The Story Behind “Redheart”

By Jackie Gamber

I’ve heard it said that all the characters in our dreams are actually ourselves; different facets of our personality in symbolic form. I don’t know whether that’s true, but the nugget of my novel Redheart started that way. I dreamed about a red dragon, and that dragon was me.

I tend to dream in sequences that tell stories. I often wake up with words on my mind, and people in my memory. Sometimes I scramble to get the ideas down right away, before they drift into the ether forever. Lost characters like lost souls. Abandoned. Other times I don’t need to write them down. They linger like a shadow, persistent and itchy, revealing themselves in greater detail when I’m supposed to be paying attention to something else. Like driving. Or fixing dinner. Or clapping for my children’s piano recital.

Kallon introduced himself to me the shadowy way. Once I realized there was more to the story than just me being dragon-ish, I got myself out of the way and listened.

I listened to Kallon better than I listen to myself, actually. I spent a number of years keeping track of him, writing down bits of his story, adding and subtracting word count so I could say I was “writing”, but all the while he was trapped in my head, I couldn’t take myself too seriously as a “writer”. After all, I had children to raise. Bible school to teach. Christmas cookies to bake. I was responsible for the homespun, happy memories my family would look back on in a few years.

Plenty of other stories had come and gone through my life. Characters I promised to create, only to leave them there in the ether. Endings I imagined but never typed. Beginnings that budded, but withered before they opened. What was so different about Kallon? About Redheart?

But he was different. He didn’t go away. The story evolved over the years, but stayed itchy and persistent, until one day, I sat down at my desk. I pushed away every dusty excuse I’d gathered to the floor. I made room in my life, swore an oath, and wrote the rest. Right to the end. All the way.

I’ve since written a lot of “The End”, and I’ve been published in venues that have held a special meaning for me. I’ve submitted some stories just to snag the few dollars and the validation that comes with acceptance. All the myriad reasons I need to get to “The End” are good reasons if they accomplish the goal, but none have been as energizing and satisfying as my first one. My Redheart.

Recently, I was addressing a high school honors writing class, and one of the very bright students asked, “What made you decide to become a writer?”

I was struck deeply by question. Often, people ask “Why do you write?” or “What made you decide to write?” and to that, I often reply I’ve never decided to write, I just always have. But, eventually, to this new question I answered, “I must have decided to become a writer because I’d already let go of so many other dreams, I was running out of them. I had to become a writer, or I would never become who I’ve always wanted to be.”

In that, I realize now, is my connection to Kallon Redheart, and why he was so different than my other lost characters. On the day I sat down to write his story, I thought I was making a promise to Kallon to finish him. But I was really making a promise to finish myself.

I dreamed about a red dragon, and that dragon was me.

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Jackie Gamber is an award-winning freelance editor, as well as award-winning author of the fantasy novel Redheart, available now through Seventh Star Press(www.seventhstarpress.com) and ebook at a special rate of $1.99! A veteran of the USAF, she is now, among other things, a rosarian, a professional BookTaster, and an avid believer in imagination. Visit Jackie and her BookTastings on the world wide web at www.jackiegamber.com