Short Stories from Malora

Arrow of Entropy is in the hands of beta readers, so I'm waiting for them to dissect and shred my weird little upside down story. (Update: I published this baby in August, 2015.) I guess my brain isn't ready to completely move on yet. I'm backtracking because I have all these little characters and bits of history that didn't make it into my books because there wasn't an appropriate place for them. They are now becoming short stories, which I will eventually amass into a collection titled Rain Falls on Malora. I have some concrete ideas for these stories, and I expect others to pop out of nowhere and demand to be written, like the one I wrote about Aunfrey.

I'd love to hear reader ideas. Who or what would you like to read more about? I'll list what I already have completed, conceptualized, and requested below, broken down by era (though some of them are between books instead of during). I'll edit the list as I think of or write more.

List updated 9/3/17

Mayfly Reqiuem
Nova - reader suggestion
Mirren Kelta - early High Commander of the Ganebran Army immediately following the Mage Wars.  (story completed)
Delora Faradel Narsimor - Lucienus's mother, just before they met Lani. (story completed)
Ariana Achara - this little vignette is directed toward three-year-old Rassa. (story completed)

The Abyssal Night
Aunfrey Tasarian Aloret - Sevilen's wet nurse and primary caregiver during his first couple years of life. (story completed)
Summer Aulani -Tempo's wife in Cascades. She never made a physical appearance in the books but she was mentioned in Shadows of Absolution (story completed and yikes, this one is devastating)
Rain - The Geophorian weather priest meets with Dawn in a Ganebran border city. (story completed)
Sharo Briarwind - Sharo and young Rhodren are visited by two other members of the Briarwind family (story completed)
Rastaban Eryaucra - three journal entries from when he was 17-19, attempts at getting his thoughts out of his head so he could dispose of them. (story completed)
Mirazen Keltau - Moth was 15 when his father came to see him in Reedwater, Anor. (story completed)

Shards of Chaos
Aurelien Dirus - age 14, hiding from Geophorian hunters in Rimara. (story complete)

The Shattered Veil
Solace Achara - about a year after The Shattered Veil. (story completed)

pre-Shadows of Absolution
Maple Briarwind - Rabbit's wife, one of the founders of Efilon (in progress)
Holly Thula - reader suggestion
Zoli Achara - Zoli and his mother, Thora, search for hope in a wasteland. (Story Completed)

Interlude
Ulali Masiona - halfway between Shadows of Absolution and Sand into Glass, Ulali travels into the wastelands, to Corvus Rift far beyond the northern peaks of Gainai, in search of her father, Bethel. (story completed)
Laira Masiona - Bethel's half-Toli daughter ends up in places she didn't expect while learning to control her magical ability (story completed)

Sand into Glass
Sonara Masiona - this one was a reader request. Out of Arden's three half-Mero siblings, Sonara is the one I revealed the least about even though she ended up having a vital role in his story.
Azfadel Thula - I'm thinking either around the time when he leaves Tiponia to go to Vanora or his early friendship with Arden.

The Crystal Lattice
Bralt Achay
Lorena & Valosa Masiona - Theron's wife and youngest daughter
Exi Achay's emergence - Exi has a connection to Bralt and Terali, but I'll let you guys learn about it in Arrow. Her emergence would have taken place during the Lattice era, so that's why I stuck it here instead of under Arrow. (story completed)

Arrow of Entropy
I won't detail these since not many people have read Arrow yet...
Senna and Varadi
Eliani Gira  -  Vutan's exile from Stixa (story completed)
The Liefen coup
Saskia and Cantha - this one would be post-series and would go into Inga culture in a little more detail.

Feel free to leave a comment if you have any ideas for me.

I also recently wrote a totally-unrelated short story that I submitted for consideration in a Halloween anthology. My beta readers loved it so if it doesn't get picked, I'll post it here on my blog. (Update: "They" was chosen for the anthology, Trick or Treat: A Collection of Spooky Stories, which can be found on Amazon in both e-book and paperback editions)

Zella's Wild Rice

Occasionally, I feel compelled to make a recipe or project that one of my characters comes up with. It's my way of making sure what I wrote in the text actually works. One day I'll get around to making Arden's tomato pie again so I can take pictures and write it down. It's quite wonderful, kind of a light deep dish pizza.

