Charles Herman Puckett died at 9:45 on April 5, 2012. We love and miss you, Grandpa. Thank you for your inspiration. Rest in Peace.
Publication of Sophie Quinn and the Goblin Market has been delayed until Monday, April 16, 2012.
Publication of the latest episode of Puckette, Sophie Quinn and the Goblin Market, has been delayed until April 9, 2012.
I published the next episode of my series, Puckette, on the #Kindle. It’s a Halloween story called Sophie Quinn and the Corpse: http://ping.fm/ZG1WH
Sorry I missed posting last night. My Internet was on the fritz.
Seven days left until I publish the next story, Puckette 4: Sophie Quinn and the Corpse. I know I’m publishing them out of order, but Puckette 2 & 3 just aren’t ready yet. I’ll publish Puckette 2: Sophie Quinn and the Witches on March 28, 2012, and Puckette 3: Sophie Quinn and the Goblin Market on April 28. Then Puckette 5: Sophie Quinn and the Beast will come out on May 28.
I’m about to load a new .doc version of Puckette 1 that I hope will fix the paragraph formatting. I don’t why the formatting goes all wonky on the older Kindles when I load .ePub files, but if this works then no future purchases/downloads will have the problem. I apologize if you already bought the story on an older Kindle.
In Puckette 2 I have a garden that I want to improve, so I researched gardens yesterday. By research, I mean I inspected pictures and videos very closely and made notes. I looked at El Jardin de las Delicias by El Bosco (http://ping.fm/sNBbB), Willy Wonka’s candy garden (both film versions) (http://ping.fm/p3vuT) (http://ping.fm/phXoA), and Pearl Fryar’s topiary garden (http://ping.fm/SVuQ2). I also looked at fruit, vegetable, herb, and flower gardens.
I like the abstract shapes of the pink and blue buildings in the background of El Jardin de las Delicias and the shapes of Pearl’s topiaries. Both look very fae. However, I’m designing a garden for faery witches who are hiding out in the real world. So, I don’t want the descriptions to get too out of hand. I love the responses of the characters in the Wonka videos; they’re perfect for Hansel and Gretel. All of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory has a Hansel and Gretel feel to it that I never noticed until now. Okay, I’m really craving some candy or cookies. Happy Mardi Gras/Pancake Day!
Every Saturday I research a tale type outside the one I’m currently working with to help me come up with new story ideas. This time I read Cinderella stories: Persian Cinderella, Hmong Cinderella, and The Irish Cinderlad. The last one was the most atypical. It had an evil step- mother and step-sisters, and it ended with the use of lost footwear as identification, but everything else was different.
Cinderlad is a shy boy who gets teased for being short and having very big feet. He is forced to work as a cowherd and gets little to no food. His fairy helper is a bull who brings him a feast everyday and helps him escape. Cinderlad goes on to defeat a giant and a sea serpent. Large boots, which he stole from the giant, are his identifying footwear. The princess, whom he saved from the sea serpent, is very confident and forward. She is also the same height as him, and she jokes that they will see eye to eye on everything.
I have so many story ideas from this that there might even be another series in the works. I’m a little annoyed that Cinderella had to just sit around and be passive while Cinderlad got to escape and have adventures. Also, why are the moms and sisters always the bad ones? Things are going to be very different in my version.
I was searching other types of fairy tale breaking-and-entering today, and I discovered something new, at least to me. It’s called the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Tale classification System (abbreviated ATU), and it organizes thousands of plots into numbered types so folklorists can research and discuss them more easily. According to Wikipedia (http://ping.fm/7nVqs–Thompson_classification_system), Goldilocks is ATU 171, so I can look up other tales under that number and find many more tales to reference in my own story. Also, Sur La Lune Fairy Tales blog (http://ping.fm/GezxO) has a great description of an ATU book set that I’d love to buy as well as some very helpful links. So excited to read more!
The episode of Puckette I’m currently writing is based on fairy tale break-ins, such as Hansel and Gretel, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, and Snow White. I did some reserch today and found out some fun facts. For instance, Hansel is short for Johannes and Gretel is short for Margaret.
The most interesting things I read were about Goldilocks; she has a really gruesome history. Apparently, she used to be an old woman, and at the end of the story the bears impaled her on a church steeple. How’s that for an object lesson! She also had another incarnation before the nosy old woman. In Russia, there is a story where a princess breaks into the home of three knights who wear bear skin cloaks. I wonder if that’s the original. I’ll have to read more to find out.
In other news, I set up an account on Ping.fm, so I can post to all my blogs and social networks at once. This is my very first post on Ping. I can’t wait to see how it works out.
Puckette: A Fairy Tale is the first in a series of short stories and it’s available for free until February 5, 2012. Here’s a link to the listing on Amazon:
Puckette: A Faery Tale on Amazon
Also, free Kindle applications can be downloaded for MAC, PC, smart phones, and tablets here:
Free Kindle Reading Applications
Happy Reading!
karkadin 