A Clouded Skye

“Right, then, anything I should know about Prince Junior the Second?”

“He likes hunting and fencing. It makes him feel manly. If you want him to really like you, pretend to be interested.”

“I’m always looking for a good sword master to teach me to use this blade of mine,” I said patting my sheathed rusty sword. “I spent a winter with a man who was a swordsmith. He made fine ones and taught me a few basics. He said that since I tended to wander off and get into trouble, I should learn how to protect myself.”

“Have you ever had to use it against someone?” Ora asked.

“I’ve scared off a few would-be thieves with it. But it didn’t impress the bear.”

“The bear?” she asked.

“Yeah, I was traveling alone near Crescent Bay and a bear was attracted to the smell of food in my pack. It seemed rather indifferent toward the sword but quite insistent about the food. Rather than fight for it, I just let the bear have it. I haven’t had much luck with food generally.”

Just a small excerpt from the latest book I'm writing about a girl named Skye Natala. Born with a mismatched pair of eyes, she managed to stumble her way into a blood pact with a faerie queen to become her world's first elf. The story is about her adventures, or as is often the case, misadventures. Unlike several of my previous works, this one is a more lighthearted tale involving a tone deaf music student (Skye), inept highway robbers, a big red dragon named Clifford and more.

The original character concept was part of a role playing game being developed and play-tested with my friends Dave and Paul. The game ended prematurely as real life got in the way for the three of us, but the character lived on in the back of my mind. At one point, I rendered an image of Skye using DAZ 3D studio, a freeware 3D rendering program (the picture above).

I later wrote a short Story called Paradise Winter about an elf whose human husband had aged and was about to die while she continued on in immortality. It was followed up by the longer stories, Paradise Spring, Paradise Dawn, and Paradise Day. In Paradise Day (an incomplete work at this time), the main character actually gets to meet the oldest elf, the "Eve" of elves, Skye Natala. When writing that story, I knew that Skye needed her own story told. And thus began "A Clouded Skye".

With a blog, I realized I could probably share some of the thought process that goes into the creation of a story. It may be of interest to some people. One of my nieces is an avid writer herself. This post should be just the first of many (if I can actually get myself to blog on a regular basis).