This is the wild rice dish that Zella Thula makes for the Metavanya family's Imbolc party in my work-in-progress, Arrow of Entropy. It only has six ingredients, because not much fresh food is available in early February (Erany in the Meloran calendar). When I wrote this into the text I needed to make sure that the ingredients she used could be found in the pantry of the northern highlands. The preserved lemon is the extra touch, a little luxury item from Vanora. I think this particular jar of lemons was Faron's little gift to Rassa, a peace offering, perhaps. Rassa keeps fresh herbs growing in in the kitchen windows all year, so Zella would have had plenty of fresh rosemary to snip and add to her dish.

There are two other recipes mentioned in this passage of the book, and I hope to make both at some point so I can write them out. One is a poppyseed bread, and the other is a cranberry relish. Seeds and dried fruit are traditional Imbolc foods, so I'm going to utilize them in all three dishes.

This is a simple recipe, but I am enjoying the results. It's sweet, savory, and a little nutty, an unlikely combination reminiscent of the two characters who inspired it.

I dipped a spoon into the pot on the stovetop and offered it to him. “Here, try this. I feel like it's missing something but I can't figure out what.”

“Wild rice, currants, roasted pumpkin seeds, what else?” Rassa asked before taking a bite.

“Shallots and rosemary,” I replied.

He swallowed and said, “Salt and acid. When you feel like something is missing, it's usually acidity. We have some preserved lemons in the cupboard. Those cover both the salt and the acid so I think if you mince them up and toss them in it will be perfect.”

-- From Arrow of Entropy

Zella's Wild Rice

1 cup wild rice, rinsed and drained

4 cups water

1/2 cup currants (or raisins or cranberries)

1 Tbsp minced fresh rosemary

2 Tbsp minced preserved lemon

1/2 cup raw pumpkin seeds

2 shallots, sliced thinly

(all measurements are approximate)

Place the rinsed wild rice and water in a pot and bring to a boil. Cover and let simmer for 45 minutes, or until rice is tender.

While the rice is cooking, toss the rosemary, lemon, and currants together in a bowl and allow to sit so the flavors mingle.

Caramelize the shallots in a dry skillet, adding a tablespoon of water at a time if the shallots become too dry or stick. When they're soft and browned, remove them from the heat.

Toast the pumpkin seeds until lightly browned.

When the rice is finished cooking, drain the rice in a colander. Dump the cooked rice into a serving bowl or casserole dish. Add the currant mixture, shallots, and pumpkin seeds, and combine.

 

Clockwise -- wild rice, rosemary, preserved lemon, shallot, raisins, raw pumpkin seeds

Minced rosemary and preserved lemon.

Preserved lemon and rosemary mixed with raisins/currants.

Sliced shallots.

Nearly-caramelized shallots.

Toasted pumpkin seeds.

All together one last time before the big mingle.

Everything tossed together. The dish is complete!

Depression and Sand into Glass,

I'm releasing Sand into Glass on May 6th. I'm a little amazed that I finally completed it, given what I've been through in the last two years, but finishing this book became therapeutic for me. I had to experience my own PTSD and depression in order to understand Arden's. The triggers for our illnesses were much different, but the thoughts and physical symptoms he and I experienced were similar. I realized when I finished the first draft that there was no way I could have written the last quarter of the book if I hadn't walked through the darkness myself.

Mental illness turns you into a liar and forces you to fake being a functional person. Some days it's impossible to fake your way through life, especially the days when depression renders it laborious to breathe and it becomes overwhelming to think through the steps it takes to make a peanut butter sandwich or pour a glass of orange juice. It's a horrible thing to go through, waking up to the feeling that whatever you used to be is dead and your soul has been replaced by a wraith. Basic tasks become overwhelming and exhausting.

I wish I hadn't needed to trudge through my own personal abyss in order to understand Arden's, but my experience gave me a perspective on his situation that I never could have experienced otherwise. We both experienced the desperation of the sunlight being just out of reach no matter what we tried to climb on. We both found that even though we thought we were at the bottom, there was still a little deeper we could dig and with every level the sunlight got farther away.

I was gradually able to pull myself out of the hole my mind had dug, and once I reached the surface I found myself in a creative burst that I'm still experiencing. I finished editing and published my oldest baby, The Crystal Lattice, finished writing Sand into Glass and am about to publish it, and I'm 44,000 words into Arrow of Entropy, the final book in both the Emergence trilogy and the Malora octet.

Right now I'm giving Arden a hug because I put him through a lot. He's resilient, but even resilience has its limit. His story can be bleak, but juxtaposed against that bleakness are both love and hope. My beta readers fell in love with his story, and I hope you do, too.

