Thursday, March 10, 2011

Do you like your dragons evil?

Today's guest speaker is award winning author, Jane Toombs.
 
Thank you Jane for taking the time to blog for me.


The first time I used a dragon in a book, he was a weredragon. and evil. So determined to possess a child he knew had psi powers that he arranged an accident for her father and then married her mother, who also conveniently died after she'd named him as guardian. I pictured him in human form as being hypnotically persuasive and also being able to sense the presence of others.  Since he lived in Canada I used an old Canadian legend to explain his evil.  
Because he was able to become a dragon, I felt he needed to be tall and slender, but very strong.  I chose green for his dragon color because of French legends about an evil  green dragon.   The book was Lover's Moon, published by Kensington and it won the 1998 Prism Award for dark paranormal. ( given by the Fantasy, Futuristic and Paranormal Chapter of RWA.)  Amber Quill Press reprinted the book in electronic and print after I got the rights back, changing the title to my original one, Moondark .
The second time I used a dragon, he was also green.  He'd been created by a mage, in the first of my Temple Of Time books, Forbidden.  He was supposed to be a phantasm, but the sorcerer was stronger than he knew (actually in this book I used the Welsh for dragon--draig).  Vorst not only became a real dragon, but the hero of the next book, Forlorn.  This time I knew why he was green and had amethyst eyes.  Because I'd purchased such a dragon at a Lunacon from one of the venders who made them.  I used to take him to cons with me, perched on my shoulder.   But in the book, Vorst had a real problem because he fell in love with Wilda, a human female. He was not a weredragon, but a real one.  How could they ever be happy together? Hey, it wasn't easy.
For a long time I'd an idea for a trilogy featuring weredragons.  I first saw it as a  historical, then changed to contemporary, but I never wrote it.  In January of 2010, I made a New Year's resolution to finish the first book in every series I'd ever outlined.  I chose Darkness of Dragons Trilogy and started the first book Dragon's Pearl.  As soon as I finished it, I queried an epub, Devine Destiines, who not only took Dragon's Pearl, but wanted the other two, still unwritten.   So Dragon's Diamond followed, then the third, Dragon's Stone. This trilogy features the evil and supposedly immortal Black Dragon, a threat to mankind. I needed heroes for the three book who could bind him into his lair.  So they had to be weredragons.  Again tall and slender, but very strong humans who could be mesmerizing.  One was golden, the next silver and the in the final book, there were two weredragons. In dragon form one was red, the other white like the Welsh dragons of the past.  I used mythology and legend in these books.
I haven't written my next dragon book yet, but it's about a turquoise dragon who is an unwanted color.  And he does remain a dragon.  I plan to call it The Turquoise Dragon.
A man with a dark side, in love with a woman. A woman with her own worries, who barely tolerates him. The pair are thrown together to perform the impossible task of dealing with the evil and immortal Black Dragon—their only ally a Siamese cat. A puny trio facing impossible odds. Especially when the man’s dark side manifests itself and turns him into a danger to his own allies. Their other adversary, a witch, who is on the dragon’s side, adds another complication to an already seemingly hopeless task. How can this man control his dark side, convince the woman to love him and seal the dragon’s fate?
 
A man regains consciousness lying naked on an isolated beach. He remembers only his first name. He doesn't recognize his surroundings, nor recall who he is. More dangerous, he doesn't know what he is--or that the fate of mankind rests on his remembering…
 
 Centuries ago, Merlin stole forbidden magic from the immortal black dragon to try to save King Arthur. To prevent the dragon from exterminating mankind in retaliation, Merlin set wards that forced the dragon into the depths of a mountain cave in Wales. But wards fail with time. To prevent the dragon from escaping, one of Merlin's blood and another of dragon's blood, plus a third, must reset the wards as they weaken. When the last of Merlin's blood and the last of dragon's blood left Wales for America, the evil within the dragon came, too. He is now tethered in the depths of an abandoned copper mine in Michigan's Upper Peninsula. But the wards are failing and those who must reset them aren't aware of their duty. If this evil isn't contained chaos will be let loose. And time is running out…



Stop by Monday and find out how Don Martinez tells us how he came up with his dragons.

5 comments:

Patty W said...

How cool! I love dragons!

Pat said...

I love dragons the more the better!I really like the books with a lot of laughs as well as suspence. very good blog.

Edie Ramer said...

Jane, I'll check these out! I self-pubbed Dragon Blues a few weeks ago, and the hero is a dragon who changed into a man. He was a great character to write.

Karen Michelle Nutt said...

Your weredragons sound wonderful.
I like the mythology you added with each of the dragons along with the colors, too.

I'll have to check them out. Now that I have a Kindle, I'm craving ebooks. lol

Take care and lots of luck with your books.

Mia Marlowe said...

Love dragons! It's always pricked my imagination that virtually every culture on earth has dragon myths. You have to wonder what ancient truth is behind all those stories.