The Universe would take care of the rest.

With the Summer Solstice just passed, I thought I’d pause to give the Universe her report card.

(And if you want to read more about my wishes, you can do that here: “12 Winter Solstice Wishes”)

1. Exercise 126 times

No idea.

A generous estimate would be that I’ve exercised 2x/week. With about 25 weeks behind us, that’s 50 workouts, leaving 76 for the rest of the year. That would require about 3 workouts per week.

I’m not sure that will happen and tbh I probably won’t track it too closely. But most importantly, I am feeling stronger.

2. Finish ROTA

On track.

My beta readers have shared their feedback and I’ve started revisions. I have an editor lined up and plans to independently publish by the end of the year.

I’m nervous about actually following through on all that, but so far so good. Ring of the Axe WILL be published. If not this year, then soon after.

3. Research trip to Chicago

DONE.

You can read all about it in my post “What Do Facts Have To Do with Fantasy?”

4. Grow leadership within MPT

Solid.

Middleton Players Theatre has more people excelling in more areas than ever before.

The one area where I still want more growth is to find a person who takes charge of recruiting new donations from both individuals & businesses. It’s hard work, but I’m sure there’s somebody out there who will thrive doing it!

5. Meditate 226 times

Meh.

My app says I’ve meditated 72 times, leaving 154 for the back half of the year. That would mean meditating 6x/week, which is well beyond my pace but…I don’t know. It’s more part of my routine lately so perhaps I’ll get there.

6. Publish 26 blog posts

On track!

I’ve published 13 blog posts so far this year, so I’m dead on track.

1. 12 Winter Solstice Wishes

2. (Book #0) Brains: How to Survive Apocalyptic Bibliophilia

3. Reading Gratitude Journal

4. What Do Facts Have To Do with Fantasy?

5. (Reading Gratitude Journal #1) A Sorceress Comes to Call

6. I can’t work like this!

7. (Reading Gratitude Journal #2) The Sparrow

8. (Reading Gratitude Journal #3) The War of Art

9. Getting from first draft to beta readers

10. (Reading Gratitude Journal #4) Bury Our Bones in the Midnight Soil

11. What Can a Second Draft Do?

12. *The Trouble with Hating You* by Sajni Patel

13. You’re going to charge money for your hobby?

7. Find a writing mentor

Not yet.

A specific writing mentor has not appeared to me, but I have enriched my writing community.

I attended two writing seminars at the Arts & Literature Laboratory: Successfully Self-Publish with Louise Mayberry (January) and Plot to Finish with Jason Tanamor (April). The latter included a cohort of wonderful people who’ve kept up with each other <3

I’m also reading the Alliance for Independent Authors newsletter here on substack, and plan to become a member. It makes me feel grounded as an aspiring independent author—someone in a community of peers.

8. Read 26 books

No problem.

I’ve read 18 so far (although if you’re doing the math, I’m well behind on documenting those reads in my Reading Gratitude Journal entries).

So this one should be a breeze.

9. Make a printed photo book

Questionable.

I’ve been taking plenty of pictures of our family life, but really neglecting doing anything with them. That’s a struggle with the phone camera: it’s easy to capture life, but much more work to memorialize it.

The Universe will just have to sit me down for a while to do that curation. AI could surely do this task for me, but I’m certainly not ready to outsource the process of choosing what’s meaningful to me.

10. Film ROTA beta readings

DONE.

I recorded myself reading the beta draft of Ring of the Axe and posted it (unlisted) to YouTube for my beta readers and a few other interested people.

It was an excellent learning experience that made me both slow down to read every word I had written AND get through it fast enough to deliver to beta readers. A brilliant combination. Would highly recommend.

11. Perform in a dance show

DONE.

In point of fact…I’ve done TWO!

Midterm Grade for the Universe…

COMPLETE: 3
On track: 4
Questionable: 4

How am I doing?

Along with the 11 wishes that the Universe is working on, I had one mission:

MY WISH: Host a garden party & a winter party

On track.

The garden party is inevitable. We have two occasions already the calendar: our niece’s “Barbe-CUTE” birthday and the Middleton Players season celebration.

The garden itself might not be in the most brilliant shape, but we should have a deck built and a new driveway poured. Just add people and “garden” party: achieved.

The winter party is intended for my book release party, and as mentioned above, the book is on track. I don’t foresee any issues getting this one done!

