To everyone out there in the wide, wide world of the internet… Hello!

Welcome to The Silk Quill, where I’ll be writing about my journey of… writing!

I’ve started this blog as a self motivator of sorts, to make sure that I actually finish this book that I ‘started’ about a year ago now. Also as way to look back at all the research and planning I did as a sort of digital journal.

Making this public is just my way of offering my research and thoughts and scribbles to you! If you, amazing reader, actually found your way to this site and are reading this post, then you may just find some of this stuff useful; if not, then maybe you’ll at least find it entertaining enough to fill a few minutes so you can avoid the debilitating boredom of an inactive mind.

To start off this journey, let me tell you a little bit about how I even discovered that writing stories was something I found enjoyable! I began writing for fun a little after I graduated college. (Graduating with degree that had nothing to do with creative writing, so I have a lot to learn! How exciting!) The more I wrote, the more fun I had with it and the more I realized that it was a relief to just… write about anything I wanted. No deadlines, no expectations, no limits. My first attempt at a short story, morphed into a very long, very involved novel, and I don’t regret a single moment I spent on it.

I shared that first story of mine online, anonymously, just to see if anyone else would enjoy it as much as I enjoyed writing it, and it turns out, people did! Random people on the internet! Who had no idea who I was and had no obligation to read my writing, actually liked my story! Crazy!

Now, I’m still doing this semi-anonymously. Terry Silk is not at all my real name, just a pen name I thought sounded cool! I’d rather all you fine people focus more on the story than on the author who happened to write it, anyway!

The project I’m working on now is something that started as a present for my sister. She actually found that first story of mine, and not only told me she liked it, but read it again. She was one of the first to encourage my new hobby, and actually made an appearance in that story as an OC. Her reaction to that was so amazing, (I was called late in the afternoon the day after I posted the chapter, and there was much screaming in the background), that I decided to write another story, where she was the inspiration for the main character.

I began this story, and much like my first it has snowballed from the planned novella/short story to a full length novel…

Who saw this coming? I probably should have. Oh well.

It’s been about a year now, and in that time I’ve changed the ending three times, moved to a new city, started a new job, and gotten stuck on the seventh chapter for so long that I’ve now decided that I’ll need to rewrite the whole thing over again just to rework the beginning to fit into the new ending that I’ve decided will work for this story best. Hence, why I say I ‘started’ this story a year ago, but really I only started planning/brainstorming this thing a year ago, and now in this very fine November of 2023, I’ll endeavor to at least finish the first draft. NaNoWriMo for the win, am I right?

A brief summary of the story; it’s fantasy adventure, the main conflict being God vs. mortal. The plot revolves around three friends who want to make a difference in their dying world, and end up getting involved a bit way over their heads. Entangled between the worlds of mortals and spirits, they have to find a way to keep not only themselves but their world as they know it alive in the face of impending destruction.

So, I’ll be sharing story updates, research, analysis and maybe a few daily writing prompts here and there for practice and to help get me in the writing groove! I hope you enjoy this little journey of mine, even if it’s just my future self reading this!

Until next time!