December Updates

Happy Holidays!

Well, December is almost over! For those of you who celebrate, I hope you’re having a wonderful holiday season, whatever those holidays may be! I know this time of year is one of the most stressful for a lot of us, myself included, so I can only hope everything goes smoothly for you all so we can start fresh in the new year!

For this month’s newsletter, I thought it might be a fun time to talk about some of the behind the scenes work that goes into my writing. I’ve talked about it before on socials, but I’ll say it a million times over: worldbuilding is my favorite part of writing! It’s hard. It’s never-ending. It’s stressful. But the act of creating whole worlds to play with—crafting cultures and languages, traditions and magic—it’s some of the most fun I have in my pre-writing stages, and sometimes even my during-writing stages! (Seriously, the worldbuilding never ends.) And since we’re coming up on release year, let’s take a little dive into the world of my debut novel, Under the Dragon Moon, coming soon in early 2024!

Some of you might know already, but for those of you who don’t, Under the Dragon Moon is the first in a four book series currently titled the Belamour Archives. While book one takes place in New Orleans, Louisiana, the main character, Mael, and his young apprentice, The Kid, are originally from another realm known as Aos Sí. This is, for all intents and purposes, the fae realm. Originally, I did very little worldbuilding for Aos Sí. The first draft of this book had a drastically different plot, and thus, the series was supposed to go in a wildly different direction than it is now. Though Mael and the Kid are from Aos Sí, I’d never planned on them actually visiting their home realm in this series. After a lot of reworking and replotting the series as a whole, however, Aos Sí has become drastically more important to the plot, and the characters will be spending most of their time there later in the series. That meant that I not only needed the worldbuilding for the magical society in our world figured out, but also one in an entirely different world as well.

I’ll admit that I’ve been putting off the worldbuilding in Aos Sí for a while now. While I love worldbuilding, it’s by no means an easy feat to jump into. Not only that, but with how much I changed between the first and second draft of UtDM, I had no idea where I was going yet in terms of Mael’s heritage. As I’ve been revising and editing and rewriting however, his history and his character has flourished so much that I’m finally starting to see a picture of Aos Sí in my mind’s eye. A full picture. I don’t have everything yet, but I’ve finally gotten to a point where I have somewhere to start and build off of.

Some of that building I’ve done in the past few weeks while working on my holiday short story! And since it’s the holidays, I wanted to give you a little peek into the holiday traditions celebrated in Aos Sí during the winter months. (Keep in mind that I am still in worldbuilding stages, however, so some things may change by the time the books are published.)

Since Aos Si in an entirely different realm, it’s of no surprise that they do not celebrate our holidays. Instead, the sídhe celebrate two major holidays: Tòisich Athru (the Winter Solstice) and Deireadh Athru (the Summer Solstice). While both are equally important to the sídhe, depending on which court you hail from, one may be more impactful than the other.

What makes Aos Sí different from our own realm, is that it is quite literally made of magic. So much magic, that it’s believed the rulers of the two main courts—the Night Courts and the Day Courts—are meant to balance the power of the world’s Tapestry so it doesn’t run wild and uncontrolled. The Athrus are meant as celebrations of magic, a time of change and new beginnings, but they are also a time when the courts come together to give back to the realm they call home. Each winter on the day of Tòisich Athru, the Endless Night travels to the Day Courts to share his magic with his sister queen. And in turn, each summer on the day of Deireadh Athru, the Eternal Sun travels to the Night Courts to share her magic with her brother king.

The Athru days are meant to be days where differences are put aside, communities come together, and magic is celebrated. Court-wide festivals are thrown the week leading up to the Athru, the streets littered with festive décor and throngs of people. Food is passed freely from hand to hand, garlands of snowflakes or flowers strung from building to building and hung around the necks of all. And when midnight comes on the night of the Athru, families and communities gather together for the Ritual of Return. Candles are lit, hands are held, and each sídhe opens their heart to freely give a bit of their magic back to the world that birthed them.

While these holidays are celebrated more openly in Aos Sí, that by no means they aren’t seen here in our realm as well. As you’ll see in my new holiday short story, A Lesson in Beginnings, Mael and his family very much still celebrate the Athru days, though they have been mingled and mixed with the human holidays for ease and invisibility. Many sídhe in the ‘human realm’ also still perform the Ritual of Return on these days, though it’s become more of a family-only event to protect the magic they are opening themselves to give.

Since today is December 21st, let me be the first to wish you a Happy Tòisich Athru! Spend some time with your family today if you can, even if they’re found instead of blood. Cook a wassail cake, drink some warm milk or cocoa, and play some music in thanks for the magic you’ve been gifted this year! Remember that today is a day of thanks and belonging. No matter your situation, you belong here within the magic.

December Updates and 2024 Goals

If you don’t follow my socials, then you likely haven’t heard from me since November. So let me start this off with a bang: I WROTE 75,422 WORDS IN THE MONTH OF NOVEMBER! That’s crazy! I’ve been participating in the 50k challenge for 13 years now, and most of the time it’s a struggle to meet the 50k mark, but this year was an outlier. I wrote that within the first half of the month! I am beyond proud of myself for this achievement, and cannot thank my community and friends enough for sticking through it with me and encouraging me to keep writing! (Special shoutout to my best friend and fellow author, Taylor Hubbard, for following me through the madness.)

That being said, WallpaperWIP is still not finished, but it is getting there! I am currently sitting at about 90k, and only have a handful of chapters left to draft! So my goal is to have it finished by the end of December, then it’s off to my alpha reader while I work on other projects! My current goal is to publish this book in late 2024, though the date is determinant on how edits go.

As for my other projects:

Under the Dragon Moon, book one in the Belamour Archives series, is well on its way to publication! I’m in my final round of edits now and will have some very exciting news coming next month! The cover is in the works, I’m deep into learning formatting, and the finish line is on the horizon! Keep an eye out for more details coming very soon!

GoaMR is the second book in the Belamour Archives series! I have the outline for it started, and plan on finishing it in January so I can start drafting as soon as possible!

ChaosWIP has taken a break while I worked on Wallpaper, but once I finish drafting at the end of December, I will be diving right back in full force! You’ll likely start seeing a lot more about it next year as I work on the first draft. I have a good portion of it begun already, but there is still so much to get written and I cannot wait to get my fingers back in it!

As always, keep an eye on my socials for more regular updates! Happy Yule! And Happy Holidays!

Just a touch of magic is all it takes…

Mawce Hanlin || Author