Guest post (by the author)

We make choices nearly every minute of every day.  Coffee or tea?  Do I follow the speed limit?  Should I take that phone call or respond to that text?  If I procrastinate long enough, will the pressing issue (that I’d rather not deal with) simply go away?  I have always found the phrase, “even choosing not to make a decision is, in fact, a decision” rather annoying.  Although, I admit, I wrote an essay about the topic when I was in the eighth grade.  Choices range from the simplistic: for example, I could wear those shoes but my feet may hurt by the end of the day; to the extreme, I could wear those shoes, but what will happen if I must flee the zombie apocalypse?  I could twist my ankle and die!  And for the sake of argument, the non-decision decision might be something like “I just won’t wear shoes.”  Luckily, unless you’re an avid gamer, you are not running from many zombies on any given day; you can rest assured that your fashion sense can go uncompromised for the sake of a life or death practicality.

But what if your decisions affected not only you and those you love, but your entire community?  How do you handle failure on a grand scale?  Living life is an ever revolving sequence of trial and error.  There are consequences.  I believe there are times when honorable causes have catastrophic outcomes and mistakes can inspire a glorious, positive turn of events.  This leads me to a dichotomy that has always fascinated me: every hero and every villain has something noble influencing their motives.  I take that one step further, and suggest that that duality is present in each and every human being.  Think about it as a reader or from an entertainment perspective, how boring would a character be if they wholly fell into a neatly wrapped package labeled “good” or “bad”?

A few years ago I faced a choice: to write or not to write?  I did not know what I would lose or gain and it didn’t matter.  The muses kept calling, echoing, like one of those songs you can’t stop humming fragments of.  They appeared as magical Faeries, elegant Elves, daring Pixens and vengeful Demons, each of them beautiful and richly multifaceted.  Their stories are Human, torn and familiar, burdened with the trials and joys of life in a medieval, sword-and-sorcery world.  I am grateful I changed my mind and decided to transcribe their tales.  Stelletwal is more than a series of novels.  It is a place where epic fantasy comments on humanity and the stories do not always conclude with happy endings.

Check out the author’s site for more information.

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