The Man Who Is Revealed

Image description: A digitally-painted portrait of Arkady, a dark-haired, light-skinned young man in a black cloak, with a mysterious golden flame in the background. Art by Amanda Grace Shu.

I recently came to the realization that I have posted incredibly little about Arkady fe Normonne, given that he is the primary protagonist of my novel. He has appeared as a secondary character in other excerpts I've posted, but nothing from his own point of view.

That ends today. In honor of pride month, I present you with a short coming-out scene, narrated by Arkady (twelve years old when this takes place) and featuring Sebastian, whom you may remember from A Winter's Ball. Enjoy!

The Man Who Is Revealed

Kevarya: Updated Maps (Interactive!)

School is out for the summer, which hopefully means more content on a more regular basis for you, my wonderful readers!

It should surprise no one that I love worldbuilding, so when I discovered WorldAnvil, I was delighted to find a platform that would allow me to share all the pointless miscellaneous details of my fictional universe with the world! One particularly exciting tool I discovered was an interactive map feature which allows you to upload images and add tags to it, much like Google Maps, to give brief descriptions of the major cities and landmarks. Thrilled, I updated the maps I had put together in Photoshop over a year ago (really? it's been a year?), and annotated away.

Here are the results, along with the non-interactive new map designs.

The Northern Continent: Interactive Version Here

 The Southern Continent: Interactive Version Here

Thanks again to WorldAnvil. Any Kevarya-related article or piece of writing I post here will also be cross-posted there. Next up: a look at magic and mages in the Kevarya Universe. What happens when metaphysical energy gains a mind of its own?

The Cover Project

Hello, readers! I know it's been a while - have I seriously not posted anything since May? - but I thought I'd show you a different side of my skill set today: namely, graphic design.

With the help of Adobe Photoshop and access to a wealth of Creative Commons licensed images, I've made a few mock-up covers for writing projects of mine. The first two covers are for projects I am no longer working on, but I loved designing them and couldn't leave them out.

So, without further ado, I give you the results of The Cover Project!

Valentines

Ah, Valentine's Day. A day to celebrate love in all its different forms. Though, come to think of it, Saint Valentine is also the patron saint of beekeeping, epilepsy, and the plague... and I'm sick in bed this Valentine's Day. Thank you ever so much, Saint Valentine. I'd better not have the actual plague.

Anyway, here are some... unique valentines my characters have sent and received this year.

To Willow Quince, from everyone's favorite bisexual scythe-and-swordswoman:

To a certain Creatrix, from Paris's most dangerous wannabe goddess:

To Sebastian Antonyve, from the Highest Adviser of Kevarya:

To Silias Longwood, from a notorious pyromaniacal rebel leader:

To Morian Redfern, from the resident drunken Scotsman:

And finally, to Geneviève Sondheim, from a brilliant neurologist who's a bit too morally gray for comfort:

Prophecy

Foreground digital painting of character i-Aten Elena drawn © Amanda Grace Shu 2016. Background image source credit to Frank Vincentz via Wikimedia Commons.

It's time to introduce you to a new character in the Kevarya Universe, one completely unrelated to the Royal Family with which A Winter's Ball was so concerned. Their name is i-Aten Elena, or just Elena, and they provide the first hint of magic at play.

Now a note about Elena. Elena is what's known as genderfluid, a term which may trip up some people. Genderfluidity, according to Genderfluid Support, can be defined as "the feeling of fluidity within your gender identity; feeling a different gender as time passes or as situations change; not restricted to any number of genders." Elena uses singular they pronouns (they/them/theirs). Is this grammatically correct? Yes, of course it is. The singular "they" was even named the American Dialect Society's Word of the Year in 2015. Pronouns have changed from plural to singular before, and since language itself is constantly changing, the idea of what is grammatically correct is rather, shall we say... fluid. Like gender. Or, for example, the nature of Time Itself.

Speaking of which...

Prophecy

Kevarya: A Map of the Known World

"Amanda! You're posting again! It's been over half a year since you last posted something, we were so worried! What have you been working on instead of indulging your (possibly imaginary) blog readers with new writing?"

Mostly: screaming in mild terror as life throws a varied and numerous assortment of challenges and responsibilities at me. But otherwise: worldbuilding.

You may vaguely remember the Kevarya Universe, in which A Winter's Ball and Copper and Stardust take place. Perhaps you've wondered, what even is "Kevarya," and what are those characters in A Winter's Ball talking about when they bring up "Galara" or "Yenoui" or "The Southern Lands"? What does this new fantasy world of Amanda's look like?

Well, today I give you the answers to those questions, in the form of a map!

If you want to zoom in to take a closer look, here's a full-sized version.