A lot of people ask me how long it took to write Starsight. I've contemplated that question for a long time. The short answer; most of my life. The kernels started when I was in grade school; fresh ideas of Star Trek beaming through my head, the voices of Heinlein, Fredrik Brown, Bradbury, and JRR powering through like rocket ships behind my eyes.
Thirty years ago I wrote an epic tome of a book, full of wizards, magic, dragons, and mischief, then handed it to another writer. When she was done with her tirade, I decided maybe I wasn't cut out for writing, so shelved the book for twenty-five years.
Biggest mistake I ever made.
In the ensuing years, I raised three brilliant artists and ended up happily married to another, who had artistic sons of his own.
One hot August evening, three of these sons, my husband, and I sat around a primitive campfire in the Mt. Hood wilderness discussing, as we often did, the vagaries of life, the difficulty of being an artist, and the goals we should be setting for ourselves.
Being the nurturing dream-encouraging mother that I am, I stated, "Let's have a challenge. Each one of us must complete a creative project by December 31st."
The men all stared and pursed their lips, contemplating, I'm certain, how best to humor me. One, an illustrator, stated he would complete his graphic novel, the other, a painter, chose to do more paintings. The youngest son, though very gifted as an artist, chose instead to go to school to get a degree. My dear sweet husband vowed to finish enough sculptures to do a show with conviction in his voice.
Four pairs of eyes, two blue and two brown, settled in my general direction inquisitively. I glanced back a moment and then found the flames of the fire much more enticing.
"What about you, mom?" asked the illustrator.
I had been a singer and actress for almost twenty years and had no desire to go back to the grueling schedules. Journalism had been a lukewarm passion for me for a time, but didn't appeal to me anymore. I had tried drawing and painting... the ideas were brilliant, but I couldn't draw stick figures. I was at a loss.
"What about Starsight?" piped up the painter.
"Yeah, why don't you finish it and get it published?"
I pictured the dusty green paper box buried somewhere in a closet that hadn't been searched for years. "All right," I found myself saying. "It's a deal."
Thus began the saga. I rewrote the books from cover to cover, made drastic changes to the characters, and found, to my delight, that the muse, whom I thought had died from boredom, was napping in the weeds. I wonder if the boys thought they had created a monster; I disappeared into the project - no one saw me for four months. On December 31st, at exactly 11:55pm, the book was sent off to many poor, unsuspecting publishers. Four weeks later, I had a contract in my hand.
Starsight had taken on a life of its own, mirroring the last thirty years of my own experiences; the liberation and sorrow of the sixties, the awareness and betrayal of the seventies, the technology of the eighties and nineties, and the political fear of the early two thousands. I have always known war in my life, I have watched as society plunged blindly into fiscal technology and witnessed its crash. History, it seems, serves to predict the future... and continues to do so. I have known utter joy in the midst of tragedy... and vice versa. Starsight reflects all of these things.
The message here, at least for me, is to never abandon your bliss. Stick to the dream, even when it is uncomfortable to do so... and, believe me, it will be and often. Life is rich in experience. This is fodder for creativity and always has been.
May you have magic in your life and all the experience you can stand... Minnette
STARSIGHT
an epic fantasy
by Minnette Meador
Trenara never thought she would have to guide a student she loved to become a messiah, but it is the only way this second trial Starguider can salvage her world. Torn between her devotion to Joshan and the fate of her kind, Trenara struggles against accusations of murder, the onset of war, and the loss of her faith in gods who have turned their backs on her. The only people she can trust to help them are two war-ravaged heroes; the boy’s life-long trainer and an old sea captain everyone thought was a ghost. Their only weapon, a ten-year-old boy who wakes one morning to find his childhood gone and his hands filled with a power he couldn't possibly understand--or control. Together they must destroy a psychotic enemy and a religious order that has been running the Imperium for a thousand years; a system they have all taken blood vows to protect.
PIERS ANTHONY
“[Starsight] is one powerful and imaginative fantasy adventure novel with many nice touches...there is magic galore, and challenge galore; nothing comes easy. It's the first of a series, and it should do well...”
SPIDER ROBINSON, co-author with Robert A. Heinlein of VARIABLE STAR
"After millennia of discovery and exploration, and especially the last century or two of strip-mining, you’d think the fantasy genre would be wrung dry by now, leaving its writers with nothing to do but rewrite, presenting old ideas in newer clothes. Minnette Meador has begun reinventing and redefining the field by page 30 of STARSIGHT, and hasn’t stopped by the final sentence. But there’s more than just novel ideas going on, here; Meador also knows the unfakeable secret of keeping even newcomers turning the pages: care about your characters so much it becomes infectious. This is a Typhoid Mary of a book, from a writer to watch."
http://www.minnettemeador.com/
http://minnettemeador.blogger.com/
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Sunflowers
A lot of people ask me how long it took to write Starsight. I've contemplated that question for a long time. The short answer; most of my life. The kernels started when I was in grade school; fresh ideas of Star Trek beaming through my head, the voices of Heinlein, Fredrik Brown, Bradbury, and JRR powering through like rocket ships behind my eyes.
http://www.minnettemeador.com/
Mixing Fantasy with Romance by C.L. Wilson
(1) an alternate world (or alternate earth reality) based on an imagined set of rules, typically inhabited by lifeforms that do not (and generally could not) exist in the real world (Note: science fiction differs from fantasy in that the elements of the alternate world and any alternate lifeforms should have some basis in accepted scientific laws and theories.)
A romance, on the other hand, requires one specific element—the romance—which is the spine on which the entire book hangs. All other elements in the romance novel (the external quest/plot, emotional growth and change in the characters, etc) are all influenced by or occur because of the romance (and vice versa). The story ends when the romance quest has been completed. 
For the most part, I have had terrific fun writing this series. I hope that you have had fun reading it!
About the Author: C.L. Wilson is the NY Times bestselling author of fantasy romance. She loves reading, writing, and torturing her characters mercilessly. When not working, she enjoys relaxing with her family in sunny Florida and daydreaming of a world where people exercise in their sleep and chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream is a fat burning food.
The Hidden
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