Did you know that Rivic’s story, Tangled Magic, almost didn’t happen? 

As I was working on the first three books of the Sacred Knight series and thinking about Alityka’s part, I started seeing scenes with Rivic and Alityka. I even wrote several of these scenes down. All were from Alityka’s point of view. 

Then in 2015, I started writing a story as part of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month held in November). I had fully intended it to be a rewrite of the start of a novel I had written many years ago and lost the beginning chapters. Soon, I realized that I was actually writing two books. Yes, I had the start of my lost novel, which I wrote nearly 30 years ago and I certainly don’t remember how it started then so this was fresh, but I also had a major piece of another story. I finished NaNoWriMo with over the 50,000 words needed to “win,” but I hadn’t actually finished the novel.

After giving it some time to cool down and really figure out what I had going on, I split the two pieces apart. Yet now I had to figure out the characters I had. I so much wanted to write Alityka’s story that I resisted telling it from Rivic’s point of view, yet I knew in my heart this was exactly what was what needed to happen. Yes, Alityka’s side of my Sacred Knight story needed to be told by Rivic. 

It’s a choice I’m glad I made.