Today is part two of two where we are talking to Neal Romriell about her novels. After today you will have heard about writing prompts as a kid in school, starting with short stories based on life experiences, finally being able to write a novel when covid traps you at home, getting signed  by a publisher and getting your rights back, learning how to finish getting your book ready, dumb luck helping get things done for your book, writing multiple books at once, and doing things your own way.

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Born and raised in Idaho, Neal struck out for the east coast after graduating from high school. Over the years he’s worn many hats, including Retail and Restaurant Manager, Janitor, Youth Advocate, and now Author. His most important hat however is that of husband to his beautiful wife, and father to his wonderful daughters. He wrote his debut, Urban Fantasy novel- SITE ALPHA during the spring and summer of 2020 and self-published it in June of 2022. A short story of Neal's- THE TOP PRIZE was included in the Anthology WELCOME TO EFFHAM FALLS which released in May of 2032. He is currently working on Site Alpha’s sequel as well as a fantasy series.

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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.

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

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Today is part two of two where we are talking to Neil Romrell about his novels.

After today, you will have heard about writing prompts as a kid in school, starting with short stories based on life experiences.

Finally being able to write a novel when COVID traps you at home.

Getting signed by a publisher and getting your rights back.

Learning how to finish getting your book ready.

Dumb luck.

Helping get things done for your book.

Writing multiple books at once and doing things your own way.

Sight.

Alpha eyes in the dark.

Book One what if I told you Sasquatches were real?

What if I told you we protect them?

Charlote chuck Barnes is an agent in the Rogers family, a secret society created to protect cryptids like Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster from the outside world.

Life is usually quiet at the aging site Alpha, where Chuck is stationed.

But a series of deaths brings Chuck face to face with a dark foe from the family's past.

Along with senior Agent Sally DeRosa, chuck and her team will be forced to use every ounce of their training to battle arising threats to cryptid and human alike.

But will it be enough to stop the entity behind the Eyes in the Dark site?

Alpha will appeal to fans of The X Files, men in Black and the Mothman Prophecies.

It presents cryptids in new and interesting ways, creating a world that is both down to earth and out of this world.

So, anyway, so it taught me a lot.

It taught me a few things.

Number one, it taught me that I probably in the future again, going through Ingram Spark at the time.

It costs a lot of money.

It costs far less money to get with Ingram Spark now.

Well, it doesn't.

It doesn't anyway, yeah, now, I say.

I mean, if you sell thousands and thousands and thousands of copies, you're paying way more in the long run.

But upfront, not as much.

What I've noticed, though, is that I sell way more books on Amazon and personally, like, I sell more books myself just to people than I probably do through Ingram.

Right.

If we're being honest about it.

Well, I think that's most authors experience, too.

Yeah.

So in the future, I don't know that I'd get such a big, I think, with the series, my base series.

So my debut novel is site Alpha.

That Base series, I probably will continue to do it kind of like I did with it.

Right.

There'll be a full publishing thing.

It'll have all the stuff.

Its audiobook is being recorded right now, a year later, but still, it's okay.

I'm getting an audiobook, which is awesome.

That series will probably have the exact same format for everything at the same time.

I'm about 78, almost 80,000 words into a fantasy book that I've been kind of writing in between times when I couldn't get my brain around my Base novel stuff there.

And I don't know, with it, I don't know that I'll go all that.

I might just release it on KDP and put it up there and let folks see it, because to me, it's a different story.

I finally am getting back to going back to doing that D and D book that I've always dreamed I was going to eventually do.

Right.

Yeah.

So as I read it and as I've continued to write it, it's occurred to me that this may or may not be something that people want.

There's there's such a dearth of fantasy out there.

And so this is one of those things where I put it if if I happen to get some traction with it on Amazon or at my live events, then maybe I go back after the fact and say, okay, sure, I'll put it on Ingram now, or I'll do something else with it.

But I think at the time, I had this sense when I released my first book, I had this sense that you have to do everything now.

You don't have to do everything now.

No, I've learned that I'm a bigger person now.

I understand that there's a little bit more nuance to releasing a book than just getting everything out at the once.

And so yeah, I don't even know.

I had somebody ask me a couple of weeks ago on Twitter, well, where are you going to query again?

I don't know that I want to go through that anymore.

I don't like, I would rather make it big on my own and then have an agent contact me and not have to go through the pain and the time.

Yeah.

And I have all the respect in the world for agents.

I get what it is that they're doing, and I absolutely understand.

I don't know that that's the place I want to be anymore.

Having been there, having seen it, having gone through it, I can say now, yes, I was there once, and like you said, if for some reason my book were to just take off and congratulations, somebody reached out to me, then I would talk to them.

But I don't know that I'm going to go out there now and just be like, here's this work that I've poured another two and a half years of my life into.

I hope somebody will like it.

I can just do that and publish it.

And the same event happens, right?

And I feel like too.

So you started all this in 2020 where self publishing was still kind of looked down on, where now, obviously, people who are in the trad pub may look down on self pub a little bit more, but it is so much more common now, especially post COVID.

So many authors decided to go the self publishing route and talk about the self publishing route and their journey and all of that, that I feel like now it's a much more maybe it's just a TikTok, much more acceptable thing.

I mean, it may be Facebook still hates on self pub.

I don't know.

I tried to avoid Facebook.

Yeah.

I don't even remember what the agency was here recently where they let one of their agents go.

I know it was a big thing on Twitter.

I look at traditional publishing in a different light now, having been through that whole system, you know what I'm saying?

I talked to authors that are traditionally published.

I made more in my writing group.

I made more off my book last year.

Two people that are traditionally published made off their books last year kind of thing in one of my writing groups that I'm in.

And that's not me, like, trying to brag.

I really didn't make that much money.

My point is that they didn't make that much money.

And that's the thing that kind of shocked me, is that and so it kind of comes down to me for like, okay, I get the control if I put this book out now, if I go through all the steps.

If I do all the right things as far as getting editors, getting sensitive, getting all the right things, then when I put that book out, I don't have to feel shame of that.

I have an author that I narrate for who's very specifically been like, do not ever sign your books with any publisher unless it is a big five.

And the only reason you would do that is because they're offering you a gigantic upfront, and they're going to put a bunch of marketing dollars behind you.

Because the reality is, even the big five, if you're some little, tiny, no known author, they're not putting a bunch of marketing money behind you and you're giving up most of your royalties.

Exactly.

I'm like, I can write the story that I want to.

I can do it how I want to, I can format it how I want to, I can put a cover on it how I want the COVID to look, and I can keep all the money.

I mean, I do have to do all the work, but I can do all these things exactly how I want it to be done.

If I choose to just write my book and publish it and not have anyone else ever look at it, I could do that.

It wouldn't be wise, but I could do that.

Right?

Yeah.

There's an author group I was talking to last night with some of the people in it because one of the individuals there's getting ready to publish, they're publishing a book next week, and they were asking, well, do I need this and do I need that?

And we'd had a bunch of us kind of had a back and forth.

And finally I said, here's the thing.

I might not be the best representative of this, because I'm going to tell you, just do what makes you happy.

I hate the concept of people trying to fit certain things into a box.

Everything applies to everybody.

Right.

The thing to me is that if we lived in an industry where that was the rule of thumb, it would be a stifling industry.

You know what I'm saying?

We wouldn't have so much variety.

We wouldn't have such you would lose the creativity.

Exactly.

There's just such a rich tapestry of books out there in the world right now that self publishing has made possible.

That's all there is to it.

There's going to be some hiccups along the way.

There's going to be some people that are going to say, oh, self publishing.

It's not your reader.

It's okay.

Exactly.

That is okay.

I have met so many more people.

I have read so many stories that I know for a fact I would never have seen otherwise were it not for people being able to self publish in the way that they can.

Now, it's funny, you talked about giving someone else advice, so I did.

June is Audiobook Month, which is the month we are currently talking to each other in, not the month that this will air.

And so I was doing, like, an introduction for how I got started.

And I started off or somewhere very early in it, I was like, let me start off with saying I don't recommend the way I started to anybody.

I saw a video.

Within a month, I had a very cheap microphone and a closet that was set up and ready to go, and I was auditioning for books.

Did I know what I was doing?

No.

Did I start a podcast two weeks later?

Yes.

I also did that.

I'm like, I don't recommend my way.

The only type of person that my insane jump into the deep end way works is people that that is the way that works for them.

But I'm like I don't recommend it.

So then an author that I've narrated a book for is like, well, what kind of microphone would you recommend getting started because I'm like, I wouldn't buy the one that I bought.

It was a piece of crap.

And I'm like, listen, there are tons of options, but if I had to do it over again, this is the mic, I would have bought it instead.

