….Snow White is the book I began November 2014. It shocks me, somewhat, that a year and a half has passed since I first typed, “Snow White” onto a blank page during National Novel Writing Month. The story has grown so much since then. I currently have 8 books planned for the series. To be perfectly honest, it might be the best thing I’ve written. (I’m not sure how *much* that is saying, but there it is.)
I love the Kendawyn books and they pull on a different piece of myself. I love the forthcoming murder mystery Inconvenient Murder.
Those romances reach to the piece of me that read a romance novel every day for most of my high school. Granted, I read a lot of fantasy during that time too. And Snow White definitely reaches towards that piece of me. And that piece of me that read The Blue Sword by Robin McKinley time after time. I have a clear memory of finishing The Blue Sword closing the book and then reopening it to begin it again.
There’s just something about Snow White for me. It’s romance and adventure and fairy tale and love and happily ever after and battles and magic, and it encapsulates my imagination. It’s family and motherhood and being a sister.
What I’m saying is that I love this book. I have finally delved into again in a big way. Not the little snatches of time I was taking since I got it back from my editor, but a *big* way. A whole evening of edits. A whole evening of revisiting and enjoying this book. And I love it. I just love it.
It is stories like this one that make me write. It’s getting them out of my head, watching them grow, rewriting them, and then rewriting them again. It’s watching them form and change and then reading them and realizing how much I love the story that began from a random day in New Seasons when I was trying to reach a word count goal and own NaNo for the first time. What a fortuitous and lovely day when Snow White was born in my imagination.
It’s stories like Snow White that will keep me writing and telling myself stories even if my books are never financially successful. These are the stories I wanted to tell, and I am honestly proud of it. Of what it is and what it is becoming. Someday, I may look back on it, and think, “Oh It would have been better if this or that.” But I’ll never not be proud of doing my best and telling this story.
I hope that someday I’ll write a better story than this one. i hope that I’ll continue to grow as a write and my stories will get better and better. But I’ll always be proud of the ones I have written.
And I’ll always be grateful for the fun I had writing them and telling them and seeing them grow.
So perhaps that was blathery. But mostly, I’m just happy right now with the story I’m telling and the progress I’m making as a writer, and the fun I’m having.
Turns out. Writing is a LOT OF WORK, but it’s also a LOT OF FUN.
~Amanda
ps, currently between books for the pop sugar book challenge. I’ll probably start a classic on Monday when I’m back to reading some and not just writing. Not sure which one, and maybe i’ll get sucked back into Monster Hunter by Larry Correia. 🙂 The last one I read was Monster Hunter Vendetta and I can’t remember where I got that to stick for the book challenge or even if I did.
Amanda A. Allen 