Fae World anthologies - Melusine Muse Press now taking submissions #FaeWorld

Fae World

This one will either be one large anthology or four smaller ones. 

The four themes are Autumn Court, Winter Court, Spring Court and Summer Court and may include both dark and light Fae (Seelie and Unseelie). 

The word count should be between 300 and 3,000 words. 

Not all submissions will be accepted. 
These are adult stories, but gratuitous sex, gratuitous foul language and gratuitous violence will earn a rejection. 

Depending on the quality of the stories sent in, there will either be a one volume, 50+-story anthology or four volumes with 25 to 35 stories in each (depending on average length of stories). 

At this moment, I cannot afford to pay for stories that are accepted, but there will be a $10 Amazon gift certificate awarded to the best story in each category ("court") and a $25 gift certificate for the best story overall (once the required number of stories has been submitted and accepted).

At the moment, the closing date remains open. Submissions will remain open until the correct number of acceptable stories is reached. Each book needs to be a minimum of 50,000 words (if broken into four separate books) or 125,000 words (if published as one book).

Once all stories have been chosen for the anthology, winners will be chosen. All those with stories accepted in the anthology will get badges for their blogs or websites.  Winners in each category and the over-all winner will get separate "winner" badges.

I am hoping to be able to begin work on the anthology during 2016, so the earlier submissions come in, the better.

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2016 - Castles in the sky

Chase your dreams.

Go ahead and build castles in the sky.

Believe in magic,

and never stop using 

your imagination.

Happy 2016, everyone!

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A Child's Belief

My little girl  at the beach / photo by Fyfe Photography

Today, I was watching my four year old son jumping off of the bottom few steps of our hallway stairs. He had a look of fierce concentration on his face, and when he landed, he would break out into a huge smile and then go back to the stairs and jump all over again.

I asked him what he was doing, and he answered me, "I'm Batman, and I'm flying!" Then he walked into the living room with me, moved his little stool over to me and said, "Watch!"  And he climbed up on the stool and leaped off it, lifting his legs high and throwing his hands in the air while he was airborne.

"See, Mommy! I flew!"

He beamed at me, proud if his accomplishment and I was reminded of my childhood self, doing the same thing. I had jumped off from my couch, over and over. And every time I lifted into the air, for those few precious seconds before I landed again, I felt like I was flying and I believed that, if I found the right way to jump, I could make myself remain in the air for longer and longer amounts of time. I truly believed, at that young age, that I could fly.

When do we grow too old to believe we can achieve the impossible? As children, we believed that we could do anything and that nothing was impossible, but as we grow older, we start to lose this belief. We lose our belief in the magic of possibilities and we lose our belief in our ability to do amazing things. It's those people who somehow manage to hang on to their childlike belief in the impossible who are able to achieve great things.

Children enjoy trying to achieve the impossible and believing that it can happen; they know that this trying and believing is all part of the fun. We should all hang on to that knowledge.

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When Did You Stop Believing?

Christmas is nearly here and children are expectantly awaiting their gifts from Santa Claus. Well, the children who still believe in Santa Claus are eagerly awaiting him.  The children who no longer believe are not as excited. They are still looking forward to Christmas, but some of the magic of it has already been lost to them.

I was only six years old when I lost the magic of Christmas. My older brother, a little before Christmas, showed me my mom's stash of Christmas presents; he'd found her hiding place. A little later, on Christmas morning, I found some of those same toys labeled "from Santa Claus" under the tree. I particularly remember one present I had seen amongst her hidden stash, a Princess Leia figurine, which I found in my Christmas stocking that Christmas morning.

Christmas was never the same for me after that. I still enjoyed Christmas, but it has lost its magic.

Now that I am grown and have children of my own, I have tried to keep the magic alive for them as long as possible. And in turn, their joy and excitement for Christmas has brought the magic back to Christmas for me.

I'm a believer again. I believe in Santa, but not as a rotund, jolly, white haired man who brings good little boys and girls presents, but instead as a symbol of the spirit of Christmas. Religion aside, the spirit of Christmas is about doing what we can to make others happy. Seeing the joy in my children's faces on Christmas morning, knowing that they still believe in the magic, is one of the best things in the world.

Watching people all over the world become more generous and willing to lend a helping hand to their neighbors is one of the amazing magical things about Christmas. Even in difficult economic times, people still become more giving during this time of year. And there is magic in that.

The magic of Christmas can be found in different places for different people. I choose to find the magic of Christmas in every child's joyous smile.

Where do you find the magic of Christmas?


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"Cobwebs" - flash fiction entry by Robert Fyfe for Spooktoberfest #spooktoberfest

  Jackie @ Bouquet of Books and Dani @ Entertaining Interests wanted to find a way to celebrate the spookiest holiday of the year in style.

And so SPOOKTOBERFEST was born!

