Now that I have finished writing up the first draft of "Island of Devils", I am typing up my handwritten manuscripts so that I have an electronic copy of everything I have written. The experience has taught me that secretaries are seriously underpaid. So far, I've only typed up fourteen pages of the book that first revealed the world that Cassandra lives in, which culminated in the publishing of "Heart of Flesh." I would gladly pay someone who could type over 90 wpm to do the whole thing for me if I had the extra cash on hand, since, at tops, I can only do 35 wpm. Maybe I can get one of my friends to do it in exchange for me picking up the tab at dinner or giving them a gift card to TGI Friday's. I'll just have to ask around and see.
Typing up my first sci-fi/fantasy novel brought back a lot of memories. I first started it when I was thirteen, and it was a serial in a newsletter my mom was trying to start with my brother and my friend Chris. The newsletter never really took off, but "Air Wars" (which was the first name of my series) soared. While heavily influenced by "Star Wars", it was really tongue-in-cheek and humorous, featuring people who were half an inch tall battling it out in paper airplanes, toy cars, and with superheated pins called "heatsabers." It grew into a book that had over 170 chapters and, near the end, inadvertently turned into a Christian work. I had no intention of writing Christian fantasy at first, but I read the final chapters over and liked the deeper meaning of the spiritual motifs and metaphors and added those in my later writing. I know that "Lord of the Rings" similarly did not start off as a Christian work, but was later "commandeered" by Tolkien's faith and he went back and deliberately weaved Christian symbolism into the book. I want to make it clear that I am a far cry from J.R.R. Tolkien. He was a genius who, through over fifteen years of hard work and careful revising, created one of the best literary works of all time, not to mention a linguistic mastermind. That being said, I think it's cool that Jesus decided to take over my work like he did with "Lord of the Rings" and to show me that writing to worship and honor Him would truly unleash the talent He blessed me with. It also helped that he gave me an amazing mother without whom Yangvaad and the other nations of my world would not exist.
Cassandra herself did not appear in "Air Wars." In fact, she was not supposed to be a main character in my Christian fantasy series at all. She was created simply to be the master of a young knight named Zarrah, who was far more integral to the series. I only wrote "Heart of Flesh" out of curiousity to see what Cassandra was like as a child, but she wound up becoming the main heroine of the entire series (which is no longer called "Air Wars", by the way). Although I am still taken aback at how much she changed the series, I am very happy with the direction it is going in now, and, once "Daughter of the Seven Seas" is published this month, I will focus on revising the novel which explains the origins of the greatest heroine of my world.
