get the short end of the stick again.

But the most disturbing part of the lore isn’t the idea that a faery is sucking the soul of you and your child or even that children are taken from their families. The real tragedy of the changeling lore is the kids who were killed by the people who were supposed to love them. I thought maybe post partem or other mental illness on the part of the parents might have been to blame but it seems this wasn’t the case. These were people who just couldn’t handle their children’s differences and tried to control them through violence which ultimately resulted in their deaths.

The Hallow movie
Image from the 2015 film The Hallow from director Corin Hardy. Image from IMDB.com

And of course, there’s the famous case where the LA Police Department tried to return the wrong child to a grieving mother while her son was murdered by a serial killer.

Basically, I set out to write something terrifying and ended up with the mildest possible case of changeling abduction.

The truth is way scarier. Go figure.

Filed Under: Myths and Legends, Research Tagged With: changeling, faery lore, irish folk lore, myths and legends

Using a Planner to Reach Your Goals

February 8, 2019 by Cameron J Quinn

Cameron J Quinn's Planner Resolutions

So, I mentioned in my goals and resolutions post about using a planner, and let me tell you, I’ve discovered a lot in the last month.

First

If I want to be on top of things, I need the planer. I kicked ass in the beginning of the month. Got things ready to go and scheduled way ahead of time.

Stopped using the planner and my life imploded. I’m behind on tasks and deadlines are looming! Yeah, it got pretty sketchy there for a bit.

Second

Scheduling around an almost two-year-old is almost impossible. Not scheduling and expecting to get things done? Is impossible. Ok, not impossible, I mean I made it out alive and all the things got done but my sanity is a bit worse for the wear. So you know if you have a choice, organization is cool. Great even.

What’s next?

Look for a really cool post about faeries and changeling lore! If my organization doesn’t fail me, it should be up the week of the 22nd!

Filed Under: Update Tagged With: goals, planner, planning, productivity, success

Resolutions, Goals, and Systems Oh My! 2019 Here I come!

December 31, 2018 by Cameron J Quinn

Every year for the past three, I have set very specific goals rather than resolutions. And Every year I fail to meet those goals. Not all of them you get the picture. This year will be different. Why? Because despite failing to meet my 2018 goals, I learned a ton. One of the things I learned about was systems. Using systems to get predictable results. Predictable results that will help this lady, achieve her goals.

My goals are pretty standard I think. Write and publish more books and reach more readers. If you want to check out my more businessy goals and strategies for achieving them, check out my post on Amphibian Authors.

2019 Personal Goals

I also have a bunch of personal goals which I will list here since this is my personal blog.

I’ve always wanted to make butternut squash soup.
  1. Get my house organized: This might seem silly but I lost the uphill battle that is housekeeping as soon as I got pregnant with baby #3. I want to get back to a place where after the kids are off to school, I spend two hours tidying up and then I can be on to bigger and better things. However, this requires more than just me cleaning better/more often. I need to get rid of things we don’t need or use, start the older kids on chores to help out, and get on a regular schedule.
  2. Try New Recipes Often: As I said in my post, Julie&Julia, I love cooking. And yet we’ve been living on box macaroni (which I hate to admit) and way too much take out. Because cooking was just another chore on my neverending list of chores! Lucky for me they made that book into a really cute movie with Amy Adams and Meryl Streep and after a particularly rough day at home, I discovered it on Netflix.
  3. Get Healthy: One of my biggest struggles is fatigue. I don’t know why but I have always been tired. There are very few times in my life that I have felt rested and well for more than a few hours at a time. I have noticed though that when I eat well and exercise often I feel better for longer stretches. So As soon as my toe heals (my daughter smashed it with her glass bottle full of milk on Christmas Day) I will be running again. In the meantime, I’ve got a few healthy recipes to try and some really awesome salads.
Cameron J  Quinn's Planner

Systems

To help me achieve these goals I’m doing a few things. The first is using a planner (right) to plan out my weeks. One of my biggest challenges is taking on more than I can handle. Not because I can’t do it but because I have kids and my daughter doesn’t like it when I do anything other than sit on the couch with her. It’s pretty frustrating. But that’s where the journal comes in. I have a pretty easy week set up (Dec 31st- Jan 6th). I will journal every night about specific struggles and things that worked well so I can plan the next week accordingly.

The second thing I’m doing this year is I’m only making goals one month at a time. I tend to set goals and forget about them a month in. This should help me not only reach my goals but keep things realistic. You know, to actively stop myself from getting lost in the potential of an entire year.

What about you? What are your plans for 2019?

Filed Under: Health and Wellness, Update Tagged With: 2019, new years, plan for success, planning, success, winning

Julie & Julia

December 20, 2018 by Cameron J Quinn

French Cuisine Julie&Julia

I love cooking. Surprise! Especially deserts but in general it’s something I enjoy.