The Blue Rose

Faraban carefully unwrapped the silk to expose a vibrant blue rose nestled within the folds. He held it up and twirled the thornless stem. “An impossible flower for an impossible beauty. The blue rose, a symbol of my house since ancient times."

- from Mayfly Requiem by Courtney M. Privett

The blue rose does not occur in nature. White roses can be dyed blue and a blue color can be obtained through genetic modification, but there are no natural blue roses. Still, there is cultural significance associated with this impossible flower. Some cultures utilize the blue rose as a symbol for royalty, or for fantasy and impossibility. It signifies unattainable love in Chinese folklore.

In the Malora Octet, the blue rose is part of the heraldry of the corrupt Eryaucra dynasty. The flower was selectively bred over centuries and was only grown in the gardens of the Lunamar palace. In Mayfly Requiem, Faraban uses an Eryaucra Blue to propose to his intended bride. The symbol is seen on both his clothing and his banners. It is not as prominent in the Echoes of Oblivion trilogy because Faraban's son, Rastaban, is not fond of tradition and chooses to disregard many of the old symbols. The rose is still present in the kingdom of Ganebra, but it no longer has the significance it did to Faraban.

The blue rose has decided to make a reappearance in Arrow of Entropy, which is why I'm revisiting it now. The metalsmith Catta Metavanya forges a suit of armor for the narrator, Zella Thula. The armor is decorated with scrollwork and blue roses. This causes some distress to the book's deuteragonist, who is quite familiar with the ancient symbolism even though it has been long-forgotten by everyone else. Zella later comes into possession of a blue rose necklace, the design of which was inspired by her armor.

Below is Zella's necklace, which I made this afternoon. Each component of it ends up being significant to her story -- the blue rose, the pair of bees, and the eight larger beads that separate the smaller ones. I'm 20,000 words into writing this book now, so you'll have to wait a little longer to find out just how the blue rose and this necklace play into her life.

Visual reference I made for Zella Thula's necklace (Arrow of Entropy).

The Cliff

Sometimes my mind gets lost. I step to the edge of the cliff and look down. I have no intention of stepping off, I just want to see what is there. Swirling mist and hanging rain? Endless fields of moss roses? Oceans, endless oceans of churning waves and writhing kelp? Nothing, everything, the universe, despair joy? My thoughts wander and I need to remind myself to breathe. I do not lack inspiration, but every effort is rewarded by my body screaming "No!" I retreat and try to force myself to wake.

I spin upon my aching heels and watch the twisted trees sway in a salt breeze. There are words on the wind, clear as glass, sharp and grating. I can dance with them and hold them in my hands, but they refuse to become tangible. The fatigue carries them into a silver box that I am forced to carry with me but not open. The only key is remission, but relief is rare and fleeting, and bracketed by an inability to accomplish anything beyond caring for basic needs. My body refuses to let me heed the call of the twisted trees and the screaming words. I can walk toward the trees but they never get closer, and the words spit scathing insults which burrow under my skin and leave me dazed and breathless.

I turn back toward the cliff to escape the words and nearly fall off the ledge. I can see what is beyond now. Water churns against barnacled rocks. My foot slips. I catch myself but an avalanche of pebbles drop into the water. They plink upon the rocks and are immediately thrashed into oblivion by the waves. If I fell, the violent water would do the same to me. I know I am caught in dreamtime, but this dream is too vivid to be harmless. It is my mind on the precipice of giving up and drifting into a nonchalant cycle varying between asleep and not-quite-awake.

I step back and look down the other side of the cliff. My inspiration sits on a lower ledge -- ragged, filthy, hooded, and surrounded by hungry birds. He is forgotten by society, invisible, a shadow of the brilliant light he once was. I know his story, but he is afraid of me because I know. He is afraid I will reveal his brokenness to the world and drive him from outcast to reviled. I have told the first two-thirds of his story, but he knows it is the last third which will break him. He doesn't realize it will also redeem him. All he sees is the churning water below the cliff, while I see a bigger picture. I see his frailty, his kindness, his longing to be something other than a waif trying to decide if he is ready to lean a little forward and plunge off the bluff. "Wait here," I tell him as he tosses his last piece of bread to the birds. "I will return for you as soon as I wake. I will reveal your life as worthwhile."

