Many of an author's better ideas come from memories of their own past.  Just as author Samuel Clemens "Mark Twain" wrote Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn around a real place where he once lived, Bryon also takes locations and memories from the past and incorporates them into his novel series.  The way this series is written makes each novel more exciting than the previous one.

Megan's cat Scratches was Laura's cat Princess.  The cat plays two parts in the story.  The mother cat and the younger cat.  The picture of the cat on the back of The Medallion Mystery is a picture of Princess.  Laura had two cats.  The other cat is named Orion after the cat from the first MIB's movie.  

Laura also named the spaceship Orion that she reveals at the end of novel 3, A Christmas Story. They take  it to another world in novel 4, A Space In Time.  Novel 3 ends on the night of Christmas Eve at the same moment that novel 4 begins.  We are not sure if she named the spaceship after her cat Orion but think it very likely.

References to Megan digging broken things out of the trash and fixing them comes from the fact that when Laura was younger she did the same thing. 

Roy and Donna  are both HAM radio operators because in reality Bryon and his wife Dawn are HAM radio operators.  Bryon worked as s radio technician for years and this is where the idea for Roy to be an electrical engineer came from.

Brianna's mom and dad are both SCUBA divers.  Kristy is Brianna and Kristy is Laura's sister.  Bryon was a professional SCUBA diver for right at 20 years.  Bryon and Dawn are both certified SCUBA divers.  Brianna's dad is also a pilot; Bryon is also a licensed pilot.

Brianna's trip to Hollywood - In the first novel you read about how Brianna teases Megan about going to Hollywood and trying to get into a movie that was being made.  This actually happened.  Kristy was standing in front of the Chinese theater on Hollywood Blvd. and they were shooting Jim Carrey's Majestic there at the time.  When she asked if she could be in the movie they told her she was too short.  She didn't like that much at all and said, "Short people are good people too."  This was all captured on home video.

The Medallion originally was described as having a triangular shape with a bright capstone.  This is the symbol of Zion, throne of the Lord of Light.  The name Cheops basically means Lord of Light.  The Lord of Light is the spirit of the Creator being.  The symbol on the back of a US dollar is similar but they put an eye inside the capstone.  Thinking the similarity was too close to the symbol on the dollar bill the author decided to change the image to a triangle with ovals and circles in it that resembled an eye, but wasn't exactly the same.  Zion is the power structure of the Creator being.  The Creator is the capstone and the 144,000 other white stones are living beings working together as one unit to accomplish the will of the Father spirit.

The ghosts!  From the very first novel Bryon introduced the ghost of grandpa Fred.  More ghosts followed in the second novel, The Underworld, and even more ghosts and spirits appeared in the fifth novel, Night Visions.  Bryon was raised in a haunted house where the ghost would frequently open the closet door at the foot of his bed.  One night he put a heavy box of books against the door and the next morning the door was closed.  When he looked at the box he saw it had been pushed out into the floor. The door was the same angle as the side of the box.  The only conclusion was the door had opened that night with enough force to push the heavy box of books away from the door.

More ghosts!  Right next door was the Forman house.  A school teacher named Mrs. Bly lived and died in that house.  Bryon's dad bought the house.  One dark night Bryon learned first hand the ghost of Mrs. Bly had never left the house.  Since then Bryon has had many encounters with the paranormal. He and his family do paranormal investigations and are working on a TV show called Ghosts of Pipers and another one called Spooky Places.

Spooky Places - In the second novel, The Underworld, you read about the girls watching a new TV show called Spooky Places that deals with ghosts and ghost orbs.  Laura and Kristy's names were used in the book because they are the actual show hostesses.

