A little known fact about Jacob

For those of you who don’t know, I’ve always wanted to write a book. My brother’s inundated me with the desire to read novels when I was six. It was their scheme to keep me from trying to take time from their nintendo gaming–interest me in something else. And it worked.

When I was eight, I started writing my first fantasy novel. And I never finished it. Over the years I kind of forgot about this goal, until a couple of months before I got married actually. So I started writing again.

Today I finished my first book.

Of all the stories I’ve had floating around in my head, I don’t know why I decided to write this one first. It’s entitled Wishes (for now that’s what I’ll call it anyway), and it’s largely based in the idea “what if mother goose rhymes and grimm’s fairy tales were for real?” I.e. what if the main characters were Jack and Jill, and Jill is the fairy godmother. Who saves you when you’re supposed to be out granting wishes and saving lives, etc.? Kind of girly for my tastes, but nevertheless, I finished writing it today. The Jack character came through kind of strong though and balances the book out for guys too. I hope. Turns out he’s the heir to throne, the unknowing prince who clumsily tries to save the day at every turn. Like me when I was younger, he’s a bit of a day dreamer.

The idea, and process, for writing the book came much earlier. I’ve actually spent since coming home from my mission studying grimm’s fairy tales and mother goose rhymes. I wanted the story to be as authentic as possible, even though it’s a fairy land. I know lots of random facts about fairy tales now, and I find it interesting.

I’m not posting the book here for all to read. I still have a quick revision to do at the beginning of the story. As I finished I decided to revise some things at the start. If you’d like to read the book, let me know (j@jacobtingen.com) and I’ll send you a copy after I revise some things.

A further note: the artwork below was drawn by my brother Nathan. This is the “cover art” he drew for me. It depicts  a kind of “at a glance” view of some scenes from the book. Thanks, Nathan. The artwork is awesome.