Ask the Author
This FAQ page is dedicated to answering questions specific to my writing journey. I want to keep these writing / publishing questions and answers separate for any aspiring authors to inquire about what I have learned during my writing journey.
I want to share my journey about taking the chance to create, my experiences wading through the jungle of self-publishing, setting up a website, and even how I plan (hope) to market Maia’s book.
For any questions you want and are willing to have appear on my ‘Ask the Author’ page, please use the Contact form and ask your question. I reserve the right to combine similar questions to provide a global answer.
Please be patient as I do still have a ‘day job’ which keeps me very busy. I will read all inquiries and add them to this site as time allows.
How did you develop the characters?
Maia and Mersa were always the main characters going back to when it this story was still roaming the outer regions of my imagination. So too were the seven dragon families; the character’s names developed over time. Maia especially haunted me constantly until the book was complete, she was relentless about having her story told.
Did you use a story outline or freestyle the writing?
A little of both. At first I researched all the different methods to storyline as another author told me this was his method and it worked very well for him. Thus, I thought it should be my method too. I have never been one for following rigidity, which is what the outlining seemed to me.
This brought me to using outlining when I needed to coalesce my thoughts into a skeleton outline for any aspect of the storyline. Much of the book had a very loose skeleton outline that providing the major beats, then I freestyled the writing.
Often, I would sit down to my computer and lose time making sure everything was ‘just right’ (in reality I was procrastinating) as I did not know what to write.
Another author told me “just write”, so that is what I did. Even though I sat down with no idea of where I was going, I started typing only to look up and see a couple hours and hundreds, even thousands, of words had flowed from my heart to the page.
How did you decide the ending?
I had no idea where I was taking the ending until I sat down to write. It is hard to explain, but I let the characters decide. Although I cried at how the story ended, and truly felt I had lost a dear friend, I also made many new friends along the way. Each with their own voice and story to tell.
What is next?
I have ideas… there is a lot of potential for future books that would allow each primary character to tell their own story. But first, I want to give Maia her time in the sun for her story to become known. The rest need to be patient, as Maia was.