Today is part one of two where we are talking to Kate Prada about her novels. Over the next 2 weeks you will hear about starting with creative writing, coining the term Diet spice, branding yourself as a mess, being encouraged by your writer friends, starting a discord to make writing friends, and having it blow up, being approachable for other authors, writing your friends into your novels, and starting conversations with your wild days.

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Chaotic baby author. Apparently I write romance but that was a surprise to me. If i knew what the rules were maybe I'd follow them. Author of Black Rose, Wraith, and Shadow (all romantic suspense)

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It's.

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've 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 Kate Prada about her novels.

Over the next two weeks, you will hear about starting with creative writing, coining the term Diet Spice, branding yourself as a mess, being encouraged by your writer friends, starting a discord to make writing friends and having it blow up, being approachable for other authors, writing your friends into your novels and starting conversations with your wild days.

Shadow the Wraith Series Book Two there have been many identities before, but Louisa fits like a poorly cut garment, except after leaving everything to seek her vengeance, it's the only one Wraith has lost.

Without those who once supported her, her head is clouding and she's losing her grip.

One wrong move could blow her cover, or worse, get her new partner killed.

If she fails, it will all be for nothing.

If she succeeds, she'll have not only ended a criminal's reign of terror, but finally slayed all that haunts her.

But would it be worth what she.

Lost along the way?

Even though Colt has been busy growing his own organization, he's never stopped searching for Emily.

It doesn't matter that ties were cut and Leeds went dead.

He'll never give up the hunt for her.

Can he protect her from all that's hurting her if he does?

With Race determined to track down the monster from her past, would Colt search lead to a reunion or a shadow of someone he once knew?

All right, well, the name of the podcast is Freya's Fairy Tales, and that is fairy tales in two ways.

So fairy tales are something that we watched or listened to or read as children.

And it's also the journey for you.

To spend the weeks, months, years working on your novel.

To hold that 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 that favorite change as you got older?

I've been thinking about this a lot because I've listened to a few of your episodes now, and I'm always like, God, how would I answer that?

So it was a bit of we were allowed to watch Disney princess movies, but my dad, I think, really wanted boys, so it was strongly discouraged.

So the whole princess thing and I carried this through until adulthood.

And I can't watch chickflicks, but I was allowed and watched all the time with Princess Bride.

Okay.

I read the book as I got older, and it's one of my favorite books.

It's like one of those where the.

Book and the movie are different.

No, one of them outshines the other, quite honestly.

I also read the book when I got older, and I was so confused.

Like, I legitimately thought as I was reading it, that it was, like, actually a history of some weird country.

I had to google it.

I'm like, is this real?

Well, yeah, it's such a great book.

I did have the Hans Christian Anderson or the Grims Fairy tales.

Someone gave me the originals of those.

And so here I was as a kid, and I did get to see the Disney movies, but I loved The Little Mermaid.

And then I go to read The Little Mermaid story, and it's like, not the same.

No.

Childhood trauma.

I did that one.

I've done two different versions of that at this point, and both times it's just like, this story doesn't get any better.

In original version.

Yeah, that one.

And what was the other one?

It wasn't Snow White with, like, the seven dwarves.

It was like, Snow White and Rose Red stuck out.

And that one, too, was like they're all dark.

Yeah, most of them were made to.

Teach some kind of lesson.

What that was, I don't know, but some of them were just not okay for children.

Well, actually, most of, like, the grims ones, those weren't written for children.

Those were written for adults.

So then they modified it at one point, and now they've kind of gone back to the originals.

Although normally you would expect short stories would have been for children, whereas no, these ones not.

Definitely not for children.

Yeah, but I studied German all throughout high school, and we actually did start to get into children's stories, like bedtime stories.

And honestly, those were dark.

It wasn't Rumble still skin, but the name kind of rolled off your tongue the same way.

And they told their children this at bedtime.

It was how he would come in and cut your thumbs off with scissors if you misbehave.

God.

Yeah.

It was like we were sitting there, seniors in high school, being like, am.

I translating this right?

I got to look up what the name of that was.

Oh, my gosh.

Yeah.

Goodness.

I get it.

So at what age did you kind of start writing your own stuff?

I always did the best in elementary school, junior high, high school, with, like, the creative writing assignments.

I loved those.

I loved writing as a kid, but I didn't start sitting down and seriously writing until 2019.

Okay.

And I only even started doing that is because I had insomnia super bad, and just the voices and the characters just kept yelling, and I finally was like, I just got to write this down.

And then one thing led to another, and I ended up publishing books.

So you started 2019 is actually not that long ago.

Did you publish the first one?

Yes.

I'm coming up.

It'll be one year in March will be the one year anniversary of the first time I published.

Okay, so you started it in 2019.

How long did it take you to get your first draft done?

First draft went pretty quick.

I actually got the manuscripts for my first two books.

It was August of 2019, and by the end of that year, I had two manuscripts, but I sat on them.

I didn't think I was going to do anything.

I didn't think they were going to go anywhere.

And I let one person read it here, and it was a very slow take off.

Okay, so you are holding them.

How long did you hold them before.

You sent them anywhere to do anything?

The first one, my first book, Black Rose, I probably sat on it for a few months.

And then I have a friend who is just a diehard reader since we were kids.

We were reading Anna Green Gables in the fourth grade together, like, these big fat books, and she's never slowed down, and she's like, Give it to me, I want to read it.

Honestly, she saved me thousands of dollars in editing and all, and I'm like, Can I pay?

Can I do something for you?

She said no.

I love it.

Just the two of us just took a year going back and forth on notes on this thing.

Okay, well, that's pretty.

I had my best friend also ask to read what I have of mine so far.

And this is when I found out that my spice level and her spice level are very different.

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

That'll happen again.

I was so new.

I didn't even read my first romance novel until I was 36.

And so I didn't know anything.

