There is a question I have been thinking about lately.
What happens when you keep looking?
Not scrolling.
Not rushing past something because you think you already know what it is.
Actually looking.
What happens when you pick up the ordinary stone instead of stepping over it?
What happens when you notice the same bird returning to the same branch?
What happens when an old painting suddenly reminds you of something you had forgotten?
What happens when an object you have walked past for years finally makes you curious enough to ask a question?
For me, apparently, you end up creating an entire Archive.
I certainly did not plan it that way.
Mystic Dragonfly Creations did not begin with a business plan for an interconnected world of paintings, natural discoveries, books, characters, photographs, observations, memories and stories.
There was no giant whiteboard labeled THE DRAGONFLY ARCHIVE.
There was not a seven book plan sitting on my desk.
There was not an Ignivar.
There was simply curiosity.
And there was one forgotten stone.
The Stone That Refused to Stay Ordinary
If you have been following Mystic Dragonfly Creations for a while, you probably know something about the Heartstone by now.
But imagine seeing it before any of this existed.
It was not sitting beneath museum lighting.
It did not arrive with a certificate explaining where it came from.
Nobody handed it to me and announced that it was important.
It was simply there.
For decades.
Near my home.
Ordinary enough to become part of the scenery.
Until I looked again.
That second look changed everything.
I began doing what curious people do.
I photographed it.
I examined it.
I looked at its colors and textures.
I tested what I reasonably could.
I asked questions.
Some questions produced answers.
Others produced more questions.
And some still remain unanswered.
That last part has become incredibly important to me.
The Archive has never feared the words “I don't know.”
There is freedom in those words.
They leave the door open.
They allow evidence to remain evidence and imagination to remain imagination.
They make room for another test, another photograph, another person who knows something I don't, another possibility I had not considered.
And somewhere in that process of examining a real stone, something else happened.
A story appeared.
His name was Ignivar.
Where Evidence Ends and Story Begins
This distinction has become one of the most important principles behind Mystic Dragonfly Creations.
The real object comes first.
If I find a stone, a fossil, a piece of petrified wood, an unusual crystal formation or something else from the natural world, I want to begin with what can actually be observed.
What does it look like?
What does it weigh?
What happens under magnification?
Does it scratch glass?
Does it react to vinegar?
Is it magnetic?
What structures are visible?
What do I know?
What do I suspect?
And what don't I know yet?
Those questions belong to the real world.
But human beings have always done something else with the things we discover.
We tell stories about them.
We paint them.
We name them.
We remember where we found them.
We connect them to moments in our lives.
We wonder.
That is where the Dragonfly Archive begins to become something different.
A stone can remain completely real while also inspiring a fictional story.
A painting can document a memory while also opening a door into imagination.
A bird can simply be a bird and still become part of the visual language of an artist who notices it every morning.
Those things do not have to compete with one another.
Evidence and imagination can sit at the same table.
That may be the simplest explanation I can give for Mystic Dragonfly Creations.
And Then There Was Ignivar
I still find it amusing that a real stone eventually led to a flame tailed guardian.
But perhaps that is what imagination does when it is given enough material.
Ignivar did not arrive as a marketing character.
He emerged from the story.
Amber fur.
A blue blaze.
Fire at his tail.
A guardian connected to stone, memory and the stories we almost forget.
As I continued writing, I began realizing that the Heartstone was not the end of something.
It was the beginning.
That realization eventually became the first book in The Dragonfly Journals:
Ignivar's Heartstone: How One Forgotten Stone Awakened the Dragonfly Archive.
And then came the second:
Ignivar: The Flame Born Guardian, Keeper of Fire, Stone, and Story.
Suddenly I was not just writing about one unusual discovery.
I was building a world around a much larger idea.
What if the things around us carry more stories than we realize?
Not magical claims about real objects.
Stories.
Memory.
History.
Geology.
Place.
Art.
Observation.
Imagination.
What if Earth itself could be thought of as an enormous Archive and every layer, stone, fossil, tree and landscape was another page?
That idea would not leave me alone.
So I kept writing.
The Dragonfly Journals Became Bigger Than One Book
I now see The Dragonfly Journals as a long journey rather than a pair of books.
There are more stories ahead.
More discoveries.
More questions.
More connections I have not made yet.
Some of the most interesting parts are probably things I do not even know are coming.
That is part of the fun.
