Jamie Ferguson

I finished a story, again! I actually finished this one a week ago, but my writing group (and my mom – hi, Mom!) pointed out a few things I needed to work on. This is a fairy tale story based on “The Glass Coffin” from The Brothers Grimm (also called “The Crystal Coffin” in Andrew Lang’s The Green Fairy Book). The feedback was that I’d been a little too true to the original fairy tale in ways that are a bit hard to accept in fairy tale retelling, and as soon as I heard that I was like OH RIGHT. I made a few modifications, procrastinated because I wasn’t sure what to do, and then figured it out and finished patching up the story. It’s called “Magic and Machinery,” and will be out in an anthology in about a month.

Tomorrow is Jasper’s Gotcha Day! Five years ago I drove to Omaha, Nebraska with my friend Kristin. I’d seen photos and one short video of Jasper, and had spoken with his foster person, but made the eight hour drive knowing that if it didn’t feel like a good fit I’d have spent two vacation days for naught. It was, of course, an awesome fit. At one point I turned to Kristin and asked if I was making a mistake, and she said something like: “You wanted a friendly, super high energy border collie. He’s exactly what you were looking for.” And he was – and still is!!!

Eleven months later we adopted Rosie, not realizing what a perfect match these two would be. We are very, very lucky!!!

I’ve written two stories with cat protagonists, several more with feline side characters, but so far only one with a dog character. Coincidentally, that dog looks an awful lot like Jasper. I have one more story idea with a dog side character, but have never written anything where the dog is the main character. Not that I have to, of course, but I’m trying to figure out why cats are so easy to write. Or perhaps they’re not, and I just have found the right personalities for my cat characters, so they’ve felt easy?

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He set the crystal down on the table and touched one side of the glass box that sat in the middle of the table. “This contains the inn itself.” He waved a hand at the other vials. “And each of those holds one of the people you met at the inn—every guest, every member of the staff. Even the resident cat. And all of them will remain imprisoned until you agree to marry me.”

“Where is my brother?” Maude asked. Much to her annoyance, her voice wavered on the last word. Not only had Roderick transformed Gerhardt, he’d captured all of those other people—and the cat. They’d all been turned into vapor because of this madman’s obsession with her. The young man she’d spoken with at the concierge desk that morning, the charming tailor, the pair of little old ladies… She swallowed.

“Your brother, as I believe you surmised, has been turned into a stag,” he said. “He is now wandering the forest, eating daisies, or whatever it is that deer do.” He smiled. “I do hope he avoids the hunting party he and I saw earlier this morning. I don’t think they’ll recognize him in his current form.”

– from “Magic and Machinery”

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I’ve got a good start on the next story (that’s the fairy tale story with the dragon), and have a somewhat vague but coalescing idea for the story after that (it will involve dinosaurs – yes, dinosaurs). I’ve also done a LOT of cover research and experimentation over the past few days, and finally found the perfect font for the fairy tale anthology series I’m putting together. Now I just have to finalize the look and feel of the cover. My original cover scheme looks great on my computer, but turned out to be a bit harder to read on my iPad, so I’m trying out different colors and different formats.

But for now I’m going to go give Jasper a kiss.

I helped kick off 2018 by prepping lots and lots of food for my sister’s annual New Year’s Eve party. I couldn’t eat most of it, of course – I have a few food allergies which make dining experiences a bit of a challenge. But I was able to drink the prosecco!

My favorite recipe was the cucumber soup. Okay, it’s also the only dish I tried, and that’s just because I spilled some on my fingers while I was filling up these cute little glasses. But it was scrumptious nonetheless. I believe the recipe called for two cucumbers, one avocado, lime, and salt. You puree all that, then add a few drops of avocado oil on top.

I also helped prep a lot of other dishes. I don’t actually know what everything was, but I did put the salmon ceviche in this photo on toothpicks, along with cherry tomatoes and chunks of red bell pepper. I also stuffed wontons, chopped chives, and stuck toothpicks in a variety of things. And see all those sparkly decorations on the table? I scattered those around the room for decoration until my fingers got sore from turning the little circles right-side up.

After enjoying the festivities for a few hours, I came home and celebrated the new year by drinking wine, eating nachos (yes, I know you’re not supposed to drink wine with nachos, but I do), and playing ball with Rosie and Jasper. It was a great evening!

My latest writing project is a quest story based off of “The Glass Coffin,” a fairy tale recorded by The Brothers Grimm. It appears as “The Crystal Coffin” in The Green Fairy Book by Andrew Lang.

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The man walked across the room toward her bed. Maude watched him, with growing dread. As he got closer she recognized him – it was Roderick, from dinner. What was he doing in her bedchamber? And why couldn’t she move, nor utter the slightest sound?

Roderick sat on the edge of her bed and took her hand in his. The cold, hard metal of the ring he wore on his pinky finger rubbed against her skin.

“My dearest Maude,” he said. The moonlight cast shadows across his face. “I apologize for waking you, but I simply couldn’t wait until tomorrow. I caused that lovely music to play in order to awaken you. I have fallen in love with you, and want you to be my bride.”

His bride? Who broke into a woman’s rooms, cast a magic spell so she couldn’t escape, and then proposed?

– from the first draft of a story based on “The Glass Coffin“

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I’m changing the story a bit – for example, in the traditional tale the protagonist is a tailor who frees the girl from the glass coffin, but I’m writing this from the girl’s viewpoint. (I came up with the names Maude and Roderick – no one appears to have a name in the original story.) It’s interesting to work with an existing story like this. I’ve cut out a few things and am making a few slight changes here and there, but the core of the story is the same. I even wrote an outline. I knew I needed to stick with the basic story, so having an outline is very helpful because the structure is already set, and this way I won’t veer off course.

I’ve committed to writing at least eighteen short stories this year, so after this fairy tale story, I’ll only have seventeen to go! Eighteen does seem a bit alarming, especially considering all the other stuff I’ve got on my list as well (novels, anthologies, and I even have a short vacation coming up! Hooray!). But I know it’s doable – I just have to be really, really diligent about staying on track. Over the past week I spent a lot of time getting things organized – for example, I have the artwork picked out and the basic cover design done for the next three books in the faery series. I figure the further ahead I get, the less stressed I’ll be – and I’ll also be better able to adjust to whatever unexpected things come up, since of course something will happen sooner or later…