Molly Answers Questions

1. What is your job?
     I am an undermaid. In the castle, servants are at different levels. The upper servants serve the royals directly. They don't talk much to the lower servants. The lower servants do the background work. The royals might never see the lower servants. And me? I'm lower than the lower servants. I run and do whatever I am told.
2. How long have you been a maid?
     Most o' my life. And I've been at the castle for almost 6 years.
3. What are your strengths and weaknesses?
     Mercy me! I don't know. I don't think I am very strong. I try to be but there are many who are stronger than I am. I am just so glad to be here, even when it's hard.
    I have a lot of weaknesses. I'm not nearly strong enough or fast enough, and I make mistakes sometimes in my work. Plus, there's a lot of things I am scared of. I'm scared of the dungeon. I'm scared of Gorgus. I'm scared of Regina. I'm scared I might lose my place in the castle -- where would I go then? The world is scary.
4. How did you meet the princess?
    I was listening to a story when I was supposed to be working. I couldn't help it - it sounded so thrilling. But Regina caught me and sent me running. And then there was the princess! My poor heart jumped into my throat!
5. If you could change one thing about your life, what would it be?
     It's probably very wrong of me, but I sometimes wish Regina would disappear. Since that won't happen, then I wish I could be braver...

Comments

Goodbye and God Be With You

It's rather fitting that some things come to a close on this day -- the last day of the year. I submitted my last entry into the Rooglewood contest this morning. I can hardly believe it took me until the day of the deadline to send it in because I'm usually earlier than that. And, even with the extra time I took, I still felt a little bit like maybe I could have done better if I had more time. But there was no feeling of regret when I hit "send." Mostly it was just a prayer that Rooglewood would hear the heart of the message when they read it and that maybe, if I win, they could help me bring the full potential out of my little story. And there was also a feeling, after working on these stories for more than six months, that it felt good to close that chapter and move on to the next one. I did it. I wrote them. And I'm really proud of them. Last year, the act of hitting "send" on my contest entry catapulted me into an anticipatory state....

Rooglewood Countdown: 12 days

For the next 12 1/2 days, as we do our final countdown until March 31st, I'm going to do 4 posts asking about something you would like to see in the Snow White collection. There are so many ways all of us, writers and readers alike, can win in this contest. Maybe a familiar name makes it into the final five -- hurray! Maybe a story in your favorite genre ended up in the collection this year -- woohoo! Maybe you finally get to read a winning story about an evil king and his Snow White son -- how awesome! So, in celebration of all the many things we can root for, I want to know some of the things that you think would be cool to find in this year's set of winners. Without further ado, here is my question for the day: What is a point of view you would like to see in this collection? Would you like a story written from the prince's perspective? A story from Snow White's p...

Wherein I Still Have My Nose and Ears

I decided to take the plunge. I was going to chop a plot thread out of AAM so the story would fit in the contest word length restrictions. I saved my old version and set up a copy for me to modify. Stories are like woven cloth. Each plot thread is woven into the entire story. So if I decide to cut a character or a side-theme, I have to go through the whole book, chopping out the references to it. This leaves gaping holes and sometimes it looks like the whole story is going to unravel. Everywhere I chop, I have to readjust the whole scene to keep the flow. It's a rather ticklish procedure. Over the dinner table, I mentioned that I was chopping a sub-plot. My younger sister protested loudly (she hasn't read it, but I previously told her the general idea). Then my mom (who also hasn't read it) offered to read it and tell me what she thought could and couldn't be chopped. ...

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