Chasing Zero

Eight

I never had an issue with deciding what I would write next. If I had an idea, I would write it out. Usually I would finish whatever I was working on first before I started something new, but if the idea kept throwing a tantrum in the back of my brain, then I would write it out before finishing whatever else I was working on. And all ideas that I would eventually write were written in one of the many journals I had aligning my bookshelf. I had more journals in my room than I did books.

But with the anxiety of all of my ideas being rejected, it was becoming more difficult to figure out what to write. I tried taking my short story ideas and stretching them out into full length novels, but the ideas were meant to be short stories. And if I could miraculously figure out how to spread out the plot and turn it into a novel, the idea was turned down.

Despite the constant failure I was presented with, it didn't stop me from writing. It didn't make me want to write more so I could prove Dakota wrong or anything. The urge to write and the drive just remained. That would never go away no matter what. The whole world can tell me my writing is bad and that would never discourage me from continuing to write. I will always write.

Even during the search for an idea for the novel, I haven't stopped writing my personal short stories and poems. Every day, I made sure I would write at least one page. It didn't matter what I was doing that day, I would type the page on my phone if I had to. Since each page was approximately three hundred words, it allowed me the chance to work on my craft a little bit regardless of my time frame. I had to keep working on my craft and perfecting my skills every day. There was no excuse not to.

If I didn't keep working on my short stories while writing rejection after rejection, I would go mad. But now I finally had an idea. One that I knew Dakota would enjoy. Even if it was rejected again, it would be the perfect foundation. I would learn from Sky; he was teaching me already. There were feelings I experienced when I thought about him I'd never felt before. I didn't know how to write them out. For once, I couldn't describe my emotions. I needed to figure out what they were.

And with Sky helping me learn about romance, I would soon have a reserve of romantic encounters I could fall back on. I craved the ability to pull romantic encounter after romantic encounter out of my ass and use them to create an authentic scene.

The date was coming. Provided all went well, I would surely have an endless stream of romantic encounters to write about. If I was going to write about what I knew, then I was going to have to write out all about my romantic encounters with him. But I didn't want to use what happens between us verbatim. Whatever happens between Sky and I would be our own romance. It was just meant to influence the romance between my two lead characters. This wasn't a memoir, it was fiction.

A meet cute: it's one of the most important scenes to write. I wasn't a big fan of all the over the top meet cutes, such as bumping into each other in the halls, causing one to drop their books and the other to help pick them up. Or the one where one saves the other's life. Those are incredibly rare occurrences, and I want to make sure this book is more on the relatable side of the spectrum. But I still wanted it to be something weird and out of the blue.

This was where Tumblr came into place for my writing. I'd look up different OTP (one true pairing) scenarios and figure out which one would be the best for the direction I wanted my story to go in.

But more important than a meet cute was the first page. Nay, the first sentence. It had to be perfect, able to grasp my reader's attention. It had to draw the reader in, make them curious about what would be said in the next sentence. And the next. And the next. Until finally, they were knee-deep in the novel and couldn't put it down.

While I could have gone back to edit the chapter later, I wanted to start the first draft off right. The first sentence was going to help set the tone for the rest of the novel: