C.S. Lewis, who wrote the Narnia books that start with The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe (complete with Oxford Comma!), is also a science fiction author known among true aficionados of the genre.
Yeah, that’s me. I’ve actually read all his SF, too. Go ahead. Say it. I’m a geek.
What you might not know about Lewis, though, is that he and J.R.R. Tolkien had a bet. One of them had to write a space travel story. One had to write a time travel story.
Lewis won the bet by writing The Space Trilogy. Tolkien never did write the time travel story, which makes me sigh with regret for what might have been.
There are some equally odd stories behind the origins of other famous books out there.
Suzanne Collins got her idea for The Hunger Games when she was sleeplessly flipping TV channels one night and switched from a reality TV show to footage of the Iraq War. She married the two together and came up with a culture that glorified violence.
Stephen King got the idea for Carrie when he was teaching high school and watched one of the outcast students get ground down into complete submission. He went on to write the story in a drug-induced haze, figured it was no good, and tossed it in the trash can. His wife, Tabitha, retrieved it and told him to submit it. The rest is history.
There are a lot of stories out there about how authors get their ideas — from Newton’s apple dropping on his head, to movie versions of a writer being struck by a novel idea, whole and complete, in a single instant, then going home to hammer it out in five days of sweat on an old Imperial typewriter to produce a best seller… because the idea just came to him.
Why am I mentioning all this?
Because the reality is very different.
Oh, sure, there are some authors who get struck blind by a blazing story, whole and complete. It’s even happened to me. I’ve had entire story ideas come to me in a flash.
But it doesn’t happen very often.
Most of the time, writing a novel is about building a story layer by layer — slow, incremental, and sometimes downright stubborn.
Which brings me to Hammer Down — my next series.
This one is the third series featuring Danny Andela, who (apparently) you all can’t get enough of. The demand for more Danny stories has been loud and clear… and let me tell you, that only adds to the pressure!
I’ve got the titles locked in, the framework mapped out, and the big picture in place. Here’s what it looks like so far:
- Solar Whisper
- Rogue Star
- Total Eclipse
- Dawn’s Crucible
- Hypernova
It sounds pretty solid, right? I should be cranking out the pages by now. But the truth?
I’m stuck.
And not just because the story is taking its time coming together. It’s more than that.
The muse seems to have packed her bags and taken an extended vacation. And I suspect she’s hiding under my laundry pile, because… well, life is chaotic right now.
I don’t talk about personal stuff often, but here’s the reality: my husband is recovering from cancer surgery. He can’t work, can’t lift anything heavy, can’t do anything too energetic — so I’m doing everything.
And by “everything,” I mean all the household stuff, all the life admin, and still somehow trying to write books. Oh, and I’m also building and editing two magazines at the same time.
With a deadline looming.
Let’s just say, life is not exactly leaving me much room to sit quietly and daydream about Danny’s next adventure.
But here’s what I’ve learned after writing over a hundred novels:
The muse isn’t a magical creature who shows up on command with a fully formed idea in hand. She has to be coaxed out — word by word, idea by idea, layer by layer.
And that’s what I’m doing with Solar Whisper. I’m building the story in small increments.
One scene at a time.
One plot thread at a time.
It’s slow going, but it’s going.
And that’s how Hammer Down will come together.
So, if you’re out there struggling to balance creativity and life, I see you. The stories will come. They may not arrive in a flash of inspiration.
But if we keep showing up, even in small ways, we’ll find them.
And sooner or later, my muse will crawl out from under that laundry pile, dust herself off, and help me finish Danny Andela’s next adventure.
After all, space adventures don’t happen without a little turbulence first.
Latest releases:
Ptolemy Lane Tales Omnibus
Galactic Reflections
The Return of the Peacemaker
He Really Meant It