Recounting My Writing Journey - Chapter 3

Crimson Darkness: An Azure Light Novella - 2019

In 2018, I took a course on novella writing. In this class, I would need to write an entire novella, start to finish. I spent the first week of class stressing out about what I was even going to write about. At this point, I was well into the drafting of my second novel, ​Emerald Shadow, and that was pretty much all I could think about. 

One night, I was walking with my husband and talking about all the ideas I'd been able to come up with. Now, he's amazing. He questions me, and he's not afraid to poke at my ideas to see if they hold. One idea I had came from a dream I'd had a few nights earlier, as I had stayed up way too late working on my manuscript, and that flow followed me into my dreams. I was inspired to look at a character from Azure Light, Rohvoc, who actually isn't really in the story at all, but who drives the plot and motivates the main character to chase after the light as an alternative to marrying him. 

I remember telling my husband about the direction I wanted to go. I told him about how I had portrayed this character as a bad guy in that first novel, but that he wasn't really a bad guy; he was just someone going through a rough patch in the wrong place at the wrong time. I wanted to write his story, and incorporate some of the things I'd mentioned him doing in the first book, but from his perspective. My husband and I batted around ideas for that entire walk, through the night, and into the next morning. And my goodness, I was so excited to tell the story. 

I wrote this novella in three weeks: 45 minutes a day, twice a week. This experience was the first time I actually mapped out my story on paper before hand, and drew out the power struggles and pains that my character would face. It was the first time that I looked closely at complicated family dynamics, abuse, and the character defining moments that come along with these challenges. It was the first time that I described an injury that wouldn't heal properly, and the first time I dared to write out someone's death. This was also the first time I wrote from a male perspective, with a totally different voice and worldview.

It was different, and a little scary, and so much fun! I felt like I was able to let go of some of the fear I had about people I knew reading my writing and judging me for the things I had to say. 

Of course, this story went through several versions as I finished my class and took it further. I planned out the cover more meticulously, and dressed the model (Thank you, Noah!) up in clothing that matched the time in the story. I paid attention to the details. This is also the first time I incorporated graphics to display some of the journal entries Rohvoc makes throughout his story, and although the graphics were fairly simple ones, they were an extra aesthetic layer that I hadn't tried yet. 

Were there things I would have done differently? Yes. Were there things I still needed to learn? Oh, absolutely! But in writing this book, I connected with a character on deeper levels, in ways that I hadn't felt confident enough to explore in my first novel. I considered more deeply what drives a character, what makes them who they are. My cover design was simple. Yes, I know I just said that I paid more attention to the details and was intentional with my cover photo, and I was. But there are lot of things I still didn't know about cover design. 

Writing this story also awoke in me the realization that I had SO MUCH WORK to do for my next novel. I had so many things that I needed to keep track of for consistency's sake. I started a list that would guide me through the remainder of my writing and revision process for Emerald Shadow.  But we'll get into that next time. Thanks for reading, and as always, tell your story!