new year's day [h.s.]

Intro/Warnings/Cast

Hi friends, and welcome to my first Wattpad fic!

I've always loved reading and writing, and I even wrote 1D fics/one-shots what feels like centuries ago. High school and college kind of stifled my creative side, but as I began falling back in love with reading fics over the past few years, I wanted to get back to writing too... so here we are!

The entire idea behind this story stems from a playlist I put together. As someone who has spent their life both creating and appreciating music, I've become a big fan of concept albums. Ones where you can press play, keep it off shuffle, and find yourself immersed in a story from beginning to end. So, I took the idea of a concept album and created a playlist that narrates an entire relationship between these individuals. To do this, I pulled songs from some of my favorite artists: One Direction, each of the boys' solo projects, and of course, Miss Taylor Swift. Nothing novel, but it scratched that itch in my brain.

As I was pulling and ordering songs, my little squirrel brain couldn't help but start daydreaming about scenarios these lovers would find themselves in. A night out with a few too many green tea shots. 3 AM phone calls when their minds couldn't stop racing, talking about everything and nothing at the same time. Misty-eyed "goodbye"s and greetings dipped in sunshine. Stolen kisses in long check-out lines. Heated debates over which type of cheese is superior, or if cheese is even that great to begin with (spoiler alert: it is). After a lot of planning, writing and rewriting, caffeinated beverages, and bowls of ramen... we're here.

Here's the catch with this playlist: I'm not sharing it with you.

Is that cruel of me? Perhaps, but part of my fun in crafting the playlist, in writing this story, has been interpreting these songs for myself and finding ways that they slot together. I want you as readers to have that same opportunity. I'm not going to give you the playlist because I want to see what songs you think a given chapter resonates with. I want you to share your interpretations and thoughts with me, because I think one of the most beautiful things about music, books, and all forms of art is that no two people will interpret something the exact same way. You'll always associate a song, a paragraph, a painting, whatever it may be, with something that's even just slightly different than the next person. You'll always pick up on little details that others overlook or forgo giving attention because some other little detail catches their eye. As much as I want to share my interpretations with all of you, hence me writing this silly little thing, I want you to tell me about yours just as much, if not more. I'll have a space in each chapter's author's note where I welcome you to share the song(s) you thought of!

While I may not be sharing that playlist with you, I do have one for this story that will be made public. It features some of the songs I've listened to (minus the boys and blondie) while writing, as well as ones that fit the general vibe of the story. As chapters get rolled out, I'll be adding the song for each one to the playlist if it's not already on there. This playlist won't be in any particular order, seeing as I don't want to give too much away, but it's there nonetheless! The link will be available in my Wattpad bio after the first few chapters have been posted if you care to take a peek (:

PLEASE NOTE: hateful and bigoted comments of any kind will NOT be tolerated. If at any point you're commenting about disliking my writing style, disliking the plot/my characters/their relationship(s) when it's unwarranted, or anything racist, sexist, misogynistic, homophobic, ableist, xenophobic, etc., you WILL be muted! Having seen these kinds of comments on other authors' works, it's incredibly disheartening even as a reader. You are not obligated to like everything you read, but you are expected to be a decent human being. If you don't like the book, I simply ask that you refrain from commenting about it, remove it from your library, and stop reading! It's not difficult, I promise.