Hello, everyone! The lovely fantasy writer, Raina Nightingale, has dropped by today to share with us about her writing. Please give her a moment of your time and check it out!
DragonBirth, Book One of the Return of the Dragonriders, is “Slice of Life” Epic Fantasy. It is available from Amazon and Barnes and Noble.
In a world where dragons are considered demons and Dragonriders are hunted and killed as witches...
A devout village-girl, Silmavalien, meets a dragon hatchling and discovers a love she could never have dreamed. At the same time, her world is ripped apart as she discovers the gods she has worshiped and everything she has ever been taught or believed is a monstrous lie. Not knowing what to believe - or even if she can trust her engaged, Noren, with her new secret - she must find a way to care for herself and her dragon, Minth, in a wild and hostile world, a world which only grows stranger as the days pass.
Raina Nightingale has been writing high fantasy since she could read enough words to write stories with the words she could read. DragonBirth is her first novel in her High Fantasy setting of Areaer.
What was your favorite thing about writing this book?
I don’t know, in part because I almost never have favorites, but also because it was years ago – I waited as long as I did to publish it in part because it took me a while to figure out how, as an independent author, but also because while I’d written DragonBirth when I was fourteen, I hardly wrote anything for the next several years. I know that imagining the world was (and is!) really enjoyable, with its magic volcano, its lake of light, its magically tall Greater Aravin Mountain Range, Dragonsong Forest, the Vale of Aros Cor, and so forth. In a lot of ways, Areaer is a really beautiful world, even though it’s haunted by the Nightmare and its creatures, that cause a lot of pain and evil and fear.
What part of this book are you most passionate about?
Can I just give the lazy answer here? The relationship between Silmavalien and Minth – it’s passionate; I love it so much, and they’re so sweet together! DragonBirth is very much a story about love – not necessarily romantic love (though that is included), but any love, and I think that’s what I’m most passionate about. “A love she could never have dreamed.” So I think my lazy answer is pretty close to right, because the relationship between a rider and dragon is all about that love.
What character resonates with you the most and why?
This is probably the easiest of the questions here for me to answer! Silmavalien, the main character. I don’t really identify with her, but her journey and development, the questions she asks and the answers she seeks, most of it resonates deeply with me. The dragons resonate, too, but they are all so young in DragonBirth, and their minds will never be human, but they resonate deeply because their thoughts and way of thinking is actually based on a way of thinking I sometimes glimpse, a sort of current in the stream of my thoughts. Nonetheless, they’re a part of how Silmavalien resonates with me, because they’re so much a part of her life and even her thoughts.
What do you find is the most difficult thing about being an indie author?
There are some things I really hate, like formatting, and copy- and line- editing, and it was a bit difficult to figure out how to get published in the first place, but I’m discovering ways to make all of those things less of a problem so, at this point, probably marketing.
Thank you so much for sending this in Raina. I wish you all the best with your wonderful story and your writing in the future!
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