When I come up with new ideas they occur in one of three ways typically.

One way that I am using less often is that I will come up with a title and work out from there, slowly adding Why the plot exists then the characters. The second way is I might get an idea for a character then I have to find a place to put them, often I will try to put them in an existing work but they will grow a personality to large to be a secondary character so I must make a world for them. Last and most common recently I will come up with a single concept and create characters and a plot.

The notes below are for an idea that I came up with while watching Forged in Fire with my sister. She is a ferrier (someone who trims horse hooves and makes shoes for them) and she mentioned that you could intentionally forge a sword with weaknesses so that it would break after a few strong hits. From this comment the idea of a smith intentionally sabotaging his rulers sword arose.

First I had to know why the smith was angry, then who the ruler was fighting, and lastly the setting of the story, which turned into the idea for a series. The names for the books were created during writing down my notes, which I have to do after a lot of my brainstorming, because in order for my mind to work to write a story I have to be walking. Usually the first parts I flush out in my mind are the dialogue of the characters in the story.

End of the Age of Tyrant's

Outsider hero

Book 1: A Sword Forged in Hatred

Smith looses his wife.  sword breaks

Book 2: Poison to Taste

Cooks sister flogged to death. Allergy poison.

Book 3: Song of Trifles Canary

Best friend murdered by the queen. Hanging

Click, clack.

Click, clack.

Back and forth balls of steel swinging on a string, one stops and the other starts, impossible to escape from the laws of motion. I watch the sway of the dancers endlessly trapped in their line, predictable, knowable, understood. Light reflects off of the representation of the laws of nature, and I swing back and forth unsure if what I am doing is what should be done.

I slowly pull myself away from my workstation white lab coat swirling around me as I walk down the hallway to clock out for the day. My locker looms, this is the devil’s last chance to pull me away from my decision. I hang up my coat with decisive movements and exchange it for a torn leather jacket to match my faded blue jeans. I take a deep breath and slide my glasses case out of one coat and into the other. The decision is made, I turn away letting the door slam shut, the final clash of rolling thunder of a raging storm all that remains now is calm.

It is laughably easy to walk out the front door, the security guard barely even glancing at me. I peel out of the driveway, the best impression of a bat out of Hell that I have ever given, the implications of what I have just done still pressed down deep within my mind. I spare only a brief wish that I could turn around and follow the ’57 Chevy I pass going the opposite direction.

I blur past the city, and the fields out into the forest where only trees stand to bear witness to what I am about to do. The clouds reach far above me, pillars of Heaven stained red by the setting sun. I slowly open the case in my hand, a flash of light blinds my eyes for a moment. She is awake. Buzzing fills my ears before I can convince my eyes to open. Golden dust and lacy wings.

Dried-up tears stain the tiny face of the one fluttering in front of me, a heartbeat, a wingbeat, and then she is gone, leaving only her memory behind. The battle of fire and ice has come to an end within my heart, the ice of my fact loving mind melted by the fire burning in my soul for all living things. Slowly tears slip down my face as I sink to my knees in the grass. I have destroyed my entire life for this, to leave no trace of something Other. Knowledge sacrificed on the altar of morality in exchange for life. Now there is only one question, was it worth it?

Like it never happened, like I could ever forget it. This thing that has grown between us cannot simply be erased by his walking away. His footsteps are light with youth's bravado; I know it is not real because of the stone in my chest, making it harder and harder to breathe.

"You can't just walk away!" I yell at his back. Words wrapped in barbed wire to hide a silent plea of my heart for him to come back to me. The shadows of dreams that I never should have conjured are all I have left as his blank face turns to me.

"Walking away is all I can do. I want to forget," he pleads, waving a hand at me and my backdrop. "Do you think anyone else would care? We are nobodies." I scramble for a reply; he has cut off my best argument before I could even begin. I torture my brain to come up with something, anything; he cannot leave me to face the heartless tomorrow on my own. It was his tireless wings of hope that have kept me going for this time that we have been together, I do not know if I can do it alone.

