If you ask Chris what he believes the Last Dragon Chronicles is really about, he will not answer you with “squirrels,” “polar bears,” or even “dragons”; he will say “creativity.”

Like almost every other person alive, Chris questions who he is and where he fits in this world. Unlike most people, however, he explores this through the medium of writing, “trying characters and ideas on” to see if they have any resonance. Are they him?

Sometimes, we have conflicting parts of ourselves that want different things — one part wanting ice cream and another part wanting Jell-O for instance. As an author, Chris cannot only have both, but also feels no personal conflict about it, as his characters do the wanting for him. His characters are, in truth, facets of his own self, held up to the light for examination. Thus, in these books, Chris is actually exploring his own psyche.

Chris has found, like any other author, that in a story he can be whoever he wants, do whatever he wants, and go wherever he wants, with no boundaries and no limits. Another human being? An animal? A tree? A nail in a floorboard? No problem: Anything is possible. It is relatively easy for him to describe polar bears, for example, as he knows what they look like. But the trick to being a great writer is to go beyond that and “become” that bear. To describe its thoughts, feelings and actions from the inside, as it lives them itself.

This is what Chris likes to do; in fact, he claims that if he were to be an animal, a polar bear is exactly what he would choose to be. His love and respect for them is clear in the stories.

The creation of the character David Rain, who is based on Chris as a young man, allows Chris to take a look at himself from a distance, and decide whether he likes what he sees. If not, it can all be changed.

David Rain … sometimes

Creating characters, in general, is a way to look at yourself, your life, your beliefs, your feelings, safely and without fear of being laughed at or ridiculed. After all, it’s not you, is it? For young people, it’s possible to test things out through someone you’ve created, before committing yourself to those things in real life. Not sure whether you’d enjoy being a doctor? Write about one, and see. Feeling awkward about talking to your mom about something? Try it out on paper first.

When he was a boy, Chris always dreamed of being a rock star, a professional soccer player, or an astronaut. Needless to say, none of those things happened — he didn’t want them enough. These days, he still likes to write songs but only watches soccer on TV (it requires less energy, he says). Taking a ride in the space shuttle remains a dream, but now, as a writer, he could easily experience any of those childhood fancies at the touch of a key.

David Rain starts out as a naïve, innocent young man, with a clean slate as far as his ideas about himself and his world are concerned. He has none, really. But over the course of a little more than six years, book-time, he goes on a staggering personal journey to become something beyond his wildest imaginings. Something he didn’t even know it was possible to be (read the books to find out exactly what). Through writing the Last Dragon Chronicles, Chris’s life, too, has changed and expanded, often beyond his own expectations. He’s very grateful to his alter ego, David Rain.

Since becoming a writer (of songs and stories) the one question Chris has wrangled with is this: Where does inspiration come from? The creation of Gadzooks as a character was meant to answer that. Gadzooks is the physical manifestation of the fire within, the creative force that resides within us all. Gadzooks represents that part of us that does have all the answers — if only we could access them. Zookie, as he is affectionately called, enables David to do just that. As long as he trusts his faithful dragon and the words he writes on his pad, all is well — eventually!

The crucial thing in the stories that is emphasized repeatedly is that David loves Gadzooks, that he must never make him cry, so that he won’t shed his fire tear, or lose his spark. In other words, David must keep Zookie’s inner flame alight. In day-to-day terms, Chris is telling himself to “stay friends” with his creative source, or he will run the risk of losing its help, and with it the ability to be inspired. Believing in Gadzooks “raises his auma,” that is, makes the connection to David stronger. The more that happens, the easier the connection is maintained. Self-belief is vital for a writer.

Gadzooks is also a vehicle to open David’s mind to possibilities beyond those that would usually be considered the accepted norm. Likewise, by following his own intuition, Chris can create his own pathway through the world, literary or otherwise, instead of simply retracing the old familiar tracks of habit.

As if all that wasn’t enough, Zookie is able to predict the future — only a very short while ahead — or he makes the future happen, or perhaps a little of both. In the book, it is deliberately kept ambivalent as to whether fiction is mirroring life, or vice versa. Chris is telling himself that circumstances are not always definitely one thing or another. Sometimes they are much more complex than that; wisdom often lies in keeping an open mind.