Allergic reaction.  In the first novel in the series you discover that Megan has a history of health related problems. The most obvious was her allergic reaction in the barn when she was throwing hay into the air and allowing it to fall over her.  She passed out and her mother had to take her to the doctor in order to save her life.  In reality this happened to the author of this series but it didn't happen in the barn. It happened at home when he was playing with a dirty rug.  He had an allergic reaction and stopped breathing.  His mother rushed him to the nearest doctor's office to save his life.  Megan's mother forbid her to ever go into the barn again and requires her to keep a small medical kit near at all times.  We know from reading the story that Megan doesn't always do as she's told.

The rusty nail.  In the first novel, The Medallion Mystery, you learn that Megan went to the old log house in the woods beyond the family cemetery where she stepped on a rusty nail.  This happened to the author but it didn't happen at an old log house. It happened when he was following his grandpa across a muddy hog lot.  Grandpa carried him back to the house, gave him a tetanus shot, and soaked his foot in some blue liquid.

In The Medallion Mystery you read about Megan telling the story of a little fighting rooster that frequently attacked her.  She says the rooster attacked "her sister's horse" and the horse killed it.  In the story Megan has no sister.  This was a mistake because it was Bryon's sister's horse Bambi who actually killed the rooster.  In the rewrite of the novel it was Mr. Butler's horse who killed the rooster.

Cliff the Bull, mentioned in The Medallion Mystery as Mr. Butler's bull that he let Megan ride when she was little was actually Bryon's grandpa's bull.  Yes Bryon and his sister Gina actually sat upon and rode the bull in the barn lot.  Cliff was a white face Hereford (red bull with white face), very gentle and he was also almost completely blind.  He didn't mind if someone sat on him as he stood or walked around in the barn lot.

Megan's brother Gary was originally named Walter.  Bryon decided that Walter wasn't a tough enough name for Megan's jock brother so he changed it to Gary.  I think he chose this name because he had a cousin who's name was Gary who was something of a bully and tried to drown Bryon's puppies in his wading pool when he was very small.

The old unfinished book.  Megan discovers Henry Author Martin's (her great grandpa) unfinished work in the roll top desk in the old log house in the woods.  This is the author's reference to "Legacy of the Watchers" the prequel to The Medallion Mystery.  It is the story about Henry finding the medallion and the crystals that control the crown.  Of course he discovered much more than this.   He was sent by an evil organization just before WW II, to find an ancient alien weapon. Though he was not told exactly what he was looking for, someone was always looking over his shoulder.  It's an Indiana Jones style adventure, with sci-fi, murder and mystery.

The Underwater Place that Megan sees while using the crown was actually taken from a dream the author had years ago.  Several other ideas in the novel series were also inspired by dreams.

Pyramid on the bottom of the ocean in the Bermuda Triangle.  In the late 1990's an underwater exploration team discovered a strange sonar echo about 700 feet deep near the Islands of Bimini.  They sent down a robot remote controlled camera and discovered what they said to be a smooth sided pyramid on the bottom of the ocean approximately the same size as the Great Pyramid of Giza.  Shortly after they announced their discovery the entire area became off limits to civilian boats.  From that moment on a media black-out was in effect and no other news of this discovery has been made public.

Giant Unicorn Beast in the Underworld was seen by the author in a powerful night vision.

Martha Martin's farm is based on the farm where author Bryon Smith spent a great deal of time as a lad.  Grandpa John Smith was a farm veterinarian. Seeing animals die and baby animals being born was a regular event on the farm.  Milking the cows and gathering the eggs from the hen house was also an every day event.  The layout of the Martin farm is the same as the Smith farm.  The only real change is the design of the main house.  The Smiths lived in a single story house with an outhouse and no hot water.  For the purpose of the story the author made the house much larger, a two story house with many rooms and inside plumbing.  Like the Smith farm, the Martin farm has the north and south 40 acres for farming and a few smaller fields beyond the south 40.  The layout of the south 40 is somewhat different but the pond is in the center of the field.  Bryon is not aware of any cemetery or log house at the south edge of the south 40.  He created these for the purpose of the story.  At the end of the trail that leads off beyond the south 40 there is the valley with the flowing stream, two small fields and a two story house with a cellar exactly as he described them in the sixth novel, Dark Matter.  The horse lot and picnic tables at the old house were added by the author for the purpose of the story.

