Today is part two of two where we are talking to ML Burns about her novels. After today you will have heard about starting with text based role playing and moving into novels, overcoming writing challenges and imposter syndrome, listening to what your readers want, within reason, getting your book ready for release, working with author friends to cross-promote books, writing non-standard POVs, and the best advice she’s received that you cannot edit a blank page.

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I’m a new author of adult dark fantasy and am excited about joining the world of writing with all the amazing artists out there! Not super sure what i put here but, i love: video games, writing and reading fantasy, GoT, ACOTAR. I live in Spain with my daughter ( 3 y/o) and husband of 18 years 🤗

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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 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 am 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.

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The latest on the podcast.

Today is part two of two, where we are talking to ML Burns about her novels.

After today, you will have heard about.

Starting with text based role playing and.

Moving into novels, overcoming writing challenges and imposter syndrome, listening to what your readers want within reason, getting your book ready for release, working with author friends to cross promote books, writing nonstandard povs, and the best advice she's received?

That you cannot edit a blank page the hourglass keeper time has never been on Azahara's side.

Exhausted from her relentless pursuit to break from the clutches of an obsessive God's curse, she has all but given up hope of freedom.

Until Cade, a half blood elf, saves her from certain death, they find themselves bound together by a force they could never have anticipated.

As their journey unfolds, the upcoming conflict will test this newfound connection to prove it to be her salvation or her downfall.

Amidst their growing bond, the realm teeters on the edge of destruction due to the volatile shift of magic, while Cade is bound by duty to the king and his kingdom.

As Ahara struggles to maintain a delicate balance with the sands of time, can she safeguard the lives she holds dear?

Or will the relentless tilting of the hourglass force her back to the beginning, resetting the cycle she has endured for the past five centuries?

So you are about to publish your book?

It should be published by the time this comes out.

What are your plans?

Once so you said it's with arc readers now.

Ideally, they're going to review it and all of that stuff.

So what are your plans as soon as the book launches?

What are you doing to tell people about it?

Well, I have never been a social media influencer at all.

I am so awkward, but I have been doing my best to promote it on social media.

I have a three year old.

I have a day job, so it's tough.

But once the book is out, I will continue to promote it.

But like I said, I have book two already written, and I've had virtual slippers thrown at me and said if this doesn't come out in the next couple of months, they'll come and find me.

Thankfully, I'm in Spain.

Oh, wait.

I shouldn't say no.

I was kidding.

You already said that.

But I don't know if you know Selena.

I think Cuico, I think is how you say her last name.

Selena Queco from a glass and bone.

That's her first book.

I would probably know her face.

She wears the red lipstick.

She's beautiful.

No, you would know her if you saw her.

I hope I'm saying her last name right.

I'm probably not.

Please.

It's probably that TikTok is like, you don't need to see these videos.

And now I'll probably see her all the time because.

Amazing.

Yeah.

So she just had her first book come out and she's working on her second one.

And I was talking with her.

Her and my second book, I feel like they're going to be twins, and I'm like, we've got to do something.

So I'm really excited.

Her and I are going to kind of bounce off our promos together, which is, I'm very excited for that.

So I think that is what's going to end up happening after I release my first book.

Okay, so your book you said is coming out on November 30.

Mine's coming out the 24th.

So really close together, we're in the same boat of waiting for arc readers and hoping the arc readers like it.

Now mine's like half your size, so my people can get through it a little bit faster than your people struggling.

I'm struggling.

The people that have finished have been incredible.

People have finished it within 24 hours, which I'm like, how?

Come on.

How did you do that?

I appreciate it.

So I have gotten some great feedback.

I write in a very different style than a lot of authors.

I actually only know of one big author, and I can't even think of her name right off the top of my head where I write in third person point of view, limited.

So before I go into what it is, do you know what it is?

Third person pointed.

That's where you're using the person's name, but you're staying to like one person instead of jumping between people.

Right.

It's limited to one or very few point of views.

Right.

So each chapter.

Yeah.

So the whole story follows Azahara, and it's in her point of view, but it's in third person.

So I use pronouns instead of I and me, but you still get to hear her inner thoughts and things like that.

So it does feel like first person, but it's not.

And I knew that was going to be probably my biggest feedback, because nowadays all big fantasy books are in first person.

I don't think I've read a third person point of view fantasy book recently that is really big and blown up.

So I knew I was kind of coming into this world with a disadvantage.

So that's about the only feedback that I've gotten that has been negative, but it's been really good.

