Creativity's price

 Interesting thing about the creative arts, there is no such thing as done. You may be finished with the project, but you are not done painting/writing/woodworking/etc. Another thing about creativity, it comes at a price. Any talent comes with a cost, but creativity seems to take a toll on those who have this gift. I have never met an artist of any medium/genre who did not suffer from some sort of mental illness.

We all seem to suffer from it. Depression and anxiety are the most common. Impostor syndrome, BPD, bipolar, PTSD, panic attacks, and various other metal illnesses are also rather common. Often the more creative the person the more they're dealing with mentally. We don't see the world the same way. If we did we wouldn't be able to create with words, music, paint, etc. We feel more as well. I'm not saying those who aren't creative don't feel deeply because they most certainly do. However, I've noticed that there is a difference between how a creative person feels and someone who isn't as creative. The more creativity one has the more emotions seem to affect them.

This causes many problems for the creative minded. We struggle to keep our emotions from ruling us. We've been told all our lives to control our emotions. This is difficult when our minds are wired to follow our emotions. It is this very ability to feel everything that allows for us to create the way we do.

I have always had anxiety. Around the time I hit puberty I was suffering from depression as well. By 15 I was battling suicidal ideations. At 18 I began self-harming. It wasn't until months after that that I started getting the help I needed. By 20 I'd been through two traumatic events. It was also that year that I began suffering from panic attacks. By 21 I'd been diagnosed with BPD, anxiety, depression, an adjustment disorder, and it was thought I also had PTSD (the normal kind from trauma, and another that is not currently in the code books). At 23 I was told I had BPD traits but not the disorder itself. I was relieved.

I don't know how not to feel. I struggle to keep my stronger emotions in check. I can be professional when I need to be, but holding back those emotions costs me later. Writing helps. Creating helps. When I write I feel more sane. I feel all the joys of my emotions, I also feel the pain. However, it passes through me to the page. It eases the pain I carry with me daily. It keeps my head from hurting as much when I go through too many emotions in too short a time span.

So while the price for my gift is mental illness and all the pain that comes with it, that same gift eases the pain. It keeps it bearable. Not saying I don't need outside help, I most certainly do. But the outside help is able to do more if I'm writing as well. If my mental health gets too bad I can't write, but if I write it helps my mental health.

Every gift comes with a price. No one is given a talent without also carrying a cost for that ability. Sometimes that's the ability to socialize easily. There are many things that can be the price. For me it's that my brain works more emotionally (though I still have logic mind). It's my mental illnesses. It's that I struggle more with learning biology, chemistry, or physics.

Just steps away

 I haven't done much writing, but I have finally finished going over the edit suggestions for the book I wrote last year. I have sent copies to some beta readers. I hope to hear back from them within a few weeks. After that I go over their suggestions, alter things to make more sense (if needed) and then it'll be time to start looking for publishers I want to submit my book to. I expect to be rejected before I get accepted. It'll hurt, but it will also give me a chance to grow as a writer.

As this isn't something I've done before I'm not even sure how to feel. There's no precedent in my life for this. I'm steps away from sending my work out. This is something I have worked towards my whole life. It has been a dream of mine since I was a child. I know that there's a chance that this book won't get published, that it'll be a later work that gets published first. But the mere fact that I'm almost to the point where I could potentially be a published author rather than an aspiring one... Being on the verge of a dream is such a strange feeling.

Books are something that have always been important to me. They are something that have always been a part of my life. I asked my parents when I learned my alphabet (as I have no memory of the event). My mother (who would have been the one to teach me) couldn't tell me. She didn't know. She said this instead "it was like you always knew how to read." I actually had trouble when I was eight as my teacher thought I couldn't read. The problem wasn't my ability to read, but how boring the material was. I'd get so bored I'd zone out, unable to pay attention. This made my teacher believe that I couldn't read, when in reality I was reading the book she was reading out loud to the class on my own.

I was later home schooled and was grounded from reading until I finished my science and math. I'd pick up a chapter book and be transported for hours on end. I started writing short stories, and finished my first draft of a rather long short story (not sure where exactly it fits as it was ten chapters) at age ten. I continued to write. A lot of the time the stories weren't ever finished as I'd jump from idea to idea. There were also spans of time where I didn't write anything at all. The largest of which was two years (age 18-20) as I struggled with my mental health.

