**Originally posted at Once Upon a Twilight.

Rewind to 2011: I had two ideas for young adult books. The first was a post-apocalyptic story set in the frozen Northern Waste with ice truckers and rebels and Reavers and action. The second was…well, we’ll come back to that.

I loved both ideas, so I tossed a coin and went with the first idea. I wrote a proposal, sent it to my agent. The timing for that proposal was off and it didn’t sell. Clouds gathered, heartbreak ensued and I wa...