When the Words Finally Started Wording (And a Character Moved In Without Asking)

Okay, picture it. It's the summer of 2022. It's hot and the twentieth person has just come through the library doors and the first thing out of their mouth is "Whoo, it's hot out there." And it was only 10:30 a.m. We open at 9. Yeah, it was gonna be a long day.

So a coworker and I found ourselves randomly talking, and I said I wanted to do some National Novel Writing Month write-ins. This was obviously before NaNoWriMo became cancelled. Said coworker mentioned she'd never done any creative writing but she kind of wanted to. So fast forward to November. First write-in. Laptop ready. Snacks ready. Comfort cardigan ready. Backup cardigan ready.

And then three hours later. Nothing. Not one word. Not one sprinkle of an idea.

And to my very horror, this was the vibe for the whole month of November. And then into December. An almost pathological need to want to write, and all that was accomplished was a lot of chocolate eaten, a lot of coffee drunk, and a lot of staring at the ceiling thinking about my life choices.

Now during that time, I had an idea I wanted to work on, but that didn't pan out (that's a story for another time, literally). I probably shouldn't have been so hard on myself. Past Indigo hadn't written in years — since Indigo was Juni Lyn (again, another story for another time). But Juni Lyn had a whole binder full of ideas. The problem was Indigo didn't know where that binder was, but that wasn't the point. The point was: Why on this great big world weren't the words wording?!

I have a theory, but that's not what this post is about. This post is about when the words finally started wording.

It was the very cold day of January 19, 2023. For days I was being plagued by the imaginary attentions from this woman named Ziayea, and she would not for the life of me go away. In fact, she hijacked my whole life for five months. And by the time May 19, 2023 rolled around, close to 140,000 words had worded themselves into existence.

Even though I had written a couple of things before then, I had never written that many words for one story. I was in shock, and I was like holy hell, I did that.

Where Stories Come From (Or: The Apartment Building in My Mind)

I remember when the same coworker asked me how I came up with my stories, and I have always answered the same way when others have asked. Basically, my mind is like a high-rise apartment building. And in each apartment is a different character or cast of characters. Sometimes it's just a world waiting for inhabitants. And what story ends up on the paper is the story of the character who decides I'm their new roomie, whether I want to be or not.

Sometimes my characters have joint custody, and during those times it gets wonderfully chaotic.

For Edge of Darkness: The Obsidian Throne Series Book 1, I was inspired by the idea of a realm where a woman, Ziayea, was given a no-win situation. She's written off. Everyone is saying this was her fate. And Ziayea's calling fate all sorts of names before doing what she needs to do to survive. Only to find out what she thought was supposed to be her end was really her beginning.

I was inspired by the idea of mixing elements of Victorian aesthetics,

Gothic architecture, nobility versus democracy, the history of the relationship between England and America, light vs. dark, us vs. them, how false prophets can influence politics, the sense of community, the identity of a race, how people can both fight and embrace fate, or what they consider is their inevitable destiny.

And then I wanted to throw in some magic, douse it in chaos, and cover it all with a hefty dose of will-they-won't-they, oh my god I love those idiots but they are so blind to the fact that they are perfect for each other.

Challenges, Chaos, and the High of Figuring It Out

I faced my share of challenges when writing this first manuscript because for all intents and purposes it was my first actual manuscript. So I had no processes. I had no systems in place. I had no plan. Basically, I had no idea what I was doing. I just knew the words were wording.

Turns out there were a whole lot of words I skipped over, and fun little fact—that manuscript turned into 2 and a half manuscripts once I went back and started revising. I had never built up a world from scratch before Napea. But now I can't do without it. I had never written a fight scene, a court scene, or a 140,000-word story.

That first draft was super-duper-give-you-a-serious-paper-cut rough around the edges. But slowly and surely, the more I wrote, the more I learned, the better it got. I am a permanent resident of camp "No such thing as a perfect story," but I can't express the emotions I felt every time I figured something out or read back through a chapter and went, "Wait, I wrote that?"

I remember the first day I wrote 4k words in one day. I was like hell yeah, let's go to sleep so I can wake up and do it some more. And I think, like an addict, I've been chasing that high ever since. And I get it every day I put words on the paper, whether it's one sentence or a whole chapter. I get it every time I think of some weird little thing about a character, and it doesn't even show up in the story, but it makes them real.

Since finishing that first draft of Edge of Darkness, I've completed quite a number of first drafts, but I hope that I'll never forget how it felt when I completed the very first one.

Because that feeling? That's the magic. That's the reason we keep showing up to the page, even when the words won't word. That's the moment when you realize you didn't just survive the chaos—you created something from it.

And honestly? There's nothing quite like it.

Until next time,

Indigo