When I was a child, I love folk tales and fairytales. Wizards, dragons, elves, princesses and magic wishes — all the things that permeated my dreams and nightmares. I had a favorite book of Russian fairytales. I couldn’t pronounce most of the names, but that didn’t matter. It was enchanting.

By the time I was in middle school, I morphed into an avid reader of fantasy fiction and SciFi. Tolkien and Le Guin were my starting place, but over the years I explored many other authors. Through their unique and creative imaginations I experienced other worlds, characters both alien and familiar, extraordinary challenges and quests. These adventures were a contrast to my mundane, angst-filled adolescence and an invitation to imagine possibilities.

Years later, as a professional story teller I was advised to ‘only tell stories you really love.’ Following that advice, folk tales and fantasy stories became my repertoire.

So, I guess it’s not surprising that my early attempts at writing stories settled into the fantasy genre.

My first short story, A Solstice Tale, was published in a local magazine, Journeys of Life. It was a creation story, a ritual retelling by an elder to a tribe of ancient people as they sat around a fire on the night of the winter’s solstice. It called upon my love of ritual, story and the change of seasons. It was a precursor for my novel.

Journey to the Heart Stone (SparkPress fall 2022) started as one little scene I imagined while daydreaming. The protagonist was a mature, full-bodied woman. She wasn’t the usual protagonist in a fantasy story, but one I, as a mature full-bodied woman, could identify with. In the scene she was opening up to possibilities, reevaluating her prejudices and connecting with her heart.

I thought it was the start of another short story. As it evolved into more and more scenes and a complex plot line, I realized it was heading toward a novel length manuscript. I panicked and put it aside for a long, long time. Fortunately, she kept coming back, revealing new scenes and characters along the way.

Once I got serious about writing a novel, I paid closer attention to my world-building.

I naively thought writing fantasy had the advantage of not being based in “the real world” and, thus, anything was possible. True as that was, I soon realized this “anything was possible” belief required deep thinking about what would hold this world together and create a solid foundation for the arc of my story’s plot.

Who inhabited this world? Humans? Something other? What did they wear, eat, drink? What was the terrain? Climate? What skills did they possess? What kinds of tools or weapons? Did they have some form of political infrastructure? Who held power? Why? Did they have rituals? How similar or dissimilar was this world to the world I lived in?

My tale is about three matriarchal tribes. Though they come from the same foremother, they have evolved uniquely in different regions of the land.  They have similar but different traditions and rituals.

I wanted my characters be relatable, imperfect people with flaws and limitations. Each one deserved their emotional baggage to work through.

It was important to me to create a world that was real enough, comprehensible enough, and familiar enough that a reader would be comfortable enough to go along on the journey I had in mind. To that end, the landscape and climate are similar to various regions on our earth. The food, clothing, tools and weapons roughly correspond to our Bronze Age.

After some time feeling pleased with my imagined world, I had an epiphany.  I used common words that exist is my modern world, but probably would’t exist in that world. These words might be jarring enough to take my readers out of the story. I decided “day” was fine to leave in, but there were other words that didn’t belong “there”. Exchanging words like “inch” and “mile” for less contemporary American words became an interesting challenge.

Although I resisted writing this novel out of fear and panic, completing this novel became my personal quest, as real as the quest I set my characters upon. Could I make it through real and imaginary challenges to accomplish my goal? Ultimately, like the characters in Journey to the Heart Stone, I did.