I walk away from the cliff. The trees stay distant and the words still wail. I turn around to see where I came from. I no longer see the churning water and the ragged cliff. Instead, I see the light glistening off the tranquil water. I see a piece of my own whole. There is as much beauty in the distant water as there was in the moss roses, in the violent waves, in my fragile muse contemplating his past and future. The fatigue remains, but its sting is lessened. The pain in my hands flares, but it is tolerable for now. I'm afraid to push it toward intolerable, but I must. I promised my inspiration I would return for him, and he will haunt me forever if I don't. He is too beautiful to be forgotten, even as he refuses to reveal his face to anyone but me.

The sun sets, but now I know it will rise again on the other side of the darkness. The fatigue is temporary, part of an endless cycle of day and night. My days and nights are different from most and not restricted by a clock. As the sun falls below the waves, I notice my inspiration upon the shore. He is no longer on the cliff, but instead standing in the sand, his feet licked by the rising tide. I stand with him and reach for his hand. The water is icy. He squeezes my aching fingers and says, "I am no longer afraid of you."

"Neither am I," I reply.


Note: I took these photographs while on a family vacation last week. While looking through them, I realized they had a story to tell just as much as I do.

O is for Obeliscolychny

What calls to you?

The waves call to me in my dreams, but I cannot heed them from half a continent away.  I grew up on the water, but now I live on the plains.  The only water here is artificial, and I am allergic to pool chemicals.  I do not know if I want to swim or just lay on the shore and listen to the rushing waves.  I miss being able to walk down the street and straight into the breakers.  I miss the clean sand between my toes.  I can go back to the beginning, but I fear it will not be the same.

Water makes me feel safe.  I've had great epiphanies while in the bath or shower.  I gave birth to my daughter in an oversized bathtub.  Even in the water, I was in a lot of pain because of her unusual presentation, but I felt secure and the water gave me the energy I needed.  The water made me weightless and swept away my inhibitions.  

Waterfalls are the one exception to my love for water.  Give me the Great Lakes, massive rivers, oceans, tiny brooks, and torrential rain, but warn me if there is a waterfall nearby.

Tesji, the narrator of The Crystal Lattice, is also called by water, but fire dominates his dreams.  Sevilen Achara from Echoes of Oblivion is called by language and knowledge, but his brother Rastaban has a far different calling.  Lani of Mayfly Requiem is called by the idea of humanity.

Everyone is called by something.  A location, an idea, an element.  What calls to you?  What do you long for the most when you have everyone you need, but still feel far from home?

I is for Imaginary

Sketch from my original draft of Mayfly Requiem

First of all, check out my interview on Dr. Jon P. Bloch's page.  While you're there, you should read the interviews of some other indie writers.  They are a varied collection of very talented people from many genres and backgrounds who just want to share their words and worlds with all of you.

It's 2am, so hopefully I make a little bit of sense.

My son has his first imaginary friend.  Its name is Pretzel, but we aren't quite sure what it is because toddlers are hard to understand.  I think Pretzel may be a dog, but Turbotot is afraid of dogs and panics when he hears them barking.

Imaginary friends are really an essential part of a creative childhood.  They are a mechanism for working through fears, anxieties, and new skills, and they can aid language acquisition, social skills, and creative problem solving.  When the fear or skill is conquered, the imaginary friend is often discarded and replaced by a new one.  I suspect Pretzel is Turbotot's way of coping with his fear of dogs.  Now, if only Pretzel helps him with his fear of running water...

I encourage my son's imagination.  He can have as many or as few imaginary friends as he wishes. I occasionally give him a gentle reminder that Pretzel isn't real, but I think he knows that.  He spends much of his day engaged in pretend play, so he already has a good grip on reality versus fantasy.  He pretends his bread crusts are cars, dragons, and airplanes, and races them around his plate.  He makes up stories while he's playing with his toys and fake calls his grandparents on a plastic rotary telephone.  Imaginary friends are just another level of play.  I feel a little guilty sometimes that we don't get out to see his real friends more often, but it is hard to leave the house most days due to the baby's reflux.

I had a whole cast of imaginary friends when I was little.  I didn't have a whole lot of friends and I had a telephone anxiety problem which still lingers now.  My imaginary friends were the root of my early storytelling.  Some were based on real people, some were purely figments.  They helped me learn to empathize with other people because I could see the world from a different perspective.

I still have imaginary friends.

I am not delusional, I am creative.  I can imagine my characters in front of me.  I know they are not real, but invoking my imagination in such a way helps me flesh out my narratives.  I mumble to myself, sometimes in public, because I am working out lines of dialogue and realistic reactions to fantastical situations.  I sometimes sit on a park bench and work through a scene by "talking" to the character involved.  I always have a notebook with me, so perhaps I don't look too much like a mumbling fool.  Writers can easily get caught up in their imaginations and the real world looks a little bland, but as long as they recognize the fiction is not the reality, everything is fine.

