Today is part one of two where we are talking to PS Nail about her novels. Over the next 2 weeks you will hear about writing as a kid, being inspired by life, publishing your first book as a birthday gift to yourself, writing incredibly fast, following other authors for tips and tricks, using social media to find beta readers, setting smaller goals to feel proud of yourself and keep going and support your fellow indie creators.

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P.S. Nail's Website - P.S. Nail's Facebook Page - P.S. Nail's Instagram - P.S. Nail's Twitter - P.S. Nail's TikTok

Dreaming of becoming an author since she was a young girl, P.S. Nail finally took the plunge and decided to self-publish her debut paranormal romance, Violet Flames.

She enjoys playing guitar, video games, reading, and spending time with friends and family. She currently lives in the United States with her husband, three sons, and pets.

She will continue writing until death, dismissal, or dishonor.

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Welcome to Freya's.

Fairy tales.

We believe fairy tales are both stories we enjoyed as children and something that we can achieve ourselves.

Each week, we will talk to authors about their favorite fairy tales when they were kids and their adventure to holding their very own fairy tale in their hands.

At the end of each episode, we will finish off with a fairy tale or short story read as close to the original author's version as as possible.

I am your host.

Freya victoria I'm an audiobook narrator that loves reading fairy tales, novels and bringing stories to life through narration.

I'm also fascinated by talking to authors and learning about their why and how for creating their stories.

We have included all of the links for today's author and our show in the show notes.

Be sure to check out our website.

And sign up for our newsletter for the latest on the podcast.

Today is part one of two where we are talking to P.

S.

Nail about her novels.

Over the next two weeks you will hear about writing as a kid, being inspired by life, publishing your first book as a birthday gift to yourself, writing incredibly fast, following other authors for tips and tricks, using social media to find beta readers setting smaller goals to feel proud of yourself and keep going and support your fellow indie creators.

Raised by Venom, or has been brewing between two opposing groups for over 300 years.

Ven o m vampire eradicating.

National organization of malice and sav supernaturals against venom.

Elitists Sage, a human trained as a vampire hunter and born into the Venom Society, made a mistake on her first night in the field when she chose the wrong vampire to kill.

She now has a mark on her back from his vengeful, blood sucking brother.

Being terrorized by a vampire is stressful enough, but when secrets about her society are revealed, she struggles with her own moral code.

What is Venom actually doing with its victims?

Luca, a vampire and a member of Save, watched his brothers die at the hands of Sage.

He is strategically planning to mess up her world before getting his revenge.

But what fun would that be without terrifying her first?

The hunter will be the hunted, a sage, and those around her become his prey.

It's easy to make enemies when you have opposing views, and when these two collide, you don't want to be in the way.

Blood will spill and hearts will break in a fight for survival.

The thrill of fighting him was addicting.

He was addicting.

His eyes darkened as he looked at me from under his long lashes.

His hands tightened on my throat and I swallowed hard from the pressure, the nervousness now getting to me.

He moved in close, his nose touching mine.

His fangs were only a breath away, along with his lips.

Sage.

My breaths were ragged as I tried hard to shift my focus, to break the intense eye contact, but I couldn't.

Her beautiful brown irises were giving me life.

The c*** of a small crossbow made me flinch, the fear of death being the only thing that could take my attention from her.

Luca all right, well, this show is.

Freya's Fairy Tales, and that's fairy tales in two ways.

And this would be the part that you didn't hear.

So Freya's Fairy Tales is a show, and that is in two different ways.

So that is fairy tales are something we either watched or read or had read to us as we were kids.

And it's also the journey of spending the weeks, months, years working on your novels to then get to hold them in your hands is a fairy tale for you.

So I like to start off with what was your favorite fairy tale or short story when you were a kid and did your favorite change as you got older?

My favorite as a kid was I was a Hooked on Disney, like most girls.

And the Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast are my two favorites.

And the Little Mermaid is still my favorite.

I can still say the entire movie out loud.

And I have a Hans Christian Anderson's version where she's crying because he dies.

So I have fairy tale princesses.

All so you legit, like fairy tales.

And I've had red hair since I was 15 because of Ariel.

Oh, my gosh.

My hair is naturally black, actually.

So I actually had red hair from, like, 2009.

I was about 19 until last year, like, just before I started the Daily Fiction podcast.

I was like, I'm tired of the upkeep on this.

And so I decided to go brown.

And so we designed the logo with brunette hair.

So it's kind of a, like, cartoonized version of me on the logo for that podcast.

Yeah, red hair.

I love the red hair.

I contemplate going back to the red hair.

I loved it.

I just didn't like that you have to color it all the time.

I hate that I want to go purple so bad because that's my favorite color, but that's why I have it, because I'm like, I don't know.

It's time to upkeep.

And it always pays for the almost natural looking red.

I'm fine with that for like, a month or two.

Yeah.

So my issue is my roots are blonde, so you could definitely see as it start.

And my hair grows really fast.

So mine was not red because of Ariel.

It was just red because in college.

So growing up, I wasn't allowed to color my hair.

And then we were, but it had to be natural colors.

And so then when I got into college, I'm like, I can do what I want now.

I'm living on my own.

So I did my bangs.