I was missing the answer to the question: why make it a business at all? Opening an LLC presumes that you want to charge money for your creative work. Is that really necessary?

Amie McNee has informed a lot of my thinking on this, and you can get a taste of her perspective in “Should you monetise your hobby?”

Most of creative outlets are never intended for sale, and that’s wonderful. Among the things I do just for the helluvit: embroidery, party planning, painting, chalk drawing, mending, dance.

I also feel no shame in asking for your money in exchange for my writing.

Even if you don’t need the money

My privilege is that I don’t need the money from selling my art. Our household is financially stable at the moment. It doesn’t matter if my books are hugely profitable.

My modest hope is that my book sales can eventually fund my coffee runs when my husband & I are living retired life.

(Not that I ever plan to retire—my other modest hope is that this creative practice can keep my mind young long after that.)

It will all be OK whether the books sell or not. I’m going to keep writing either way.

So why not just give my art away for free? Well, I do plan to be generous with free copies for those who need them, but…

Selling the work makes it more “real”

I always knew that when I finished Ring of the Axe, I would sell it. Not just distribute it to friends or enjoy it privately. That was always the plan—I never second guessed it.

Money raises the stakes. It demands strategic thinking. I like that. I like to watch data and measure growth. I’d love to fund a book tour. I want to reinvest my earnings to pay editors and cover artists.

For some art, nobody questions the money

As president of a community theater, I have a vivid look into how the exchange of money makes the creation feel even more real, more heightened, more tenuous.

Nobody bats an eye when it comes to buying a ticket to a musical, even if it is amateur. The medium (lights, costumes, space, musicians) is just way too expensive to put it on without funding from the audience.

MPT Tickets

An exchange of money is an exchange of trust

I’ll give you $18 for a book or $80 for a theater ticket or $800 for a painting—and I’m also giving you my trust that you’re doing your best to bring good art into my brain or my home.

If you get something for free, you haven’t been asked to make an upfront investment of your resources (money).

Once you have made that financial investment, don’t you feel more likely to give the thing your other precious resource: attention?

In all this exchange of resources and trust, we are building a connection. A dialogue (even if we only ever really hear our own side of it). And that that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Right?

Money tainting art?

There’s a narrative among artist that money tinges the creative process. That greedy green stuff can sour the work. The consumer’s expectations add pressure that wasn’t there when you’re doing it purely for fun.

I don’t feel too much pressure or hang-up about this (but task me again when my book actually goes on sales and I start writing the next one).

Besides, I can think of way worse things than trying to delight your audience (like trying to appease an algorithm). I have a few key readers that I think of when I write. If they are amused, then I’m happy. And if I amuse myself, I’m happy.

Am I worried about money tainting my art? Nah.

The lack of art clots our creativity

(a short tirade about the internet these days)

I’ve heard that creativity is just the output of all the experiences and art and conversations and other inputs. I buy that. Each pipette of an idea drips into the well, where a bubbling alchemy turns them into something new.

That would mean that the quality of what we consume is absolutely bedrock to the quality of what we create, right? Maybe that’s not a given, but it feels critically important now to INVEST in good inputs with our time (and money, when we can).

When I think about negative influences on my creativity, I think about the deluge of monotonous and toxic and algorithm-friendly tidbits I tend to collect most days.

Much better to spend our attention and our dollars to create the culture that we want to be a part of.

I’m greedy

You can call me greedy.

Sure, I’m greedy for your money. Buy my book (when it’s out). Or my merch (when I get my website running). Let me put that money to good use paying other artists and buying myself lattes.

Mostly, I’m greedy for your trust. Greedy for a connection with you, the reader. I giggle with delight when I write a joke that I think might make you laugh. I squirm with glee when I build tension in a way that makes you feel it too. I want to make you feel something, take you on a wild ride, and hear from your after it’s done.

And always, I’m greedy for your attention. I just hope I can get good enough to make it worth your while :)

When I finished, I made a list of things that I DISDAINED about my first draft.

Don’t get me wrong, I also loved it.

First of all, I loved it because I DID IT. There was a huge sense of accomplishment in finishing the shitty thing and knowing that I could make it better.

Also…sometimes it was good. Pages would go by and I would lose myself in it. No notes. No critiques. Just absorbed and loving it. Swept away by the characters or the action or the suspense.

But on the whole, that draft needed a lot of work. Some of it was missing, some of it was cringe, some of it was confusing, and some of it was downright bad. I would lay in bed nagged by tangles in the plot, questions about character development, and my general excitement about this book’s potential.

