Elizabeth Drakes's Site

Fantasy Romance

Family

The Worst Kind of News

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We received the worst kind of news.

What we thought was a sinus infection wasn’t. Our kitty has malignant cancer. Inoperable. Untreatable.

He will be five in December. He has grown up with my daughters. Made them laugh. Frustrated them. Been a part of the family.

I can’t believe we don’t have more time with him. He’s still so kitten-like in so many ways. Even now, he plays with his foil balls when he as the energy.

By the time you read this, he may well be gone. They have given us a week to six months for him, but I can already see the decline.

After losing our last cat, I didn’t want to get close again. Didn’t want to go through this again. I kept telling myself and my husband it was his cat. He was the one that got him, it was his cat.

But we both knew the truth as the cat curled up on my lap night after night. And denying it hasn’t helped lessen the pain at all.

I sit with him flopped across me, as he loves to do, with my laptop beside me. Wishing we had more time. Wishing it didn’t hurt so much. Wishing for answers that will never come.

Serial Micro Fiction: The Cycle

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“Absolutely not!” Alaric roared. “You are my sister. I will protect you.”

Claudia folded her arms over her chest. “I am a mage purple class.”

“All the more reason for you to stay here where its safe. Do you know what Ilyiosians do to mages?”

“I don’t care. I won’t lose you to them, too.”

Serial Micro Fiction: News

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Claudia paced as she thought through her prayer and found her brother alone in the great hall with an untouched glass of wine beside him.

“What’s wrong?”

He shook his head.

“Tell me.” Claudia crouched beside him. While he was almost ten summers her senior, she had been his confidant and voice of reason since Anton’s death.

“King Garon wants war.”

Short Story – Love of the Romance

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In honor of the release of my third book, my daughter wrote her own romance novel. She figured she’d learned a lot reading over my shoulder despite my protests.

I have warned you that she is precocious.

She wanted me to share it with you here. I think we may have another budding writer in the family.

Love of the Romance

 

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Love of the Romance: A Love Story about Layla and Mig
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Clearly this is a friends to lovers novel. You can totally see the confusion the characters struggle with as they come to understand their feelings.

Layla’s first day at preschool, she met a nice boy named Mig. She and he fell in love.

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Layla seems a bit more unsure. Mig is all in. A lot of plot potential with that. 

She met him in K5. She loved him a lot.

 

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Now we have love at first sight, built on the love they had as children. 

Layla is a secretary at school. She fell in love, unlike yesterday. The boy’s name is Mig.

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Hmmm, more time jumping. Makes you wonder what happened that pulled them apart. I am also wondering where Layla’s arms are. I need to ask the illustrator about that.

(Four Years Later) Layla’s first day, she met him again. She liked him more.

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Things are moving pretty quickly between Layla and Mig!

Today they date. They want to kiss. So they do. They play Princess of the Dragon World.

 

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Really unsure about those vows!

When they were twenty-five years old, they married. They had fun at the wedding.

 

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This might explain the quick wedding!

Thirteen weeks after they were married, they had a baby! They love it.

 

For a child more interested in Wings of Fire than anything else right now, she has an amazing grasp of the romance genre. Now, to keep feeding her Wings of Fire books and keep her out of my “open door” romance novel stash for as long as possible!

Serial Micro Fiction: Done

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Claudia watched her mother all but beg for her father’s attention and was disgusted with both of them.

Her mother would never be the Duke of Whitecliff’s first wife.

She should stop trying.

Claudia stared down at the mage tome in front of her. She would never let herself be anyone’s second choice.

Besides, she had a war to end.

Don’t Be a Writer

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At least, don’t be a writer of romance novels when your daughter is in first grade but reading at the fifth grade level, and she wants to read the book you wrote.

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Yeah.

About that…Errr, no.

I tell her the stories in my books will scare her, and there is some truth to that. She has put down more than one book in her few short years because there was death in it. She almost quit reading The Magic Treehouse series altogether because of a book in the series where the kids go back in time, meet an Egyptian queen, but when they return to the present, the queen is a mummy. My daughter was super unhappy about it, saying it was a terrible ending.

I have no idea where she gets it from. *whistles while avoiding eye contact*

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I swear!

 

And I’m totally lying.

But my romance novels are not fade-to-black. And there is no way she is ready for one of them, much less one her mom wrote.

Heck, I’m not ready for her to read them and the barrage of questions that will come.

But she is my daughter, and as we were playing a video game together, her main focus wasn’t on the combat, or maximizing loot, it was all about marrying off the characters. She was especially delighted when that resulted in the parents being “gifted” with an unruly child they had to deal with.

I have no idea where she gets it from. *whistles while avoiding eye contact*

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It was the cat. Yeah, the cat.

 

Kids show you the best and worst sides of yourself.

I’ve toyed with writing her a story just for her, but I’m not sure I can do it. Or that I want to spend my writing time doing it when Knight of Valor is calling to me.

Maybe I could rewrite my current stories and remove the non-fade-to-black scenes.

I’m trying to remember when I first started reading Victoria Holt, and I’m almost certain it was fifth or six grade. I still remember sitting on my bed devouring book after book, and based on where the bed was positioned, I know it had to be before seventh grade when we moved. It wasn’t too long after that I discovered Kathleen Woodwiss and was cemented as a lifelong romance reader.

Granted, it wasn’t until much more recently that I decided I wanted to write what I read. I’d toyed with traditional fantasy, urban paranormal, and science fiction before realizing I could incorporate those into romance and write what I read.

And I’ve never looked back!