I only started writing again at 20 when I read Mercedes Lackey's books for the first time (I still haven't read them all). In her Arrows trilogy (the copy where the three are combined into one book) she mentioned her own struggles with publishing. She was in her thirties before she published. I was only twenty at the time and suddenly felt like I still had time to achieve my life dream. Since I was extremely depressed and battling anxiety, panic attacks, and PTSD triggers, this was a huge step.

Now here I am years later. Not only have I finished two first drafts (only 3% of writers finish a first draft), I've edited one and have sent it off to beta readers. This is something that at multiple times in my life I thought was impossible. Never give up on your dreams. They are something that won't come easily, but are always worth fighting for. Some times what you are fighting is yourself.

❥Stay safe

20,000 words

 I have been horrible at posting updates. I write a little here and there, but have been mostly focused on my school assignments. I crossed the 20,000 word mark! and completed both chapters 6 and 7. Chapter 8 is slow going, but that's mostly due to getting interrupted every time I'm on a roll. I'll try to remember to post updates as I go.

I'm almost done editing the first draft I finished last year. One more chapter to go. I'm both excited and incredibly nervous. Once all the edits are added in I'll get a friend to read it (one who wasn't part of the first draft). After any changes that need to be made from that (scene corrections, etc) it should be ready to send off to publishers. I'm sure it'll get rejected at least a few times before it gets published. The fact that I'm so close to the point where I'd send it off is a feeling I can't explain with just one word. It's anxiety, excitement, shock, pride, nerves, and so many other things all rolled into one.

I'm going to keep this short today as I have some editing and compiling to do.

❥ Stay Safe!

Backstories and world building

 Last night I wrote a character's backstory. It was interesting. I wrote a character who was around for hundreds of years prior to the start of the book. It's always important to write the backstory of characters. I'm planning to write another character's backstory today. Yesterday was an ally of my main character, today will be an ally of the antagonist. My goal is to make this second character into one that my readers can understand. The best villains are ones that you can truly see how they ended up the way they did. The ones you almost, almost want to root for. The ones who you can see truly human traits in. The ones that while being an antagonist they aren't just some random evil, they slowly ended up that way.

Having done the basic backstory for one of my "good" characters prior to this I'll have more world information to go off of. Since the character I did last night has been around so long, the glimpses of his world will help shape the past of this other character. While this second character is younger than the one I did last night he also has been around quite some time before the book starts. Oh the joys of working with non-human creatures. Long life-spans mean I can have a lot happen to them, or have them watch parts of history happen.

It's fun to create more and more of my world. I learn more about the world as I dive into the characters in it. Understanding them, writing their pasts, all of it helps shape and build the world I'm writing. It adds age to it, it adds more depth to it. I'm hoping to have a basic world timeline by the time I finish with these backstories. It'll help with writing the book itself if I know what happened in the world in the past. Especially when dealing with characters who to them it's not history, it's part of their own personal pasts. The main character is younger than most of my other characters.

I think that's all of my update and ramble today.

As always:

❥ Stay safe

Writing, school, and mental state update

Okay, so I've been really bad at posting updates. With school having started this month, I ended up writing really late at night and going straight to bed. Trying to stay on top of online classes, stay relatively sane, and write a novel is definitely an interesting juggling act.

School started up, and my mental health plummeted. I used my various hobbies to help build my mental state back up enough that I could write. Once I got to where I could write again, things got easier. As a creative, if I don't do something creative periodically, I tend to feel useless. It doesn't matter how busy I am, how much I've gotten done if I haven't put some time into my creative outlets, it feels like I've done nothing.

Part of what made my mental state become such that I couldn't write is the fact that I have what is called an adjustment disorder. Basically, it means that when there are many changes and adjustments in my life, my anxiety and depression get triggered. As long as I stay aware of it, I'm usually able to keep on top of it enough to reduce the negative effects.

Now for the writing update. I crossed the 10,000 word mark! I've also completed up through Chapter 5. I'm hoping to write Chapter 6 later today, but first, I need to do more planning. I usually do more planning at the start so that I don't run into this situation where I'm trying to figure out what comes next. Somehow I ended up writing in a more by-the-seat-of-my-pants style since I normally do a combination of both the planning and just going with it styles it's been interesting.

