For those of you who don’t know, “Heart of Fire” is my current writing project (or obsession if you live with me). Originally written as a screenplay, it is being rewritten for print as a YA novel series (because it is ridiculously difficult to pitch a children’s CG script as an unknown).
One advantage–and at times disadvantage–is the ability to include limitless detail into the world created. This is by far my favorite, and brain-wracking, aspect of the writing experience. I am both excited and overwhelmed to join the class of “world creators”; from building continental maps (trees are a bitch!), to detailing the creation, use, and biology of items and creatures (best believe there WILL BE an itemized document), to creating the culture and language (shoot me!) of all FIVE main races involved in Syra’s (MC) journey across mountain, plain, and floating forests!
Aside from giving an up-close tour of the world, the goal of this series (4 books, currently) is to expose readers to hard, real-life situations in a fantasy setting. For a generation emerging into a culture of political debate and correctness, racial and sexual turbulence, financial class division, a widening age gap, and broken families, it is important to relate to others who share the same confusion, insecurity, and distrust one has when seeing the world for the first time with eyes unclouded by child naivete.
Syra, the good-hearted but naive protagonist, fills this role of liaison. A product of a broken family, she is caudled in a superficially utopian city until they discover she is not like them; not even the same species. Her mission takes her, along with her estranged siblings, a temperamental pixie, and an ex-fiance, on a circum-regional journey through all five realms to meet the five races and the instabilities that inhabit the Tairon Region. (And that’s just Book 1)
Throughout the series, themes of love vs. duty, (un)forgiveness & redemption, envy, family bonds, good vs. evil, and leadership shape and reshape characters into people they never expected to become.
TLDR: In short, I’m writing a YA book series I think is really cool, and I hope you’ll think it’s really cool, too. So, I will be posting each new chapter as they’re written in hopes that more people will enjoy it–and I’ll, mayhaps, get more critiques, cuz those are expensive. XD *nervous laugh* Did I mention Syra’s a dragon?!