And all the books I had read never really had open door on page scenes.

And so that's how I wrote this book.

And it brings you right up to the very edge, closes the door in your face.

And I've since decided to run with a spicy crowd on TikTok.

So I am spicy by association, and I have coined the term diet Spice just to manage everybody's expectations.

Okay, you're going to get some, but not a whole lot.

Yeah.

So she was like, no, it's very good.

But she was almost like, could you do a little more?

So from the rough draft to what was published.

It did get spicier, but it still closes the door in your face.

And I don't even know if you could call it spice, but it sizzles suspense.

Yeah, more like romantic suspense as opposed to straight up.

I mean, erotica realizes its own genre, but less that more like stuff's happening.

Yes.

Okay.

And so you sat on it.

Your friend essentially edited it for you.

At what point did you realize you should publish this or decide to publish it?

I was in a couple of writer Facebook groups, which are great.

They're fine.

A lot of mansplaining in them.

And so every single thing, I was like, I'm doing it wrong.

God, this job is going to want to read this.

Every time I open my mouth to ask a question, I got a whole bunch of dudes telling me, yeah, but then the moms who write Facebook Group came about, and it was like, okay, now my people I got a little bit and a lot of people were talking about publishing and this and whatever.

But because of the other Facebook groups, I'm like, I got a Query.

I got to get an agent.

I got to get picked up by a publisher.

And I got caught up with all of that.

And of course, they're the professional ones.

Oh, my God.

Yeah.

So I took a shot at Querying, and I joke that my whole brand is just me being a mess because it makes me lovable and approachable.

But no, I was a mess trying to oh, God.

Querying was like a whole different brand of just anxiety.

And I finally that was in 21 2021, and I just shut it down after, like, three months.

I was like, I can't do this.

Demoralizing.

And the statistics on the books that get accepted is so low.

Oh, my God, it was bad.

And it was like, after your 100th rejection, you're just like, oh, my God, I'm just terrible.

But a lot of the moms who write were getting on TikTok, and I had another kind of account.

Like, I did kind of like a mommy blog kind of recipes and stuff like that.

And a lot of my social media is based off that name.

So I signed up for TikTok with that.

But I started getting more and more into writing and book talk.

And I'm like, well, maybe I should just do one for my author name.

And I had met April.

Barry was one of the first people I really connected with.

And she was like, you need to do this, blah, blah, blah.

And I beta read for her.

I offered to.

And she was like, oh, you're into books?

And I was like, yeah.

And I loved it.

It was her paranormal romance that she doesn't talk about ever.

And I keep yelling at her to talk about it.

I'm pretty sure I also yelled at her to talk about it last week.

Good.

Yeah.

And she was like, PS.

Nail who's?

Like, I never talk about my poetry book, so it doesn't sell.

And I'm like, well, you're never going to sell if no one knows it exists.

Yeah.

And so I bet her at her and she was like, oh my god, thank you for all your help.

And she's like, I'd mentioned that I'd written some books, but Black Row is my first book.

I was getting close.

I was going to self publish.

And I just hadn't quite pulled the trigger yet.

Was still on the fence.

So I didn't want another set of eyes on that one because I was going to just burn everything.

I was like, I have this book, and I know you're a rom.com author.

However, it's not dark by any means.

I don't know.

It's very gritty and it's quite violent.

There is no spice.

Like, there's some fade to black stuff, but you're not getting any.

I was like, I don't know if she'd give it to me.

I'm like, okay.

When she finished it, the barrage of gifts through Facebook Messenger was like, how dare you?

I'm d*** it.

Why would you do this?

And I'm like, do I need to send you a bottle of wine?

I'm sorry.

This could be good or bad and I can't she was like, whoever told.

You that you're not good enough to publish needs to shut the up.

My book raised like just emotional damage or whatever.

And I felt terrible.

I'm like, well, I have this other one and I'm about to publish it, but I don't know what I'm doing.

I was like, but you do get an Hda with this one.

She said, give it to me.

So I did.

And she was like, if you don't publish, I'm going to publish it for you.

Like, throw it up on KDP.

Just get it done.

And I'm like, yes, ma'am.

I don't know if there's a term for lovable bullying, but she basically was like, go do this.

Get it up there.

Okay.

I think it's called coaxing.

Maybe aggressively coaxing.

I think there's a word for that.

I just can't think of it.

But yeah, any ounce of imposter syndrome.

She cleared it all out right then and there.

And she was like, you need to stop.

Don't let people get in your head.

This is great stuff.

And I wrote Black Rose thinking it was going to be the only one.

And as soon as people read it, they're like, we need this character story.

These two characters need to get together.

We need their story.

This guy needs a production story.

All right, add it to the list.

So did you actually publish in 21 or did you wait till 22?

Early 22.

Okay.

And so did you publish how far apart did you publish the two?

So Black Rose was published in March because again, it was so clean.

It was so just done.

It was just sitting there.

I did the COVID for it and everything just because I'm a stay at home mom.

I had no budget for anything published that in March.

And then Race was ready to go as well.

It was super clean.

It was ready to be published.

However, I didn't know what genre I was.

Again, this is April Berry, like, just carrying me through because I was calling them women's fiction.

Because again, because of the Facebook groups, everyone's like, well, if it's romance, it has to hit, like, certain beats at certain times, and it has to have four elements this, that, and the other thing, and rules.

So many rules.

I can't keep track of the rules.

Honestly, the whole point of learning the.

Rules is to break the rules.

Exactly.

But as soon as April read my book, she's like, call it women's fiction if you want, but you know, you have a romance here, right?

And I'm like, from a marketing standpoint, I would rather have a romance, right?

So much easier to sell copies.

But the problem with rape was it ended on a cliffhanger, okay?

And I was like, the last thing I want is the romance crowd to get mad at me, right?

And she's like, well, you have book two almost done.

