Writing "Orbs of Fire"

"Orbs of Fire" was born from a dream I had one night while I was camping with my family at Hartwick Pines State Park.  I had no intention of writing a new story.  However, I woke up one morning early in the week, clinging to a small piece of the dream I had awakened from.  Not able to release the pictures in my head, I hurried out of the tent, made myself some hot chocolate, and started writing.  I spent the rest of the week, when everyone else was just sitting around camp, writing.  I think I wrote fifty pages during the rest of our stay.   It's crazy to me how my brain took the details of the dream and created a story with dragons, swords, and a tournament - none of which was in the dream.  The love story part is pretty much the only part that I can attach to the dream I had.   One small idea made everything so vivid in my mind: Alex's black hair and dark eyes, Sonia's determination, the fire in the orbs of the Shadow Dragon, each dark creature that Sonia encounters, Storm...

When I sat down to write "Orbs of Fire" I had no idea how much the story would grow.  It had originally seemed it was all about getting Sonia to the Tournament.  (Which had almost been the title of this book... Well, it was going to have Tournament in the title.)  However, by the time I had finished Orbs of Fire, it was clear that this story was about more than just Sonia's journey to the Tournament.  I just didn't know how much until I wrote the end of the Tournament and the story continued.  My cousin was reading this book for me in one of the many drafts and she pointed out that even though the story continued, the book shouldn't go beyond the Tournament, otherwise the Tournament seemed insignificant, and it wasn't.  So taking her opinion into account, I re-read the story and agreed.  Which, I'll admit, was nice to have book one finished and book two well on its way to being finished.

One of the coolest things for me about writing 'The Shadow Dragon" was I really wasn't a reader of dragon books.  I believe the only dragon book I had read was "Eragon", by Christopher Paolini (and that was years ago).  The only reason I had read that one was because I saw the movie and had a hundred questions after watching it.  I like to say the movie is a great trailer for the book.  Anyways,  the fact that "The Shadow Dragon" was in my head at all blew me away.  I mean sword tournaments, dragons, lord's, Ancients...  Not my realm at all.  Or so I thought, but "The Shadow Dragon" trilogy is a fan favorite, proving me wrong once again.