This is a wonderful workshop on partnering with God as you write: listening for what He is asking you to write, building a prayer team around it, and praying for the readers who will hold your book one day. Every session has a worksheet. The replays are yours for life.
And do let me know what you think of it.
Blessings as you write! m
I’m excited to let you know that I have just scheduled Chapter 12 of Pebble’s Bond on Substack, with more on the way. Chapter 7 is now live.
I have also adjusted the options for a paid subscription: receive all 34 chapters, (2 per week in September, 3 per week beginning in October), as well as the audio files for just 10.00 (USD) per month, 100.00 (USD) per year, and 200.00 (USD) for a Supporting Member.
Want to know why and how I wrote the story? I talk about that, without giving too much of the story away, in the Behind the Scenes posts, which are totally free.
Check out Pebble’s journey through pain and loss to forgiveness and peace, and, if you will, share Pebble’s story with your friends and followers. Just use this link
I so appreciate your help in getting Pebble’s Bond out into the world.
Blessings Abounding!
Marcia
Pip: Fantasy novels, Substack launches, and the art of asking your friends nicely — Marcia Lee Laycock is keeping busy, and this site is keeping up.
Mara: That’s the territory today. We’re looking at the rollout of a Christian fantasy novel called Pebble’s Bond, serialized on Substack, with behind-the-scenes posts tracking the writing process alongside it.
Pip: Let’s start with the launch itself — how it began, how the world got built, and how readers are being recruited.
Mara: The story here is a serialized fantasy novel landing on Substack in real time — chapters going out weekly, paired with a companion series pulling back the curtain on how the whole thing came together.
Pip: The first Behind the Scenes post sets the tone directly. The announcement reads: “I’ll be posting chapters of that novel beginning one week from today, August 24th.”
Mara: That’s a public commitment with a date attached, which is a different kind of accountability than just saying a book is coming. The chapters are live, the companion posts are live, and readers can follow both tracks simultaneously.
Pip: The second Behind the Scenes episode, Creating Pebble’s World, moves from announcement into craft — what the setting actually looks like, the place called Ter Elsker that Pebble calls home.
Mara: And there’s a warmth to how that episode closes. Readers are invited to respond, with the note that the author won’t “growl at you the way a certain character in Pebble’s Bond does.” The world-building is already leaking into the conversation around the book.
Pip: Which brings us to the third post, Help Your Friends Find Pebble, and this is where the math gets honest.
Mara: Very honest. One paid subscriber, roughly forty readers at the time of posting. The ask is straightforward: share the link with anyone who likes fantasy, send proof you did it, and your name goes into a draw for a free book — either a dystopian middle-grade novella or a Christmas devotional collection.
Pip: A raffle for word-of-mouth. There is something genuinely old-school about that, and I mean it as a compliment.
Mara: It’s a direct, low-friction way to turn existing readers into a distribution network. The novel is out there — the work now is getting it found.
Pip: A serialized fantasy, a behind-the-scenes companion, and a reader raffle — the infrastructure of a small literary launch, built by hand.
Mara: More of Pebble’s world is still coming. Worth watching how the readership grows alongside it.
Good morning everyone. Most of you know that I am posting my Christian fantasy novel, Pebble’s Bond in a series on Substack, along with short bits called Behind the Scenes, all about the process of writing it.
So far I have only one paid subscription and about 40 readers.
So … would you do me a favour and spread the word by sending this link to all your friends and family, especially those who like to read fantasy? I will be forever grateful. Send me some kind of proof that you have done so and I’ll put your name in a draw for a free book – your choice between a distopic middle-grade novella (Fredrik’s Choice) or a collection of Christmas devotionals (Love in the Room.
Here’s the link to the first Behind the Scenes post – Why I Wrote Pebble – by Marcia Lee Laycock – Pebble’s Bond
Thanks so much for your support and help with this.
Blessings, Marcia
Or was it an Epiphany?
Confession – and a warning – this post contains a lot of grumbling. But stay with me, it does turn a corner!
I’ve been fretting a lot lately. About money, or more specifically, the lack of it. My writing career has not supplied the income I once thought it might, in my long-ago naiveté. I’ve struggled to get the word out about my books, been frustrated by all those wonderful people who tell me what a good writer I am but never leave a review on Amazon. I’ve struggled to run ads for my fantasy books, which my beta readers and those few who’ve purchased the books say they loved.
For a time, book sales from speaking and teaching engagements managed to give me enough to keep writing and self-publishing, until Covid hit and all the speaking/teaching gigs dried up like grapes in a drought. Now I have books I want to have published but little funds to do it.
Reaching our goal in a recent Crowdfundr campaign was a huge boon that will allow me to publish my newest book, Flecks of Gold. But now we have a massive bill to pay for reclamation on our flooded basement and I’m concerned about how to purchase my own copies of that book, once it has been published.
My publisher suggested posting my latest fantasy book as a series on Substack. She suggested putting it behand a paywall. It’s been a lot of fun doing it but so far it has gone unnoticed. I have only 1 subscriber. (You can find it here, if interested).
Then I clicked into a group I’m part of to find they were all celebrating the success of one of the members who had just joined the “100K Club.” Yes, that was his income from his book sales. Now ordinarily I’d celebrate with them, with only a slight sigh, but the man writes what I would label pornography. I don’t even like to look at the covers of his books. It made me want to scream, “Lord, why?!!”
