When I first began writing the Draegonstorm Saga, it was just an adventure for my children, all of whom had developed the same love I did for Fantasy. I remember sitting in the theaters when we saw the Lord of the Rings films and cheering, laughing and crying, sometimes all at once. We had that fun all over again when they released the extended editions for DVD. That began regular Friday movie nights curled in a pile with our favorite pillows, snuggling each other as we went on the next grand adventure in movies each week. We shared book after book, from Barb and JC Hendee's Noble Dead Saga to RA Salvatore's Dark Elf Trilogy. Then finally one day, my son asked why I did had not written down the stories I would always tell them; why I had not shared the great tales of the characters they already knew and loved with everyone. I thought then, "That is a silly idea. I'm not a writer... not me. Those people are Gods, so how could I possibly measure up?"
The idea somehow stuck, and I began putting the adventures together. The world had grown considerably by then. I actually had notes I had typed into my computer, so I could remember to weave them into the next story I told my children. Those notes turned out to be such a blessing when I went back to begin typing all my stories from the beginning. There were little details I had almost forgotten that enriched them so much. Still, I cannot tell you how many times they evolved as I wrote more, then went back and edited, and then wrote still more. Friends offered names and ideas, and the children began thinking up ideas. Soon some of those ideas took on lives of their own. The characters that are so loved today began to take shape, but we weren't done yet. There was still more to create, more to write, and more to dream about. During this time, I struggled with the fear I would never be good enough to actually publish. I took classes on writing and publishing, querying and submissions. I studied how the business end of this worked. Then an event took place that pulled me from the game for over a year.
I was in a life-changing accident, and spent the next year dealing with some of the greatest challenges of my life. I spent a week in ICU, three months in critical care, then over a year bound to a wheelchair. It would not end there, as I soon found out. Doctors told me I'd never walk again. I proved them wrong. Though in incredible pain when I put my feet to the floor that first time, I was still determined I would not live the rest of my life from that chair. I had spent enough time dragging myself across the floor to care for myself and did not want someone else having to do that for me. So I took my first step... and fell. I was helped back up. The next day, I took another one. Each day after that, I fought to take just one more step. Well, I never completely made it out of that chair. I need it whenever I leave my home. There was just too much damage to my spine to get away from it completely, but I have gotten to where I can move around my own home independently. So I turned my focus, and my determination, back to my writing.
I realized that if I was so stubborn that I could get my legs at least partially back under me, then I could use that same stubbornness to perfect my work as best as humanly possible and get it out there. I began to work on my "blurb", which is what a reader will eventually find on the back of the book in a bookstore somewhere. But before that can happen, that little blurb has to be perfected, and it has to travel a long, long way from it's birthing place. That little blurb is what you send as part of your query to an agent. Once you finally get an approval and an agent accepts you, then that little blurb travels again... this time to the publishers. Your agent will use it to sell your work and find you a publisher to take it the distance. Then the publisher will get that little blurb working again, when they sell to the book sellers, and finally to the public. So the next time you pick up a book, remember what a long journey that little description on the back had to make.
So, how did I finally get to the point that this became a series? Well, that is the easiest question of all to answer. The first book (which was originally the ONLY book) was way too long, and I had to find a place to shorten it. So then it became two books. Then they became three, and then four. You get the point. The stories grew so large that they now span a collective of (spoiler) books that will one day be sitting on a shelf, waiting for you. Now, those books have other files as well: character bios, timelines, compendiums, the society's structure, the ranking system in the races, and the book of laws, just to name a few. Around those first stories, I have built a world that is now a complete entity of its own... the magical world of Draegonstorm.