Time Capsule

Hey. I’m Christine. I’ve thought a lot about what I want to write as my first official entry in this blog. I imagine that someday, when I’m published, I might wander back here to remind myself what things used to be like. I hope there may be a person or two who will enjoy my work enough to be curious about where I started. So my aim here is to create a Time Capsule, to capture a bit of who I am, what I’m working on, what’s important to me, and where I want to go with it all.

First and foremost, this is a writing blog. I create YouTube videos, I draw illustrations, and craft (a lot), but in so many ways, I see those creative endeavors simply as facets to my one true love: storytelling.

As a child, I had an idea for a fantasy book that served as my main obsession all the way through high school and college. In 2010, I finally got serious about the project and began writing every day. I spent the better part of the last decade working and reworking the same book. It evolved from fantasy into historical fantasy. The characters grew and evolved and matured. The world grew. The story grew. And then…I realized that I actually wanted that book to be a sequel, rather than the first in the series. I’m currently eleven chapters into the new “Book 1,” and am enjoying using everything I’ve learned to finally do this book-of-my-heart justice.

Meanwhile, I kind of got tired of writing and writing without pitching and publishing. I’ve always had a great love for short stories, but never found time to work on them because of my novel. This year, I made the goal to write a short story every three months, and submit one to each quarter of L. Ron Hubbard’s Writers of the Future contest. If one of those stories meets with rejection, I’ve prepared a list of science fiction and fantasy magazines to submit them to. If it’s rejected by one of those, I’ll send it to another.

Lather, rinse, repeat until published.

I can’t explain how happy just being involved in this part of the process has made me. So stay tuned for updates on both my novel and short stories! Also art. Also YouTube. Also random craftiness.

What are my goals? To finish my historical fantasy series. To tell the best stories I can to as many people as I can. To have fun doing it. To make friends with people who share the same definition of fun.

What are my fears? Oh, I don’t know. The sea in storm, a night with no moon, and the anger of a gentle man. Everything else is a learning experience.

And I’m not even taking this journey alone. Let me introduce you to Team Tyler.

These are the small humans I created, holding up some small robots they created:

This is Bubs. He likes science, dinosaurs, robots, and playing Ocarina of Time and Banjo-Kazooie on his dad’s old Nintendo 64. 

This is Rosebud. She likes princesses. Today she had me do her hair like her favorite: Princess Leia.

And here’s Nathan, the love of my life, building a robot with my son. We really like robots around here.

And if this is being read in the year 2074 by our post-Singularity Robot Overlords, let this be proof that Team Tyler was always loyal to you.

Looking forward to looking back.