Planning and Plotting

Where Does the Story Go And Where Did It Come From? 

So, just how do writers come up with ideas? How, did the Saga of Magiskeep come about in the first place?

I have always loved to write. Just recently, I found the "novels" I had written in middle school. As I re-read them, I was struck by how many of the ideas I had then, seemed to have inspired parts of Kingdom Beyond the Rim and the Saga.

The White Stallion of Twin Pines, my middle school opus,  was a series of five "books" --really stories, with James Weston as the main character. He was a horseman in Nevada and he rode and trained a beautiful white stallion named King's Ransom--whose sire was names Silver Jubilee. James had all kinds of adventures and found himself in numerous scrapes solving mysteries. Eventually, somehow the story shifted to a bit of a spy adventure--I think I was reading the James Bond novels at the time--and James found himself clashing with a villain name Sargari.

Now, I am the kind of writer who often forgets what she has written once it's all down on paper. In this case, I wrote those stories, put them away and twenty years or so later, when I began writing Kingdom, I'd forgotten all about them.

Or had I?

From the cover of Silvirn Shards

I assigned my high school English class a story topic, "What would you do if you had a magic power?"  They challenged me to write a story as well, and so Kingdom began.  At first, it was just the germ of a novel, but once I started, I kept on writing. It wasn't until nearly forty years later that I published what had become a full-fledged novel with two completed novel sequels, and six more novelettes.  Since then, I've added another novel and I'm working on the fifth as well.

So where did the White Stallion stories show up?  My hero's name is Jamus. He rides and trains a beautiful silver stallion--a magical version of white.  He has all kinds of adventures and finds himself challenged to solve numerous riddles, getting himself in and out of numerous scrapes along the way. In Kingdom, Jamus must confront an ambitious and dangerous Magician whose names is Sagari.

I guess I really hadn't forgotten those old stories after all. Variations on a theme, perhaps, but somehow, those old ideas had been floating around in my subconscious for years.

"Everything old is new again." (Peter Allen)