Answering a question: "What was..."

Question: What was the very very first thing that got you started on the Magicians Series? What gave you the idea?
Asked by: Tessa Faith at Witty Writer

Thank you for the new question that is probably the greatest I've heard yet.  How in the world did I come up with this series?

Back in July of this year I was looking over past projects I had finished/was working on.  I realized as I was categorizing these --yeah, I had too much free time back then--that I only had one series: the Lights trilogy.  I started thinking about what kind of new series I could start because after I had finished The Magic of Light, I could not seem to find another book I could really put my full heart and soul into.
So I began thinking out ideas off the top of my head.  The first idea was a series based off of a short story of mine, River James: the Story, the Legend.  However, the idea of that series sounded almost too much like Indiana Jones because it was basically going to be about an archer who went around on adventures and whatnot.
Boring.
Then, there was this other idea.  I thought about how I've always been writing fantasy books that focus on the good magicians, the good princes, the good kings.  Always them as a main focus.  What if someone turned that around?  What if instead of the good magicians, there was a main focus on the Dark magicians?  This idea fascinated me, but it literally started like:

There are only five Dark magicians alive. This series focuses on their struggles....

And that was as far as I got.  While someone said I should do the series about River James, my heart was tugging me towards this other idea.  This fresh and twisted idea where Dark magicians were the focus and the people you've always hated in stories became the people you were actually concerned about.
It turns out that evolved into the Magicians series.  I guess if nothing else it was the scenes in The Magic of Light that focused on the Dark King that inspired me to have a series focused on the dark side of events.  Let's face, after all, the story is quite different when the villain is telling it from their point of view.

Thanks for your question, and as always I'm open to any others you have in the future.

"There's a lot that I want." He said. He smirked as he said it like he knew he was pushing my patience.