So what did I do?

I made a list.

I made a list of what I perceived were the biggest shortcomings of my first draft.

Now I’m revisiting that list to ask the question: did I do it? Did my second draft (now with my beta readers) fix those flaws?

Let’s take a look…

Where was my villain??

Some of my favorite characters include Scar, Captain Ahab, and the velociraptors in Jurassic Park. I love villains, especially interesting and complex ones that maybe you could argue aren’t really all that villainous after all.

So how is it that Ring of the Axe had no clear villain energy?? I knew what my main character Chelsea was dealing with internally, but I completely neglected the external villain. The Big Bad.

🖤 Now…ROTA is villainous

Once I put this question in my mind, I couldn’t stop thinking about so many ways I could amplify and complicate my villain.

Now, the villain’s development is one of my favorite parts of my book. I did it.

Cliches run amok

What can I say about cliches that hasn’t been said before, right? I found so many of them, from words to phrases to dialogue to character traits. I wanted to kill them all and replace them with specific, meaningful details for my story.

🐜 Now…the cliche infestation continues

There were just too many other BIG issues in the book to tackle the small pestilence of cliches while working on my second draft. Cliches will be a big area of focus for my next round of edits as I put more polish on the book as a whole.

Meandering, noncommittal dialogue

With dialogue, sometimes it wasn’t the characters talking…it was me talking to myself. It was painful watching me literally trying to figure out what would happen next or why something worked the way it did.

🦜 Now…readers are spared chapters of “what’s going on?” prattle

I cut SO MUCH dialogue that fell into the category of “Megan talking to herself.” Multiple chapters of it.

And yet! There is still SO MUCH MORE dialogue that needs another look. In the next revisions, I’ll be asking myself…

• Does this need to be said? Or could it be acted out in some way?

• If it does need to be said, is this how this character would say it?

• If it’s repetitive, is that repetition a useful reminder? Or can I trust my reader to remember those details without me giving a refresher?

I also have a new disdain for when Chelsea gets whiny about her motivation (“I need to get back to my son!” “I have responsibilities back at home!”) and the way she repeats back anything that she doesn’t understand. (“You’re an ephemeral.” “An EpHeMeRaL??” Grow up.)

Undeveloped magic system

Speaking of watching myself figure stuff out, the first draft radiated “this author doesn’t have a clear magic system.” I was inventing definitions and terminology and logic on the spot. I did not do the prep work here, and it shows.

🔮 Now…I have a (loose) magic system

The first thing I did before starting my second draft was to document my world building, including the rules of magic.

Then I kept those in mind as I retroactively applied that structure to the book.

I’ll be honest, I’m leaving the door open for future books to explore and generate new elements of the magic system in the ROTAverse. But things are MUCH better now for Ring of the Axe.

Unconvincing faerie land

I wanted more beasties, more lore, more mysterious happenings and glimmers through the woods. More casual MAGIC. In the first draft, most of the scenes in the Faerie Realm just read like scenes in our world. They were BORING.

✨ Now…there’s a glimmer

In the second draft, I did add more beasties and more casual magic, but I still think I could dream bigger when it comes to bringing the Faerie Realm ALIVE. Adding more danger, more excitement, and more MAGIC to Chelsea’s time there.

Not buying the divorce story line

I couldn’t even convince myself that the relationship between Chelsea and her ex, Eric, was real. The scenes between the two of them and memories that they share were disjointed, splattered attempts to make something stick.

🤷🏻‍♀ Now…eh, the plot is solid but the personal is still weak

After the first draft, I did have a breakthrough on how to make their story more crucial to Chelsea’s overall story arc...the interplay between Chelsea and Eric drives the story forward at certain points. But it’s not quite believable yet. The exact, intimate details of their history still elude me a bit.

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A flat MMC

One of the male leads, Vaux, just wasn’t lighting up for me. He’s the strong silent type anyway, but it was as if he was just there to facilitate Chelsea’s story and fuel some of the sexy moments.

I guess he deserved more than that.

🙄 Now…Vaux is a real boy!

He’s got more backstory, he’s got more personality, he’s got more muscles (lol not really. or maybe? read to find out).

Of course I’m still anxious to continue developing his character, but we’re heading in the right direction.

Continuity errors

Remember this?