It's five times the cost of the one that I started on, but it sounds so much better that it would have been worth.

I'm very clear I did not start them.

Most narrators will tell you, oh, you need to start off with a coach and make sure that your coach tells you that you're ready, which are all great things and great advice.

That is not the route that I took.

And as a result, I listened back to some of my first books that I narrated and I'm like, those are bad to me.

I think they're bad.

I mean, people still paid me to do them, but I'm right.

So much better now.

So how did the audiobook I know you said it's in the works right now, how did that come about?

Well, my idea was that self publishing, I wanted to get everything, so I bought the ISBN package.

It's like all ten of them or whatever, because buying them one at a time, I hate ISBN pricing, by the way.

I'm sorry, I'll put that out into the world right now.

The only reason for anybody that doesn't know this, the only reason for ISBNs is basically because you want your brand's name on your books.

That is because the Amazon is going to be the Amazon name.

The Ingram one is going to be the Ingram name.

The drafter digital one is going to be their name.

The only reason to pay for it is for me.

I will pay for them because I have my own publishing house name already set up to go.

So I will pay for them.

That's the only reason to pay for them.

Otherwise just use the free one.

Yeah.

So anyway, I had even pegged one of my ISBNs as being an audiobook.

But I didn't at that time have an immediate again, I knew I didn't have any money a so I was like, it's going to have to wait a little while because what happened was again, I feel so silly about some of this stuff because I kind of luck into crap for this book stuff.

I talk about the COVID artist.

I'm super proud of my cover art, but my cover art cost me way less than what it should have in the open market because she's a friend of my daughter's, you know what I'm saying?

And it's like, again, I got a super sweetheart deal and the rights and the whole nine yards.

I can sell it on t shirts.

I can do everything I want to with that thing.

And it was nowhere.

I've since paid her some additional money because I felt bad for the price that I originally that's not a joke.

I sent some additional cash because I was like, look, you should have earned a little bit more than what I was able to give you at the time.

I have a friend who records audiobooks.

I knew she did, but I wasn't going to ask her.

And I wasn't just going to be like, hey, but she does a podcast.

And she had read my book and she's like, we're going to talk about your book on the podcast, but do you have somebody to do your audiobook yet?

I'm like, not yet.

She's like, well, what if we set something up where we could do maybe you just don't have to pay me up front, but maybe we just split the royalties or something.

And I said, well, if you want to work that out.

And then she came back to me and she's like, well, here, how about this contract?

And it was, again, way cheaper than what I would have normally had to have paid.

But this is somebody who wants to see the work succeed.

That's how it ended up kind of coming together.

And again, for me, it's dumb luck.

I can't recommend the way that I did anything to anybody because you're not going to have those circumstances repeated themselves ever.

But that was kind of how it officially blossomed anyway.

I've had authors that I have talked to and have royalty share contracts with now.

And before we ever they'd be like, well, I feel so bad that I can't pay you what you're worth or whatever.

And I'm like, listen, there is nothing that says you can't pay me more money down the road and then I can release you from the royalty share because all that takes when you go through, like ACX is me.

Hey, I released this person from that contract.

And then they may have questions, but typically they'll release it.

So I'm like, there's nothing that says you come into some windfall of cash and you decide to pay me what's left and what should have been owed to me.

There's nothing that says that can't happen at some point, right?

Well, like I said, I've heard of.

People that like narrators that do royalty share that end up making more money than their initial amount would have been.

So it's all like, I track how much I make on every single royalty share book because I want to know, am I making a dollar per hour?

How much am I making right now?

I don't know.

It can be pretty thankless in that regard because yeah, I was talking to a budy of mine and after the book had come out, he said, well, does that mean you're going to scale back some from work?

And I'm like, no, you clearly don't understand how this thing works.

Because.

I just saw somewhere and I don't remember what the number was, but it was like most authors, it takes like, say ten books for them to really start rolling.

And I'm like, well, great.

That's only going to take me 20 years to write that many?

Yeah.

You said you're working on the DND book now, or are you working on.

The next book to the trilogy?

Well, okay.

I mentioned I had the yeah, I kind of working on both, unfortunately.

And again, not one of those things I don't recommend doing as an author.

But the DND book, what it actually focuses on is it's the original characters from one of the very first games I ever played.

And as I transitioned from being a player to doing dungeon mastering, like running the games, I had a fondness for this small group of characters, four of them whom were actual characters I'd created, and one of whom was a budy of Mine's character.

And I started just putting them in every single campaign I ever made.

They were there in the world, no matter they might not be in the same place.

It might be a totally different world.

The characters might not ever run into them, but they were always in the world somewhere, right?

Like, they were always in the periphery somewhere, these five characters.

And so this is kind of their origin story as now being re envisioned by me 30 years later.

It's for sure going to have to be two books because I can't fit the characters, the stories that I want into just one book.

I know that already.

I mentioned I got it up to 80,000 words.

It's still got 20, 30,000 words minimum to go.

So I don't have any illusions of it being an easy book to publish.

It's going to take a while because it takes me so long to get the editing process down.

And I've changed my second book in my cryptid series.

This is the third time I've written I've tried to write that book.

I got about 20,000 words in to the first version of it and scrapped it because going back to the point of having to change so much stuff through revisions and stuff, I realized that POV was not going to work and the character that it was focused on couldn't do that.

So then I started it over, and I thought, okay, well, I'll do this other thing.

And then I kind of had just one day I'd gotten it up to about 12,000 words, and one day I was taking a walk, and it hit me that this again, something was wrong with that book.

And I went home that night, or I got home that night after taking that walk, and I was reading the book, and it kind of struck me like, no, this is not the direction to take this.

This doesn't feel authentic to the characters.

It doesn't feel authentic to what I want the second book to do.

So I started writing again.

Now I'm up to about 10,000 words.

But now the funny thing is that now that I've got this audiobook because I'm getting chapters back and I'm reviewing and how do you like this voice and how do you like this and that?

Now I'm getting excited about that second book again because I'm hearing my first book all like it's almost brand new to me, right?

And so now I say I'm about 10,000 words just under a week ago.

I think I'm cranking out words on that book now and I'm afraid at this point I'm like and my little ADHD brain is going to just get fixated on.

I know one of these books is going to have to take over and so it's probably going to be that one just because it's the one that I'm so like I'm daily being attacked by these not attacked, but I'm just hearing these characters in my head now.

And so now I'm like, oh yeah, I think I'm going to have to finish that one first.

I know the other one's so close, but I think I'm just going to tell this.

I'm going to write this second book and just get it.

The thing about it is I don't care about the word count.

Same if it gets 60,000, it gets 70,000, gets 8000.

Great.

The other one, the fantasy one, it's going to take a lot of words because it's taken this many words just to get it to where it's at.

I know it's got 30,000 words left in it.

I don't know, it might seem silly, but if I'm asking somebody to beta read for me, sending them an 80,000 word manuscript and sending them 100,000 word manuscript feels like worlds apart difference.

And I don't know why it's only 20,000 words, but it's typing that extra zero suddenly makes me feel like I don't know if everybody's going to want to read this.

So I feel strongly that I'm probably going to.

Actually at the end of the day, I'm probably going to end up publishing that second book in the series before I publish the fantasy book, which hurts my heart a little bit, but I think that's probably the right route to go.

There are a couple of word count things that I feel very strongly about.

One is the supposed to have word counts are for trad pub.

Like it is what it is.

I feel very strongly that if you are self publishing, you write the story that you need to write and it is however many words it is and then your beta readers or your editor are going to weed it down for you or you will weed it down for you.

But then also that if you are writing a series, you have your main thing that your series is about, your main conclusion that your story is going to come to.

Your big bad guy gets defeated at the end of the third, 4th, 5th, whatever book.

And then you stop because you have concluded what the entire don't just keep writing because people are going to ask you if they like your books.

They're going to keep asking you for more books.

So write little novellas about the side characters or whatever, but don't just drag the story on for the sake of.

Dragging the story on that 20,000 word draft of the first version of that second book.

I do have it saved because I do actually think that someday I might put it out as like a vella thing on KDP or something because it's a good story, but it's just about the wrong character.

Like, it doesn't focus on the character that the book needs to be focused on.

So I don't feel bad about the story.

It's just that it wasn't conducive to being the second.

I literally my most recent TikTok was literally about what you were just talking about.

I was like, I hate word counts in traditional publishing.

So my book is a little bit of an outlier.

So I said last week I was talking to an author and I said, I'm writing a contemporary fantasy.

And they're like, oh yeah, contemporary.

But it's like urban fantasy.

And I'm like, no, I'm writing a dual world.

