The dream I never dared to chase
https://www.peakpx.com/en/search?q=chasing+dreams
Until now…
Writing has always been a bit of a passion of mine. Fictional writing that is. I mean don’t get me wrong I love writing about fighting life head on as a proud Autistic woman, and rambling about historical facts both interesting and down right strange. But, really my passion has always been for fictional reading and writing. Poems, shorts stories, books (classics and fantasy are my favourite) I love them all.
As many of you may know I am an Ancient history and archaeology student and my goal is to become a lecturer. But if I’m perfectly honest if I ever wrote a book and had that once in a blue moon success that seems to bless so few; I’d choose writing.
Growing up I never really told anyone about my dream to be a successful author. Self doubt and the knowledge that writing fiction is often looked at as an unobtainable pipe dream stopping me in my tracks. But, lately I thought fudge it. It’s time to stop hiding that manuscript and start actually finishing it. Maybe if I Chase the dream, put all my heart into it, and just believe; maybe it will happen.
“Manuscript?” I hear you say.
“what manuscript?”
Well my friends that’s just it. You see I’ve been writing a book on and off since I was 15. That’s 11 years of gathering plot points, scribbling notes, keeping numerous notebooks of character profiles, and drawing multiple maps of a universe I can see clearly in my head. 11 years of growing and evolving as not only a writer (15–26 is a huge difference), 100s of books read and inspired by. 11 years of growing to love the characters I have literally moulded into the people I need and want them to be.
11 years of dreaming
And when I say book I do mean the same one.
I mean of course there’s been numerous drafts and what started as middle grade is now young adult and looking like it’ll be double the length the original plan allowed for.
It’s changed in many ways over the years. Names have shifted (my main character has gone from Python Sands to Asher Caden Orpheus: see growth), places have been scrapped and scrambled. The plot is a blooming light of twists of turns compared to what it once was. It’s deeper, darker, more me.
And yet the feeling is the same. It’s about acceptance of yourself and the unknown, striving to be what you want, striving for a world you believe in, not the one you are told to believe in.
There’s death, rage, laughter, oh and the odd sword fight, along with chattering snakes and trees with a very emotional connection to a fiery yet loving nature Mage named Angitia.
Oh yeah by the way my book is a fantasy novel. The first in a series of what I hope to be six books. Thats changed as well originally it was only 3. But as I got older and more of me poured into the pages I needed more time to tell the story. I wanted to invite readers to watch as my characters evolved from broken struggling teenagers to explosive determined adults. I wanted detail and world building and characters you spend so much time with you feel as though they’re close family. I wanted to write about a world so vividly that you could see it.
So that’s what I am doing. I’m chasing the dream. Still studying, but I’m finally putting a side time each day to write and plan just 30–60mins right now but it’s a start. Right now I’m just short of 60k and working my way through the chapters already written, tearing them apart, switching and changing things until it’s the story I’ve envisioned. Five new chapters need to be added throughout the skeleton that already exists and thousands more words need to be typed. But it’s a start.
I’ll still be writing on here. Currently I have 5 articles in process two on Autism and three on historical topics; which ever one is finished first I’ll post next. There’s plans for more as well, but we’ll have to see which topic drags me down the Autistic rabbit hole of obsession first.
But I may also write about my book. And maybe just maybe when it’s complete I’ll post the first chapter here. So if by some miracle any of you are interested you can read a little taster of it. Then if by some even more extreme miracle you like that,
hopefully you will decide to purchase and read the entire thing, and maybe you’ll read the next book and the next until you’ve read the entire series.
Maybe just maybe that dream I was scared to admit to will come true.
