"The Book" Begins. Like Batman.

Once upon a time, there lived a precocious nine-year-old who decided that she was going to write an epic sweeping rambling obnoxious monstrous medieval fantasy novel.

Spoiler alert: that nine-year-old was me.

...I wanted an image. And I said "once upon a time." So castle.

I had an idea for a main character, and then the main character’s sidekick, and then the bad guy, and the skeleton of a plot. For the next five years, give or take, this novel was constantly in the back of my mind. I would listen to all that Metallica and make really cool music videos in my head featuring the characters of my novel and their adventures. I drew maps of fictional countries, started writing some rules for a fictional language (a vowel that followed another vowel would always be doubled, for example, because why even not), took notes in an ever-present notebook. I soon discovered, though, that actually writing it was way hard. I tried (and failed) at least 10 times on 10 different drafts and rarely made it past page eight. When I was a freshman in high school, I think I made it to Chapter 3, and that was a big deal, and then I finally admitted defeat. The novel slunk away to the depths of my brain and proceeded to brood in relative silence.

Three weeks ago, I found the maps. Then I found some of the notes. And then I found that most recent draft. A lot of the main notebooks had been thrown away over the years, but I still felt as if I had dug up a time capsule—the vestiges of this big idea I had had so long ago. In the depths of my brain, something growled. The more I began to poke and prod at it, though, it lumbered—slowly but surely—out. Suddenly, I had a novel again.

Yet again, writing it is HARD. (I’m on page… 3. I mean, it’s a start. Right? Right?!) Plotting and planning it is even worse. I have at least 7 different word documents currently saved in a folder creatively titled “The Book.” I feel as if I have about 3 of the pieces of a 100-piece jigsaw puzzle. The rest were lost, or I never even had them in the first place, or I tore at them until they were entirely different shapes altogether. I think the novel I will end up with is hugely different from the one I originally envisioned, and yet there are enough similarities to please my nine-year-old self. It’s kind of a cool process. I’m daunted and terrified and excited.

And I totally did not write this blog post to procrastinate writing said novel, because my nine-year-old self would definitely not approve.