Half of the book is in our world and the other half is in a fantasy world.

It is a contemporary and a fantasy together.

What word count is standard for that?

We're going to go with fantasy word counts because that's probably closer to what it's going to be.

And those are bigger.

Yeah, those are.

But again, I don't plan on querying, so it's going to be however long it needs to be.

I love that.

I really do.

Sorry, I say I there a lot I talked about recently that I wish I didn't know now what I didn't know then.

And I really do believe that when it comes to writing a book, after you write that first book, now I know all these things, and it keeps getting in my head, like, oh my got to do this or I got to do that.

And I sometimes just have to kick myself in the b*** and say, no, you don't just sit down and get that book written.

You can't do anything without a book.

Yeah, that's really what it comes down to.

If you don't have a manuscript, you don't have any reason to worry.

So what is the best piece of advice you've gotten and the worst piece of advice you've gotten?

So probably the best piece of advice was it's kind of a tie in my mind getting an actual developmental editor over just getting like a line editor, because they are two very different things in a lot of cases, you know what I'm saying?

My first editor that I mentioned that I probably paid too soon, they were very much like a developmental editor and not a line editor at all.

And again, I didn't really know that.

I didn't know the difference.

Between the two.

But having had both a developmental and a line editor touch my book, it occurs to me that those are two different things, and you probably do need to have at least one from each side.

In theory, there are I'm sure there are out there that are perfectly good at both.

But I think the developmental, for me, the thing that changed it the most for me was she asked questions that I hadn't even asked myself yet.

She would say, hey, why did we do this?

I don't know.

In my head, it made sense to me, right?

That versus what I get from a line editor, which is, hey, this needs to go in front of this, and this needs to go in front of that, but it helps gel the story a little bit.

The line editor, at least for me, would often say things like, I see what you're trying to do here, but this is a better way to say it, or this is you know what I'm saying?

Whereas the developmental editor would say, OOH, I think you could go here with this and make it even better.

A developmental editor looks at the story overall where a line editor is looking sentence by sentence or paragraph by paragraph.

Not they don't care what your whole story is about.

They're like, let's make it grammatically correct.

Yes.

So having one of each helped me a lot.

Betas can function as the developmental.

Very much can.

They very much can.

The other thing is that I guess this is cheating because I'm saying two things that are best, but getting your book out there, like getting people interested in the book way before you're ever going to release the book.

Like, I see so many authors that are like, hey, my book's coming out in two days.

And it's like, whoa, timeout, kids.

I just posted a video about in fact, me and my husband are both writing our first books, and both of us, on the same day, within hours of each other, he posted his video.

I didn't see it until after I'd posted the exact same thing.

When do I start talking about my book?

What is your best advice for when you should start talking about it?

Listen, I'm on a podcast with you right now, and I'm talking about a fantasy book that's not even finished.

That's how early you should start talking about it.

I wish I was joking about that, but I'm really not.

As soon as the minute you can get that sucker any kind of attention and I don't necessarily mean you have to have the full name and the full cover and all that stuff.

I mean, I think that is more for two or three months out at max.

Well, five months at the max, I would say if it's beyond five months, I don't think it makes sense because people are going to have forgotten about it by the.

Time your book actually releases, but unless you're currently posting, right, or unless you're somebody that their social media account takes off like a rocket and has millions of followers already or something.

But I think three months out is a good point to actually when you start revealing covers and things like that, right?

A lot of people said, well, Arc readers only need two or three weeks.

No, I wanted to give my Arc readers plenty of time because as the aforementioned situation that I was talking about earlier, I want to get some feedback from those Arc readers if there's problems, and I want to have time to change that.

But if you can start talking about your book now, start telling people stuff.

Something I want to do is I'm close enough now, I'm probably going to start saying things like, okay, well, I'm going to start introducing some of the characters from this fantasy book.

I'm going to start introducing a few of these kind of things.

This book is still a long ways away.

It might be next year early.

I mean, it guarantees to be next year.

It might be next fall before I.

See things like my book that are set up is like the overall premise of the book, which is a series, and so I know what the series is about and what the inciting incident is and things like that.

And I was like, I could drop stuff like that now.

And it's not going to give away the plot twist or anything like that.

You mentioned you've got fantasy if you get the chance to even make, like, crude little maps, something like that.

It doesn't have to be something pretty.

If I'm hand drawing it, it is not going to be pretty.

You can look back a couple of TikTok videos ago because I posted one about my horrendous art skills.

I'm not an artist also.

So, yeah, well, one of the things I want to do with my fantasy book, just along these lines, I know this is kind of going I'm chasing rabbits now from the original question.

But because it's based on DND and because I know DND has got a new addition that's supposed to drop next year, in theory, we'll see how that all goes.

But I do pay attention to other systems.

I am going to try to create those characters, like game system type character, you know what I'm saying?

Like give them stats.

I'm going to try to do those and then maybe again, put them on my website, put them in my newsletter or something like that, you know what I'm saying, where folks can start seeing, hey, this is a character, this is their class, this is what their stats kind of look like.

And it doesn't tell you anything about the book other than a little bit about maybe one of the DND, right?

So stuff like that, because that's something that I can do that it doesn't cost me a lot of money and it doesn't require me to have a complete something to put in front of you.

It's something fun.

It's a little but I'd say two to three months.

The worst advice going back to your question, sorry, like I said, I chase rabbits all over the place.

Probably the worst advice for me, that the worst advice for me was people saying that you absolutely have to seek out an agent.

A lot of people said, don't go to the indie publishing route.

You know what I'm saying?

Well, don't go to the indie publishers.

And again, here's the thing.

Having witnessed that.

A lot of not a lot, but there have been indie publishers that have ran into problems.

And whether it be because they ran out of money or because one of the owners showed their face and revealed themselves to be horrendous person or whatever it might be.

Yes, I'll admit there are instances where indie publishers can again I was part of a indie publishing house that did fail.

But I would not have exchanged that experience.

I don't think that it somehow made me a worse author because I was part of that, right.

But I had a lot of people when I was first joining Twitter and saying I've got this book and I'm going to query.

And people would be like, well, only query agents don't look at those.

Don't do and also I personally am guilty of this.

I know vanity publishers and hybrid publishers and things like that are looked at the far distant bad.

But you know what, there are some people out there that that's the only way they can get their book published is they're going to pay somebody a lot of money to just do it all for them.

Okay?

If you got that kind of cash to throw around, do it.

I guess it's not my route, but in my mind it's not for me to tell you you can't do that.

Right.

The predatory ones just need to go away because there are predatory publishers.

Exactly.

All those people need to get shown the door.

Do your research.

But there's no reason that in this day and age, the only people you should ever talk to are agents.

You know what I'm saying?

If you've got a book and my sister is going to have three books, she already has one book published, she's going to have another book published later this year and then another book published next year all through independent presses or indie pubs.

And she's doing great with them.

She was the number one bestseller on Amazon in her category when her first book dropped.

And again, these are indie publishers, they're small presses, but she's going to be doing fine.

I don't like the and going to just expand on that even more.

The people that talk about putting stuff in a box, well, you have to write.

Your fantasy has to be 900,000 words.

Your science fiction has to be this many words.

Don't listen to advice like that.

If somebody's telling you this is the way it has to be and it's set in stone, other than I mean, you have to eat and breathe, I don't think there's a lot of things like that that you need to set in stone realistically.

There have been even trad pub books that did go out of the realm of the allowable thing.

If your story if an agent, if you can get an agent, because trad pub, you have to have an agent, they won't touch you.

But if you get an agent to look at your story and legitimately, there are no parts of your story that can be cut.

It has to be that many words.

You will probably get someone willing to pick your story up.

If you severely underwrite, that might be different.

If you're like writing novellas, hoping to get trad pub, that's a little bit different.

A little bit different.

The numbers are just there as a general guideline.

If your story has to go outside of that because that's how your story has to be told, there is no rule that says a romance has to be exactly 60,000 words on the dot.

Exactly.

Yeah, but that's just it.

You'll see a lot of people that say that kind of stuff.

You know what I'm saying?

And again, I don't think it's that most of them again, beyond the predatory people, a lot of people mean well.

A lot of people, when they get on and they might be somebody that actually did get they got an agent, and they got an agent because they wrote a 60,000 word romance.

Okay, congratulations.

That's fantastic.

But again, when somebody comes on and says, well, this is how I got my things done, and this is the only way you should be able to do it, that makes no sense to me.

Every author is going to be different.

Every narrator, as you put it, is going to be completely different.

Again, that's part of that whole bouquet of beauty that it comes with writing books.