If the readers get what they want out of that one, you can call it a romance from talking to other people, and they're like, yeah, absolutely right.

Like, rapid release them or get them published.

Pretty close together.

And so I published Race in July, thinking I would publish the next book by October.

I'm not good with deadlines.

Not good with deadlines at all.

And during all of this time, we moved from the East Coast to the West Coast.

Oh, gosh.

My son was the age.

He's about to start kindergarten.

I hadn't worked in three years.

I wanted a job and just, we don't know anybody here trying to get settled in this.

And my job was fine, but there was a lot of red flags.

So I'd come home from my part time job just absolutely wiped.

And the October deadline turned into a November deadline, which turned into end of the year deadline, which hopefully February.

Well, so where are we at in that one?

Reasonably.

What's left to be done?

I'm going through the last notes from my last beta reader now.

Okay.

And once that's done, I will listen to it.

And that way if the comma doesn't sound right in some place or something, I'll tidy all that up.

That's usually the last step.

I do.

Do you have text to speech for that?

Yeah, I'll put it into, like, Microsoft Word and they have, like I'll go chapter by chapter just because it's easier to keep track of it because I.

Think it starts over at the beginning every time, doesn't it?

Yeah, I think you can set your cursor somewhere.

But like, I know my husband does that tries to do that from Google Chrome, but it starts at the beginning of the book every time.

Yeah.

And he's, like, 60,000 words into it at this point.

He's like, I don't want to listen from the beginning every time.

No.

I'm, like, split that sucker into chapters.

And I know people will do this with audiobooks.

It doesn't work well, like, listening to audiobooks for me, but just to try to catch something.

Like, I'll set the speed up for fast, and I do still catch stuff that way, but it helps me get through it a little bit faster.

But, yeah, once I get through that, then I was shooting for February 3, but I think just to be safe, I'm going to say February 10.

Okay.

The COVID is done.

I do need to pull my other two books because I had an issue with my domain name from my author website.

Okay.

Because Kate's a mess.

I own it.

It's my brand, so I got to update that with race.

One or two people sent me screenshots of, like, a typo here and there.

So I want to clean those up, and I'll get those cleaned up.

Yeah.

I'm hoping for February 10, but maybe a little bit a couple of days flush with that.

Okay.

That's pretty close to getting book two.

I feel like I realize that there are authors that, I mean, Golden Angel just put up that she posted, what, like, 1214 books last year, which is insane.

Not like insane.

I mean, she does it full time and has her schedule and does very well with her deadlines.

I'm the type of person where I'm like, I'm working a full time job, and I'm narrating full time, and I'm trying to write a book, so I'm like, will be done.

Maybe this year I can't set a deadline because I'm like, I have 1020 minutes.

Chunks I can put on.

It so crazy.

You said you started the part time job.

Have you now quit that?

Yeah, I lasted about five months.

Hey, that's a pretty good effort.

I mean, for a job that's not great.

No, I mean, it wasn't a bad job.

It's just for part time, but they kept asking for I put in for time off because school would be closed for a week for teacher conferences, and they'd be like, we'll just bring your son.

And it was fine, but it was an assisted living facility, and some of the people weren't always happy about that slowing down, so sometimes it wasn't always appropriate for my son to see some of this stuff.

And it's just, like, out of respect for people's privacy and everything, too.

Right.

We managed for three years with me being home, we're like, what's?

Another couple of years, right?

We'll be all right.

I tell my husband, I'm like, you can quit your job when you make it big with your book.

As soon as your book income exceeds, which he'll be finished.

I don't know.

He's dyslexic, so he writes carefully, not slower.

He writes very carefully to make sure that he's getting the right words in there, but he's hoping by the end of the year to have his done.

But who knows how fast I finally forced him to join TikTok to make friends.

I'm like, join it.

You don't have to post videos yet, but you need to start making these friends that will be your beta readers and your arc readers and your other stuff.

How did you go about finding so April, read your book.

How did you find your beta readers and stuff?

At the beginning, so I had the one, and she was amazing.

And then the moms who write Facebook group put together, like, little reading circles.

Like, they kind of paired us up by genre.

And I was in a women's fiction beta circle, but it turns out we all wrote a romance anyway.

So none of you knew how to pick genre?

No.

And I think this was at the end of this was sometime in 21, and so we would share a chapter a week.

Okay.

And just a great group, like our little tiny circle, just like we're still all sharing stuff and working with each other.

I think I'm the only one really active on TikTok.

Okay.

And I tried to get them all to join my discord, but my discord is absolute chaos.

And they're like, we like it at all, but we're just going to stick to our quiet little totally fine.

I get it.

Now, would this be is romance riot technically yours?

Yes.

Okay.

That's a big discord.

Like, compared to the other ones I'm.

In, it blew up.

It started with April and I and another author.

We all went live together one night, and it turned into four and a half hours of just shenanigans.

So we started it was just ridiculous.

Like, it was just a lot of laughs, a lot of giggles, a lot of so we were doing this live.

It was silly and ridiculous, and there's so many laughs, and we were talking about books and characters and this, and it was like, wow, we're just such a riot.

Yeah, we're the romance riot.

And I'm like, we got to have a discord.

We got to have something because we would send direct messages to as a group to each other.

And we're like, it'd be a lot more fun on a little bit larger scale.

Like, a lot of the people who jumped in with the lives and everything if we saw a meme and we wanted to share it.

It's not easy on TikTok to share memes or share links or whatever.

Yeah, I usually have to jump over to Instagram if I need to send a link.

Yeah.

So it was like, well, I want to start a discord, and we started it.

So I went on.

I signed it all up and made them admins right away.

And we just kind of didn't do much about it at first.

It was like, we had to get people in on this.

And then so I started doing silly Tiktoks, like, hey, you need a writing community.

And it is it is absolute chaos when you join and we tell everybody.

We're like, don't try to keep up.

Just jump in where you can turn.

