They say that, but it’s not really true. I mean, yea you could be Tolkien, or any number of famous people that seem to be perfect. But such a thing is rare and far between.
When I started writing it was with fanfictions. Yea, I was that gal in high school. And yea, I didn’t really show an interest in writing till then. My original stories that I had been working on back then I paid so little attention to that all I can remember is they dealt with shape shifting wolves. Maybe one day I’ll dig up the old works and do something with them.
What really got me into writing was Nungai. Originally it was just Machines and Magic, then a sequel to a video-game idea a friend of mine had. As I worked on it, things shifted, and the whole universe started coming to life. Ice Magic, as it was then titled, came along while watching a documentary on Antartica. From there more stories flowed, and eventually Machines and Magic was published.
Then, at some point, I started shifting from Nungai to this guy named Stan Bubbles. Trust me, you don’t want to see his original manuscript. Those that did, I’m sorry. It was so bad I shelved it for six years, and for most of that my desire to write.
I had tried a couple shorts, of course, A Dragon and A Knight being among those, and had even managed to send one off to an aspiring editor looking for practice. Needless to say the entire piece had been highlighted to be redone. There was maybe 25% of the story that they thought didn’t need work. This had been something that was consistent through peer edits in high school as well. The teachers looked at it all grammatically, which was relatively sound, but everything else had its’ doubts.
Now, 6 years after putting Stan Bubbles on backburner, his first novel is awaiting its’ turn to get out of “Amazon Limbo” and is featured in a short story within the Hope for Ukraine anthology. Nungai self-published works have been pulled down to be re-written with Genysis awaiting new cover art before publication.
Sunflower are Yellow, my first short in an anthology and looking to be my first piece published under Adkins, is also my first that’s officially professionally edited instead of being “Hey, you’re an edit student, here!” Needless to say, after all these years of brooding on books, writing and scrapping, and not fully giving up has led to the edits needed being minor. 3-5 pages in a row of unaltered text.
I might not be perfect, I probably never will be. But it is improvement, and that’s what is important. Morale of this story is to just keep going! The show must go on!
Bluey, episode titled “The Show” from BBC Australia, LUDO productions
Comments