About the Story

format: novella length: 24,800 words when: 12/13/16-2/12/17 | graphic novel 08/13/18-present best part of the process: I got to write again!!! worst part of the process: turns out I'm really, really rusty check out the To Trust a Dragon or the Dumping a Dragon tag in my blog for more.

When you're a tattooed curatorial graduate student who's been dating an alleged dragon for over a year, you expect a certain level of whismy in life. But for Noeli Corazon, a year of belieivng that her handsome, dark-skinned boyfriend Sivarthis is really a dragon starts to wear her down. Just as she breaks up with him, though, her younger sister Adriana is suddenly missing, and there's evidence it was a dragon who took her. However, Sivarthis blames a former dragon lover for the kidnap, and Noeli convinces him to take her to his world to rescue her sister from a dragon who keeps humans as slaves. As they journey in his dangerous world together, Noeli must come to trust herself before she can have what it takes to trust a dragon.

Commentary

This story is 100% a triumphant return to writing after several years without trying. It still feels a little silly that I got the idea for this story almost entirely from a dream. But since it was a dream I had because of all the Skyrim I'd been playing, it balances out. I had a really rough time, as per usual, getting into Noeli's character as it started out, and neither of my readers (husband Ryan and best friend Kyra) had any affection for her in the first dozen or so pages. But as the story progressed and the action picked up, I let her coast on the plot and as I dug into her feelings towards Sivarthis, a really neat, vulnerable character emerged. She's definitely got the lowest self-confidence of any of my leading ladies so far, but that was kind of the point.

The only thing about this story that makes me sad is the whole time I'd try to doodle this pair and just like, nothing came up. I did a good painting of Noeli and I loved my profile image of Siv, and when I finally wrote the last scene the drawing used above immediately emerged, but it took a while.

In August when I was reading a novel about dragons, I started rereading this novella and then decided to take a stab at making it into a graphic novel. I may never finish it, but so far [it's 11/12/18] I've done 40-some absolutely beautiful colored pages that I am keeping completely private until they're done or the project dies.

Images from the Story