The Goblins

This is my copy of The Princess and the Goblin. I've read it multiple times now, and there's Post It notes through the whole thing. The ones coming out the sides are details I want to incorporate into the setting and characters, and the ones on the top are details I want in the plot.

In George MacDonald's The Princess and the Goblin he describes his goblins as being, "not ordinarily ugly, but either absolutely hideous or ludicrously grotesque both in face and form. There was no invention, they said, of the most lawless imaginations expressed by pen or pencil, that could surpass the extravagance of their appearance."

In MacDonald's world the goblins were once people, and it took generations of living underground to look as they do. In my world for this book, they became misshapen and ugly when they were banished to the Underground after losing the Shard War to the Spring Kingdom. The Autumn Queen turned into the Goblin Queen the moment she stepped into the tunnels, and all her people did as well. There are drafts of my worldbuilding with the Shard War and banishment happening generations before my book takes place, but as I started writing the rough draft, it needs to have happened closer in the past.

Here are the pictures I've gathered to give a feel for the goblins:

13 Rifle Goblin by raipai

Goblin by Jonhyrock

Goblin Piker by chrstphrwest

Goblin Shaman by JonasJensenArt

Goblin Sketches by UlaFish

Goblin Raider by Brian Wynia

Introducing Prince Kaderic III

Kade is the prince of my Cinderella story, and during all the time I spent brainstorming and worldbuilding and plotting, that's all he was - the prince. He was the stock, no personality good guy. When it was time to bring his character into the story, my daughter Alyssa gave me an answer to a completely different question that just skyrocketed his character into being so much cooler.

First off, his name. The story I'm writing is actually going to be a three book young adult series that is a mash-up of the stories, "Cinderella," "The Princess and the Goblin," by George MacDonald and "Snow Queen." I'm going off of Charles Perrault's Cinderella, written in the 1800's in France, so I'm setting it in make-believe 1700's France to give the story time for it to be a fairy tale in Perrault's time. So far all the characters have French names - Charlotte, Brielle, Laisey. For the prince, I wanted to use the names from those base stories, which were all very similar, but I didn't know which to use.

In "Cinderella," he is just The Prince. In "The Princess and the Goblin," his name is Curdie, and in "Snow Queen" it is either Kay or Kai, depending on which version you read.

I went with Kai first, just because it sounded cool when my friend Sachiko was reading "Snow Queen" aloud to me, but I really wanted to incorporate Curdie into it, so I changed it to Kade, and it felt very right.

But what kind of French-type king and queen name their son Kade? I realized that Kade has to be a nickname, and he needed a real name. I decided to go with Kaderic, and Erin confirmed that idea when she looked up French royalty and found a bunch of Frederics. I don't know if he's really going to be Prince Kaderic the third. I'm still trying to figure out how important his family story is to the history of my world and where they fit in the whole thing and just how many Kaderics that have already been in his family line. We'll see.

How Kade Became Kade, Instead of Just "Good Guy Prince":

Charlotte and Kade are best friends, and early in the book they go on a morning adventure together. I was trying to figure out what they were actually doing, so I asked Alyssa, and she said, "Make him an inventor and have them try out one of his inventions." Brilliant! From that moment on, everything about Kade fell into place. His motivations, his interactions with his family and Charlotte's family, and even his interactions with the people of his kingdom - it was all suddenly clear.

So Kade is an inventor. I looked it up, and they had clocks and clockwork gadgets and all sorts of inventions in the 1700's, so the believability is good. He is basically the 1700's version of "I've got an app for that."

Oh, you need your harp tuned? I've got a gadget for that.

You need a powered hair dryer? I've got a gadget for that.

He doesn't actually say, "I've got a gadget for that," though. Sorry. And he gets help from the story's source of magic to power his inventions.

Here's the picture that screamed to me, "This is Kade!" when I found it. I realize it has nothing to do with 18th century anything. It's just a steampunk guy. But it is kade.

I just looked it up, and the title of this picture actually is, "Steampunk Guy." By AdLovett

Remove the eye goggle, take away the gun (although he should totally make a gun at some point), stick him in a waistcoat covering his gadget belt, and you'll get 18th Century Steampunk Kade. Here's some clothing options to help:

Okay, For Starters

If you were nice enough to click on my Facebook post, you are probably wondering, "Why the heck is Carrie calling herself Jacqueline Lewis?!? What - she thinks herself a real author, deserving an awesome pen name?"

That's not it. I promise. I don't think I'm this super cool author. I realize that I've only written one rough draft of a book and I'm working on my second. I realize that it's going to take a ton of work and time to hopefully be published someday. I'm not trying to be cool.

I realized, though, while writing that first draft of mine that when you write you put so much of yourself into your characters and story, that the name you go by - the name you use to think of yourself as a writer - is so important. The times that I would dream about sending Maura's story to a publisher, I would wonder, "Am I sending this under the name Carrie Lewis or Carrie Jacks?" Even though most people wouldn't struggle with that question, I did.

I am a Lewis, and Lewises feel pretty darn cool about being Lewises.  If I didn't use the name Lewis, it would feel like a betrayal to my family and all that I ever was. But Carrie Jacks is who I am now. Carrie Jacks has been through so much in life that has made me the person I am today. There is an awful lot of Carrie Jacks that goes into my stories.

So one day my sister-in-law (also my very good friend) was over, and we were discussing a book we wanted to write together. Erin was trying to come up with a pseudonym for the two of us by combining our last names, and she said, "Jacqueline Lewis." I instantly latched on to that name and asked Erin if I could steal it.

Jacue for Jacks

line for Lynn, my middle name

and Lewis of course, for Lewis.

It felt so perfect, and it's pretty. I like pretty things.

I also have a couple ideas for some silly stories, like "Don't Believe Anything The Alligator Tells You," that I'd like to write under the name Jackie Lewis, because it's more fun. I like fun things, too.