Everyone has loved it, and that's what matters to me.

For me, I don't even like the difference between that type of third person and first person.

Doesn't even faze me at all.

It's when you start getting to the head hopping and then you're, who's we?

Whose head are we in right now?

That's when I have a problem.

Yes, and we do have point of view swaps in all of the books, but it's very clearly stated.

It's very clearly.

The chapters are like either Ozahara's point of view or it's Cade's point of view.

So there's no guessing here.

There's no guessing.

I narrated one that used page break kind of things where it was like, there's some kind of a design between, but it would be like in the same chapter, it would switch between.

Mostly it was the main female and the main male, but then occasionally you'd get like, oh, that part of the story can only be told from this other person's perspective.

So you'd get that other person for a couple of paragraphs and it would switch back.

Got it?

Yeah.

Typically, I've narrated a whole lot of fantasy, and I have narrated fantasy that was in third person pov.

I couldn't tell you any of the names off the top of my head right now.

It's not very common, especially the limited, but it's different, and I hope that I capture people with that.

It's not like all the other fantasy books.

What do they say?

I'm not like all the other girls.

And I think this is true for any pov that you're going to write in, as long as it's done well, it's okay.

There are some that are harder to do.

Well, what's the omniscient one where the all knowing being over?

I can't even imagine having to write that.

No.

I'd be like, no, but I love first person.

And in book two, there are dream sequences that are in first pov, so I have nothing against it.

I write whole, comfortable.

I'm comfortable writing in that third person point of view.

So I like reading in the first person point of view and third person.

So I'm an all around.

I like it all, just like Azahara does.

She likes it all.

I write like, I think, which is like first person pov and typically present tense.

But I have journal entries in my novels that are past tense, so that's the weird switch up I get in mine is the present to the past tense.

Suddenly, I think that's what I struggle with the most with first person point of view is I always swap between the two.

And as I'm working on the.

I'm going to call it a novella until it's published with 100,000 words.

It's all in first person.

Because it's a novella compared to my other books.

For real, it will not be 150,000 words.

I swear it.

Please don't be.

Okay.

But I find myself struggling because I'm going back and forth and I'm like, okay, this is definitely why I don't write it.

So I'll be like, the wanted or something and I'll wait.

No, I need.

It seems to be wants, not wanted.

Come on, think about it, Melissa.

Get it.

Think.

That's why I like third person.

Do the even writing mostly in first person present tense.

I still do those swaps and then pro writing aids.

Like, what are you doing?

What are you doing?

What are you doing?

Is this now or then?

Well, s***, I don't know.

Now it's like, in the same sentence you used past tense and present tense.

I'm like, oh, okay.

Because it more looks at, like, on a sentence by sentence basis as opposed to the book as a whole.

My editor caught the last journal entry in the book I had written in present tense, and she was like, you realize this entire journal entry?

And so that was the biggest part I had to edit.

I had to go through this, like, two or three page long journal entry and change it all to past tense.

I'm like, no, it's done now.

It's correct.

Fixed now.

That's what matters.

Yeah.

So, as a narrator, I do have to ask, are there any plans for audiobooks at some point?

Yes, there is.

I would love.

There is this narrator on TikTok.

I didn't even know narrators had TikToks until recently.

Again, I have never been a social media person.

Actually, I think you were the first narrator that I came across and I followed.

But there's this narrator, and she was doing a poem, and I literally had to sit back, and I was like, holy s***, if that is not Azahara, I don't know what is.

I was blown away.

I was like, oh, well.

Oh, God, how much does this cost?

Now?

I need to hear you say by the mother, like, right now, I need to hear it.

So, yes, the hope is that.

And I would like.

I think you called it a duet.

There's single, which is just one, and then there's dual, which is like, the male reads the male chapters and the female reads the female chapters, and then there's duet, where male reads all the male lines throughout the entire book and the male perspective, and then the female does all the female perspective and all the female lines.

And then there's, like, some call it, like, a hybrid, where it's like, oh, the male just reads the male main character's voices, and then the female narrator, if it's in the female pov, she's going to do, like, all the random side characters that don't really matter for anything.

So there's got it different ways to do it, I believe.

So a single narrator or a duet or the dual where each person's doing their whole entire pov, those are going to be about the same cost where duet, where the male is always doing the male lines, is going to cost more to get it edited.

Typically, you pay a little bit more because they have to pay their editors more to put the audio all together, splice it together, all pretty.