Something else I'm struggling with is making one of the villains come across as a good guy. It's easier to make a good guy seem like a villain than it is to make the villain seem good. I've got to make this character I know is bad news for my main character seem likable, trustworthy, and intriguing. It'll be even better if I can get this character to seem so good that the main character is romantically inclined to them would be even better. This kind of thing is going to take some planning. I have to make this person seem good enough that the character likes them, but I have to manage it in a way that while it'll surprise readers if they go back and reread, they'll see the hints I left.

Someone once told me that I'm really good at developing character relationships. That the romance, the development of character interactions, was my strong point. As this is something I love in the books I read, I'm not entirely surprised. What makes a book good to me is that the characters grow, change, and develop relationships with the characters around them. I hate when the book gives no foundation for a romance. I need to watch the characters grow together. The other frustrating thing for me is when a character falls madly in love in three days. I just want to yell at them. Lust happens that fast. Love does not. Not if your characters have any life experience at all. If they can't tell the difference between love and lust, they may think they are in love, but later they realize that it was nothing other than lust. When an author tries to pass lust off as love, I feel like I've been deprived of all the potential the story had.

Love is something that takes work. Lust happens quickly. Without lust, the relationship won't develop beyond friendship, but lust is not love. Love is a combination of friendship and lust. It is seeing your partners faults, knowing they aren't any more perfect that you are, and still caring, still wanting to spend time with them. Love is the perfect blend of the loyalty and compatibility of true friendship and the heat, chemistry, and fire that comes with lust.

This version of love is what I try to portray in my stories. No relationship is all sunshine and rainbows. No one can have a lasting relationship with someone with any depth to it and not fight occasionally. How those fights go and how quickly they are resolved or defused is what shows the love in the relationship. I don't want to portray a fairy-tale relationship that has no realism to it. The combination of fantasy and real struggles are what make fantasy novels great.

Reedsy Prompt Short Story

 I wrote a short story on Reedsy: A Mental Spiral

I have done a little writing in my book, but not much. I'll let you know as soon as I hit any milestones. My writing has been slow so I thought I'd wait till my first milestone to update you guys.

I know this is a super short post today (most of my posts are short), but I've been struggling to cope. If you read the short story it'll let you know just how much I've been struggling. The short story is basically a fictionalized version of me. I haven't been as bad as the character in the story, but I've come close a few times. It was quite liberating to not only write this story, but to post it as well. Don't read the short story if you're easily triggered as it deals with a mental health spiral/crash. If any of you do get a chance to read it I'd love if you would take a moment to comment on here what you thought of the short story (you need an account to comment on Reedsy but you don't need one to comment on my blog post).

As always:

❥ Stay safe

 

Hiatus

I apologize, but I'm currently on a hiatus for writing. I need to do more world creation before I can start my new book, and need feedback from a beta reader before I can edit the scenes in the book I've just completed. I'll post again as soon as I am able to start writing more. If I write and post a short story to Reedsy you guys will definitely be updated 🙂

As always

❥ Stay Safe

First Draft Complete

I have mixed feelings.
I finished chapter 20, I now have a total of 56,635 words. That may change as I edit and possibly add scenes. I am excited with my achievement, but I'm almost sad to have finished the book. It was a companion. I know that I can move on to book two or work more with that other idea I had, but there is this feeling of missing something when you finish writing a book. It's similar to how I feel after I've finished reading a wonderful book for the first time. Even though I can visit again I know it won't be the same.

It's late and I need to sleep so I will end this one here. I also need to decide what I'm doing next. I will post with updates once I decide what that is.

❥ Stay Safe

Over 50,000 words!

I wrote chapter 18 yesterday (all 2,885 words) and chapter 19 today (2,934 words). I crossed the 50,000 word mark yesterday. Honestly super excited. I only have one chapter left. I might write an epilogue but I don't know that this book needs one. It leaves off on an almost cliffhanger if I do it right and an epilogue would ruin that. I'm tempted to publish this book in a chapter by chapter format. But I'll think on that for a bit first.

Got back the edited version of chapter 7 of my older story. I need to go through that. Honestly I'm thinking of just starting chapter 20 tonight. There are days where you just want to sit and write and write and write. Apparently today is one of those for me. I'll either update later today or tomorrow depending on when I finish chapter 20.

❥ Stay Safe

Technically an update

It took a long time but I finally managed to finish chapter 17. I had to do it in smaller time sections. I just wasn't in a mental state to be able to do it for longer. I also had to take breaks as I was struggling to figure out what I wanted from the chapter.

