Welcome!

Hello, friends and readers! Mel Mather here, with the first entry for my brand-new blog!

You might know me from Meeting Mel but I wanted to dedicate a blog entirely to my fantasy series that I've been working on since 2005 (yeah, no joke) and that I really hope to publish someday soon. 

First of all, the series as a whole will be called The Caer Epics. Yes, that's the way I spelled it because "caer" is Old Welsh for "citadel," "stronghold," or "fortress." I got it from Castle Cair Paravel in C.S. Lewis's The Chronicles of Narnia and it was an old friend's idea to use "epics." 

Much like Lewis's Narnia, my own series is a Christian fantasy; it's got unicorns, dragons, centaurs, werewolves, and all those awesome creatures we kind of wish (and are kind of glad do not) exist for real, but it's also got some pretty strong Christian elements. I'm Christian myself (a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, to be precise) but I try to avoid unnecessary stereotypes as well as excessive preachiness. 

I do my best to show that religion as a whole is a good thing, that it's the people who twist religion out of shape, and plenty of non-religious characters are perfectly nice. I really, really hope I can win over a non-Christian audience as well as Christian. 

Overall, my series is a mix of Narnia, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, the family-friendly version of Game of Thrones, and Disney. I borrowed plenty of elements from other books and movies, of course, but you get the idea. 

As I said, this is a project that dates all the way back to 2005, when I was seventeen and trying to figure out what I wanted to do with myself after high school. While I always dabbled in writing as a hobby, it wasn't until my sophomore year that I began to take writing seriously. 

I have my Creative Writing teacher, Mrs. Kay Cannon, who was also my sister's teacher and who, sadly, passed away in 2018, to thank for that. She was so sweet and energetic, and she had that certain magic of making you feel good about yourself. When you're going through a teenage funk, that means a lot. 

While I didn't have it that bad, I did go through a bit of a rough patch. My grades weren't the greatest, I didn't have many friends, home life was average at best, and my self-esteem was quite rickety. I always said I wanted to be an artist when I grew up, but I wondered if my art was good enough to make into an actual career. 

I didn't know whether I would go to college or get a job after graduation (for a little while, I wasn't sure I would even graduate on time) and overall, I questioned what I was even good for. I wasn't depressed or suicidal (though I did need just a little therapy) but I still wondered what to do with myself, whether anyone would miss me if I was gone. 

I might not have been drowning in a raging sea, but I was definitely drifting aimlessly with no set destination in sight.

Then Mrs. Cannon came along. 

Her classes were easily the most fun; she had that way of getting kids to behave, and I had some pretty rowdy classmates. She praised my work up and down and kept insisting I should be an author. It got to the point where I started thinking, "Maybe she's right. Maybe I've got something here." 

Long story short: I graduated on time, enrolled in Weber State University, and ended up bagging a Bachelor's Degree in Creative Writing. While I've yet to publish anything, I've gained a lot more confidence and my professors all told me I have great potential. One professor who doesn't give out praise lightly once praised a ten-page essay I wrote in front of the whole class, calling it one of the best-written essays he'd ever read. As you can imagine, I was on cloud nine that day, and I thought, "If I do that well with an academic paper, maybe I've got a shot at fictional writing, too!" 

While I'm still a bit embarrassed about how long I've taken with The Caer Epics (I never was a good finisher), I can't very well deny how well the quality's improved. I think I stand a much better chance now than I did clear back then. 

That said, I resolve to really buckle down, to complete at least one manuscript this year. And they say good authors keep a personal blog or two; it helps with the promotion, and since I've decided to pursue self-publishing, I'll need all the publicity I can get. 

Well, here goes. Let the magic times roll, mates!