Building SOLSTORM, One Little Corner at a Time
When we started working on SOLSTORM, neither of us imagined we were starting a publishing house.
Tommy was writing from his recliner in the living room, even though he has a perfectly good desk sitting right beside him. I was working from a little corner of our bedroom.
Somehow, between those two places, we published our first book.
And then, very gradually, all sorts of other things began gathering around it.
Paintings became book covers. Manuscripts became printed books. There were maps to make, videos to edit, an audiobook to record, websites to build, files to organize, and about a thousand small things neither of us knew anything about when we started.
At some point I looked around and realized that the two of us had accidentally created a very small publishing operation.
I thought it might be nice to start filming some of it.
So I started a little vlog
The new series is called Building SOLSTORM.
It isn't really meant to be a polished look at publishing from people who have everything figured out, because we definitely don't.
I would rather show what it actually looks like from here.
Sometimes that means painting or working through a book cover. Sometimes I'm sitting with Tommy's manuscript and trying to decide why a sentence doesn't quite feel right. Sometimes I'm recording the audiobook and becoming painfully aware of every tiny sound a human mouth can make.
And sometimes one of us has spent several hours doing something only to discover that we have been doing it completely wrong.
Those parts usually make the better stories anyway.
We have a little history of doing things this way
Years ago, we bought a sailboat in Stavanger and decided to sail it all the way north to Alta with our two young boys.
Tommy was a sea captain.
Neither of us actually knew how to sail.
Which, looking back, was perhaps useful information to have considered before buying the boat.
But we learned.
It became an incredible trip, and also one of those experiences where you occasionally look at the person beside you and wonder what on earth the two of you have gotten yourselves into.
We have done that a few times over the years.
There were bees.
There were chickens.
There were rabbits.
The fox was much better at keeping chickens than we were.
The northern winter had opinions about our bees.
And our rabbits became extremely enthusiastic about producing more rabbits, while we discovered that neither of us was particularly enthusiastic about the part of homesteading where you eventually have to eat them.
So we learned something from all of that too.
Mostly that it is all right to start something before you know exactly where it will lead.
That has probably been useful with SOLSTORM.
One book became six
When Tommy began writing The Sky Went Wrong, there was no six-book plan.
He had an idea.
Then he kept writing.
And somewhere along the way he realized he wasn't finished with these people or with the world they were building.
One book became the beginning of six.
Then we had to figure out how to turn the first manuscript into something another person could actually hold in their hands.
I could paint the cover.
At least, I thought that meant I could make a book cover.
It turns out those are two slightly different things.
Suddenly my painting had to accommodate titles and spines and measurements and margins and all sorts of terribly unromantic arithmetic.
But eventually the first printed copy arrived.
I don't think either of us will forget that.
After spending so long looking at pages and images on screens, suddenly there it was.
Tommy's words.
My painting.
An actual book.
I'm very glad we filmed that moment.
You only get to hold your first book for the first time once.
And now we're doing it again
Book One is out in the world now, and Book Two, The Guardians of Skjoldheim, is getting closer.
At the moment I am working my way through the line edit.
That means reading slowly.
Very slowly sometimes.
I stop where something catches, or where I stumble, or where I think the words aren't quite showing a reader what Tommy already has so clearly in his head.
Knowing what he means is helpful.
It can also be a problem, because I already know these people and places. A reader doesn't have that advantage.
So sometimes I have to stop and ask him what he intended.
Fortunately, the author is usually quite easy to locate.
Usually in the recliner.
We are working toward a December 1 release, which means there always seems to be something else waiting.
The line edit.
The audiobook.
A painting.
A video.
A cover.
A website update.
And normal life carrying on around all of it.
Why I wanted to film this
A surprising amount of creating something happens very quietly.
From the outside, you might see a finished cover or a new book listing.
Here, you would see piles of paper, cups of coffee, a half-edited video, Tommy staring into space because he is somewhere in Chapter 30, and me moving between a manuscript and a painting while trying to remember what I was supposed to be doing before I became distracted by something else.
I like that part.
I like seeing how things become things.
Not just the finished result, but all the little decisions and mistakes and conversations that happened before it.
So that is what I would like Building SOLSTORM to be.
A little record of what we're doing while we're doing it.
The books, the artwork, the editing, the audiobook, the things we try, and probably some of the ordinary life around it too.
We still have a lot to learn.
I hope we always do.
Come along with us
The first episode is up now:
If you would like to see what SOLSTORM looks like from this side of the books, you are very welcome to come along.
We'll show you what works.
Probably some things that don't.
And whatever happens in between.
For now, I have pages waiting for me.
And Tommy has a recliner to report to.