Yeah, that makes sense.

I've listened to audiobooks with the whole graphic novel ones.

I've listened to the duets, and I've heard it all.

I heard her voice, and I was like, well, that's all.

S***.

I'm ruined because that's exactly what I need.

That's as far as my audiobook process has gone, right.

I want her to do it.

I commented, and I'm like, oh, my God, I'm obsessed.

And this is so bad to say.

Please don't think I'm so weird, but you sound just like her.

And I got to message with her, and she's like, the sweetest person.

I was like, thank God you don't think I'm weird, because now all I hear when I'm writing this, all I hear is your voice, and this is a problem for me.

Okay, see?

And I'm like, so this is going to sound so weird.

But prior to narrating audiobooks two years ago, when I started, the only time I listened to audiobooks is the, like twice a year we would go on car trips to my in law's house, which is like a nine hour drive.

My husband listens to them a lot.

I just didn't.

So I start narrating audiobooks, not really having ever listened to a whole lot of audiobooks.

Great.

You just jump right in.

I love it.

I jumped in.

I jumped in.

I listened to.

I found on audible they have, like, a list of the top female narrators of all time, basically.

And so I listened to some of their stuff, but I had stumbled across Natalie Nautis on TikTok when, like, discovered audiobook narrating.

And so I listened to some of her stuff, and then I listened to more and more and more of her stuff because I liked the way that she narrated.

So I listened to her as I tried to form my own style that I'm now in.

So it's influenced by her, but clearly I'm not her.

But you have to have an right.

Like, it's got to come from somewhere because, I mean, most narrators will tell you, like, they've used a bunch of coaches over time to know different opinions and points of view.

So I still listen to other female narrators.

I'm narrating a rom.com right now.

Well, Natalie does a whole lot of let's listen to some female rom.com narrators to figure that out.

I did like a horror book at one point.

It is really hard to find a female horror narrator that does character voices.

Very hard to find that.

But I found one.

It took like 20 books to find one.

There's a girl on TikTok that does horror ones, too.

I can't think.

I'm really horrible at names, so I'm.

Not even going to attempt most of what I found because typically when I'm trying to find an example for something, I try to go to top rated audiobooks, not just like anybody's, because I want the ones that are really high rated because that usually means they knew what they were doing.

And it was in the horror genre.

Most of the top audiobooks are done by male narrators that don't do character voices.

So they're horror and terrifying sounding, but they just don't do the distinguished character voices like I usually do.

And I'm like, I don't think I could not do that.

When you do it entirely one way all the time, it's like, I don't think I could suddenly just change.

Yeah.

No, not at all.

All right, so what is the best piece of advice you've ever gotten for writing and the worst piece of advice.

In whichever order you please?

Okay.

I think I mentioned the worst.

It's the word count thing.

I didn't take the advice.

I didn't, obviously.

I just don't think that you should ever limit yourself.

What you did is perfect.

You gave yourself a goal.

That's perfect.

I just don't think you should limit yourself to what everybody else thinks.

The standard is, if you're going to tell a story, tell the story again.

Let's remove the fluff, but let's tell your story.

And the best piece of advice I ever got, and this is the only reason that my book is in my hands sort of right now, is you cannot edit a blank page, my friend.

I was like, dude, this first draft is going to be s***.

And she's like, fine, you can edit it.

Just put it on paper.

Just keep going.

And she is like, the reason I have a book, obviously, this is my story, and I put it to paper.

But Tiffany is the only reason I have a book, because she was like, so how many words did you write today?

So did you do this?

And when I started writing, I had no clue about anything.

Like, I use atticus now.

I do all of my own formatting and everything else, but I had no clue I was writing this s*** in word.

I wasn't even doing anything.

I just was writing.

And she's like, how are you doing?

What chapter are you on?

And she's like, can I start reading it behind you?

I'm like, yeah, 100%.

Please help me.

So that is the best piece of advice.

You can't edit a blank page.

Just put it on paper.

My best friend did the.

She kind of cheered me on.

The beta readers kind of took over and did a lot more cheering on as I was finishing up the manuscript.

But there's a couple of times I was very mean to her and sent her what I would do at the beginning.

I would write a chapter, throw it through pro writing aid, and then send it to her immediately and text her and be like, hey, new chapter in the Google Doc.

And she would go and she would read it and then a little ways through.

It got annoying to do that at every chapter.

So each weekend I would do it.

I would just upload whatever chapters I'd finished that week each weekend.