I had, like, half of it was black, and the other half was, like, red or purple.

I would change pink, red, purple, depending on the mood.

And my roommates at the time were like, you have a lot going on with the blonde in the back and the red or the color in the black in the front.

They're like, just pick one.

I'm like, okay, we'll go all red.

And then I had, like, a black peekaboo, so I still had dual colors, but the underneath was always black.

One of my favorite things is, let me peacock my feathers.

Let me peek.

I'm like, we went from strict to I can do what I want in college 100.

Yeah.

So at what age did you start writing stories, even if not necessarily the ones you published.

But at what age did you start writing?

I started writing at the age of nine, but I was writing poetry, and then at ten, I started writing stories.

Okay, so a very long time ago.

So your early days, what inspired your writings?

In the early days?

Pretty much a little bit of everything in my actually, I have a poetry book out most people don't know about.

I don't talk about it very often.

I have a poetry book and that there's a couple of poems in there from when I was, like, nine and ten and eleven, and there's, like some of them are about dragons and the sky.

One day I was walking home from the ice cream store, and it was ten with my aunt, and I looked up, and there was literally no stars on the sky.

And I was like, Where are all the stars?

And I at ten.

No one on my end didn't explain to me that the clouds were out really thick.

Right, right.

And I got home and asked my grandma, and she told me, she's like, well, it's just cloudy.

Like, the stars didn't disappear, you know?

They didn't leave.

Yeah, they didn't just, like, fizzle out.

So I actually have a poem about.

That in my poetry that's, like, the one genre that I don't narrate.

I'm, like, slightly traumatized with poetry.

Like, I've had books that had a little bit of poem in there, but the first poem I remember reading was in college, and it was Beowulf.

I was just incredibly traumatized by the professor that made us read this thing that I had to read multiple times to pass all the quizzes and tests, and it was just like, oh, my God.

Oh, yeah.

I don't narrate that.

But I've done fiction with someone wrote a song or they're singing some little tune or whatever.

I've narrated some, but not an entire poetry book.

Yeah, my narrator actually is doing mine right now, and she's about halfway through.

Okay.

I really don't advertise it.

I guess I should do that.

Don't market my photo book.

Hardly at all.

I mean, if you don't want to sell any copies, don't talk about it.

That's a fact.

But that's what I tell my husband.

I'm like, he makes a TikTok.

Neither one of us use our own names.

We use pseudonyms.

And so he finally picked his pseudonym, and I'm like, Cool.

Now you need to start making friends because if people don't know you exist, you will no longer sell anything.

So then he'd be like, I made however many friends today.

And he's like, he's not up to 1000 yet, but he'll pop in and talk on text message stuff on people's lives.

Man, I feel old saying that that way.

Anyways, beyond and talking to people, he'll be like, I made friends, and they just talk on lives.

I'm making an appointment now to once a month market that book.

Just once a month, though.

I can't do it anymore.

In that once a month, I'm going to make an appointment on my phone to remind me.

So you start writing when you're nine.

You actually did publish some of those early stuff, which most people don't.

That's like the back corner of the room in a chest that you never look at again.

Yeah, that's pretty much where I found them, too.

Because your first book, did you publish that last year or was it the year before?

No, you said you're celebrating one year.

Yep.

January 31, 2022, which is actually my birthday.

I published my first book.

I wanted it on my birthday.

I wanted it like a gift to myself.

Cool.

So how long did it take you to write that first book?

Like the first draft?

Three and a half weeks.

Oh, my gosh.

And that's a big boy, isn't it?

5000 words.

Wait, how many 105,000 you wrote in three and a half weeks?

So you write your first draft way faster than anyone I've ever talked to.

And then what did you do with it after you had the first version down?

I had just accidentally found booktock, like, randomly on TikTok.

I never even got on there.

I fell into book talk, and then I noticed I found so many indie authors that were just doing all this on their own, and I'm like, oh, my gosh, I can do this.

Maybe.

I don't know.

Let's try it.

So I immediately put up a post looking for beta readers.

I got like, 30 really quickly, and I gave him the book and let them go just so I can figure out what I need to do.

And then I hired an editor, which is usually I did it backwards.

Right.

But I kind of want to know if it was even worth paying for an editor.

Right.

So I had an editor.

How did I do it?

Hired a cover artist.

Hung fiber.

And here you are.

Yeah.

And then I learned to make my own covers.

So my other covers, after those first two books, I make my own covers now.

Okay.

I actually designed a cover for another author.

And then I was like, hey, this actually isn't that hard.

Although you have a vision in your head of how a cover should be.

And then no one can unless you just find it's the same as picking your narrator.

You want the perfect person that understands what was in your head.

And unless you find that person, no one else is ever going to match up to exactly what you want.

But I designed a cover for this one book.

The COVID wasn't bad.

It's just like it's part of, like an overarching.

He has kind of like it's a collection of these series.

So all these series kind of tie together.

And so I had narrated five of the books, or actually, I'm narrating the fifth right now.

And all the covers look very much the same.

They all have the same feel to them, the same style to them.

And then this other series, it's a totally different theme style.

And I'm like, if this is an overarching, like, all these series tied together, they need to look the same.

He had just lost his job.

