How I Came up with The Astrian Trials

As a writer, ideas come to me often and sometimes at the weirdest times. I find my best stories come from moments I don't think about until later, or gives me that jolt in the moment. I've always been a dreamer, so cooking up new stories has never been the most difficult for me and I know that makes me very lucky. Not many writers can say the same and I'm eternally grateful this is how my brain works.

At the beginning of my journey to write this series, I knew what I wanted the main character (specifically Rea) to look and sound like. I knew right away what her character arc was, but I honestly didn't have a story for her yet. I didn't have anywhere to put her, so to speak.

At the time, I was working on another debut that I actually set aside for TAT. But that one was in the middle of an editor search, so it was almost signed, sealed and delivered. I had nothing left to change and Rea never fit into that story anyway.

Then one day, I was chatting with a friend who had been obsessed lately with Zodiac signs. And for weeks, it's all I ever heard about.

Now let me premise by saying, I've always been fascinated with astrology and space. That unit was always my favorite to touch on in school and sadly, it was always out shortest. But that didn't matter, I loved it anyway.

After hearing about the Zodiacs for God knows how long, she said something that created that jolt. She mentioned that sun, moon and rising signs are all different. They each represent a different aspect of our personalities or how we live.

I swear it hit me like a freight train. Right away I asked myself, what would those signs look like if they had powers? And not magic exactly, but super powers.

And thus, the writing began.

Rea needed a formidable foe, so Milo was born. I had a character arc for him and now a world to put them in.

I'd love to say the next part or the next few months were easy, but I'd be lying through my teeth. They were anything but in the sense of, I'd never created a fantastical world before.

In all my years of writing, I stuck to contemporary novels and dystopian. The good thing about Dystopian, is that it's mainly our world but an even hotter mess (although, we're really headed in that direction). So I had parralells to draw from. Things I knew and understood that I could pull into those worlds.

In a fantasy, it's completely different. Sure, there are some similarities, but in all, you're making up an entirely new atmosphere. I brought in Gods, redesigned a governing system, kept the dystopian whirlwind while tying in super powers and character arcs.

Are you dizzy yet? Yeah, this when meltdown number one began.

Luckily, I had another friend to bounce ideas off of. She genuinely told me when something didn't make any sense which helped me sit down and rewrite.

So I did.

Over.

And over.

And... over...

I think it was about three years of writing and one completely new plot line before I got to a place I understood and felt comfortable. I took that and soared.

I'm far more happy that The Astrian Trials is my debut now. So much blood, sweat and tears went into Rea and Milo's story that it feels like a disservice to not have it go out first.

As more ideas continue to pop up out of nowhere, none is as intricate and complicated as this one. None of them make me want to pull my hair out as much (at least not yet) and none of them make me this giddy. Yet.

I can't wait for everyone to meet Milo and Rea! Stay tuned for more updates!