#TheFourFriday – Phantasya

Every Friday, I’m posting something about how the real life “The Four” overlap with the fictional four Kota Warriors.
As some of you know, The Kota Series is based on what “The Four” (myself, my brother, and our childhood best friends Kaly and Luke) played as kids.  Each of us is represented by one of the four Kota Warriors (Bullseye, Rave, Tigris, Whitewolf).  So, I’ll be sharing personal quirks that carried over into fiction, fun/weird stories we played as kids, our childhood drawings, pictures related to The Four and The Kota, etc.
Should be fun, and it’ll give you an idea of how weird or little minds were as we created this story that, years later, turned into my book series.  🙂

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This week, Phantasya.
I’ve been reading my books out loud to my boyfriend as part of a deal I made (he “reads” my books; I take up running).  If you’ve read Pharmakon, the book centered around the world of Phantasya, then you might understand why I think it’s funny he risked making any kind of “deal” with me.

…But anyway…

I like rereading my books every so often, and doing so aloud (to a somewhat captive audience) especially makes it interesting.  These books are based on childhood stories, and I keep coming across things that I forget have real-life origins.

This time around, I realized that Phantasya in particular is a planet where the world-building came pretty naturally from our childhood play.  Where we lived as kids had a giant sand pit dug out from when they did construction on our house.  This sand pit was surrounded by the forest that we played in 10+ hours a day.  The contrast was really cool – you could play on fresh sand one second and jump off into maple leaves and ferns in a single bound.  I’m QUITE sure this is what inspired my brother’s basic idea for Phantasya – a desert planet but with a rich forest running around it.

I’m also quite sure Tatooine was an inspiration.  😉

Aside from our kick-ass fort (our Kota Warrior base), the sand pit was the one constant “setting” we used when we played.  I think that might be why Phantasya/Pharmakon always holds a special place in my heart.

Alas, I have no pictures of the sand pit, but here you can see the woods that definitely inspired Phantasya’s forest.