My Brief But Amazing Top 8 Dragons From Literature List

I had to do it eventually.

Any warm-blooded… check that… any cold-blooded…er— any diehard dragon wonk has a shortlist of their favorite firedrakes. Since it is Sci-fi/Fantasy Week on Goodreads, I decided to write a blogpost about dragons. Maybe you’d be more inclined to seeing a ranking of dwarves, elves, or centaurs. Hang onto your Hogwarts! Maybe I’ll get around to one of those lists the next time out.

Today I’m sticking with dragons. The focus of this blogpost is strictly limited to the confines of literature so unfortunately Puff the Magic Dragon and Godzilla didn’t make the final cut, although both were early inspirations for me. For the record, even if Godzilla was from a book and not film, his original incarnation was a bizarre hybrid, something of a cross between a gorilla and a whale.

Caveat emptor. My list is strictly personal preferences. It is by no means exhaustive and I am sure that many wonderful dragons have been left off. Your favorites perhaps. Mea culpa. That’s the way the cookie bounces sometimes. Having said that, please don’t hesitate to drop me the names, books, and authors of your favorite fire-lizards in the comments section. I’m always looking to beef up and add to my TBR list. And who knows, I might just expand this list in the future.


My Brief But Amazing Top 8 Dragons From Literature List


1)
Smaug— Who would be foolish enough to exclude this magnificent specimen? The inimical brainchild of J.R. R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit is the king of Lonely Mountain’s treasure trove. A dragon’s dragon, and by many accounts, one of the richest fictional beasts, raking in between 54 and 61 Billion according to Forbes (2012 and 2013)

2)
Sapira— One of my absolute favorites. I’m a huge fan of Christopher Paolini. If you’ve never read any of his works, I highly recommend you start with Eragon his first book of his The Inheritance Cycle. The title character, Eragon, rears Sapira from hatchling to full-fledged dragon. The bond between them is phenomenal and she helps the hero become a dragonrider. Some really great repartee. Sapira’s passion and emotional intelligence can rival just about any warm-blooded being in literature.

3)
Orm Irian— The stunning red-gold dragon that morphs into her human form at the Dragon Council Meeting to broker peace among the humans and dragons in The Other Wind, Book 6 of The Earthsea Cycle by Ursula K. Le Guin. Orm Irian is the sister of Tehanu and the eldest daughter of Kalessin. When she transforms, she stuns the Council with her eloquent speech. Her eyes reveal her true self “a vast shimmer of smoky gold that dwarfed the King and throne” (Le Guin).

4)
Errol— the lovable swamp dragon from Sir Terry Pratchett’s 8th book from the Discworld Series, Guards! Guards! Errol is a spunky underdog type, what I would call the Rudy Ruettiger of dragons who ends up winning your heart.

5)
Ruth – from The Dragonriders of Pern Series by Anne McCaffrey. If Ruth doesn’t prove that good things come in little packages then I don’t know what does. Smart and agile, a leader of men and dragons and oftentimes mistakenly classified as the white or albino dragon. There are many shades glimmering in Ruth’s marvelous armor.

6)
Norberta— the Norwegian Ridgeback from the Harry Potter Series by J. K. Rowling. So I felt compelled to spice up the contents of my fire-lizard list. She is an absolute handful and a true challenge to house-train. Norberta did plenty of damage Hagrid’s home, but was definitely worth all the fuss.

7)
Falkor— from The Neverending Story by Michael Ende. As luck would have it, Falkor made the cut. That’s a little pun since Falkor is classified as a luckdragon. As pal and sidekick of Fantastica’s wunderkind, Atreyu, I felt compelled to include Ende’s whimsical creature.

8)
Rhaegal— Last, but certainly not least there’s the mighty green-bronze dragon from George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones Series. Who can ever forget the Battle of Winerfell?

Thanks for checking this out. Don’t forget to include your comments down below and share your personal favorite dragons. See ya around the cloud.

You’ve Published A Book: So What Next?

Keep Writing.

It’s that simple and that complicated. After you’ve poured your heart and soul into your book, you might be inclined to take a breather or go on vacation. You’ve earned it. Right? Indeed you have, but you cannot lose momentum.

Personally, I prefer to keep it going. Whether the ideas are still flowing or if they’ve temporarily dried up. Staring at a blank page can be daunting. There are a few tricks you can use to get going. Start with a scene. It doesn’t have to be the opening to the book. In fact, you may not have that part established. But hopefully you know the main characters.

If the book is the second of a series then you already know the background of the characters. Start from there. If you are writing a completely new book then you may want to consider who your characters are. Get to know them. When I start a completely new project and need to figure out who my characters are, I like to create bios for my main characters. I’m not likely to include it in the actual story, but it helps me clarify who they are and what motivates them. You need to know what motivates your characters in order to write engaging stories. This is especially useful in dialogue as characters who have specific goals will speak passionately about what they want and can drive your scenes.

Some writers prefer plotting before they jump into their scenes. This is a good technique too. It lets you establish a blueprint and gives direction. I use a hybrid. I like to do some free writing combined with plotting so that I don’t feel completely confined, but I always come back to my plot because I want stay on track. Now it is perfectly okay to make adjustments to the plot as well if you feel that it enhances your story arc.

Make sure that you establish a writing routine. It seems really simple, but it makes a huge difference 1) if you have one and 2) you actually stick with it. Since I am a morning person, I like to get up early and write. If that works great! Others are night owls and prefer to write when the kids are asleep. Either way is fine. I know some writers who like writing on the bus or on the subway. What works for you is fine. I believe the key is consistency. Pick a time that you can sit for a while and write.

