It Was My First

During my senior year in high school, I wrote my first complete story.

I followed a curriculum, that instructed me to write a twelve chapter adventure novel, and I discovered something.

I love creating stories.

I could see myself doing this, for years to come, and never get tired of it.

It used all of my loves, of culture, creation, and individuality in people/characters.

It pushed my mind constantly, forcing me to always learn and prod different possibilities and solutions.

I could play with the impossible, and make it possible.

I was certain that was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Then hit reality.

My story never felt complete.

My first novel, Shadow Wings, followed the curriculum exactly.

Twelve chapters.

Each chapter had a goal that accomplished something.

The characters were developed and used accordingly.

It was shorter than I wanted, at about twenty thousand words, instead of the fifty plus that the others who had completed the curriculum had.

And something was missing.

I now know, that as it was my first novel, there was a lot of potential, but by following the curriculum to a t, I left a lot of potential out of it.

I'm a rule follower, and so when someone lays down boundaries, I seldom cross them.

I think that if I had followed the story down the road it wanted to go down, it would have gone on a lot longer.

It should never have stopped after Kallie, my main character, reached the prison planet.

There was, and still is, a huge potential of a longer story.

In fact, lately I've taken to looking at the possibility of creating multiple stories from this.

Maybe a novella playing around with Hosea and Alondra's young, lovely, and tragic story.

Or a short story about how Guthrie came to be the deadly man he is, yet still so feeling compared to his comrades.

Or how about Abigail?

I tried to turn Kallie's story into hers, and it isn't working.

Not to mention Merle, and why she is so important.

Writing my first sort of story, I discovered how much I had to learn.

That even though I love creating the story, I still had so much to learn to write it.

Shadow Wings was my first story, and yes, I still love it in its incompleteness.

Maybe one day, I can mold it into its full potential.

Keep on Writing!

God Bless,

SDG

Joy