Bud the black snake.  Finding the large black snake in the hen house was something that happened now and then and Grandma Smith was very good at killing them.  The snake the author describes with all the scars was actually a pet of his for awhile.  He had three large rat snakes. One was very old and had scars all over him from people's attempts to kill him.  His name was Methuselah. Another of the snakes was called Bud.  The author used the description of one snake and the name of another for the purpose of this story.  All of his snakes were released into a protected game preserve.  At one time he kept 17 different species of snakes for study and as pets.  After being snake bit countless times, he decided to release all the snakes into the wild.

Grandma Martha's old sow pig.   Calico the pig was a runt that would have died had the author and his sister Gina not taken it into their care.  They kept it in the basement of their home. They fed and raised the pig until it could eat solid food.  The pig was like a pet but they knew one day it would become very large.  They returned it to the farm for the purpose it had been intended.  One day the author thought he would go see Calico but when the large hog saw him it ran toward him grunting and very excited.  He ran and jumped over the fence beside the water tank.  He was not able to tell if the pig was just excited to see him or if it had something else in mind.  Later his sister Gina showed up and she climbed in to see Calico and received the very same reception.  She slipped and fell into the water tank on her way out of the barn lot.  Bryon got a huge laugh out of this and then decided to use the humor in novel 6, Dark Matter, when May falls into the water tank.

The Pond in the South 40 in the first novel was described as being in the south east corner of the field near a gate that leads to another pasture.  In reality the pond is just about center of the field.  There was a path that went right to the pond, around it and on to the south.  In the rewrite of this novel corrections have been made that put the pond back where it belongs.  This is the same pond the mean boys in novel 6, Dark Matter, drive Megan's little tractor and wagon into.

The WD 45 Allas Chalmers tractor that Megan used to pull her little tractor from the pond was inspired by the same kind of tractor the author spent many days on while working on the farm.

In the first story Megan talks about a large boar hog named "Old Lucifer."  This story was inspired by an actual event.  Old Lucifer was big and mean and no fence could hold him.  He was forever getting loose and finding his way into the neighbor's fields.  The owner would take the truck and go fetch the hog when he would learn it was loose again.  Finally one day he realized the expenses and trouble the large hog had caused were not worth it.  The last time he went to fetch the hog was just that, the last time he ever had to go fetch Old Lucifer.  The man's name really was Mr. Norton.

The Pine Tree.  May speaks of her pine tree that was dying.  This was inspired by the author's pine tree in his backyard being attacked by bore worms and dying.

Megan's little 1966 12 HP Cub Cadet tractor and wagon belongs to the author.  It was a birthday gift to him from his father when he graduated 8th grade.  The catch is that he had to work and pay for the tractor and wagon himself.  He still has this tractor and wagon.  The tractor and wagon are mentioned in the first novel, The Medallion Mystery, and in the sixth novel, Dark Matter.  Now and then Laura and Kristy's friends come over and go for tractor and wagon rides and once a year the tractor and wagon make a trip to Iron Mountain Lake, MO, actually one mile south of the lake to a place called Dove Field.   It's a little airport where Christian Wings has an open house once per year.  The girls give rides back and forth from the parking area to the airport using the tractor and wagon.  If you live near Farmington, MO you may like to come see the author, Laura, and Kristy, go on an airplane ride in a real missionary airplane, and take a ride with Laura "Megan Martin" or Kristy "Brianna" on the little tractor and wagon.  Come get your pictures with the girls who appear in this novel series.  Just watch the Christian Wings website for their Spring open house for the date of this event.

Peaceful Pond is actually a real place, but the place was not named Peaceful Pond it was called Green Pond.  The church and the cemetery are there exactly as they were described in the story.  The Smith farm was about a mile south of Green Pond.