And so I was like, I can try my hand at it.

And now he's like, I'm going to pay the person that did my other covers to do it.

I'm like, hey, that's totally fine.

But now I feel comfortable making my own.

Yeah, me too.

And one of the indie authors, which is a great place, I do want to mention in case any indie authors are watching this later, like, getcovers.com it's, like $25.

And they do an excellent job.

So that's one of the things that I might be looking into in the future if I ever run out of time, because that's my thing is I don't have time.

Those are like premade, right?

No, actually, you send them the idea and they do it in the first draft.

I did send one to see how it was because they had a sale for Black Friday.

And I was like, let's see how good they are.

So I sent an idea and they sent back something, and I really didn't like it.

And I told them they sent back something completely different.

And I loved it.

And I was like, that's really close to what I wanted.

And that's kind of for that price, I was like, that's crazy.

Yeah.

So I know some people can't afford to have really good artists going to work on their work.

Unfortunately.

I am kind of lazy.

And I'll explain this.

I want to make it big with writing and podcasts and stuff like that.

But I don't want to like with podcasting.

The way you make money is you.

Have advertisers on your podcast.

And it might be slightly imposter syndrome, but I'm like, I don't want to have to go find them.

I know if I make it to a certain point, they'll start reaching out to me.

And that's a lot easier for me than having to spend all this time pitching my show to people.

Yeah, so they reached out to like a handful and never heard anything back.

And I'm just like, we'll just wait until they reach out to me.

Same with publishing.

I'm like, would I complain if a big five wanted to publish my book?

No.

Am I going to spend the years pitching my book to all these agents?

No, I'm not going to do that.

Self publish and see what happens.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I did.

And I don't know if I'd ever go as a publisher because it's a rough place for me because I have control issues, and I'm not going to take something on my book because you said it, so sorry.

I'd rather just and if that means making less money and it is what it is, I can't help the way I am.

Well, I mean, less money, it depends on how you look at it.

So if you're marketing your book well, you get to keep 100% of everything you make beyond what you're paying out to the people doing, you know, the editing and the covers or whatever you're having done for you, where like or if you are royalty sharing a book, you're obviously splitting that money with your narrator.

But with publishing, they're taking their cut off that, too.

So making less money, maybe if you're not ever talking about to sell it.

Yeah, you have to sell a lot to make good money.

With a publisher, too, it's 22 either way.

So you put out your first book on your birthday.

You find your beta readers to talk about and promote your book.

Obviously they liked it because you kept going.

Yeah.

So kind of how did you start talking about it?

You fell into book talk.

What did you start doing to talk about it on there?

I was just paying attention to what other indie authors are doing, and then I made some friends who were telling me, you can make these kinds of videos or you can do this.

And they were kind of giving me a little bit of a push to go in what direction to do.

So that's kind of what I did.

I pay attention to what everyone does, and I hope a lot of Indians as well.

Now that I know a little bit more, I still call myself a baby author.

I probably call myself that years from now.

I might level up to preteen.

Yeah.

I think it was a K mullard.

I was like, at what point do you consider, like, you've made it?

Because I feel like every time you set a goal, you move the goalpost.

Is it five books published, $100,000, made so many reviews on your book, what's the goal that makes you a big deal now?

Yeah.

What's the golden ticket?

Someone needs to tell us, because I.

Think everybody's is different, and I think the more type A you are, the more you're going to struggle with that.

Yeah.

Then you got the ones that I love the saying that imposters don't get imposter syndrome.

I'm so awesome.

And everybody's like, who are you?

I'm bad about saying, oh, my God, I suck.

And I need to stop saying that, really?

Because I start believing it.

I say that too.

Like, with my audiobooks, I'm like, Gosh, my audiobooks were terrible in the beginning.

If you listen to old fiction podcasts, like, the first couple of books that I did, I'm like, it was terrible.

But then I did the best job I could at the time.

So if you constantly aim for I'm not going to put it out till it's perfect.

You're not going to put anything out ever.

No, you're not.

Because I'm a better writer now.

I just released my third novel.

I'm a better writer now than I was on my first novel.

And I went back and read it.

I'm like, oh, my God, I did that.

I'm constantly updated.

I will update stuff if I see something.

Like I'm like, oh, I shouldn't have put that.

That word is like, I don't know, it's not strong enough, and I'm bad.

So what do you feel has helped you get better?

Reading a lot of novels and writing.

And when I read now, I still read for the story, but I also pay attention to a lot of things that some people do, like the wording and stuff, because I'm bad about when I put my first draft, especially sometimes I'll write the sentences I don't want to say backwards, but, like, my pros is weird.

Yeah, it's definitely a little weird sometimes.

And I'm like, why did I say it like that?

I wouldn't have said it like that in real life.

But I think when you're typing so fast, you just rank it sometimes.

And I do type fast.

Yeah, I've had a couple authors where I'm reading through their book ahead of narrating it, and some of the sayings will be kind of flip flopped.

And I'm like, I don't know if that's how we say it in the south, and that's not how you say it up north, or if it's just like, you're like, well, these words are in that thing somewhere.

Yeah, it's just our brace.

The words got on the page.

Yeah, that's all that matters.