Off the notifications because it most moves so fast.

And I think one of the things that was a little bit of a deterrent is you see a lot of times in Facebook groups, like admins get all cranky.

They're like, try to search a question before you ask it.

I'm like, yeah, ask it every time.

If we have to answer the same question 100 times, maybe it's a different perspective you weren't thinking of.

Or maybe there's 18 new people in here that were wondering the same thing.

I don't know.

Maybe the statistics show that you have to hear something nine times before it sticks in your brain.

Science man.

Yeah, we just try to be like, don't try to go back and read everything.

Don't try to keep up.

It's been a really great group and it's been a really supportive group.

And other people have started kind of like bringing their own things to the table.

Someone will be like, hey, I'm putting out my newsletter this week.

Anybody want to jump in on it?

I'll add you.

And it's just turned into like this little author network kind of thing.

And I started the actual discord.

But again, I'm just here, there, and everywhere all the time.

So I can't even really take credit for building it like this.

It's been April.

It's been Sherry Williams.

It's been just, I will forget everybody because now I'm like, on the spot.

But there's different people bring different things.

And it's so supportive and encouraging.

Well, it's crazy too.

So it was like December or November of last year.

And I'm like looking at like, oh, I only have one more podcast episode that'll get me into January.

And then I'm like, I've posted a couple of times on TikTok and social media and no one's signed up to interview.

So I'm like, all right, we're going to reach out to one author.

Like one author I happened across PS Nail who was like, posting stuff.

And I'm like, she's on TikTok all the time.

Let's just reach out to her and see if she wants to do it.

And she's like, absolutely.

I'm like, can I get you the first weekend of January because I need late January episodes?

And she was like, that's perfect because that's my author anniversary.

And I'm like, cool.

And then within hours of her signing up and agreeing to it, I had like, all of you guys.

And she's like, enjoying the romance riot and all this.

She's like, you should post in the social media section of it.

And I'm like, Well, I don't want to join a group.

Like, how icky is it to join a group and be like, hey, you should do this thing?

So I waited a few weeks before posting it, but interact several times.

And I go in there, hop in when I can and all that, but that's how I know it moves so fast, because you'll jump in.

And I've gotten to where now I'll screenshot stuff if I want to reference it later, because I think you posted about the nine hashtag thing on TikTok.

Yeah, so I screenshotted that.

So now every time I post on TikTok, I'm like, what were the three categories?

I had to write it out on a piece of paper and stick it to my wall.

I'm like, wait, what am I foot?

Well, now I've gotten to the point where I'm trying to plug in shortcuts on my phone.

So now I can do like TT audio and it does all my audiobook hashtags immediately, which I just learned about that because of a TikTok.

Yeah, we love that stuff.

We're always like, if someone finds something, they're like, hey, I saw this creator.

Does this work?

We don't share.

I imagine it's better for certain categories of Tiktoks than others, but it's just an easy way to think of because I would usually plug in the same audiobooks narrator, like the same ones every time.

So it's good to shake things up because you don't know who else you're going to get to with these new hashtags that you didn't think of before.

Yeah.

Okay, so you I did notice I.

Looked at your books.

You have paperbacks and you have ebooks.

Are there any plans for audio in the future?

Eventually?

Again, I'm so very new to all this.

I don't even know what genre I was writing in the beginning.

And then so Black Rose, I kind of got a little carried away with points of povs.

Okay.

And so Black Rose has four Povs in it and Rafe has three or four.

Going forward, I kind of figured out how to clean it up.

Are these third or first person?

First person.

Okay.

And so I was like, well, I don't know if I could ever pull that off because I went a little too crazy.

But then I've seen other people, they'll get where they have dual povs and they'll get one narrator and they're able to do it.

So I think once I finally get myself a little bit more organized, I can start putting feelers out and see if anybody is comfortable with different voices or I would have to do the acx, I think, the profit sharing or whatever.

At first I do a lot of those.

Yeah, those, just so you know.

And I have absolutely no problem.

I do like, pretty much all of my stuff comes off acx, like the audiobooks that I do.

So I know how.

That one works for the most part.

I've never seen your side of the screen other than I had an author send me screenshots.

And she's like, the button you're telling me to push isn't there.

And I'm like, well, send me what is there so I can figure it out.

Right?

My screen just has a giant purple button that says, I'm done, but for the most part, most narrators.

And my husband's having the same dilemma where he's doing a his is Sci-Fi fantasy, but it switches Povs often, so he's like, what do I do?

Are we going to have to pay five different narrators?

I'm like, no, you pay one male and one female to do or you could have, like, a female do all of them or a male do all of them if you need to do profit share.

But I've done a few dual POV books myself.

I did a three POV book.

Okay.

I've done a couple where it was like most of it was told from the most confusing one I had.

It was told from a third person perspective, but it would head jump a lot.

So you might be like, dealing with the good guy, and then suddenly you're dealing with the bad guy with no thing.

So I'm like, this third person narrator has to have a whole different voice because I cannot change, which is now what I do for all third person unless I have one where it's quite clear she has line breaks on the page when it switches POV.

So I can tell, oh, now we're.

In the guy's head.

Oh, now we're in her head.

Or the dad's head.

Or like, you could clearly tell how it was, but most narrators are going to be able to do that unless you've done, like, 100 Povs and just made it way too confusing.

Yeah, there's clear breaks of who's talking.

And everybody gets their own big headline in the chapter.

So you probably made it the easiest for a narrator ever because I wouldn't have to be second guessing who's talking.

Whose perspective are we in right now?

Yeah, I'd say there's four Povs, but one of them is actually split between.

So it's a hidden identity story.

Okay.

And so the main female character went into hiding.

So it's her old personality versus her new personality kind of thing.

Again, I was just writing this book because I couldn't sleep, and it was just the first draft.

There'll be people in the discord, and they're talking about, like, they're writing their first book, and they're like, it's just such a mess.