The cake I made for my daughter’s first birthday. Yes I made my own fondant and no, it didn’t turn out well. I burnt out a mixer and settled for the slightly cracked finish.

Somewhere along the line this year though, I forgot that. Even Thanksgiving felt like a chore. For one, my kitchen is large but has a horrible layout. Space is wasted and there aren’t enough cupboards. And probably the biggest factor in my decline in cooking, no dishwasher. No dishwasher with a family of five. If all I did was keep house and plan meals this wouldn’t be an issue, but I’m an author, publisher, book marketer, and podcaster. Finding time to cook for my family is hard enough and clean up when you have to stop halfway through because your dish towel is soaked and you don’t wanna put away wet dishes makes it, rough.

Baby number three changes things…

Actual photo of me trying to talk to my boss…

I had a really good system down prior to my daughter being born. But she doesn’t like it when my attention is on anything but her making dishes first thing in the morning a struggle.

BUT I have a secret. Well, not anymore since I’m posting online for all to see. Anyway, we’re buying a house. And the kitchen is beautiful and comes complete with a dishwasher that isn’t me and I cannot wait.

This is where Julie&Julia comes in…

Are you wondering why I called this Julie & Julia yet? I never saw the movie. I’ve wanted to since I saw the trailers when it was in the theaters and I just never got to. Well, my friends, it’s on Netflix. And yesterday I had an awful day. Nothing went right and I was just in a miserable mood. So when the kids went to bed I sat down in front of the TV (Jocko would not be impressed by skipped workout) and enjoyed that movie more than I thought I would. It reminded me about my love of food and cooking. It reminded me how cooking for my family makes me feel. So I’m working on my own cooking challenge. Once we’re settled in our new house, I’ll get the specifics sorted and then I’m going to get reacquainted with an old friend.

My little chef!

What’s something that you love that you have lost as time went on? How do you plan to get it back?

Filed Under: Cooking, Health and Wellness Tagged With: chef in the making, cooking, food, foodie, hobby, julia child, julie powel, love of cooking

Myths and Legends: Morgan Le Fay

December 6, 2018 by Cameron J Quinn

Before writing How to Get Arrested, I knew Morgan Le Fay as a character…

A character in the legends of Arthur and his knights. I knew she was a witch and treaded on the side of evil. Or at least not always on Arthur’s side. What I didn’t know was that she was Merlin’s lover and he’s the one who taught her magic. PLOT TWIST! I love well thought out villains. Especially the ones that don’t think that they are the villain.

But the more I read…

Morgan seemed less and less like a villain and more like a woman who had had it with everyone else’s crap. She was married off to King Urien which quickly became an unhappy marriage so she found pleasures elsewhere. Like you know, in Merlin’s bed. And may or may not have had an unhealthy obsession with Lancelot.

Making her even more fun for me to work into my stories.

In the Starsboro Universe

Morgan is someone who was sick of men and their laws. So she created her own people. The fey. And they thrived for centuries. Until Morgan caught a group of fey men enslaving fey women and selling them. She cursed all the fey making sure no more women would be born to them. They are also now forced to drink human blood to keep a semi-normal appearance and only come out at night when shadows and bad light help hide their peculiarities like cats eyes and sandpaper skin.

Be sure to look for the all new, How to Get Arrested on Jan 15th, 2019! I put it through the Story Grid and wrote a new draft. While the plot is mostly the same, I went a little deeper into Morgan and Zurik’s characters. It was a lot of fun and I’m really glad I did it.

Don’t miss out!

If you aren’t already on my email list be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss all the amazing things to come in 2019! Plus get a free copy of How to Get Kicked Out of School. It may be episode 5 but it reads like a stand-alone.

 

Filed Under: Myths and Legends, Research Tagged With: king arthur, knights of the round table, magick, merlin, morgan le fay, myths and legends, the starsboro chronicles

Myths and Legends

November 8, 2018 by Cameron J Quinn

Myths and Legends are my bread and butter

The Starsboro Chronicles were born of ghost stories and legends that people confided in me as well as the world wide web and various TV shows. Obviously, I went a bit extreme with How to Get Arrested. Mostly because I wanted a consistent threat I could pull out in times of need (see How to Make a Monster in the omnibus). But I love taking someone’s experience and turning it into something more. As a result, I’ve done a lot of research on myths and legends. I’ve studied the Hook Man stories (How to Stalk a Stalker) and the changeling legends from Ireland.

Locally we have a few haunted places and some urban legends but I’d love to hear yours. What’s your favorite urban legend or haunted place where you grew up?

Answer in the comments below so we can all hear your creepy tail! And if you want to hear one of mine, check out this interview I did with The Strange Life Podcast.

Filed Under: Myths and Legends, Research Tagged With: creepy stories, legends, myths, myths and legends, things that go bump in the night, urban fantasy, urban legends

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