Where to begin? The first sentence of any piece of writing is often the hardest. My first lines generally pop into my head and once I get it down on paper the story or blog takes off from there.  Since my process is so organic it is difficult for me to just take a topic and write about it.  I have done it, but it is a struggle.  That struggle can be incredibly rewarding at times.

Writing Blood Child was very much an organic affair.  The first line came to me as I was sitting in my living room after having just recently moved into my home.  The first day I wrote over a thousand words and the rest of the story came in flashes over the next year and a half. I knew it was going to be long, but I didn’t know how long.  The real work began when I started to combine all the flashes together.  Three-fourths of the story was written in the first year.

The last fourth just wouldn’t come. I would sit down to write and nearly always ended up working on something else; this blog, poetry and other story stories.  Some of those stories I really fell in love with like Little Girl Blue.  A semi-biographical story about a little girl who turns the colors depending on her emotions.

The novel which I started writing over two years ago, has been sitting in the metaphorical drawer since Blood Child took over.  Occasionally, the novel has donated characters to the novella which takes place in the same world.  The time difference between the two stories is about ten years, with Blood Child coming first.

Connecting the two stories was also very organic, I just found characters from the novel making appearances in the novella. The main characters of each story are different and at this point the plots of the two are not connected.  Having some of the same characters in the novella as the novel allowed me to both think about and write some of the characters’ back stories.  In this way the novella has really helped the novel have solid foundation although that was not its original purpose.

The way the final quarter of Blood Child came together through pure stubbornness taught me a lot about what it really means to be an author and writer. You can’t just write when you feel like it. You have to stick with it. And while it is ok to be distracted and follow your muse just go back, always go back and finish. Sometimes when you think you are finished. You really aren’t. I discovered that when I received my first critical feedback

So far my kickstarter campaign for Blood Child is doing well and I am feeling so blessed to have so many friends and readers taking part. There is still plenty of time to contribute!