Here’s a two page spread from the end of chapter eight. I love ending chapters with a cliffhanger illustration. It’s fun to switch from text into a cinematic envisioning of the story. Plus, it keeps pulling readers along into the next chapter.

This drawing features the main setting in book two, Plomboria, the Jimjarian city. You meet several Jimjarians in book one, but it’s not until the second installment when you get to see more of their culture and a hint of their history. A history that plays a major part in book three. Can’t say too much. What I can say is that when you start writing a tale, you rarely see all the interwoven histories and characters. Things seem almost too simple, but you trust your gut and plug along. Then like magic, this entire world unravels before you. It’s like an archaeologist finding a pottery fragment in the dirt, then digging carefully away, almost on blind faith, in hopes of finding a lost civilization.