What I'm Writing Right Now

Me as I reread the book and tried to edit it.  

The first book I ever wrote was written in between classes and during study halls my sophomore year of high school.  It was called The Dimwood Chronicles: Forever Nineteen, and it became the first book in a series that then spawned at least two more spin-off series.

And oh my god, was it complete and utter garbage.  This book was the dumpster fire of all dumpster fires.  The original version - the very first longer story I'd ever written - was, of course, the worst.  It was not good.  At all.  In any way possible way.  The characters were one-sided and irrelevant.  The plot only started existing about halfway through the book, and it was just thrown together without any rhyme or reason.

I mean, I could just sit here and bash it, or I could let you be the judge of the awfulness.  So, here's the first few paragraphs of the original, unedited story from my fifteen-year-old mind:


Chapter One

An invisible ninja is stalking me.  The sad thing is, that's pretty normal for Dimwood High School.  It's also relatively normal for there to be mermaids in the pool, vampires in the high towers, mutants with strange powers to leap through walls.  Or even the occasional ninja who can't be seen by anyone.  

Walking through my private school, which isn't really very much of a school, can be the most interesting thing in the world.  Around every corner is someone nonhuman who got sick of trying to live with humans.  My brother Antonio and I moved here from Canada a few decades ago.  To most people that would seem like a long time, but to the undead, years pass like seconds. 

Antonio has definitely seen more than me though.  He was created in Venice, Italy during the 400's.  He has been a vampire for almost 1,600 years.  By my standards, that's a long time.  Since I was created only 80 or so years ago, he's technically not my brother.  But then again, vampires are not normally blood related.  Get it?  Vampires don't have blood.  Yeah...  

Honestly, I don't even know where to begin.  There were so many things wrong with these three paragraphs, that it's literally laughable.  I could barely contain my laughter typing those paragraphs out.  Why the hell would it be named Dimwood High School, and then not even be a school?!  Why?!  Also, why would vampires not have blood?  There were so many other ways to make a blood joke, and that was not one of them.  I cannot fathom how it ever even made sense to me.

Two full notebooks of this trash. 

But, now that you have an understanding of the level of garbage I've been working with, you see my problem.  This book was terrible, yes, but it also set up the world, some characters, and acted as a base for the following books that don't suck.  So, I couldn't altogether get rid of this book and just have the series start at book two.  Because believe me, I would if I could.

So, my only option has been to find a way to make this book work.  I've done massive edits on this book before and have basically rewritten it twice now.  Once, a few years ago - which didn't help very much - and again just a few months ago.  On the second massive rewrite, I decided it was a great idea to switch the point of view from the original protagonist (Roxxi) to the original best friend (Faye) and make it Faye's story instead.  That was a lot easier said than done.  I ended up doing that switcheroo, but the book still sucked.  While the point of view changed, the godawful original plot hadn't changed nearly enough.

No, Amy.  Just, no.

And I was so disappointed that I didn't hate the story less after the rewrite.  Faye was such a better and stronger character than Roxxi had ever been.  Faye and Antonio's beautiful and magical love story finally got to take center stage, and that part was amazing.  That was really the best part of the story overall. 

That was when I finally realized that the problem with Forever Nineteen was the plot itself.  The "major" rewrite I had done was really just me switching dialogue and having things happen to Faye instead of Roxxi.  But the story itself didn't really change.  I loved writing Faye far more than writing Roxxi, but if the plot and story itself was still awful, then it didn't matter whose point of view the story was written from.  It was going to be a pile of wasted papers either way.

Which brings me to what I'm writing right now.

Forever Nineteen is no more.  While that book set up the universe, the following books weren't contingent on that plot remaining the same.  And that's given me a lot of wiggle room to work with.  So, all the irrelevant characters are being written out.  Faye will continue to be the protagonist, and her story will get the spotlight it deserves.  No more garbage.  Just good old-fashioned mermaid and vampire romance. :)

It's still me after all.

Anyway, that's what I'm working on now.  It's tentatively being called Fins and Fangs, and I love it so much more already.  It's all from scratch, unlike any of the other previous rewrites, and that means if I hate it, I clearly need to just stop with these characters and move on.  I've got about 9 pages so far, 2,300 words total.  The previous version before this ended at 192 pages, 83,000 words, so I've got a ways to go.  But I'll get there.  And I'll keep you updated!  Thanks for going on this journey with me!

Write on!

Amy