The Beginning

So. I've been working on a book.

Everyone who knows me knows this was a long time coming, but see, ideas that are meant to carry out over the length of a novel? Not my strong suit.

The idea came from, of all places, a line in a Gordon Lightfoot song. (Yes, I listen to Gordon Lightfoot. Stop looking at me like that.) The line, "And every man knew, as the captain did, too, 'twas the Witch of November come stealin'" in "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" jumped out at me. My knee-jerk reaction? "Oh hell yes, I've got to turn this into a Supernatural fanfic!"

Yes, I write fanfic as well. Don't judge.

My original intention was to write about a ghost ship kind of deal, taking the message of the line literally. In trying to come up with a feasible plotline, I came to discover that I know next to nothing (okay, absolutely nothing) about boats and about sailing. The amount of research I would have to do to have even a remote idea of what I was talking about was insane.

So the idea sat on my mental shelf for a while until something new came to me: what if November isn't a month but a place? And what if the witch isn't a name for heavy winds but an actual witch? And thus The Witch of November was born.

Of course there is no place in the United States named November. Well, there is a November Creek, Idaho (thanks, Mapquest!) but what I know about Idaho is pretty much equal to what I know about boats and sailing. I then decided that if other authors can make up places willy-nilly, well, dang it, so can I.

The Witch of November's first incarnation was that Supernatural fanfic (I said don't judge!). I wound up loving the characters and the town of November, Maine, and even my ghost/witch. The finished draft of the short story wound up being 44 pages long and consisting of 21,000-ish words. So I figured if I could get 44 pages out of it in a fanfic, I could take Sam and Dean (and obviously any Supernatural-inspired story elements) out, bring my original characters front and center, and expand on the idea. Oh, and change the ending, too, because a salt-and-burn would more than likely constitute copyright infringement.

After almost a year of work (not constantly ... a little here and a little there), the first draft is finished. The first draft? Is the easy part.

Keep checking back here for my squees when things work, whines when things don't, random observations about the story and the process in general, and the occasional snippet or two. I promise it'll be a good time.