My Writing Process Introduction (part one)- the Inspiration

If I say that writing the five hundred pages worth of material in Moonbound was the easy part, you wouldn't believe me. Only, it's true! Looking back, it is actually crazy to me to think about every step I've had to take along the way- and I wouldn't have even put my foot on the path if it wasn't for my dad, so here is a HUGE thanks to him!!!!

I want to share my personal process of writing my debut novel, and explain what I've learned now that it's my second time around. I'm going to start from the top- my inspiration.

It's funny to remember that the idea of Moonbound was originally about twelve kids who got snatched up from their homes (yeah, that part does sound familiar), dropped off at a magical castle (that too), and are then renamed after the months of the year and bonded to magical dragons who share their month. Looking back, I could make an entirely different series about that idea, seeing how far Moonbound had come from that path!

This idea came one night, I must have been 11 at the time, when I was mindlessly scrolling on TikTok, bored out of my mind, when I suddenly came across one of those videos saying "This is your dragon depending on your birth month," and then flipped through twelve really cool looking beasts. Now, as a kid, dragons were always my one obsession. I won't go into too much detail about that, because it was a LOT, but everything in my life revolved around dragon guidebooks, chapter books, role-play, games, and conversations. Thinking about that, it makes sense why the video spoke to me so strongly.

So, I watched this video a couple of times, then got up from my bed with my blanket swaddled around me, moving for the first time in hours, and got my notebook and pencil. Now, I'd written many other drafts and had a ton of story ideas before, but they never really got anywhere, no matter how many times I told myself "This book is the one." Honestly, at that point in my life, I hadn't written more than twenty pages to a single story.

I sat on my bed and started scribbling down categories, matching up months and dragons and coming up with character relationships. The main storyline went like this: Twelve kids get kidnapped every decade for unknown reasons, and all that is known about this is that the only kids who are taken are those named after the months of the year, and that the families of the Taken are rewarded with riches for the rest of their lives.

I continued brainstorming for this story for a couple of weeks, researching dragons and matching magical powers, even writing a few scenes for the distant future. The only characters that existed at this point that are still real today were Tamsin and Alo (I liked the idea of the two-colored eyes, and I wanted them to have an older brother, little sister relationship), and two other members of the Twelve we have yet to meet in book one... :)

But in the end, I dropped the story idea before I even started to write the first chapter, as I had done so many ideas before. Only this time, the story doesn't end there. Eventually, I managed to pick it back up, work some things out, and a few years later, here it is! Except, a lot has happened along the way for it to get to that point, which I will be explaining more about in future blogs. So, to get the rest of the story, be sure to read the updates whenever they come out!!!