Where do ideas come from? What sparks the imagination?
Well, the second novel has been out for a couple of months now, so I want to go ahead and begin blogging about some of my reflections on the creation process for those of you who are interested in seeing how the sausage is made, as it were. My favorite parts of Stephen King's short story collections are his reflections on how the story came about, so it's something that I reflect on in my own works.
I never expected to go back to Llanfyllin after completing the first novel, Dylan's Treasure. It was a nice little stand-alone romantic adventure, and I thought that even if I never published it, it was something that I could always keep and share with family and friends.
Once I published an earlier version as a Kindle-only novel in March 2011, I began to think about what might have happened to Dylan and Siannon in the years since they married at the end of the tournament at the Festival of Weylin. It had been about 5-6 years since my last significant revision of the text, so five years seemed like a good number to start with.
What would have happened to them? Well, they would have had children, of course. Dylan's squire, Clyde, would have been knighted and would be a grown man in the time passed. What about the rest of the family, especially King Malcolm and Dylan's villainous older brother, Kane? How would half a decade have changed them?
All interesting questions for my own imagination, as these characters were my own creation, but other than a writing exercise for my own fiction journal, it didn't really amount to much else. I had no plot, no conflict, no story. I did have an idea, though, and you can almost always go somewhere with an idea.
I don't remember the precise time that it happened—it may have been either 2013 or 2014—but we got about four inches of sleet covered by eight inches of snow, and although we were only a few miles outside the city limits, it meant we were snowed in. We didn't go anywhere for at least a week or so.
While this storm was fun (our old house had a long sloping yard ideal for sledding), it definitely brought to mind the severe ice storms of 2009 and 2011, and I began to think about the isolation of Macnylleth, already part of my previous narrative, as well as the concept that travel during winter in Llanfyllin was difficult in most places and impossible through the mountains.
So here are Dylan and Siannon, safe at home in Macnylleth with their children, all buttoned in and battened down for a long, solitary winter. What's next?
Vikings, of course.
Well, not "vikings" in that sense. You won't find the word anywhere in the text of The Spring of Llanfyllin, because I always refer to them as "Norsemen" or "The Norse," but that was the idea. Vikings invade Llanfyllin in the winter, in the middle of a blizzard, specifically, and Dylan and Siannon have to somehow escape.
Now I have more than an idea; I have the inception of a plot and a story. But this, once again, is just the beginning. Details have to be considered, which I will continue to discuss in Wednesday's blog. See you then!
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