"Please don't leave me," I whimper at his back as he turns once again to walk away from me, but my words go unheeded. Somewhere, a bird calls into the night, a lone morner of passion forlorn.

I turn away too, walking back to the place that has been my home for who knows how long. Slowly, I slide down the metal wall onto my filthy mattress on the floor. I stare dispassionately at the ever-growing blood stain on the floor, and at the sharpened spoon resting in the red sea.

"I still hate you for making me this pathetic," I tell the corpse of my ex-captor. I may have been a nobody with no one to care about me and not a thing to my name, but once upon a time I had the ability to make decisions. I try to wipe the blood droplets off my face, but I only smear them more with the blood on my hands.

"I don't know what to do," I sob as I curl up on my side, the springs of the bare mattress digging into my ribs like always, but now there is no one here to comfort my pain. My nose runs, blocking out the awful smells that I have been made aware of by my brief walk outside.

I am lost as to what to do, not knowing how to escape my prison now that the door is finally open. On the night that I should have been free, I can feel the false walls closing in on me. The bars on my mind are slowly cutting me into pieces.

The far-off noise of passing cars drifts by my ears, I pay the distant traffic no mind. The grave I stand before has been filled for less than an hour. They said it was an accident, but I know better. How many times have I heard those same words said at a different grave site, a different time, a different friend. The oath breaker and his people will continue to fill graves with ghosts to haunt me as long as I hold to my teachings. Headstones extend from the place where I stand in all directions.

What a waste. I hate this standing before the graves of my friends. I cannot bear the thought of Lillian becoming just one more person I grieve, but she will be, she is. When did my care become a curse? When did my compassion and affection become a death sentence?

This has to stop!

Fire burns in my chest, a hand pressing down where my life tries to escape through the tear in my skin. Battlefields are loud but this one has fallen silent.

“If you leave me here alone, I will never forgive you.” I want to laugh at his snarled words, but that would hurt too much. There is a commotion off to my right and more hands grasp at me, brushing his away.

“You hear me, you brave idiot? You die on me here and I’ll kill you.” I reach out my hand to grab hold of his shaking digits. Like I would ever leave him alone.

This is senseless. How could he just… I breathe deeply to calm my rushing thoughts. I force my anger out through my feet. I will do better. Soft steps approach me from behind, and I curl my hand into a fist. My emotions I thought controlled rush back full force.

Go away. Leave me alone! I cannot stand the thought of him here, near her. Some twisted part of me wants to protect her, even when I have already failed.

“I hear it was a lovely service.” His voice is too cheerful for a cemetery, he believes I will do nothing. It grates on my nerves, his arrogance, his voice, the fact that he is right in that assumption.

I still want revenge for what they did to her, I want justice, I want this petty game they play with me to be over. He only allows the silence to stretch for a moment.

“What, do you think yourself too good to answer me now?” I turn to look at my annoyance. He looks like a man out of time, long coat bellowing in the light breeze and his hat tipped just so. He looks nothing like me and my tattered work boots and jeans. My broken heart, his smile.

“Did you forget to update your wardrobe in the past few decades?” I say turning fully toward him, away from Lillian’s resting place. He shrugs indifferently. It makes the rage in my blood boil, but I force it down.

“It still works in Europe, mostly. Besides, you’re allowed to do whatever you want to nowadays.” I want him to know what this existence he is forcing me into is like. This deadly game his people play with my life. I take a step toward him with a snarl. He raises his hand, to defend or to attack, I don’t know.

This has to stop.

I worry probably more then I should, but this is the first time he has ever been out of The School. His long coltish legs eat up the ground as he runs off to my right where I catch flashes of him every few moments. The bandit I pursue has no idea that he has two people on his tail.

We slide to a stop. My prey’s eyes dart to and fro, realizing I have run him into a trap. The brute spins on me with a snarl, ripping a wicked dagger out of a sheath on his waist. Before he can make a move, he is tackled to the ground.

There is no real fight, The School has prepared all of its graduates too well for that. Once the bandit is subdued, my shadow looks over his shoulder at me, uncertainty dancing in his eyes. I smile at him and nod in approval.

