(This post was previously “Make It Happen,” a guest post on StoreyBook Reviews during the recent virtual book tour. Thanks again to Leslie for her support!)

“I woke up with car keys in my hand.”

That line appears on the seventeenth page of my idea journal and became the first line of Driftless Spirits.  I started keeping the journal as a baby step towards a personal challenge.  My husband has written eleven novels and I always wanted to see what I’d come up with for one of my own.  You know, when I had the time.

In 2020, I moved from the Chicago suburbs to the Driftless Area of Wisconsin with my husband after retiring from an engineering career.  I shed the stress of my working life and learned how to live in the country for the first time.  There was still so much to do but one day, on urging from my best friend, I decided to get started on the dream. 

“You were always a good writer,” she said over the phone.  “You should do it.”  Like Ivy pushing Charlotte in Driftless Spirits, I was on my way.

My idea journal has “Make It Happen” printed in gold foil on the cover, a bit of silent encouragement.  I started by writing down anything that might be useful someday.  Snippets of dreams I thought were quirky enough to draw from.  Phrases that sounded like book titles.  High concept ideas that popped into my head.  One page is nothing but character names I like.

I don’t remember when that first line occurred to me, but it stuck.  I typed my first words and saved the file that would become Driftless Spirits under an entirely different working title: “Note To Self.”  I knew a journal would play a big part in the story.  Eventually, one journal became two.  Charlotte sees a journal on a candlelit desk in her recurring dream.  It has presence and weight, so much so she’s too intimidated to touch it.  That journal plays a pivotal role in the entire story arc of the Secrets in Casten’s Horn series to come.

Charlotte also carries a journal with her, a gift from Ivy, in which she writes the clues she discovers as well as her inner thoughts.  It’s pink and tan vegan leather with a back loop to hold the cover in place and a ribbon at the spine to mark her page.  I can describe it very specifically because it’s sitting here on my desk.  It has a lot of company.

I’m currently writing the sequel to Driftless Spirits and I have not less than five journals going.  The “Make It Happen” journal is about one-third full of floor plans, timelines, research notes and brainstorming.  I grab another journal when I want to outline chapters or try out a story arc to see where it leads.  Sometimes I have competing directions in two or more journals going and I lay them out in front of me to settle on the right path.  Another journal is to keep track of the business side of being a writer.

I know there are plenty of software options for writers to track the worlds they build and the stories they tell.  I don’t think I’ll ever give up my journals though.  They’re tactile and personal.  Each one has character, presence and weight.  Using them fuels my inspiration.  They’re how I “make it happen.”

If you’re interested in Charlotte’s journey, and the mystery she becomes entangled in when she reaches a small town in the Driftless, here are some links: