How the ShadowGate was Born
The other day I was asked if I had always liked Angels. It’s a valid question considering I’m working on book three in a series about mostly angels, demons, heaven, God and questions of faith and duty. My response was no, that I like Angels, but they weren’t something that has always appealed to me. In fact the ShadowGate series didn’t come about because of angels, at least not completely. Its creation in its current form can actually be attributed to demons. But even that is not the full beginning. I guess I should, for posterity, explain where this all started.
Once upon a time, in what feels like a lifetime ago, I was a 22 year old married woman. There was this song by Alan Jackson (When Somebody Loves you) that really struck me. It was all about true love, not just between a man and woman, but what happens when someone loves. Somehow it struck something inside of me. I wrote a story that showed the depth of love, being lost and then redeemed by that love. What came from that was a short story about an angel named Gideon who obeyed without question and was betrayed by another angel who was jealous of him. He was tricked into believing that he had sinned and he allowed himself to be drug into hell where the Devil tormented him, blinded him and worse, was the loss of God’s love. In that moment was born a fascination for angels. Not because of their power, but because of their blind faith. They were created without free will. Created with no choice but to love and obey a God who may or may not love them in return. I wrote ‘Fallen Angel’ in six days, a reflection of myself I wasn’t even fully aware of at that time. (Download a copy of Fallen Angel) Two months later I was facing separation from my husband that led to a divorce. Gideon and the plight of the ever obedient angel, the celestial slave was set aside.
Fast forward 10 years to 2011. I had an idea for a story called Angel’s Gate. This was my original story idea:
“Church sheltering angels as they do their divine work on earth. Micah is an angel of death and treated like a lesser being by the humans in comparison to his angel companions who are angels of life and good. He begins to think humans are beyond help since he spends his time taking the lives of those in the worst parts of town. He sees murder, rape, starvation, drug over doses. All the worst in humans. He doesn’t see the good, feel the good and the darkness starts to invade him as well. Then he meets this child a young girl who is left in the care of the church. She does not treat him with fear, she does not know he is the angel of death, but thinks him a nice man. They talk and he sees there is innocence and good still in the world. Then he is given the vision of her death at the hands of a child molester/serial killer and instead of accepting this is her fate, he stands against her death and becomes her guardian as well. God is pleased that he has finally learned to love the humans, to care what happens to them, and not just do his job. But to be a part of the world with them.”
I started writing the original draft of Angel’s Gate in November 2011 for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). The story came to life and in the end was NOTHING like the above idea, aside from that it was about angels serving here on earth. It was about blind obedience and sacrifice. I finished it in 30 days, finishing just at the end of November 30th. I was happy with it, but it was different from everything I had written before, there was a shadow to this story, a touch of grief. A reflection on my life at that time. I finished it, set it aside and thought no more of it. A few years later I toyed with the idea of writing a sequel to it, about one of the secondary characters, Samuel, a Guardian Angel. Nothing came of this and nothing came of the original inspiration either. Life got in the way and I forgot all about angels and demons had yet to sneak into my imagination. Instead I wrote about Zombies, the end of days & Armageddon in many forms. I wrote some intricate fantasies and Angel’s Gate was forgotten.
In 2016 my life as I knew it came to an end. Everything I knew was stripped away and I went away for almost an entire year. (It’s a long story and one day I’ll tell you all about it.) During that year it was as if I had rediscovered my writing. I wrote two books, neither about angels, both contemporary action stories, thrillers with lots of gunfire. But they sparked my passion and love for writing. I was introduced to the works and words of some amazing writers; JR Ward, Sherrilyn Kenyon, Gena Showalter and many, MANY others. I read voraciously, wrote obsessively and met a demon. His name was Dance. And he wasn’t evil. Suddenly I began to think of what it was to be a demon, born of darkness, having no choice of fate or destiny, branded evil for nothing more than being a demon. This demon Dance was hunted like the rest of his kind and I was introduced to the Keepers of the Faith. These religious zealots had made it their life’s mission to destroy all demons. They knew nothing about demons, only that they were formed of darkness.
The more I learned of Dance’s world, the more I discovered an entire universe filled with not only Demons but angels, who looked down upon demons, because they were born of the darkness. I met Errant, Dance’s grandfather and guardian. And through Errant I met the first of all angels, Talis and Lucifer. From them I learned about heaven, discovered the Gate and realized that all of this was the continuation of the story I had written almost five years before.
Like one possessed I crafted this world, but it wasn’t like I was the one creating, more that I was discovering a world that had existed and was just waiting for me. The next thing I knew I was writing the sequel to Angel’s Gate, Guardian Angel and expanding a world into something I had never imagined. January 1, 2017 I began Guardian Angel, in a place without access to my notes or original draft and Samuel became Gideon. My heroine, Casey, became AG (for Angel’s Gate heroine, because I couldn’t remember her name for the life of me) and the name stuck. This incarnation was stronger and Casey no longer fit. I wrote the first draft of Guardian Angel in 34 days. 136K words in a little over a month. I wrote as if I was transcribing a story already written. I’ve never written a book with more ease. It was all there. The world grew and what started with a 4K word short story in 2011 and was re-inspired by a Daemos teenager became the beginning of the ShadowGate series.
When I returned home in April 2017 I immediately pulled Angel’s Gate out of mothballs and rewrote it. It took me a little over a year to do the complete rewrite. Now I am doing the final polish as I work on the cover art and setting up a publication schedule for it.
Guardian Angel is scheduled to start the editing/drafting process early next year while I currently am typing away like a fiend on book three Angel Child. I’m exciting to see what happens as Angel Child has hit the halfway mark and is heading toward the last leg of the first draft.
However, the thing I am really REALLY excited about it book 4, Sanctuary. In this story I will finally be tackling the original story idea for Angel’s Gate, about Micah, a Guardian Angel here on earth that is beginning to lose his faith. I’m excited to hear his story and VERY excited to share it with you.
So there you have it, the story of how I came up with the ShadowGate series, where it all began. One day I’ll share my ‘Bible’ with you, the book with all my notes, all my plots and all my character profiles.
Until then,
L