I wanted to write something that breathes. (Patreon)

That is what I've dreamed of since I was a kid, poring over Elfquest comics. I was convinced that there was a real somewhere where the characters existed because there was a sense of life to the story, in all the specific details. You could just tell that the world had become real to the creators. Wendy Pini conceived of it as a teenager and it had all been with her for years.  

Of course Tolkien is the most famous example. The histories, the languages--just tell me Middle Earth isn't real somewhere! I only read the Lord of the Rings once, but I have read Tolkien's letters three times. His work leans a little too legendary in scope for me to really get into, but I'm a big fan of just peeking into his thought process.  

My history with "the Hidden Lands" goes back almost 30 years. I started writing it as a kid and I didn't really stop until I got serious about becoming a published writer in 2005. Even then, I tried to fit it in on the side. Writing works set there is easy, because the story flows as if the characters are just telling it to me. Everything I wrote for publication, I would notice the glaring difference. No matter how much I enjoyed the characters and the world, they were just actors and set pieces. If you walked into an unused part of the world it would be a back lot or a void. When the story ended, the characters don't live on.

I've written like this for 18 years now. It was the best way to make a living: you study the market, and you give it what it wants. This is fine! But...you also get books that don't have many surprises. You get a few souls who dared to write something different, a smaller few who succeed wildly at it, starting new genres and trends, and then hundreds of people riding on their coattails, mimicking the successful elements.

During my time off from writing this year, there was also the rise of AI art, potentially threatening the livelihood of artists. Everything an AI creates is because of human creativity--the art it scrapes from the internet to create its art, and the prompts people put in the software to create new pieces that can be quite inventive, funny, and beautiful. Artists who create very commercial work, similar to many other artists, are perhaps the most under threat: an AI can easily spit out similar work because their style was already similar to many other artists. This is a concern in the creative community, to be sure, because the consumer often can't tell the difference...and yet we will all lose a great treasure as a society if artists can no longer make a living. There is AI writing software too, and some writers are already using it, not to "write" entire books, but to flesh out scenes, descriptions, generate prompts, etc. I expect this will only increase.  

All I know is, it makes me want to be stubborn...to create something no one in the world could make but me. I know fewer people will read the Hidden Lands books, mostly likely, than the things I wrote to satisfy the algorithm. But I would like to give you both some delicious, tropey moments...brooding sorcerers, dragon kings, adorable bakeries and bookshops...and some things that will surprise you and reward you and maybe tickle some reader itch that doesn't usually get scratched. Thank you for being here. =)