I'm continuing my story of how I came to write Starfire, my sci-fi novel about Sauria. The last time I posted, I left off with my lying in a hospital bed with a broken leg, staring at a kid's drawing of a dinosaur named Pike on my cast. Wondering if I was going insane . . .

So there I was, slowly going mad from wondering who Pike the Pogo-stick riding dinosaur was. After wracking my brain for the entire day, I finally got a nurse to get me a pen and a pad of paper. I figured that the only way I was going to get the questions out of my head was to answer them.

It seemed that no sooner than ink bled on the page that the words came gushing out, as if someone had severed an artery of thought.

Pike Dryo is a young Herian who stands up against a group of Karnian bullies along with his friends. They live on Dino Island . . .

Over the next few weeks, as I was unable to work and trapped in the confines of my apartment, the world that Pike inhabited became more clear and matured. I poured myself into the writing. I discovered animals, plants, cultures and languages. The history of the world unfolded before me.

And then one day it hit me. I had always loved to read, but I had never seriously considered becoming a writer. But as I looked at the pages and pages of this world that had gushed out of my fingers, I suddenly realized the gift that I had been given. I wasn't going insane, I was turning into an author!

I just needed the right story to start with. As much as Pike and his friends had done in creating the world, their story wasn't the right one to introduce the world to Sauria.

I searched through my notes on the history of Sauria and looked for the right tale. Could it be the founding of the Karn Empire? Perhaps the Moon Wars, or the Chaos Wars that followed. Or the rise of the Jerkrenak. But nothing seemed right.

Then another image of a Saurian came to me. A young Karnian warrior, a savage fighter with a noble, yet scarred heart. Rathe of Yanguch, the Saurn who would come to have the weight of the world and more laid upon his shoulders . . .

And thus Starfire was born.

-- S-man

Posted by ~ Bailey Truitt @ 7:00 AM