Where did I get ideas for Prince Frederick’s fantasy world? From World of Warcraft, of course.
As research for Along the Watchtower, I played a lot of World of Warcraft. I started when my son, an avid player, invited me to meet him in Azeroth and go on quests together as a way of visiting. With him on the west coast and me on the east, it was an invitation I could hardly ignore. Every Wednesday evening, our avatars would meet. We’d wave to each other and then go off on quests. While I only reached level 63 (I had to go write the book, after all), playing gave me an appreciation of the dreamlike quality of that fantasy world.
On my blog, I put together a slide show of some of the images I found from the game that I used to envision key characters and moments in Prince Frederick’s part of the story. Here’s a couple of those images:
Malfurion Stormrage,
the night elf who advises Freddie on the trials.
The female warrior Freddie meets: He tells her he seeks oblivion; she responds: Believe in the future instead.
To see more, you can visit my blog at: http://bit.ly/1oAPjBR
David Litwack, author of There Comes a Prophet, Along the Watchtower, and The Daughter of the Sea and the Sky - www.davidlitwack.com
A Tragic Warrior Lost in Two Worlds…
Author: David Litwack
Publication Date: June 13, 2013
Genre: ContemporaryFantasy (13+)
The war in Iraq ended for Lieutenant Freddie Williams when an IED explosion left his mind and body shattered. Once he was a skilled gamer and expert in virtual warfare. Now he’s a broken warrior, emerging from a medically induced coma to discover he’s inhabiting two separate realities. The first is his waking world of pain, family trials, and remorse—and slow rehabilitation through the tender care of Becky, his physical therapist. The second is a dark fantasy realm of quests, demons, and magic that Freddie enters when he sleeps.
In his dreams he is Frederick, Prince of Stormwind, who must make sense of his horrific visions in order to save his embattled kingdom from the monstrous Horde. His only solace awaits him in the royal gardens, where the gentle words of the beautiful gardener, Rebecca, calm the storms in his soul. While in the conscious world, the severely wounded vet faces a strangely similar and equally perilous mission—a journey along a dark road haunted by demons of guilt and memory—and letting patient, loving Becky into his damaged and shuttered heart may be his only way back from Hell.
The urge to write first struck when working on a newsletter at a youth encampment in the woods of northern Maine. It may have been the night when lightning flashed at sunset followed by northern lights rippling after dark. Or maybe it was the newsletter's editor, a girl with eyes the color of the ocean. But he was inspired to write about the blurry line between reality and the fantastic.
Using two fingers and lots of white-out, he religiously typed five pages a day throughout college and well into his twenties. Then life intervened. He paused to raise two sons and pursue a career, in the process becoming a well-known entrepreneur in the software industry, founding several successful companies. When he found time again to daydream, the urge to write returned. His novels include: There Comes a Prophet, Along the Watchtower, and the newly released The Daughter of the Sea and the Sky.
David and his wife split their time between Cape Cod, Florida and anywhere else that catches their fancy. He no longer limits himself to five pages a day and is thankful every keystroke for the invention of the word processor.
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