It's all out of order.

And I'm like, I will send you the first draft of my book, and you're going to be like, what in the fresh dumpster fire?

Is this.

So you can't sleep?

You decide, I'm going to write a book.

Where did the idea for the first book come from?

It's been sitting in my head at that point for 15 years or so.

I just have a very overactive imagination.

If I hear a song or if I'm driving in a car too long, it's like all sorts of stuff is just playing out to keep me entertained.

And a lot of it was that it came into play in Black Rose was, like, socialites and the tabloids and this.

And I think a lot of it was back in the early 2000s when US magazine In Touch and all the what do you call those?

The tabloids?

Yeah.

Were so big and crazy.

I used to read them all, all the time.

And I think around that time is where wouldn't it be crazy?

What was the two big blonde ones if one of them all of a sudden disappeared and she's on the run?

In the 2000s, wasn't it like Angelina Jolie was on every other magazine?

Something Nicole Ritchie or something.

You know what I mean?

Paris Hilton.

Yeah.

It's really funny because I wrote it, and it's like you don't see that much of that stuff these days.

And I'm like, well, the story is good, so whatever, let's just run with it.

The reality is trends happen in writing all the time, and everybody will love the what's the big thing, the big trope right now, like the why choose?

And stuff like that.

But eventually people are going to be like, I'm tired of why choose?

I've been reading it for whatever, six years or whatever, and they're going to want something, not why choose at that point.

So the trends come back around over and over again.

So it's like, Write your book.

I said this a few times.

I'm like, Just write the book you want to write.

It may not be popular right now, but in five years, it might be the biggest book ever.

You don't know.

We were on the live this morning, and we were talking about different content warnings and tropes and stuff like this, and we were all saying that you just never really know.

And I don't know if I've gone overboard or if I've done just enough, but I'm like, so what's going to upset somebody?

What's this?

And I've put down curse words and alcohol consumption and this.

And I was like, I even put down pregnancy because the second hand character towards the end graces us with her present, and she's got a big old belly.

And then it turned into the whole people who like pregnancy, people who don't like pregnancy.

And one of the girls on the live is like, should I not write my book because there's pregnancy in it?

And it was more of like it's connected to the story.

And we're like, no, write your book.

Just write it.

Don't listen to us authors.

That will do on Amazon or in the book itself.

It'll have the basics of content warnings, like the big broad overarching SA and stuff like that.

But then on their website.

It'll get like, if you want to know more about what specifically happens here, but there might be spoilers, you can click down into the nitty gritty levels of everything that happens.

That's what I did on my author blog.

I had a page for each book with a comprehensive or.

I tried to make it comprehensive.

I'm sure I overlooked something of anything that could people would want to know about the book, but then my domain name got all messed up, so I'm like, the links don't even work right now.

What happened to your domain?

Okay, it was in the middle of this big move, getting settled or whatever.

I get a message from the bank, like, on a Sunday morning, like, oh, you got this charge from your card?

And I'm like, what?

And I clicked, no.

Oh, no.

And then they texted me back.

They're like, okay, your card is shut off.

And the problem is, we're in the military, so we don't ever live where any of our stuff is dealt with.

We're in Washington State, but our banks in California, and it's a Sunday, so it was a whole big old mess.

Like, I had to back and forth with the bank, and they mail you a card, but they mail it to the address.

So our address is where our licenses are, which are out of Arizona.

It's a mess, but they send it, like, the slowest possible mail that there is.

So it had to go to my mother in law's house, and then she had to forward it to us during this time.

Again, we were fine, but different things, of course.

It's around the time that I had set everything up, so everything's up for their annual renewal.

I missed the email saying, you have to update your card information for your domain.

And by the time I sat down to go back around to it, if you don't pay for your domain within, like, two or three weeks, it goes to auction.

You cannot get it back, and you can bid for it.

You can be one of the people who bid to get it back.

But even if you do get it, it's like an $80 fee just to reinstate it.

Yeah, so it was just like or you have to wait.

I don't remember what the time frame is.

If no one buys it at auction, you have to wait, like, two or three months.

Yeah.

Ridiculous quantity of time to not have a website.

And again, the only reason why I paid for a domain to begin with is because when I was querying, I found that my URL from my WordPress had a typo in it, and it had been four months at that point.

And I'm like, I'm a mess.

I rewrote my author bio this week because the romance Riots putting out an anthology, and I've got this other book coming out, and I'm like, well, it's time to update the author bio.

And so I just started off with, Kate prayer is not a role model.

Tell me more.

Everyone's like, stop talking about yourself that way.

I'm like, no, dude.

Who wants to follow the author?

That is perfect.

No one wants that story.

No one wants that book.

Oh, I'm perfect all the time.

I do nothing wrong.

No one wants to read that book.

Yeah, I think, though, but I had this conversation with my friends the other day because it's whenever someone says something disparaging about theirselves, the other two are always quick to be like, don't talk about my friend that way.

And I was like, you know what, though?

I embrace the mess.

It is what it is.

And I have found that it has made me approachable.

And I've had a handful of people just reach out and just be like, hey, I'm a new writer.

I don't know what I'm doing.

You just seem like you'd be cool to talk to.

And I'm like, yeah, man, what's up?

And it's like, I don't know if you have the answers, but I got a discord over here where we got tons of people that are willing to help you out.

Someone might know.

Yeah.

So if it makes me approachable and it makes me relatable, I'm what I am.

Yeah, that was like, when I was picking pseudonyms.

So I started narrating under my own name, but my day job occasionally runs background checks.

So after five books of that, I'm like, I should probably not be doing.

This under my own name.

And at that time, I was doing nonfiction, only nonfiction.

Okay.

So I did five books.

I'm like, we should probably have an alternate name.

So I pick a name.

I want to make sure I can own the domain.

