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...He hadn't had so much fun in years--not since they were kids on the run, with no regrets behind them, no responsibilities before them, and nothing but the open sky overhead.

Living the Parallel Life;
or,The Long Project


Beginning at age eight, I became the "Watcher at the window" for this world. By age thirteen I began the maps, and at nineteen I made the globe. As the characters' lives changed and the stakes in their adventures changed, I dealt with my mundane life. But even when I was an adult, and standing at a cash register, or working the restaurant floor, or at dull faculty meetings, my mind would flit through the window into their world.

Their lives and adventures have run parallel to my own; my avocation is to write their stories down as best I can.

So what's new?

Some readers have asked me questions about characters' earlier lives in Crown Duel. For them, I wrote A Stranger to Command, which is Vidanric's story. A shorter story about Vidanric's and Mel's son will come out in December, in Firebirds Soaring.

CJ's First Notebook: Over the Sea

At age eight I began writing down the adventures of a gang of girl adventurers. They had an underground hideout! They weren't rescued by boys! They didn't have to grow up! These are the early stories, introducing the gang of Mearsiean girls and their adventures

Senrid

The kids on the good side are united in one thing: regarding Senrid as a villain. So what do you do when you're fifteen, supposedly king of one of the most powerful kingdoms in the world, but all you have on your side are wit, will, and maybe a few skills? And what if the people you like best are your enemies, and your relatives want to see you dead? This one actually comes midway in the series, but I jumped it ahead as an experiment.

Snips of Crown Duel Outtakes, written for fun for the Athanarel people over on LiveJournal