I felt this in the first draft. Misplaced props, randomly appearing furniture, characters who somehow were carrying things in three hands, wondering how a person moved from point A to point B…when they actually needed to be in location X.

My imagination was working overtime on these little mental maps to make sure I collected all the misplaced coffee cups.

☕ Now…I’m still catching errors

…and hoping that my beta readers will catch even more. In the second draft, I made a lot of changes to scene order & locations & weather, so I’m still picking up the loose pieces.

One approach that’s been extremely helpful? Narrating the book on camera for some of my beta readers to listen to. It forces me to slow down and notice when things are out of place.

The end was just an impression

Confession time: I only outlined the end of Ring of the Axe before calling the first draft “done” and throwing myself a party.

Ring of the Axe was not, in fact, done.

I had a good idea of the beats that needed to happen, but I also knew that I had to go back to the beginning to make it really stick. There were so many things I figured out along the way. I need to see those through before I could write a satisfying ending.

🔥 Now…the ending feels so good

Although I felt guilty at the time, in hindsight it was 100% the right move to leave the ending as an outline in the first draft.

I had seen what was missing. I could weave it all through the story from chapter one. I could get to the end with confidence and clarity, so much better equipped with a vision for the themes, characters, and inevitable outcomes.

I wrote the last 50 pages of Ring of the Axe in the last week before giving the book to beta readers. I moved myself to tears THREE TIMES writing it. So yeah, I feel pretty good about the end of the book, even if it was rushed and probably needs a lot of close work.

It’s done. And that’s what matters.

So…first draft mission accomplished?

I give myself full marks on 4 items: villainy, world-building, MMC personality, and the ending. Not that any of them are perfect, but they came a LONG WAY in the second draft.

I’ll also take partial credit for 3 items: dialogue, faerie vibes, and Chelsea’s divorce story. Some progress, but still plenty of work.

And as for the last 2 items: cliches and continuity…I could have predicted that those would linger into these later revisions. All good, we’ll work them out in the end…at least some of them.

So, cheers to a second draft that’s dramatically better than the first…

…may the next one improve even more!

How do you turn a messy first draft into something that’s ready for beta readers?

Maybe it’s my motor city upbringing, but I’ve been thinking about car repair.

My process might look a little like restoring an old car. Not that I know the first thing about car repair. I don’t know much more than what Tim “The Tool Man” Taylor could teach about that…which is mostly grunting and running away from his problems in the garage.

So, at the risk of extending this metaphor WAY too far...

The first draft is a clunker

My first draft is the old clunker. It doesn’t actually run. It’s rusted out on the bottom. Two of the doors don’t match the original body color. The trunk is held closed with duct tape. But you can sort of see what shape it’s in.

If you really listen, you can hear the purr of the engine.

To get her on the road, you gotta get that engine running.

Go piece by piece

I take out each component of my first draft and look at it on its own, like bringing the muffler out to the garage workbench.

Practically speaking, I can’t work in my full “manuscript” document. Maybe this is a limitation of the tool that I’m using - Google docs - which really starts to lag and drag in a document with over 500 pages. Scrivener or even Word are probably better behaved.

But no, I extract the section or chapter that I want to work on and pull it into another document called “ROTA Workbench.”

Repair or replace each part

Once I’m in that “Workbench” document, I get to work.

Being out of the main manuscript also does the trick of helping me take it not too seriously. It doesn’t have to be perfect - it’s not in the manuscript yet. We’re just tinkering. Fiddling around. Sometimes I look at the chapter and realize I can make some tweaks and put it right back in.

Sometimes I look inside and find that the carburetor was never the right fit for this car anyway, throw it in the scrap heap, and make a new one.

Rev that engine

After each piece is examined and tested, it’s time to turn the key and turn over the engine. Prove that it all works together, even if she still looks like a hunk of junk.

I copy/paste each piece back from the “Workbench” into the main manuscript. Do that enough times, and it’s all cleaned up there, ready to read.

And I have one more metaphor for you…

Fold it in

While I’m working chronologically section by section, piece by piece, I occasionally have a breakthrough…that changes everything that came before it.

What do I start to hear when I write a scene or twist that requires me to go through and change a bunch of other things?

This:

This is officially known as retroactive continuity. And boy am I ret-conning to the max.

Some ret-cons are famously egregious. Like learning that it was Palpatine the whole time in Star Wars episode 9.

But my book is still a work in progress, and it’s all still fair game. If I can add foreshadowing and massage in a new idea or plot twist, then nobody (except my beta readers) will be any wiser!