Your book, your audiobook, your painting, whatever it is that you are creatively putting out there into the world is going to be someone's favorite and someone's most hated thing in the entire world.

The quantity of I hate her voice that I got at the beginning versus now.

Last week, I had someone actually, earlier this week, someone was like, oh, my god, I loved that book that you did so much.

You are her voice, and I will never hear anyone else as that character's voice.

That's awesome.

You never know.

Put your creative thing out there, and some people will love it.

Some people will hate it and just don't comment on their reviews unless they.

Tag you in them.

Amen.

Thank you.

Like I said, this is the part that I enjoy.

This is my favorite part of being like, this is good to talk to.

People because I had someone like, well, what is your like, at some point I'm going to have to have some author interview me about my own book.

But I had asked me like, well, what questions do you ask?

And I'm like, well, I try not to be like with the interview.

I try to be fun, but it's Freya's Fairy tales, so I have to ask about fairy tales.

And then we kind of start at the beginning.

There's a couple points I always hit.

When did you start writing?

How long did it take you to write your first book?

What did you do after that?

How do you talk about like, as long as all the major points of being an author get covered, the rest of it?

I've talked about hair color on about I talked to P.

S.

Nail who runs smoke shops.

I talked know random things about other things.

I talked to one author for a while about terrible Texas accents in narrators the sky is the limit.

As long as we hit the man points, it might branch off a little bit.

And I can usually tell I can tell you've done podcasts before because you stayed on topic and you knew what to talk about.

There weren't long pauses of you trying to think of an answer.

I've been doing this for, let's see, podcast launched April of last year.

So over a year now, I've been talking to authors.

Awesome.

This was not the one that I jumped into.

So two months into Narrating, I'm like, we're going to start a daily fiction podcast.

So like, classic novel audiobooks.

Every day, every day I release a chapter of a classic novel I would not recommend.

In fact, I went to a podcast conference last year and they said only like, 4% of podcasts are daily and we're an insane branch of the group.

I'm like, yes, but also at the same conference, judging by the bug eyes that I got when I at the conference, I hit like 15,000 downloads while I was there.

And that podcast had been going like, just under a year at that point.

And I would say like, oh, I should hit 15,000 downloads this week.

And their eyes would get gigantic.

Like, oh my God, that's so many.

And now I'm now I'm coming up on 40,000 downloads and it's been less than two years.

And I'm like.

That'S cool though.

That's awesome.

I'm like this little thing where I was like, I'm just going to record on this crappy microphone in my closet has turned into I've been fully booked with Narrating for two years or a year and a half.

Podcast is doing okay.

No, that's incredible.

That's so incredible.

Almost ever since I finished the book, I've been like, oh, it'd be cool if I could do some kind of like something.

And TikTok's kind of been that thing for me just as like an outlet for me to just share crap about my life.

But I very much see having been on so many podcasts now I'm like, man, I would like to do a podcast eventually.

But I just don't know.

There's so many writing ones, right?

There's so much stuff about just writing and I'm like I don't have anything new to add to that.

Yeah, I'm guessing the fairy tale, right?

I think you've got an absolutely fantastic format.

This has been one of the most fun podcasts I've ever got to be on because we got to talk about some stuff that's not just the baseline kind of things that everybody talks about.

I feel like every interview related podcast should have some kind of icebreaker question.

You may ask it off, whatever, but some kind of icebreaker to loosen up whoever you're talking to.

There was literally so I'm at this podcast conference, it's a week long thing and one of the sessions I went to was this lady who does a business podcast and she talked about how she sends her list of questions to her business people she's going to talk to ahead of time.

And then she essentially does the interview ahead of time with them over the phone to go over their answers ahead of time and then they do the whole recorded thing.

And I'm like, wow, that sounds way too stiff and scripted.

And I turned to my mom who I made go with me because I didn't want to go by myself to the first podcast conference ever.

So I'm like, I turned to her and I'm like that would never work for my podcast.

Well, maybe as a business, I guess maybe I can see a little bit, but still.

Yeah, I think the opportunity like I said, you presenting the fairy tale angle a it was something because I was thinking about it this whole week.

I was going, man, it's really the only because I was like, well, Ruffle Stillskin I feel like a lot of people have probably said that one.

So maybe I'll have to do Common.

Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast and Little Red Riding Hood.

Those are the most common ones that.

Had oh dang, dang.

Cause see my other one would maybe like the only other one that I remember really vividly was Hansel and know, being kind as a kid.

That one struck me just because of what happens in it.

The dark forest, the house made of candy and it's kind of like but still Rumpel, still skin.

Because I think it's just because that book was really what settled it for me.

But no, it had me thinking before I even got to the podcast.

Well, I've had people that, I mean, you guys schedule your time and know the name of the podcast and I've had people be like, oh, that's a good question.

And I'm like, did you not think I was going to ask that.

Well, see, I went and listened to a couple of your episodes too, so I knew what was going to happen.

I try to at minimum, at least follow the podcast I plan to be on.

I very much appreciate it, and I very much appreciate getting to know more narrators because I will certainly have more books in the future, and I will certainly need narrators for all those.

Anyway, I just like meeting people.

I do all genres.

I mostly get fantasy and romance.

But I will do anything.

I did a horror at one point that was like a thrillery one.

That one took more research than anything because I'm like, how do thriller narrators narrate their books?

I don't know.

I've never done one or heard one.

I'd never even listened to one at that point.

Yeah, I do everything.

I do royalty share, too.

Very cool.

Yeah, most of my calendar is royalty share.

So I like indie authors or self published.

I tend to say indie when I really mean indie and self.

Right?

But that's my favorite.

I like the royalty share ones.

They tend to be nicer to me.

I was talking to one of my daughters about one of the characters voices, and I forgot the phrase I used.

But she was like, it's so funny to me that you hear those voices in your head already kind of thing.

And I was like, I do.

But I guess in my mind that was one of the hardest things I struggled with is I would write stuff that I was like, well, clearly in my mind, I know what they're doing.

And it should be obvious, right?

Or it should be obvious that they do this.

And people would be like, I don't really get what they're doing here.

And I'm like, oh, that's right.

Because it's all in my head.

I will tell narrators or authors.

It's like as a narrator, when I'm auditioning for a book on ACX, right?

Which is where all of my other than the podcast, all of my stuff has come from, ACX.

So that is my sole experience.

What I will tell narrators and authors is when me as a narrator am auditioning for a book, I'm not auditioning now.

I audition for books that I absolutely love the audition piece.

And I really, really hope that I get the book.

But I'm not auditioning to be the best narrator that auditions.

I'm auditioning to be the match to the voices that were in the author's head while they were writing the book.

And there are a lot of cases where I'm not going to fit that voice.

They wanted a deep, husky voice, or they wanted a super high pitched voice or whatever the case may be.

Sometimes you are just not the voice in their head.

Part of the game.

It's part of the game.

That makes sense.

And sometimes you crazy stalk and join their newsletters and pray to God that they pick you, and then you see that one of your friends gets the book, and you're like, man, but she's so good.

But I really wanted that one, so it's all a part of the game.

But, hey, if you want to send any work my way, I am happy to take it.

All right, well, you have a good rest of your Saturday.

Go enjoy the rest of your day.

Thank you again so much, and I look forward to seeing them pop up in the future.

Thank you so much.

Have a good day.

You take care.

Bye.

As Neil got older, he liked The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson.

Today we'll be reading another story by him.

A dryad is a tree nymph or tree spirit.

In Greek mythology, Dreis signifies oak.

In Greek, dryads were originally considered the nymphs of oak trees specifically.

But the term has evolved towards tree nymphs in general or human tree hybrids in fantasy.

Often their life force was connected to the tree in which they resided, and they were usually found in sacred groves of the gods.

They were considered to be very shy creatures, except around the goddess Artemis, who is known to be a friend to most nymphs.

Today we'll be reading the dryad by Hans Christian Anderson.

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

You can find the link in the show notes.

The Dryad we are traveling to Paris, to the exhibition.

Now we are there.

That was a journey, a flight without magic.

We flew on the wings of steam over the sea and across the land.

Yes, our time is the time of fairy tales.

We're in the midst of Paris in a great hotel.

Blooming flowers ornament the staircases and soft carpets the floors.

Our room is a very cozy one, and through the open balcony door we have a view of a great square.

Spring lives down there.

It has come to Paris and arrived at the same time with us.

It has come in the shape of a glorious young chestnut tree with delicate leaves newly opened.

How the tree gleams.

Dressed in its spring garb before all the other trees in the place.

One of these latter had been struck out of the list of living trees.

It lies on the ground with roots exposed.

On the place where it stood.

The young chestnut tree is to be planted and to flourish.

