P.S. I’m working on finding a weekly posting schedule. Because having nothing to post on Tuesdays is making me sad. Stay tuned!
Happy Tuesday!
Princess of the Valley
Category Archives: Literature
The Birthstone Book Tag
Good morning, readers! Today is my first official day of Summer break! I celebrated by staying up way too late last night watching Star Wars and sleeping in this morning. 😉 I’m so totally crazy.
Anyway, I snagged this free-for-all tag off of my friend Savannah’s blog (which, unfortunately, is not public, so I can’t link to it), and decided to do it today. I was tagged by two other tags recently, which I need to get to posting, but I decided to do the unofficial one first, because. . . me. I think it will come together faster than the other ones though. I’ll give myself more time to get those together.
Upon Request
If you’re confused, read this post I did a few days ago. 🙂
P.S. Don’t miss the post I did about The Sacrifice last Friday!
“The Sacrifice” Questions and Answers
Hey, readers! I’m here to answer all the questions asked about The Sacrifice in the comments of this post. I’m really excited about sharing this. 😉
“Do YOU have a favorite character?” by Savannah
Probably Gimel or Penelope.
“How do you pronounce Gimel’s name?” by Savannah
Well, like I said, it’s a Biblical name. I have no idea how you’re supposed to pronounce it! I have been saying “GUY-mel”.
“… is there the possibility of a sequel? ?” by Savannah
“Will you be writing more, like a sequel, of the Sacrifice?” by Ariel
“That’s highly restricted information you’re asking for”, girls. Okay, fine, I’ll tell you: Yes. There is a great possibility. No promises, ‘kay? But there is definitely the possibility.
“Which was your favorite part to write? Which was your least?” by Savannah
Well, like I said in the Behind-the-Scenes post, a lot of the first parts with Sir Richard were hard to write. It took me quite a while to think of a good ending too, but once I figured out what I wanted to do it came pretty fast. The easiest ones to write were all the conversations and fights with the dragon. 😉
“If you could literally meet one of your characters in The Sacrifice, who would you pick?” by Savannah
Uh. . . wow! That’s hard! Probably Penny or Henry. 🙂
“Which character would do the best if they were suddenly put into the modern world?” by Savannah
How’d you think of such hard questions, Savannah? I want to say Sir Richard, as he’s been in a lot of weird situations and he’s good at thinking on his feet. But he has put a lot of confidence on the Sword of Ereth, and that might cause trouble in a modern world.
“Who’s your favorite person out of the whole royal family?” by Jaidyn
Um. . . I don’t know! I like them all. Probably Penelope or Henry, but that might just be because they’re main characters. King Cedric was pretty fun to work with though!
“If you went into your story and wanted a tour of the palace, who do you think would be the best tour guide?” by Jaidyn
Hmm. . . Probably Henry?
“Who did you most enjoy writing?” by Ariel
Penelope and Abadalyx. 🙂 But like I said earlier, the King was pretty fun too!
“Who do you like better out of Cyrus and Snowflake?” by Ariel
Wow, I really had to think about this one! Probably Cyrus. Yes, I’m playing favorites. Please don’t be offended, Horse-people, dogs are my favorite animal. I do really like how Snowflake turned out though.
“If you could actually BE any of the characters in your story, who would you choose to be, and why??” by Skylar
Penelope, because 1) she’s a girl 🙂 and 2) she’s a princess! How fun would that be? There is the whole dragon-issue, but at least there’s a happy ending, right?
“If you could be best friends with any of the characters, who would you choose???” by Skylar
Cyrus? Or does it have to be a person? Out of the people, Penelope.
“Which one of the characters could you most see having a spin-off story?” by Skylar
Oh my word, you guys want all the spoilers! Okay, I’m feeling nice: Sir Richard. I’m thinking about writing a story about all his adventures with his sword in other kingdoms, before The Sacrifice takes place.
“Which of the characters was easiest to name??” by Skylar
Penelope, Henry, and Gimel’s names came pretty fast. And as soon as Spencer suggested the name Abadalyx the Insatiably Greedy, I knew it was perfect. All the horses were easy to name too.
“Which of the characters was hardest to name??” by Skylar
Cyrus was hard to name, and I almost went with some of the names Spencer suggested for him, but in the end went with Cyrus because it was a Biblical name like Jael. The King and Queen were also hard to name–so hard I needed two whole blog posts asking for help before I got them both named!
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And I think that’s it. Thank you to everyone who asked questions–you had some good ones! I hope you had as much reading this as I had writing it!
Happy Friday!
Catching up. . .
. . . because I seriously need to!
To begin with, my big sister is in Sicily! And she’s going to be there all summer! I seriously don’t know how I’m going to survive, but I guess I’ve gotten this far (exactly one week, to be precise), and she responds to my e-mails, because she’s awesomeness.
(Prepare for this post to be a lot of scattered randomness!)
Calling all you sweet Omaha people, I’m doing a fundraiser for our adoption! You can read about it on the family blog here! I’m selling made-from-scratch, chocolate chip scones. I’ve gotten rave reviews on them at every party and gathering I’ve made them for.
We’ve been listening to this song a lot lately:
“Raise your thoughts a little higher,
Use your words to inspire,
Joy will fall like rain,
When you speak life with the things you say”
Little Brother loves it. 🙂 We’ve been saying “speak life” instead of “speak nicely” or something like that, and it works well. Oh the magic of making something a song!
