50 Shades of Drake 1 and 2

Afterword

April 7th, 2022

Dear Readers,

Haiiiiiiiii. This concludes book one of "50 Shades of Drake." Working hard to get all six books reposted (including a seventh that will be added). This book was originally posted to Wattpad in late-2014/early 2015. It's important to know that with some of the references in this story, and the fact that Adonis doesn't exist yet. The text messages originally had the dates in them, but I deleted those so the story isn't dated in general. 

Someone asked whether or not the story has changed, or if it's just been that long since they've read the book. The story itself is the same, other than different formatting. Some chapters aren't ending and starting in the same spots, because my Microsoft Word document for this book is formatted into a more book-friendly chapter format, to reduce the amount of chapters there are in total. I'm also fixing typos as I come across them and changing small details, such as some of the meals they're eating. The actual plot points are the same and haven't been changed, but since there were six books posted originally, it is possible that some of the plot points of all of the books are blending together for some of you. That even happened for me. I was like, "Where tf is the Harry Palmer drama?" Doesn't happen until later on LOL. I'm keeping that vague for the sake of the new people reading this series. 

Book 1, in its entirety, is setting foundation for what happens in the rest of the series. Book 2 will be posted after this chapter. When I originally posted these books, Books 1-4 were in the same book file, because the chapter limit back in 2015 was 400 chapters. Wattpad has since reduce this chapter limit to 200, so sadly there are going to be more book files (and my Wattpad profile will be looking like a hot mess with all of the books that I'm about to have posted on here, but such is life).

It was fun for me to be able to read through some of the story again. It never gets old or boring for me, and that is why this series is my baby. Someone else asked if I will put "Empire" back up, and I will - some of it was lost and will need to be rewritten. The story as a whole wasn't complete yet anyway (even though some thought that it was done).

It was also fun for me to have more photos and GIFs to use as the header for each of these chapters. That goes for the Kylie Bunbury character of Destiny, especially. When I originally posted this book, she didn't have a lot of acting projects under her belt, so there weren't many pics for me to choose from. I was screenshotting from shows and YouTube clips she was in, which got pretty time consuming. This time around, I got to do a little bit of recasting, with Kyla Pratt as Candace and Ryan Destiny as Jasmine Brown (little known fact, Candace Patterson and Jasmine Brown are the names of my cousins in real life - they inspired those characters). 

This time around, I got to see just how atrocious some of the writing was. LOL. I don't know where I picked up the habit of saying "thought to herself/himself." When you're thinking, it's automatically to yourself, so the "to himself/herself" doesn't need to be included, but I found myself having to delete some of those. Some of those probably even made it to the published version of the book. One of the scenes where Destiny is eating in the cafeteria, I spelled "hummus" as "hummas." Just slap me now LOL. I briefly considered posting the published version of the book, but then you guys would have had to deal with the name changes, or I would have had to take extra time to switch his name and his friends/family's names back, and put the song titles back into the text (since any mention of his real song titles were removed from the published version).

Reposting this book has been quite the experience. Some of you were reading along and I was able to tell that by your voting on each chapter. When people voted, they were letting me know they were up and still reading, so I kept posting. When the votes stopped, I passed tf out or did something else, to give myself a break. 

So, what is next? I will start posting Book 2 immediately, right after getting this chapter up. It's a little after midnight where I am, so I will be going to be shortly. I am posting one of my real book titles, BloodLust, and going a little ham with the posting of that because the Zayn Malik-led "Night Changes" will be posted in the same file as "BloodLust," since it is a part of that series and helmed by that series' main character, Iancu. Then, I should be able to post the "BloodLust" sequel in that same file, since Night Changes was fairly short. I'm not sure how I'm going to handle posting that particular story - I may have to change the One Direction band name and band members' names other than Zayn (which I may still change the spelling of - I like his name too much to change it). I'm on a quest to become a Wattpad Star, and they require for writers to have a certain amount of completed works that are not fanfics (sadge, but I get it). So, idk...the character names in Night Changes may have to change and I may have to post the published version of that one. Let me know how much that would bother you, for the reader who asked about it in my messages.

Once both of those are up, getting the rest of 50 Shades of Drake up are top priority, and a few other stories before I start updating the stories that are unfinished. Once book files are completed with their two books in them, I will start marking them Complete. I think I sucked with that the last time I was on Wattpad. 

And now, I may be rambling, so let me close out with I've missed you guys so much. Thank you for your patience. Thank you for running up the reads. Thank you for running up the comments. Thank you for running up the votes. Takes only a few seconds to do, but helps so much. Mama is aiming for a movie deal. I need Tyler Lepley to play Aubrey and I need Sarunas Jackson to voice the audiobook and possibly narrate the movie, let's fugging GO. LOL. 

Brief update with that is I commented on Tyler Lepley's IG a few years back and told him I want to cast him for "50 Shades of Drake." He followed me and was actually active (back when I posted on there consistently - now, he checks stories once in awhile but professionally he is ON it and has his ear out for opportunities, which I respect). 

IF you do not know who Tyler Lepley is...(lawdt)...fine as heyell. The closest I will get to in finding someone who halfway resembles Aubrey, who also has the capability of rapping. Just...fine as heyell. You'd known him from P-Valley and he's in one of the Tyler Perry shows. Just...fine. And ironically, dating Miracle Watts, who I cast in Mr. Wrong. Also ironically, years after I originally posted the"50 Shades of Drake" books, I got to see Kylie Bunbury and Aubrey act in a skit together, pretending to be Steph and Ayesha Curry, in a "Get Out" parody. Even better, people in the YouTube comments mentioned reading a fanfic about the both of them. <3

I've had a lot of awesome moments, looking to create a lot more. To those of you capable of ordering books from my sandstarr.com website, thank you. The readers should thank you too, because you guys are a part of why they're able to read these stories on Wattpad. 

It's been a minute, but I'm ready to make up for lost time.

SS