Thus “fold it in” means going over and over it until it’s smooth and blended.

On to beta readers

And with that, page by page and ingredient by ingredient, my book is off to beta readers….

(Oh and if you’re curious, this was my first car…not this exact one, but same make, model, and fabulous paint job:)

It’s the end of an era. In July 2025, we moved in with my parents while our house gets remodeled. Now it’s February 2026, and we’ve moving back.

Anyone who has moved house knows that it’s tiring and frustrating. And our house isn’t quite done - just livable. I’m going to feel unsettled for a while yet.

This is a preposterously privileged set of problems to have, of course. And yet…

This is going to be hard

We’re living in a construction zone. Moving, unpacking, sorting, organizing, cleaning up dust, playing tetris with the work areas that need to stay clear, entertaining the boys while our movements are somewhat limited, starting Robin in a new school, adapting to a new world where Seamus is home every day.

In all that hubbub, my office space is not the highest priority. But I have personal deadlines to meet. I don’t want to fall behind.

So the question is: how do I keep writing even through this period of transition?

This is NOT…

This is (hopefully) NOT a way to bully myself into more work. I’m pretty darn good at avoiding work, I think.

Instead, I want to make the most of the time and energy I have. I don’t want to lose it to perfectionism (“I can’t work until my space is perfect”) and procrastination (“just 15 more minutes on social media”).

What do other writers say?

When I had a lot of driving time going back and forth between our temporary residence and our building site, I often listened to the Writer’s Routine podcast.

From that small sample size, there seem to be plenty of writers who need a certain chair, software, and location to write.

Then there is another breed: a group of writers who have kept their routines deliberately agile.

They don’t want to worship the ritual: relying on a candle that might burn out, a pen that might get lost, a location that can’t travel with them. They don’t want to lose writing time, so they practice writing on trains, planes, and automobiles.

I think I need to learn something from them if I want to keep working over the next few weeks.

My ideal conditions

First, I want to paint my perfectionist picture of writing.

It’s early morning. I had a great night’s sleep the night before, and I feel fresh and alert.

I’ve just eaten a meal with protein, fruits, and vegetables. I have a water bottle and/or caffeinated beverage at my side. I also went outside for a short time and had some good lungfulls of fresh air and a look into the natural sunlight.

I’m in my studio. The combination of light is bright and welcoming, but not glaring. The temperature is just right, or maybe slightly on the chilly side.

I have a full keyboard and external monitor attached to my laptop so I’m having a very ergonomic experience.

The desk is clear, I don’t have any other pressing responsibilities or anxieties for the day. I know I’ll have at least 45 minutes all to myself to write. I don’t have a hard stop time though, so I can keep going if I get on a roll.

The kids are asleep, or out with their dad, or occupied somewhere else as someone else’s responsibility. The dogs are taken care of and content, settled into their beds. There’s no chance of interruption (unless the house starts to burn down).

My minimum conditions

Now, what do I need to just get the job done?

Biological needs. If hunger or thirst is affecting my ability to concentrate, I should take care of those things first. Same for any pressing bathroom business. (I’m not putting sleeping on that list because if I had a shit night of sleep, I would still hope to fit in a few minutes of writing.)

Writing tools. A full keyboard is great. My little bluetooth keyboard is also workable. Pen and paper will do quite nicely too, as long as I know where I left off or what I plan to write next.

Minimal interruptions. I can’t write when I’m actively parenting. I prefer relative quiet, but noise-cancelling headphones can work wonders.

Decent posture. If I slouch too much over my screens, I get grumpy and sad. However, I can curl over a notebook no problem.

Relative privacy. I don’t like people reading over my shoulder. Although this seems like one that I should work on getting over, building confidence and audacity.

5 minutes. The internet suggests that it takes 23 minutes to gain focus on a task. But 5 minutes is all I need to confirm my identity as a writer by being able to say I WROTE TODAY.

Below this threshold…

Below the minimum threshold, it’s actually counterproductive to try to write because I’ll just get confused, frustrated, and make mistakes.

And that’s good to know what the threshold is, because I don’t want to put myself in situations where I’m just disappointing myself and feeling worse and making it more likely that I won’t write the next day.

Where can I meet those minimum requirements?

