Traveler's League Hapis Chronicles
I was talking to my friends recently about the "spring fever" of planning homeschool events. As much as I want to put blinders on and only focus on the task at hand and ignore making plans for the future, sometimes the visions of "what's next" turn into amazing experiences! Our Traveler's League book party is the perfect example!
Back in November I wrote a post and shared it in our Wild + Free group about an idea my husband and I had. What if we did a book party where the book was written by the students?!
I knew in order to pull something like this off we would need to have months of preparation. Hence, the planning aspect from back in the fall! Sometimes the things you dream about turn out even better than you expect!
If you're not familiar with Nick's books, this is a great backstory video about the Traveler's League series that was written by him and our children. (Or read about it here!) Over the past three years I have seen such a passion for writing and telling stories pour out of my children and I give every single iota of credit to my amazing and creative husband! I know that many of my friends have aspiring writers for children and I wanted to tap into the resource that I knew my husband could provide! The thought of making "fan fiction" the premise of a book party started taking hold of me and after talking it over with Nick we had a fun plan!
Each child that wanted to participate would write a fan fiction piece about the 9:00 world of The Timepiece. This is the world of "Hapis" and the "Marsh Trolls" are the main inhabitants of the world. The children in our W+F group did an amazing job creating back stories, characters, and plot twists to make a tale that enhances the storyline of the Traveler's League series.
I am blessed that I got to watch the entire behind the scenes process. Students sent in their stories by January 1st 2021. I took this picture of Nick on January 30th. He spent a month reading each submission and writing a story arc that would use an element of each student's fan fiction into a cohesive book.
The next few months were the grueling task of writing the book. I didn't think he would write as much as he did! I expected a kind of short story final product but the Hapis Chronicles is one of the longest stories in the series!
Another element that we wanted to add to this project is to give to charity any royalties that are made from the sales of the book. If you purchase the Hapis Chonicles on Amazon, the money will be going to the non-profit organization Generation Joshua. We've already been sending them donations and they were so excited to hear about this project and what amazing things our local homeschool students are doing!
Once the book was finished on March 8th, it took his editor a few weeks to get corrections finished, a cover design uploaded, and final formatting completed for publishing! We got the books back on April 5th! Each book has the final story along with individual submissions by each student!
It was finally time to put finishing touches on the book party! We knew that with 12 students participating our home was just big enough to host the party in the "writer's studio!"
Nick converted our garage several years ago to be his "man cave" where he could work, write, and entertain other writers. It has been amazing to see the creativity that has been born out of this small little room! Before students entered, they came into the house and "signed in" on one of Nick's typewriters! One thing you might not know is that Nick is a collector of vintage typewriters. I loved watching the students 'clickety-clack' as they typed their names at the start of the party!
We had a thoughtful and deep question and answer session with Nick and I truly believe these talented writers will publish amazing ideas in the future. I'm so proud of all of them and also so proud of my husband who willingly and enthusiastically speaks life into his own children and the children of my friends.
If you would like to support Nick in his publishing and creativity, subscribe to his newsletter here and receive a free copy of The Timepiece, subscribe to his YouTube channel where he creates "Writing Tips for Kids," and purchase his novels at his Amazon author page here!
To close out this post I had to share my friend Lara's picture when she pulled into her house after leaving the party. Her two oldest are already immersed in the Traveler's League world again! I'm so blessed to have an amazing community of friends that do life with us. And I'm so proud of Nick for following his dreams. If you have a young, aspiring author please reach out to Nick through his YouTube or Facebook pages and feel free to pick his brain about ideas that you can do to foster a love of writing and creating in your home!
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