One Journey Ends, A New Quest Begins

If you read a lot of How-to-Write blogs you’ll come across the terms ‘pantsers’ and ‘planners.’ Pantsing is like a game of Russian Roulette. Sometimes you get lucky, and sometimes you just end up shooting yourself in the head. Planning, on the other hand, is a long hike down a nature trail. You never know when a tree will fall or some wild animal will rear up out of nowhere, but ideally if you follow the path it gets you where you’re trying to go.

Me? I’m a glutton for punishment, so I like to mix the two. That means I take the long winding trek through uncharted woods holding a pistol to my head. Sounds brilliant, I know.

Amazingly, the trees are thinning, and I’m starting to see the end of the road for my five-years-in-progress YA story, Trial by Song. If you read The Ice Cream Test, you caught a glimpse of Jack and his brothers, but now that his story is almost ready to introduce to beta readers, I thought I’d celebrate by unveiling a small teaser.

When Jack Sorley falls through a portal to Faerie and forges a bond with one of its oldest relics, he must find a way to sever the connection before the Fae’s most feared bounty hunter comes for his soul. 

Exciting stuff, right? There’s “fighting, torture, revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love, miracles!” If that sounds good to you then you might be a fan of the Princess Bride–can’t blame you for that! Or, you might enjoy hearing more about Jack and the chaos that follows him.

As soon as this round of edits is over I’m going to set out on a new adventure into the great wide world of publishing. From what I hear it’s a dark and dreary path fraught with disappointment and despair, but fear not! I’ve followed a quest or two from the safe distance of book pages, and perseverance and a good sense of humor seem to go a long way toward reaching the end. Hope you’ll tag along with me. This could be a bumpy ride!