Well, to be honest, it all started from reading a few bad books. In my opinion, they were bad, other people (like the whole world) seemed to really like them, but they just didn’t do it for me; books that took the raw nitty-gritty world of Witchcraft, Vampires, Myths, and Legends and turned them into child’s play. Although well-written books, I found myself rather dissatisfied by the end of them and when I asked myself why the answer was simple. They took out all the scary stuff. They eliminated the danger, the darkness, and everything sexy about Fantasy and numbed it down to make it suitable for a middle grade or YA audience. Now plenty of people prefer their books this way. I, for one, do not.
The second thing to contribute to the development of the Children of Cain series is my Christian background. One thing I’ve always found interesting about religion is that everyone is promised some kind of reward for following the sacred commandments or rules. Simply put, if you’re a good person and do the right things and have faith you’ll be rewarded in Heaven. It’s a nice idea, right? We’ll come back to that in a moment.
During this time I had a very boring night job. I was working the night shift on the maintenance staff at Wal-Mart five years ago. We had a tight crew and a great routine. The routine worked so well in fact that I found my brain wasn’t needed much to do my part. So, naturally, my mind wandered to help keep me awake. I started thinking about those particular books and what it was they were missing. Then I started thinking about the Heroes or Heroines in these books and how I felt about them and their motivations in these stories.
Then, all at once, the concept hit me. What if you it didn’t matter if you were a good person? What if it didn’t matter what you did? What if no matter what you did you were already damned? Would you still do the right thing if there was no reward?
Suddenly, I had a vision of the character Gwenevere and I saw glimpses of her background. I envisioned her put into this situation where nothing she did mattered and asked myself what would she do? The answer was simple. Do the right thing just because it is right and for no other reason. But then I thought of all the bad things that could happen to her to tempt her to turn evil. I saw all the obstacles the Adversary might put into her way. Before I knew it I had not only a book but a whole series on my hands.
For months and months I wrote notes on my breaks and whispered ideas into my voice recorder when I was supposed to be working. I threw in some Fantasy elements and combined several Myths together to help build my world. Finally, I thought I had the whole thing worked out and I told my husband. My husband has been my best supporter from the very start and really pushed me to sit down and write.
Now here we are five years later. “The Forsaken” has been out for a year and book two “The Offspring” is coming out tomorrow! It’s been a great experience writing this series and I just want to share this crazy world I’ve created with everyone. “The Forsaken” is free today at www.smashwords.com you can get it in several different formats for different eReaders, too. So go out and snag a free copy of book one and make sure to check out book two “The Offspring” tomorrow! To keep up to date on the series you can find me at the following:
Smashwords
Goodreads
Blog
Amazon
Barnes and Noble
Now go forth and read till you’re red-eyed and weary and then read one chapter more for good measure.
Thanks again, Krista, for having me and thank you all for taking time to read.
R.J. Craddock
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