Heritage: Book One of the Gairden Chronicles

by David L. Craddock

  Heritage was better than that. I would not banish Aidan, his magical sword, and eight generations of his family members to the pits of literary hell where first novels go to suffer eternal agony. Every story has a genesis. Fix yourself a hot drink, curl up, and get comfortable. I’d like to share the story behind the story with you.

  The idea for Heritage—not the book, but the sword—came to me in early 2004. When I wasn’t attending college courses or ringing a cash register at my local Waldenbooks, I read a lot of fantasy novels. A steady diet of Robert Jordan, David Eddings, Sara Douglass, R. A. Salvatore, and Terry Goodkind gave rise to an idea to which I’m sure those writers and others can relate: I should write my own fantasy novel! But what would it be about? Well, it would be about a sword. Of course it would.

  I loved swords, and the fantasy authors I read certainly favored them. Rand al’Thor of Wheel of Time fame wielded Callandor, a crystal sword through which he could channel great quantities of magic. In The Sword of Truth, Richard Rahl used (wait for it) the Sword of Truth to arbitrate matters and root out fact from falsehood. Drizzt Do’Urden from R. A. Salvatore’s The Legend of Drizzt brandished his magical scimitars, Twinkle and Icingdeath, and cut a path through prejudice and injustice across the Forgotten Realms.

  My close examination of the Fantasy Novel Recipe picked out two key ingredients: a protagonist with a catchy name, and a sword. Aidan Gairden didn’t come along until a year or so later, but I hit on the defining element for his sword right away: family.

  I lost my father in 2002, when I was 19. I knew my dad as any boy knows his dad: cool guy, sense of humor, loved me, was proud of me, hooked up my video-game consoles to the TV before I was old enough to know how to set them up without electrocuting myself, and took us kids out for a night on the town every weekend we visited. My favorite memory of my dad is of Christmas morning in... I want to say 1989, but it might have been 1990. I was seven, maybe eight. That year (whichever it was), I asked for a Game Boy, and I got it. I knew I got it before I opened the package. I’d spent enough hours with my nose and fingertips pressed up against the glass display case at Toys R Us to recognize the Game Boy-shaped box (which included Tetris!) disguised in wrapping paper on Christmas morning. But Dad didn’t know I knew, and I decided to string him along a bit.

  We went through the usual routine: the kids went to the tree and sorted gifts, passing them around in orderly fashion until everyone had a sizable pile by their chair or spot on the sofa. Then we dug in. The sounds of little hands shredding wrapping paper followed swiftly by squeals of glee filled the living room. I saved the Game Boy (plus Tetris!) for last. I held it in my lap and turned it over, as if there was anything to see besides a wrapping-paper patchwork of Santa and his reindeers, and a tag: To: David, From: Dad and Teresa, my step-mom. Holding it close, I peered around, feigning curiosity in what curios had been deposited down the chimney for my kid sisters and brother. Oooh, a Little Mermaid doll? Nail polish? Fisher-Price toys (Daniel was only one or two that year)? How wonderful for you!

  All the while, I watched my dad out of the corner of my eye. He had taken my grandpa’s recliner (a bold move) and had unwrapped the prerequisite cologne set and tie, the usual knickknacks kids get their dads for Christmas. Now he was watching me, appearing at ease. He folded his hands. Then he leaned over the arm of the chair. He looked like... well, like a kid on Christmas morning, waiting for the alarm clock to tick over from 5:57 to 5:58, look away, doze off, look back and oh finally THANK GOD—wait, no, it’s still 5:58 ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW.

  “David,” he said finally, and not a little impatiently. “You’ve still got one more present, there.”

  Oh? Do I? Why, I plumb forgot!

  I peeled off the wrapping paper slowly, carefully, like one of those people crazy enough to attempt to save the paper for next year. I glanced up. Dad’s eyes were popping out of his skull. I ended his torment, and mine: I shredded, I saw the purple Game Boy logo, the gold-and-white Official Nintendo Seal of Quality, and man, I flipped out. I whooped, letting out all that pent-up excitement, and paraded my prize around the living room like it was the Stanley Cup. Dad watched, laughed, and clapped, absolutely delighted that he had made my day.

  Fifteen (maybe sixteen) years later, Dad was gone.

  When I think of him, I see the man whose smile outshone mine on the Christmas morning I opened my Game Boy. That’s how I remember him because that’s how I knew him, and that’s bittersweet. There’s a difference between knowing your parents as a kid, and knowing them on an adult-to-adult level. Commiserating with them over taxes, long hours, bills, and relationship problems. Meeting them for lunch, and picking up the check for them for a change. Watching their eyes light up when you’re old enough to know them, really know them, and place something more thoughtful than a stupid tie under the Christmas tree.

  That wound will never close, but in 2004, it was still fresh. Leaky. Dad was gone, and I missed him terribly. I wish I would have said all the things I never said, or said only in passing, I found myself thinking at least 76 times a day. Let me give you an example: “Love you, too.” It sounds so perfunctory during a goodnight kiss. You mean it, but it’s ritualistic, just like, “How are you?” to which you reply, “Good, and you?” I wish I could have sat him down, looked him in the eye, and said, with no presents or Saturday night dinners and trips to the arcade and the bookstore acting as a motivator: “I love you.”