Give yourself a word count. I know that sounds a little forced, but it gives you a goal to shoot for. Writers need goals and deadlines. Repeat that. I know that there are some writers out there who have an inner editor chirping in their ear. That’s tricky if you are trying to get out a slew of new material. The main thing is to find a word count that is challenging, but doable. Don’t make it too large that you will get frustrated. Word counts are less important when you get to your later drafts.

Now, if you are the other type of writer, the prolific one, then keep plugging away. If the ideas keep coming you might as well get them down and worry about the editing part later on. After all, most of the real work comes during the editing process when you re-envision your work. Think of it this way. You can always toss the parts you don’t like, but if you have no raw material to work with you are stuck with all the heavy-lifting.

Write on.

Why I Chose To Write My Fantasy Adventure Series

Somebody recently asked me why I decided to write a Fantasy Adventure novel. My first response was a bit glib and shortsighted on my part. Why not? I said that I had always wanted to write one, but I wasn’t sure I could do it and I wanted to prove it to myself. The more I considered it though, I knew that my motivation went much deeper than that. Now while it may partly have been true that I wasn’t sure I could pull it off, my real reason for saying that was because I was passionate about proving two things.

One: that I wanted to fully immerse myself into a new realm. One that pushed the boundaries of my imagination. Two: I also wanted to make sure my story had the good flesh and bones of a legit fantasy novel. For good or bad, the Fantasy genre has always suffered from the unfortunate stereotype of being a guilty pleasure read. Not for the hardcore mind you, but in terms of the greater literary world it’s not often compared to the classics. In school everybody reads To Kill A Mockingbird, The Sun Also Rises, Pride and Prejudice, The Joy Luck Club, Great Expectations. But you would be hard-pressed to find any institution adding to its required reading lists the works: The Hobbit, The Wizard of Earthsea, or Dune.

Now you might say what about Frankenstein? Mary Shelley’s magnum opus is probably one of the greatest science fiction books. Ditto for George Orwell’s 1984. Okay, so maybe those works have crossed the genre barrier and will get added to a school’s required reading list, and probably Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World. I think the point that I am making is that there are those books that fall under required reading umbrella and then there are those books that will not, cannot, but will be devoured by the true fans of fantasy. I think detective and romance novels have plenty of dedicated readers too, but I am focusing this blog on fantasy.

Getting back to what actually motivated me to write The Acolyte & The Amulet was that I had been writing a number of bizarre, fantastical stories for a while. The more I kept at it, magic became the essential element. Not boundless snap your fingers magic where anything is possible, but a magic that had different grades of conjurers and spellweavers and consequences for all. Then my magical world of Nebilon was born and in it there was a precocious young girl named Luma who though was quite gifted in the ancient art had no real clue as how to control her incredible gift. From early childhood, she was a Seer and had the impeccable ability to scry and search into the future— kind of her own internal crystal ball. I kept writing stories about her and I couldn’t seem to let go. In fact, one day as I was earnestly trying to develop new standalone stories with new characters and new scenarios, I had what seemed like a déjà vu. Then as I was trying to reconcile what I was writing from what I was imagining, it became clear to me that it was my character, Luma nosing her way into my scene.

I was writing a new story about a troubled weatherworker named Glanzing and it became quite apparent to me that he desperately required Luma’s help. The two did not hit it off right away, but there was something of a symbiotic or complimentary relationship between them that was necessary in order for them to accomplish their respective quests. Turned out, they were indeed, on the same quest.

The Acolyte & The Amulet found a new path and slowly the quest was becoming clearer to me. After subsequent drafts, and many torturous tweaks and twists, I was able to finish the novel, but roughly three quarters of the way through it, I had a bittersweet moment. I had become so invested in my characters that I was beginning to get a bit melancholy because I knew the inevitable wasn’t far off. I would eventually have to put my characters to rest. The sad but true fact that every author faces. Authors who do not write series or sequels.

It dawned on me then, that I didn’t have to let the adventure end where it did. Having read J.R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, Ursula K. Le Guin, Terry Pratchett, Christopher Paolini, and Anne McCaffrey, I knew that if wanted to see the growth of my characters carry on, I would have to write a sequel. At least. If not a full-fledged series.

Since that was new for me, I had to take stock and see if I truly wanted to go in that direction. I actually started rereading the Earthsea Series and then the Discworld Series. I did that mainly as a stalling tactic so I wouldn’t have to make the tough decision. I needed to get away from myself, but it seemed that I got even deeper into those respective realms. And then, curiously enough, I found myself plunging deeper into the realms of my own Nebilon and beyond. More scenarios and characters emerged not all of which fit neatly into the first novel, which was perfectly fine. That gave me the impetuous to write the follow-up novel and so I did.

I have often believed that there is a connection between reading and writing. One feeds off of the other. It’s not bite for bite or measure for measure. Sometimes you read a chapter and then you end up writing a paragraph or vice versa. Sometimes you only end up with a bunch of notes. I wouldn’t even call it direct inspiration, but I feel that going back to writers that one admirers can offer much more than a friendly escape. Returning to the works and the writers that one admirers stimulates creativity.

As I am busy writing Book Two of the Nebilon Series, I am still mulling over possibilities for its title. That’ll come later. Hopefully. Most important is getting the thoughts down and scribbling away. Although, I will say this. It is kind of nice knowing that I have most of my characters lined up and ready to move ahead. Where they will go and what they do is still the big mystery?