Writing a book series no one asked for may be one of the most massive creative commitments on Earth. And that’s especially true for indie authors. 

Collaborative art projects—film, television, theatre, etc.—strike me as equally bonkers in terms of their ambition. You get a lot of competing ideas about the final product. Sometimes the piece you worked on ends up on the cutting room floor. 

But writing is, by and large, done by solo creatives.  

And in the modern publishing space, books are increasingly published by sole creators, too.  

I started thinking about Anna Lin, Dave Montcalm, Jason Lin, the skyworms, and a bunch of characters you still haven’t met in Spring 2014.

This April, they’ll have been with me for a full decade of my life. 

It’s a long time to think about the same characters and their problems. 

For this reason, I have great sympathy for George R. R. Martin. He’s been thinking about Game of Thrones, Jon Snow, Daenerys Targaryen, and all the rest since, oh, 1988. And probably longer. 

Because no matter how much I, as an admirer of Martin’s, want those last books to be done (especially after how the series ended, gah), I know he wants to be finished even more. 

Consider how tired he must be after more than 35 years on the same project. Thinking about my own work sometimes makes me want to take to my bed, and it’s only been a decade. 

Getting a fantasy series off of the ground is a heavy lift.

Here’s what I’ve learned so far.

Surprise! That first draft was a whole series 

In 2015, I finished the first draft of Chaos Calling. Little did I know, I’d written a whole series.

In the plot maps and journals from when I wrote the second draft of what became Chaos Calling and will one day be Chaos Armor, it’s clear that I thought I had a trilogy.

Roughly from 2016 to 2019, the story existed as one book–which seems like utter madness now! Past me estimated that I would be done, with all three books published, by 2025. Maybe 2026 at the latest. 

Great, I wrote back then, with zero awareness of my naivety. I’ll be in my 40s. Young enough to still travel easily and meet readers while taking the victory lap that may come from having a completed series. 

Well friends, it’s January 3, 2024. I’m in my 40s. Only one of my books—in what is most likely a five-book series—is out. 

On December 31, 2023, I finished Book II’s fourth draft.

In part, I’m posting to celebrate its existence for the first time as a fully-fleshed out, self-contained book. The manuscript now enters what I anticipate will be an 18-month production phase. That assumes its timeline will follow a similar path to what I experienced for Chaos Calling. I won’t really know until I finish. 

As I fix page numbers, I keep thinking back to that past self as she stands in the subway doors, furiously writing on her phone. And I think of her with so much love.

Because if she’d known the scope and magnitude of what she was tackling, she may have given up.

Writing a book series is not for the faint of heart.

Writing a Book Series in 2024

On average, self-published books sell 200 copies through the author’s personal network. 

Some of the most stunning data to come out of that wild Penguin vs Simon & Schuster lawsuit? Many traditionally published books also only sell a handful of copies.

We’re talking less than 12. 

I can proudly say that I beat both scales handily in my first year, and continued to challenge my sales numbers in Chaos Calling’s second year. If I’d based my success on those metrics, I may have viewed my project with more wisdom. I would definitely have saved myself a lot of grief. 

But I’m ambitious. It’s my nature. I wanted to sell 5,000 copies in one year and, long-term, a million copies of my series. 

I still do. And it hurts that there is no shortcut to that outcome.

I may never achieve that depth of readership. Or it may happen after I’m dead. After all, I wouldn’t be the first author that’s happened to.

Since starting this project, I’ve thought a lot about Jane Austen. She had no idea what her work would become when she died. She never saw a word of the critical success or a dime of the massive fortune her books continue to earn. 

That woman’s pen produced a billion-dollar, critically-acclaimed literary empire.

And when you consider how much the fear of poverty and homelessness runs like a wound through her books and letters . . . well, friends, that breaks my fucking heart. 

Calling a truce with my ego 

I chart the novel I’m working on using this wall.
As you can see, it’s beautifully blank right now.

When I started, writing a book series was never my goal. Yet, it’s where I landed.