In the time since I last posted I had another idea. I've been writing what little I have, and doing slow world building. I don't plan to seriously write it until I finish the book I'm currently working on. Though I may end up writing both at once (switching back and forth depending on my mood). Might make me manage to do more writing. More writing means I'll get better at writing.

Still been slowly editing my other book. I've had to leave some of it for later as it would require me to compare the two documents next to each other. Normally she marks what she changed in yellow, but sometimes she doesn't and I'd have to go back and forth to figure out what she changed. I don't want to accept changes when I don't know what they are.

I finally got stuff for pain management that is actually working with no real side effects so far. I'll be keeping an eye out for side effects though. So that's a definite improvement and why I've been able to sit and write so much today. I've been writing for at least an hour, and managed about 1,500 words.

❥ Stay Safe

It's been awhile, completed chapter 16

I know it's been awhile, between pain meds, stress, and a CT scan I wasn't up to writing. I finally did though, I finished chapter 16 (puts me at a little over 44,000 words). The second part of the chapter surprised me, it's always fun when unexpected things happen. Definitely have stuff to put in the prequel books from this chapter. When a character's past crops up a bit you definitely need to keep track of it for future use.

For my other book I've been having the person I talked about edit bits of it. I'm hoping she'll continue to do so, as she's catching stuff I wouldn't have.

Going to keep this post short as I've been easily burned out lately.

❥ Stay Safe

Started Chapter 16 and other updates

I wrote 770 words in chapter 16 today. I only spent about 40 minutes writing. I'd continue the chapter, but honestly I'm still not feeling well. Plus I need to decide which point of view I want for the next bit. My characters are going to need to escape a situation and I haven't decided who would be best for that. I'm just happy that I managed to write today at all. If I can manage to finish the chapter this weekend I'll be really happy. However, with how weak I've been feeling (being heat sick really took a lot out of me, more than I expected) I'm not going to beat myself up if I don't manage it. My focus right now is to get feeling 100% again, and to help a friend who isn't doing well mentally.

An update from the other stuff I talked about yesterday, I sent a piece of my book to the woman I was talking about. I'm not saying her name or relation to me because I value her privacy (I write this blog under a pen name so I feel it's best to list names as little as possible). If I were to start giving substitute names for everyone I may mention in this blog I'd lose track of who's fake name belonged to who. So unfortunately for now it's all based on context.

She and her husband are going to look at the chapter I sent them and get back to me on whether they feel up to the task of helping me edit. I really hope they are up for it, but they're getting on in years and I understand if they aren't. Even if they aren't able to help it's still a step forward for me since I reached out. To me the first round of editing (the parts that the writer can't do by themselves) should be done by someone the writer trusts. It's a very vulnerable thing to send the just shy of raw copy of your book to someone. Pieces of your soul are attached to that. Sending it to someone I trust helps me feel a little safer, and hopefully will help me accept the changes they suggest.

❥ Stay Safe

Mostly random thoughts

I was hoping to start chapter 16 today but I got heat sick (I call it that because my symptoms aren't quite in line with heat exhaustion, but cooling myself down, drinking liquids, and resting seem to help) yesterday and don't have the energy for it. I did a little prep work and plan to start it tomorrow. It goes better if I can do a whole chapter in a day, but that's just not always possible.

I did get to talk to someone about my book and my plans for future books in this world. It was a lot of fun to discuss. Talked magic concepts, race concepts, and how the history of my world blends into how things are at the beginning of book one. I also found out that their wife would like to at least beta read the book I finished last year. As it is still being edited I'm not sure if I'll make them wait or if I'll get them to help. The problem is I really don't want to share the book with many people until I'm ready for beta readers.

I believe I'm going to email someone I know and trust to ask if they'd be interested in helping me edit my completed book. The people currently helping me aren't able to spend much time on it and so it's been dragging on for months. I've done what editing I can on my own so I think it's best if I reach out for help on this. Bonus on this blog is it helps me think some things through. Definitely going to send her a text and see if she's willing to lend a hand.

Thanks for taking the time to read this. Honestly it helps to know that there are some people who like to take a minute to read my "ruminations" (thoughts/ramblings).

❥ Stay safe!

Crossed the 40,000 word mark!