It still stands, towering aloft on the heavy wagon which has brought it this morning a distance of several miles to Paris.

For years it had stood there in the protection of a mighty oak tree under which the old venerable clergyman had often sat with children listening to his stories.

The young chestnut tree had also listened to the stories.

For the dryad who lived in it was a child also.

She remembered the time when the tree was so little that it only projected a short way above.

The grass and ferns around these were as tall as they would ever be.

But the tree grew every year and enjoyed the air and the sunshine and drank the dew and the rain several times.

It was also, as it must be, well, shaken by the wind and the rain, for that is a part of education.

The dryad rejoiced in her life and rejoiced in the sunshine and the singing of the birds.

But she was most rejoiced at human voices.

She understood the language of men as well as she understood that of animals butterflies, c***, chafers, dragonflies everything that could fly came to pay a visit.

They could all talk.

They told of the village, of the vineyard of the forest of the old castle with its parks and canals and ponds.

Down in the water dwelt also living beings which in their way could fly under the water from one place to another, beings with knowledge and delineation.

They said nothing at all.

They were so clever.

And the swallow who had dived told about the pretty little goldfish of the thick Turbit, the fat brill and the old carp.

The swallow could describe all that very well.

But self is the man, she said.

One ought to see these things oneself.

But how is the dryad ever to see such beings?

She was obliged to be satisfied with being able to look over the beautiful country and see the busy industry of men.

It was glorious, but most glorious of all when the old clergyman sat under the old oak tree and talked of France and of the great deeds of her sons and daughters whose names will be mentioned with admiration through all time.

And the dryad heard of the shepherd girl Joan of Arc and of Charlote Corday.

She heard about Henry IV and Napoleon I.

She heard names whose echo sounds in the hearts of the people the village children listened attentively, and the dryad no less attentively.

She became a school child with the rest.

In the clouds that went sailing by, she saw picture by picture everything that she had talked about.

The cloudy sky was her picture book.

She felt so happy in beautiful France, a fruitful land of genius with the crater of freedom.

But in her heart the sting remained that the bird that every animal that could fly was much better off than she.

Even the fly could look about more in the world far beyond the dryad's horizon.

France was so great and so glorious, but she could only look across a little piece of it.

The land stretched out worldwide with vineyards, forests and great cities.

Of all these, Paris was the most splendid and the mightiest.

The birds could get there.

But she, never among the village children, was a little ragged, poor girl, but a pretty one to look at.

She was always laughing or singing and twining red flowers in her black hair.

Don't go to Paris, the old clergyman warned her.

Poor child.

If you go there, it will be your ruin.

But she went for all that the dryad often thought of her, for she had the same wish and felt the same longing for the great city.

The dryad's tree was bearing its first chestnut blossoms.

The birds were twittering round them in the most beautiful sunshine.

Then a stately carriage came rolling along that way, and in it sat a grand lady driving the spirited, light footed horses on the back seat.

A little smart groom balanced himself.

The dryad knew the lady, and the old clergyman knew her also.

He shook his head gravely when he saw her and said, so you'd went there after all, and it was your ruin.

Poor Mary, that one poor, thought the dryad.

No, she wears a dress fit for a countess.

She'd become one in the city of magic changes.

Oh, if I were only there, amid all the splendor and pomp, they shine up into the very clouds at night.

When I look up, I can tell in what direction the town lies.

Towards that direction the dryad looked every evening.

She saw in the dark night the gleaming cloud on the horizon.

In the clear moonlight nights she missed the sailing clouds, which showed her pictures of the city and pictures from history.

The child grasped at the picture books.

The dryad grasped but the cloud world, her thought book.

A sudden cloudless sky was for her a blank leaf, and for several days she had only had such leaves before her.

It was in the warm summertime.

Not a breeze moved through the glowing hot days.

Every leave, every flower, lay as if it were torpid, and the people seemed torpid too.

Then the clouds arose and covered the region round about where the gleaming mist announced, here lies Paris.

The clouds piled themselves up like a chain of mountains, hurried on through the air, and spread themselves abroad over the whole landscape, as far as the dryads I could reach.

Like enormous blue black blocks of rock, the clouds lay piled over one another.

Gleams of lightning shot forth from them.

These also are the servants of the Lord God, the old clergyman had said, and there came a bluish, dazzling flash of light, a lighting up as if of the sun itself, which could burst blocks of rock.

Asunder the lightning struck and split to the roots, the old venerable oak, the crown fell, asunder it seemed as if the tree were stretching forth its arms to clasp the messengers of the light.

No bronze cannon can sound over the land at the birth of a royal child.

As the thunder sounded at the death of the old oak, the rain streamed down.

A refreshing wind was blowing.

A storm had gone by, and there was quite a holiday glow on all things.

The old clergyman spoke a few words for honorable remembrance, and a painter made a drawing as a lasting record of the tree.

Everything passes away, said the dryad, passes away like a cloud and never comes back.

The old clergyman, too, did not come back.

The green roof of his school was gone, and his teaching chair had vanished.

The children did not come.

But autumn came, and winter came, and then spring also.

In all this change of seasons, the dryad looked toward the region, where at night Paris gleamed with its bright mist far on the horizon.

Forth from the town rushed engine after engine, train after train, whistling and screaming at all hours.

In the day, in the evening, towards midnight, at daybreak, and all the day through came the trains.

Out of each one and into each one streamed people from the country of every king.

A new wonder of the world had summoned them to Paris.

In what form did this wonder exhibit itself?

A splendid blossom of art and industry, said one, has unfolded itself in the Chande Mars, a gigantic sunflower from whose petals one can learn geography and statistics and can become as wise as the lord mayor and raise oneself to the level of art and poetry and study the greatness and power of the various lands.

A fairytale flower, said another, a many colored lotus plant which spreads out its green leaves like a velvet carpet over the sand.

The opening spring has brought it forth.

The summer will see it in all its splendor.

The autumn winds will sweep it away so that not a leaf, not a fragment of its root shall remain in front of the military school extends in time of peace, the arena of war.

A field without a blade of grass, a piece of sandy steppe as if cut out of the desert of Africa where fatimorgana displays her wondrous airy castles and hanging gardens in the shande moss.

However, these were to be seen more splendid, more wonderful than in the east, for human art had converted the airy deceptive scenes into reality.

The Aladdin's palace of the present has been built, it was said.

Day by day, hour by hour, it unfolds more of its wonderful splendor.

The endless halls shine in marble in many colors.

Master Bloodless here moves his limbs of steel and iron in a great circular hall of machinery.

Works of art in metal, in stone, in goblin's tapestry, announce the vitality of mind that is stirring in every land.

Halls of paintings, splendor of flowers everything that mind and skill can create in the workshop of the artisan has been placed here for show.

Even the memorials of ancient days out of old graves and turf moors have appeared at this general meeting.

The overpowering great variegated whole must be divided into small portions and pressed together like a plaything if it is to be understood and described like a great table.

On Christmas Eve, the chandemar carried a wonderful castle of.

Industry and art.

And around this knickknacks from all countries had been ranged knickknacks on a grand scale, for every nation found some remembrance of home.

Here stood the royal palace of Egypt.

There the caravanserai of the desert land.

The Bedouin had quitted his sunny country and hastened by on his camel.

Here stood the Russian stables with the fiery glorious horses of the steep.

Here stood the simple straw, thatched dwelling of the Danish peasant with the danbrog flag, next to Gustav Vassa's wooden house from Dalarn, with its wonderful carvings.

American huts, English cottages, French pavilions, kiosks theaters, churches, all strewn around and between them, the fresh green turf, the clear springing water blooming bushes, rare trees, hot houses in which one might fancy oneself transported into the tropical forest.

Whole gardens brought from Damascus and blooming under one roof.

What colors, what fragrance.

Artificial grottos surrounded bodies of fresh or salt water and gave a glimpse into the empire of the fishes.

The visitors seemed to wander at the bottom of the sea among fishes and polypy.

All this?

They said Lashande Mar offered.

And around the great richly spread table the crowd of human beings moves like a busy swarm of ants on foot or in little carriages, for not all feet are equalled.

Such a fatiguing journey hither they swarm from morning till late in the evening.

Steamer after steamer, crowded with people, glides down the stain.

The number of carriages is continually on the increase.

The swarm of people on foot and on horseback grows more and more dense.

Carriages and omnibuses are crowded, stuffed and embroidered with people.

All these tributary streams flow in one direction towards the exhibition.

On every entrance the flag of France is displayed around the world's.

Bizarre wave the flags of all nations.

There is humming and murmuring from the hall of the machines, from the towers, the melody of the chimes is heard with the tones of the organs, and the churches mingle the horse nasal songs from the cafes in the east.

