It’s launch day!
What an exciting and terrifying sentence to type.
The fictional world in The Aviator Awakening (and the upcoming Vor’s Shadow Trilogy) has been my motivation for learning writing craft. What started as musings while watching the scenery outside the car window during family road trips has materialized into a tangible piece of work. I wrote the first draft during high school, though it looked nothing like the final version. I printed the manuscript while modeling in NYC and walked into the lobby at Penguin Random House, thinking I could physically hand it to an agent or receptionist. Being directed to the mail room and tossing my manuscript into the ‘slush pile’ was my first wake-up call to the harsh world of publication.
But the story still demanded to be told. So I wrote it. And re-wrote it. I delved into writing and story craft books and YouTube channels. And finally, I found my tribe of fellow writers thanks to stumbling across a well-timed conference in Kanab, Utah. Without that, I wouldn’t have found the League of Utah Writers. I wouldn’t have joined the Blue Quill chapter of the league. And I wouldn’t have found my community—something I hadn’t realized how deeply I needed.
Writing, in a way, bares the soul open. It was during edits that I realized my story was my catharsis. Like my character—I, too, was an outsider. I was an expat. I no longer knew who I was. My character’s pain, though dramatized, was my pain.
With that realization comes a degree of fear. What if strangers now leaf through the pages I’ve created and find fault with something that is, in some aspects, me?
This journey has been a rollercoaster, to say the least.
I am not perfect. My novel is not perfect. But it is as perfect as I can achieve at this point in time, and the journey will go on. That, for me, is good enough. I hope that the world I’ve created is able to captivate readers like it captivated me. And I hope that they, too, can find a little of themselves between the pages.
Sincerely,
Author M C Elaine
Comments