And so, like, one time I uploaded a cliffhanger chapter, but I texted her and told her it was a cliffhanger chapter.

And so she waited until I had uploaded the next batch of chapters before she read it.

And so the next time I had a cliffhanger chapter, I didn't tell her that it was a cliffhanger.

Good call.

Good job.

And she got to it and she was like, how dare you?

And I was like, I'm so sorry.

I've written two more since then.

Here they are.

I'm sorry.

Take it.

Please don't hurt me.

Please.

Oh, my God.

But I wanted her honest reaction to it without having warned her ahead of time.

I wanted to know because I didn't get that reaction with the first one because she already had the other chapters after.

I wanted that honest feedback on it because most people are going to get to that cliffhanger and, like I do when I read books, they're going to get to that cliffhanger and they're going to immediately go and read the next chapter, even if it's bedtime, like, they're going to find out what happens afterwards.

I needed that raw feedback for the cliffhanger chapter.

Yeah, because you never know.

You might not be able to get to that next chapter.

So getting that raw reaction is great.

I want to talk about this because it just makes me think of this.

I finished my book and the three people that were reading it at the time, I was like, okay, it's a long book.

Take your time.

But how I left book one at the end, I met an anxious person.

So I was like, I got to keep writing because I just can't leave it like that.

And I was so uncertain if I wanted that to be the ending of the book because I was like, I don't know how people are going to react.

I feel like they're going to hate me.

Which at the same time, maybe that's what I want, I don't know.

But I ended up writing half of book two before anybody finished a book one.

And I was like, well, that's at ending is staying because I'm not going to rewrite book two.

And I was like, so if you hate it, don't tell me because that's just too bad.

I told you before getting it out to arc readers, only two people finished book one in its entirety from start to finish.

I had a lot of people do up to, like, halfway, and life got in the way.

I can't force people to do it.

Right.

But that also played a lot into my anxiety because I was like, well, two people really loved it, but only two people finished it in its entirety.

Yeah, I hope you like that ending because everybody's mad at me, but I anticipated that.

Yeah, I anticipated.

So because mine is like each book is a fairy tale retelling, but they're all connected together.

So the whole series has an overarching storyline to it.

They're all tied together.

You could not read the novellas and you're going to know the rest of the story, but just the four novels.

So it's like interconnected.

You could read them as standalones, but I wouldn't recommend it because you'd be like, what's going on with this other chick over here?

Who is that?

Who's this person?

So in each one, you're going to get a different fairytale couple story in there.

But also the main characters from book one are still the main characters and she is still the chosen one throughout the series and all that.

It ties up the beauty and the beast story.

But then the epilogue is like a sneak peek into the final book.

And so it's like, here's this cliffhanger of who is this person in here?

You're mean.

Yeah.

Okay.

So I will not take the cake.

On being the mean one here because I'm not telling.

There are going to be eight fairy tales involved and I did not want to tell.

There are like three people in total in the world that know all eight fairy tales involved.

And so I wanted people to be guessing who the big bad person of the whole everything is all along.

And so the only way to do that is to leave these little sneak peek.

Yeah.

So at the end of book three, in book three's breadcrumb, it will be a smack you in the face.

You're going to know who it is person.

But until then, I get to have fun with these little snippets of who is that character?

Oh, my God.

I love it.

Okay.

All right.

I love it.

So it was my fun way.

And I like typically epilogues and books that I read are like a snippet from the next book that's coming up, or maybe it'll go back in time and you'll get a little bit of scene that kind of got glossed over during the book or something like that, or people don't do the epilogue, whatever it may be.

So epilogue is there.

You could skip it, but when I'm big and famous, people are dropping their guesses and their reviews for who the big bad person is of the whole series.

If you skip to the epilogue, you're going to be like, what are you talking about?

I love that.

I think that's so great.

It's exciting to see people being like, this person is bad, or this person.

I believe that they're going to help, and I love it.

And, you know, we've had these stories in our head and with only a couple of people that we can share it with, in my case, not very many.

My husband's so tired of hearing me talk about these books.

It's so nice.

And I have such a good group of arc readers that I've become really good friends with now.

I didn't know them before, obviously, but just to have their reactions and just all be real time as it's coming, like, how could you do that?

Or, oh, my God, I never saw this coming.

I'm like, okay, thank God.

Because to me, everything is obvious, right?

Everything is obvious to me.

I'm like, and they're like, yeah.

Yes.

So I love that just being able, like, looking at them and not looking at them, that's awkward.

