Sunday, October 12, 2014

Sunday - Talking About My Books - The Amber Chronicles #MFRWauthor #BooksWeLove

An often asked question is how does a book come about. The group of stories collected as the Amber Chronicles had two points of inspiration. I'd been chosen to join a promotional group called Jewels of the Quill and had to find a jewel that hadn't been taken by members past or present. I became Dame Amber. Part of a way to promote the group was to put out collections of short stories or novellas. So I needed to come up with a story that used amber in the title.

Going through an old computer, I came across a cover done for one of my stories. I really liked that cover but the company went belly-up or something. Suddenly I looked at the cover that showed a woman against the side of a jewel making her hair look like part of the gem. This was the inspiration for the first story in the collection but that story becomes the next to last one in the collection. Onward we go. The next time a story was called for I rescued The Woman Cast In Amber with the Woman Freed From Amber.

During my membership in the group, twice more I had to come up with stories about this world called Amber. The Amber Dragon became the next story, followed by the Amber Tower. Then I had my rights back to the stories.  I really liked these stories and decided to put them together into a group but something was missing. One knew all about the four princes and what happened to them when they were absorbed into the amber orb. What had happened to Emme to force a drastic change in her

So the opening story was created. Then one of my sons saw that I had written a story about my daughter's career and also had used my grandchildren in stories. He is a tenor, enough said. That's where the final story The Amber Cage was born and a tenor becomes a hero with a very different talent besides that of his glorious voice.

Fitting all the stories together meant some changes in the stories and putting bits about Emme between the stories so the group flowed together but writing this book was fun

The book is now available in both e-form and print. Thanks to my publisher Books We Love the stories became a seamless whole about the world called Amber/

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