A Fresh Start is a Beautiful Thing

For many years now, since I was a kid, I've fancied myself a writer and I've wanted to publish my work. In third grade, when told to write down my goals on a sheet of paper, I wrote that "I want to write a ten book series about wizards." I've been making up stories since I was very young, and it was in middle school that I first started to write with the intent to publish my work.

My first attempts at novels were, as with most folks, pretty bad. I remember the first "book" I ever tried to write. I actually still have the notebook, though the story itself has long since been ripped out. There was a group of girls, an epic quest, faeries, true love, all that jazz. To be perfectly honest, I'm pretty sure it was alarmingly close to being a ripoff of one of my favorite books at the time, The Prophecy of the Stones by Flavia Bujor.

But, hey, I got better.

I remember bits and pieces from some of my old attempts at penning epic tales. There were usually faeries or elves, the main character was always in some way a reflection of me (because, again, middle school), and thinking back I'm pretty sure a lot of it was quite dark. People died, killed, held forbidden thoughts and desires, and ran rampant in worlds full of evil kings and frightening monsters. 

Things changed a bit when my family went through a difficult move. I didn't have any friends, really, and I was going through a severe culture shock for having moved to a drastically different environment. Not a lot of folks shared my interests or values, and I was bullied rather terribly, to the point where I begged my mother to take me out of school and teach me herself. Through it all, I kept writing. I carried around huge binders stuffed with stories, drawings, maps, and ideas. It's what got me through a lot of shit, and while I don't have any surviving scraps of writing from this time I remember that my stories got quite bleak and quite a bit darker. I hit my "vampire phase," eating up every scrap of vampire fiction I could get my hands on (this was before Twilight, though I eventually read that, too). My writing was full of vampires who slaughtered the people who tormented them, and who did whatever the hell they wanted without having to be afraid that people would hurt them.

In my first year of high school, I produced a monstrosity titled The Family Secret, about an ancient pact between vampire nobility and a human bloodline. I was convinced it was amazing, and very nearly got pulled into a pay-to-publish scam. My mom was a bit wiser than I was, thankfully, and The Family Secret fortunately never entered into the world. I maintain a great fondness for those characters, though, and they crop up in my short stories from time to time.

The next year was my first year participating in NaNoWriMo. I still have all of my notes, diagrams, artwork, and word count charts from that mayhem, and that novel, The Surface of the Deep, earned its fair share of rejection letters (including one that flat-out told me to learn to write better queries--I think I still have it somewhere). I jumped into the publishing world feet-first, and got a little muddy. I learned, though, and kept going.

The next two years saw some more projects off-and-on, including the novel I am currently re-writing: The Pixiehunter. Of all the things I've written in my life, it's my favorite and it's the one I think has the most potential. Folks tell me it's a good premise, and I think if I work hard I can make it shine.

2011, though...2011 was a hard year. I gradually stopped writing new things, only obsessively editing old ones. Eventually I stopped doing that much, save a few words every now and then. I met my now-husband that year, which was amazing, and I lost my grandmother, which was not so amazing. That year had a lot of ups and downs, and in 2012 I started struggling with depression. I'd stopped writing completely at that point, no matter how much my friends and family encouraged me, and it was pretty much the rock-bottom low of my writing life so far.

Now, though. Now it's the end of 2013. Things are stable in my personal life, and I'm ready. I've struggled and worked hard over the past year, and I've come out a little battered, but also a little wiser. Things are good, and I can feel the ideas flowing. My muse has returned, and it's time for me to shine.

I hope everyone's had a good start to the week. Until next time,

J.