Part One
Pantser?. Absolutely. Maybe.
April 9, 2026, I emailed Deirdre, my award-winning editor, and shared I was behind. I also needed a refresher on when we had planned my time to get the novel edited. Time was closing in, the date was May 20th, give or take a day or two. The squeeze was getting tighter.
Day One
I remember praying for inspiration. I felt like I knew what I wanted, but I didn’t know where to start. I kept going back to one of the characters riding the back of a dinosaur. That wasn’t helping. The next morning I grabbed the laptop and started pecking out a walk home from church by a large family.
I discovered that I needed a catalyst. I began to search for historic events that affected Britain at the end of the 19th century. The result ended with Will looking up, motioning to the sky, and saying: “When is this brough going away? I’m tired of this. Everything is so drab.”
That got the story going. The rest was simply sibling interaction, using my own childhood as an influence, and the walk home. The brother/sister relationships in the novel are at times intense, and sometimes comforting. Just like real large families. And Rance, he’s the one who stirs things up the most. Every family has one, sometimes two.
Things were going well. Until the stranger was spotted. Which led to the final question of the chapter. “Do Hares talk?”
Will called out. “That one did.”
To be truthful, I was as surprised as the Whitaker children.
End of Day One.
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The Illustrator’s Vision—The maps and illustrations of Peckles-Wood Shire are inspired by the real landscapes, places, and traditions of Victorian Northumberland. Created for The Chronicles of Peckles-Wood Shire, they blend historical research with imagination to bring the world of Broken Sanctuary to life and invite young explorers to step into the Whitaker family’s adventure of 1885.
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