Wednesday, September 17, 2025

This is the eighty-seventh installment of West Wind, your weekly drop of thoughts, ideas, and info for this Season. As Summer draws to a close, I’ll be showcasing one of my published stories each day, because there are getting to be quite a few! This is the eighth installment, check out yesterday’s if you missed it.

It’s time to crack open the VALT! Vivi & the All-Lands Tournament is technically my third published book, though the story was released before I decided to make it into an actual book that you could hold in your hands. Which you can! The shortened version of the very long title is canonically pronounced “vee-alt” rather than “vault,” just like the abbreviation for Octave of Stars is pronounced “oose” and not “oh-oh-ess”. But we already talked about that story.

There’s a lot to unpack here, because the whole basis of the Girl and Her Griffon stories is the creativity of my children. Rary the griffon is a real stuffed animal that held court as the Emperor of Griffonland, ruling benevolently over the owls, tigers, foxes, dragons, and all the other stuffed animals that my daughter had collected over the years. He could fly, use magic, and transform into a human or any other kind of animal, a talent that he passed down to every other subject in his little empire. When playing with her and her toys, I gave the animals voices, as I’m apt to do, and a personality grew out of that voice.

The story was originally written just for my daughter, with no plans of eventual release, so it’s completely chock-full of in-jokes and references to all of the games, movies, books, and shows that were part of our family at the time. I could spend another week just going through all of them, but if you’re still curious, you will be able to dive in to the director’s commentary edition that will be released on World Anvil soon. I had to tone down some of the phrases and terms that would be totally unknown to outsiders, but the large majority of them still work. I also toned down Rary’s moveset a bit, making him and the other creatures he journeys with a little more balanced.

There’s also the ever-changing cover. It’s not much of a secret that Vivi is heavily inspired by my daughter, especially since I use that as her code-name online. She’s also quite the budding artist, so I thought it would be fun for her to take over the cover design role from her mother. The banner above is the original cover that she sketched, which I thought fit great with the whimsical, childhood nature of the story. Then she started doing some painting, which led to the current book cover. And, I’ve heard some rumors around the art table that there will be a third cover at some point…

And, as seems to keep happening with all of my stories, there are future adventures planned for the dynamic trio of Vivi, Rary, and Sapphire, who’s still too young to leave at home by herself. Vivi sees an advertisement for a “challenge tower” that’s opening in the city. Handlers and their creatures can test their skill to see how high they can climb, with fun prizes for the winners. But why does it seem like Rary has an easier time than the other competitors??? (Three question marks is like an ellipsis, except for a question)

The audio-enhanced version of VALT is still available on Substack, so give it a read and a listen. Narration will happen eventually too, but there’s so much of that in the queue already that it might be a minute. If you’ve read it, reply or comment to let me know what you think!

With the tournament over, it’s time to sail off into the sunset. Except instead of home, we’re heading west, out into the Frontier…