I want to make sure that all the social medias I can own some thing I had to add, like, narrates to the end of all of them.

Started a podcast, and that name, I only did nonfiction under except the daily fiction podcast, which is like, classic novel audiobooks, kind of.

And so with that one, I'm like, no famous people can be using it.

No other narrators can be using it already make sure that in my thing, I'm the only one.

And then when I started getting fiction, after I'd already outed myself to everybody that I know of the first name, I'm like, we need another name.

So for a Victoria, I did the same thing.

Can I own the domain?

Can I own some semblance of the social medias?

Is there another narrator using it?

Is there a famous person with the name?

There's, like, an ASMR person, but that's not narrating.

So I do occasionally get Google alerts that her nudes were leaked.

So that's fun.

I'm like, oh, Freya.

Victoria's only fan stuff was leaked.

And I'm just like, it wasn't me.

It wasn't me.

Oh, my God.

But now I'll just turn to my husband and be like, other me's nudes got leaked again.

Half the time will respond with, is there something you need to tell me?

No, definitely not.

I'm like, you think we'd live in this house if I was doing well on only fans enough to have my stuff leaked, like, no, right.

I feel like that's like a level up.

It's like, well, I mean, there's, like.

People who have an only fans, which I do not, which, I mean, no judgment to anyone who does, but there's people that have one, and then there's people that get big enough on there that people leak their stuff.

Like, there's a difference, right?

If you're not doing well, no one knows you exist, so how is your stuff going to get leaked?

Yeah, I did that with my pen name.

I keep being like, you know what?

I'm going to come out, I'm going to leak it.

And I was talking to my cousin because, again, it's literally for three people.

And I do have a children's book under my real name, and so it is kind of nice being able to separate the two because I do want to do more children's books as well.

Yeah.

Quite honestly, my grandfather gave me an idea for a children's book that would be fantastic, but I'm like, we would do that under the nicer name that everybody knows about.

Yeah.

But, yeah, I keep being like, I should just like because it's going to get out.

It's going to get out eventually, my family is going to figure it out.

And I'm like, I almost just want to be in control of the situation and then instead of having to go on the defensive.

And my claim is, if it ever does, to be like, well, there's smoochie bits.

I just didn't want you to read that.

Yeah.

She pulled me out of it, and I think she's right.

But I think at one point I posted, oh, no, I sent out a newsletter.

I sent out a newsletter and I said something about going to church on Sundays.

And I'm like, but realistically, mind your own business.

The people at church know that I narrate.

I live in a Bible belt.

It is not unusual for people to go to church.

But I'm like, no one asks me what kind of books I narrate.

Most of them actually listen to the daily fiction podcast, which is classic novels.

But, like, the rest of the stuff, I'm like, just don't ask.

Don't ask.

I won't tell.

If you find me, that's, like, none of them are on TikTok.

A few of them are.

One of my aunts is.

And I'm like, if you ever find me, just don't out me to anybody.

I have a couple friends, my mom and my sister know, my sister actually helped me come up with the name, so I came up with Freya really fast because it's a goddess of love in norse mythology.

And since technically my legal name is Norwegian, I felt it was fitting.

But I couldn't figure out a last name that didn't sound stupid.

So she was like, what about this?

I'm like that works.

So that's where we are.

So my mom and my sister know with a warning of read the blurb if you want one of the audiobooks, because I won't be held responsible if you listen to something spicy.

My sister in law has listened to some of the spiciest books I have done, and I'm like, did you not read the blurb?

And she's like, It's just a book.

It's okay.

I'm like, well, that's on you then.

And again.

I don't write the spiciest of anything again.

I call myself Diet Spice.

But my mother in law found out and immediately went out, bought multiple copies of everything, and started handing it out to all of her neighbors.

And I'm like, Black Groves is very heavy with the car culture.

And there's cars.

There's a mechanic.

There's all this they're in Peak Out, that southwestern desert where everybody builds everything and does it.

I'm like, I'm cringing harder because of the car stuff.

I'm like, they're going to be like, oh, there's fantasizing f****** hot rod mechanics.

Oh, my God.

It's funny.

Like, the stuff that we're going to cringe at.

Yeah.

What's funny, too, though, is, like, my husband, though, he took a while to decide whether he wanted to use a pseudonym or not.

And he eventually did decide because originally he was going to have me narrate it.

But he has so many accents in his book that I cannot do that.

I'm like, dude, it would take me a year just to get your accents down.

There's no way I can do this book.

But he still decided to use a pseudonym so that he can do whatever he wants to do.

But it's like, if people find out, everyone knows he's writing a book, or everybody.

Some people are like, I had no idea.

I hung out with my best friend.

Hadn't seen her in about six months.

Hang out with her and her husband's.

Like, I had no idea you had a podcast.

And I'm like, I literally post about it all the time.

Like, what do you mean you didn't know?

I'm like, actually, I have three.

He's like, I had no idea.

And then one of my other friends is starting to get into narrating.

And he knew I was a narrator shortly after I started, but, like, asking me questions and stuff.

And he's like, I had no idea your husband was writing a book.

I'm like, well, sorry.

We don't talk about it to the public.

Right?

Yeah.

And then I'm always like, well, the one that started narrating, I'm like, you need to get on TikTok, because that's where a lot of the authors will find narrators.

I mean, you can also get auditions through Acx, but I've seen a lot of narrators get jobs off of TikTok because they're narrating on there.

So I'm, like you need to join TikTok.

You need to do this and that.

I'm like, if you want my pseudonym.

And he's like, no, don't tell me your business.

If you stumble across me, then you.

It'S an interesting world.

Yes.

Kate liked the Brothers Grimm growing up, the Brothers Grimm, Jacob and Wilhelm were a brother duo of German academics, philologists, cultural researchers, lexicographers and authors who together collected and published folklore.

