Introducing The Scriptorium
Working Title: The romantasy focused writing community you've been dreaming of is almost here!!!
Welcome back, Readers of the Realm 💖 I’m excited to invite you along on my latest literary adventure. The Scriptorium will launch on September 10, 2026.
The Story Behind the Scriptorium
Most of my good ideas come to me in the shower. Maybe it has something to do with the water clearing away the fog of sleep, or the silence as my family is still snoozing. Regardless, one morning in 2015, my imagination took me out of the present day wonders of indoor plumbing. I saw a wishing well amid a copse of trees, light sparkling off clear waters in the distance. A golden haired woman stood there, aware of an approaching ship.
Who was this mystery woman? I’d been teaching art history at the time, yet she wasn’t from a painting. Was she from a movie?
No, she was from a book—and I was the author. OH DEAR. I hadn’t written any fiction since high school, and I was busy raising two kids. Really busy, but ignoring her didn’t work. She starting haunting my dreams. Sometimes she was working with clay jars of herbs. Other times, she wove. She gave off an air of being earnest and, honestly, a touch sheltered.
It was impossible to ignore her.
I didn’t know her name until I picked up a copy of the novel The Lambs of London for my birthday. Rowena, one of the characters featured in the William Henry Ireland’s infamous Shakespeare forgery Vortigern and Rowena, was sick and tired of being understood only in terms of the men in her life. She wanted me to tell her story in her own voice.
This was a really tall order. But by then I’d read Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic, and I felt honored to have been visited by the muse.
Now that I had a FMC, I spent three years learning how to write fiction. Back then money was tight, so I relied on my local library. There I accessed Microsoft Word and saved drafts in my email, while also checking out every single book related to writing a novel.
Foolishly, I thought writing a feminist retelling would be easier than writing a story from scratch. I had an outline aided by plot points married to historical fact.
Note to writers: Creating a plot and adhering to historical timeline are not the same thing.
At the end of three years, I didn’t have a finished manuscript. I hired a developmental editor anyways. Foolishly, I assumed they could help me figure out the ending, I’d write that, proofread it, and start the query process.
I spent one thousand dollars to learn that I needed to be a part of a writing group, or at least have a few trusted beta readers, to help me turn these ideas into a story. While I could write at the sentence level, the actual story didn’t have a foundation to stand on.
Per my expensive feedback, I tried a few writing groups. They too wrote great sentences, but none of the feedback I received resonated with me in that way I feel in my gut when I’m on the right track.
I wrote a second version of my story, this one with a pretty good ending. I sent it off to a different developmental editor, not wanting to relive the embarrassment of my first failed attempt. The developmental edit I received was FANTASTIC, even though my story was not. I had another year of revising ahead of me, but I was able to tackle each problem area one-by-one. I self-published my book, not wanting to give over my IP to a big corporation, and Rowena’s Song was born.
Except I still wasn’t fully happy with it. I had been working with fantasy and historical fiction editors, and I wanted it to be a ROMANTASY.
Frustrated at the lack of resources for the romantasy writing community, I wondered what to do about it. During another scalding hot shower (I’m part dragon), I became fixated on the idea of becoming a mentor. Enter the Author Accelerator Book Coaching program. I spent an entire year learning how to coach writers to turn their work into something that is ready for a developmental edit and/or the query trenches. At the same time, I read all the romantasy books I could get my hands on.
The second step in my journey to help romantasy authors hone their craft was starting this Substack. When I joined over two years ago, I wasn’t familiar with this platform. I never liked Twitter, and Facebook was already a propaganda cesspit. While I had very low expectations, I have come to love this creative corner of the internet.
Now I’m ready to help take our creativity up a notch. This community is everything I wish I had available to me when I started my writing journey.
The Scriptorium’s Mission
The Scriptorium is a dedicated online romantasy writing community designed to empower authors as they improve their craft, stay accountable to their manuscripts, and receive support from their peers. The Scriptorium is moderated by Ivy Dally, an Author Accelerator Certified Book Coach.
Monthly subscribers to Romantasy Realms will receive:
Monthly writing lectures that focus on strengthening your underlying story structure shared on Substack Live and simulcast on Discord from September to May.
Access to The Scriptorium’s Discord Server community 24/7 for the entire calendar year. Discord is a free platform that allows people to chat in real time via voice channels or IM. It also allows for the sharing of manuscript pages for feedback/critique privately. A full overview can be found here.
Weekly writing sprints (currently scheduled for Mondays and Thursdays and some Saturdays) for the calendar year.
Annual subscribers to Romantasy Realms will receive:
Answers about writing craft from Ivy for writers that submit Ask Me Anything questions in the Discord #AMA channel
Sorting into your house to help find writers at the same level as you. Participants are encouraged to form smaller groups within The Scriptorium to share pages and offer kind and helpful critiques following Scriptorium guidelines. Each house will have its own dedicated Discord channel.
A brief editorial letter and in-line comments on a chapter/scene of your choice, up to 7 pages or 1750 words. Slots will be available via Google calendar. Pages must be submitted within the one-year window of your subscription. (EX: If your subscription begins in September 2026, you can choose open dates for submission between September 2026 and September 2027).
Subscribers interested in participating in the Scriptorium will be given a brief questionnaire to help me understand your writing goals and background. Are you ready to join? If so, drop the name of your current WIP in the comments below!