The Inspiration for The Kalista Chronicles

"This is where the fun begins..."

    I have talked about this before on many of my social media accounts, but someone asked, so I’m going to write it down this time, or type it out as the case may be. The Born Angel Universe is a relatively new construct in my mind. Before it had such a concise name, it was simply “My stories about Kalista and the Preters (if you're not sure what preters are, see the FAQ) in her world.” Before that it was simply an idea about a story featuring a gothic girl who finds out that she’s the daughter of the Devil, a Nephilim.

Wait, weren't you homeschooled?

    Yes, I was. From first grade all the way until I graduated. So, where does a homeschooled, closeted goth girl come up with an idea like that? Well, from playing with my cousin and sister. Yes, we had a world all our own where our characters had powers, the supernatural was more prevalent, and Angels, demons, vampires, shyfters, and other beings that inhabit the fantasies of our generation were real. This was where the Born Angel Universe found it’s humble beginnings. In the backyard of a parsonage in upstate New York, where my Uncle was the preacher. We would go outside to play and let our minds wander. It wasn’t until I was thirteen that I found a true story taking shape in my mind, something that might just become more than a daydream... 

When did we start writing?

    It wasn’t for another five years, at age eighteen, that I thought about writing it all down. It was simply a story that we had written some down in letters that we sent back and forth, since my cousin moved quite a bit over the years. My cousin and sister decided to start writing before I did though they have yet to finish a story. 

   I vaguely remember them starting their writing journey's when they were about fifteen or sixteen, which was back when I was thirteen in the summer of 2006. I however didn't start writing until five years later in the Spring of 2011 just before I graduated Highschool and went off to a Summer Work Program to help pay for the year of college I took, but I digress.

What was the first draft like?

  Compared to now, it was a bit different. I finished the first draft in October of 2012 as I gave the first draft to my husband as a wedding present, which I found while cleaning last year. It has changed so much since then. 

   When I started writing, I only knew three things about Kalista:

1.  She was a goth young adult with powers that were cropping up out of the blue.
2. Her mother was dead and she was living with her mom's godmother. 
3. She had NO IDEA who her father was.  

    As I wrote and talked to my sister and cousin about that world again, garnering ideas, I found out so much more, but that book is sadly no longer canon. Pieces of it will be used in books through out the series, but as a whole, that book will remain unpublished. It was indeed my first and worst draft.

What about this Nephilim thing? What is that?

    Nephilim was a word I first heard in college during a lecture on the book of Genesis. A Nephilim is the child of an Angel and a Human. The passage that they got it from specifically doesn't even have the word in some versions, so even though I grew up staunchly religious, (which I'm not anymore, but we'll talk about that in another blog... possibly.) I had never even heard the word before college. The verse says:

"The Nephilim were in the earth in those days, and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bore children to them; the same were the mighty men that were of old, the men of renown." (Genesis 6:1-2)

    Which got me to thinking about Kalista being the daughter of a human, thought that was quickly throw aside... 

In Conclusion...

    I thought more about her background, her mother, Lou's true character, and changed a lot of things about that first book, BUT regardless, the inspiration for my stories came back from when I was a kid and little bits and pieces that I've thought on, daydreamed about, and outlined from prompts that I have found around the internet over the years. 

   Sometime soon, I'll have to write a blog explaining how Kalista's series went from just ten books to the twenty plus series that I now have planned and how the first book in the series became three books. We'll see how the ideas I have for the next few books pan out, and if they too become triplicate books or simply really big books.

~Thanks for reading! That was a long one, but I did warn you... ^_^;

~ Jenn, aka Born Angel Author.