Stars of Heros
Stars of Heros is a series of novels that spans from the 19th Century to the 26th Century and beyond. It deals with the ongoing adventures of and relationship between four human families and two alien clans. The series title is a tribute and a word play to the main themes in the books: horses, space, and heroes. Heroes in the sense of people trying to make a difference in their world. The series currently has three completed and copyrighted, but not published, stories, a short story called The Horse Mage that will eventually become a part of it, and sixteen other stories that in various stages of completion.
When this all began in 1986, there was no Stars of Heros series title or even the concept of The Mason Family Logs upon which the whole series is now based. In fact, I wasn't even thinking about writing a series. All I wanted to do was write and publish a simple horse story and that was it. I had dabbled in writing before, but usually it was for class assignments. The fiction that I wrote was either fan fiction or stuff I crumpled up and threw away because I didn't like how it sounded. One day, a friend of mine asked me to stop crumpling my stuff up and keep on writing no matter what. I gave her my word, so when I began the horse story, I was committed to finishing it.
I finished, copyrighted it, and tried to publish it . . . It didn't work out . . .
Neither did my second story . . .
Nor my third . . .
My first three novels had 15 rejections between them and, in a way, that was good. The stories just weren't ready and neither was the writer. I wanted to express myself and what I believed in for all the right reasons, including wanting to tell stories that people would enjoy, but in a preachy, angry, and obsessive voice. Basically, I was yelling at the world and my life through my writing.
My series and the concepts behind it needed time to mature, just as I did. I needed to find a voice that spoke with a quiet intensity that told the story and made the reader feel they were actually a living part of it. The stories themselves needed to be fleshed out and reworked so that they echoed that voice of quiet intensity and made the reader feel like they could read the book from beginning to end without feeling like they were being bogged down by unnecessary details.
I almost gave up writing three or four times during this maturity period. But with the help and support of several people, I learned what it was to be an artist with a vision. During this time, I also learned to express myself through graphic and web design. This helped relieve the stress off my writing.
You see, for a long time, writing and music were my only creative outlets. So when writing became too painful and frustrating for me because things weren't happening fast enough or I was dealing with other frustrations in my life, I'd shut it down and usually the rest of my creative side with it. Now, having the graphic and web design as part of my arsenal, I'm still able to be creative and let my writing move along at its own pace.
So what is the current pace of the series? It's moving along at a slow and steady speed. The first two books need to be completely rewritten, but the third story, which is called Do You Believe In Legend? is in the final stages of being prepared for publication. And the other seventeen are just there, patiently waiting for their turn.