That's all we care about.

The words got on the page.

We can fix that later.

So you published, so that's three books we're up to.

You did the poetry book, and then you have two other novels out, right?

Yeah, I have three novels and a poetry book total.

So I have four books total.

Okay.

And so you start toward the end of the year, branching into audiobook narration.

How is that listening to snippets of your books?

It's so weird because I like everybody, but I don't feel like no one's like that's.

It for the longest time, it's really hard for me.

Like you said, my characters are in my head.

I listen to them.

I listen to everything they tell me.

They'll all be in the shower, and they're like, oh, I have a scene for you.

And I'm like, no, every time I'm in the shower, they have scenes, so I hear them, and I know that sounds psychotic thing that I will it is, but I've heard other authors say the same thing, so it makes me more comfortable knowing that I am not alone.

For the longest time, I thought there was something wrong with me.

Right.

Well, that's part of if you've been narrating for any length of time, you just know.

Like, I got a message from someone yesterday that was like, hey, I loved your audition, but you're not quite right for this book.

Yeah, totally get it.

I'm like that's.

Totally okay.

That I don't match 100% the voice that was in your head.

Maybe down the road I'll match whatever voice was in your head for the next book.

Yeah, it's part of the game.

You just hope that you don't get that message that I had one guy that was clearly just trying to sell coaching services because he's like, God, your audition was so bad, but you can pay me to coach you, and I'll make it better.

And I'm like, And I will never hire you, because that is a terrible way to promote your service.

Taxi.

I'm like, no, a better way would be like, hey, here's what you did really well.

But again, if I'm auditioning for your book, I'm not looking for coaching tips.

Exactly.

People are weird.

That's like hiring an editor that only tears down your book.

Like, they don't say anything good about it ever.

It's just not fun.

Also, don't hire the one that only says good things, either.

There's, like, this fine media, and you got to find that person.

So things I've learned during this podcast hire an editor that likes your genre.

Hire an editor that does their job so they're actually editing and possibly telling you what things you're doing well, which.

Is kind of all the same.

Like, hey, you did this really well, but, hey, this part over here is a little weird.

Yes, exactly.

Or, hey, you're missing a scene about you mentioned this, but that never happens anywhere in this entire book.

I've done that, and I had to go back and add stuff.

I'm like, Why did I even say this if I wanted to do it?

I'm sure it was probably a thought in your head at some point, and then you just forgot to go at it.

Exactly.

So are you more of a beginning to end writer, or do you jump around while you're writing?

How does that process work on novels?

Poems are different, obviously.

Yeah.

I found out that I'm a chaotic panther.

Puzzle panther is what they're calling it.

Okay, I don't know what that means.

A puzzle panther.

I don't outline.

I just listen to what the characters tell me.

I write pieces of scenes that just pop in my head randomly.

So I'll write the beginning of the book or a piece from the middle or the quarter.

Sometimes I'll write the ends towards the beginning of me starting the writing process.

I write them all and then I fill in the gaps, and then I'm done, of course.

And then 17,000 rounds of editing.

Right.

I puzzle everything together afterwards.

Yeah.

I mean, I'm a beginning to end, but I've heard of many people that do.

I haven't heard it called puzzle piece, but writing or some that are like, I'm really tired of writing all this filler stuff to get us to point B.

Let's just go ahead and write point B and then fill it in.

Yeah, that's pretty much what I do.

It's just puzzle it all together in the shower.

Yeah, exactly.

So do you have, like, a notepad outside your shower or your phone notes?

How do you remember?

Are you running with a towel around you to your computer?

Surprisingly, they don't shut.

My characters don't shut up.

So those keep saying the same thing until I get out and fix it.

Sometimes I'll even go to work and the scene will even get bigger and bigger until I get home.

And I'm like, go into sound ignore that.

Sound effects I just did.

That's me typing.

That happens to me with books.

I'll read a series and then I'll have a scene from that series playing in my head.

And then sometimes it was really bad when I would do I use Scribed, the reading app.

Scribed, Scribd, whatever you want to call it.

And so I would read all these indie authors and random authors because, like, publishers, they kind of cycle the publishers books.

So I would read a series and then I'd get a scene stuck in my head.

And you just pray to God that you can Google what you can remember of that scene to hopefully figure out what book that was from because I'm terrible at remembering the character's names, the book name, the series name, the author name.

I'm like, I just remember the scene that I remember.

Yeah, exactly.

I have one series that I've read through three or four times now because that's the same exact scene.

So finally, after the third time reading it digitally, I bought the series so that I had it now so I could remember easier.

That one series you've had to Google multiple times.

Yeah, I do that in my own books.

I'm like, I wrote this when someone tells me, oh, when this happens.

And I'm like, yeah, now I have to go look it up.

And I'm like, I don't remember what I do.

People, my characters do it not me.

I just put it on paper.

You're like, I've slept since I wrote that.

I don't 100%, pretty much.

So we talked about balancing things at the beginning.

My nearest resolutions for this year is more balanced.

Where I can do last year was a lot of, like, I tried balancing at the beginning, and then it became a whole lot of just like, prepping other people's books and narrating other people's books and nothing of my own stuff.

