A friend on LinkedIn posted (summarized) “I drew this map, its a thing I do when I’m hitting a creative wall, drawing random worlds like this image. Now, here is the game: Describe what you imagine one of the areas / continent could be like. Think environs, peoples, depth of civilization, current culture and possible historic culture and whatever else you feel adds the fun color of your imaginary machinations.”
Oh and how it sparked something. My first draft was too long for the LinkedIn comments and I so I had to cut it down. But I started just dumping paragraph on paragraph of lore about the people, the politics, the magic, the terrain, the world ripped apart by something that happened long ago, and the idea for a book started to form. Everyone has one in them, right?
Well, once I created this rich environment, I sat back to think about the story I wanted to tell here. I’m very blessed with many groups of very close girlfriends. I have my witches, a group of gals that served on a board with me and with whom I discovered a taste for the same magical fantasy worlds. I have my travel buddies surviving many girl’s trips with international customs and frozen fruity beverages. I have a group of ex-coworkers (once you’re in the trenches together, you’re bonded for life, right?) who had just come together for a weekend at the lake. Anyway, the power of those friendships had really been hitting me in waves and I knew I wanted to write a story that’s HEA hinged on three girls finding each other and becoming found family in a way that changed the world.
And because there are three major geographies in Dawnreach, each girl should come from one of the regions, and there was such rich lore, I determined that the story should be told as a trilogy. So here we are. Stay tuned for more about the names and places and how it’s going!