Remember when I started a blog about writing a book? Yeah, I kind of forgot too. About the blog not the book. The book writing has continued on – sometimes making me a little crazy with all the restarts and writers block and ‘what the heck am I doing?’ moments. But still I wrote on.

When I got the wild and crazy idea to write a novel, I did the math. If I wrote XYZ amount of words a day, I’d be done on XX date. It seemed so logical. How could it go wrong? For starters, I didn’t anticipate starting no less than 5 novels –  outlining, naming characters and places, getting approximately 10,000 to 15,000 words in and deciding I didn’t have a story. But still I wrote on.

But somewhere in the last six weeks, things finally seemed to start clicking on one particular story.

I’m about 30,000 words into my current work in progress. It is still YA fantasy, but much different than the novel I originally envisioned. I won’t say more about it just yet as I still have a ways to go before I finish the rough draft, but I am happy with where I’m headed so far.

What’s different this time? Maybe it was the writers conference I attended in Ft. Worth. Or the critique group I joined in April. Or the writer friends I’ve connected with over last couple months. Or maybe it’s that if you just keep going with something, by your 6th try, things are a little less cloudy.

My current goal is to have a rough draft completed by the end of the summer. I’m signed up for a revising workshop in August through SCBWI (The Society of Children Book Writers and Illustrators) and would love to have a full manuscript completed to work on there.

The best laid plans of mice and men…

As for the blog, I’ve been reading some great YA books and books on writing lately and I plan to post some reviews here in the near future.

 

In January, I officially started writing my first novel – a young adult fantasy set in Iceland. In the past, I’ve tinkered around with novel ideas and journaled a few things here and there. But, this is my first time to really chart a story out and be disciplined about working on it everyday.

After getting my oldest son a book on trolls for Christmas and later that week watching The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (which features a jaunt to Iceland), my creative wheels started turning.

A few Google searches later, and I was completely enchanted with all things Iceland.  I mean, look at these Icelandic horses…don’t they just make you want to drop everything and go on a Nordic adventure?

Then there’s the Scandinavian folklore. So many fascinating creatures there. Like frost giants, the fiddle playing Fossegrim, and Nokken, a shapeshifting water spirit (below).

Since then, I’ve been collecting books for my research. This past weekend, I visited the massive used bookstore in downtown Denton and found two coffee table books on Gnomes and Giants. They’re filled with daydream-inciting illustrations and tidbits of folklore.

I’m only a few chapters in at this point, but I’m really enjoying the writing process. Which I plan to share more about here. As well as interesting pieces of folklore, Iceland trivia, troll sightings and more!

I hope you’ll join me for the ride.