This year, I'm like, we're going to read at least a chapter a day in a book off my bookshelf.

We're going to do at least ten minutes on my own book that hasn't been worked on in months.

Ideally, I can read more than that and write more than that, but that's a starting place.

I can read through their very short chapters because mine, I've written mostly only dialogue at this point, but I can read through one to two chapters in ten minutes to where I can make progress because I don't remember what I've written at this point because it's been six months since I wrote on it.

I don't remember what I written last week.

I can't imagine going six months.

I'd be like, Did I even start that book?

Yeah.

In my head, I'm like, I remember it's about superheroes and there's vaccines involved.

But what else happens?

I don't remember.

Where did potato come from?

What's the potato about?

I remember that I exceeded my best friend's spice level.

We talk about books that we read or whatever, and spicy books.

And in my head, I don't even think about different people have different definitions for Spice vocabulary.

And so I'm like writing my book at I would not consider it, like, Sierra Simone level.

Spice, like, under, that for sure.

For sure.

But not like Nicholas Sparks either.

It's way above that.

I'm, like, riding along, and she's alpha reading for me, and she gets to, like, the first scene of anything, and I get like, a Christina Aguilera meme back where she's like, waving her face.

I'm like, maybe I should have asked what the spiciest book you ever read was.

And she sends back, like, I don't even remember something that is not even close to anything that I would have ever considered spicy.

And I'm like, I'm so sorry.

I have no filter with spicy words.

I will use all of them.

I don't like to use members and stuff.

I like to use the words.

Oh, my gosh, I just prepped.

So typically, I'm kind of used to have done a lot of romance audiobooks at this point, and I'm kind of used to the same words getting used over and over and over again.

But I was just prepping a book and she like, varies the words that she used.

And I'm like, this is fantastic.

Someone used a thesaurus.

There's different words used.

It's not just c*** every 5 seconds.

This is great.

I have to spread out my so we're allowed to say all the words in here?

Oh, it's much explicit, so it doesn't matter.

Oh, good, because I've been holding back.

Over here go for.

It.

Everybody knows me.

I'm a spicy author, so this is my thing.

So I was cutting on TikTok yesterday is kind of my thing, but accidentally on purpose.

But I use all the bad words for sure.

But I do have Alpha readers that come in and they're like, okay, you just said c*** twice in the same sentence, almost pretty.

I was like, yeah, I do go back and I break them up.

But I do use pretty much all the bad words in the beginning.

That's just how they come in my head.

Yeah, I'm going to break up my flow.

I'm from the South Bible Belt of most of my family is very conservative and don't know anything about what they know.

I narrate, but not what I narrate.

We keep things separate.

They know about my fiction podcast, which I host under a different name so that they can know about that and I can talk about that.

And then the rest of it.

It's like, I did 57 books this year.

Not going to tell you how, but I did.

But there's no world in which I would ever tell them that I wrote things.

But Freya Victoria has become kind of the like, we're just going to go with all fiction things, and books that I write are going to be under that.

And my husband picked a name so he can do his separately because it's like the book he's currently writing.

There's no way I could narrate that one, but in the future, eventually, maybe I would narrate one of his.

This one has too many accents.

I could not do all of them.

I'm like, you need a narrator that knows those already because it will take me too long to learn them.

Yeah, right.

So as you are working on building this and promoting your books and stuff, what are things that you kind of try to keep in the back of your head as you're making the TikTok videos and as you're writing the books?

I guess I really don't.

I'm a panther in life, too.

I feel like doing a video today, literally.

I'll have days where I don't feel like doing them, and sometimes I just don't.

And TikTok pretty much will mark you down as being bad for the day because they lower all your views the next day if you do that.

So I try really hard to post daily, but whatever inspires me.

Sometimes it's a song and I'm like, oh, that's a good idea.

And other times, just when inspiration hits, I go with it, and other times I have no inspiration.

I'm like, well, I guess we're just going to start sharing all my friends with everything that they have.

I'm doing editing until I get inspiration again.

Yeah, I've just recently started reposting stuff.

I repost a lot, too.

Yeah, I don't know that I ever really did that, but then I'm like, there's nothing wrong with it.

How does that work?

Can they see it on your profile or it boosts it, or do you have any idea how that works?

Yeah, it doesn't show up on your profile, but it helps your friends.

So any Nd author, if I see their release date, I definitely post or try to repost for them or do it and share.

And it comes up to my friends that might not have seen their video, or if we both have mutual friends, it'll push it to that friend a little bit more than if they missed it.

So it does help the algorithm if you repost.

So I repost the crap out of everything.

Yeah, I think I try to leave the there's a couple of controversies going on right now that I'm just like, because people are like, due and whatever.

I'm like, you realize you're giving that person more attention than they deserve.

Like, stop talk about them, but don't link to them in any way.

Yeah, I refuse to do it.

Anyone that has problematic content or anything, I'm not going to or controversial content anyway, I'm not going to give them views or likes or comments.

I'm not going to even share their video.

I'll share someone else's video that's talking about it before I share that.

Yeah, I'm not going to give them an attention.

Well, there's half the stuff, so sometimes I come across or like, someone will do it, whatever the video is.

And then sometimes I'm like, I have no idea what's going on.