I have learned not to force the Archive to explain itself too quickly.
Sometimes a discovery belongs exactly where it is.
Sometimes a photograph needs to sit for a while.
Sometimes a painting tells me what it means years after I painted it.
Sometimes a story needs time before I understand where it fits.
And sometimes something completely ordinary suddenly becomes the beginning of a book.
Painting Was Here First
Before I thought of myself as an author, I was an artist.
I still am.
Writing did not replace painting.
If anything, writing helped me understand why painting has always mattered so much to me.
Painting forces you to look.
You cannot paint light without noticing what light actually does.
You cannot paint a landscape without eventually noticing that green is never simply green.
You notice shadows.
Edges.
Weather.
Distance.
Texture.
Movement.
Tiny changes.
Painting trains observation.
And observation is also at the heart of the Archive.
That is why the artwork belongs here.
It is not merchandise sitting beside books because a website needed more products.
It is part of the same creative life.
Some people may enter Mystic Dragonfly Creations because they see a painting.
Others may arrive because they see Ignivar.
Someone else may be fascinated by petrified wood.
Someone may read a blog story because a friend shared it.
Someone may come because they are curious about the Heartstone.
Someone may meet me somewhere and hear me talking about one of these strange discoveries.
Those people are entering through completely different doors.
But eventually they begin discovering that the doors connect.
That Is When I Realized I Was Building an Ecosystem
I used to think about the individual pieces separately.
The art was the art.
The books were the books.
The natural discoveries were the natural discoveries.
The blog was the blog.
Social media was social media.
The store was the store.
But that is not how I see it anymore.
They are connected.
Someone can discover a painting and become curious about the artist.
That curiosity can lead them to Mystic Dragonfly Creations.
There they may encounter the Heartstone.
The Heartstone leads to a story.
The story leads to Book One.
Book One introduces them more deeply to Ignivar.
Ignivar leads to Book Two.
The books lead back to the Dragonfly Archive.
The Archive contains more art, more discoveries and more stories.
Maybe that person follows along.
Maybe they come back.
Maybe they tell someone else.
And then that new person enters through an entirely different doorway.
I have started thinking of this as the Dragonfly Infinity Circle.
Discovery → Curiosity → Story → Book One → Book Two → Connection → Archive → Return → Share → New Reader → ∞
There is no real ending.
Only another doorway.
The Most Important Part Is the Reader
It is easy when you are building something to become obsessed with the machinery.
Websites.
Algorithms.
Search engines.
Retail listings.
Social media.
Rankings.
Metadata.
All of those things matter.
I have certainly learned more about them than I ever expected to know.
But none of them is the actual goal.
The goal is a human being on the other side.
A reader.
Someone sitting in a chair holding a book.
Someone who laughs at something I wrote.
Someone who pauses at a sentence.
Someone who wonders about the Heartstone.
Someone who decides Ignivar belongs in their imagination now too.
Someone who finishes Book One and wants Book Two.
Someone who sends a photograph of the book sitting on their table.
Someone who leaves a review.
Someone who tells a friend.
That is what all the machinery is supposed to accomplish.
It is supposed to help one human being find a story they might love.
I do not want to forget that.
Something Has Begun to Change
Recently, I have started noticing little signs that the Archive is escaping the boundaries of my own website.
The books are appearing through retailers I did not personally build.
People are visiting Mystic Dragonfly Creations from places I did not expect.
Readers are leaving reviews.
People are clicking through from Facebook.
Signed copies are beginning to find homes.
The books are appearing in searches.
Someone discovers one thing and then clicks into another.
None of this means I have suddenly become a bestselling author.
I haven't.
This is still very early.
And I actually think that makes this moment more interesting.
Because we get to watch the roots forming.
Every reader matters right now.
Every review matters.
Every person who shares a story matters.
Every person who wanders through the Archive matters.
The ecosystem is not enormous.
It is alive.
There is a difference.
I Want You to Wander
One thing I hope people will do differently when they visit Mystic Dragonfly Creations is resist the urge to treat it like a normal online store.
You do not have to arrive knowing what you want to buy.
Wander.
Read an old story.
Look at a painting.
Click into The Dragonfly Journals.
Meet Ignivar.
Look at one of the natural specimens.
Read about something I found.
Go backward through the blog.
Then go forward again.
You may find connections I have forgotten are there.
You may even notice something I have not noticed.
