I have been writing for as long as I can remember. Poetry, short stories, novel length type stories. I can remember why I even started writing one of my stories (one that is long gone in the wasteland of computer malfunction). I was probably around the age of eleven and I had read a book about orphans that were sisters that were separated at birth. One going to a happy family and one going to a bad family – I believe it took place during World War I or possibly World War II but I honestly don’t remember much about it. All that I remember is that I was reading it in fifth or sixth grade, I think, and I had read it all of the way through quickly. The story was good but what I didn’t like was how it ended. So I decided to rewrite the story how I wanted it to be – this could be either considered fanfiction or plagiarism now a days but I didn’t even end up keeping it. I think I probably had maybe 100 pages typed of it. Then I remember that my computer died and it went bye-bye. I remember being devastated but now I just laugh.
I have always dabbled in poetry, from the moment it was introduced to me through school in elementary school or such, and it always sucked. If you want some examples go and look at the early days of this blood, I spent maybe a month posting a good portion of the bits I had written and saved through the years. That’s really all I have to say about it.
Anyways! On to the next big project of my life. This one has haunted me for my entire life. Around the age of twelve or so I had a dream about a girl who was breaking in to a house. I woke from that dream and I couldn’t stop thinking about what possible reason a girl would be breaking into a house. And well, to put it lightly, I wanted to find out. So I started letting the voices and story in my head push forward. I did the old fashioned thing of scribbling in a spiral notebook with a pencil about this story. The girl’s name was Selene. It was all I could do to get the chatter in my head to quiet down.
If you notice, that’s the name of the character I’m writing about now. Twelve years later. Let’s say that again TWELVE YEARS LATER. It’s truly an obsession. The problem about this obsession is that it follows me everywhere. I write in it constantly but I can’t seem to ever finish the story. I know many of you writers out there would say give it up, but I can’t. It’s been such a vital part of my life. Something I have never been able to tuck away for long. Even with my wedding it was something that was there at the back of my mind even when I didn’t get any true writing down. There have been breaks in the writing, there’s been times when all I can do is depressingly think about it but not get anything down but eventually I start up again.
I think one of the biggest issues with me finishing this story is that it has completely evolved from day one to now. It has gone from one story to two to three different story lines. I have ideas for them all. I know – in general – where I want each of them to go. Now all I need to do is sit down and write them. I wish I didn’t have to work. I need to win the lottery so I can stay home and do nothing but go to school and write. I wish.
But because of the fact that I feel guilty that it has taken me twelve years to write one book, one that isn’t even finished, I want to kind of walk you through the evolution of that story from where it was to where it is now:
- It all starts with a dream. I have to write this story down because the voices from my dream are screaming at me to do so (I swear if I keep talking like this y’all are going to think I’m crazy … maybe that’s the definition of a writer) and so I stay up in the middle of the night and write it in a spiral notebook left over from school. I want to say it was summer time-ish because I don’t remember feeling worried about waking up the next day (and I have always been a crazy person for my sleep). I remember being in this teepee that we had gotten for Christmas and I used it as a clubhouse type thing in my room. I almost filled an entire notebook that first night. When I first started writing I really didn’t know the characters that well. Selene was a girl that looked different (she had stripped hair – orange and black) and she met a boy in the house she broke in to. I wrote about that night she broke in and what happened next. But something seemed to be missing from the story …
- So we get to the next step, I figured out that Selene wasn’t just a regular girl. She had this special ability. One that allowed her to change into a tiger and she wasn’t alone in that fact. Her entire family all had the ability to change into different big cats (tigers, lions, etc.) and they were hiding amongst us lowly humans on Earth. Selene was still a thief, and she still broke into a house and met a boy named Alec. That boy was human. And I finally realized why she was breaking into his house. It was a test. The story got more and more developed (maybe even too much) and I got nearly 200 hundred pages typed up (see what I mean by too much). I also realized that the story line was switching from Selene to another character that took over, Aislynn. I realized we needed to change that.
- The next step was the division of the story. I suddenly found myself with two stories instead of one and realized that that just made things more complicated. So Aislynn got her own stories and Selene got a revamp. This went on for quite time this way. Until I realized that Selene’s story became in some degrees a very long prologue to Aislynn. I didn’t like that. I knew that Selene had her own story to tell and I had lost her voice in the midst of Aislynn.
- The next big change was finally listening to Selene again. I wanted to get her story back on track and in order to do that I needed to pause on Aislynn. So, I struggled with that. But like her story started with a dream, the solution for where to go with it came to me in a dream. And so her story became more involved and more detailed then it ever was. All the characters got revamped. They all got affected by the change of the story – relationships, attitudes, and the world. With this big change in Selene’s story, I really decided that the story could not possibly take place on Earth.
- While this was all changing for Selene, Aislynn was getting a revamping of her story as well. Mostly to fix the bits of “history” of her family that got changed with Selene’s story. As I went through a deep development for Aislynn another voice began to try and get his point across. Noah. And so I got to where I am now.
- I have three separate stories. One for each of these main characters and here is where we’ve gotten to with each of them:
- Selene – This story is now about a magical girl who gets into a bond with a goddess to save her sister. Because of this the goddess tries to constantly torture her and bring her closer and closer to death. She is no longer a thief but she does meet a boy. This boy helps her to overcome the thrall of the goddess – who is his mother – and they fall in love.
- Aislynn – Her story is about what happens to a young parentless girl with too much power. Her blood is so potent that her magic has become something that is outside of the normal bounds of her race. She is a thief. She steals artifacts to control her power. She meets a boy. He is like her but his family has a history with hers that could tear them apart. She is the protector of her race – or should be – along side her best friends and boyfriends. The form a prophesized group called the Elementai. They will have to save their race, and the world, from an impending war. She also meets another boy, but shhh that’s a secret.
- Noah – He is a prophet who has run away from his family. His father did some very bad things like sell his sister. Now he is trying to find her. He ends up meeting a girl and they fall in love. But he has to introduce her to his parents and that causes issues. Haven’t gotten much time to develop his story too far but its bound to be interesting.
I imagine there were a few other transition point through the years, but those are the main ones that actually made a difference. As I talked about in the entry on naming people, one of the big parts that have gone along side my evolution is the changing of names. But everything seems to be falling in to place for me to finally get these done (if only I got the chance to actually write) because I am actually seeing the ending how I want them to be.
I look forward to writing again and seeing where it will go. I wonder if maybe I should think up a new idea. Maybe that would help me finish a story.
Cara Mia Amore
No comments:
Post a Comment
Little Whispers in My Ears