And then I try to find the rabbit trail that it came from, and then you're just like, eventually someone will give you the low down of the whole thing.

I always see stuff when it's either at the end I usually dead smack in the middle, or at the end.

I never seen the beginning.

I'm like, when did this happen?

It's like they go on for three or five days, and I'm like, okay, I don't know.

And then sometimes I just sent screenshots to Ruthie because someone who's been problematic popped back up randomly.

I came across alive, and I'm like, Ruthie, he's back under a different name.

Oh, no, it is.

I mean the things.

And I just saw a video of this.

Like booktock doesn't forget things.

I think it was Amanda Mant was talking about that.

She's like booktock doesn't forget.

They've got the screenshots and the videos recorded to post later or the Twitter threads or whatever.

Yeah, I forget a lot of things.

If I've had any authors on here that were controversial, I had no idea because I can't remember anything.

That's why I make you guys sign a form so that if anything bad ever happened, I have the authority to pull it.

Yeah, hopefully that wouldn't happen.

I mean, there's a couple of people I definitely remember that they did stuff, but other ones I'm not on TikTok a whole lot, and I can't remember all the names I'm terrible at names.

Oh, yeah.

I can't remember anyone's name at the time.

P.

S.

Now liked the little merbant growing up.

The Little Mermaid is a literary fairy tale written by the Danish author Hans Christian Anderson.

The story follows the journey of a young mermaid who's willing to give up her life in the sea as a mermaid to gain a human soul.

The tale was first published in 1837 as part of a collection of fairy tales for children.

The original story has been a subject of multiple analyses by scholars such as Jacob Bogild and Pernell Hagard, as well as the folklorist Maria Tadar.

These analyses cover various aspects of the story, from interpreting the themes to discussing why Anderson chose to write a tragic story with a happy ending.

It has been adapted to various media, including musical theater, anime, ballet, opera and film.

There's also a statue portraying the mermaid in Copenhagen, Denmark, where the story was written and first published.

Today we'll be reading The Story of the Siren by E m.

Forster.

Don't forget we're reading Les Mort DeArthur, the story of King Arthur and of his noble Knights of the Round Table on our patreon.

You can find the link in the show notes.

The Story of the Siren few things have been more beautiful than my notebook on the deed controversy.

As it fell downward through the waters of the Mediterranean, it dived like a piece of black slate, but opened soon, disclosing leaves of pale green which quivered into blue.

Now it had vanished.

Now it was a piece of magical India rubber stretching out to infinity.

Now it was a book again, but bigger than the book of all knowledge.

It grew more fantastic as it reached the bottom, or a puff of sand welcomed it and obscured it from view.

But it reappeared quite sane, though a little tremulous, lying decently open on its back, while unseen fingers fidgeted among its leaves.

It is such a pity, said my aunt, that you will not finish your work in the hotel.

Then you would be free to enjoy yourself and this would never have happened.

Nothing of it but will change into something rich and strange.

Warbled the chaplain, while his sister said, why, it's gone into the water.

As for the boatman, one of them laughed, while the other, without a word of warning, stood up and began to take his clothes off.

Holy Moses.

Cried the colonel.

Is the fellow mad?

Yes, thank him, dear, said my aunt.

That is to say, tell him he is very kind, but perhaps another time.

All the same, I do want my book back, I complained.

It's for my fellowship dissertation.

There won't be much left of it by another time.

I have an idea, said some woman or other through her parasol.

Let us leave this child of nature to dive for the book while we go on to the other grotto.

We can land him either on this rock or on the legend side, and he'll be ready when we return.

The idea seemed good, and I improved it by saying I would be left behind, too, to lighten the boat.

So the two of us were deposited outside the little grotto on a great sunlit rock that guarded the harmonies within.

Let us call them blue, though they suggest rather the spirit of what is clean.

Cleanliness passed from the domestic to the sublime, the cleanliness of all the sea gathered together in radiating light.

The blue grotto at Capri contains only more blue water, not blue or water that color.

And that spirit is the heritage of every cave in the Mediterranean into which the sun can shine and the sea flow.

As soon as the boat left, I realized how imprudent I had been to trust myself on a sloping rock with an unknown Sicilian.

With a jerk he became alive.

Seizing my arm and saying, go to the end of the grotto and I'll show you something beautiful.

He made me jump off the rock onto the ledge over a dazzling crack of sea.

He drew me away from the light till I was standing on the tiny beach of sand, which emerged like powdered turquoise at the further end.

There he left me with his clothes and returned swiftly to the summit of the entrance rock.

For a moment he stood naked in the brilliant sun, looking down at the spot where the book lay, and he crossed himself, raised his hands above his head and dived.

If the book was wonderful, the man is past all description.

His effect was that of a silver statue alive beneath the sea, through whom life throbbed in blue and green, something infinitely happy, infinitely wise.

But it was impossible that it should emerge from the depths, sunburnt and dripping, holding the notebook on the deep controversy between its teeth.

A gratuity is generally expected by those who bathe.

Whatever I offered, he was sure to want more, and I was disinclined for an argument in a place so beautiful and also so solitary.

It was a relief that he should say in conversational tones, in a place like this, one might see the siren.

