About three years ago, I decided to write a book. Or to be more accurate, I decided to see if I could write a book. I had an idea for a story but was looking to step back from the graphic novel world and see what else I could accomplish. Yet, I wasn’t entirely confident I could write an entire prose novel. However, here I am, having developed an entire series around the original idea. So, how did I get from wondering if I had the stamina to complete a novel to…well, completing it?

Short answer: I was sneaky about it.

Firstly, I started by telling myself that I would just write what I could. I put no pressure on myself about word count per day. I just wrote. In a spiral-bound, hard cover journals, as seen here, in long hand. Yep, I wanted to be able to write anywhere when the urge took me without having to log onto my computer. I went through six and half of them. Mostly I wrote a night, so you can see by my “penmanship” when I was getting really tired. However, I had fun, didn’t bother with plans to “publish” and eventually finished the story. It was a mess, like all first drafts, but it was also a lot of fun. So I kept going.

Now, I had begun this project without any thought of marketing or looking for an agent or plans for the future, even when I broke down and bought a laptop to continue writing. The exercise had progressed from a “diversion” to a full-fledged project. Normally, I like to think, I don’t approach projects this unconsciously but here I was spending a chunk of cash on an idea. What I have since learned is that there are millions of “writers” out there on the net and in bookstores but the process to getting to that point is both unique and structured for everyone of them. So, I hope to share more of the things I’ve learned and am learning with everyone else. For the first, start letting people know about your story even from the beginning of the journey. Well, this is not quite what I would call the beginning and I’ve hinted in previous blogs about the novels I’m writing but I plan on being more consistent with the news I release. In that vein, I did a rough little sketch of one of the settings for the novel. There’s magic and mystery, struggle and triumph and a little romance in this story and it begins in the forest. If you stumbled upon this cottage in the woods, would you knock on the door?