A Wicked Welcome to Erick Holmberg!
by Julie, with a temporary summer respite in Somerville
Today I am thrilled to help Erick celebrate the launch of his new book, . I love this post about his writing journey. Deciding to write a book is a leap of faith. Finding time to write is challenging, and I know that Erick wrote on his phone when he could grab a few minutes. He’s also a wonderful songwriter. Welcome to the Wickeds, Erick!
The Writing JourneyWhen COVID-19 swept across the world and into mine, I looked for a silver lining. There had to be one somewhere, and mine was going to be getting that novel out of my head and onto paper—or, if not onto paper, then into some faraway disk in the cloud.
The first step is the hardest, right? Well, it’s the truth. My first step was being honest about my goal, which was more of a dream, to the people closest to me. To my way of thinking, that made it real. It helped me move it from a dream to a goal. When I did that, a dear friend suggested that I take Julie Hennrikus’s writing seminar, Your Ladders.
I’m not a joiner, so I was skeptical, but the seminar was designed to demystify the artistic process. It helped me approach it as I would any other goal, as hard work that needed to be broken down into parts and tackled one at a time.
The training showed me that finding a writing community is important. Not in the rah-rah sense, but yes, that too, but rather in the ‘we have run into the same obstacles, and they can be overcome’ sense. If you have a question, you’re not in this alone and you can find an answer.
Celebrate every step of the journey. If you were like me, you might believe that the word journey is overstating it, it’s not. It’s a journey. A journey is transformational, and you will be transformed at the end. You’ll be transformed because you will have created something from nothing, and that process will change you for the better.
Celebrating each step of the journey is key. When I started the book and wrote my opening sentence. I celebrated. When I finished my first chapter, I celebrated. When I finished my first draft, I celebrated. And, by the way, there were ten drafts, so don’t get discouraged. Remember, it’s a journey.
My goal wasn’t to write WAR AND PEACE but to write the best book I could. I didn’t know how good that book would be. It might be bad, mediocre, or a bit of both, and that was okay. It just had to be my best.
I love cozy mysteries. They’re like a fire and a warm blanket on a cold winter day. They’re like homemade ice cream in the summer. I sat down to write a cozy mystery, but an urban fantasy came out. See what I mean about transformational? Be open to learning about yourself, and you’ll grow, and so will your characters.
Most of all, don’t be scared. Take the first step—write that first sentence. Celebrate each step of the journey and embrace not having a deadline. It won’t last. Find some other writers and share your experience. The next thing you know, you’ll be holding your book in your hand.
Readers, have you got a dream delayed you’d like to take on?
About Regna BornBeneath the veneer of everyday life, a clandestine world thrives in the shadows, filled with powerful telepaths who call themselves adepts. These superbeings have guarded their secrets for millennia, but when a brilliant scientist, Joe Martin, maps and prepares to publish their genome in a famous medical journal, the adepts realize they can’t hide forever and further exposure to the human world threatens their existence.
Gabriel Kelly has his life turned upside down when someone murders Joe, his ex, and the race to find the genetic map begins. Gabriel, an average adept, enlists the help of his best friend Sellers, who has his own secrets, in exposing the killer and securing the map.
Gabriel finds himself caught between the human cops who think he killed Joe and don’t know about the map, and rival adepts who don’t care who killed Joe but want the map for their own ends. Will Gabriel be the key to preserving the secrecy of adept society, or will the revelation of their existence alter the course of history forever?
About Erick Holmberg
Erick grew up in Lunenburg, Massachusetts, where it was impossible to find fantasy novels with diverse characters and points of view. Erick lives in Boston with his husband and their dog, a giant Bernadoodle named Niko, and writes the books he always wanted to read and the lyrics he always wanted to hear. When he’s not writing, walking the dog, or making pasta, Erick is a vice president at an asset management firm. Regna Born is Erick’s debut novel with NineStar Publishing. Website: https://erickholmberg.com/
