First Draft of TLS

Exposing myself.

Goodness, the amount of gawking and grimacing I did upon reading through the very first lines of this monstrosity, years after.

Indeed, I will show you not just the first draft version of Haunt, but the very core beginning of it! The first lines that crawled into its womb! The lines I wrote in-between building a horse fence for baby Finn (who I will introduce you to very soon). So, where do I start now? With the disclaimer that tries to convince you there was a reason why I wrote so badly? Structure-wise included? That English is my third language, and that I was never educated in the craft of writing? This is embarrassing, yet, it’s honest work!

Let’s tear it apart:

In my defense! Since we are dealing with the assumptions / groundless accusations / ignorant verdicts of authors using AI to write their books, if, God forbid, they use an em dash in their sentences as a legitimate grammatical writing tool invented before the age of AI, and even the Internet—at the very least, here it is proven, I used em dashes way before AI was even a probability, or a concern. Of course, the manner I used them in is a different story. But here you have it! I’ve always used them, for I found them visually appealing as they interrupted long sentences.

Now to the chaotic parts. I honestly can’t find a single sentence in this example to catalogue into decent writing, and I’m struggling not to delete this entire draft; but I shall push through the mortification. Everyone starts from somewhere, right?

I have annotated a few things that stuck out to me. Of course, typos, phrases that don’t fit in the overall tone of narration, what-in-the-world imaginary words my brain confused and forged, paragraph structure conjured from a magazine written by a toddler. For someone who had read a decent amount of literature, and had studied British English at an age they could hardly comprehend it, and wrote their own English poetry during teenage years (inspired by Sylvia Plath of course, because why to be normal and merry and mentally stable), this is quite questionable to me right now. Perhaps it all comes down to this: writing is an art, and a skill, and even if it may be a talent somewhere deep within, you have to hone it.

For me, the ideas, the visuals, the story, the characters were there. I could not stop writing on this little Notes app. Daily, I would add to it endless paragraphs, and daily I would muse over that plot in my head, swelling like a kernel of another world. Fascinating. Magical, truly. A surge of elation I had not thought myself capable of experiencing. But it was there now; that seed of imagination clawing at my brain.

Let’s revisit that draft, months later, upon the first round of edits.

Important to note, my husband Lee (who is a native English speaker) gave me some pointers on grammar I genuinely tried to implement in my writing, however I did and still do really appreciate him not fully taking over, because that led to me discovering things on my own—and therefore, learning a lot faster and more efficiently in the process.

It’s important to note here, that I hadn’t yet discovered my writing style, but I was putting down all the ideas that I had in my head, building the world and characters as I went. (Those who’ve read Haunt, know Patrick Tilghman turned into a marshal, and Los Hermanos into Los Muertos.) So, looking back, some things are fixed (the flow perhaps—slightly), but the overall writing style and tone is not what I would claim now to be mine. This is truly below amateur writing.

How did I work on my writing style, tone, and voice:

Certainly, the more the realization of publishing this book began to materialize in my head, the more pressure I started feeling, knowing my lack of education in writing, grammar, and so on. But, what I lack in intelligence, I make up for in stubbornness, so I took things a little more serious.

Instead of opening up a book and reading it for the story like I previously had done, I read it to understand and teach myself. No—not speaking of seizing phrases, ideas, and so on and pasting them into my own document—but noting down patterns, comprehending how a sentence needs to flow, researching new words that were foreign to me—as simple as “caustic”, which I took and bombarded the entire book with it in all my excitement over the discovery. Don’t recommend. (I fixed that, by the way.) Understanding how dialogue worked. Just minuscule things that may be obvious to most of you, but to me were actually foreign. I truly studied every single day, all day, for months, until I could get something like this:

Reflecting upon it, I can see that I began to dare more in the lyrical prose department, slowly finding my tone and flow that felt more natural to me, amidst long-winded sentences, as well as applying new words that I added to my vocabulary. (Imagine for the word “endure” to feel so foreign to me, or “menacing”, which I butchered here.) I honestly exerted myself in becoming a better version of an author, uncertain where that would lead, or if it even would make a difference, but looking back now, I’m happy that I didn’t simply give up due to inherent language disadvantages.

Despite finally having a decent foundation of an overall understanding, I’m still not there; not where I now feel a morsel satisfied with myself. So I continued to go through heavy, thorough alterations, line after line, but instead of relying on my notes, I relied on myself. That was the breakthrough I was looking for. Speaking for me personally, I found it vulnerable to depend on notes, or a how-to instruction book. I needed to outgrow that part of my journey, and trust in my own thoughts and knowledge.

The first published version, through inDesign:

As you can see, I changed a lot, including the plot line. And even though some may prefer the previous writing style, where it isn’t as lyrical, this is what comes out naturally from me; where I didn’t have to reflect upon my notes and try to adhere to whatever rules my mind thought appropriate. I needed to let go, in order for my words to flow instinctively, and in order to discover and build upon my own voice. To expose myself; some wicked version of me I had concealed since my early years.

That being said, I was still not happy after publication, which led to this final version:

In the official pages, there’s a chapter in-between this one and the prologue, but for the sake of this example, I switched them around. Evidently, a lot has changed again. The entire plot line and narration style. It turned into something more passive, I would say, which is the current tone I feel most comfortable with, yet still retaining that ambiguity and prose.

Keep in mind, I have not included all the in-between edits, because they are countless. Truthfully, I have edited Haunt ten times over throughout the years, certainly annoying my readers with it, which I feel really bad about. However, if I hadn’t published when I felt it was done, perhaps it would never be published at all.

Last notes:

Am I where I wish to be as an author? No. Absolutely not. There is so much I have yet to learn still and improve on, it is quite unnerving, and yet intriguing at the same time. I long to discover the entire English vocabulary (which won’t be possible), and I long to sharpen all my weaknesses that still discourage me. Do I feel like I accomplished some personal growth throughout the years working on this book? Yes. Absolutely. My writing has certainly grown, as well as I as a person, and I’m hoping that this growth will only continue to blossom. There is truly some inference of wisdom gained via the lives lived through characters imagined.

I’m also hoping that perhaps new authors are going to review this, and—not necessarily get inspired—but understand that even if you start at an ignorant, amateur level, if you really are passionate and determined about something, you will be able to overcome most any obstacle. You simply need to put in the hard work first.