  But it was too late. Dad was gone—but he had thoughtfully germinated my fictitious sword with the idea I needed to set it apart from the likes of Callandor and Icingdeath. Heritage. My sword would be called Heritage. At any time, a king or queen could pick it up and talk with their parents, their grandparents—about guidance in matters of monarchy, for access to magic spells lost to time, and, more than anything else, for the opportunity to say the things they didn’t think to say when their loved ones were alive.

  I’m proud and grateful that I’ve been able to get to know my mom, my biggest supporter, as an adult over these last several years. (I won’t kid myself and believe I’m her equal, because no one is or ever will be.) But one day, she’ll be gone, too. Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to talk to her, and to dad, and so many other loved ones, when that day comes?

  I spent all of 2004 and the first nine months of 2005 fleshing out my Great American Fantasy Novel. When my legion of fans (Mom, Gramma, and later, my wife-to-be) asked what the book was about, I put on my poker face. “It’s about a sword,” I replied. It became an inside joke, but as the years went by, I realized my inside joke was kinda true. Heritage had a purpose, but what about Aidan Gairden, the boy who wielded it? A protagonist without a soul is like Pinocchio: he looks like a real boy, talks like a real boy, and walks like a real boy, but he’s a puppet, make no mistake about it.

  It wasn’t until 2012, eight years and I don’t even remember how many drafts of Heritage later, that I hit on the reason I wanted to tell Aidan’s story. The reason I needed to tell his story. We’ve all faced peer pressure. Some of us have even stood our ground against it, and good for you! But most of us haven’t. Most of us know that it’s easier to keep our mouths shut and do as we’re told. No questions. No thinking. Just follow. Aidan knows that, and he suffers unending consequences for it.

  Whew. Okay, that’s enough with the drama, don’t you think? The third and final reason for the existence of Heritage is less sobering. There’s a certain spirit—a certain magic, if you will— about a party of adventurers gathered around a campfire, sharpening their swords and preparing to catch some shuteye rolled in a sleeping bag in a ditch before rising at dawn to get back on the road toward the black tower off in the distance. Of battling fantastical creatures over sprawling, empty countryside. Of sitting in a study, the smell of old books overpowering the scent of stew roasting over open flames, and listening to wizened sorcerers talk of ages past. Of sucking in our breath when the heroes get knocked down by some ancient evil force, and cheering them on when they
get up, dust themselves off, and give as good as they got. Of turning pages late into the night because fantasy worlds are so much fun to visit when the chaos of work, school, and family responsibilities press in a little too tightly.

  I wrote Heritage because I had something I wanted to say, and because, as a writer, I let my characters do the talking for me. But I also wrote it because I wanted to pay tribute to the magical, mysterious, and wonderful stories I grew up reading.

  In January 2013, with snow piling up outside and my apartment good and toasty, I doped Aidan with anesthetic, picked up my scalpel, and commenced surgery on what would be the second-to-final draft of Heritage. Two months later, Aidan came to, groggy, but so much stronger than before he’d gone under the knife. Heritage was done-ish. I sent it off to Margaret Curelas at Tyche Books. Four months later, I uncrossed my fingers long enough to open the email I’d been waiting for: Margaret read Heritage, and she loved it.

  We had a little more work to do, but not much, to my delight and hers. Margaret is a fantastic editor because she helps her writers smooth out edges rather than ask them to build an entirely new piece. She helped me hit on the right word when I was almostbut-not-quite near it, pointed out inconsistencies, and offered suggestions designed to help me tell the story I’d set out to tell.

  Three rounds of edits later, completed over roughly two months, and Heritage is done. Not done-ish. Done. Finished. THE END. And that’s weird. It’s weird to think—to know—that Aidan will never again pop into my head for a late-night chat about Heritage. I stick to a writing schedule, as some writers do, because it’s the only way I know to stay disciplined. There were nights when a flurry of ideas would batter at my brain. I’d type furiously in the book’s journal and go to bed, as excited to wake up refreshed and ready to write with Aidan as that nine- or ten-year-old boy was to open his Game Boy so many Christmases ago. That’s something Aidan and I have done for 10 years, and I’m proud to say that each draft of his first adventure turned out so much better than the one before it.

  Yes, our book. Aidan is real to me. That’s how it works. Writers aren’t drivers. When the writing is going well, really well, we’re in the passenger seat, giving out directions when needed, but also knowing when to switch off the GPS and let our crazy drivers call the shots. Aidan took me places I never imagined back in 2004. I enjoyed the journey, and I hope you do (or did), too.

  And we’re not done yet. Heritage is only the first leg of our journey together—you, me, Margaret, and Aidan “It’s about a sword” Gairden. I hope you’ll stick with us. We’ve got more to say, and more fun to have together.

  David L. Craddock - 12 January 2014, Canton, OH

  Author Biography

  DAVID L. CRADDOCK LIVES with his wife in Canton, Ohio. He writes short and long fiction, nonfiction, and grocery lists. His nonfiction publication, Stay Awhile and Listen: Book I, chronicles the history of World of WarCraft developer Blizzard Entertainment and became a bestseller on Amazon.com less than 24 hours after its release. Tag along with him online at davidlcraddock.com, facebook.com/davidlcraddock, and @davidlcraddock on Twitter.