Every two to three years, an insane idea pops into my mind… “Let’s build a 1000 piece puzzle.” I go on this epic quest because I want to do something with my family. It is one of those times where we all jump into the task at hand, and there is no sibling bickering. And I say that loosely, because there is always some sort of epic battle happening in our home.
I usually get inspired by the picture on the box, which is what most inspires most people in life. As a fantasy author, I should be looking for puzzles that have the Hobbit, a dragon or some other sort of epic fantasy genre image, but mostly we go for impossibly difficult puzzles, like large fluffy white cats sitting on a pile of almost white spaghetti (yes, it’s true – that one drove me quite dilly) or crazy cartoon sailors or equally crazy racing car drivers all in a dreadfully confusing array of poses… not at all something that you would expect from a fantasy author. Sometimes I wish I would just choose something simple. Come to think of it, maybe that is what I should have done… written one simple book. But no… I had a vision of creating a series. What was I thinking?
Vision is something many of us get at some point. But having a vision and following through are two entirely separate things.
When I throw all the pieces of my 1000 piece puzzle onto the table, I am still feeling inspired. But as I turn over all the pieces and recognise… yet again, that so many of those pieces look exactly the same, that is when my enthusiasm wanes.
Then comes the dreaded moment, when you think you have found the perfect piece and you just know it is going to springboard you to the next level, but you discover it simply won’t fit despite all visual evidence to the contrary. Come to think of it, this process feels a lot like editing. There is a lot that happens between the initial enthusiasm of writing that first draft of your epic medieval fantasy series and the final cover fans see on Amazon before they buy your book, and this is where the real test of perseverance comes in… the 1000 things that have to be edited. Please do not even begin to think that I am exaggerating. I never exaggerate when it comes to the epic editing battle. I can almost hear my editing groaning under the weight of some of my peculiarities that my writing brain stubbornly refuses to relinquish.
This is the point that I have to remind myself why I am actually doing this. For me it all centres around family. We spend so much time chasing homework, chasing money, chasing deadlines, that we fail to connect and days, weeks and sometimes months go past without meaningful interaction. So puzzle time is a wonderful way of interacting. My series is also about family. You see, my vision is to create three separate book series. Each one is dedicated to one of my children and when I have put down the last puzzle piece of my life, I will leave the royalties of each series to the child that the series is dedicated to. It will be my legacy that I leave for them and my prayer is that in some way my books will touch the hearts of those who really need what lies inside those pages.
This vision is what keeps me picking up all those pieces and crafting all those words when nothing seems to fit and I am not sure which way to turn. It is a vision that my family has bought into and a vision that my “tribe” keeps encouraging me in. I am so grateful for my fans who send me encouragement, share their trials, their family recipes, buy my books, leave reviews, book massages and send me delightful research topics like Christian Samurai’s… You are all helping me to keep persevering and keep striving to attain my vision.