It is a kingdom of babel, a wonder of the world.

In very truth it was that's what all the reports said, and who did not hear them.

The dryad knew everything that it's told here of the new wonder in the city of cities.

Fly away, ye birds.

Fly away to sea.

And then come back and tell me, said the Dryad.

The wish became an intense desire, became the one thought of a life.

Then, in the quiet, silent night, while the full moon was shining, the dryad saw a spark fly out of the moon's disk and fall like a shooting star.

And before the tree whose leaves waved to and fro as if they were stirred by a tempest stood a noble, mighty and grand figure in tones that were at once rich and strong like the trumpet of Last Judgment.

Biding farewell to life and summoning to the great account it said thou shalt go to the city of magic.

Thou shalt take root there and enjoy the mighty rushing breezes, the air and the sunshine there.

But the time of thy life shall then be shortened.

The line of years that awaited thee here amid the free nature shall shrink to but a small tale.

Poor Dryad, it shall be thy destruction.

Thy yearning and longing will increase, thy desire will grow more stormy.

The tree itself will be as a prison to thee.

Thou wilt quit thy cell and give up thy nature to fly out and mingle among them.

Then the years that would have belonged to thee will be contracted to half the span of the ephemeral.

Fly that lives but a day, one night, and thy life taper shall be blown out.

The leaves of the tree will wither and be blown away to become green never again.

Thus the word sounded, and the light vanished away, but not the longing of the dryad.

She trembled in the wild fever of expectation.

I shall go there, she cried.

rejoicingly.

Life is beginning and swells like a cloud.

Nobody knows whither it is.

Hastening.

When the gray dawn arose and the moon turned pale and the clouds were tinted red, the wished 4 hours struck.

The words of promise were fulfilled.

People appeared with spades and poles.

They dug round the roots of the tree, deeper and deeper, and beneath it a wagon was brought out, drawn by many horses, and the tree was lifted up with its roots, and the lumps of earth that adhered to them matting was placed around the roots, as though the tree had its feet in a warm bag.

And now the tree was lifted on the wagon and secured with chains.

The journey began.

The journey to Paris.

There the tree was to grow as an ornament to the city of French glory.

The twigs and the leaves of the chestnut tree trembled in the first moments of its being moved, and the dryad trembled in a pleasurable feeling of expectation.

Away, away it sounded in every beat of her pulse.

Away sounded in words that flew trembling along.

The dryad forgot to bid farewell to the regions of home.

She thought not of the waving grass and of the innocent daisies which had looked up to her as to a great lady, a young princess playing at being a shepherdess.

Out in the open air, the chestnut tree stood upon the wagon and nodded its branches.

Whether this meant farewell or forward, the dryad knew not.

She dreamed only of the marvelous new things that seemed yet so familiar, and that were to unfold themselves before her.

No child's heart rejoicing in innocence, no heart whose blood danced with passion had set out on the journey to Paris, more full of expectation than she.

Her farewell sounded in the words away.

The wheels turned, the distant approached, the present vanished.

The region was changed.

Even as the clouds change, new vineyards, forests, villages, villas appeared, came nearer vanished.

The chestnut tree moved forward and the dryad went with it.

Steam engine after steam engine rushed past, sending up into the air vapory clouds that formed figure switched hold of Paris whence they came and whither the dryad was going.

Everything around knew it and must know whither she was bound.

It seemed to her as if every tree she passed stretched out its leaves towards her with the prayer take me with you, take me with you, for every tree enclosed.

Longing dryad.

What changes during this flight?

Houses seemed to be rising out of the earth more and more, thicker and thicker.

The chimneys rose like flower pots, ranged side by side, or in rose one above the other.

On the roofs, great inscriptions in letters a yard long and figures in various colors covering the walls from cornice to basement, came brightly out.

Where does Paris begin and when shall I be there?

Asked the dryad.

The crowd of people grew, the tumult and the bustle increased.

Carriage followed upon carriage, people on foot and people on horseback were mingled together.

All around were shops on shops, music and song, crying and talking.

The dryad in her tree was now in the midst of Paris.

The great heavy wagon all at once stopped on a little square planted with trees.

The high houses around had all of them balconies to the windows, from which the inhabitants looked down upon the young, fresh chestnut tree, which was coming to be planted here as a substitute for the dead tree that lay stretched on the ground.

The passersby stood still and smiled in admiration of its pure vernal freshness.

The older trees, whose buds were still closed, whispered with their waving branches welcome.

Welcome.

The fountain, throwing its jet of water high up in the air to let it fall again in the widestone basin, told the wind to sprinkle the newcomer with pearly drops, as if it wished to give him a refreshing draught to welcome him.

The dryad felt how her tree was being lifted from the wagon to be placed in the spot where it was to stand.

The roots were covered with earth, and fresh turf was laid on top.

Blooming shrubs and flowers and pots were ranged around, and thus a little garden arose in the square.

The tree that had been killed by the fumes of gas, the steam of kitchens and the bad air of the city was put upon the wagon and driven away.

The passersby looked on.

Children and old men sat upon the bench and looked at the green tree.

And we who are telling this story stood upon a balcony and looked down upon the green spring sight that had been brought in from the fresh country air and said what the old clergyman would have said poor Dryad, I am happy.

I am happy.

The dryad cried rejoicing.

And yet I cannot realize, cannot describe what I feel.

Everything is as I fancied it and yet, as I did not fancy it, the houses stood there so lofty, so close.

The sunlight shone on only one of the walls and that one was stuck over with bills and placards before which the people stood still and this made a crowd.

Carriages rushed past, carriages rolled past.

Light ones and heavy ones mingled together omnibuses.

Those overcrowded moving houses came rattling by, horsemen galloped among them.

Even carts and wagons asserted their rights.

Adriad asked herself if these high grown houses which stood so close around her would not remove and take other shapes like the clouds in the sky and draw aside so that she might cast a glance into Paris and over it.

Notre Dame must show itself the von Dome column and the wondrous building which had called and was still calling so many strangers to the city.

But the houses did not stir from their places.

It was yet day when the lamps were lit the gas jets gleamed from the shops and shone even into the branches of the trees so that it was like sunlight in summer.

The stars above made their appearance the same to which the dryad had looked up.

In her home, she thought she felt a clear, pure stream of air which went forth from them.

She felt herself lifted up and strengthened and felt an increased power of seeing.

Through every leaf and through every fiber of the root amid all the noise and the turmoil, the colors and the lights, she knew herself watched by mild eyes from the side street sounded the merry notes of fiddles and wind instruments up to the dance, to the dance to jollity and pleasure that was their invitation.

Such music it was that horses, carriages, trees and houses would have danced if they had known how the charm of intoxicating delight filled the bosom of the dryad.

How glorious, how splendid it is.

She cried, rejoicingly.

Now I am in Paris.

The next day that dawned the next night that fell offered the same spectacle, similar bustle, similar life changing indeed, yet always the same.

And thus it went on through the sequence of days.

Now I know every tree, every flower on the square here.

I know every house, every balcony, every shop in this narrow cutoff corner where I am denied the sight of this great, mighty city.

Where are the archers of triumph, the boulevards, the wondrous building of the world?

I see nothing of all this.

As if shut up in a cage I stand among the high houses which I now know by heart with their inscriptions, signs and placards all the painted confectionery that is no longer to my taste.

Where are all the things of which I heard, for which I longed and for whose sake I wanted to come hither?

What have I seized, found?

Won?

I feel the same longing I felt before.

I feel that there is a life I should wish to grasp and to experience.

I must go out into the ranks of living men and mingle among them.

I must fly about like a bird.

I must see and feel and become human altogether.

I must enjoy the one half day instead of vegetating for years in everyday sameness and weariness in which I become ill and at last sink and disappear like the dew on the meadows.

I will gleam like the cloud, gleam in the sunshine of life, look out over the hole like the cloud and pass away like it.

No one knoweth whither.

Thus sighed the Dryad and she prayed take from me the years that were destined for me and give me half of the life of the ephemeral fly.

Deliver me from my prison.

Give me human life, human happiness, only a short span, only the one night if it cannot be otherwise.

And then punish me for my wish to live, my longing for life.

Strike me out of thy list.

Let my shell the fresh young tree wither or be hewn down and burnt to ashes and scattered.

All the winds rustling went through the leaves of the tree.

There was a trembling in each of the leaves.

It seemed as if fire streamed through it.

A gust of wind shook its green crown, and from the midst of that crown a female figure came forth in the same moment.

She was sitting beneath the brightly illuminated leafy branches, young and beautiful to behold, like poor Mary, to whom the clergyman had said the great city will be thy destruction.

