This is the second day of the CSFF Blog Tour featuring R. K. Mortenson’s Landon Snow series, specifically the third book: Landon Snow and the Island of Arcanum.

I ALWAYS wonder where authors get the ideas for their books. Mr. Mortenson shares the following on the Landon Snow website.

The story behind the book.

How did I begin writing Landon Snow?

I actually started with a poem, which is now the Auctor’s Riddle. It was a dark and stormy night in the summer of 1994. I was watching the rain coming down in sheets, when suddenly a poem came to me. I took out my little green notepad and clicked my pen, and I began to write.

Could it be chance, mere circumstance

That man eats cow eats grass eats soil

And then man dies, and when he lies

To soil he does return?

A few months later I was attending seminary-graduate school to become a pastor-and I awoke one night to what I was sure was flute music-coming from outside. I looked out the second-story apartment window across a field to the seminary building. The next day I started writing a story about a boy named Landon…

Mr. Mortensen lists several books as major influences: Alice in Wonderland, Chronicles of Narnia, Watership Down, The Hobbit, the Bible to name a few. Reading this list of his favorites further convinces me that his own venture into fantasy writing with the Landon Snow series isn’t to be ignored. But I won’t be reading the books until after Christmas when my son opens them.

Don’t forget to visit some of the other participants. Just scroll down to yesterday’s post to see the list.

Blessings!
Beth.