If I ever leave rationality behind, we can start worrying about my imaginary friends.  For now, if you ever see someone in public who doesn't appear homeless and is not wearing a bluetooth, but is still  talking to herself, assume she is a writer and move on.  She's probably writing a book, so please don't interrupt her conversation or the inspiration may evaporate.  She'll be angry with you for the rest of the day over that.


I even diagram my imaginary friends on occasion.  Here is another page from Mayfly Requiem, showing my hierarchy of Web deities.  See what talking to myself does?  I'm left alone for a while and I create my own mythology system.

The Web: Malora's Elemental deity hierarchy.  Diagram from the first draft of Mayfly Requiem.

Sing for Inspiration

I was four years old when I first sat at a piano intending to learn how to play.  Almost twenty-six years later, I still play.  I've had to modify which instruments I play due to my movement disorder.  When I lost most of my finger dexterity, I traded piano for percussion.  I currently play with the local civic band and orchestra, specializing in mallet percussion.  I also play clarinet and toured Europe playing bass clarinet with a youth symphony, but like the piano, my skills now suffer due to the myoclonus.  The list of other instruments I have played competently is fairly extensive: trombone (my primary instrument in high school), tuba, baritone, trumpet, oboe, saxophone, tin whistle.  I've dabbled with bass guitar, ukulele, and mandolin, but my tiny hands are clumsy on strings.  I was also a deejay at a free-format radio station for five years in college, so I was exposed to a huge variety of music.

Where does this lead me?  Music is the soul of my writing and my life.  I abhor silence, but true silence is rare.  My synesthesia makes listening to music a full-body experience.  The music of nature is not only satisfying but inspiring.  Like Rhodren, I find waterfalls painful but percussive sounds make for a wonderful massage.  And violins always make me itchy.  More on effects of specific instruments can be found on this old post and perhaps this one as well.  I am inspired not only by individual sounds, but by lyrics and feelings within the music.

The Crystal Lattice was resurrected from a half-completed draft by the Muse song "Take a Bow".  I was listening to my MP3 player at work and had an epiphany.  I grabbed a notebook and began to scrawl notes for the rest of the book.  I had no concrete idea of where the book was going when I originally started it in college, but by the end of that song, I knew exactly what I had to write.  Some specific scenes were inspired by Led Zeppelin songs, but the overall book was prompted by Black Holes and Revelations.

Muse has been one of my chronic inspirations.  Mayfly Requiem was inspired by the song "Sing for Absolution".  I was drinking orange juice and coconut rum one night and that song popped onto my playlist.  I put it on a loop and wrote the first three chapters in one night.  Ironically, I had to put away my work in progress, Absolution, to write Mayfly Requiem.  The inspiration was so powerful and overwhelming that I couldn't ignore it.

Echoes of Oblivion has a massive soundtrack.  Individual characters have their own songs, as do pairs and groups of characters.  Here is a partial list:

Tikaari - Norwegian Wood (Beatles),
Aridani - Serenity (Godsmack), I Dare You to Move (Switchfoot)
Moth - Butterflies and Hurricanes (Muse)
Rhodren - Zephyr Song (RHCP), On Mercury (RHCP)
Rastaban - Megalomania (Muse), Roulette (System of a Down)
The Geophorians - Inner Universe (Yoko Kanno)
Ember - Burn it Down (Alter Bridge)
Lirit - Unintended (Muse)
Sevilen - Panic Prone (Chevelle), Anywhere (Evanescence)
Chaos - Where is Everybody (Nine Inch Nails)
Tempo - Vicarious (Tool)

I my full soundtrack is about nine hours long and has everything from Rachmaninoff to Johnny Cash.  I always had to listen to "Inner Universe" to focus myself first before working on Echoes of Oblivion.  Mayfly Requiem didn't really need a trigger, but I usually used "Sing for Absolution".  As for The Crystal Lattice... Led Zeppelin's "Fool in the Rain" is good to get me started.  I'd better get on that now.

Musings on a Windy Day

I am afraid of myself.  When I set my books free, I exposed my soul.  I am naked for the world to judge.  I am tough, but I am not sure how tough.  I have not had any critics yet, but there is always someone eager to dissect, analyze, and berate everything ever written.  I must not crumble if my thoughts are ripped apart.  I must see any harsh words as suggestions for improvement and not.  My writing may be fiction, but it is undeniably me -- my thoughts, my imaginary friends and adversaries brought to life, my demons splattered upon a pristine page.  A writer must wear plate armor so her inner demons do not injure her as they rush into the world with claws aloft.