Plus, I had the best ever Middle Earth geek moment a few weeks ago, and I had to tell you all about it: I walked down to a playground in our neighborhood recently–because I have a “thing” with playgrounds–and wandered around and climbed on top of monkey-bars and walked on fence-rails. What big kids do at parks. It had rained the day before so there were some lovely puddles to splash in. I was just paddling around when I looked down and there, half-buried in the sand, at the bottom of a puddle, gleaming in the sunshine, was a ring. A ring. I just stared. Then poked it with my Aragorn boot. Then picked it up. It was silver–a little disappointing, but still cool. Though slightly creepy. I put it in my pocket and brought it home with me. 🙂
Happy Wednesday, folks! What have you been up to?
“The Sacrifice” Behind-the-Scenes
Behind-the-scenes! It’s long–you have been warned. 😉
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The Inspiration
The inspiration for The Sacrifice lies way back, before I even had a blog. The original story was inspired by a short dragon story from The Children’s Book of Virtues edited by William J. Bennett. I came up with a story that was essentially The Sacrifice, but still quite different. I was planning on writing it down, but then had inspiration for The Captured Princess Series (cheesy title, I know), which has basically the same plot line as The Sacrifice, just stretched and twisted into five stories–and pretty long stories too, for me at least. After writing that, the other story felt short and uninteresting and I gave it up.
“The Sacrifice”: Part twenty-seven
Can you believe this is the last part? I’ll post the Behind-the-Scenes post next Tuesday, so stay tuned!
~The Sacrifice~ 
Part Twenty-seventh: Farewell
Once the Princess and her mother both stopped crying, the Royal Family and Sir Richard made their way back. There a celebration was held, greater than any the City had seen since its founding. The day after their return was given over completely to feasting, and dancing, and singing, and rest. Sir Richard put off his armor and wore blue and gold satin for the festival. Gimel—and all the of the Shepherds besides—wore burgundy and sage-green wool, as usual, but they remained in the City and took up its customs after that Summer for the dragon had killed their flocks. Cedric and Eleanor dressed in scarlet and purple, and Henry in sky-blue and silver. The City was decked with flowers and the King’s banner was hung on every street—white with a green circle, like the Valley amongst snowy mountains. The Princess’s dress matched them: a milk-white gown with flowing bell-sleeves under a sleeveless kirtle colored like Lily-of-the-Valley’s leaves. Her hair was left down, falling over her shoulders, and on it was a coronet of dark green velvet with gold and diamonds.
“The Sacrifice”: Part twenty-six
Like I said in my last post, this part is one of my personal favorites!
Can you believe we only have one more post left after this?? I can’t!
~The Sacrifice~
Part Twenty-sixth: Returning
Penelope awoke with the rising sun. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, trying to process what was going on. Sir Richard was saddling Jael a few feet away. Cyrus was poking about in the grass. Short, unconnected memories slowly came together in her tired mind. I’m free—and I’m going home today! came of a sudden and snapped her out of her early-morning haze. She scrambled to her feet.
“Good morning, Princess,” Sir Richard said cheerfully.
“The Sacrifice”: Part twenty-five
Sorry I didn’t get this up yesterday, dear readers, we were pretty busy. Anyway, here we are now:
~The Sacrifice~
Part Twenty-fifth: The Sacrifice
They camped at the edge of the foothills, among the dark, shadowy trees. Gimel stood hesitantly holding his horse’s reins while Sir Richard and the Princess gathered up pieces of pine wood.
“Velvet’s done nothing today but stand tethered to a tree, sir,” he said at last. “I haven’t done much more. We could ride through the night still. I could tell them we succeeded.”
Sir Richard nodded as he looked up from trying to light the wood they had gathered. “Yes, tell the City. And Gimel—you guided me well. Thank you.” Penelope wondered why he smiled queerly as he said this.
The Shepherd smiled slightly in return, swung himself into the saddle, and galloped away. The Knight and the Princess spread their cloaks on the ground and lay down on either side of the fire. Jael stood at the edge of the wavering firelight, quietly munching grass. Cyrus lay down beside his master. Penelope stared listlessly at the dancing flames.
“Velvet could not have carried you both,” Sir Richard said, guessing her thoughts.
“I know,” she answered quietly.
“I understand why you want to get back,” he continued. “It’s your home. Your family is there—your people. They are also anxious for your return. When I went to His Majesty, your father, and asked if I could try to kill the dragon, he explained to me how you went freely to save the City. He said that if I failed to defeat the monster, he would destroy your people because of me. He said the decision belonged to those you saved.
“He called them together the next morning, and asked the if they were willing to risk their lives for you. They all cried out yes! as with one voice. I stood beside the King on the castle battlements, and the noise was deafening.”
Penelope smiled, but turned away from the fire, so he could not see the tears in her eyes.
I know this one’s a little short, but the next part is longer–and. . . I’m really excited about posting it! It’s one of my favorites. 😉
“The Sacrifice”: Part twenty-four
Hello, readers! Today was my first school day after finishing math for the year, making today a very, very good day! In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m feeling unusually chipper. 🙂 Can you blame me? I’m done with math, I’m listening to songs from The Lord of the Rings, and I’m posting the beginning of the happy ending to my first “long” story. A good day in my book. 😉
Anyway, story:
~The Sacrifice~
Part Twenty-fourth: Rescued
Penelope sat leaning against the wall, hugging her knees. Wishing the sounds outside were soft enough that she could drown them out by covering her ears—though at the same time straining for any hint of what was happening.
When the noise finally subsided, the Princess got up and peered into the passageway. She could barely hear a gentle murmur of voices. Could it mean. . . but how could it? A gentle breeze brushed her face, at the same time stirring the dying embers of the kindled leaves, blowing ashes off deeper into the dragon’s lair.