Why I Wrote WINTER SOLSTICE DREAM
This fantasy holiday romance novella was one of those rare books that actually wrote itself, which is always such a gift from the Muse. I type as fast as I can and hope to get all the words transferred from my mind to the page without losing anything.
There were quite a few factors that went into Winter Solstice Dream, one being I’ve always wanted to write a holiday romance (Regency romances set at Christmas are catnip to me) but since I write scifi romance for the most part, and ancient Egyptian paranormal romances, I didn’t see how I was going to manage that. (Although I did once write a short story about Thanksgiving being celebrated on my luxury interstellar cruise liner, which can be found in the STAR CRUISE STOWAWAY collection of my shorter works. That was a fun challenge!)
A few years ago I published my first book in a projected fantasy romance world I developed, The Captive Shifter and it recently occurred to me I could tell a perfectly good holiday story set in this time and place. I’ve always been planning to write sequels and connected stories for that world, known as Claddare. So I needed to adjust my thinking from a holiday we celebrate to creating a holiday the people in Claddare might enjoy in midwinter.
In creating this alternate world originally, I was partially inspired by Andre Norton’s Witch World series, loving the way she mixed magic and mysteries. My all-time favorite of hers in this vein was Year of the Unicorn and not that I’ll ever write at her level, but I was going for something of the feel of those stories (not the almost science fiction territory the first few in the Witch World series had).
I was also inspired by the classic movie “Ladyhawke” (who isn’t, if you love fantasy?), although my world is entirely fictional, not tied to anything in the actual Earthly Middle Ages. Halvor’s horse in this novella owes a lot to the wonderful steed in Ladyhawke.
And of course “Lord of the Rings”, the movie trilogy more than the actual novels, influenced me.
I love reading great fantasy series, like Jeffe Kennedy’s Twelve Kingdoms books and Grace Draven’s Radiance (Wraith Kings) among others but I’m not up to writing such complex and sweeping novels right now. If ever! So I concentrate on the smaller, standalone stories for Claddare, although I do have a big plot arc in mind for Claddare that I’m working within. Speaking only for myself, I think a writer’s skills grow over time – I’ve moved from writing standalones to also writing my Badari Warriors series with an overarching arc, which was something I never expected when I first was published – which adds to the fun. So I’m confident Claddare will grow into many more books. As always, my problem is never having enough time to write All The Things.
I always enjoy having magic as a plot element and there’s quite a bit here in the new novella, one way and another. We don’t see too much from the Witches of Azrimar themselves this time but Nadelma, my heroine, has her own powers of a completely different sort. I’ve also always been intrigued by desserts containing charms or favors and found a good way to work the concept into this story on a grand scale. But after all, Nadelma is baking a cake for the hundreds who’ll attend the Solstice Night Ball.
Nadelma appeared briefly in The Captive Shifter, but both books stand alone. I felt that she, as the Head Cook in the Witch Queen’s palace, would be an interesting character to learn more about. I loved the idea of making this a Cinderella type tale, complete with those sparkly shoes, although they aren’t key to the Happy Ever After ending. I had to have them in the story though! Readers have asked me for more about Nadelma so it felt good to finally oblige.
The other thing was that the timing was good because we just released Pets in Space® 4, with my novel STAR CRUISE: IDOL’S CURSE included, on October 8th and I didn’t want to ‘compete’ with myself and with PETS by releasing another scifi romance in the same time frame. I’d just released a new novel in my ancient Egyptian series, Return of the Dancer of the Nile, so I realized I had a window to write a new Claddare story without having to feel I was stealing time away from my SFR series.
There were quite a few factors that went into Winter Solstice Dream, one being I’ve always wanted to write a holiday romance (Regency romances set at Christmas are catnip to me) but since I write scifi romance for the most part, and ancient Egyptian paranormal romances, I didn’t see how I was going to manage that. (Although I did once write a short story about Thanksgiving being celebrated on my luxury interstellar cruise liner, which can be found in the STAR CRUISE STOWAWAY collection of my shorter works. That was a fun challenge!)
A few years ago I published my first book in a projected fantasy romance world I developed, The Captive Shifter and it recently occurred to me I could tell a perfectly good holiday story set in this time and place. I’ve always been planning to write sequels and connected stories for that world, known as Claddare. So I needed to adjust my thinking from a holiday we celebrate to creating a holiday the people in Claddare might enjoy in midwinter.
In creating this alternate world originally, I was partially inspired by Andre Norton’s Witch World series, loving the way she mixed magic and mysteries. My all-time favorite of hers in this vein was Year of the Unicorn and not that I’ll ever write at her level, but I was going for something of the feel of those stories (not the almost science fiction territory the first few in the Witch World series had).
I was also inspired by the classic movie “Ladyhawke” (who isn’t, if you love fantasy?), although my world is entirely fictional, not tied to anything in the actual Earthly Middle Ages. Halvor’s horse in this novella owes a lot to the wonderful steed in Ladyhawke.
And of course “Lord of the Rings”, the movie trilogy more than the actual novels, influenced me.
I love reading great fantasy series, like Jeffe Kennedy’s Twelve Kingdoms books and Grace Draven’s Radiance (Wraith Kings) among others but I’m not up to writing such complex and sweeping novels right now. If ever! So I concentrate on the smaller, standalone stories for Claddare, although I do have a big plot arc in mind for Claddare that I’m working within. Speaking only for myself, I think a writer’s skills grow over time – I’ve moved from writing standalones to also writing my Badari Warriors series with an overarching arc, which was something I never expected when I first was published – which adds to the fun. So I’m confident Claddare will grow into many more books. As always, my problem is never having enough time to write All The Things.
I always enjoy having magic as a plot element and there’s quite a bit here in the new novella, one way and another. We don’t see too much from the Witches of Azrimar themselves this time but Nadelma, my heroine, has her own powers of a completely different sort. I’ve also always been intrigued by desserts containing charms or favors and found a good way to work the concept into this story on a grand scale. But after all, Nadelma is baking a cake for the hundreds who’ll attend the Solstice Night Ball.
Nadelma appeared briefly in The Captive Shifter, but both books stand alone. I felt that she, as the Head Cook in the Witch Queen’s palace, would be an interesting character to learn more about. I loved the idea of making this a Cinderella type tale, complete with those sparkly shoes, although they aren’t key to the Happy Ever After ending. I had to have them in the story though! Readers have asked me for more about Nadelma so it felt good to finally oblige.
The other thing was that the timing was good because we just released Pets in Space® 4, with my novel STAR CRUISE: IDOL’S CURSE included, on October 8th and I didn’t want to ‘compete’ with myself and with PETS by releasing another scifi romance in the same time frame. I’d just released a new novel in my ancient Egyptian series, Return of the Dancer of the Nile, so I realized I had a window to write a new Claddare story without having to feel I was stealing time away from my SFR series.
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