Talee’s World

One of my favorite things about Talee and the world is of course … Talee. I love her as a character. I think it’s because I can see her as a sassy little girl that is really into adventures plus I like writing adventure stories.

When I first started working on the first draft for Talee and the Fallen Object I tried writing it in 3rd person. For me the story was coming together but the character Talee didn’t feel alive. I think for me …. knowing that the book was targeted to 4-8 year-olds I wanted the story to be more immediate and I wanted the relationship between the reader and Talee to be close and I wasn’t feeling that with what I was writing. I worked on the first draft in 3rd person for about a month, a little here … a little there. But nothing about it really grabbed me. Then one day out of the blue the opening of the book popped into my head.

Hello everyone! My name is Talee.

That is T-A-L-E-E and it is pronounced Ta-Lee.

How are you doing today?

I wrote it down and instantly knew it was the direction I wanted to go, I could hear Talee and her personality just blossom.

What a difference 1st person made for the story. Why didn’t I think of it sooner?

Once I wrote down the opening lines I think it took me a couple of hours to write out the first draft of the book. It was one of those writing immersions that you hope for. Of course it was very helpful that the coloring book adventure was underway and I knew what the story was going to be, so it became just a matter of getting it down in words.

Of course shortly after writing the first draft I realized that Talee was the same age as Ava Brooks and they both had a favorite color of purple and both wore purple clothing … Ahhh. How did that happen? So now Ava will have a couple of birthdays and will find a new favorite color even though she was around first. I’m thinking she loves Teal.

Which after thinking about it is a good thing … Ava should be a couple of years older because her stories are much longer in length and more in depth and she is more mature so it works out, which means she might not fit the 4-8 age range anymore. But that’s okay. I can see her adventures as a tween adventure story. Plus I was thinking of taking her through a little makeover before she came out. I want her look to have a little more adventure to it. I have some ideas I’m going to play with.

If you were looking for an ordinary eight-year-old, you wouldn’t find it in Ava Brooks. And not because she’s a magic willer.

No… you see, Ava Brooks is an adventurer.

She hates to be bored and sitting around waiting for her father to receive an award for his work with unpractical magic was as bored as it could get.

Ava Brooks and the Ultimate Dare is still going through editing but I hope to have it out this fall at least as an ebook. Well enough about Ava let’s get back to Talee.

I don’t know if most of you know, but Talee lives on a gas planet called Gala. It’s a planet where the land floats. For me that was one of the exciting things about Talee’s world but it also offered a challenge.

How do they get around if all the land floats?

I knew early on that I didn’t want a dragon as part of the story and Talee is not magical so she can’t fly by herself so I had to create a new fantasy adventure animal. The idea of creating a new fantasy adventure animal didn’t scare me because in both Ava Brooks and in Anyia’s world there are new fantasy adventure things.

The challenge for the fantasy adventure animal for Talee’s world is that the fantasy animal had to be friendly and fly. For me it was easy to come up with new and strange looks for humanoids but it’s not so easy for animals. I think the concept inspiration of the design took months for me to come up with. Once I did decide on the design concept finding an illustrator who could bring the design concept became a challenge. But it was worth the challenge because the Calpas were born.

So you might ask … What are Calpas?

That is easy.

Calpas fly. And we fly on them.

Calpas are big friendly flying animals. The have large pretty wings and they are sooo cute. Every household has at least one. Some have two. If the family is big they have three or more.

Above is an illustration of Bett sleeping. She makes here debut appearance in Talee and the Fallen Object along with her friend Ran.

Oh … just in case I haven’t mentioned it before Talee and the Fallen Object chapter book is for ages 4-8 and the coloring book adventure is for 4+.

Well I guess that’s enough about Talee’s world. Anymore information and I will spoil the story.

 

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