I remembered there was a verse somewhere in the Bible about the wicked prospering, so I looked it up. In the book of Jeremiah chapter 12, verse 1, the prophet cries – “Why does the way of the wicked prosper?”
God answers in verses 5 to 17. Verse 13 says – “They have sown wheat and have reaped thorns; they have tired themselves out but profit nothing. They shall be ashamed of their harvest because of the fierce anger of the Lord.” (ESV)
I did not doubt that last sentence, but “profit nothing?” 100K didn’t seem like nothing. And I continued to grumble.
Then I sat down to watch TV with my husband. As he scrolled through Netflix I saw that Babette’s Feast was on the list. I told him that book/film had often been recommended. He wasn’t keen since it’s a Danish film with English subtitles, but he humoured me.
It started off slowly and I feared my DH might suggest we find something a bit more lively. But it didn’t take long before we were both totally engaged in the simple story.
SPOILER ALERT
It’s about two middle aged women who have lived a simple and devout life. A series of circumstances brings a French woman, Babette, into their home. Over time Babette’s presence brightens their lives, most notably by her good cooking. Then fortune smiles on them all. Or is it Providence? Babette wins a lottery.
The sisters fear she will now leave them and return to France. But Babette has another plan. She spends all her winnings, an outrageous amount, to prepare a feast for the two women and all their friends. They all relish the delicacies she has prepared for them, the good wine, the exotic dishes. But they have made a covenant to say nothing at all about the meal. So they leave without giving the cook any recognition, any accolades, any praise at all.
When the two Danish women discover that Babette has impoverished herself by the extravagant gift, and confront her, she says, “Oh, my friends, an artist in never poor.”
Cue the proverbial slap upside the head with a 2×4. The phrase kept ringing like a massive bell in my brain. ‘An artist is never poor.’
Oh! Oh how true! For an artist, especially an artist who has faith, has the joy in creating, the joy of seeing a life touched, perhaps even a life changed. An artist doing what God has given her to do need never be ashamed of the harvest, however small it may be. The art itself is payment enough.
And did not our Lord do exactly what Babette did? He gave everything He had, including His very life, that we may have mercy and grace and joy in abundance, in the very presence of our Father in heaven. We, His artists, are rich indeed.
Then I remembered some other verses in the Bible – Matthew 6:25 -27 – “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. … Look at the birds of the air: they do not sow or reap or store away in barns and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Who of you, by worrying, can add a single hour to his life?”
And then verses 31-33 – “So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear? For the pagans run after all these things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well.”
And I remembered the many, many, times those verses have been true in my life in the past. And I stopped grumbling. I stopped stressing and started trusting again.
And in case I’m tempted to forget – and I know I will be — I’m going to post Babette’s words in my office.
“An artist is never poor.”
****
Good morning all. Episode two just released – Creating Pebble’s World. Check it out – (2) Creating Pebble’s World – by Marcia Lee Laycock
The next episode of Pebble’s Bond will go live on Friday. I’d love to know what you think of all this. Don’t be shy, I won’t growl at you the way a certain character in Pebble’s Bond does. 🙂
I’m happy to announce that my first Behind the Scenes Post just went live on Substack. This will be a regular feature, chatting about my fantasy novel Pebble’s Bond.
I’ll be posting chapters of that novel beginning one week from today, August 24th.
Check out the first edition of Behind the Scenes – (2) Behind the Scenes – by Marcia Lee Laycock – Pebble’s Bond
Romans 6:12-14
There’s tension in the air as the cowboy lowers himself into the shute. He knows he has drawn the biggest, meanest bull at the rodeo. The crowd knows it too. He hears the announcer tell them so. He tries not to listen, tries to concentrate on the details of getting ready to ride. He succeeds. Time stops. The bull erupts into the open arena and for those eight long seconds, all the cowboy’s years of training and practice fall into a pattern that has become second nature. At the end of eight seconds he’s a hero. He has done what few will attempt and landed without a scratch.
What makes a man think he can best a beast ten times his weight and strength? He believes he can do it because he has worked at developing the skills and he has paid his dues. The spectators haven’t seen all that has gone before. They aren’t aware of the scars, the broken bones, the cracked ribs, the gallons of lineament rubbed into swollen joints and torn muscles. The cowboy who has ridden an animal that could kill him has seen years of trial and error, years of being thrown off, years of watching and listening to other riders. By the time that cowboy lowers himself onto the biggest, meanest bull in the rodeo, he knows he has everything he needs to do it – the skill and the courage. That assurance can lead him to victory.
Every Christian has been given what is needed to overcome sin. There are no dues to pay, no injuries to suffer through. Someone else has done all that. Jesus paid the price for us. Once we have accepted that fact, our struggle is not how to overcome sin, but how to live as though we already have. The Apostle Paul wrote – “you have been given fullness in Christ, who is the head over every power and authority” (Colossians 2:10). He goes further in Romans 6:12-14 – “Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires … for sin shall not be your master, because you are not under law, but under grace.” Unlike that cowboy, we don’t rely on our own skill and courage. We rely on the grace and mercy of God.
The cowboy knows he can do it. Do you?
Can you help us get there?
The Crowdfundr campaign for my new book, Flecks of Gold is technically ended last night at midnight but it’s still live. That means there is still an opportunity to pre-order the book and be entered in the draw for a felted landscape of your choice.
The campaign is sitting at 98% funded – we just need $75 to top it up. Please spread the word and the link if you can. https://crowdfundr.com/flecksofgold
Blessings, Marcia
