Dianne Astle's Blog

When I was writing 'Ben and the Watcher of Zargon' I became concerned that the book was getting too dark. To solve that problem I went back and wrote in a new character. I thought the brownie would soften the book a little. He was just supposed to be a minor character with a walk-on/walk-off part to play. However, Moses, as he was named near the end of the book, had a mind of his own and turned into a fairly major character. In fact, I am thinking of naming the third book in his honor. How does 'Moses and the Dragonborn' sound for a title?

When I was writing Ben the Dragonborn I tried to imagine who would most want to read it. I decided that Ben the Dragonborn would most likely appeal to boys aged 11 to 15.

When the first draft of the book was in my hand I gave it to an eleven year old girl, thinking that sometime in the future her younger brother would read it. The grandfather read some of the book to the younger brother. He could not wait for his grandfather to read more and so Ben the Dragonborn became the first chapter book he read on his own. I never thought of my book as being for anyone that young before, but I was wrong.

So one might say that Ben the Dragonborn is a children's book, except that a lot of adults are giving it positive feedback. It has even been read by some great-grandparents, who are reading it before passing it on to a younger member of the family. I never dreamed that Ben the Dragonborn would be read and enjoyed by great-grandparents.

My favourite story is of a mom, dad and two younger teens who read the book on the way to Grandma 's house. At first the teens were not very excited about the idea of doing a family read. However, as their mom read the book out-loud they got engrossed in the story and laid aside their technology to just listen. I am told that everyone in the family enjoyed the book.

I am grateful to everyone who has taken the time to read Ben the Dragonborn. I am very thankful to those who have taken the time to leave a review.

A lot has happened since the release of Ben the Dragonborn on November 4th. I asked Sean Sherstone if he would consider doing a promo video for the book. Sean was looking for a reason to learn to use the software needed to do this kind of work and so he said yes. It was a huge learning curve for Sean, but the video is incredibly good.

Sean's first step was to read the book. Fortunately for me he was inspired by the story of heroes, and mer folk and dragons. One of the things Sean did for the video was learn to draw Celtic knots since they are featured on important items in the story.

After finishing with the Youtube trailer Sean created a web site, which is absolutely awesome. All I can say is that I am one lucky author.

Here are the links if you are interested.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rB1UJb...

www.benthedragonborn.com

It seems I have always been drawn to dragons. There is the dragon tea pot, with a spout that doesn't really work, so it sits on the shelf. There is the dragon necklace I've never worn. And the only stuffed toy I've ever bought for myself as an adult was, you guessed it, a dragon. Someone once asked me what kind of animal I would be if I could be an animal. There was a look of shock on her face when I said dragon. So it only makes sense that when I write a book there would be dragons in it.