New blog + Iron Breakers behind the scenes

Hi all!

I figured since I don’t much use Tumblr anymore, but would still like to some long-format text posts, I’d set up my own blog and do that stuff here from now on. This blog is going to be all art and writing! I took requests from readers on what they’d like to see, and ended up with a fun list of suggestions ranging from art and writing process posts, ‘behind the scenes’ stuff, tips and tricks and author guest posts.

So let’s kick off this first post with a trip down memory lane to the very first full-length novel series I wrote and published: IRON BREAKERS!

Since I do a lot of my early plotting and outlining on pen and paper, here are some photos of some of my plans and notes, scattered across several notebooks! Please be warned: Some of these notes contain spoilers for all three IRON BREAKERS books, so if you haven’t read them, proceed with caution. Some book ending notes have been blacked out, since I’d rather not reveal the ending of my entire book series in a blog post 😉

Brainstorming series titles. I originally wanted something to do with birds (sparrows)
Following the bird theme, I made this first sketch of a truly awful cover that ended up getting scrapped pretty quickly!
The first rough sketch I drew of the world map! Also quite a bit different from the finished version.
The first plot outline I wrote for STAG’S RUN (The hold sucks balls, apparently)
Revision/edit notes for STAG’S RUN. Evalyne had just gotten her name. Before this, she was just ‘The Lady’.
Timeline for ENDURANCE (book 2). I outlined STAG’S RUN and ENDURANCE at the same time. Before I started drafting STAG’S RUN, Anik’s name was Alik and Thais didn’t have a name.
Two messy pages of revision notes for ENDURANCE
And last but not least: My original outline for THE FLOODGATES

It was so much fun going through my old notes. I left a bunch out that weren’t really worth showing. I also found I have even more hand-written notes for THE ICEFJORD SAGA, so I’ll save those for a different post. It’s always so fascinating to me to get a glimpse into the creative process of others. It somehow also helps to see that these wonderful novels I read and love didn’t just magically come into the world perfect and whole, but that there was a ton of hard work behind the scenes we didn’t get to see. Maybe by sharing these old notes of mine, I can make the process seem at least a little bit less mysterious.

Happy weekend!

1 thought on “New blog + Iron Breakers behind the scenes”

  1. This was so interesting! I love to see the author’s process, everyone is different and it feels like knowing the books a bit more intimately!

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