The City.  The location and name of the city where Megan lives in the story were not given for a reason.  The author wanted the reader to be able to imagine that Megan and her friends could be living in the same city as they do.  Nearly any worthwhile city has a story of a haunted house.  Nearly every city has a country setting within about an hour's drive from the city limits.  Bryon has been accused of breaking the five "W" rules for good writing because he refuses to name the city.   The rules are the five "W's" - Who, What, When, Where, Why.  In one of the novels where Megan pilots an alien craft back toward her home city some directions are given that will allow the reader to gain some idea where her city is located in the USA.

The connection to the UFO's and other-worldly beings.  In 1970 on the way home from the skating rink, Bryon and a friend sighted a familiar light in the sky hovering over the power lines over the mine hill near the river.  They had seen the UFO many times in the past. They never could get near it, but tonight would be a special treat.  They pulled off the road and stood in front of the car.  As they watched, the object appeared to be growing in size. In fact it was coming directly toward them.  Finally, as it came to a hover only a few yards away right in the center of their home town, they could see very clearly it was not a conventional aircraft, swamp gas or anything else that could be easily explained.  When a person has a very close encounter with a UFO they know without a doubt what it is and what it isn't.  They know without question that such things do exist.  This UFO was witnessed by many people over the years but that night it was witnessed by four people - Bryon, Butch, his sister Gina, and his dad Jesse.  His sister and dad were in the pickup truck behind them.  The UFO was brilliant white with a shimmering blue halo around it.  It had a black area on the side facing them.  It was a classic deep dish saucer shape, domed on top and bottom.  The dark area facing them was on the lower half of the disk.  From that time on Bryon has been interested in the subject of UFO's and done research, taken interviews, and done investigations.

Orion, the living spaceship in the novel series.  Orion is modeled after a UFO that has been sighted world wide but most well known for sightings in and around Fyffe, AL.  Bryon and his camera man drove there to interview people concerning these sightings.  The UFO had been seen by literally thousands of people.  At least two of those people had personal encounters with the beings from this craft and both of them were reporters for a small newspaper in Rainsville, AL.  When all the facts were totaled concerning the events that led him to go to Rainsville, AL, it appears very likely the alien beings themselves guided him to go there.  He tends not to reveal all the things he has experienced but has chosen to write about some of those things in this science fiction series.

The Mystery Man and Megan Martin both acquired their advanced technology from the same celestial ascended beings.  This is why the Delta Star has Orion's symbol on the bottom on the hover portal.  The Mystery Man was conceived long before Megan Martin, but Megan Martin came into being as the result of daughter Laura's request to write a novel.  Some ideas from the Mystery Man's series evolved into the Megan Martin series.  In the rewrite of the first novel all of these things have been and will be corrected.

When The Medallion Mystery was being written the entire story plot was still in development stages.  Later after the first book had been published, the author decided he didn't like the way he had written certain things and he changed or modified some things to improve the story.  In some cases certain mysteries he intended his protagonist to resolve in the first novel didn't happen because he was as yet uncertain of the exact details of the mystery.  The ideas for the path the crown and medallion devices followed were still a boiling primeval soup mix in his mind.  That was 9 years ago and now he knows exactly where the crown came from and how it came to be in Megan's possession.  As each novel was written it was considerably better than the one before it and each one revealed more of the secrets behind the mystery.  After taking a screenwriter's course and adapting the first two novels into screenplay format, the author has also learned how to improve the entire story line of a novel or screenplay.  While adapting the first novel into screenplay format he got many good ideas for improving the novel.  The first novel is currently being rewritten to correct these mistakes and other improvements to the story are being made before being submitted to a new publisher.  We hope it won't take YEARS to find a new publisher.  We have been contacted by 5 or 6 new publsihers for the rewrite of this novel series.  If you enjoyed the original The Medallion Mystery you will love the rewrite.