I had a dream last night where I turned my current draft of book 1 into a hard copy tangible book. At first, I was like, “Oooh. This is nice and prettyyy~” and then I was like “This was a mistaaaake!” because it was obviously still a draft and not ready to be published and I couldn’t believe I wasted materials on printing the entire draft when I knew I still needed to edit things. The cover was super pretty though…on the website where I ordered it from. In (dream) person, it was blue and white instead of blue and gold and had waaaay less fancy sprinkles on it.
Aaaaaanyway, it’s been a while! Hi, I am not dead. I actually tried to write two separate updates earlier this month, but they seemed too negative and ranty to post. In general, I had a rough two months, mostly due to relationship issues and growing problems with AI being forced into everything without care for original artists, their rights, or privacy. Due to these problems, I hadn’t been able to work on my new draft for book 1 for a while. HOWEVER, I AM BACK AT IT.
And I’m happy to say that my current draft is much more polished than the draft I turned into a hard copy in my dream (I think I was dreaming about this current draft, but with draft 1’s beginning which…was way too short and really started with the Inciting Incident rather than introduce the MC at all ( any Exposition).
Chapter 1 Discovered:
Selenia walked into her room after a perfectly normal summer day that was about to get perfectly abnormal. As she opened her door, she found a man, who looked to be about 30, standing right in front of her. As she opened her mouth to scream, he covered it. “Shh! I’m not about to hurt you!” he said. He lowered his hand. “Really? Then why are you in my room?” Selenia asked, quietly. “If I told you, you’d think I was lying. So I’m just going to lie.” The man thought for a few seconds. “Ah, yes. I was going to kidnap you, but I decided against it.” He told her. Selenia wasn’t at all amused. “Who do you think you are!”
Cue: So much laughter and cringe. XD This is word for word copied from the first page of that first draft. I’ve reminisced over this draft a few times over the last 15 years and only now did I pay attention to… Guys, I didn’t even start separating paragraphs until the third page and realized I should probably start indenting paragraphs at the bottom of the fourth page. I also had grammatical edits written in pencil (Most of what I copied above was the “written in sharpie” portion of draft 1) around the sentences, which I did not include here. XD
Looking at these things really reminds me that I never intended for this to go anywhere. I just had acted a scene out with a new text-based roleplay from the old neopets forums in mind after taking a shower one night and decided I wanted to write stuff down for a change. All for fun. Then as that interaction gave way to more ideas and more scenes, I realized I should probably start making paragraph breaks, indenting, and using not-a-sharpie-marker like a “serious writer” because this was…becoming something…that I loved.
In a way, my book series is really just one big Shower Thought. XD
July 10th, 2009 was when that fateful night took place. Somewhere along the lines of my later drafts, I wrote “Anyone can write. You just have to have a story worth telling.” Nowadays, I’d add, if you want to get traditionally published, you also have to really want it. Passion, dedication, and who am I to give you advice on this? I don’t even have an agent yet! lololol~
Avoiding spoilers, this is the closest thing I have to that opening scene from draft 1. This is currently found in the middle of chapter 2 of draft 11.
Then Selenia’s eyes adjusted and she froze.
They were in a small opaque dome, dimly lit with a reddish glow—heat! Small flames flickered along the lower rim. Before them all stood a man in a dark tunic tinged with bright orange threading. The material of the orange threads echoed the shine of fire that licked at the bottom of the dome. His back was to them and his arms were raised, tense as if he were holding the dome up, though he made no contact with it.
“Who are you?” Esu asked.
The man glanced toward them. He let out a breath and his shoulders relaxed. The dim firelight cast shadows over his muscles, but it was clear that he had strength to him. When he turned to face them, his irises shone scarlet against the darkness.
Esu whimpered.
Different scene, different energy, same situation. The opening scene is now several ways completely different from the original now too. I’ve learned a lot and I’m about to go and learn mooooore! Draft 12, here I come!
P.S. I recently saw a post about a person having to choose between doing art and “getting a real job.” The secret third option is that you CAN do both, and probably will, actually. If it makes you happy (and doesn’t hurt someone else) don’t stop doing the thing you love! ❤ Your joy and peace are worth the time and effort.
N. K. Valek: Author 