That possibility delights me.
Because I do not want the Archive to become a museum where everything has already been explained.
I want it to remain curious.
Tell Me What You Notice
This is where I would genuinely love your participation.
If you have read one of The Dragonfly Journals, what stayed with you?
Was it Ignivar?
The Heartstone?
The geology?
The idea of the Archive?
A particular passage?
The relationship between real discovery and fictional story?
Something completely different?
If you have followed Mystic Dragonfly Creations since before the books existed, what part of this transformation surprised you?
If you originally knew me through my artwork, what do you think now that the paintings, books and discoveries have begun connecting?
And if you are brand new here, I have an even simpler question:
What made you stop?
Was it the name?
A dragonfly?
A book cover?
A stone?
A painting?
A Facebook post?
Ignivar?
Something someone shared?
I would genuinely like to know.
Because those answers help me understand how people are entering this world.
Start With the Heartstone
If the Archive feels enormous when you first arrive, don't worry.
You do not need to understand everything.
Start where I started.
With the stone.
That is the doorway into Book One.
Ignivar's Heartstone: How One Forgotten Stone Awakened the Dragonfly Archive tells the story of how an object that had been part of my surroundings for decades suddenly became impossible for me to ignore.
That curiosity became investigation.
Investigation became story.
Story became Ignivar.
Ignivar became The Dragonfly Journals.
And The Dragonfly Journals began revealing the larger Archive.
It still amazes me that so much grew from something so small.
Then Meet the Guardian
If Book One is the doorway, Book Two opens the world wider.
Ignivar: The Flame Born Guardian, Keeper of Fire, Stone, and Story asks what happens when the character who emerged from one discovery begins carrying a much larger responsibility.
By then, Ignivar is no longer simply connected to one stone.
He belongs to the Archive.
And the Archive has more stories to tell.
That is where the series begins stretching beyond its origin.
And we are still near the beginning.
There Are More Doors Coming
The third Dragonfly Journal is already taking shape.
And beyond it are more books.
That matters because I do not want this to become a world built around one moment of attention.
I want readers to have somewhere else to go.
A reader who discovers the Archive years from now should be able to begin at the beginning and travel through it.
Book One.
Book Two.
Book Three.
And eventually all seven Dragonfly Journals.
Each one another doorway.
Each one adding another layer.
Each one making the books that came before it more meaningful.
That is the long game.
Why I Am Building This
I am old enough now to understand that time is not theoretical.
There are things I want to finish.
Stories I want to write.
Paintings I still want to paint.
Questions I still want to ask.
Places in the Archive I have not reached.
I want Mystic Dragonfly Creations to become something that lasts beyond a social media post or a single sale.
I want the books to exist on shelves.
I want them in readers' hands.
I want someone years from now to discover Ignivar for the first time.
I want the paintings to continue carrying pieces of the places and moments that inspired them.
I want the strange little discoveries documented.
I want the questions preserved alongside the answers.
And yes, I want this creative work to succeed as a business.
Artists and writers are allowed to say that.
I want to sell books.
A lot of them.
Not because a number on a dashboard is the purpose of the Archive.
Because every book sold means there is a possibility that another reader has entered it.
And if that reader loves it enough to continue?
The circle turns again.
So This Is My Invitation
If you have been here since the beginning, thank you for staying curious with me.
If you knew me before Mystic Dragonfly Creations had this name, thank you for allowing the story to change.
If you found me through the artwork, I am glad you are here.
If you found me through a stone, that seems wonderfully appropriate.
If you came because of Ignivar, he has apparently done his job.
If you are one of the people who bought a book, left a review, shared a post, attended something, asked me a question or simply took the time to read one of these long stories, you have already become part of what is happening.
And if today is your first day inside the Dragonfly Archive?
Welcome.
Do not worry about understanding everything.
Pick a doorway.
Follow your curiosity.
See where it leads.
Because if this entire strange journey has taught me anything, it is this:
Sometimes the things that change our lives do not arrive with an announcement.
Sometimes they have been sitting there quietly for decades.
Waiting for us to look again.
And sometimes, when we finally do, an entire world is waiting on the other side.
What have you walked past a hundred times without really seeing?
Maybe tomorrow, look again.
The Archive is still opening.
— AVRILIS
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1 comment
I love this. Magical archivism – that’s such a powerful discipline that makes entirely too much sense!