From start to finish

Finishing my first novel showed me I could write one. I had started thinking about the characters ten years before I decided there was more to their story than the few pages I wrote in my college journal. But with real life getting in the way, it took me another five years to gather my notes and understand the science fiction world that became Demia. Then I needed another year to feel the courage to show it to my family, and another to ask for critiques from strangers. The two years I spent revising the novel, in response to many rounds of constructive criticism, made me realize I cared about the project. And that I could be a writer.

The Legacy of the Eye still isn't perfect, but I decided to give it a rest. I spent the last year writing something completely different and I discovered that I could fall in love with this new world just as easily as I fell for Demia and the rest of the Tetracoil Galaxy. And that these new characters talking in the back of my mind could feel like family to me, just like David and Catrine.

My fantasy novel Shrouded Goddess is finished and awaiting another round of critiques. The feedback I've received so far is very encouraging, much more than for Demia. Part of the interest, I think, is because Shrouded Goddess is set in a world that mirrors colonial South America during the Portuguese settlements of the sixteenth century. Not the typical medieval fantasy world. Moreover, my novel focuses on the indigenous custom of accepting strangers into the community by marriage, and how the settlers exploited the native family values to recruit laborers, which I don't believe is a common subject either.

My excitement is growing with each round of revisions. And there are now new characters whispering in the back of my mind...