If this is your first time here, then you've stumbled upon something new and different. I first came up with the idea after stepping from a shower, thinking about how interesting it would be if a circus hid creatures from the faerie world amongst humans and used the show to disguise what they truly were. Little did I realize where this would lead.
The name Vlanders was inspired by a well-known minister, Dr. Vander Warner, Jr. I thought the name was interesting and wanted to have a similar version for a type of character that fit, but it would be a year or so later before the series was actually created.
When the idea about faeries in a circus hit me, I immediately realized this might be the chance to create that of character. But what? Looking through an old faerie book with all the different types and creepy crawlies was a good start. When I came to the page describing the púca, I knew that was it! Heck, he jumped out the shower and slapped me upside the head then LOL. Who am I kidding? The guy literally romped around my brain until I could come up with a good storyline for him.
At the same time, I didn't want the story to just be about a púca. For someone who has always written Medieval Fantasy, this could not follow that format. It needed to have a more modern twist. Thus, a completely new character was born...
Meet Mierna Whelan. Since the púca is a creature from Celtic Folklore, I wanted the main character to have features that would give that Irish vibe. So the auburn hair with green eyes and perhaps freckles seemed decent enough. Her last name Whelan derives from Gaelic, which means "wolf".
The púca, from traditional folklore, is an exceptional shape-shifter. So although Mierna will have no magic of her own, she would most likely meet some of his other forms.
Originally, it was just going to be a short story with no illustrations published for the Kindle. In July of 2019, I wrote the first draft in between customers at work. It took about two weeks.
Then, something happened.
When I reached the end of the story and started editing, I had inadvertently fallen in love with the characters. They were whimsical, funny and corky. It seems crazy to think that an author who's writing the story doesn't know what will happen next, but when I tell you this story literally poured out, IT POURED! It was just the sort of thing I needed to take a break from novel writing. I had been working on my fourth novel in the Wisdom Novels® series, with the final section left to do, and it was slow going. So this was just refreshing to have different characters with a different setting.
Because I also love art and music, a few ideas struck me that I had to try. My first digital painting of Vlanders was what set the series in motion. After completing him, I knew I had to do more!
