Since I’m getting ready to publish the final book in my Keeper Chronicles series this spring, I wanted to share some things about the series and the characters.

Maybe I’ll go crazy and chat about my writing process (hint: it needs quiet mornings and coffee).

Maybe I’ll tell you who my favorite characters are and which ones I wanted to sell to gypsies. (And which ones I actually did sell to gypsies!)

Maybe I’ll give sneak peaks at book 3…

You never know! (Mostly because I don’t know yet.)

Regardless, it’s bound to be full of things that are bookish.

For starters, today I thought I’d share with you about the birth of this series.

Like humans, some stories are birthed quickly and smoothly with minimal screaming and no pain killers.

This is not one of those stories.

Book 1, A Threat of Shadows, actually started its ridiculously extended birthing process in 2008. My husband was working out of town for a month and he was bored out of his mind.

I started writing him a scene each day to give him something entertaining to read at night. There was no goal beyond, “Write something entertaining. Make fun characters. Then leave him on a horrible cliff hanger every night.” *cue maniacal laughter*

Honestly, I’m not sure whether this little project made me a nice wife or a mean one.

But what came out of that month was the first ten(ish) chapters of A Threat of Shadows and some characters that I fell in love with.

Once my husband came back home, the story was dropped and mostly ignored for the next half dozen years.

Because babies kept being birthed instead of books.

But I had developed such a fondness for the characters that I couldn’t quite forget them.

After a few writing classes and discovering that indie publishing was becoming more viable and more interesting all the time, I put on my big girl pants and decided to try to wrangle the story into a book.

Wrangling those early scenes into the beginning of a novel was a lot like wrangling hyper children hopped up on birthday cake at a rock and roll party.

Finishing the story into something satisfying was infinitely harder.

It turns out I had a LOT to learn about stories (I still do), but around 2014 I began the (incredibly slow) process of writing. And learning and editing and rewriting and wailing in despair and editing again.

In July of 2016, with great fear and trembling, I clicked “publish” on A Threat of Shadows. 

Of course, I had no idea what I was doing, so aside from my mom and a few loyal friends, no one bought it.

But I’d discovered something.

I could write a book.

And it was fun.

And I wanted to write another.

And that’s how an innocent little project meant to stave off boredom turned into the beginnings of a career.

Did you have anything that started out as an innocent little project and turned into some big hobby? Or career? Or even a big disaster?