Final Draft of my New Novel

Sportswriter Walter Wellesley “Red” Smith was asked during a 1949 interview if it was difficult writing a daily column. He said, “Why, no. You simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed.”

It has been a long road but I've finally attached the words "the end" to the last page of my current book. I started working on this novel several years ago, completing first draft complete in 2019 when I sent it out to beta readers. The feedback was lackluster and I put it on the back burner to help my mom organize a motivational book she wanted to publish. She was full vitality for life and at the age of 93 wanted to encourage people to stay active by setting an example. From May 2018 to May of 2019, from her 93rd to 94th birthdays, she set about to experience 93 new things in her life. She accomplished that, and in the summer of 2019, she began working on a book to memorialize that year.

She passed away on October 9, 2019 before her book was complete. I was compelled to finish it but when I was done, I felt like there was more to say. Her completed book, Never Too Late, was a photo journal of the experiences, but I wanted to go further. That ended up being a motivational book, On With the Butter, where I share the philosophy I learned from her and how anyone could apply that to their own life to get some of that vitality. Both of those book were published in the fall of 2020.

In time, I turned back to the novel I had shelved. My outlook on life had changed, and the message I wanted to share was much more defined. I realized the story I had created was a watered-down version of what I truly wanted to say. The process of writing non-fiction had helped me clarify my writing and as hard as it was to do, I erased more than half my novel. It wasn't right.

I started over, this time allowing myself to, paraphrasing Red Smith, emotionally bleed on the page. What developed was the story of a middle-aged woman devoted to a successful career who begins to wonder if it's all been worth it - the sacrifice of family and children for a job the would never love her back. When that job is threatened, she fights to protect it, terrified to lose the only thing of importance to her, but at the same time, wonders if the life she's created is still worth fighting for. Add to the mix a trio of close friends each batting their own mid-life challenges, a wise and charismatic vineyard-owning aunt, and a team roping brand inspector who introduces her to the life philosophy of a cowboy and a great story emerged.

I love the characters in this book and I'm excited to continue their stories in three more book in this series. This week I'll finish the polishing and spell-check then it's off to beta readers, then my editor before it's pitched to new agents.  It will be a while before readers can get their hands on it, because I will be pursuing the route of traditional publishing. I've loved the experience of owning a small publishing company, and will continue to use Hekla Publishing for all my Icelandic-inspired work but I'd like to reach a broader readership with my women's fiction.

These new novels will all have a small slice of Icelandic influence somewhere but not Icelandic-themed. The cowboy in the current work has an energetic Icelandic sheepdog named Gaski (in Icelandic, the word gáski means high spirits or merriment), but it's a contemporary story that takes place in Colorado and Wyoming. The next three will all have their own peppering of Icelandic elements I'm looking forward to sharing. Yes, the next three are already outlined and I hope to start writing the second in the series next month.

For now, I am relishing this moment where I typed the words "the end" on the last page of a story I love.