Elf Queen 3 Weekly Update + Villains 3/26

Hey friends! It’s time for another weekly update! I’m heading out to Florida for vacation Tuesday morning! Wahoo! I can’t wait for sunshine, salt water and sand! I’ll post a bunch of pictures to my Instagram stories if you want to keep up!

Updates on Elf Queen

I did not finish draft 1 like I wanted. I actually felt like I needed to start over from the beginning to get a feel for the story beats and make sure I was hitting the timing of everything right for where I’m at currently which is chapter 41. So basically I’m editing and making notes to make sure the progression is great! Every writer is different and this almost always happens to me when I get close to the end of the book. I’ve spent months writing and so I kind of lose the feel for where the story needs to be. I’m sure it’s close and then I’ll be able to write the climax and the ending!

Maker above, I love this story.

One fun little tid bit, Aunt Evalyn has her own apothecary by day and gambling den by night in Palenor! It’s called “Nerium Oleander”. Nerium Oleander is one of the most poisonous flowers in the world, and of course Aunty E would choose a name like that lol. Some of the plants in my books are real like Nerium Oleander, or oak tress etc, and others I make up, like the Pottifer. Obviously there is nothing in our world that makes you run at increased speeds and endurance. Or plants that can turn you invisible.

I love plants in real life and you’ll notice I use them in my Rise series as well. Daelyn and Madison use plants for many things. I don’t know if you’ve read my other series but Madison is actually one of my favorite characters. She’s an A hole, and Varlett reminds me of her but she was fun for me to write.

A true morally gray character.

Why are the baddies more fun to write than the hero’s? Maybe because they’re more unpredictable. I don’t mean like true villains. I hated Tenebris. He wasn’t fun. Just a douche.

I think the characters I hate the most out of any stories are Commodus from Gladiator, Black Jack Randall from Outlander, and Dolores Umbridge from HP. These are true villains to me.

Characters like Rhysand from A Court of Mist and Fury or Damon Salvatore from Vampire Diaries aren’t. They’re villainous but more on the morally gray side, even though a lot of people call them villains. I’d actually categorize Rhys as more of a henchman in the first book, and Amarantha as the villain. And Damon is the villain in season 1 of TVP but he’s also charismatic. he stays sort of villainous but softens up. Why did I go off on this tangent? I don’t know lol.

Anywho, in other news, the CEO of Tiktok mentioned me in one of his videos! OMG! If you haven’t heard, Tiktok may get banned in the US. The CEO went to a hearing with our government to potentially ban it. He made a video asking why we (users) like Tiktok and I commented and said that Tiktok made me a bestselling author and I know many of my fellow authors had their career because of it and booktok. In his next video he chose my comment as well as a handful of others as his favorite! So crazy, considering there were over 150k comments on that video.

Tiktok has been amazing for me to promote my books and for the words to spread. I’m sure many of you found the Elf Queen series from there. I love booktok and I hope the platform doesn’t get banned. But it might, which is a good reason to follow your favorite authors on Amazon or through their newsletter.

My author buddy Holly Renee released her latest book this week! A Kingdom of Venom and Vows is book 3 in the Stars and Shadows series, and the series is live and available in Kindle Unlimited!

It’s spicier than my books, just as a heads up. But it’s fantasy romance and one you should check out!

That’s it for now! I hope you all have a great week!

JM