What I hope readers will consider a compelling fantasy story…

After ten years of writing this book on and off, I finally finished and self published my book! I am planning on writing more posts about the process, but this post is solely to tell you about my book, and what this means to me.

Years in the Making…

“Archaic” started as a few notes written when I was fifteen years old which when reading them years later, I realized were just a rip off of Harry Potter. Luckily writing a book wasn’t exactly something I knew how to do at fifteen, so the next time I tried writing this story, although it was still inspired by Harry Potter, I had a stronger imagination at sixteen and therefore had a story which could stand separately.

I remember being seventeen years old when the summer before my senior year, I decided I wanted to write a book and I wanted that book to be “Archaic”. I had a phone full of dozens of story ideas, but I knew this was the one I was ready for. So I sat down on my couch with my laptop ready and got to work on the first chapter. When I returned to school for senior year, I decided to ask my junior English teacher, who was then my Yearbook teacher, to read the first chapter. When she returned it, the sight of the pages filled with notes and corrections at first overwhelmed me, until I read them. Despite my mediocre writing skills, her feedback made me feel like I truly had something with potential. That year, I spent every free moment in classes writing what I could in a notebook to be typed later. But life got busy and I didn’t have as much time to write, so it wasn’t until I was twenty-two that my first draft was finished, and twenty-four when I had a final draft I was ready to show the world. But as I mentioned before, this isn’t about the process, this is about what this story means to me. Which is why I want to talk about my characters.

Creating Characters I Love…

Characters are always my favorite part of a story. Although my first notes contained a plot far from original, I do take pride in the fact that my characters were, even then. My story started with a single character called Cornelius “Neil” Alewar, an English man with the curse of immortality, but he was not created alone. It was when I first saw X-Men first class that I had a thought. What if there were two people connected since birth, yet torn apart by their differences? What if there were two people with a mental connection, linked together by a bond so strong, and unable to escape each other, not even by death? And so Malphilus, the adversary was created.

I remember how excited I was when one by one, my characters came to life. They all began as nothing but names, but as I wrote their backstories, their personalities soon took shape as well. And as I found actors to draw inspiration from, I eventually reached a point where to me they were real. Not actually of course, but they became so clear in my mind that if felt like they were. Their dialogue changed in rewrites to better match their personality, and as the plot moved forward, I could write their actions and reactions without thinking. How Evangeline would always worry, but be the first to speak her mind. How Theo’s first instinct would be anger, then eventually remorse for the mistakes he’s made when clouded by that very anger. Then there was Neil, the character who will always hold a special place in my heart. He is a man so tired and so broken, but so insistent on shouldering his burdens alone.

Although I am proud of the story I created, I am more proud of the characters and I truly hope I’ve succeeded in writing a story that will make others cherish these characters as well.

The Story I Always Wanted to Read…

I remember watching an interview with legendary comic writer Stan Lee where he told a group of college students that the most important thing is to write what you love. I’ve always adored fantasy stories, so I did just that. But something that was always so important for me was that my story made sense. All my favorite stories are the ones that you could tell were planned out, while the stories that drove me crazy I could tell started with a premise, but lost their way to a proper ending. That was part of the reason it took me so long to finish this story, because I wanted to plan out every detail, every cause and effect, every ending.

What’s Next….

Being finished with this book is something I wasn’t sure would ever happen, and I will publish a few posts on the process I went through to finally have this book available. But this isn’t a standalone book, it’s the first of a series, a series I have completely mapped out. The hard part is actually writing down the details, but I’m ready to start. I still have an app filled with notes of dozens of ideas for other stories, and I may work on one of those in between. That’s actually the only way I was able to finish this book, by giving myself some much needed breaks creatively, allowing myself to focus on other ideas. But even know this series is important to me, and getting it out there for others to see what’s next is my primary goal.

“Archaic” is available to purchase on my website www.stargazerlilyboutique.com. By purchasing it directly from my website, you would be allowing me to gain the full profits. But for those more comfortable with more known websites, it is also available on Barnes & Noble.

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