I cannot do it. My feet will take me no closer to him. I do not want to hurt him; he knows I could not bear it. I will not fight him. I take a deep breath in and release it dipping my head, my disheveled hair falling into my eyes. He drops his hand, and his eyes soften.

“This is the way it always will be. There is nothing you can do about it.” He is right. We have been spiraling around each other for centuries. I have watched kingdoms fall with him at my side and looked into his eyes on opposite sides of the battlefield. We have been on opposite sides ever since he walked away from his oaths and from here into forever. How could he have lost his way so thoroughly?

“You can’t run forever. He will claim you as one of his own.” I turn away from his words. They are true, but I don’t want to stop running, not now, not ever. Maybe the man across from me cares about the choice I make. I glance up at that stupid smirk. Maybe he doesn’t care. It shouldn’t matter.

This has to stop.

I let out a woosh of air as an over enthusiastic bolt runs into me. He pulls back and grins crookedly at me.

“How did your first assignment go?” he questions in excitement. He has dirt on his face and his hair needs cut, again. The idle thoughts dance through my tired mind.

“It went well, all of the renegades where apprehended.” He jumps around me as I walk my horse toward the stables.

“I can’t wait until I graduate, take my oaths, and can join you! We’re going to save the whole world, aren’t we?”

"Of course,” I tell him ruffling his too long hair. Let him believe in perfect as long as he can. Our oaths are to fight evil wherever it appears; and evil breeds like rabbits.

I close my eyes, refusing to look at him while I make up my mind. He cannot be part of my decision. There really is no decision; I made my oaths long ago. I am a Sentinel; a defender of humanity and I will not be tempted away from my purpose. I open my eyes.

“Tell your master that if he intends for a Sentinel to stand by his side, he should have spared one with a softer head! He will never have me.” I stand my ground for the first time in centuries, I am done running, and that will only be achieved one way.

I call upon the piece of me that I have tried to deny for most of my life, tugging at the very soul of the earth. I swore to myself that I would never do this, but to keep my oaths I will have to break a promise.

Fear dances in his eyes as I advance on him. He is a pawn, a shield to distract me from going after the evil that he has bound himself to.

“What are you doing?” his voice is small, childish in that moment, and I must steel my resolve. I have to go after that twisted abomination that has survived too long whispering lies into the ears of artists and cloaking the good that dares to live on. I reach out, because what else can I do?

This has to stop.

The tension of the bow string strains my muscles. I breathe out half a breath and let the arrow fly. It hits the cloth dummy with a satisfying thwack.

“I know how to do it; I just can’t get it to fly right,” the figure next to me whines. I pull another arrow out of the quiver and hand it to him.

“Then try again.” He glares back and forth between me and the arrow, before taking it sullenly. He notches it and I can see his intent to miss before he has even drawn the bow.

“Hit the mark and I’ll bribe Tess into making bread pudding.” He freezes in his ritual of drawing the bow, I watch as determination grows in his eyes. The arrow leaps from his bow and crashes into the block behind the target; leaving the dummy unscathed. His shoulders droop and the fight drains away.

“Try again,” I tell him handing over a second arrow. He glances at me in question.

“You can try as many times as you need to you just can’t walk away.”  The determination returns to his shoulders. I tell him to widen his stance and I know we will be having bread pudding tonight.

When I reach for him, his own power tries to stop me, that it is not possible now. A Hunter may be able to hide from Death or a Messenger run from her, but only the Sentinels have the power to deny Death’s claim to a life. I grasp his hand as he brings it up in one final attempt to stop me.

“I can’t,” he pleads dread lacing his words. I know this already, there is no going back.

I reach through the soul of the puppet to reach the puppeteer. I take the pen from hand that has been writing this dreadful story for long enough, ending it mid-sentence.

This has to stop.

Hay rustles as the cats romp in the loft above our heads. I slowly part my hands to show him the glowing engraved rune stone in my hand. We both giggle, mischief dancing in our eyes. He parts his hands and shows me the glowing rune he had manage to get.

