My Novel is Alive

I was trying to focus on the novel I started in high school, but noooo, this fairytale retold kept horning in on my thoughts. I tried to start writing it, but noooo, I needed to do historical research on many subjects. Then I had to write up an outline of each main characters’ backstory. Get a better feel for each of them. The male main character wasn’t even supposed to get a point of view!

After all that I stayed up for two days writing, and wrote for two days more. I had to get pivotal backstory scenes clearer in my head. Flush out the tragedy of them a bit more, a few more deaths than I had planned on. Then I spent a few days rewriting and rewriting their backstory outlines. I stalled and drew castle maps trying to get a feel for the main setting.

The genre focus has morphed several times and I’m still not really sure what it will become. It’s always been a romance, but it now has a distinct gothic erotica theme going. Elements of horror running through. Trauma response and healing through healthy, and maybe not conventionally healthy, methods. Two people able to truly be all versions of themselves together while they both discover the truth of their own origins and recover from their traumas.

It’s probably clear I’m retelling Beauty and the Beast. While I hate following the crowd, I also refuse to not do the things I love just because a lot of other people enjoy it too. Besides, the more the merrier.

Instead of fur, he will be hiding scars from his dark magic, cult leader mother. She curses him. Beauty will still be fallen nobility, but is known for keeping to herself. When she is the oldest one left at home, and her father an alcoholic, she gets a job at a factory to ensure her siblings’ education in honor of her mother.

It will be historically based, but is set in its own reality with a different kind of magic. Putting one of the worlds I’ve created into a story on paper is an entirely new adventure for me. I’m grumpily enjoying myself. I don’t usually share my dark side.

Amusingly, I’m not able to listen to music while writing this. I’ve always used music to help put me in the right frame of mind, so it’s strange that watching Murdoch Mysteries is what does the trick (thank goodness there’s 16 seasons). This tale is truly a wild creature. I’m simply getting comfortable and letting it sniff me out until it sees I can be trusted.