How my Morgaine series grew like Topsy

I thought maybe some of you might be interested in how my Morgaine Series of novels became a series. It started with a song, Dancing in the Moonlight. When I heard that song, I pictured Wiccans or some other new age group in a meadow in the forest having some sort of ritual. I thought, Suppose an ordinary person became somehow involved with such a group by fate, not by choice. So I created Melody Trent, a young widow, who falls in love with a psychic, Michael Ellul. But, who is this Michael? I decided to make him a thousand year old sorcerer who had been granted this extended life by a demon. I figured that Melody should have a rival for Michael's affection, so I created Morgaine Fabiano, a witch. I threw in some other complications such as Isaac the robot and soon I had a novel, which I titled Dancing in the Moonlight.

When I found a publisher for it, it was an E-book publisher, Renaissance E-Books. The publisher thought it was too long for an E-book. She wanted me to split it into two novels, which I did. They became the first two novels in the series, Morgaine and Michael, and Morgaine and Melody.

I was not quite satisfied with the ending. I thought to myself, What is going to happen when Melody ages and Michael remains youthful? It seems like he would disappear from her life after a while. Perhaps he would seek a means to restore her youth so that she would remain his lover and companion through the long centuries. And what would Melody do when he disappears? Hunt for him, of course. Well, she couldn't do this herself, so she hires Raven Lenore, a tough PI and Wiccan (a witch to catch a wizard). And of course, Morgaine has to fit into the story somehow. She returns as demon in order to somehow regain the love of Michael. Mix in a megalomaniac out to steal Michael's robot, and viola, you have Morgaine and Raven, a suspense thriller.

In the next novel, I told the story of how Morgaine became a witch, and how she met Michael for the first and second times, and from her point of view, why she did the things she did. Alas, this also turned out to be too long and had to be split into two books, Morgaine and Gretchen, and Morgaine and Asmodeus.

As a writer of science-fiction and fantasy, one of the things that's great fun to write about is the end of the world. I used the Book of Revelations of the Bible as a sort of outline plus some stuff from the internet about Armageddon, included the possibility of earth being struck by a gigantic meteorite, threw in Frankenstein, Dracula and various demons, bad guys, aliens and other strange characters. And of course the schemes of Morgaine played a big part. This weird mix became Morgaine and Armageddon.

At that point, I thought I was done with Morgaine and company. But then I thought, With all the strange things that had happened at Moonwood (Michael's mansion in the country), it would make a great background for a haunted house story. So I invented two new characters, a young engaged couple, Tom and Bridget, who were hired as contractors to repair the mansion. Of course, Morgaine and various demons and ghosts make life at Moonwood hell for the couple. I called this book Morgaine and Moonwood. My sequal to this is what happens after Bridget has the baby that she conceived when she was raped by the demon Asmodeus. This was to be the final book of the series and is called Morgaine and Nicholas. Since then, I've added two more novels to the series, Morgaine and the Necromancer and Morgaine and the Sorcerer's Guild.

Why I write fantasy

I've always loved the fantastic ever since I was a little child. When I was six or seven years old, my parents took me to see The Wizard of Oz with Judy Garland. I read the book and wanted more. (I was always a voracious reader, devouring books dozens at a time.) As a result, I spent every penny I could scrape up on Oz books, of which there were many, not only by Frank L. Baum, but by Ruth Plumly Thompson and John R. O'Neil. When I grew older, I became interested in Science Fiction. In those days most SF was published in pulp magazines. I bought as many of those as I could afford. In addition to SF, they contained fantasy as well. From reading in these genres, I gradually came to the realization that I would enjoy writing fantasy and science fiction.

As an adult I took a mail order writing course and tried my hand at writing, short stories at first and gradually worked my way up to novel length. At first I had little time to devote to writing due to work and household duties. The internet and retirement started my career. At first I had short stories published in E-zines. Finally, I became a published E-book author.

My first venture into fantasy was a humorous adult fairytale I called the Book of Retslu, about a youth who wants to win the hand of a princess by winning a tournament and going on a quest. His problem was that his nemesis, an evil sorcerer, enchanted him so that he always went in the wrong direction. I followed this up with three sequels.

Mostly, however, I write dark fantasy about witches, demons and vampires. My Morgaine the demon witch series is up to ten novels. I've also written a series about a character I created for the Morgaine series. Her name is Raven Lenore, and she is a tough private eye and psychic. I like writing in this genre because of all the possibilities from trips to hell and fairyland, time travel, magic, science fictional concepts, the occult and interesting characters. (I have also written science fiction.)

My favorite fantasy novels and authors. There are many. I love Pierre Anthony's Xanth series, all the Oz books, anything by H.P. Lovecraft, Lord of the Rings of course, and novels by Marion Zimmer Bradley, especially The Mists of Avalon.

Why do readers love fantasy? I believe it is because fantasy takes you away from the humdrum world that most of us live in and into worlds of adventure, magic and mystery.

Would I write fantasy if no one read it? Probably. I think writers are cursed to write. We are like drug addicts, only story addicts. Ideas are always popping into my mind that I need to write down. I'll probably never write all the stories that I have ideas for. I'd to be immortal, like some of my characters.

Scale Model of the Solar System

I thought that it might be fun to build a scale mode of the solar system. I decided to use the scale of 10 centimeter = 1 billion meters. I started by obtaining an enormous beach ball (1.4 meters or a little over 3 ft in diameter) as the sun. So I went to a softball field and placed the sun at home plate. Next came Mercury, a grain of sand 6 meters (18 feet) away, a third of the way to the pitcher's mound. Venus was 1.2 mm, a tiny pebble and was 10.7 meters from home plate, halfway to the pitcher's mound. Earth was about the same size 1.3 mm, another tiny pebble. I placed it 15 meters from home plate, three quarters of the distance to the pitcher's mound. Mars was a tiny, tiny pebble (0.6 mm) 22 meters from home plate, just outside the pitcher's mound.

At last I began to deal with some substantial planets. Jupiter was 14 centimeters in diameter, the size of a softball. I placed it 77 meters (253 feet) from home plate. I was now in deep centerfield. Saturn was 12 cm (5 inches), a slightly smaller ball. I had to leave the field to place it 1.4 km (0.8 miles) away. Uranus was about 6 cm (2.5 inches) and was placed 2.8 km (1.7 miles) from home plate, Neptune was 4.9 cm (2 inches) and 4.5 km (2.8 miles) away. Finally there was poor little Pluto, the dwarf planet, a grain of sand, 5.8 km (3.6 miles away).

Of course, I did this exercise in my head and making calculations of paper. It couldn't be done in real life unless one had a large property such as a farm or an estate to work with. What I think this shows is that the solar system is a really big place.