| History of the Quest Saga |
| Just as the title above states, this is a brief history of the Quest Saga and how it grew from a simple kid’s fantasy and into an entire universe I never could have foreseen. It’s actually been a long, long journey and as time has passed I feel that as I’ve matured as a writer, so has the Quest grown and matured as well; perhaps evolved is a better word. I’ve always enjoyed writing stories, I’ve been doing it since I could first grasp a pen. These days it’s become more of a passion for me, a way to escape from the hectic troubles of my daily life. Some like to run, some like to play golf, and some prefer to drink heavily. I prefer to write (although I haven’t ruled out the drinking heavily thing either). I think one of the reasons I’ve held onto the Quest Saga for as long as I have is because I have so much fun with it. I adore the characters and their adventures truly do fascinate me; I’ve said that no matter if I sell a million copies or not a single one, I know I have one true fan out there: myself. There are times that I crack open Book I or (Book II for that matter) to double check a fact for continuity sake, and I’ll end up spending an hour or more reading the book. I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or a bad thing, but I do know that I truly do love the Quest Saga and appreciate it for the profound impact it’s had on my life.
Now a little back story on why the Quest Saga is a fantasy epic and not, say, a cops & robbers, or sci-fi, or western, or whatever the devil else it could be. I have always loved the fantasy world idea. Knights, princesses, dragons, faeries, magick, etc. have always intrigued me. As a child (and further into my adult life than I’d chose to freely admit) I would pretend to slay dandelion dragons with a tree branch sword and smash imaginary trolls with an enchanted baseball bat club. Once the NES (Nintendo Entertainment System) took the world by storm, I always favored (and still play to this very day) titles like the Legend of Zelda, Dragon Warrior, and Wizards & Warriors. Ditto when the Super NES came out. I loved to read old mythology stories, and Beowulf, Gilgamesh, the Arthurian legends, and other tales of faeries and magick have all influenced the Quest in some form or fashion. I absolutely adored fantasy style cartoons (and still do, as evident by my readiness to plop $180 on a DVD set) like The Real Ghostbusters, Dungeons & Dragons, The Hobbit, and The Last Unicorn. I am a regular at the Texas Renaissance Festival and look forward to it more than Christmas every year. Now, after hearing all of this I am quite sure you’ll accuse me of lying with what I’m about to say, but I swear it’s true. I have never played Dungeons & Dragons in any form. Oh, I collected the books, monster guides mostly, but I never have sat down and played it. I have no idea what the deuce a save throw is nor do I know what +3d on a twenty sided die does. Also, and perhaps even more unbelievable, I don’t really care for modern fantasy books, anything written after 1864 give or take a decade. I have never read any of the Lord of the Rings books (I’m a total LOTR poser, I admit it) nor have I any desire to see the movies (aside from the cartoons). I read about three pages of the Hobbit, but put it down and never picked it back up. And I could not name a single fantasy author or even title, aside from Harry Potter, which I have also never read/saw. Hard to believe, I know. Or maybe not so hard to believe as I’m sure many critics will say that I don’t know how to pen in the fantasy genre but phooey on them! I’m having fun doing it my way and I’m not writing for any critic, damning or otherwise. Okay, now back to the actual history part (five hours later): Although the Quest Saga has an official birthday (more on that in a bit), the story has its roots in a story I wrote about the age of seven or eight called “The Quest of Sir James” (and if you don’t know what the J. in J. A. Flores stands for, shame on you!). It was about a knight, Sir James, who is called before the king to rescue the princess who had been kidnapped by an evil dragon. The king also tried to recruit two other knights, but they were too cowardly to answer the call. The princess was named after a girl who I had my first (non-cartoon) crush on while the cowardly knights were named after bullies that occasionally tormented me (heh-heh-heh). It was a short story in the most literal sense: maybe four or five pages of LARGE scribbled handwriting. I don’t have the actual story anymore, but oddly enough I still do have the original title page somewhere. I toyed with the story for years, mostly while playing outside or with my toys. During school if ever the time came up for creative writing projects, the story would be the basis for said project. I remember clearly one time in sixth grade, Mrs. Darling’s English class, we were put into groups of six and given an initial topic. The first person would write for five minutes, then pass it to the next person and so forth; the point was to come up with some sort of junior jumble story, I think. Anywho, when it came my turn I swerved it into the Quest of Sir James (minus the Sir James). This upset my team members because they thought it was lame and stupid (direct quotes, BTW, less the profanities {it’s amazing the things one remembers twenty years after the fact}) and they all voted to nix it from the final to be turned in. Mrs. Darling asked why I hadn’t contributed, they proudly told her why, she asked to see my portion, she loved my portion, I got an A and the rest of my team…well, did not. My social life improved tremendously (note the use of sarcastic italics). How I escaped getting beat up that day is a mystery, but later my social life did improve tremendously (note the non-use of sarcastic italics) as a similar project came up not too much later. A couple of cute girls (not from my first team) insisted that I join their team. Yes, they were using me. Yes, they forgot I existed after getting their A’s. Yes, I knew all of this even then. BUT, it still made my week. I continued using The Quest of Sir James on and off in various forms in school and for fun. Let’s fast-forward to 1992, November 6th to be exact. This is the day, the exact day that The Quest as it now exists was born. I was a sophomore in high school and my English 2 teacher Mr. Hokanson was having us do journals. Everyday to start the class or end it, I forget which, he would give us a current events topic to write about. He’d collect them at the end of the week, grade them, and give them back Monday. Wash-rinse-repeat. Fridays were typically free days and we could write whatever we wanted as long as semi-coherent thoughts covered the page. On this particular day (11/06/1992) I was in the mood to write the Quest of Sir James. Now, I had given up that title and had just taken to call it the Story. I never considered being an author or writing a book, it was just something to do when I was grounded for low grades (which happened a lot {sorry mom and dad}). I wrote 11 or so lines in the time given and cranked out this: |
 |
I particularly like krushed, thru, and excaped. Might I add that this was written when I was in 10th grade english and the story after this receive an A+, another 10 line story about a private eye (Jim Reaper, P.I. {Goddess, I had completely forgotten about that one!}) with about the same grammatical skills. You will note, however, that Kuberica is present. A friend happened to be looking over my shoulder, Rafael Curdy who would become the inspiration for Second General Raphael Boniva. He asked to look at it and asked if I had written more about it. I told him I had a few ideas, to which he responded by clapping and shouting “Author! Author! We have an author here!” He told me I should try my hand at writing a book, which got the wheels turning in my head and I started the Story that very day. I actually still have the journal (as obvious from the scan), I’ve kept it safe and preserved all these years. This is about the place where I would say “and the rest is history *buh-bum-bum-duh*!” However, I’ve been working on the Quest Saga for over a decade and a half! If the Quest was a kid, it’d be driving by now! Let me tell you, that is a very surreal realization. I have reached the point where I have been working on the Quest longer than I haven't been. I must admit I'm typically not the most dedicated person in the world and I more often than not succumb to the 24-hour Rule, which dicates that once I have an idea, I have 24 hours to complete it. I get really, really excited about something and come up with grand plans and schemes for it, but if I don't do something with it quickly (about 24 hours, sometimes longer) I abandon it for some other grand plan and/or scheme. To have been working on the Quest for as long as I have and still be excited about, even more so now than when I started, that completely floors me. Anywho, this page has gone on long enough. Don't think this story's quite finished yet, there still more to it. Click here to be sent to Page 2 of the History of the Quest Saga! |
 |
 |
|
| all content copyright j.a.flores. All Rights Reserved |