I never expected to be building an author website.
For that matter, I never expected to be writing a trilogy.
Nearly twenty years ago, I wrote a short fantasy story about a young woman named Anne Carson whose life took an unexpected turn on the coast of Maine.
The story had its beginnings even earlier, in a fantasy and science fiction literature class I took in college. My professor, Dr. Donald Glover, encouraged my writing and my imagination, and some of the ideas that would eventually find their way into Anne’s story began there.
Then life moved on, as it does.
The story was tucked away. I never entirely forgot about Anne or her dragon, but I didn’t have any particular plans for them either. They were simply part of something I had once written.
Until one day I pulled the story out again.
I thought I might polish it a little.
That turned out to be a considerable miscalculation.
What lay beyond the portal Anne had found? Who were the people on the other side? Why had Anne been drawn into their world?
And, perhaps most dangerously:
What happened next?
The little story began to grow.
Anne’s world acquired a name: Cyfina. Then came its people, its history and legends, its forests and mountains and coastlines. Dragons who had once existed mostly because a story needed a dragon began to have histories and relationships of their own.
Characters appeared who had absolutely no intention of remaining minor characters.
Somewhere along the way, that old short story became the opening chapters of The Egg and the Ember, the first book of what is now a planned trilogy within the larger Dragonbonded of Cyfina series.
Today, the first draft of The Egg and the Ember is complete and awaiting revision. The first draft of Book Two, The Heir and the Hatchling, is complete as well. And Book Three, The Dragon and the Darkness, is taking shape.
Even Cyfina may not be quite large enough to contain all the stories beginning to whisper at the edges.
I still find that astonishing.
This Journal will be a place to share some of that journey—not simply progress reports, but thoughts about writing, imagination, the places and experiences that inspire me, and whatever else seems worth sharing along the way.
I don’t know exactly where all of this is leading.
But then, twenty years ago, I thought I was writing a short story.
I wish Dr. Glover could see it now.