Sometimes I want to write other books.  Sometimes it feels like The Xenthian Cycle will never be done.

Yet I remember looking at my Book II sticky wall in January 2023. Only four out of eight purple stickies for Jason’s chapters had checkmarks. Checking off every chapter in the book felt impossible. 

In total, I wrote over 107,0000 words this year. And Chaos Armor’s current draft is complete.

While I congratulate myself on achieving that goal, I am also working to accept that my books’ fate is entirely out of my hands. That’s a truth you’ll hear authors acknowledge, but there’s extra mind-fuckery involved when you’re also the publisher and marketing team. 

In my bones, I believe in The Xenthian Cycle. That belief keeps me coming back to write and market this story.

I’ll deliver it to the best of my ability. And only a small readership may ever care. 

I have to be okay with that, and make the art I make. 

~

Perhaps you’re reading this post on an idle Thursday. Maybe you’re writing a book series, too, or feeling the creative weight of your other dreams.

If you are, I feel for you. I have been in the dark place before, and I will be there again. We all get knocked down.

So get up with me, and let’s take the next step. I know that we can do it.

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Editor’s note about “Don’t Stop Believing”: I originally published this essay on Medium. But their analytics are getting increasingly weird, so I’m giving it a permanent home here.

* * *

It was raining that night. The kind of chilly, damp rain you get in North Toronto in late November or early March.

Transition weather.

I was coming home from the gym. Rain was pounding on the car roof as I pulled into the driveway. The radio was on. Steve Perry was belting out the chorus to Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” as I turned off the engine.

I sat and watched the rain fall on the windshield. And in that moment, I realized that I had stopped believing I was capable of writing and publishing a book.

I realized that the story I’d been telling myself about what my life would be was a complete and utter lie.

And I burst into tears.

From childhood, I always wanted to write

Writing is the only dream I’ve ever had, and it caught me young.

I used to sit at an old-fashioned desk (the kind with a steel beam connecting the wooden chair to the table) in my Scarborough bedroom and copy out stories I was reading in little notebooks. I was five at the time. Maybe six.

I was eight when my dad brought a desktop computer home in the mid ’80s. I used it to write a short story about Megan and Sundance from My Little Pony. I remember liking the yellow letters on the black screen.

At 12, I caught another flash of inspiration during a bus ride to school. It prompted me to write a science fiction novella for my Grade 8 independent study project, this time using the world’s heaviest laptop that my dad no longer needed for work.

The story kept growing. I kept writing. When I was 18 and in OAC (Ontario’s former Grade 13) I finally finished a full, novel-length draft for my English class. Mr. Whelan encouraged me to “do something with it.”

I didn’t. An alternate historical fantasy series had already put its claws into me as I was finishing that draft. It didn’t let go until I was in my early 30s.

Life didn’t wait for me

I sought more feedback on my work. I took a writing class with the great Nalo Hopkinson via the University of Toronto’s School for Continuing Studies. I met a wonderful writing group through that class and made a couple of lifelong friends.

Our kids were born. My career became busier than it had ever been. And as Elizabeth Gilbert notes in Big Magic, sometimes if you wait too long to see a creative idea through, that fiery nugget of inspiration dies on you.

That’s what was happening in the car.

My novel had died, and I had finally noticed.

Don’t Stop Believing: What happens if you do?

When I say that I cried, I don’t mean I shed a few artful tears. I was devastated. I turned off the radio, put my head in my hands, and sobbed like my heart was breaking. Because it was.

After 15 minutes or so, I dried my face, took the key out of the ignition and went on with my life.

I told myself that it would be okay — I had changed careers, if not disciplines. I was still a writer.

Our children were at that joyful age between tantrums and curiosity. I was working for a non-profit in Toronto’s startup space. The work was interesting. My colleagues were fascinating. I made more lifelong friends. And I regularly wrote web copy and other collateral.

But it wasn’t the same. And I knew it.

As I’ve written before:

“Thinking about writing during that time was like touching an empty tooth socket with my tongue. I knew what was supposed to be there but was surprised and disappointed and sad when it wasn’t.”

