“I tip-toe over to the edge of the room and look down. The dark water ebbs and flows, the sand twinkles like it has a million tiny diamonds within its grains. My heart flutters into the waves and I grin, trying not to cry, as I watch over my kingdom of promise.”

One of my original blog posts was telling you about the story behind my first book, In the Sky.

Today, I thought it would be good to do the same with my second novel—the one I’m working on extensively right now—Unattainable Reality.

In reality (tehe), I’m not sure which one I began first. I’ve told you that I wrote both of them (and a mystery third one that’s awful) all around the same time in high school. I mostly say that because I can barely remember. The only reason I designate In the Sky as the “first” is because it’s the one I fully dove into in college, knowing it was the story I wanted to put into the world first.

Don’t get me wrong: I also worked on UR through college as well, but not as seriously. The reason? Probably because it was fanfic. I’ve said this before, but I was so obsessed with The Hunger Games that it was originally a story about Josh Hutcherson. (Go ahead, read me to filth.)

Luckily, during college, I changed the names. And eventually, the characters and story became completely their own. (Thank God.)

After I graduated and really delved into getting In the Sky published, UR fell by the waste side. Occasionally, I’d open up the document and read some of my favorite scenes, but no real editing was taking place.

…until this quarantine.

Once I made the intention to move onto querying it instead of continuing with In the Sky for now, I knew I had to get my act together.

So that’s exactly what I did. (Eventually.)

My main task at first was to change the format of the novel—from chronological to “then” and “now” segments. Then I had to figure out which sections were hopelessly short and add to them. All the while, I was getting rid of stuff that was stupid. (Which was quite a lot of stuff.) Now, I’m pretty much at the point where I just need to build up the word count.

From the beginning, UR has been a story about a girl winning a contest to meet her favorite celebrity. Because it’s a romance, I’m sure you can figure out what happens next.

A lot of the melodramatic and cheesy moments are long gone, but the story is still the same: Romeo and Juliet.

A fanfic I used to be entirely embarrassed by turned a story I am utterly proud of. That’s Unattainable Reality.

And soon (I hope), you’ll get to meet Hunter and Cassidy too.