Along Comes a Story

Several friends were writing flash fiction stories to submit to Clean Fiction Magazine’s “Windows Through the Multiverse” writing contest back in May. I decided to give it a shot, simply because I had a nugget of worldbuilding for my Flamesend Inheritance world that had been niggling at the back of my mind. It was not a happy tale, by any means, but it came quickly and fully formed so I wrote it. Sometimes I know what influences a story, and for this, it was King David from the Bible and how he served as a court musician to his predecessor King Saul. I carefully crafted the elfae people to be warriors who chose art and music over war, but were so fierce in battle that few dared oppose them. When life is at its worst, people fall back to their faith, the arts, and hope.

My friends agreed that it was sweet and incredibly sad. I didn’t expect to win, and I didn’t. The story is canon history so I decided to put it both in WorldAnvil and on my website for people to read.

I’ve found that often I have to write something disconnected from the current project, many years down the timeline, for me to break through writer’s block. In that manner, Of Ice and Roses wasn’t supposed to be written until after my high fantasy serial was finished, and my upcoming anthology submission takes place adjacent to book #7 or #8 in a World War II urban fantasy series that only has two chapters of the first book written.