Cafes, libraries, parks, patios, tables, bars, couches, lobbies, hotel rooms, standing desks, ferries, arm chairs. Trains, planes…

But not automobiles. I get car sick, so I can actually WRITE much, although I get some lovely ideas staring out at the road. Things just click. Then if I’m the passenger, I can jot down a few words without too much risk to my inner ear & tummy.

I can write here

Even though our home is still under construction, I can write here.

Sure, I’ll miss being out in nature--being able to step outside and into the Bear Valley, surrounded by hills, bald eagles, foxes, frost, fields, and open space for the mind to wander and weave.

My boys are already missing Lone Rock, with Seamus asking repeatedly when we’re going back there.

I didn’t really appreciate how much living in Lone Rock was a getaway. We had to keep things clean, but I didn’t have to look around and see an unending list of other home projects that needed completed.

I’ll have a lot more on my “house” to do list here in Madison…but on the other hand, I can make my new space whatever I want it to be.

It’s a chance to form new routines. I’m driving less across the Wisconsin countryside, so all of a sudden there are more hours in the day.

I can write here.

With schedules and children and pets, I wasn’t sure it was going to happen. Then our boys got invited to the Monster Jam in Milwaukee with their aunt & uncle. A perfect moment to leave them with family and go on this adventure.

The stars aligned and I got my wish: a winter weekend in Chicago focused on my book.

In hindsight, I can now say why this trip felt so important to me, what I went looking for, and how I would do it all again (for my next book!).

I hate being wrong.

Is there anything worse than failing to be correct? Hearing the words “ACTUALLY…”? Missing the right answer? Misinterpreting the facts? Appearing stupid in front of smart people??

It’s painful for my soul (even though I know making mistakes is how we learn, nobody’s perfect, blah, blah, BLAH).

That’s probably why I gravitated toward writing fantasy. Nobody could tell me I got it wrong because it’s all made up!

But…ACTUALLY…even fantasy writers do their research

Ring of the Axe is portal fantasy, meaning that the main character (Chelsea) lives in our world (Chicago), but gets pulled into an invented, magical world (the Faerie Realm).

So it’s firmly rooted in reality, with real places and real people and real history. I could easily get things wrong, and hear responses like “ACTUALLY, the blue line wouldn’t be running at that time of night.”

Even when Chelsea travels to the Faerie Realm, that place is not a totally spontaneous creation. The geography, the movement of people, the tools people carry, the systems of government…they all have some relationship to the real world.

My books start with vibes, not reality

When I started writing Ring of the Axe, two characters and a general vibe appeared to me. Then a plot started to unfold around them.

Having characters and a plot started, I also needed to know where people lived, what their magic could do, what jobs they had, who their family was. I needed facts to fit my vibes.

The more I wrote, the more I thought critically about the rules for the universe I was creating…and the more worried I got.

What have I created?

It’s not too much of a spoiler to say the Faerie Realm in Ring of the Axe is like our world, but different.

• People from our world go to the Faerie Realm (and vice versa), but not often. There’s enough of an exchange that our regional languages stay in sync (thank goodness!).

• There are not nearly as many people in the Faerie Realm (I have hypothetical reasons for why that’s the case, but I’m not a population scientist and neither are any of my characters so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯).

• The geography is very similar, but the people of the Faerie Realm have a small town with outlying villages instead of a huge metropolis.

• There isn’t that much technology. They have magic after all!

Given all that, the Chicago of the Faerie Realm probably feels a lot more like a magical version of a historic Chicago - one where Native Americans and French fur traders and some other early colonizers.

You know what I don’t know much about? Native Americans around Chicago and French fur traders and early colonization of the Great Lakes region.

How do I make that creation feel real?

I want the Ring of the Axe to be plausible to the experts, accessible to the uninitiated, timeless to a future audience, and moving to my readers.

PLAUSIBLE

I don’t want my book to alienate them by feeling false to people who have much more expertise than I do. The main audience that I stress about is the Chicagoans. There are so many people who have experience, connections, and expectations of the city. Even if my book covers only a tiny tiny slice of all that, I want it to feel realistic.

ACCESSIBLE

If a reader has never been to Chicago or doesn’t know it that well, the book should still be readable and natural to that person. At minimum I don’t want to leave anyone out. Ideally I might create an impression of a vibrant and fascinating place in the world.

TIMELESS

My style of writing also strives to be generic enough that if a certain restaurant closes down, or a pop star goes out of fashion, or a political figurehead slips into obscurity, it’s still possible to understand and relate to these books.