Requirements of the story:

Your Flash Fiction piece cannot be any longer than 300 words. You must use the MANDATORY 5 words listed below…
            cobweb(s)
            jack-o-lantern(s)
            ghost(s)
            cauldron(s)
            razor(s)
Post your Flash Fiction piece any day from Friday Oct 26^th thru Monday, Oct. 29^th.
Your flash fiction piece can be scary, comical, romantic, or whatever you choose, just be creative!

The winners will be posted on HALLOWEEN! That’s right, Wednesday, Oct. 31^st. Jackie and Dani will each choose a winner. That’s right – two winners!

PRIZES: A grab bag and candy. The winners will get the biggest bags we can find of their favorite candy along with some spookified items.

With this in mind, my husband, Robert Fyfe, decided to write a quick poem using all of the required words. Here is his entry:

Source: blog.farmgirlwrites.com via Amanda on Pinterest

Cobwebs

Caught in a cage brown with rust
Cobwebs old and full of dust
I sit and hope my life to keep
Not lost to a ghost to moan and weep
A cackle pierces the frosty air
As a wicked joke witches share
Razor sharp fingernails rip like a lion
And tossed into a cauldron made of iron
Plants that poison and lizards newt
Jack-o-lantern and mandrake root
A soup that holds one ingredient short
Actually not for I am caught


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What Daddy Doesn't Know Won't Hurt Him - contest entry by Robert Fyfe for the OUAT flash fiction contest

My husband doesn't blog often, but he wanted to enter the Once Upon a Time flash fiction contest. The word count limit is 350 words and the theme is Unexpected Fairytales. This is his submission to the contest.

What Daddy Doesn't Know Won't Hurt Him
by Robert Fyfe

Kerrie didn’t really understand why her father would react so badly but she was determined that she would warn the fairies that he was coming to destroy them. All her life she had seen them but until yesterday her father had told her that she was making things up and to stop these fantasies.

She wished she hadn’t lost her temper yesterday, hadn’t been so determined to prove him wrong, but after all it was his fault that her two sisters had gone; he had driven them away to goodness knows where. She had promised the fairies that she wouldn’t tell and they had shared their fairy dust with her. She had gotten so angry when her father had grabbed her, telling her that fantasies and fairytales were just make-believe and she should be real and forget them.

 She had become so upset and had pulled the little bag of dust from her pocket, had sprinkled a pinch of dust over her head and had whispered the magic word; she had risen off the floor about three feet as she had looked into her father’s eyes. So proud, so righteous, so in trouble.

He had grabbed her and threw her in her room telling her not to leave for any reason till he got back. She had heard him in the shed and she knew he was looking for a weapon against her friends.

He hadn’t realised though that the fairy dust was still powerful and she opened her window and flew out of the room and down to the bottom of the garden, his screams for her to return easily heard as he came from the shed and saw her disappear behind the hedge.

The fairies were there waiting, laughing, arms open wide. Kerrie told them to run, told them to hide. But they came to her, held on to her. “You just have to wish it away,” they told her. “Just think about where you would like to go and we will all go with you. After all it is what we did with your sisters.”

348 words

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Make Your Own Fairy Magic Gifts

The holiday season is upon us. This year, instead of giving something store-bought to the people you care about, why not make something special to bring a personal touch to your gift-giving? And while you are at it, why not make your gifts extra special by making them fairy magic gifts? Here are just a few ideas for some homemade fairy magic gifts of your own.





- Make small bottles of "fairy dust." You can buy tiny bottles at any craft store, including ones that can be made into keychains or necklaces. Fill the bottle with glitter. Any color of glitter will do. You can layer the "dust" or you can put the cork or lid on the bottle and shake it up. You can leave it like that or you can paint a flower or a butterfly on the outside of the bottle, either with acrylic paints or with glass paint pens. Print the poem that is written below and using a hole puncher leave hole in the bottom of the piece of paper you print the poem to and then add it to a ribbon and tie the ribbon around the outside of the neck of the bottle.

A special little gift
Made just for you,
Filled with sparkle
And fairy magic too!
Whenever you have something
That you want to do,
Just wish on this fairy dust
And your wish just might come true!

- Make a dream jar. Clean out a jar. Any jar from home will do. Paint glue all over the outside jar and then sprinkle different colors of glitter all over the outside. Once it dries, use acrylic paint to paint the words "Dream Jar" onto it. While the words dry, start typing up different "dreams." Each "dream" should be something happy, a remembered fun time with the person you are making the jar for, thoughts you have that are flattering to them, hopes you know they have, anything positive in their life and anything else you can think of that will lift their spirits when they read it. Make as many of these as you can, then cut them out and put them inside the dream jar. Tie a pretty ribbon aorund the neck of the jar. Whomever you give it to can pull a happy thought out of the jar whenever he or she is feeling down to help lift his or her mood.

- Make Fairy dust candle jars. Find some empty small baby food jars. Paint them with glitter. Fill each one with a scented candle and tie a pretty ribbon around the neck of the jar and your gift is complete.

Hope you enjoy making these simple gifts, and I hope the people you give them to enjoy them too!

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