They are among the best known storytellers of folktales popularizing stories such as cinderella, the frog prince, hansel and Gretel, little red riding hood, rapunzel rumple stiltskin, sleeping beauty and snow white.

Their first collection of folk tales, Children's and Household Tales, began publication in 1812.

The rise of Romanticism in 19th century Europe revived interest in traditional folk stories, which, to the Brothers Grimm represented a pure form of national literature and culture.

With the goal of researching a scholarly treatise on folk tales, they established a methodology for collecting and recording folk stories that became the basis for folklore studies between 1812 and 1857.

Their first collection was revised and republished many times, growing from 86 stories to more than 200.

In addition to writing and modifying folktales, the brothers wrote collections of well respected Germanic and Scandinavian mythologies.

And in 1838, they began writing a definitive German dictionary, which they were unable to finish during their lifetimes.

The popularity of the Grims collected folktales has endured well.

The tales are available in more than.

100 translations and have been adapted by renowned filmmakers with films such as Snow White and The Seven Dwarves.

In the mid 20th century, the tales were used as propaganda by N*** Germany.

Later in the 20th century, psychologists such as Bruno Bettelheim reaffirmed the value of the work in spite of the cruelty and violence in original versions of some of the tales, which were eventually sanitized by the Grims themselves.

Today we'll be reading Snow White and Rose Red by the Brothers Grimm.

Don't forget we're reading Lemorde 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.

Snow white and rose red.

There was once a poor widow who lived in a lonely cottage.

In front of the cottage was a garden wherein stood two rose trees, one of which bore white and the other red roses.

She had two children who were like the two rose trees, and one was called Snow White and the other Rose Red.

They were as good and happy, as busy and cheerful as ever.

Two children in the world were only snow White was more quiet and gentle than Rose Red.

Rose Red liked better to run about in the meadows and fields, seeking flowers and catching butterflies.

But Snow White sat at home with her mother and helped her with her housework or read to her when there was nothing to do.

The two children were so fond of one another that they always held each other by the hand when they went out together.

And when Snow White said, we will not leave each other, Rose Red answered, Never.

So long as we live.

And their mother would add, what one has she must share with the other.

They often ran about the forest alone and gathered red berries, and no beasts did them any harm, but came close to them trustfully the little hare would eat a cabbage leaf out of their hands.

The row grazed by their side, the stag leapt merrily by them, and the birds sat still upon the boughs and sang whatever they knew.

No mishap overtook them if they had stayed too late in the forest and night came on, they laid themselves down near one another upon the moss and slept until morning came.

And their mother knew this and did not worry on their account.

Once, when they had spent the night in the wood and the dawn had roused them, they saw a beautiful child in a shining white dress sitting near their bed.

He got up and looked quite kindly at them, but said nothing and went into the forest.

And when they looked round they found that they had been sleeping quite close to a precipice and would certainly have fallen into it in the darkness if they had gone only a few paces further.

And their mother told them that it must have been the angel who watches over good children.

Snow White and Rose Red kept their mother's little cottage so neat that it was a pleasure to look inside it.

In the summer, Rose Red took care of the house and every morning laid a wreath of flowers by her mother's bed before she awoke and which was a rose from each tree.

In the winter, Snow White lit the fire and hung the kettle on the hob.

The kettle was of brass and shone like gold, so brightly was it polished.

In the evening when the snowflakes fell, the mother said, go, Snow White in both the door.

And then they sat round to the hearth, and the mother took her spectacles and read aloud out of a large book.

And the two girls listened as they sat and spun, and close by them lay a lamb upon the floor, and behind them upon a perch sat a white dove with its head hidden beneath its wings.

One evening, as they were thus sitting comfortably together, someone knocked at the door as if he wished to be let in.

The mother said, Quick, Rose Red, open the door.

It must be a traveler who is seeking shelter.

Rose Red went and pushed back the bolt, thinking that it was a poor man, but it was not.

It was a bear that stretched his broad black head within the door.

Rose Red screamed and sprang back the lamb bleeded.

The dove fluttered and snow White hid herself behind her mother's bed.

But the bear began to speak and said, do not be afraid.

I will do you no harm.

I am half frozen and only want to warm myself a little beside you.

Poor bear, said the mother.

Lie down by the fire.

Only take care that you do not burn your coat.

Then she cried snow white rose red, come out.

The bear will do you no harm.

He means well.

So they both came out, and by and by the lamb and dove came nearer and were not afraid of him.

The bear said, Here, children, knock the snow out of my coat a little.

So they brought the broom and swept the bear's hide clean, and he stretched himself by the fire and growled contentedly and comfortably.

It was not long before they grew quiet at home and played tricks with their clumsy guest.

They tugged his hair with their hands, put their feet upon his back and rolled him about.

Or they took a hazel switch and beat him, and when he growled, they laughed.

But the bear took it all in good part.

Only when they were too rough, he called out, leave me alive, children.

Snow White, Rose Red, will you beat your woo or dead?

When it was bedtime and the others went to bed, the mother said to the bear you can lie there by the hearth and then you'll be safe from the cold and the bad weather.

As soon as day dawned, the two children let him out and he trotted across the snow into the forest.

Henceforth the bear came every evening at the same time, laid himself down by the hearth and let the children amuse themselves with him as much as they liked.

And they got so used to him that the doors were never fastened until their black friend had arrived.

When spring had come and all outside was green, the bear said one morning the Snow White, now I must go away and cannot come back for the whole summer.

Where are you going then, dear bear?

Asked Snow White.

I must go into the forest and guard my treasures from the wicked dwarves.

In the winter, when the earth is frozen hard, they are obliged to stay below and cannot work their way through.

But now, when the sun is thawed and warmed the earth, they break through it and come out to pry and steal.

And what once gets into their hands and in their caves does not easily see daylight again.

