“The Tales of the Clans” has been a life-long story project of mine. The universe I created is mine and mine alone…………..though it encompasses many of my genre loves throughout the years. I do, literally, mean life-long……..I began writing the early chapters when I was about 13-14 (middle school), that was about 30 years ago. They began as the stories I would write in my creative writing classes……..and a new era would begin with each “era” I wrote them in, in school. The beginning, “the primitive era”, was inspired by me reading (at the time), all the pre-history fiction/fantasy novels like “Reindeer Moon” and “The Clan of the Cave Bear”………..with maybe some “ElfQuest” thrown in. In high school, I wrote the “planet pirate era”……..clearly inspired by my beginning to watch anime like the “Galaxy Railways” films and spin-offs, “Tenchi Muyo!” and the “Project A-Ko vs.” OAVs. In college I was writing the “space exploration era”………………..which I won’t even hide was influenced by my love of the “Star Trek” franchise. After college I wrote the “Crescent era”……………….which was a romance, at the basis of it, a superhero-science-fantasy-based romance—and was influenced by the fact I was in love and had someone I loved. And that era (the most recent of the Clan stories) was the one most influenced by my real life………………with Daniel’s death in the story, reflected the loss of the guy I loved most in this world. And, even to this day, in trying so hard to type everything up……………..I have never even been able to type the final chapter of “Crescent: The Story of Marin Reed”, it’s still handwritten in a notebook. I always cry when I read the final chapter and Daniel’s death scene and Marin dealing with the loss………because it was based on everything I felt when my soulmate passed away. It may never be fully typed, unless I can manage to do it without crying…………………..

I was never good at drawing humans, so when I began writing these stories………….I’d asked a pen-pal to design Marin and Daniel for me. You can see that piece here at Toyhou.se: http://toyhou.se/221130.marin-reed/gallery#758004 To this day, I treasure those sketches from her. I’m still not great at drawing humans, but OH WELL! XD

Left-to-right: Marin, Daniel, Krin, Matt and Bryce.