Why I Wrote The Real Dragon

Click on the image for details on how to buy this short story for .99!

I don’t have a guest author this week and it feels kind of odd. I hope, dear readers, that you enjoy these peeks behind the writing curtain as much as I do.

As you may or may not know, Pets in Space went off sale May 1^st forever and ever. The rights for the stories were returned to their authors, who will decide when and where to release them. For me, I decided to release “The Real Dragon” right after the anthology went off sale.

You can find it in two places. As a stand-alone short story, or bundled together with all of my shorter science fiction romance. (I was playing with some formatting software and went a little nuts. Haha) So if you like your fiction in print format, the bundle is the way to go.

So, since “The Real Dragon” is ‘out there,’ I thought this would be a good time to tell you the story behind the story. If this were a short movie, this would be a video. I’d be sitting in a comfy chair, perhaps with leather patches on the elbows of my tee shirt, a Diet Dr. Pepper in hand, recalling the anthology and my story.

But this isn’t. All I’ve got are words.

So “The Real Dragon” came about because a friend and I were talking about how fun it would be to do an anthology about pets in space. I’ve written about that elsewhere, so I’m going to drill down to the actual story and how it happened.

Not that I actually know how I come up with ideas. Lol But I will say, I was mulling pets, regular pets in space, unusual pets in space. Not once did I think of a lizard in space. But nothing was lighting the spark, so I went to Google. Wow, Google knows a lot. I did a search for unusual pets and the bearded dragon popped up and just like that, I could see a bearded dragon looking at my character.

And the story just unrolled inside my head. It was not the most strategic story I’ve ever written. It’s not connected to any of my series. It’s written in first person, which I know some readers don’t like. But I had a lot of fun writing it.

And…a bearded dragon might show up in another story at some point. They are very cool pets.

And don’t forget to look for the next adventure in space: Embrace the Romance: Pets in Space 2! It will release Oct 10, 2017. While you’re waiting for it, there’s a website and a Facebook group with lots and lots of pet talk going on.

So, dear readers, do you like hearing the story behind the stories? Have you ever thought about a bearded dragon for a pet? If you could have ANY pet from any time, what would it be?

I love comments so much that I pick a favorite to receive my monthly AnaBanana gift basket ($25 value).  (And don’t forget that once a quarter I’ll be tossing in something fun from the Perilously Fun Shop!) The recipient is announced in the first blog post of the new month.

Perilously yours,

Pauline

Click on the cover to find out how to buy this collection for $2.99!