Fun Facts

I'll attempt to keep this as spoiler-free as possible, but I'd like to use this section to let my readers know some facts about my writing processes along the way.

The Truth about Heroes: One of Many

*I started this book when I was around 24 years old.

*Originally, it was inspired by Final Fantasy XII and the scene where Princess Ashelia's fiance is killed.

*I had forgotten about it until finding it on a disc about 5 years later and it was 60 pages long at that point.

*While I rewrote much of it, I can admit that I would change a few things now.

*Dialogue is probably my least favorite part of writing unless it's funny.

The Truth about Heroes: Two Sides to Everything

*I never intended to write more than one book for this idea.

*One of my pet peeves in reading is good and evil characters. I purposely write glaring flaws into their design.

*I decided I would write the entire series before releasing any of them but I'm still not sure I'm done.

*I didn't intend to write in any mythical creatures, but Calderon presented a unique opportunity...

*I started with two continents. Wheryf popped up on the edge when I considered where the Folk were.

The Truth about Heroes: Menage a Trois

*This was supposed to the be the last book set in this world. I lied.

*I wanted this book to have an open-world labyrinthian concept where the characters could face their fears.

*I rarely ever plan character deaths. I am way too tempted to make them deserving which dampens the impact.

*None of the characters are 'me.' I avoid self-insertion fantasy as much as possible.

*Magic is present but I wanted it to take a backseat to mythology for my next challenge.

UnNamed

*Two of the characters' relationships were changed drastically when I reached Part II, so that I could arrange the final details in Part III.

*The mercenary has a severe and selective memory disability. The kid is androgynous. This was fun.

*I didn't want chapters in this series. I decided I'd divide them into three parts and an epilogue when I noticed that each idea formed in threes.

*Except for the quadrilogy part.

*Each book will have at least one main character with a distinct disability, but I'm never going to signal this inside of the books themselves. It's up to the reader to decide abilities and disabilities.

A World Reborn:

Children of Heroes

*For this series, I wanted to work with corruption themes: magic, balance, Irish folklore, nothing is safe.

*As this world grows, I made sure that technology reflected the change.

*The ages in this world don't reflect ages in ours, but I never made a calendar because it would never be used except for that, which made it pretty pointless to the story.

*Frozen came out right around the time I was finishing this book. I'm a little mortified by how much Eden reminds me of her.

*I didn't plan this trilogy until towards the end of this book. Outlines became my best friend.

Blogging Fun

*Between messaging people and blogging, I've probably technically written 50 more books.

*I try to blog at least three times a week. Sometimes I just end up blogging three times a day.

*I don't plan blogs. I'd love to do more researched blogs, but as of yet, that is not actually something I'm planning to do.

*My blog is not for kids. It's one thing if parents are okay with foul language and sexual themes, but I respect their right to keep their kids away.

*I'm no expert, but if I have an epiphany on writing, I share it!

A World Reborn:

Higher Reasoning

* This book introduces homosexuality and bisexuality into the mix. This wasn't done intentionally, but with consideration for the nature of the characters.

*Even though the fate of the city is not the same, I pictured the city of Noisulli to look like the city from the Windaria anime.

*Despite the clear inspiration in my art, I don't actually watch anime anymore, although I still reread my manga and Korean manhwa and enjoy LINE WebToons.

*Isolated cultures are extremely fascinating to me. There is a mixed amount of innocence and wisdom to it that I can relate to.

A World Reborn:

Deicide

* This was intended to be the last trilogy but the Diviners had a rich history worth tapping into.

*While I had no intention of introducing mythology, I had been playing Persona 5 at the time and the name Cu Cuchlain led me towards Gaelic mythology.

*Magic was also something that I had to revisit and the idea of a double-edged system was too appealing to pass up.

*I'm not the sort of writer that either relishes in writing death scenes nor insists that they be wholly emotional. Death often comes with more shock and numbness than grief for me.

Each Endless Universe:

Close Encounters

* There were only a few characters from earlier series that I brought back and only to avoid things getting too campy.

*This has one of my favorite scenes I have ever written and the character involved laments that he can never really talk about it.

*I purposely kept the twins apart as much as possible. Again, this is a place where things can get too campy and sometimes twins aren't joined at the hip or have nothing in common.

* A writer isn't really supposed to pick favorites, but Korus was definitely my personal favorite once all was said and done.

Each Endless Universe:

Dual Decisions

* It hasn't escaped my notice that the second book in every series tends to be the most sexually charged.

*Despite that, I also don't consider those scenes the most memorable, just the most vulnerable.

* Because I had a feeling that some themes would be a bit taboo, I always intended to write the entire series before publishing. Writers hate being bullied or accused of insidious agendas when there aren't any.

*Don't worry-- I don't go insanely out of the box. I don't mind being called out for romance or even erotica but I didn't want the series to get mired in fetishism. It's still fantasy, first and foremost.

Each Endless Universe:

Original Sin

* I had planned the ending for the series well before I even started writing the first EEU book.

* This trilogy is probably more sci-fi than fantasy but I felt that the history still strongly sets it on the border. The world just evolved in that direction.

* I was wary of adding in the phone text aspects, but this turned out to be less painful than I thought. Okay, it was fun.

* I find epilogues at the very end of a series to be the most difficult to close up-- another place where it can get campy. All surviving characters needed a resolution and I didn't want it to come off as just rolling credits.

UnSung

*In elementary school, I was inspired by the stories of lost civilizations like Troy and Pompeii. This book was an homage to that knowledge.

*I researched mysterious unsolved deaths to form some ideas for the very interesting ones I come up with.

*Though I played with it a bit in my third trilogy of the HWU Chronicles, this book actually contains my first proper murder mystery.

*Piscine will be my first crime thriller though.

*I originally felt like Lilith was a flat character, but she evolved to be one of my favorites to utilize.

FAQs

UnHeard

*UnHeard is an entry that contains a lot of political intrigue.

*One of the main characters deals with a long-term trauma lossely based on the author's own experiences.

*As the title implies, one character is deaf... but another is missing a limb. Find out why!

*Since the noble Houses belong to an island nation, I used the scientific names of marine animals as the basis for their names.

*Endramena's name is pronounced like 'Andromeda'.

*Mertans and sirens and the odd paradox behind Bryzentines not being mages are some of the themes in this book.

*Remember the Realm-Walkers from UnNamed? They're back!

Influences, favorites, this is as close to those answers as it gets! A closer look at the author...

*Books/Authors: Old Kingdom Trilogy/Garth Nix, The Highland Velvet series/Jude Devereaux, The Myst series/Rand and Robyn Miller, Vampire Chronicles/Anne Rice, The Dark Tower series/Stephen King

*Video game series: Uncharted, Final Fantasy, Legend of Zelda, Dragon Age, Witcher, Elder Scrolls, The Sims, Assassin's Creed, InFamous, Persona, Dark Cloud, Samurai/Dynasty Warriors, Castlevania

*Hobbies: Crochet, playing flute, customizing dolls, gaming (okay, duh).

*Comics and manga: JTHM, Squee, Adam Warlock, The Queen's Knight, MeruPuri, Threads of Time

There are plenty more, but let's start there...