The Story Behind The Royal Wizard

When I was about seven or eight years old, I had a dream so vivid it felt like I was really there. I dreamed of an empty castle chamber lit with torches and candles. I didn’t see much of it but I knew it was underground, I knew it was night time, and I knew there was someone else in the room with me, a mentor of sorts. I was pacing back and forth, chanting a magic spell trying to memorize it, and just before I woke, it worked and a wall appeared in front of me.

I pretty much forgot about it at the time but it would come back to me years later, still as vivid as the night I first dreamed it. I decided to make it into a story. But as almost every “small side project” I endeavor tends to do, the characters took over, took on a life of their own, and turned the story into something much larger than I ever could have anticipated. The first, unpublished edition of The Royal Wizard came into being somewhere around the year 2008. As I did with all my longer stories back then, I printed it out, and took it to FedEx Kinkos to get it bound with as nice a cover page as I cloud manage. When I picked up the lovingly bound storybook years later, I realized I still loved the royal wizard and her king dearly.

This is one story very dear to my heart because it embodies all the innocence of childhood and fantasy. The Royal Wizard is my childhood dream, in every sense of the word. It is not a children’s story. Instead, it’s a story for the children within us all. And rather than let it gather dust at the back of my closet, I now share it with you.