Dryad sat at the foot of the tree, at her house door, which she had locked and whose key had thrown away.

So young, so fair.

The stars saw her and blinked at her.

The gas lamp saw her and gleamed and beckoned to her.

How delicate she was, and yet how blooming.

A child and yet a grown maiden.

Her dress was fine as silk, green as the freshly opened leaves on the crown of the tree.

And her nut brown hair clung a half opened chestnut blossom.

She looked like the goddess of spring.

For one short minute she sat motionless.

Then she sprang up, and, light as a gazelle, she hurried away.

She ran and sprang like the reflection from the mirror that carried by the sunshine is cast.

Now here, now there.

Could anyone have followed her with his eyes?

He would have seen how marvellously her dress and her form changed according to the nature of the house or the place whose light happened to shine upon her.

She reached the boulevards.

Here a sea of light streamed forth from the gas flames of the lamps, the shops and the cafes.

Here stood in a row young and slender trees, each of which concealed its dryad and gave shade from the artificial sunlight.

The whole vast pavement was one great festive hall, where covered tables stood laden with refreshments of all kinds, from champagne and chartreuse down to coffee and beer.

Here was an exhibition of flowers, statues, books and colored stuffs from the crowd close by the lofty houses she looked forth over the terrific streams.

Beyond the rows of trees yonder heaved a stream of rolling carriages, cabruletes, coaches, omnibuses cabs, and among them, riding gentlemen and marching troops.

To cross to the opposite shore was an undertaking fraught with danger to life and limb.

Now lanterns shed their radiance abroad.

Now the gas had the upper hand.

Suddenly a rocket rises, wentz wither.

Here are sounds of soft Italian melodies.

Yonder Spanish songs are sung, accompanied by the rattle of the castanets, but strongest of all, and predominating over the rest, the street organ tunes of the moment, the exciting can music which Orpheus never knew and which was never heard by the bell.

Helene.

Even the barrow was tempted to hop upon one of its wheels.

The dryad danced, floated, flew, changing her color every moment, like a hummingbird in the sunshine.

Each house with a world belonging to it gave her its own reflections, as the glowing lotus flower, torn from its stem is carried away by the stream saw.

The dryad drifted along whenever she paused.

She was another being, so that none was able to follow her, to recognize her, or to look more closely at her like cloud pictures.

All things flew by her.

She looked into a thousand faces, but not one was familiar to her.

She saw not a single form from home.

Two bright eyes had remained in her memory.

She thought of Mary.

Poor Mary, the ragged, merry child who wore the red flowers in her black hair.

Mary was now here in the world city, rich and magnificent, as in that day when she drove past the house of the old clergymen and past the tree of the dryad, the old oak.

Here she was certainly living in the deafening tumult.

Perhaps she had just stepped out of one of the gorgeous carriages and waiting, handsome equipes with coachmen and gold braid and footmen and silken hose, drove up.

The people who alighted from them were all richly dressed ladies.

They went through the opened gate and ascended the broad staircase that led to a building resting on marble pillars.

Was this building perhaps the wonder of the world?

There, Mary would certainly be found.

Sanctu Maria resounded from the interior.

Incense floated through the lofty, painted and gilded aisles where a solemn twilight reigned.

It was the Church of the Madeline, clad in black garments of the most costly stuffs, fashioned according to the latest mode.

The rich, feminine world of Paris glided across the shining pavement.

The crests of the proprietors were engraved on silver shields, on the velvet bound prayer books, and embroidered in the corners of perfumed handkerchiefs bordered with Brussels lace.

A few of the ladies were kneeling in silent prayer before the altars.

Others resorted to the confessionals.

Anxiety and fear took possession of the dryad.

She felt as if she had entered a place where she had no right to be.

Here was the abode of silence, the hall of secrets.

Everything was said in whispers.

Every word was a mystery.

The dryad saw herself enveloped in lace and silk, like the woman of wealth and of high birth.

Around her had perhaps every one of them a longing in her breast like the dryad?

A deep painful sigh was heard.

Did it escape from some confessional in a distant corner or from the bosom of the dryad?

She drew the veil closer.

Around her she breathed incense and not the fresh air.

Here was not the abiding place of her longing away a hastening without rest.

The ephemeral fly knows not repose, for her existence is flight.

She was out again among the gas candelabra by a magnificent fountain.

All its streaming waters are not able to wash out the innocent blood that was spilt here.

Such were the words spoken.

Strangers stood around carrying on a lively conversation such as no one would have dared to carry on in the gorgeous hall of secrets.

Once the dryad came, a heavy stone slab was turned and then lifted.

She did not understand why.

She saw an opening that led into the depths below.

The stranger stepped down, leaving the starlit air and the cheerful life of the upper world behind them.

I am afraid, said one of the women who stood around to her husband, I cannot venture to go down, nor do I care for the wonders down yonder.

You had better stay here with me, indeed, and travel home, said the man, and quit Paris without having seen the most wonderful thing of all the real wonder of the present period created by the power and resolution of one man.

I will not go down for all that was the reply.

The wonder of the present time, it had been called.

The dryad had heard and had understood it.

The goal of her ardent longing had thus been reached, and here was the entrance to it, down into the depths below Paris.

She had not thought of such a thing, but now she heard it said and saw the strangers descending and went after them.

The staircase was of cast iron spiral, broad and easy.

Below there burned a lamp, and further down another.

They stood in a labyrinth of endless halls and arched passages, all communicating with each other.

All the streets and lanes of Paris were to be seen here again as in a dim reflection.

The names were painted up, and every house above had its number down here also and struck its roots under the mechatomized quays of a broad canal in which the muddy water flowed onward.

Over it the fresh streaming water was carried on arches, and quite at the top hung the tangled net of gas pipes and telegraph wires.

In the distance lamps gleamed like a reflection from the world city above.

Every now and then a dull rumbling was heard.

This came from the heavy wagons rolling over the entrance bridges.

Whither had the dryad come?

You have no doubt heard of the Catacombs.

Now they are vanishing points in that new underground world, that wonder of the present day, the sewers of Paris.

The dryad was there and not in the World's Exhibition.

In the Compte Mars she heard exclamations of wonder and admiration.

From here go forth health and life for thousands upon thousands.

Up yonder.

Our time is a time of progress with its manifold blessings.

Such was the opinion and the speech of men, but not of those creatures who had been born here and who built and dwelt here of the rats, namely, who were squeaking to one another in the clefts of a crumbling wall.

Quite plainly and in a way that Dryad understood well a big old father rat with his tail bitten off as relieving his feelings and loud squeaks, and his family gave their tribute of concurrence to every word he said.

I'm disgusted with this man mewing.

He cried, with these outbursts of ignorance, of fine magnificence, truly all made up of gas and petroleum.

I can't eat such stuff as that.

Everything here is so fine and bright now that one's ashamed of oneself without exactly knowing why.

If we only lived in the days of tallow candles, and it does not lie so very far behind us.

That was a romantic time, as 1 may say.

What are you talking of there?

Asked the dryad.

I've never seen you before.

What is it you're talking about?

Of the glorious days that are gone, said the rat.

Of the happy time of our great grandfathers and great grandmothers.

Then it was a great thing to get down here.

That was a rat's nest quite different from Paris.

Mother Plague used to live here.

Then she killed people, but never rats.

Robbers and smugglers could breathe freely here.

Here was the meeting place of the most interesting personages, whom one now only gets to see in the theaters where they act melodrama.

Up above, the time of romance is gone even in our rat's nest.

And here also fresh air and petroleum have broken in.

Thus squeaked the rat.

He squeaked.

In honor of the old time when Mother Plague was still alive, a carriage stopped, a kind of open omnibus drawn by swift horses.

The company mounted and drove away along the Boulevard de Sebastopole that is to say, the underground boulevard over which the well known crowded street of that name extended.

The carriage disappeared.

In the twilight, the dryad disappeared, lifted to the cheerful freshness above here and not below, in the vaulted passages filled with heavy air, the wonder work must be found which she was to seek in her short lifetime.

It must gleam brighter than all the gas flames, stronger than the moon that was just gliding past.

Yes, certainly she saw it yonder in the distance.

It gleamed before her and twinkled and glittered like the evening star.

In the sky she saw a glittering portal open that led to a little garden where all was brightness and dance music.

Colored lamps surrounded little lakes in which were water plants of colored metal from whose flower jets of water spurted up beautiful weeping willows.

Real products of spring hung their fresh branches over these lakes with a fresh green, transparent and yet screening veil.

In the bushes burst an open fire, throwing a red twilight over the quiet huts of branches into which the sounds of music penetrated.