(Honestly this point is easy for me--I have a terrible memory for names of people and places. So Ann Sathers quickly becomes “that yellow place with the cinnamon rolls.”)

MOVING

As a reader, I’m moved when the author has a specific viewpoint that is foreign to me but still carries me away. I’m writing a book that only I can write, seeing things that only I can see. I don’t want to fall back totally on the stereotypes, or the most famous landmarks, or the most cursory knowledge that can be dredged up on the internet. I want to be inspired by little moments and realizations and colors and smells that are specific to me but hopefully resonant with you readers too.

How to research your fantasy book

So how did I do it, and how would I do it again?

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1. Do what you can at your desk

There’s so much information in libraries and on the internet to lay a foundation before you visit a place. Laying that foundation gives yourself the best chances to be able to go past the surface level knowledge to find something special.

I wasn’t poring over books for days and days, but I did read a few titles and visit lots of internet resources about Chicago history & geography, how Native Americans around the Great Lakes lived, the importance of the river portage to trade since time immemorial, the explorations of Marquette and Joliet, and more.

2. Schedule the trip with seasons & drafting status in mind

The timing for this trip was accidentally exquisite.

I didn’t just want boots on the ground, I wanted SNOW boots on the ground. Ring of the Axe is mostly set in a wintery Chicago. Things are just different in winter, especially when it involves tromping around nature.

It was also well-timed with my writing process. Any earlier than that and it would have been an “inspiration trip.” Now that I’m mostly through my second draft, I’m on solid footing but still have flexibility to make changes.

3. Prepare an itinerary and questions

I paged through my manuscript looking for any little loose ends I could tie up during this trip.

I looked up museum hours, mapped locations to minimize driving, and made a list of things that I wanted to research. That list has lines like…

• Where would this side character live?

• I need a house that backs up to a wooded area. Where would that be?

• Where is the nearest emergency room to Chelsea’s house?

• What does a Chicago prairie look like in winter?

• How does the sun rise over Lake Michigan?

4. Recruit help

At first I thought I would want to really immerse myself in this trip alone, but in the end I had help and I think that was better.

I started by orienting them to the basic structure of the world and conflict of the book.

Matt was all over it, asking great logistical questions that either challenged me to think a new way or boosted my confidence in the answers that I already had.

Colleen helped assign neighborhoods to my characters (and tipped me off to this humorous Reddit post. Jim also chimed in with more expertise in the suburbs.

Having them both out in the field also helped dull the edge of weirdness when I pulled on a locked door to the Loyola physics building or asked a weird question of the docent at the Botanic Gardens.

5. Wander around

Seek vibes, both of the city and of the natural areas. Look for exits and paths and hidden ways. Stop and smell the roses. Listen for bird calls or traffic noise or silence. Observe the people who are also there with you.

We wandered around the Loyola University Lake Shore campus, Gichigamiin Museum, the Chicago Botanic Gardens, and Momotaro for sushi (which was not strictly on the agenda, but still delicious). The next morning we watched the sun rise over Lake Michigan and got breakfast at Ann Sathers.

6. Take pictures, notes, and anything else you find.

Scribble down everything you’re seeing and thinking. Pick up newspapers and flyers. Take pictures to remind you of the little visual details that you’ll probably forget.

7. Put it right back in the manuscript

In a very uncharacteristic move, I was putting this all back in the manuscript almost immediately. That seems like the best way, even if it’s just making in-line notes to come back to later. I was bursting with inspiration and clarity and I didn’t want to lose any of it to the haze of time.

8. Don’t be afraid to leave things behind.

Not everything you learn will be a part of the work, no matter how cool the factoid or how significant the historical moment. This is a novel after all, not a history book or a travel guide.

Whatever you find, it’s in the background contributing to your understanding and to the overall effect. We’re growing a broad knowledge so that the right details emerge to make it feel true in the deepest sense of the word.

What will you get for your efforts?

Sure, I absorbed a lot of information about Chicago. Ring of the Axe will be richer, more logical, and better for all this seeking.

But in the end my biggest breakthrough wasn’t something I saw or learned. It was something I COULDN’T FIND.

One of the biggest tangles of the end of the book was how to get “Event G” to happen in the same location as “Item C” (too many spoilers to be more specific). I could not find a place where I thought they could reasonably fit.

Then I realized…oh, they DON’T fit. There’s something else entirely going on…and I knew exactly what I had to write.

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