Last time I introduced the two main characters in my book and the essence of the story.
I explained how I knew it was going to be a love story and how I had decided, prior to writing it, that it would definitely have some sex in it.
But how did I decide on the story, I was going to write? How did I decide upon Abbey and Cole?
It’s been nearly three years since I started writing this story, and it has been through so many rereads and edits since I finished writing it, that I couldn’t recall its conception.
I decided to look through my old creative writing course, to see if the inspiration for my book was, at least in some part, contained there.
I found an exercise which asked me to “write an opening page of a story using the first person view point.” I had written 293 words about a school girl, writing in her exercise book, about her life with her controlling boyfriend:
“…Today dear exercise book I have decided to share all the torrid details with you. How we have both ended up in such mess. One of us with their eyes wide open and one of us with our eyes wide shut!”
But it was what I had written at the end of this task that stunned me.
The ending for my book was set out in two sentences, in note form, at the end.
Although the beginning has changed, the characters names have changed (they were originally Jessie and Kai) – I had my plot, for my story, already set out in that piece of writing and a few short notes underneath. All I had to do was add some sex scenes and embellish the story, switching the girl’s narrative in her exercise book to a story told from two viewpoints.
It is amazing how the story emerged after that, I cannot tell you exactly how – its story telling magic!
The story comes from that subconscious part of your mind, which continually works on the idea of that story, even when you are not; helping the plot flow and the characters come alive on the page.
It is the excitement and the rush that you feel, when the story resonates with you on some level, so that your heart engages with your mind. Ultimately, you live and breathe the characters, the situations they find themselves in and you fall in love with the story of your own creation, as you write it down.
By Jan 2016, a couple of weeks after I had finished the course, I already had 8,500 words.They are saved on a separate word document, in my computer, and were easy to find.
When I glanced over them, I found essentially the exact same story that is contained within the preface and chapters 1, 2 and 3 of my book.
That is, the essence of my story. Those chapter are the ones that build the foundation, that my story is ultimately based on.They set out exactly who Abbey and Cole are (although in that narrative they are Jessie and Kai). The same ending is there too – the same ending I had noted in my creative writing task.
I hadn’t added too many more details to it, but it surprised me: I already knew the ending and I was never going to change it.
Along with the preface and those three chapters were some thoughts about how the story would progress from there, most of it didn’t happen and reading those notes now, I wonder how the story would have turned out, if I had incorporated some of those ideas.
It would had been a completely different story – except that ending.
Perhaps that is the magic formula of writing – you have an idea, you know the beginning and you know what will happen in the end. How you get from the beginning to the ending is writing magic.
The book took me six weeks to write and then 2 months to edit.
I sat on it for a while, then after six months I read it again, editing as I went.
I found the guts to send that book to an editor and it was another six weeks before it was ready.
It was a completely finished story by December 2017.
This year I sourced a book cover, proof reader, started social media as Probable writer and formatted the book with chapters, acknowledgements and created a back blurb.
Once I got the book back from the proof reader, I thought it was finished and the last thing to do was to read through it one last time and then send it to a company who will format it for kindle.
But in the past three years I have grown as a writer, I have learnt so much through the process of writing continually.
This book will be the first of many.
This is actually the first book in a trilogy.
I know exactly how the story ends in book 3 and how the characters develop, so that even as I try to read through my book one last time, I am still making changes.
I know each time I change a word, a conversation or add some new context (like a nickname for Abbey this week eek!!!) I will need to reread the whole book again, but I am under pressure this time, time pressure.
I need to release this book before Christmas. I have to, for my own sanity.
I have lived with this story for 3 years and at one point, it has to be the best I can do. I have felt that it has been, at many different junctures; but the end is near and I know will have to let it fly.
