Mirror, Mirror

Foreword

Read the official, edited version on my Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/collection/434954!

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I want to preface this by saying this is my first ever finished novel, and a pilot version at that. However, I'm super excited about this story and hope someone out there is too! I plan to release 2 chapters weekly on Sundays.

My hope is that, as I am a more mature writer, I'll get better at this. I want to come back to this novel in a few years and polish it further with research. Right now, the purpose is to just to FINISH a first novel, regardless of how "good" it is. Is it readable? Is it enjoyable? More importantly, is it "finished"— like could someone read it from start to finish and think, huh there were a couple things that didn't make sense, but I feel satisfied reading it?

With that context in mind, I want to be clear that 0 research went into this novel, so everything I write is out of my head and not necessarily how the world works. I do not know a lot about a lot of things, including wilderness survival, nobility, and martial arts! I do try my best to create smoke and mirrors to extract just the essence/aesthetic of the things I don't know much about without creating too much of a distraction of the fact that they don't really make sense (like for example, writing the bare minimum for combat so you get the idea without questioning the physics and actual martial arts technique of it). I also did my best to eliminate any confusion that is within my power and did not require outside research (for example, keeping the timeline straight; was this character mad at this other character for 1 week or 1 month?).

For a long time, things not making sense really blocked me from getting any writing done; it was an excuse to procrastinate on ever finishing anything. I need to overcome that hurdle. So, I ask that you be gentle and overlook any strange assumptions I make (like how a wolf would go about attacking a human, and however the frick combat works), even though I will also try my best to make things make sense so that you don't have to spend brain power overlooking strange assumptions in order to avoid being broken out of immersion. I will polish the final product as much as I reasonably can within the current bounds of my writing experience, life experience, and will power.

That being said, everything I write about queer experience (bisexuality, trans identity), as well as a lot of the other themes (perfectionism, struggle with self-love, jealousy/admiration/love) all come from a place of authenticity. A lot of it maps directly or indirectly to my own experiences, and they are dying to be released into the world in story form!

As I get better at writing, my hope is to incorporate more research into my novels. I for one really appreciate when authors write from an authentic place of experience and knowledge, or they fill the gap of that with research (shout-out to Kristen Cashore for thoroughly researching frostbite and ship-sailing before writing her Graceling series! It really shows in the details!)— OR they figure out a way to not include it in the story if they don't know anything about it. On the flipside, it bothers me as a reader when things do not make sense or don't really line up with my understanding of the world because it distracts me from the author's message. I get that it's a magical world, but there's only so much of a blind eye that I as the reader can turn to things not making sense before it becomes tiring to read. So, I want to do my best to avoid this!

First step though: finish a novel.

Hope you enjoy!