Talking to myself? Who me? No, not you.

To my writerly pals: Have you ever created a character that Would Not Shut Up?

After completing my latest UF, The Magic Withheld, one of the characters reached out, grabbed my collar and said, "Not yet."

He is a moderately important figure, a seventeen-year-old kid with a combination of magic-envy and teenage angst. And there he was, waving and gesturing until my attention focused on him.

"Wait," he said, "I'm not done yet. Don't type those two words, 'the end', until I have my say."

And so I listened.

(I'll stop here for all my un-writerly friends to explain something. No, I don't hear voices - much. It is a writer's thing. The characters tend to speak to their creator, giving insight and plot intrigue. Writers understand my inner - and sometimes loud - conversation with dragons, ghosts, protags, and strong heroines.)

I liked his persistence and obvious anxiety when it appeared his story may be lost if I didn’t listen.

I listened. And planned. And wrote.

I didn’t expect a YA to slip into my mind when I began world building my magical world of the Imperium, Wilders, and Tener Unus but it appeared.

Thanks to a teenager who came to life for me and continues in The Magic Denied.