Hello and welcome to my first blog post. Exciting, right?

I thought I'd start with this quick hello before plunging into the world of blog writing. Mostly because I didn't know what to start with! I promise you'll see more fun and interesting things posted, but why don't I use this first post to start at the beginning.

How did I come up with the idea for my Dogs of Hell series?

As most writers, I started writing as a kid. I was always writing--especially as a teenager--and had a friend who loved to read and listen to my stories as well as brainstorm with me and create expansive worlds and characters. She had a dream of becoming a manga artist but felt I was the better writer, and asked me to help her with the story while she did the art. Thrilled to help, we began laying out ideas for creating a manga or graphic novel (both of us huge manga readers at the time). We came up with several different ideas, but none of them quite panned out. Until she drew this...



I remember the moment, sitting on the floor of her room and her showing me the drawing and saying, "I was thinking we could make a story around this guy." Maybe not her exact words, but close enough. Intrigued, we began plotting. Who was this guy? Why did he have large wolf-dogs? She told me he was a Watchman, though what he was the Watchman for wasn't quite clear. I believe she had the notion of prison in mind and something vaguely to do with werewolves. The myth of the black dog was mentioned and the relation of dogs and death were thrown in there, and BAM! Ideas built upon ideas, and we researched dogs, death, Hell, and werewolves, and ended up with Michael and his dogs--Geri, Garmr, and Gifr.

Unfortunately, we never got around to creating that manga. Our lives, doing what most teenage lives do on becoming young adults. Our paths separated for a time, and dreams fizzled and changed. However, the story-idea remained, stored in a notebook in a binder, waiting. And when I looked over my old notes and story mapping while cleaning out my desk, I decided that I really wanted to finish Michael's story. I wanted to see where it went and how it ended. Technically, everything was already there, I just had to write it out. So I asked my friend if she didn't mind if I wrote the story--finished what we started.

She said, "Yes! Go for it!" (Again, I may be paraphrasing, but the enthusiasm was there.)

So here we are. Twelve or so years from her letting me run with Michael and his dogs. The first part finished, with two more to go.

I can't wait for you to read them!