FireDrake - the Dedication

Some of you might notice I mentioned someone specific in the dedication of FireDrake. I was a little cryptic in the dedication, so for those of you who are intrigued, here’s (as Paul Harvey would say) the rest of the story…

Sometime last year I was tossing around ideas for the title of this book. I’d come up with a list of possibilities and mentioned a few on my Yahoo chat group. I liked “FireDrake,” but wasn’t sure exactly how it applied to the story I’d written so far. The book was about a third finished at that point and to be brutally honest, I wasn’t sure where it would go from there. I’d taken a little break from writing it to finish up some other projects and I wasn’t exactly stuck, but I wasn’t too eager to start work on it again because I wanted to let some ideas percolate in my mind.

Finding a title can be painstaking work. Or it can be easy. There is no middle ground. As I said, I liked FireDrake, but wasn’t completely sure. So when I mentioned it on my Yahoo chat group, I was paying close attention to the responses. They were mostly favorable for this title and I was pleased, but Jennifer said something in passing that really ignited my creative fires and gave the book that little extra something that made me eager to get back to writing it. After that, it flowed nicely to its final culmination in what I hope you’ll agree is a great addition to my Dragon Knights series.

So what did Jennifer say? I don’t remember her exact words, but it was something like “that title would really work if Drake could do something wtih fire.” Up ’til that point, Drake didn’t have much overt magical ability. That little comment started the seed growing that eventually became not just one but many firedrakes in the Dragon Knights world.

All thanks to Jennifer, though she probably had no idea what her words would ignite.

Thank you, Jennifer! And thanks to Drake - the fictional character that almost wrote himself. I hope you enjoy him as much as I did!