And so we have finally come to the end of the Wintersong readalong. I’ve had some people asking me if I’ll do a Shadowsong readalong as well, and I think I will, but it probably won’t take place until after the new year, as the rest of this year is booked for travel, not to mention I’ll be diving back into ZHARA copyedits and first pass pages.
I’m going to write a longer retrospective in a bit about the experience of rereading my debut novel, but for now, I’m going to answer the most pressing question I get all the time: Are Liesl and the Goblin King going to get together????
Wintersong was written and sold (and conceived, honestly) as a standalone, and the question of whether or not the story was going to end in a romance was less interesting to me than whether or not Liesl finally came to accept herself, entire, by the end. The Goblin King really only exists as a prop to further her journey, as many youthful romantic entanglements can be. I learned a lot about myself through the people I fell in love with as a young person, and I am grateful to them for the role they played in my life. I have also been the prop in someone else’s personal development; young human beings are like dust and star matter coalescing and forming into planets, colliding with other dust and star matter on the way to becoming fully-realized celestial bodies.
So in many ways, I had always known it was going to end like this—Elisabeth alone, but Elisabeth entire. But I left two questions purposefully unresolved, which is the matter of a changeling Josef, as well as what happens if you break the old laws. Because those questions were not part of the scope of Wintersong, I didn’t answer them. It was Liesl’s story, and told from her incredibly close point of view. But I’m also glad I was able to sell Shadowsong, because the scope of that story is bigger than just Liesl’s emotional journey; it’s about the consequences. The unresolved questions.
Anyway, I hope y’all who participated enjoyed this reread along with me!
Wintersong Readalong Week 4
Wintersong Readalong Week 4
Wintersong Readalong Week 4
And so we have finally come to the end of the Wintersong readalong. I’ve had some people asking me if I’ll do a Shadowsong readalong as well, and I think I will, but it probably won’t take place until after the new year, as the rest of this year is booked for travel, not to mention I’ll be diving back into ZHARA copyedits and first pass pages.
I’m going to write a longer retrospective in a bit about the experience of rereading my debut novel, but for now, I’m going to answer the most pressing question I get all the time: Are Liesl and the Goblin King going to get together????
Wintersong was written and sold (and conceived, honestly) as a standalone, and the question of whether or not the story was going to end in a romance was less interesting to me than whether or not Liesl finally came to accept herself, entire, by the end. The Goblin King really only exists as a prop to further her journey, as many youthful romantic entanglements can be. I learned a lot about myself through the people I fell in love with as a young person, and I am grateful to them for the role they played in my life. I have also been the prop in someone else’s personal development; young human beings are like dust and star matter coalescing and forming into planets, colliding with other dust and star matter on the way to becoming fully-realized celestial bodies.
So in many ways, I had always known it was going to end like this—Elisabeth alone, but Elisabeth entire. But I left two questions purposefully unresolved, which is the matter of a changeling Josef, as well as what happens if you break the old laws. Because those questions were not part of the scope of Wintersong, I didn’t answer them. It was Liesl’s story, and told from her incredibly close point of view. But I’m also glad I was able to sell Shadowsong, because the scope of that story is bigger than just Liesl’s emotional journey; it’s about the consequences. The unresolved questions.
Anyway, I hope y’all who participated enjoyed this reread along with me!
하트,
JJ