One of the things I loved about writing Winter’s Moons was the chance to get to know the main characters who are very different, but in such complementary ways. Cassidy Nolan (the young werewolf Alpha sister of a genetically-engineered supersoldier) has plenty of leadership qualities, but no experience. She’s also got a hefty case of impostor syndrome, one that keep her from bonding completely with her pack, for fear that they might figure out exactly how out of her depth she really is.
On the other side of things, Snow has been a werewolf for a long time. She has absolutely no leadership skills, but she has a deep knowledge of werewolf traditions and how healthy packs are supposed to function. At first, Snow judges Cassidy for slipping up in all sorts of ways, but as she comes to know the Alpha more closely, she realizes that Cassidy is doing the best she can. Sure, she’s failing a lot, but not so much that the situation is irretrievably broken. Best of all, Cassidy keeps trying. In Snow, Cassidy finds someone to talk to without fear of judgment. She comes to lean on the lone wolf’s perspective, and a bond begins to form.
Developing the characters for this story was easy in some ways. Cassidy came ready-made from Five Moons Rising. However, she made some choices there that some of readers found difficult to stomach. After all, it looked a lot like she turned her back on the sister who went through hell to keep her alive. Getting inside Cassidy’s head and reacquainting myself with her motives and her understanding of the world was a little challenging after so long away from the events of that first book. However, once I realized that Cassidy’s big problem was having impostor syndrome (and also being right about it), she got a lot easier to wrap my arms around.
It took some time to find Snow’s voice. I knew going into the story that I wanted the other main character to be a lone wolf. I also knew that I wanted her to be submissive. I had some ideas about submission versus dominance, and how the former is often equated to weakness. Snow is submissive, but she’s not a pushover. Her lack of dominance has led her to develop strategies that have nothing to do with brute force. She thrives on passing beneath notice, and on redirection. All of those were things I was prepared to deal with. It was a surprise to discover that Snow was asexual, specifically a homoromantic asexual who is pretty sex-averse. However, it made complete sense. Her inability to find a home in the sexually-charged atmosphere of most werewolf packs was bound to make her uncomfortable, and as someone who is on the submissive side of things, she wasn’t inclined to try to carve out a space for herself. When the space she did have got too tight, she simply moved on to the next one. Once I realized those things, Snow really revealed herself to me, and she’s become one of my favorite characters to write.
There is a romantic subplot to this story. This was my first time writing an ace character, and I made sure to run the story past a handful of ace sensitivity readers. Hopefully I’ve done their advice justice. I believe sex and romance are two different things, and it was incredibly rewarding to explore tender moments through this different lens.
This duo has become one of my favorites, and I’m so looking forward to readers getting to know Cassidy and Snow the way I have.
Winter’s Moons can still be preordered, and will be out from Bella Books on December 20th.
I decided to start by modifying the back of the pistol. I’d left it pretty boring, which is definitely antithetical to the Borderlands look. Now the Raptor pistol is very squared off in the back, but this Nerf pistol is all sorts of round. I stuck with the rounded look, but decided to add the lip that is seen on the Dahl pistol. There’s also a little round divot taken out of the back. You can’t see it well in this crappy photo, but it’s there. I was able to make that using one of the stone grinding bits on my Dremel. I wasn’t especially pleased with the little bits attaching the round lip to the grip. They were all sorts of gappy, and only became more so when I hit them with the heat gun. I’ll be revisiting those when it comes time to prep for paint.
From there, it was back to dealing with the pistol’s butt (heh-heh). Since I had the detailing on the back end figured out, it was time to add the charging handle. This is one of those fiddly bits that I usually leave to the end of a build. There’s something about them being so small that ends up looking wrong if it’s even the slightest bit off. It’s not that any of it was particularly difficult, but it needs to be symmetrical, and without much room for error. I count it as a great deal of personal growth that I decided to tackle it at this point in the build instead of waiting to the last possible moment.
From one fiddly bit to the next… I was excited by my progress, so I dived right in to working on the suppressor-ma-jig. After a fair amount of thought on how to deal with all the cutouts in the design, I decided to make a solid core, and then do the cutouts on a piece of 3mm foam, which I would wrap around the core. Using my handy template, I sandwiched a few layers of EVA foam together, then rounded the long edges. And then I made another one. The wrapping technique seemed tricky enough that I wanted another core in case I screwed up the first one. It’s always easier to make two of something at once, then to make another one later, so I just went with it this time.
I found the center and measured the craft foam to the circumference on the piece. (Do you call it a circumference with it’s not a circle?) From there, I used the template to plan out the various cutouts. In the picture, you’ll see that I marked the corners on the 3mm foam. and used that to line up the cutouts. From there, I did some clean up, then I slathered the two pieces in contact cement and smushed them together. My first attempt was all right, but I didn’t line it up very well. I thanked myself for making a second core, added the cutouts to another piece of 3mm foam, and wrapped it again. The second attempt was so much better than the first!! After that, I glued a beveled circular piece into the end for the barrel opening, then I hogged out a circular piece to slip it over the Nerf gun’s barrel. That will eventually be glued in place. Finally, I did some cleanup and called that one done.
By this point, it was starting to get toward the end of the day. I was also being eaten alive by mosquitoes, which is a definite downside to having a garage workshop in the South. However, I was on a roll, so I pressed on. I really wanted to get some progress done on the foregrip. Once again, I started with the template. I had two slightly different sizes of foregrip to work with. The smaller was more to scale with the Dahl weapon in the game, but the larger was of a scale that would actually fit my hand. I ended up going with the larger one.
After that, I needed to tackle the detailing along the side of the foregrip. This was going to be a bit challenging, given that the blueprint I’ve been working from is two-dimensional, while I had a three-dimensional, mostly cylindrical shape to work with. I started by cutting out the appropriate piece and mocking it up on the detailless foregrip I’d just finished. From there, I could see where I’d need to extend the piece to wrap around, so I mirrored the template piece onto some paper and extended the top part. Then I cut that one out and fiddled a bit to get everything lined up properly. Once I’d gotten it to my satisfaction, I taped the two sides together, smoothed out the joins in the middle, then transferred the whole design to some craft foam. I cut that out, then glued it to the handle using contact cement. Finally, I had to do some cleanup on the sides to maintain the tapered shapes on the pommel piece.
Skyrim cosplay to enter into the local con this summer, but that was sounding less and less likely.
It’s almost here!!!!!!! I’ve gotten my massive stack of author copies. I’m getting ready to swing into giveaway mode. The excitement is starting to take hold.
Lise MacTague 