An ear tickling intoxicating music that sent the blood coursing through the veins.

Beautiful girls in festive attire with pleasant smiles on their lips and the light spirit of youth in their hearts.

Marys with roses in their hair, but without carriage and pestilian flitted to and fro in the wild dance.

Where were the heads?

Where were the feet?

As if stung by tarantulas, they sprang, laughed, rejoiced, as if in their ecstasies they were going to embrace all the world.

The dryat felt herself torn with them into the whirl of the dance.

Round her delicate foot clung the silken boot, chestnut brown in color, like the ribbon that floated from her hair down upon her bare shoulders.

The green silk dress waved in large folds, but did not entirely hide the pretty foot and ankle.

Had she come to the enchanted garden of Armida?

What was the name of the place?

The name glittered in gas jets over the entrance it was mobile.

The soaring upwards of rockets, the splashing of fountains and the popping of champagne corks accompanied the wild bucatic dance.

Over the hole glided the moon through the air, clean but with a somewhat crooked face.

A wild joviality seemed to rush through the dryad, as though she were intoxicated with opium.

Her eyes spoke, her lips spoke, but the sound of violins and aflutes drowned the sound of her voice.

Her partner whispered words to her which she did not understand, nor do we understand them.

He stretched out his arms to draw her to him, but he embraced only the empty air.

The dryad had been carried away like a rose leaf on the wind.

Before her she saw a flame in the air, a flashing light high up on a tower.

The beacon light shone from the goal of her longing shone from the red lighthouse tower of the Fatimorgana of the Comp de Mars Thither.

She was carried by the wind.

She circled round to the tower.

The workmen thought it was a butterfly that had come too early and that now sank down, dying.

The moon shone.

Bright gas lamps spread light around through the halls over the all worlds, buildings scattered about over the rose hills and the rocks produced by human ingenuity, from which waterfalls, driven by the power of master bloodless, fell down the caverns of the sea.

The depths of the lakes, the Kingdom of the Fishes were opened.

Here men walked as in the depths of the deep pond and held converse with the sea in the diving bell of glass.

The water pressed against the strong glass walls above and on every side.

The polypy eel, like living creatures, had fastened themselves to the bottom and stretched out arms fathoms long for prey.

A big Turbit was making himself broad in front, quietly enough, but not without casting some suspicious glances aside.

A crab clamored over him, looking like a gigantic spider, while the shrimps wandered about in restless haste like the butterflies and moths of the sea.

And the fresh water grew water lilies, nymphea and reeds, the goldfishes stood up below in rank and file, all turning their heads one way that the streaming water might flow into their mouths.

Fat carps stared at the glass wall with stupid eyes.

They knew that they were here to be exhibited, and that they had made the somewhat toilsome journey hitherin tubs filled with water.

They thought with dismay of the landsickness from which they had suffered so cruelly on the railway.

They had come to see the exhibition and now contemplated it from their fresh or saltwater position.

They looked attentively at the crowds of people who passed by them early and late.

All the nations in the world, they thought, had made an exhibition of their inhabitants for the edification of the souls, and haddocks pike and carp that they might give their opinions upon the different kinds.

Those are scaly animals, said a little slimy whiting.

They put on different scales two or three times a day, and they emit sounds which they call speaking.

We don't put on scales, and we make ourselves understood in an easier way simply by twitching the corners of our mouths and staring with our eyes.

We have a great many advantages over mankind, but they have learned swimming of us, remarked a well educated CODLING.

You must know I come from the great sea outside.

In the hot time of the year the people yonder go into the water.

First they take off their scales, and then they swim.

They have learned from the frogs to kick out with their hind legs and row with their forepaws.

They cannot hold out long.

They want to be like us, but they cannot come up to us.

Poor people.

And the fishes stared.

They thought that the whole swarm of people whom they had seen in the bright daylight were still moving around them.

They were certain they still saw the same forms that had first caught their attention.

A pretty barbell with spotted skin and an enviable round back declared that the human fry were still there.

I can see a well set up human figure, quite well, said the barbell.

She was called a contumaceous lady, or something of that kind.

She had a mouth and staring eyes like ours, and a great balloon at the back of her head, and something like a shut up.

Umbrella in front.

There were a lot of dangling bits of seaweed hanging about her.

She ought to take all the rubbish off and go as we do.

Then she would look something like a respectable barbell so far as it is possible for a person to look like one.

What's become of that one whom they drew away with the hook?

He sat on a wheelchair and had paper and pen and ink and wrote down everything.

They called him a rider.

They're going about with him still, said a hoary old maid of a carp who carried her misfortune about with her so that she was still quite hoarse.

In her youth she had once swallowed a hook and still swam patiently about with it in her gullet.

All rider that means, as we fishes describe it, a kind of cuddle or inkfish among men.

Thus the fishes gossiped in their own way.

But in the artificial water grotto the laborers were busy who were obliged to take advantage of the hours of night to get their work done.

By daybreak they accompanied with blows of their hammers and with songs the parting words of the vanished dryad.

So at any rate, I have seen you.

You pretty goldfishes, she said, yes, I know you.

And she waved her hand to them.

I have known about you a long time in my home.

The swallow told me about you.

How beautiful you are, how delicate and shining.

I should like to kiss every one of you.

You others also.

I know you all, but you do not know me.

The fishes stared out into the twilight.

They did not understand a word of it.

The dryad was there no longer.

She had been a long time in the open air where the different countries, the country of Blackbread, the Codfish coast, the kingdom of Russia Leather and the banks of Ure, Cologne and the gardens of rose oil exhaled their perfumes from the world wonder flower.

When, after a night at a ball we drove home half asleep and half awake, the melodies still sounded plainly in our ears.

We hear them and could sing them all from memory.

When the eye of the murdered man closes the picture of what it saw last clings to it for a time like a photographic picture.

So it was likewise here.

The bustling life of day had not yet disappeared in the quiet night.

The dryad had seen it, she knew thus it will be repeated tomorrow.

The dryad stood among the fragrant roses and thought she knew them and had seen them in her own home.

She also saw the red pomegranate flowers, like those that little Mary had worn in her dark hair.

Remembrances from the home of her childhood flashed through her thoughts.

Her eyes eagerly drank in the prospect around and feverish restlessness chased her through the wonder filled halls.

A weariness that increased continually took possession of her.

She felt a longing to rest on the soft oriental carpets within, or to lean against the weeping willow without by the clear water.

But for the ephemeral fly there was no rest.

In a few moments the day had completed its circle.

Her thoughts trembled, her limbs trembled.

She sank down on the grass by the bubbling water.

Now wilt ever spring living from the earth, she said, mournfully, moisten my tongue, bring me a refreshing draught.

I am no living water, was the answer.

I only spring upward when the machine wills it.

Give me something of thy freshness, thou green grass, implored the dryad.

Give me one of thy fragrant flowers.

We must die if we are torn from our stalks, replied the flowers in the grass.

Give me a kiss, thou fresh stream of air.

Only a single life kiss.

Soon the sun will kiss the clouds red, answered the wind.

Then thou wilt be among the dead, blown away, as all the splendor here will be blown away before the year shall have ended.

Then I can play again with the light loose sand on the place here, and whirl the dust over the land and through the air all is dust.

The dryad felt a terror, like a woman who has cut asunder her pulse artery in the bath, but is filled again with the love of life, even while she is bleeding to death.

She raised herself, tuddered forward a few steps, and sank down again at the entrance to a little church.

The gates stood open, lights were burning upon the altar, and the organ sounded.

What music.

Such notes the dryad had never yet heard.

And yet it seemed to her as if she recognized a number of well known voices among them.

They came deep from the heart of all creation, she thought.

She heard the stories of the old clergymen of great deeds and of the celebrated names, and of the gifts that the creatures of God must bestow upon posterity if they would live on in the world.

The tones of the organs swelled, and in their song there sounded these words thy wishing and thy longing have torn thee with thy roots from the place which God appointed for thee.

That was thy destruction, thou poor dryad.

The notes became soft and gentle and seemed to die away.

In a whale in the sky.

The clouds showered themselves with a ruddy gleam.

The wind sighed.

Pass away, ye dead.

Now the sun is going to rise.

The first ray fell on the dryad.

Her form was irradiated in changing colors, like the soap bubble when it's bursting and becomes a drop of water.

Like a tear that falls and passes away like a vapor.

Poor Dryad.

Only a dew drop, only a tear poured upon the earth and vanished away.

Thank you for joining Freya's fairy tales.

Be sure to come back next week for Stephen's journey to holding his own fairy tale in his hands and to hear one of his favorite fairy tales, Sam.