The longing never let go.

Inspiration is a funny fish

In March 2014, we sold our townhouse in North York. At the time, my husband and I were both working downtown. The long commutes were brutal. We wanted to be closer to work. We got lucky with a house listing, and things fell into place.

Complications with the sale meant that, from April to early June, we moved in with my parents. They still live in the house where I was a teenager in Greater Toronto. While we stayed with them, my commuting time doubled from two hours each day to four.

During those long hours in the car, something strange happened to me.

I’d seen Edge of Tomorrow and Captain America: Winter Soldier that spring. Parts of both stories kept echoing in my head while simultaneously mixing with other bits and pieces to ricochet off in an entirely new direction.

I couldn’t leave it alone. While driving, I found myself acting out bits of dialogue. Sometimes I made myself laugh. Sometimes I cried, blinking furiously to keep clear eyes on the road.

Honestly, the whole thing was embarrassing. I’ve always had a rich interior life, but I hadn’t daydreamed this intensely since I was a teenager. I told no one, but I thought about my secret world constantly.

The move came. We settled the children into our new house. That fall, Caitlin Moran gave a talk at the Toronto Public Library that I attended. And she said something that made me sit upright in my seat.

I’m paraphrasing, but it was essentially:

“Whatever you feel most taboo about, whatever feels too strange or bizarre to share with anyone else, that’s the universe’s special content gift to you.”

What if what was happening during those commutes wasn’t just a diversion to keep me from losing my mind out of sheer boredom?

What if it was another book?

How do you recognize inspiration?

The next night, I had a dinner date with my friend K-Town. She’s a writer, too, and had generously been one of my beta readers for that dead-in-its tracks fantasy epic.

Giddy with the question of whether I’d latched onto a viable idea, I told her this new story as though vomiting up my very guts. It took a long time. My cheeks grew hot and my voice grew thin, the way it gets when I’m trying to talk but I’m too excited to do it properly.

When I’d finished, K-Town looked at me for a long minute. Then she said, “That’s the most commercial thing you’ve ever come up with. GO. WRITE IT.”

So I did.

Without endless evenings and weekends to spend at a desktop computer, I had to get crafty. Eventually, I realized that I could use Wattpad to write during my subway commute. By standing in the doors that never opened until I reached my stop, I could put my headphones in, pull out my phone, and get in 25 to 40 minutes of writing each way.

Getting out of my own way

Using this method, I wrote a first draft of 135,000 words in 15 months.

In the beginning, I thought the story was a standalone book. As it turns out, that draft was the highlight reel for a five-book contemporary fantasy action series.

I wrote five more drafts between 2014 and 2022, refining my world-building, characters, and villains, while interlacing the plot as I went. I got feedback from 26 beta readers, a structural/line editor who works for a major publishing house, two sensitivity readers, a copyeditor, and a proofreader.

It’s been a labour of love, but Chaos Calling: Book 1 of The Xenthian Cycle is now available for pre-order as an ebook.

Don’t Stop Believing: What I wish I’d known

Why tell you this story?

In part to share my book’s origin story and perhaps inspire you to read it, sure.

But there’s something deeper at play.

When I got out of that car carrying a dead dream, I was between 33 and 35 years old. I thought I’d missed my shot. I thought I was a failure. I thought I’d lied to my family and myself about what my life would be.

I’ve never been so wrong.

And the kicker?

I built Chaos Calling in the wreckage of that earlier novel. Wrestling with my slow-paced, ridiculously flawed fantasy epic taught me more about craft and persistence than any class ever could. I just needed time, both to finish becoming the adult I needed to be, and for this new idea to emerge.

And so, as I think about that distraught young parent sobbing out her heart in that car, I want to ask you one small question:

What might you be wrong about?

* * *

Chaos Calling: Book 1 of The Xenthian Cycle is available as an ebook and paperback. It’s about three childhood friends who don’t know they’re on standby for the end of the world. Slowly, they realize that their unusual adolescence was training for what to do should an ancient enemy appear in their lifetime.

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