SECRET IDENTITY REVEALED
(THE PROJECT BEGINS)

At this point, you’ve likely realized I wasn’t actually speaking about Harry Potter. I just used that name as a placeholder for the real person, who as it turns out isn’t a wizard, and isn’t even a boy. Her name is Lorian Ellis, and in September of 2022, I invited her to my cabin, along with the rest of the then current Novel House student body. 

From left to right: Rae (Ginny), Michael (Dumbledore), John (Ron), Lorian (Harry)

On July 2022, two months ahead of the meeting, I wrote to Lorian:

Are you familiar with using a Mac? 

She replied:

I used one for a short while after a friend gifted me a very old one that was a relic from his one-time workplace. I found it to be less intuitive than my HP laptop (probably because I’ve always used HPs), but not impossible. So I wouldn’t say “familiar”, but I won’t be at a total loss.

My response:

Summer reading, pick up a copy of Switching to a Mac For Dummies. Read it.

The day everyone arrived and settled in there was a strange and unplanned gift-giving moment where everyone brought something for me. In return, I handed out Ember Mugs (if you don’t know what they are, and you regularly drink coffee or tea – look them up, you’ll thank me later) to all of  them—all except Lorian. I explained I had something else for her. Then I took her aside for a private conversation. I explained that I was very pleased with her progress on the book she had been writing (a contemporary novel set in Virginia) but I had something else I wanted to discuss. 

I explained how I had just turned sixty a few days before and how my father died when he was fifty. I was at this time working on the early concepts for The Cycle and realizing how big of a project it would  be. I also had other stories outlined in notebooks that have nothing to do with Elan that have languished for over a decade, books I have longed to write. Since The Cycle would take five to eight years to create, I had to assume I wouldn’t have time for anything else. 

I had been toying with the idea of creating a set of spin-off series that would detail the thousand years of the four Heirs and their Guardians that follow after the fall of Percepliquis. Nevrik and Jerish would be the first of these series that I imagined as four sets of trilogies—one series for each of the fugitive heirs which would from Nevrik to Naron. As I would never have the time to write these works, I thought I might entrust these projects to four different writers who would be given the freedom to create their own characters and plots that would utilize my existing historical framework. 

I saw this not only as a means of creating a foundation for my world to grow, but also for it to possibly outlive me, and to create a real gateway for new writers to launch careers. I had considered established authors, but abandoned that idea for two reasons. First, I wanted to provide a vehicle for unknown talent, and second, I don’t work well with others, and an established author might not be as inclined to take direction.   

Lorian was the perfect candidate. She was a superfan of my work before becoming a writer. She wanted to learn to write like I did, and I had just spent the last two years teaching her exactly that. Most importantly…she had learned. 

And so that beautiful autumn day in the lush valley of Shenandoah, I offered Lorian the opportunity to become my protégé. This was her chance to write fan fiction on a scale she never dreamed possible. I honestly don’t recall her exact response, but I think it was something close to: “Ah…yeah.”

I explained that this was a secret project, that no one was to know what she was working on because I was giving her no guarantee. If she wasn’t able to do it—if she couldn’t reach my standards—it wasn’t going to happen. And I didn’t want her to suffer the humiliation of everyone knowing she tried and failed. As such, she couldn’t tell the world at large, and she couldn’t even tell those at Novel House. She was about to become a superhero with a secret identity. 

It was then that I revealed her gift: my old desktop Mac—the one I had bought myself when I felt my career was doing well enough that I deserved the best computer I could buy. I had purchased it back in June of 2014, but recently upgraded. There was nothing wrong with the old machine, and Lorian was working on a not-so-perfect laptop at the time. The old Mac had two other notable distinctions. It was the machine I had used to write The Death of Dulgath, The Disappearance of Winter’s Daughter, and the entire Legends series, but more importantly, it had my Scrivener file. 

Scrivener is a word-processing program designed for writers developed by Literature & Latte. While it’s on both the Mac and Windows platforms, it’s native to Mac. If Lorian was going to work with me, I wanted us both on the same platform using the same software. I began using Scrivener back in 2014 with some trepidation, but quickly realized its full potential as not only a word processor but as a repository of project information. All of my books, notes, research, characters, settings, timelines, and maps were embedded in that one file. I hadn’t bequeathed Lorian a computer—I’d given her Elan. 

Problem was, she knew almost nothing about Macs. And so I rebuilt the old machine with Lorian in mind. I had it set up so the moment she booted it. Lorian would find messages from me explaining everything she needed to do, step by step, to learn how to use the machine, the software, and the file. I called this the “Minor Upgrade,” and included the “Video Diary” scene from the end of Spiderman: Homecoming, where Tony Stark gives Peter Parker a new suit, just in case she didn’t get the reference.  

Her next step was to brainstorm the first book in her trilogy. That was the easy part. The hard stuff was on the way, and she had to prove herself worthy before she could become an Avenger. 

(Stay tuned for more.)

Hey all, Robin here.

Now that the we’ve taken the hood off of “mystery writer.” I’d like to tell you how you can reach out to her.  Like Michael, she is active on goodreads (something I asked her to do). Here are some specifics:

• Lorian’s Website
• Lorian on BlueSky
• Lorian on Goodreads
• Drop Lorian a line at this link
• Sign up for Lorian’s Newsletters