Snow White was quite sorry at his departure, and as she unbolted the door for him and the bear was hurrying out, he caught against the bolt and a piece of his hairy coat was torn off, and it seemed to Snow White as if she had seen gold shining through it, but she was not sure about it.

The bear ran away quickly and was soon out of sight behind the trees.

A short time afterwards the mother sent her children into the forest to get firewood.

There they found a big tree which lay felt on the ground and close by the trunk.

Something was jumping backwards and forwards in the grass, but they could not make out what it was.

When they came nearer, they saw a dwarf with an old withered face and a snow white beard a yard long.

The end of the beard was caught in a crevice of the tree, and the little fellow was jumping about like a dog tied to a rope and did not know what to do.

He glared at the girls with his fiery red eyes and cried why do you stand there?

Can you not come here and help me?

What are you up to, little man?

Asked Rose red.

You stupid, prying goose, answered the dwarf.

I was going to split the tree to get a little wood for cooking.

The little bit of food that we.

People get is immediately burned up with heavy logs.

We do not swallow so much as you coarse, greedy folk.

I had just driven the wedge safely in, and everything was going as I wished.

But the cursed wedge was too smooth and suddenly sprang out, and the tree.

Closed so quickly that I could not.

Pull out my beautiful white beard.

So now it is tight and I cannot get away.

And the silly, sleek, milk faced things laugh.

How odious you are.

The children tried very hard, but they could not pull the beard out.

It was caught too fast.

I will run and fetch someone, said Rose Red.

E, you senseless goose.

Snarled the dwarf.

Why should you fetch someone?

You are already too too many for me.

Can you not think of something better?

Don't be impatient, said Snow White.

I will help you.

And she pulled her scissors out of her pocket and cut off the end of the beard.

As soon as the door felt himself free, he laid hold of a bag which lay amongst the roots of the tree and which was full of gold, and lifted it up grumbling to himself.

Uncouth people to cut off a piece of my fine beard.

Bad luck to you.

And then he swung the bag upon his back and went off without even once looking at the children.

Sometime afterwards, Snow White and Rose Red went to catch a dish of fish.

As they came near the brook they saw something like a large grasshopper jumping toward the water, as if it were going to leap in.

They ran to it and found it was the dwarf.

Where are you going?

Said Rose Red.

You surely don't want to go into the water.

I am not such a fool.

Cried the dwarf.

Don't you see that the accursed fish wants to pull me in?

The little man had been sitting there fishing and unluckily the wind had tangled up his beard with the fishing line.

A moment.

Later a big fish made a bite, and the feeble creature had not strength to pull it out.

The fish kept the upper hand and pulled the dwarf towards him.

He held onto all the reeds and rushes, but it was of little good, for he was forced to follow the movements of the fish and was in urgent danger of being dragged into the water.

The girls came just in time.

They held him fast and tried to free his beard from the line, but all in vain.

Beard and line were entangled fast together.

There was nothing to do but to bring out the scissors and cut the beard, whereby a small part of it was lost.

When the dwarf saw that, he screamed out is that civil, you toad stool, to disfigure a man's face?

Was it not enough to clip off the end of my beard?

Now you have cut off the best part of it.

I cannot let myself be seen by my people.

I wish you'd been made to run the souls off your shoes.

And he took out a sack of pearls which lay in the rushes, and without another word he dragged it away and disappeared behind a stone.

It happened that soon afterwards the mother sent the two children to the town to buy needles and thread and laces and ribbon.

The road led them across a heath, upon which huge pieces of rock lay strewn about.

There they noticed a large bird hovering in the air, flying slowly round and round above them.

It sank lower and lower, and at last settled near a rock not far away.

Immediately they heard a loud, piteous cry.

They ran up and saw with horror that the eagle had seized their old acquaintance, the dwarf, and was going to carry him off.

The children, full of pity, at once took tight hold of the little man and pulled against the eagle so long that at last he let his booty go.

As soon as the dwarf had recovered from his first fright, he cried with his shrill voice could you not have done it more carefully?

You dragged it my brown coat so that it is all torn and full.

Of holes, you clumsy creatures.

Then he took up a sack full of precious stones and slipped away again under the rock into his hole.

The girls, who by this time were used to his ingratitude, went on their way and did their business in town.

As they crossed the heath again on their way home, they surprised the dwarf, who had emptied out his bag of precious stones in a clean spot, and had not thought that anyone would come there so late.

The evening sun shone upon the brilliant stones.

They glittered and sparkled with all colors so beautifully that the children stood still and stared at them.

Why do you stand gaping there?

Cried the dwarf, and his ashen gray face became copper red with rage.

He was still cursing when a loud growling was heard and a black bear came trotting towards them out of the forest.

The dwarf sprang up in a fright, but he could not reach his cave for the bear was already close.

Then, in the dread of his heart, he cried dear Mr.

Bear, spare me.

I will give you all my treasures.

Look, the beautiful jewels lying there.

Grant me my life.

What do you want?

With such a slender little fellow as I you would not feel me between your teeth.

Come, take these two wicked girls.

They are tender morsels for you, fat as young quails.

For mercy's sake, eat them.

The bear took no heed of his words but gave the wicked creature a single blow with his paw and he did not move again.

The girls had run away, but the bear called to them snow White and Rose Red.

Do not be afraid.

Wait.

I will come with you.

Then they recognized his voice and waited.

And when he came up to them, suddenly his bear skin fell off and he stood there, a handsome man, clothed all in gold.

I am a Kingston, he said.

And I was bewitched by that wicked dwarf who had stolen my treasures.

I have had to run about the forest as a savage bear until I was freed by his death.

Now he has got his well deserved punishment.

Snow White was married to him and Rose Red to his brother and they divided between them the great treasure which the dwarf had gathered together in his cave.

The old mother lived peacefully and happily with her children for many years.

She took the two rose trees with her and they stood before her window.

And every year bore the most beautiful roses white and red.

Thank you for joining Freya's fairy tales.