Journey To Holiness: The Great Novel Challenge

Written and Published in 364 days.

I can’t believe that over a month ago, I turned in my last novel to win the Great Novel Challenge. Many times, I thought I would fail. In the end, I finished with two days to spare. I am so relieved that I conquered. I keep thinking about the lessons I learned along the way. Here are a few of them.

My Norwegian stubbornness saved the day. I am a very competitive person. Fortunately, I am also very realistic. I suck at many things, like softball. When I play softball, I know I am not good so I only play for fun. I don’t compete. With writing, I feel I am pretty good. Not great, yet, but good. I have all the skills to finish six books in a year. I stubbornly worked the hours to get me the win. I am so thankful I am stubborn which took me through the tough times of a tight schedules, dead hip, surgery, and teaching again.

I learned 20,000 words a month is a doable number. In fact, I am feeling guilty writing this because I haven’t done one word since April 28th. Yikes. Yes, I need to turn my sights to settling all of my mother’s affairs and resting. Once the daughter takes flight, I will go back to this schedule. For the time being, I will enjoy her last year at home.

I learned I can write historical romance. My second or third book was set during the early 1940’s in Kalispell. I enjoyed the process of the story. I look forward to doing more of this type of book in the future. I have always wanted to write a historical saga. Now I know I have the chops for the task.

I learned I hate writing short fantasy novels. My two Death Song books were too short. They are good, but I want Kirzantra’s story to be told in the epic form. She is a hero of legend and her story needs to be treated this way. I was excited that my Valkyrie series turned out well with the shorter style. This made the last three books so much fun. Her story worked perfectly for the 40,000 word format.

I am not sure when I wrote the words above. As some point, life imploded. I believe the chaos struck with the cleaning of Mom's house, the yard sale, and traveling back and forth. Today as I was organizing my new schedule, I opened up my laptop to see what my topics were for blog posts. This stood at the top of the page. But a lot has happened in the last half a month or so in my life. Where am I now at writing?

I think I have talked about taking the summer off. That still stands. I am enjoying decluttering and gardening. The garage looks great. Next I will conquer each room in the house. I am excited to have it feel less claustrophobic. The yard will continue along.

Oh, and I love all the reading I am doing with the Fantasy Workshop I will be doing in September via Zoom or some platform. I have read seven books since June 7th. Of them, my favorites have bee Stephen King's, If It Bleeds and V.E. Schwab's, A Darker Shade of Magic. I still have thirteen more to read. Exciting!!!

Even though I am taking the summer off, I have ideas running rampant in my head. I have a new fantasy story about two witches that is going to be fun to write. I have a short story I have to write for the workshop. I hope this story will fit. Time will tell. I am also playing around with the idea of two memoires to write and another one to edit. I will write more on this later.

As I look towards a month and a half of no fiction, I am excited by the prospect of enjoying the sun and getting my hands dirty. With the garage clean, I also am excited to do a little painting. If you look at the pictures below and the six books that I wrote in a year, the world is full of possibilities in the area of creativity.