Like, really love to read. I finished the entire Lord of the Rings in five days. When I worked at the library I used to bring so many books home that my mom complained I wasn't getting any of my chores done, I was too busy reading. I've lost count of how many books I've read over a year, let alone a lifetime.
The thing is, all this reading has a cost. It gets harder and harder to find a "good" book. And it was this push to find something good to read that got me into writing again.
I wrote all the time in Elementary School, but when writing in school stopped being fun I stopped doing it. It wasn't until we had a two week long creative writing segment in eighth grade that I picked up the pencil again. I was having a hard time finding good books to read and this was school sanctioned creative time. I wrote a one page opener about a girl fleeing through the woods from some monster, in contrast with the beautiful post-storm scenery around her. That was it. But looking at that, I knew suddenly that I wanted to write again, and not just anything. I wanted to write the book I wanted to read. From start to finish.
This is many years later. And of course, easier said than done. It's so easy to write first chapters. Story ideas. Names. Dramatic scenes. It's the brick by brick build up that makes up the whole book which is hard. I wasn't very good at that. So I dabbled here and there a bit and never took it very seriously. But the idea, to write the stories I wanted to read, wouldn't go away.
The story's changed a lot since that first page. I've had many false starts and stops. But the novel I'm writing is the first one I ever decided to write out completely. I've had what I have thought of as better ideas for other stories. They've all been dutifully outlined in their own journals and then put back on the shelf, so I could finish this one. Someday, hopefully, they'll be told as well.
I once read somewhere that if you want to write when inspired, write poetry (which I do). But if you want to write a novel, you have to sit down and write it page by page, whether you're inspired or not. Now that I've taken that admonition seriously, this one, first book will finally be laid to rest by May of next year. This is what it's about:
In the isolated kingdom of Lannan Dús, nestled between the ocean and the mountains, alarming events are taking place. Entire villages are disappearing, and the current King is doing little to address the needs and fears of his people. But all of this is far away for a young girl called River, who was found in a peripheral seaside town, senseless and either unable or unwilling to divulge her own past. Through a series of events, she ends up saving the life of a boy named Javin, an outsider with a past and agenda of his own. Despite their differences and the difficulties involved, the two seize their chance to find some answers and head to the capital city. But what starts out as a simple hunt for River's home quickly becomes more complicated as they find themselves pursued by soldiers of the King and start piecing together how the problems of today are linked to themselves, the royal family, a missing prince, a decade and a half old tragedy, and the slumbering past of the kingdom itself.