We sure showed that stuffy nobleman. At assembly he looked down his nose at all of us and said he wouldn’t find anyone who could make his runes glow here; that none of us nobodies had a soul to light a rune on fire.

Sure, the matron is going to be upset, but it will be worth it to see the look on the nobleman’s face. We are too young and dumb to realize that this simple action will change the rest of our very long lives.

I slowly let go of the hand I cling to still. The empty body I have left goes up in flames as tears drip down my chin. I am not permitted to follow him today, no matter how much I want to. I will have to live on. I offer the only thing I can to empty air.

“This has to stop.”

I hold tightly to the small hand in mine. I stare down the building in front of me, determined not to show any fear. Even when I feel it climbing up my throat to poison my tongue.

“Are we going to be all right?” a small squeak asks me. I tell him yes, because he is mine and I am his and I refuse to let the world take away the only good thing the heavens ever gave me.

Cold and lonely hidden within the shadows.

Afraid we hide away from your soul gallows.

Now we rest in tears among cramped old hallows.

*

Yielding yet to these who trample above.

Onward, we labor for our love.

Unconcerned for our dreams the masses shove.

*

Safety is a forbidden place.

Abominations you wish to banish us without a trace.

Valetudinarian is what you call us; a lie told to our face.

Eaglets on the wings of dreams we race.

*

Unified we will never fold.

Serenity takes an unflinching hold.

?

Oh well, maybe next century, darling.

"I dare you to live."

"Deal."

I shouldn't have trusted that frog.

As I began in this place of woe and joy I held

In my left hand small flower seeds,

In my right, felt flowers.

Working endlessly, I have built a life all my own,

Ignoring all whispers that tell me not to

Take this road that leads where I wish to go.

At the end I hold in my hand felt flowers.

Look upon my office wall and read the degrees,

That I have worked so hard,

In an ever-changing world to find and have,

Now I hold in my hand felt flowers.

I believed truly that I would have time for,

The seeds that I carried in my left,

I found that I never would,

but even with this lack of time,

This life of mine is beautiful,

But I hold in my hand only felt flowers

You cannot write about what you do not know. On the other hand you can write about what you know only a little.

I may never have had a romantic love but I have looked at my grandparents and seen it and looked into my family's eyes and known a different type of love, hence I know what love is. I know a little about phycology and a bit less about yoga, but I know they exist so I can write about them. A topic I know little about in school I can research, but I must first know the topic exists and as I read I learn. Even the characters in a novel I am writing must first introduce themselves in my head and tell me their story before I can put it on the page.

Their are probably things in this world that I know nothing about, a ritual from another country or an important book I have never heard of. About these things I cannot write for do not know. How can I write a story I do not know needs written?

Their are probably things in this world that I know nothing about, a ritual from another country or an important book I have never heard of. About these things I cannot write for do not know.How can I write a story I do not know needs written?

Okay, I will admit that was not one of my better ideas. It probably even makes my top ten of worst ideas ever, but still, there is no reason for…

“You idiot, this is your fault, I am never letting you make the plan ever again!”

I mean, really, that’s harsh. I look over at the source of that derogatory voice. Stretched over a rack my best friend has his head tipped back so that his furious brown eyes can glare at me.

That looks more comfortable than being chained to the ceiling.

“At least they let you lay down, Drew.” I snip back at him, cutting off his rant on my incompetence.

“I would have preferred that we not get caught. What kind of an idea was that, anyway, pretending to be one of them, Vagus’ are known for their brutality not for having poor eyesight?”

“But we made good Vagus’.”

“Alex, what part of a brown-hair, brown-eyed, 5’7

man looks like a blond-haired blue-eyed, 6’5 Vagus? And don’t even get me started on the way you and your black hair stood out. How did you even get me to agree to that nonsense, even if you outrank me?”

That jerk, reminding me I outrank him and by extension, he is my responsibility. Drat, Weezie is going to kill me.

“Well, as soon as they start using that rack, you’re on, you will be the right height at least.” I offer cheerfully.

“If we survive this, I’m going to kill you.” Drew snarl after a short pause.

“Murdering the crown prince is frowned upon, in fact, my professors called it treason.”