Realms of Peace started as a daydream. On a three hour drive home from vacation I started to imagine a world full of magic and my favorite creatures. At first, it was nothing more than a way to entertain myself on the long drive, then I started to imagine characters. Cay was the first, I've always been a fan of mermaids and thought it would be fun to have a story that included a land underwater. Call it the reawakening of my Little Mermaid obsession. I knew that I wanted to include some other underrated creatures which is what inspired the inclusion of succubi, hydra, gargoyles, and some others that haven't been introduced just yet.
I spent the majority of the drive thinking about each land and how they all fit together, what relationships they had and the diverse cultures. Each realm is inspired by a different region or group of people. Of course, for the majority I had only a general idea of what that would look like which ended up in a lot of research later on down the road. Once I had an idea of what this world looked like, I thought about what the story was, what I wanted to tell.
Found family has always been one of my favorite tropes as a reader and I am lucky enough to have something of one myself. I knew that I wanted to tell a story about a group of friends who were sisters in all the ways that mattered most, I wanted to focus on their love for one another and show their individual journeys to discovering who they are and where they fit in the world. My best friends were truly the inspiration behind the girls. In fact, when I got home I had each one of them choose specific characteristics that I could use for each character. I had each one of them pick an element, a species, a weapon, and a "skill". From there, I developed who these characters were and how they fit in for one another. A fun fact is that Mar, Rose, and Cay's character names are actually based off of their middle names. Oakley and Eve were born out of random google searches and an advertisement for sunglasses on the side of the road. Aside from the names and the chosen characteristic, I also chose to include a signature feature from each one of them in the character designs, but aside from that the characters truly look however my brain conjured them up to look.
From there, I just started writing, letting the story write itself without trying to force anything, something that I have always struggled with. I always feared writing a story that no one would want to read but then I remembered some advice I had received way back when I was in high school. My younger self had been struggling with the dream to be an author and the fear of failure so naturally I wrote a letter to my favorite author, Jennifer L Armentrout. To my surprise she actually responded. The piece of advice that she gave me was to write what I wanted to write, not what I thought I should write. And though I forgot this for a while, it was the thing that carried me through writing Realms of Peace.
September 8th of 2022, I set a goal to write 25,000 words a month for six months. No editing. No looking back. Just get the words out there. Throughout this entire process I was teaching full time at the local community college as well as my full time corporate job. To say the least, I kept busy. I officially finished my first draft of the book on March 12th, sitting at 150,304 words. Then I enlisted the help of my dear friend, Nora, who acted as my editor. The first round of edits were completed on June 1st and I was up to 165,000 words. I put out the link for beta readers that same day, which was arguably the most terrifying part of this entire process. It's one thing to have my closest friends read my book, it's an entirely different thing to put it out there for complete strangers.
My goal was to have 25 beta readers but in the end I received over 60 applications. Narrowing it down was a difficult process but in the end I chose 35 beta readers and sent out the ARCs. However, my first beta readers were actually my "Sinister Sisters" who had the horrible experience of reading the book as I wrote it, chapter by chapter. Their encouragement throughout the process is what kept me going, knowing that even if this never went anywhere past my computer, at least I had three people who cared enough about this book to threaten mutilation if I didn't finish it.
Now, I am in the final stages of editing and planning before the book's release. It has been such a rewarding process and something that I will be forever grateful for, no matter what happens. This is the first book of five and I can't wait to continue writing this journey, as daunting of a task as that might be. I can't wait to share this world with everyone and we're only a few weeks away!
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