The Author

 

Chelsea Pagan has been writing since she was a child--she started the Ariatless Chronicles when she was just twelve years old! 

 

History

The Guardians of Truth began as a wirebound child's daydream wrapped up by a Five Star, maroon notebook. Imagine if you can, a self-conscious; short, seventh grader bowing over her notebook with pen in hand at the lunch table. She hated school. She hated writing assignments, but she loved this.

Originally entitled The Book of Truth, the first book of the Ariatless Chronicles was born out of adversity. It took a year to complete, with the encouragement of Chelsea's best friend Joanne. Joanne was the first--and only--fan! In fact, The Book of Truth and the second book in the series were kept under wraps. No one was allowed to read them.

 

Shattering Secrets, originally entitled, The Book of Secrets was started immediately after The Book of Truth was completed. It was Chelsea's great eighth-grade work. She  finished writing The Chosen's dramatic ending on Mount Saeth just before finals, squirreled away in the attic of her family home. At the time, it took three notebooks to complete and everything was written by hand.

It was then that she decided to set her pet project aside. The chronicles were nothing. She would never be a writer, Chelsea swore that. In fact, she signed that very statement, written on a scrap piece of paper that her eighth grade English teacher challenged her with. Chelsea would not be a writer. She didn't want to be.

But, she made a promise. She promised her best friend that she would at least finish the third book, even if she didn't continue on to the fourth.

The first chapters of the third book were written shakily and illegibly on the school bus in the last days of Jr. High...and then Chelsea set aside her notebooks and every single one of her pens. She was beginning high school. It was a new challenge. There was no room for The Chosen Ones and their bonded animals in her evolving life. The characters and the plot that she had so painstakingly developed were burried.

She started to write something else. Writing was just something she was not capable of giving up, as was the fantasy genre that she'd loved so much as a child. The Book of Ancients was born in her ninth grade World History class under the cover of a tattered; teal notebook. The teacher was preaching over a chalk drawn triangle separated and labeled with the four Varnas of Hindu social class. Queen Jade Kyshatrius, akin to the noble class of indian Kyshatriyas, was born. Chelsea realized that she had been unsuccessful in burrying Ariatless and The Chosen Ones. In writing The Book of Ancients she was writing Ariatless' history and of  The Chosens' ancestors. 

In the space of two, feverishly fast written books, she laid the foundation of the ancestors that were originally so vaguely mentioned in The Book of Truth and The Book of Secrets.

Then...she stopped writing. For a whole year and a half she put aside her work. 

It wasn't until the middle of eleventh grade with the book Beowulf in hand and a rudimentary knowledge of the legendary monster Grendel, that she remembered the world she'd created.  She returned to revising the first two books in the Ariatless Chronicles passionately. She was still old school though--she insisted on writing everything by hand.  What a waste of notebooks--but she still has every single one of them to this day (not that anyone else can decipher her handwriting).  Before she completed the revisions, she broke down and began to type.  Needless to say, she developed a knack for speedy and accurate typing whether she wanted to or not. 

Finally, she bit the bullet.  High school graduation was her last straw.  She could let The Ariatless Chronicles haunt her for the rest of her life, or she could try to get published. With a little nudge from two inspirational courses, she made up her mind and sent The Book of Truth to PublishAmerica.  

The Guardians of Truth was born, followed a year later by Shattering Secrets.