It was brought to my attention (and I’m grateful for that tap on my shoulder which told me I could do things better) that I may have overloaded yesterday’s post with too much because of the painting. I broke the rhythm of my blog and how I run the chapters. So now I’m moving the painting part off to this post.

If you haven’t read chapter 1 of Dragons of Wellsdeep, I invite you to do so now.

I remember when I first saw the scene for the chapter you’re going to read today. I’ve written before about how I get ideas, how usually a character starts talking to me and I get transported into their story. Dragons of Wellsdeep was way different.

I painted him first. I was doing some of my planet paintings and there was one that I felt had a boy hunting on the moon of the planet.

 

I showed it to my youngest son (when he was about 7 or so) who loves archery and he said, “Wow, he’s got a bow!”

I said, “Yes, he’s hunting.”

“What’s he hunting?”

“A terrible monster that lives on the moon.”

Right then, Moonhunter was born and I knew I’d never be able to sell that painting. It was mine.  Kevin even said that it would make a great cover for a book and for a long time, I though it would be.

Then one day I was driving into town so the boys could go shopping. (R.I.P. Hastings – sad face). In my mind, I saw the beast, lurking waiting. The scene unfolded pretty much line by line as I was driving. I remember the exact spot on the country road where I was when I heard the deep whispering that rumbled through me. I was scared and so enthralled by it that I was nearly in tears. I let the boys go into the store (both well in their teens now) while I stayed in the car and wrote. They felt bad about taking half an hour and I asked them if they wanted to go back in for another thirty minutes. (grin) They didn’t and I was forced to leave the scene and come back to it later.

I love writing so much! Telling stories is fantastic! (okay, aside over)

I’ve since come back and added more to the chapter a couple of time, changed a few things, tweaked it slightly. I won’t say I’m done with it. But that’s what thrills me about writing — I get to go deeper into the story every time I look at it.

If you still haven’t read the first chapter of Dragons of Wellsdeep, you really should go do it now.