Ask the Author: John Gorman
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John Gorman
The inspiration behind my Nebilon Series is pretty funny. Some time ago, Bella chewed up one of my books The Farthest Shore by Ursula K. Le Guin. She left it in pretty bad shape, readable but unimpeachably mangled. I wasn’t nearly as upset as I thought I would be. If I was reading the book in Kindle instead of in paperback, this all would have been a moot point anyway. Then something funny happened. As I gleaned over the teeth marks and the various rips, a light bulb went off. I had an idea for a story and I was eager to get it down. A short story. Nothing fancy. I imagined, after a few days, I’d crank out two or three thousand words to share with an online journal— flash fiction— if I couldn’t meet a more ambitious word count.
I had already been reading a lot of Fantasy/Adventure, some Sword and Sorcery, and YA with magic themes. I’d taken a lot of notes and scratched out a couple scenes that were napping in two neglected word docs. I’ve been known to procrastinate. Now, I had a crackling kernel and a Jiffy Pop Pan to sift around. I kept the mangled book on my desk as I wrote, a source of inspiration you might say. I was writing about an ancient book of magic that was in a terrible state of disarray and a cranky old mage that had to find a Master Mender to restore the ancient book of counterspells into good working order. I named my mage, Glanzing. Why not? He was an erstwhile prankster who ended up with a critical task and he was riddled with doubts.
Then, I forced him to be a mentor for a precocious, young Seer who had more raw talent in her pinky than Glanzing had in his whole, wrinkled body. I grew rather smitten with Luma. She was a visionary and highly adept at animal communication. She also came from an impressive line of weatherworkers so she had the genetic makeup to become a great mage. When I compared the traits of my two main characters, it was no contrast who I preferred.
This posed a bit of a problem because I didn’t want my guide, Glanzing to be a mere foil, but I had to motivate myself to build up his character because Luma was so likable. Imagine if Hermione, Gandalf, and Phoebe could be rolled up into the same wizard (by the way my cats are named Phoebe and Piper). That’s the kind of apprentice Luma was. Not an even an apprentice or an acolyte, but already burgeoning into a full-fledged mage.
The more I wrote, the more they both developed and then more characters emerged. Soon I realized that I wasn’t writing a two or three-thousand word story. The chapters kept coming and the quest became more complicated. There were dwarves and elves and all kinds of odd creatures. Some you might be familiar with and some that I invented myself like the wugwump and the golliwog.
I learned to embrace the counterpoint between my two leads and I think this added to the tension between Glanzing and Luma. It came across in their dialogue. Before long, it became quite apparent that I was writing more than a book. I was already shaping the world of Nebilon and getting into the differences between Spork and Spore and the many far-flung realms across the Heel of Dunbar and the Elbianic Sea. Halfway through The Acolyte & The Amulet, I already knew what I wanted to write in the sequel. I even jotted out some scenes for the third book of the series. I guess this is how the Nebilon Series bloomed.
None of it would’ve been possible had we not adopted a feisty little pup. Never mind the fact that I always leave books around. I’ll leave that for another time. The truth is, I owe it all to Bella and her boundless energy and her penchant for treating my books like dragon chew toys.
I had already been reading a lot of Fantasy/Adventure, some Sword and Sorcery, and YA with magic themes. I’d taken a lot of notes and scratched out a couple scenes that were napping in two neglected word docs. I’ve been known to procrastinate. Now, I had a crackling kernel and a Jiffy Pop Pan to sift around. I kept the mangled book on my desk as I wrote, a source of inspiration you might say. I was writing about an ancient book of magic that was in a terrible state of disarray and a cranky old mage that had to find a Master Mender to restore the ancient book of counterspells into good working order. I named my mage, Glanzing. Why not? He was an erstwhile prankster who ended up with a critical task and he was riddled with doubts.
Then, I forced him to be a mentor for a precocious, young Seer who had more raw talent in her pinky than Glanzing had in his whole, wrinkled body. I grew rather smitten with Luma. She was a visionary and highly adept at animal communication. She also came from an impressive line of weatherworkers so she had the genetic makeup to become a great mage. When I compared the traits of my two main characters, it was no contrast who I preferred.
This posed a bit of a problem because I didn’t want my guide, Glanzing to be a mere foil, but I had to motivate myself to build up his character because Luma was so likable. Imagine if Hermione, Gandalf, and Phoebe could be rolled up into the same wizard (by the way my cats are named Phoebe and Piper). That’s the kind of apprentice Luma was. Not an even an apprentice or an acolyte, but already burgeoning into a full-fledged mage.
The more I wrote, the more they both developed and then more characters emerged. Soon I realized that I wasn’t writing a two or three-thousand word story. The chapters kept coming and the quest became more complicated. There were dwarves and elves and all kinds of odd creatures. Some you might be familiar with and some that I invented myself like the wugwump and the golliwog.
I learned to embrace the counterpoint between my two leads and I think this added to the tension between Glanzing and Luma. It came across in their dialogue. Before long, it became quite apparent that I was writing more than a book. I was already shaping the world of Nebilon and getting into the differences between Spork and Spore and the many far-flung realms across the Heel of Dunbar and the Elbianic Sea. Halfway through The Acolyte & The Amulet, I already knew what I wanted to write in the sequel. I even jotted out some scenes for the third book of the series. I guess this is how the Nebilon Series bloomed.
None of it would’ve been possible had we not adopted a feisty little pup. Never mind the fact that I always leave books around. I’ll leave that for another time. The truth is, I owe it all to Bella and her boundless energy and her penchant for treating my books like dragon chew toys.
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