I crossed the 40,000 word mark! so excited. It means I'm 2/3 of the way to my goal word count. Currently sitting at 41,877 words total. I also finished chapter 15 which has a total of 2,685 words. Wrote 1,470 of those words today.

I also added something new to the book. I went through and added excerpts from a book in the world that my book takes place in. I hope to actually write the full book at some point, it's a journal from someone long since dead. It'd just be cool to have and then I can use more excerpts for for moments in book two or three (or both). I think I'll use a different journal from different characters and times for excerpts in books 2 and 3. I put it just above the chapter number. It's a little bonus of information that readers won't understand completely until later.

In fact, much of it won't make sense until books 2 and 3. That's because I have a character that isn't introduced until the end of book 1 who is the only one who can shed light on what is really going on during those excerpts. I'll give her memories of reading the full journal I use for book 1 in book 2. Just little Easter eggs for my readers.

Honestly so happy that I've written this many words. I've never written a book this fast. Last time it took me most of a year to get to this point. I finished the last 20,000 words in three months with the last book. This time it's been three months and I've written a little over twice that! Progress and improvement in something you care about always feels fantastic.

Hope my little updates help brighten the day of those who take the time to read them.

❥ Stay safe

Update on writing and a few other thoughts

It has been way too long since I posted last. I didn't post because I hadn't done any writing. I'd burned myself out by writing so much that I needed a break before I could start again. Thankfully today I was finally able to sit down and write 1,275 words in chapter 15. Hoping to finish the chapter this week, though it'd be fantastic if I could finish chapter 16 as well.

I've been pushing through day by day. Honestly I hope more things open up soon. It'll help more than just my personal mental health to have more things we can all do. Being stuck inside is really hard on the mental health. Those already struggling with any kind of mental illness have probably been told that by a counselor at some point. Having nothing to do is also bad for the mental health. I try to use my writing as something for me to do, and hope that others have found hobbies they can do during this crazy time.

Having chaos on the news doesn't help either. I wish the news would show all the people who go the the protest areas afterwards and clean everything up. Honestly nothing would show the support and how much people are coming together than to see those who come out and clean everything up together. Black, Yellow, Red, White, it doesn't matter what colour we are, every single one of us has a life that matters. I will not talk more on that as I don't what this to be coloured by my political views. Since that doesn't have anything to do with my writing I won't say more on the matter.

❥ Good luck to all of you, and stay safe.

Update and Thought Ramble

Meant to post yesterday but got sidetracked. I wrote several pages (at least six) of backstory for one of my characters. This is a character that doesn't show up until the end of book one. It was fantastic to finally write all of this (it's been in my head for awhile). So much world detail that just wasn't written down before. It really wouldn't seem like much until you realize how much of the world time range that book one takes place in was affected by what happened in this backstory.

There was a lot of summarizing rather than scene writing because I'm going to turn this back story into a prequel. Actually I could do a whole trilogy based on back stories of my characters so far. They all have their own plots just in their backstories. It's a cool idea I might use later. I actually really like the idea of writing my series (not sure if it's going to be two or three books still, It depends on how book one goes and how my planning of book two goes. I'd prefer a trilogy though) and then writing a prequel series. Might use that. All depends on how the main series goes.

Can you imagine though, if my series becomes well loved readers reading the main story and then discovering that I've written out in book level detail all the backstories of the characters they've grown attached to? As a book lover I'd be ecstatic, so it's definitely something I think other readers would appreciate. Definitely an idea to store for later use. (Random comment, it's a good thing my computer has spell check because I've been typing faster than my accuracy for wpm can manage).

So I wrote over 3,000 words (turns out it is seven 8"x11" pages) of backstory with most of it being summarized. definately something I can build a book out of later. Also I could combine multiple backstories into one book if any are too short for their own novel (less than 60,000 words). I'm really liking this idea. I haven't written in the main book at the moment because I needed a creative break in order to do justice to the story. Really hard to write a good chapter if you're feeling burnt out.

Probably a good thing this blog is named "Ruminations of an aspiring author" because I sure rambled a lot this post. I'm in a good mood today, finally feeling less depressed and anxious. Doing my best to take care of my mental health. Honestly my goal is simply to finish as much of this book as I can by summer's end. I have no set date to finish this, so the occasional break won't set be behind in any way. Hope you all have a fantastic weekend!

