So, why start a blog called The Reluctant Firefly?
Well, because I am writing a book and the main character earned the nickname of Firefly. In the fifth chapter, Ariel and Basil have a heated argument in which she calls him a bouncing green bean, and he retaliates with labeling her first as a flying dung heap, and then as a hot-headed firefly.
Yeah, that’s how fairies and elves argue. But just where did these characters come from? Let me explain.
When I was a kid, my family moved around a lot, and when I say a lot, I mean A LOT! I attended 16 different schools, in three different states before I graduated from high school. When you move so much, it’s hard to make and keep friends, so I spent a lot of time making up my own little worlds in my head. These worlds grew into elaborate stories, and as an adult, they started making their way onto paper.
Back in 1977, when I was 13, a fantasy movie produced by Ralph Bakshi called Wizards came out. It was a weird movie about good and evil, with wizards and fairies and lots of wacky creatures. A far from being a top-notch flick, it did had some cool special effects for its day and has since become a cult classic.
The same year, Weird World Comics came out with a story about two fairies trying to slay a dragon so some evil wizard dude will return them to their home. The bad dude gets eaten by this slave girl he has chained to the wall, who is actually a changling that turned into a dragon. Talk about your poetic justice!
On the heels of these exposures, in 1978 The Lord of the Rings (cartoon edition) was released and my high school caught Frodo Fever. The movie itself was pretty pathetic and is a far cry from the epic classic produced by Peter Jackson, but it had its desired effect: our library couldn’t keep J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterpiece on the shelf. And as for me: I was hopelessly hooked on fantasy.
The world in my head quickly shifted from the last year’s story line of Jedis and helping Luke Skywalker save planets to imagining tiny people hiding in the woods and forests of my dreams and behind the furniture of whatever low rent apartment we lived in at the time. My main two characters, Ariel and Basil, were born during my final years of high school. They were destined to meet, go from point A to point B, and have a happy ever after. End of story.
Over the years, point A and point B became farther and farther apart, a lot of stuff snuck aboard in between, and the happy ever after got modified. One of my characters got wings, the other didn’t. The cast expanded to include tree sprites, water nymphs and gnomes (mine don’t wear pointed hats, thank you). The story grew from a short tale to an epic adventure. As I sit here typing this, the manuscripts for two books are finished and I am well into the third.
All I need now is to find a publisher.
This is my quest, and my journey to this point.