How We Started This Story
by C. R. Jacobson
Sometime in 2002, Kirsten and I started writing this story. It began with a metaphorical slap that turned to creative inspiration.
During Kirsten’s 10th grade year, my life moved at warp speed as I juggled an endless daily task list: kids’ schedules, home activities, family meals, church volunteering, college teaching, etc. During this time, Kirsten frequently filled many pages in notebooks, writing random stories by herself or with a friend. I knew about these notebooks but never read them. Instead, her writing annoyed me. It frequently distracted her from her homework or chores.
After attending a Parent-Teacher Conference, I learned Kirsten was failing several subjects where the teachers commented how her notebook-writing consumed her time in class. I was ticked. Adding fuel to my fire, one Sunday morning during church, Kirsten sat next to me with her good friend beside her. They passed the church bulletin back and forth as they wrote a story together. I fumed while I watched and schemed my parental act of discipline for this grievous sin!
As I contemplated grabbing the bulletin, separating the girls, and telling them to listen to the sermon, I received a metaphorical slap. Whoa! The Holy Spirit convicted me of my blindness. How would my discipline in this moment motivate my daughter to listen to the remaining sermon? How would my continued annoyance of my daughter’s writing encourage her creativity? Why had I been ignoring her God-given strengths as a writer? Why hadn’t I invested my expertise as a writing teacher into her?
For the remainder of this day, my mind swirled with ideas while my heart swelled with conviction. That night, creative inspiration filled my dreams in grand detail about a family drama set in a fantasy world—a story I could write with my daughter. The next day when Kirsten returned home from school, I told her about my dream and invited her to write a story with me. Immediately, she hugged me and exclaimed about this great idea.
That night, creative inspiration filled my dreams in grand detail about a family drama set in a fantasy world—a story I could write with my daughter.
A few days later, Kirsten handed me a notebook and asked me to read her draft. I read with perplexity and suspicion. I feared she had plagiarized the writing because it exceeded my expectations. So, I cautiously quizzed her about where she got the material. “Mom!” she exclaimed, “I got it from you. Wasn’t this your idea?” Yes, it was exactly my idea, and she captured it. Thus, began this writing adventure spanning the last two decades. (Fun Fact: Her first pages eventually gave birth to chapter 2 in book one.)
The publishing attempts dead-ended with the advice “come back when you have a series.”
In the first few years, we randomly wrote chapters during vacation, free time, and special weekend get-aways just the two of us. After about five years, we concluded book one by printing some copies and submitting to various publishers. The publishing attempts dead-ended with the advice “come back when you have a series.” By this time, important life events consumed us as Kirsten graduated from college, got married, advanced in her career, and became a mother. Over the next decade, Kirsten continued developing characters and plot lines to expand the story. I discouraged her, once again, since I felt done with my time and ideas about the story.
Finally in 2019, Kirsten convinced me that she had developed better ideas to revise our original story into a multi-volume series. As a result, I agreed to add “revising the novel” to my upcoming sabbatical project for my teaching job. Thus, during the academic year of 2019-20, I focused on revising our book one of The Palimar Saga.
Kirsten had drastically altered the original story. The first time I read her drafts, I didn’t like the changes because I was confused about the direction of the story. Kirsten felt disappointed to hear my initial reactions. As a result, we engaged in many hard conversations about the changes. Thus, we started the painful task of revising. After many questions, arguments, and revisions, I understood where she was going and loved it! The story came alive for me, and we have worked steadily at completing it.
Want to know more about our writing and editing process? Click here.