Chapter 14 update, and COVID-19 thoughts

Managed to write Chapter 14 (3,509 words). Puts me at a total of 36,425 words not including chapter titles/headings, table of contents, and cover page (including those it's 39,366 words. there's a surprising amount of words in those categories).

I've had to push through my anxiety to write. Once I get writing I'm fine, but I've got to start. It's more than the anxiety. When I don't have a set schedule (classes or work) it's harder to get up in the morning, to eat, to shower, to get dressed, to feel motivated enough to write. I had gotten an interview for a job just before COVID-19 hit. Now I'm on the student version of financial aid relief that my country has set up to help students who don't qualify for the other forms of relief during this pandemic. While it's nice to have the money to pay for my phone bill and cat food, I'd rather be working. However my health won't allow for me to work a front line job right now. So I'm going to keep looking for work from home type jobs until things let up. If I don't find anything by September I'm just going to be writing until school starts back up.

I'm also worried about school. Online learning is not easy, it's also definately not my learning method. I learn best when I can hear, see, and do. When I can ask questions if I'm confused, or can just listen and take notes (or follow along with instructions on how to do something), that's when I learn best and actually remember things. I've done online learning before, it's painful. I've been working really hard for my grades and am worried they're going to drop (brought my GPA back up in the fall semester, and surpassed where it had ever been in the winter one).

Writing is helping me stay sane. I'm thankful I took to tracking my progress and posting on here. It's giving me a little more motivation to continue, it's also helping me feel like I'm actually accomplishing something. For someone with mental health struggles at the best of times this is vital to keeping my mental health up. I'm generally worst in winter, but I'm having nights where I have to fight harder than I did this last winter. I had to give away my pocket knife yesterday. I'd had too many nights where I just wasn't rational.

Everything I have been through has made me a great writer as I can empathize so much. I've been through trauma, I've had to pave my own way to getting better mental health. I've been through more than people would think upon meeting me. I still carry emotional and mental scars. I've been trying to use what I've been through, how hard I've had to fight, to be a better writer. I've been told by those I've let read what I write that it worked. I'm hoping to use what I go through and what I hear about others going through at this time with COVID-19 to continue to be a better writer. You can't write what you don't know. So I expect that one day I will have a character that I wouldn't have been able to write if I hadn't lived through what we're going through now.

Stay safe, stay hopeful, as long as we reach out to each other (even if it's just electronically) we can make it through this.

Chapter 13 update, COVID-19's affect on me

Earlier this week I wrote Chapter 13 (2,536 words). I've rearranged what I want to happen in Chapter 14, I'd have started writing it but my depression has made it impossible to write certain scenes. My emotions alter the scenes I write. So it's no use writing a happy scene if you're in a state of depression. There will be tones other than happy in the chapter, but the scene I wanted to start with is happy.

I've noticed that COVID-19 has made my emotions more volatile than they normally would be this time of year. The amount of time on my hands allows me to write more, but the rest of it increases my anxiety and depression. I'm doing what I can to cope, writing normally helps. Hope people are staying safe.

I'm going to start Chapter 14 today, if I finish it I'll hopefully write another update.

Update and thoughts

I forgot to update!

So last week I wrote the rest of Chapter Ten and all of Chapter Eleven. Chapter Eleven was 2,528 and Chapter Ten totaled at 2,546 words. I'm going to start Chapter Twelve today. I covered some of one of main characters' past in Chapter Eleven. I only have a small section planned for Chapter Twelve so I may have to adjust some plans. I'd love to have some longer chapters, but so far most have been a little over the 2,500 mark (the minimum word count).

Sorry for how short the updates have been, but I figured it was better to make some sort of update at least once a week than none at all.

My mother had to ask what book I was writing as I've gone through three different ideas to get to this one. I really wanted to write a series and now I am. I haven't written one before so this will be different with how I have to plan things. I have to have 3 different plots running at once, and adjust all three as things change in the one I'm currently writing. The last set of chapters I wrote really changed things, I'm having to adjust how the ending true ending scenes will play out due to changes that were made in a single chapter. It's just interesting how things blend together, and how each character influences how the rest of the story goes. How developing one character can tip the whole thing upside-down.  Bonus is I have a new perspective to write from, so there is more to explore. All of book one is planned out now. I expect things to change but I have at least a basic idea of what happens in each chapter now.