Chris often finds vital bits of information for a story just popping up at the exact moment he needs them. This happens far too many times to ignore. He now just accepts it as part of the creative process. And if the information isn’t close to hand, a quick request to the Universe (that is, a mental plea sent out for help) usually brings what is required, and often from very unlikely sources.

Chris trusts Gadzooks in the sense that he often doesn’t know what he’s writing about until after he’s done it. To paraphrase David, when he describes writing his stories to Liz, “It’s a bit like being on a mystery tour…. You sort of know that you’re going, but you can’t be sure where until you arrive.”

Chris will write anywhere. (Not on walls in subways, of course.) When away from home, he has to make do with any odd moment that he can find, at any time of day, or even night, sometimes, to type on his laptop. Ideally, however, Chris writes in the mornings, till around two-thirty if “in the zone.” An average of 500–1,000 words is considered to be a “good” day — but on a “bad” day, he’ll stare at the carpet till ten, cut his fingernails for fifteen minutes, and decide it’s imperative that he rearrange his paper clips (individually) for another hour. Then he’ll have a change of pace and strum his guitar, waiting for inspiration to come. Clearly, though, it’s inspiration’s day off: It will take Chris forty-three minutes and twenty-two seconds to realize this. (He’ll be watching the hands of the clock by now.) Eventually, he will write a paragraph. Rewrite it. Erase some of it. Replace it in a different order. Erase all of it. Snarl a bit. Growl a bit. Write it again. Then he’ll come downstairs having achieved nothing but an oversized headache. Thankfully, days like these are few and far between.

However, on those days when he does get “in the zone” — lost in that other world — he can hardly get the words out quickly enough. The story flows and pours out of him almost faster than he can write it down. Chris says this is the biggest “high” in the world. Time ceases to exist for him, and even when he comes downstairs for something to eat he is still in a daze and has to take time out to readjust to this world. It is almost as if the story has already been written on some other plane of existence, and Chris is just “listening” and copying it down; as if the story itself is a living entity and wants to be told, just as much as Chris wants to tell it. It’s a cooperative venture, he says.

Other authors have spoken of a similar feeling, that they have to just “reach up” and grab a story “out of the ether.” This could explain why many books on a particular subject (say, vampires, wizards, or dragons) are created at similar times. Some writers will be just “jumping on the bandwagon” of something that has been proven to be a recent commercial success, but discounting that, there is a definite “zeitgeist” (meaning “spirit of the time”) effect going on. A basic idea seems to make itself known to any who are able to perceive it “floating around,” but each person filters it through their own personality and writing style, so different authors will have different “takes” on it, and thus will turn out different books, all with the same theme.

Chris is interested in many different subjects beyond the boundaries of accepted reality, and explores them in his writing. Subjects such as quantum mechanics, time (is there such a thing?) travel, probable realities, parallel universes (are there other versions of “us”?), life (with or without physical bodies) on other worlds, and the expansion of consciousness all appeal to him hugely. He has always had an attraction to such topics and investigates them in his imagination before including them in his fiction. But is it fiction? Could it be that we do choose our own parents, as Alexa does, or that death is “just another place to be”? Can we heal ourselves simply by the power of thought? Or affect the outcome of situations just by intention?

Our understanding of this world is changing all the time, and there are a larger and larger numbers of scientists who are now beginning to think that some, if not all, of these things may be within our capabilities as human beings, at some point in the future, if not currently (some say there is only an eternal “now”). Perhaps in days or years or centuries to come, extra-sensory perception — things like telepathy, manifesting by visualization, conversing with flowers and the apparently inanimate Universe — will be commonplace. Perhaps there really is a fine line between what you imagine and what you create. In which case, we had all better start imagining wonderful things — and thus do our part toward creating a wonderful world in which to live in peace and harmony. As David Rain says, “All things are possible with The Fire Eternal,” the most creative force in the Universe.

^* This is what Gwilanna disparagingly calls storytellers.