R. M. Putnam

Merry meet to one and all,

The beginnings of a story for me pop up in the most unlikely places. When I see or hear a bit of information I can’t help but to go into my "What if" mode. As for writing a fantasy story, it was an accident, it had always been my desire to be a Science fiction writer.

At 38 years old I returned to college to complete my education. It was a great challenge for me to undertake study once again, after a hard struggle with school in my youth. That first semester, sitting in my American History class the instructor assigned the class to write a paper on an American Holiday, it's origin and so-forth. It was the first week of October and so I thought of Halloween . . . of course! Off to the library I went to do research and there I became lost in a world I had never known, a world of wonderment and intrigue, a world that based its survival on human sacrifice.

My research took a few weeks in total as I absorbed myself in history . . . back to Pre-Christian times in Ireland where Pagans created Halloween, originally called All Hallows or Samhain night. I felt mesmerized by Celtic history and folklore as I slipped into my "What If"mode where my imagination went into high gear.

The paper I finally turned in, started with fact but blurred into fiction, titled originally "Summer’s End" a short story of 95 pages, a bit much for the assignment to say the least. My instructor gave me a passing grade of C- for all the work and effort I put into the paper. However, he told me Halloween is NOT an American Holiday and therefore simply could not give me the A+ I hoped to receive. He said I should have written about Thanksgiving, or Independence day, Memorial Day, Labor Day or Martin Luther King day etc. Naturally, I was disappointed with the grade . . . till he told me that he LOVED my story but felt it was not complete as he began to question me about the characters. Feeling exhilarated, we spoke for a good while on possibilities of making the story more in-depth. My instructor strongly advised that I complete the story for publication. That was all the encouragement I needed as I embarked into writing my fantasy novel that grew into 10 books in the series over the following 15 years. I never dreamed I would write a fantasy story, but there you have it. You never know when a story is about to be born or where it will take you. That is the wonderment and joy of being a writer.