But seeing their reactions and them guessing what's going to happen.

And I'm like, maybe.

Well, you have a good rest of your Saturday.

Thank you.

You too.

Thank you so much.

This was so much fun.

Thank you.

Bye.

Bye.

Bye.

ML liked Mulan as she got older.

Today we'll be reading the queen of heaven from the chinese fairy book.

Don't forget we're reading Lemorte de Arthur, the story of King Arthur and of his noble knights of the Roundtable on our Patreon.

You can find the link in the show notes McQueen of heaven.

McQueen of Heaven, who is also known as the Holy Mother, was immortal life.

A maiden of Fukian named Lynn.

She was pure, reverential and pious in her ways and died at the age of 17.

She shows her power on the seas, and for this reason, the seamen worship her.

They are unexpectedly attacked by wind and waves.

They call on her, and she is always ready to hear their pleas.

There are many seamen in Fukian, and every year people are lost at sea, and because of this, most likely the queen of heaven took pity on the distress of her people during her lifetime on earth.

And since her thoughts are uninterruptedly turned toward aiding the drowning in their distress, she now appears frequently on the seas.

In every ship that sails, a picture of the queen of heaven hangs in the cabin, and three paper talismans are also kept on shipboard.

On the first, she is painted with crown and scepter on the second, as a maiden in ordinary dress.

And on the third, she is pictured with flowing hair, barefoot, standing with a sword in her hand.

When the ship is in danger, the first talisman is burnt and help comes.

But if this is of no avail, then the second and finally the third picture is burned.

And if no help comes, then there is nothing more to be done.

When seamen lose their course among wind and waves and darkling clouds they pray devoutly to the queen of heaven.

Then a red lantern appears on the face of the waters and if they follow the lantern, they will win safe out of all danger.

The queen of heaven may often be seen standing in the skies dividing the wind with her sword.

When she does this, the wind departs for the north and south and the waves grow smooth.

A wooden wand is always kept before her holy picture in the cabin.

It often happens that the fish dragons play in the seas.

There are two giant fish who spat up water against one another till the sun in the sky is obscured and the seas are shrouded in profound darkness.

And often in the distance, 1 may see a bright opening in the darkness.

If the ship holds a course straight for this opening, it will win through and is suddenly floating in calm waters again.

Looking back, 1 may see the two fishes still spouting water and the ship will have passed directly beneath their jaws.

But a storm is always near when the fish dragons swim.

Therefore, it is well to burn paper or wool so that the dragons do not draw the ship down into the depths.

Or the master of the wand may burn incense before the wand in the cabin.

Then he must take the wand and swing it over the water three times in a circle.

If he does so, the dragons will draw in their tails and disappear.

When the ashes in the censor fly up into the air without any cause and are scattered about it is a sign that great danger is threatening.

Nearly 200 years ago, an army was fitted out to subdue the island of Formosa.

A captain's banner had been dedicated with the blood of a white horse.

Suddenly, the queen of heaven appeared at the tip of the banner staff.

In another moment, she had disappeared.

But the invasion was successful.

On another occasion, in the days of Kyunlung the minister Xiaoling was ordered to install a new king in the Liokyo Islands.

The fleet was sailing by south of Korea.

A storm arose and his ship was driven toward the black whirlpool.

The water had the color of ink.

Sun and moon lost their radiance and the word was passed about that the ship had been caught in the black whirlpool from which no living man had ever returned.

The sea man and travelers awaited their end with lamentations.

Suddenly, an untold number of lights, like red lanterns, appeared on the surface of the water.

Then the seamen were overjoyed and prayed in the cabins.

Our lives are saved.

They cried.

The Holy Mother has come to our aid.

And truly a beautiful maiden with golden earrings appeared.

She waved her hand in the air, and the winds became still and the waves grew even, and it seemed as though the ship were being drawn along by a mighty hand.

It moved, plashing through the waves, and suddenly it was beyond the limits of the black whirlpool.

Chaol Ling, on his return, told of this happening and begged that temples be erected in honor of the queen of heaven, and that she be included in the list of the gods.

And the emperor granted his prayer.

Since then, temples of the Queen of Heaven are to be found in all seaport towns, and her birthday is celebrated on the 8th day of the fourth month with spectacles and sacrifices.

Thank you for joining Freya's fairy tales.

Be sure to come back in the new year for Enie's journey to holding her own fairy tale in her hands, and to hear one of her favorite fairy tales.