Today is an exciting day, as it brings me one step further on a path I’ve been traveling for what feels like a lifetime.
It seems like a lifetime ago that I embarked on the endeavor of publishing my first novel. The Goblin Market was a project I’d been working on for years, writing and rewriting it the entire time I was going to college, but never quite knowing what to do with it whenever I reached a point where it felt done. Then I met my husband, who at the time was podcasting his zombie novel ESCAPE. He convinced me to podcast The Goblin Market, and I set up a website, bought a cheap microphone and downloaded freeware recording software to embark on the rewarding, but complicated endeavor that is podcasting a novel. It felt like it took forever to record, edit and put episodes out into the world, but I did it and then I began the process of independently publishing the book itself. The podcast is no longer available, but there is now a professionally recorded audiobook, a paperback and an ebook version of The Goblin Market, which is still very exciting to me. The love of your first “real” novel never dies.
At the time I was very motivated. I knew right where the next story was going to go, and I’d even started writing it, but as things happen from time to time I lost momentum and my inspiration began to wane. Jack in the Green, the follow-up novel to The Goblin Market got put on the backburner so many times, I lost faith in the story itself and thought maybe I should shy away from the pleas for a continuation of the story and move on to other things. I couldn’t ignore the pleas anymore than I could ignore the story itself, and for years I poked at it, prodding and trying to breathe life back into it so I could move on with my life.
See, I’m one of those people that cannot abide unfinished business. I don’t like to break promises and I lose sleep over things that need to be taken care of. That’s not to say I haven’t had my fair share of good nights’ sleep over the last five years, but there have been times it’s really bothered me that I hadn’t been able to finish Jack in the Green yet. I wrote a lot of other things in the interim. Several other novels, tons of short stories and then I sat down one day and wrote Winterborn–a short novelette meant to bridge the gap between The Goblin Market and Jack in the Green. Maybe it would quiet the disturbance and get me back on track with the novel that needed to be written. For a while it did just that and diligently worked through the 65,000 words I’d already written on the manuscript that seriously didn’t seem to want to be written.
A character emerged during the reworking, an embittered young prince who needed further exploration, and several times over the last year I found myself tinkering with his story as he folded himself into Jack’s. I spent most of May working on Jack in the Green because that story finally decided it was time. And then near the end of the month I sat down and started writing a novella about that angry little princeling. With the story now finished and in edits and rewrites, it’s time to advance one step further Into the Green.
Coming July 10, 2015, pre-order details to follow shortly. In the meantime, if you’d like to begin your journey Into the Green, you can begin at The Goblin Market and follow it up with Winterborn before embarking ever further into the darkness that lurks between the Underground kingdoms with The Darkling Prince. If you’re already familiar with this world, you can learn more about the story itself over on my website in the Cover Reveal post there.
The Write Stuff 
Wow, Jenny! I’m amazed at how much you’ve done. So what if ONE story got a bit bogged down. Things happen exactly as they are supposed to happen, and at the time in which they should occur. I absolutely believe that, even when it doesn’t make sense. Maybe had you finished Jack in the Green earlier, you would never have met the Darkling Prince. It will all come together as it should. And I’m definitely going to read the entire series. I believe I already have The Goblin Market (still pondering on the tea, though), and I know I’ll get Winterborn and The Darkling Prince, as well. Now when I’ll find time to READ them is a much thornier issue, but when that time arrives, I’ll be ready-set to go! Thanks for sharing with us, and beautiful cover!!
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I agree one hundred percent. If you rush things to get them out simply because people expect it, things don’t get the full attention they deserve. It’s one of those things where I have to write it for me, not because other people want it. It should always be like that, and for the most part throughout my career, it has been. Everything I write, I write because I want to read it.
In retrospect, that is how I developed my bizarre superstition to not talk about anything until the first draft is done, at the very least. I will mention a project, but not go into detail about the thing until it’s finished. It seems like a curse if I do, prolonging the project from reaching its full potential (and actually getting done). 😀 Weird, writerly superstition, I know, but it never fails to come true if I break my promise and start talking about something before it’s truly ready to be discussed.
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Lovely cover!
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Thank you, Callum.
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Love this cover, and I so identify with your story, Jenny. I’m trying to finish the sequel to PRINCE’S MAN, a process that has now been on-going for more years than I want to admit to. I started it right after finishing PM, which then went off on the submission rounds and actually got as far as being read by all of the Big Six, as they were then, but didn’t sell. While it was doing that, I got about half way into PRINCE’S SON, then abandoned it when the first book didn’t find a buyer.
I wrote another novel after that in a different sub-genre, a few short stories, and eventually, when I self-pubb’d PM, I started back on it.
Then came the reviews of PM – great, glowing reviews, with lots of speculation about what the sequel would contain – and none of it matched MY ideas, so I froze.
I think I’ve finally come to terms with writing the story I planned, not the one I think other people want and hey, I will just have to wait and see what they think about it.
So I really do understand where you’ve come from, and well done for getting it finished. I think I have a few more months to go yet on mine, but I’m getting there now, and I look forward to being able to announce its arrival as you have yours. 😀
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I think sometimes it’s discouraging, too, when you don’t garner the attention from Big Six that you want, or they tell you something like that wouldn’t sell. But it’s good that you forged ahead and published on your own to find your audience, Deborah.
I think sometimes we get sucked into the trap of writing for our readers, and we lose our grip on the thread that ties us to the stories we start out writing for ourselves. The Goblin Market did really well. It had a very strong, supportive following, so I felt like I had all these people’s expectations weighing me down for a long time. They all wanted more, more, more. And I felt like I had to give it to them when they asked for it. It was very disheartening, because the love is never there when you’re doing it for anyone other than you. Every time I wrote something that wasn’t Jack in the Green, or somehow related to The Goblin Market, people would ask me about it. If it was ever coming, why it was taking so long. I’m excited that they are excited for it, but I’ve finally come to terms with telling them it will come out when it comes out, and it’ll be all the better because I did it when i was ready.
I’m looking forward to your announcement when you’re ready!
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