I was delighted with him for thus falling into the key of his surroundings.

We had been left together in a magic world apart from all the commonplaces that are called reality, a world of blue whose floor was the sea and whose walls and roof of rock trembled with the sea's reflections.

Here only the fantastic would be tolerable.

And it was in that spirit that I echoed his words.

One might easily see the Siren.

He watched me curiously while he dressed.

I was parting the sticky leaves of the notebook as I sat on the strip of sand.

He said at last you may have read the little book that was printed last year.

You would have thought that our Siren would have given the foreigner's pleasure I read it afterwards.

Its account is not unnaturally incomplete in spite of there being a woodcut of the young person and the words of her song.

She comes out of this blue water, doesn't she?

I suggested and sits on the rock at the entrance, combing her hair.

I wanted to draw him out.

I was interested in his sudden gravity and there was a suggestion of irony in his last remark that puzzled me.

Have you ever seen her?

Often and often I never.

But you have heard her sing.

He put on his coat and said impatiently how can she sing under the water?

Who could?

She sometimes tries, but nothing comes from Herbert great bubbles.

She should climb up onto the rock then how can she?

He cried again, quite angry.

The priests have blessed the air so she cannot breathe it and bless the rock so that she cannot sit on them.

But the sea no man can bless because it is too big and always changing.

Therefore she lives in the sea.

I was silent at this.

His face took a gentler expression.

He looked at me as though something was on his mind and going out to the entrance rock, gazed at the external blue.

Then, returning into our twilight, he said as a rule, only good people see the siren.

I made no comment.

There was a pause and he continued that is a very strange thing, and the priests do not know how to account for it.

For she, of course, is wicked.

Not only those who fast and go to Mass are in danger but even those who are merely good in daily life.

No one in the village had seen her for two generations.

I'm not surprised.

We all cross ourselves before we enter the water, but it is unnecessary.

Gospel, we thought, was safer than most.

We loved him, and many of us he loved.

But that is a different thing to being good.

I asked who Giuseppe was that day.

I was 17 and my brother was 20 and a great deal stronger than I was.

And it was the year when the visitors who've brought such prose, parody and so many alterations into the village first began to come.

One English lady in particular, a very high birth, came and has written a book about the place and it was through her that the improvement syndicate was formed which is about to connect the hotels with the station by means of a funicular railway.

Don't tell me about that lady in here, I observed that day.

We took her and her friends to see the grottos.

As we rode close under the cliffs, I put out my hand, as one does, and caught a little crab and having pulled off its claws, offered it as a curiosity.

The ladies groaned, but a gentleman was pleased and held out money.

Being inexperienced, I refused it, saying that his pleasure was sufficient reward.

Jusippi, who was rowing behind was very angry with me and reached out with his hand and hit me on the side of the mouth so that a tooth cut my lip and I bled.

I tried to hit him back, but he always was too quick for me and as I stretched round he kicked me under the armpit so that for a moment I could not even row.

There was a great noise among the ladies and I heard afterwards that they were planning to take me away from my brother and train me as a waiter that at all events never came to pass.

When we reached the grotto not here, but a larger one the gentleman was very anxious that one of us should die for money and the ladies consented, as they sometimes do.

Giuseppe, who had discovered how much pleasure it gives foreigners to see us in the water refused to dive for anything but silver and the gentleman threw in two lira peace.

Just before my brother sprang off he caught sight of me holding my bruise and crying, for I could not help it.

He laughed and said this time, at all events I shall not see the Siren and went into the blue water without crossing himself.

But he saw her.

He broke off and accepted a cigarette.

I watched the golden entrance rock and the quivering walls and the magic water through which great bubbles constantly rose.

At last he dropped his hot ash into the ripples and turned his head away and said he came up without the coin.

We pulled him into the boat and he was so large that he seemed to fill it and so wet that we could not dress him.

I've never seen a man so wet.

I and the gentleman rode back and we covered Giuseppe with sacking and propped him up in the stern.

He was drowned then, I murmured supposing that to be the point.

He was not.

He cried angrily.

He saw the siren.

I told you.

I was silenced again.

We put him to bed, though he was not ill.

The doctor came and took money and the priest came and took more and smothered him with incense and smattered him with holy water.

But it was no good.

He was too big, like a piece of the sea.

He kissed the thumb bones of San Biagio and they never dried till evening.

What did he look like?

I ventured.

Like anyone who has seen the siren.

If you have seen her often and often, how is it you do not know?

Unhappy.

Unhappy.

Unhappy because he knew everything.

Every living thing made him unhappy because he knew it would die and all he cared to do was to sleep.

I bent over my notebook.

He did no work.

He forgot to eat.

He forgot whether he had clothes on.

All the work fell on me and my sister had to go out to service.

We tried to make him into a beggar, but he was too robust to inspire pity and as for an idiot he had not the right look in his eyes.

He would stand in the street looking at people and the more he looked at them the more unhappy he became.

When a child was born he would cover his face with his hands if anyone was married.

He was terrible then and would frighten them as they came out of church.

Who would have believed he would marry himself?

I caused that.

I I was reading out of the paper how a girl at Regusa had gone mad through bathing in the sea.

Giuseppe got up and in a week he and that girl came in together.