No matter what, I will always be able to call myself a writer.  I am not aspiring, I have written.  I set forth on an uncertain journey, and although I am far from its conclusion, I have completed the quests I laid on my own head.  At some point I had to stop editing and say to myself, "That was the last word I am changing.  This task is complete."  I am now working toward completion for the fifth time.  Then I must move on to the sixth, which is a 2/3 complete first draft with some brutal demons of its own to overcome.  Then what next?  A fork in the road.  I can see it.  With Absolution I finally reach the end of the Malora quest line and must choose to go left or right into the next world of my creation.

I revisit my old inspirations as I rewrite The Crystal Lattice.  Some creatures were inspired by food that rotted in my refrigerator during a multi-day power outage during the summer of 2003, the summer I started writing my first book.  There are characters inspired by people who I loathed so much that just hearing their names made me angry.  And in the middle of everything is a narrator inspired by a narcoleptic daydream I had while hiking in the Ozarks alone.  These are snapshots of my life as a twenty-one year old.  I matured with my character and found he was a different person at the end than he was at the beginning, the way all good characters should be.  I am rewriting his words but keeping the heart of who he is -- an innocent and naive creature who must find his own path in his world or always be left aspiring and doing nothing of interest.

Origins

I find inspiration everywhere, but mostly from my own experiences.  I try to take advantage of every opportunity presented to me, and that has taken me around the world.  So, who am I?

I am...
...human, though I suspect I may be a fraction Lilliputian.
...a wife of one and mother of two.
...a person with mitochondrial disease.
...a person with narcolepsy.
...a scientific pantheist.
...a classically trained musician, currently a percussionist.
...a writer.
...a crafter specializing in crocheting and sewing.
...a reader of everything in sight.
...a vegan.
...a milk donor.
...afraid of horses and large dogs.
...allergic to cherries.
...a former hockey and soccer player.
...a sci-fi and fantasy geek.
...an engineer by education and chemist by (former) occupation.
...a horrible housekeeper.

Oh, the places I've been!  The most amazing and inspiring locations I've ever visited are...
...the forests of northeastern Michigan at night after a heavy snow with the aurora dancing above the pines.
...a ninja training school near Kyoto.
...Lake Biwa
...a vineyard in rural France.
...Paris at 5am.
...the mountains above Grenoble.
...Luxembourg City.
...the Black Forest.
...Munich.
...the site of a former concentration camp in northeastern Germany.
...Giant's Causeway.
... Edinburgh.
...Stonehenge at Midsummer.
...Trinity College, Dublin.
...the Ozarks.
...the mountains of West Virginia before dawn on a foggy morning.
...so far from civilization in South Dakota that the Milky way was phenomenally clear.
...Devil's Tower.
...the Mayan ruins of Kohunlich.
...Roatan, Honduras.
...the slums of Belize City.

My books have their own origins.  The Crystal Lattice was started on a whim during the summer when I was twenty-one.  I put it away when the next semester started and didn't go back to it for several years.  I was working a mind-numbing insurance job and was suddenly inspired by a Muse song.  I finished the book and one of my coworkers was my first reader and critic.  Echoes of Oblivion began as a short narrative within The Crystal Lattice, a cautionary tale told by the narrator.  I read it to a friend, who said, "You should expand that.  It would be a cool story."  What started out as a short story became a 300,000+ word trilogy written over six months and I blame it all on my friend.  I edited it a couple of times, put it away for a year, and then did a final edit after I finished Mayfly Requiem.  Now, that one is my beast.

I was writing Absolution (which has been an ongoing problem for three years now because it's been interrupted by other inspirations and babies), and had a dream about one of my Echoes characters.  I picked up a notebook and started writing.  And writing.  I filled two large notebooks with 2500 years of Maloran history, most of it written during my lunches at work (I was now working for an environmental testing company) or late at night.  I put it away for a while to edit Echoes, and then typed the whole nasty thing out while I was home on maternity leave.  I started working on Absolution again after a round or two of edits, but when I was really getting into it, I hit pregnancy brain fog and fatigue and haven't picked it back up yet.  And I have to wait a little bit longer.  I've decided to revise and add to The Crystal Lattice, so now I need to find the time to do it.  More late nights and sleepy days ahead, a real adventure when I have two little ones to chase after.