Welcome to Imazia!

This is going to be a lot of fun for me! And you, I hope. What I'm going to do here is tell you how some of my characters came to be, plus a little about what their role is. Most of my favorite characters live in Imazia, my majikal country. That's because their names are mostly plays-on words, which is so much fun.

1 ~ Magenta Carmine Roberts --- My main characters full name, as those who've read my past posts know. She is called Maggie throughout the book, since it's short. I didn't come up with her middle name until probably the last year, Carmine. You know it's a special shade of red? Look it up. Don't ask me why I picked Roberts. I could have given her any other surname. It's just a name that seems to go smoothly with the rest of the name. Whether you say Magenta Roberts, Maggie Roberts or Magenta Carmine Roberts, it gives a very nice ring to it, don't you think?

2 ~ Mark Simon --- This is Maggie's crush in the story. I named him Mark because a long time ago I once had a dream of meeting a really cute guy and I woke up somehow knowing his name was Mark, even though it was probably never said so in the dream. That's a bit of an embarrassing story to share, because it makes me sound like such a hopeless romantic, but that's where I got Mark. My dream boy turns into Maggie's dream boy. Simon I got too just because it sounded good next to Mark.

Alright. My next characters are all from Imazia. These are the good ones. Trust me.

3 ~ Diggory --- A talking mole who is the first Imazian creature Maggie comes across. It's a perfect name for a mole (note the word dig inside it). In the beginning I also meant it as a reference to the boy Diggory from the Chronicles of Narnia. Remember in the Magician's Nephew? Well, if you don't, that's okay. He's a little gruff, speaks with a Hagrid-like voice.

4 ~ Mac and Dameon Nuts --- Twin brown squirrels who are friends of Diggory and like making mischief. Mac is a bit of the dominant twin, more daring and reckless, while Dameon is slightly more cautious and sensitive. I knew I wanted twins in the story, and talking squirrels sounded really cute to me. They take mostly after HP's Fred and George Weasley. (They and Diggory are the only ones I base after Harry Potter, don't worry. I'm not that much of a cheat.)

I remember coming up with their names one day when I was shopping, in

line at the supermarket, I think. My favorite type of cookie is

macadamia nuts and white chocolate. We weren't buying cookies, but the wonderful play on words just hit me and I loved them right away, because they had such good names. Macadamia = Mac and Dameon.

5 ~ The Warlock --- My villain. His title alone just makes you hate him, right? He basically wants to take over Imazia. The picture I basically paint of him is a classic bearded old guy with a long nose in dark robes. Is that too cliche? His unique and most frightening feature is his two different colored eyes. One blue and one green. Like Erec Rex, I guess, except it's not a dragon eye, he was born with different eyes. I gave him weird eyes because a couple years ago, when I took a trip to Israel, I went to someone's house and their huge cat had two colors. I'd never seen anything like it. The cat was very nice, but I knew that two eyes would make the Warlock sound a lot more evil.

6 ~ Gris Feldgrau --- The Warlock's young right hand man, er, elf. Did I mention that all the people in Imazia are elves? He does most of his dirty work. Gris is grey in spanish, and the word feldgrau means "field grey." I didn't give Gris a last name until relatively recently. It all suits him perfect. He may work for the Warlock, but he's only there because he's trapped under a complicated spell. You know the story of the swan princess? Well, Gris turns into a raven by day, and by night he can either stay raven or turn back into an elf at will. This is good for the Warlock because then Gris can fly across Imazia and spy on stuff, for example, the strange human girl who has mysteriously appeared.

7 ~ Flora Sunnair --- A girl elf as old as Maggie who has long, wild blond hair. I really like her because, like Maggie, she's kind of an alter-ego of myself, except she can do majik. She leads Maggie on a long journey across Imazia so they can find the Great Unicorn, who will apparently whisk Maggie back to Earth. Flora is a little unpredictable in her moods, but she and Maggie manage to become friends along the way, after Flora starts teaching her the art of Majik and they save each other's lives. BTW, Flora's long lost brother is Gris. Shhh!

8 ~ Bina --- An albino squirrel who is Flora's companion. She isn't sooo important to the plot, but she is a fun love interest for Mac and Dameon. Her name is great because it sounds like albino and it's like my name without the "ett" in the middle. See?

The rest of my characters are in groups. They're more like minor characters, but their names are really cool. For instance, to make the long journey to the Unicorn, Maggie and Flora ride a couple of talking horses named Naylah and Whinnis. They don't say much, but still.

Also the Warlock has an army of gnomes at his disposal. My gnomes are short, stocky creatures with hard, grey skin, almost like they're made of rock. My formula for gnome names is a body part and something rock related. So far I have Boldaphist (boulder + fist), Slabak (slab + back) and Lymeer (limestone - stone + ear).

The last characters I'll mention are a pack of wolves who somewhere in the middle of the story trap Maggie and her friends in a cave. The leader of the pack is a fierce wolf named Alphawere, named for being the alpha male and for "were" as in werewolf. He has a great group of comrades, such as Baine, Padder, and Omegar. (He's sort of at the end of pack. Get it? Omega? I hear wolf packs have those kind of social ladders. He's like the one that eats last, the one who trails behind because no one really cares about him.) Alphawere also has a mate named Bayda, which is obviously perfect. Alpha, Beta?

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Alright, this was a very long post. I am sooo sorry. It's my honesty post all over again. Dang it! I didn't mean for it to go on and on like that. Hopefully you liked getting to know my beloved characters and you won't steal them away from me for your own selfish purposes. They are mine, you hear?! If you use any one of them, I promise I'll sue.

He he, so moving on. I'll bet reading about these characters revealed about as much of myself as the truth thing did. Do you think these characters will make it into the published world? I sure hope so. I suppose I'll have to tell you about my story as a series some other time. It would just take up a bunch more space here.

BTW, how do you like the pictures I put up? I just decided to search all of them and they all were so very appropriate. The ones of Mac and Dameon, Gris and Flora are especially majikal. I'm so glad I found them. Good ol' Google Images!