Not Dragons, but Dinner Tables
I thought Beyond That Starry Sky was the first novel I ever finished.
It isn’t. It’s just the first one that matters.
I’ve been writing stories since elementary school—page after page of adventures, fan-fiction, sci-fi, and fantasy. Groups of heroes on urgent missions, racing to stop some catastrophe or right a great wrong. That was always the pattern.
Recently, a question was put to me: What stories did you think of as a child?
Back then, it was all spacefaring adventures starring thinly veiled versions of my friends and me. I even self-published a short-lived (and, in my mid, wildly successful) comic series—run off on a Xerox machine and sold to classmates for a quarter—that spoofed Star Trek: The Next Generation.
But the first full novel I ever completed was something else entirely: a fantasy epic I wrote when I was thirteen.
I don’t remember the title anymore, but I remember the shape of it. An evil sorcerer kidnaps a princess—because, let’s be honest, that’s what evil sorcerers do. Two heroes set out to rescue her, gathering companions along the way. There were twists (one companion was secretly the sorcerer’s brother), a final confrontation, and, naturally, a dragon.
I do remember one name: Draukoor. The villain. I thought it sounded incredibly cool at the time.
Hundreds of handwritten pages, all in pencil, filled notebook after notebook.
That manuscript is long gone now—lost somewhere to time. Probably for the best.
Because for years after that, I kept trying to write stories like it. Big, sweeping, high-stakes narratives. And on paper, they worked. The structure was there. The pacing was there. The pieces fit.
But something always felt… off.
It took me a long time to understand why.
As much as I loved reading those kinds of stories, I don’t actually love writing them.
What I love are the quiet moments.
The spaces between the grand victories and the terrible losses. The conversations around a dinner table. The small, fleeting interactions that make a life feel real.
That’s the magic for me.
Not spells or dragons—but the everyday moments we usually overlook.
I was reminded of that again today while working on a scene for my current novel, On Days It Rains. There’s no battle in it. No looming disaster. Just a family gathered around a table for Sunday dinner.
And yet, it’s one of my favorite things I’ve written.
Because there’s something deeply satisfying about creating a space like that—about sitting with characters as they live their lives, about shaping moments you wish you could step into yourself.
That’s the kind of stories I want to tell.
Of course, I can’t make things too easy for them. There are still trials ahead, still storms to weather before they earn those quiet moments.
But that balance—that contrast—is what makes those scenes matter.
And maybe that’s the kind of magic I’ve been looking for all along.
The kind you don’t notice at first.
Until you do.
Until next time…
It isn’t. It’s just the first one that matters.
I’ve been writing stories since elementary school—page after page of adventures, fan-fiction, sci-fi, and fantasy. Groups of heroes on urgent missions, racing to stop some catastrophe or right a great wrong. That was always the pattern.
Recently, a question was put to me: What stories did you think of as a child?
Back then, it was all spacefaring adventures starring thinly veiled versions of my friends and me. I even self-published a short-lived (and, in my mid, wildly successful) comic series—run off on a Xerox machine and sold to classmates for a quarter—that spoofed Star Trek: The Next Generation.
But the first full novel I ever completed was something else entirely: a fantasy epic I wrote when I was thirteen.
I don’t remember the title anymore, but I remember the shape of it. An evil sorcerer kidnaps a princess—because, let’s be honest, that’s what evil sorcerers do. Two heroes set out to rescue her, gathering companions along the way. There were twists (one companion was secretly the sorcerer’s brother), a final confrontation, and, naturally, a dragon.
I do remember one name: Draukoor. The villain. I thought it sounded incredibly cool at the time.
Hundreds of handwritten pages, all in pencil, filled notebook after notebook.
That manuscript is long gone now—lost somewhere to time. Probably for the best.
Because for years after that, I kept trying to write stories like it. Big, sweeping, high-stakes narratives. And on paper, they worked. The structure was there. The pacing was there. The pieces fit.
But something always felt… off.
It took me a long time to understand why.
As much as I loved reading those kinds of stories, I don’t actually love writing them.
What I love are the quiet moments.
The spaces between the grand victories and the terrible losses. The conversations around a dinner table. The small, fleeting interactions that make a life feel real.
That’s the magic for me.
Not spells or dragons—but the everyday moments we usually overlook.
I was reminded of that again today while working on a scene for my current novel, On Days It Rains. There’s no battle in it. No looming disaster. Just a family gathered around a table for Sunday dinner.
And yet, it’s one of my favorite things I’ve written.
Because there’s something deeply satisfying about creating a space like that—about sitting with characters as they live their lives, about shaping moments you wish you could step into yourself.
That’s the kind of stories I want to tell.
Of course, I can’t make things too easy for them. There are still trials ahead, still storms to weather before they earn those quiet moments.
But that balance—that contrast—is what makes those scenes matter.
And maybe that’s the kind of magic I’ve been looking for all along.
The kind you don’t notice at first.
Until you do.
Until next time…
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