Creating Iron Shards has been a wild ride that began quietly, a flicker in my mind, a soft whisper saying, “Wouldn’t that be awesome?” Surrounded by breakfast dishes, after I’d organized my house from top to bottom in the first week that my youngest child began pre-k, I sipped my coffee and thought, “Now what? How many times can one woman organize her garage before going mad?”

I tossed the idea of writing out to my spouse, almost jokingly, to see how he’d react. And perceptive man that he is, he responded beautifully, bolstering my confidence until I was ready to pen my first words. A flood of ideas overwhelmed me, and I had no clue which direction I was heading. I just wrote until eventually I only lived one character’s story–the story I’m finally ready to share with you.

Once I passed the twenty page mark, I was holding more pages of one story than I’d ever written before, and I was excited to finally tell other people about my book as it began taking shape in my mind. I confided to a friend here, told a family member there until I was comfortable telling my local coffee shop friends about all of the tap-tapping happening at my table in the corner. And I discovered a marvelous trait about my friends: they all wanted me to succeed, and they all believed I would.

I wrote every day, a thousand words per day, until the story released its grip on me just after the new year. And you might be thinking that writing the story is the hard part. It’s not. The most difficult part is reading your own work and trying to tear it apart, to break it down so that it can be rebuilt as a stronger, more cohesive whole. I was challenged and frustrated as I found plot holes and idiotic turns of phrase. Did I really write that? What was I thinking? And every time I thought I was done, another error popped up or another beta reader offered feedback, and I was committed to reading the manuscript through once more. I have learned that the editing process doesn’t really end until the book is published, and even then, I’ll probably look back and still see things about the manuscript that could be better. Even if no one else does.

I am excited to be releasing Iron Shards to all of you on Amazon Kindle soon with both e-book and print options. After the publication day, I can move on to a topic dear to both of us–Book Two–Iron Spirits. Until then, keep an eye on my pages for the book release.

–Jessi