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| | | | | | | | | | All in all, life is great. We’re able to go where we please and spend our time doing the thing we love most – co-writing an epic fantasy series. We’re both extremely grateful for this opportunity and we wouldn’t trade it for anything. We also know that in large part, this quest is only possible thanks to the love, support, and diverse talents of our family and friends.
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| It’s not an easy thing to break away from the herd like this. Humans are social creatures. Most people want to fit in and be a part of their community, and we’re no different. Being away from our hive makes it especially challenging to quiet the resistance that manifests as little voices in our heads, whispering things like, “You must be crazy for doing this.”, “What if no one wants to read it?”, “Who are you to think you can do something like this?”, “What if you fail?”, “What if your van breaks down?”, “What if you run into some crazy axe murderer out in the middle of nowhere?” what if this, what if that, blah, blah, blah. Well, voices, thanks for your concern, but we are doing this.
| | | When we open up our manuscript and see the tens of thousands of words we’ve written, and when we open up our two monstrous outlines and see the world we’ve created, we know we are on the right path. We remember why we’re doing this in the first place – to create something new and special that we can give back to the world - and we keep going.
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| | | | Meet the Voices in Our Heads ➔
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| | | | | | BOOK UPDATE
| | | With the first draft of our manuscript nearly a third of the way complete, what we once thought of as being an endless task has reached a point where all the big things have been excruciatingly fleshed out. Magic system, government, religion, geography, class structure, etc. Now we get to focus on all of the small details that really only come up while we’re scene-writing.
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| | What type of clothing are our characters wearing? How does slang vs formal speaking manifest in this world? What types of foods are eaten at each level of the socio-economic ladder? It’s a steam-punk world with all manner of gadgets and gizmos, but what sorts of things are relevant to show? Countless questions like this pop-up in every new chapter that we tackle. Most of it doesn’t even make it into the actual scenes, but as writers it’s important for us to have a clear picture of what day-to-day life in our world looks like to ensure things remain consistent and realistic.
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| Another interesting thing about working on a project this big is watching it come to life. Not only do our characters feel like real people, but the story itself is a living being with a soul of its own.
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| | We recently attended a four-day publishing workshop hosted by Hay House where they explained the ins and outs of publishing. We thought that self-publishing was probably the best route for us to take, but we discovered there are a lot of benefits to getting published by an established organization with a team of experts. One of the core themes in our story is that “Together, we are greater than the sum of our parts” and launching a book is no exception.
| | | We plan to submit our manuscript to Hay House for consideration in December of this year. Whether or not we end up publishing through this route, having a goal with a timeline to work toward is a big step up from “it’ll take as long as it takes”.
| | | One of the key lessons we took away from the workshop was the importance of building a social media presence and a potential reader-base. It took quite a bit of inner work to get over our fear of putting ourselves out there on the big, scary interwebs. While we continue to battle resistance in this arena, we are thankful to have the additional motivation of sharing our journey with our friends and family.
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| | | | How We Write Our Story Together ➔
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| | | | | | | VAN UPDATE
| | | Now that we are 6 months into living full-time on the road, we can honestly say that it has been one of the most rewarding AND challenging experiences of our lives. Our mobile command center has treated us well this season aside from needing a new radiator (erg) and getting stuck offroad a couple of times (whoops).
| | | Here are some other challenges that come with living in a van:
| | | | • | We don’t have a trashcan on the side of our house that gets emptied for us each week. Our garbage must be disposed of frequently and in proper locations, which can vary depending on where we’re at or what we have to throw away.
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| | • | We don’t have unending, clean water piped in from the water grid. We hold forty gallons of water, which we use for cooking, cleaning, and showering. When we’re near a town / city, we can shower at Planet Fitness to conserve water.
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| | • | We don’t have unlimited power to draw from. Our batteries can store 624 A/h of power, which will last about three or four days depending on how much solar power we can harvest. A family member recently gifted us with a generator which majorly helps, but it also makes a lot of noise, so we have to be mindful of when/where we use it.
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| | • | Our toilet is a dry flush, which is very clean and contained, but we have to change out the cartridge about every thirty flushes.
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| | • | Our refrigerator is quite small, so we can only store four or five days' worth of food. We can go longer if we get less stuff that needs to be refrigerated, but eating a good mix of fresh vegetables and meat is essential not just for our physical health, but for our mental and spiritual health as well.
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| | • | The places we go don’t always work out. Sometimes we drive a long way to get to our next stop only to have to leave because it doesn’t feel safe, there isn’t a good place to park, the weather is bad, or for some other reason that throws us off.
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| | | At first, these challenges felt really hard because we’d gotten so used to modern conveniences and luxuries. Pipe burst? Call a guy to come fix it. Power outage? Light some candles and wait for someone else to deal with it. Nothing good to eat in the house? Order takeout. Out of hot water? Wait thirty minutes for it to heat back up.
| | | This experience has reminded us just how adaptable humans can be, and that with enough hard work and planning, nearly anything is possible. Now that we’re used to dealing with this new way of life, it all just feels normal to us. In fact, it’s turning out to be the adventure of a lifetime. Our home and lifestyle do require a lot of work, but the ways we’re rewarded far outweigh the negatives. We find ourselves in beautiful places where inspiration is abundant, and we get to meet all sorts of interesting people in each place we visit.
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| | | | | | | | When Things Take A Turn ➔
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| | | | | | | TRAVEL UPDATE
| | | We spent most of the winter down south in Arizona and California, letting the good weather dictate where we went next. Tucson ended up being the place we spent the most time. There are tons of great places to park outside of town, good sources of clean water, amazing weather (in the winter), and a low cost of living. We got to discover firsthand why so many people buy winter homes down there.
| | | Another amazing benefit of this experience is that we have gotten to spend a lot of time with friends and family that we didn’t previously get to see very often. In some ways, life seems even busier and crazier than it ever did while we were still both working our full-time jobs, but on the other hand, we now have the ability to spend longer periods of time in any place we can drive to. This allows us to build deeper connections while still maintaining a healthy writing routine.
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| | Our plan from here is to head east to meet some family in Texas before we head north as it starts to warm up. We have a few places in mind in the northern states, but as always, the focus will be on finding comfortable, peaceful places where we can write and nerd-out together.
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| | | | Experience the Magic of Tucson ➔
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| | | | | | | If you’ve made it this far, thank you for sticking with us. Be on the lookout for our next quarterly newsletter for more detailed updates on our overall progress in late June / early July. For shorter and more frequent updates, be sure to follow us on social media.
| | | With love,
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| | If you have questions, feedback that you would be willing to share, or just want to say “hi”, we would love to hear from you!
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