RECENTLYMemories, both sad and happy...
I can remember the first day when I decided to write 'The Silent Passageway'. I was laying on top of my bed, talking to my sister, Anna. In my hands rested a piece of paper, with typed up words upon it. It must have been a scene from a previous story that I had been writing. Anna wanted me to read it to her, but me, thinking it would be a fun joke, began "read it" to her. I was really doing nothing more than making up a story as I went along.
It ran something like this:
One day, as the sun seeped though the windows of an old musty attic of an old house, walked a woman. In her hand she had a key, that led to a secret lock which nobody knew about...
Suddenly I just knew I wanted to write a book about something with a key that led to a secret passageway.
A few weeks later, I was holding in my hands, a copy of Kidnapped, by Robert Louis Stevenson. It was a red hardback, with gold embossed letters. I stood in front of my mirror and acted out a random scene of a girl who found a book such as that. She opened it, and found names of kings and all the royal line written in it. Though she was the princess, her name was not in it.
That sprang hundreds of ideas into my head, and I combined 'Flora-Anneola, Fleeing Princess of Hanaskea' with my older book, 'The Silent Passageway' and that became the very foundation of what is now called 'Faithfulness and Deceit' or FAD for short.
That was about two years ago. Then I formed another character named Lydia. Katie helped me with her for a while, and before we knew what had happened, Lydia was Katie's character and Flora was my character. Here it get's interesting, for while Lydia was basically Katie's character, Lydia was still in my book, and Katie wasn't helping write it yet.
About this time, comes an interesting argument me and Katie had which is really quiet comical. I always imagined Flora's hair to be curly and red, and Lydia's hair to be strait and black. Katie never imagined Lydia to have black hair, and I think at one point it was blond, but not for long. Soon agreement came, and Lydia had strait light brown hair, and Flora was the same curly red hair.
Then came the character named Hammon. He was Flora's twin brother. I sort of forgot about him, and at the same time created two other characters named Younger Ranger and Older Ranger. Well not really, but they didn't have names for the longest time.
The way the story went so far was that Flora and Lydia were "twin" sisters, though really Flora was the princess to the other country of Hanaskea, even though she and Lydia lived in Eterneth. (soon to become Ethernethia) The jist of the plot was that they ran away from their evil uncle Rumman, who was the king of Eterneth. On the way, they met two Hanaskean Rangers, who ended up protecting them and taking them to Hanaskea so that Flora could become queen, and where Lydia could get an army and fight against her Uncle Rumman. At this point however, Rumman's character changed. He became a nice uncle, and it was his son, Aragin who was the villan.
Meanwhile, Flora's twin brother was forgotten about, and I named the "younger ranger". His name became Rean-Hammon as shown below. :)
I must say, Rean-Hammon became one of the main characters, and the hero of the story. Then, first sugested by a friend of mine, I first added romantic stuff to it. It wasn't too bad, there are actually a few scenes I look back upon, and I still want to use.
At this point, after about a year of writing, Katie joined with me. She wrote all of Lydia's scense, and I wrote all of Flora's scenes, (by this time I had changed the name Flora-Anneola, to just plain Flora).
Also Katie introduced a character named Raindant, who was a poor stable boy who falls in love with the princess Lydia. Katie's two character's went their own way, and my plot and my two character's went a different way, although we managed to keep them together for about six more months.
The spring of '08 was when I began showing FAD to all of you. And by then, it was called Faithfulness and Deceit. The whole plot turned slightly, and turned into more of a romantic book. The first chapters took place at balls, and Flora had many suitors, after all, she was a beautiful princess.
This summer Katie and me found out major problems in the story. First of all, Katie found out that her characters, Lydia and Raindant were getting out of hand. Lydia was a wonderwoman, who could do anything! Raindant was whimpy. So she changed a bunch of things, and named the girl Adrianna and Raindant was named Callan. Katie's story took a huge upward turn, and mine seemed to be flying along.
In late July, Katie and me split our book into two seperate books. Adrianna became a gypsie, but Flora was still a princess, although not so pretty.
By October, my plot seemed to be going wonderfully, better than I had ever hoped to imagin. Then came NaNoWriMo, and the month of November. I put FAD on hold, and began writing a sequal for it. The hero of that book being, Rean-Hammon's younger brother, Kelton.
Katie and me soon realized that we had to seperate our fictional world, into two entierly different places. She went and made different countries, and I made changes to mine. I also tried to focuse on my cultures a bit more, and Rean-Hammon's name was changed for the first time. He was called Athelstan. And Flora had long ago dropped off that name and was named Amaye.
My nano novel turned out wonderful, but when I came back to write FAD, it seemed to have lost all of it's aspects that I had loved. Athelstan (Rean-Hammon) was not the man he used to be. He was no longer the hero everyone talked about. He dissapeared. Katie's hero, Callan became the hero now for me.
Everything had changed, so so much from the small little story I had written so long ago. December was a trying month, as was the beginging of January. However, a few days ago, I have finnaly made my decision. I am no longer writing FAD. Something changed in it, although I was never sure what it was. I could never put my finger upon it. Somehow November, with the break of writing FAD, showed the book in it's true light. It was now dim, and old, no longer brilliant and new. The old hero, Rean-Hammon had dwindled down into an annoying doomful ranger. And Amaye, well, she was never that much to look at.
So here I am. How does it feel, to let two years of constant hard work, go to waist you may ask? From the ages of 14 to 16? Well, it hasn't gone to waist. I have learned so, so, so much in those two years! I learned how to make characters, I learned how you must sometimes just let your character lead the way. I have learned how a plot may change so many times, and I have learned to forget and let the past go.
It is true, many of my plot ideas, and some of my characters such as Loxlin (the older ranger) and Kelton, have lived on. Kelton (now named Edred) has his own book and someday soon, so will Loxlin (aka Ethelbert).
So where do I go from here? As many of you know, I am writing a knew story, which is on my story blog. I am enjoying working with and getting to know Latisha, and Hadrian (characters from it). I do not look at the past with regrets, but with hope for the future. I still continue to write wedding novels, with some adventure mixed in.
With that said, I am looking forward to February's challange, writing 30,000 words in my novel. By then I shall have at least 40,000 words in it, and I shall put it on hold, and in the month of March I will edit my nano novel.
From there? I do not know. I shall edit this story. I cannot say. Although I do hope that before this next November, I can have both my nano story a good way edited, and also my newest story edited. And in November, I shall start another story. Where from there?
I fondly bid you all farewell! God bless!
~Molly
God bless,
Zel