He never told me anything but it seems that he went straight to her house, broke into her room and carried her off.

She was the daughter of a rich mine owner so you may imagine our peril.

Her father came down with a clever lawyer but they could do no more than I.

They argued and they threatened but at last they had to go back and we lost nothing.

That is to say, no money.

We took Giuseppe and Maria to the church and had them married.

Ugh that wedding the priest made no jokes afterwards and coming out the children threw stones.

I think I would have died to make her happy but as always happens, one could do nothing.

Were they unhappy together then?

They loved each other.

But love is not happiness.

We can all get love.

Love is nothing.

Love is everywhere.

Since the death of Jesus Christ I had two people to work for now for she was like him in everything.

One never knew which one of them was speaking.

I had to sell our own boat and work under the bad old man you have today.

Worst of all people began to hate us the children.

First everything begins with them and then the women and last of all the men.

For the cause of every misfortune was you will not betray me.

I promised good faith.

And immediately he burst into the frantic blasphemy of one who has escaped from supervision cursing the priests the lying, filthy, cheating, immoral priests who had ruined his life, who had murdered his brother and the girl whom he dared not murder back because they held the key of heaven and could ruin him in the next life too.

Thus are we tricked was his cry and he stood up and kicked at the azure ripples with his feet till he had obscured them with a cloud of sand.

I too was moved.

The story of Giuseppe, for all its absurdity and superstition came nearer to reality than anything I had known before.

I don't know why, but it filled me with desire to help others.

The greatest of all our desires, I suppose and the most fruitless.

The desire soon passed.

She was about to have a child.

That was the end of everything.

People said to me when will your charming nephew be born?

What a cheerful, attractive child he will be, with such a father and mother.

I kept my face steady and replied I think he may be.

Out of sadness shall come gladness it is one of our proverbs.

And my answer frightened them very much and they told the priests who were frightened too.

Then the whisper started that the child would be antichrist.

You need not be afraid, he was never born.

An old witch began to prophesy and no one stopped her.

Giuseppei and the girl, she said, had silent devils who could do little harm but the child would always be speaking and laughing and perverting and last of all he would go into the sea and fetch up the siren into the air and all the world would see her and hear her sing.

As soon as she sang the seven vials would be opened and the Pope would die and mango bello flame and the veil of Santa Agata would be burnt.

Then the boy and the siren would marry and together they would rule the world forever and ever.

The whole village was in Tumult and the hotel keepers became alarmed, for the tourist season was just beginning.

They met together and decided that Giuseppei and the girl must be sent inland until the child was born and they subscribed the money.

The night before they were to start there was a full moon and when, from the east and all along the coast the sea shot up over the cliffs and silver clouds.

It is a wonderful sight and Maria said she must see it once more.

Do not go, I said.

I saw the priest go by and someone with him and the hotel keepers do not like you to be seen and if we displease them also we shall starve.

I want to go, she replied.

The sea is stormy and I may never feel it again.

No, he is right, said Giuseppe.

Don't go, or let one of us go with you.

I want to go alone, she said, and she went alone.

I tied up their luggage in a piece of cloth.

And then I was so unhappy at thinking I should lose them that I went and sat down by my brother and put my arm round his neck.

And he put his arm around me, which he had not done for more than a year.

And we remained thus I don't remember how long.

Suddenly the door flew open and moonlight and wind came in together and a child's voice said, laughing, they've pushed her over the cliffs into the sea.

I step to the drawer where I keep my knives and the child ran away.

Sit down again, said Gioseepi.

Giuseppe, of all people.

If she's dead, why should others die too?

I guess who it is, I cried, and I will kill him.

I was almost out of the door, but he tripped me up and, kneeling upon me, took hold of both my hands and sprained my wrists.

First my right one, then my left.

No one but Giuseppe would have thought of such a thing.

It hurt more than you would suppose, and I fainted.

When I woke up, he was gone, and I've never seen him again.

But Giuseppe disgusted me.

I told you he was wicked, he said.

No one would have expected him to see the Siren.

How do you know he did see her then?

Because they did not see her often and often but once.

Why do you love him if he's wicked?

He laughed for the first time.

That was his only reply.

Is that the end?

I asked, feeling curiously ashamed.

I never killed her murderer, for by the time my wrists were well, he was in America, and one cannot kill a priest.

As for Giuseppe, he went all over the world, too, looking for someone else who had seen the Siren, either a man, or better still, a woman, for then the child might still have been born.

At last he came to Liverpool is the district probable?

And there he began to cough and spat blood until he died.

I do not suppose there's anyone living now who has seen her.

There has seldom been more than one in a generation, and never in my life will there be both a man and a woman from whom that child can be born.

Who will fetch up the Siren from the sea and destroy silence and save the world.

Save the world.

I cried.

Did the prophecy end like that?

He leaned back against the rock, breathing deep through all the blue green reflections.

I saw him color.

I heard him say, silence and loneliness cannot last forever.

It may be a hundred or a thousand years, but the sea lasts longer, and she shall come out of it and sing.

I would have asked him more, but at that moment the whole cave darkened, and there rode in through its narrow entrance the returning boat.

Thank you for joining Freya's fairy tales.