There I was, less than two weeks into my apotheosis from lawyer to writer, and all I had was him, Mr. Muse (and believe me when I say, he was fine with it).

My original idea had met an untimely death, forcing its characters into a permanent hiatus (I’m sad to report this is where they remain today). Because of Mr. Muse, I had an inkling of the world we would be dealing with (after all, he’d been around for over a decade), but I had no clue what story to tell. All I knew was that he wouldn’t be the protagonist—he couldn’t be—because certain parts of his charming personality made that impossible.

So I was dressed for the ball, with a (hot) date, and no way of getting there. What now?

When you can’t write, do.

I put on my comfy house clothes, prepared myself my favorite hot tea, found the comfortable corner on our overly large couch and started brainstorming. I needed to think about him and the world he lived in; what I found most fascinating about it, and how I could tie that into a journey a reader, and I as the writer, would love to take.

Several things came together at once. I wanted to write a story that I would read, one I would be obsessive about (and if you knew me, you’d know my obsessions are epic). It would be a fantasy novel (since that’s the world he lived in), and mythology would play a major role (since that was part of his storyline and also one of my epic obsessions). I also knew it needed to take place in the present time.

Now I just needed to fill in the blanks.

For several years, I’d toyed and played with the notion of a spirit/mythical world existing in tandem with our own, inhabited by gods and creatures of every ilk. The world of ancient myth, living and breathing in modern times, not bound by culture or a particular dogma. This world would be the backdrop to my story. (The idea came from something a university professor once told me—the question shouldn’t be whether god exists; the fact that so many people believe and act in his name makes him real. In my brain, that meant: human belief, if strong enough, gives shape to the divine. If you consider that in the context of human history, that’s a heck of a lot of gods).

To make the story authentic, I would need a human protagonist to navigate this world; the juxtaposition of a human against that kind of chaos was too appealing for me to ignore. Of course, the protagonist would have to be a woman (since she would be a nice contrast to him). Cue Elena.

Now the question became (outside of the several days it took me to shape an idea of Elena in my head), what could I use to throw Elena into the chaos? How could I get a human to play a role in a world full of gods? I have to admit, that one came a little easy. Ancient myth is chockfull of stories where humans play a role. If it worked for them, then it would work for me.

There began the long search for the perfect myth, one I could use and make palpable in a modern world. As I worked on that part of the story, I had to also begin to consider the overall setting and the mythologies I wanted to explore.

I’ve always been fascinated by mythology, the similarities between different cultures in particular. I decided I would focus on the Greeks as the main mythology because their culture greatly influenced our world, but there were dozens of others I wanted to share with the reader; one of the major concepts behind choosing mythology as a subject was to educate the reader (to make you all as obsessed with this stuff as I am). I can confidently say that everything contained in the book about the different cultures and their mythology is accurate, and those places where I deviate for purposes of plot are clearly labeled as such.

The mythologies I chose ultimately dictated the supporting cast of characters. The main ones I had already developed over the years, and the new ones took shape as I reached those points in the storyline.

On the topic of setting, once I chose the particular mythologies I would explore (I decided to explore three per book), the settings came naturally; Elena would have to go to the countries that gave birth to those myths. The tricky part came when I started writing and realized there were some I hadn’t been to… but that’s a topic for another time.