Wow.
Just.... Wow.
I don't even know how to thank you guys enough for everything you've done for me. I know I've said this before, but it it weren't for you guys voting and commenting on this book, I would have stopped before I even really got started. I would have just lost all of my confidence in my writing and quit right there. But I didn't, thanks to your support. And for that, I am extremely thankful and grateful and I love you guys with every bit of my heart.
I came up with I'll Be Superhuman in September, a bout a week after the first time I saw This Is Us. But it wasn't the Teenage Dirtbag scene that really got me inspired to write this story down. I had seen the work of Amelia the Artist on a 1D Facebook Fan Page. For those of you who don't know, she's the one that made the pictures of the boys on the cover of my book.
I looked at the pictures and all the scratches on their skin and the determined looks on their faces and one of the first things I thought of was "Wow, this looks like an amped up version of The Adventerous Adventures Of One Direction!" And then I started thinking that in this picture, these boys haven't been fighting Lord Faptiguise (no clue how to spell that name lol) and they haven't finished a battle with Mega Fan. They have fought a real live bad guy. They have been through Hell and back in this picture.
And as I thought this, I started getting images in my head of the boys fighting some weird giant robot in the streets of New York City and I'm like "Damn, someone needs to make a comic book of this!" I can't draw. Like... Even my stick figures look pathetic and I had been hoping to leave this image of Superhero 1D at that. I was just going to let some other talented artist create their own story to this.
But I just couldn't.
Why were they fighting? How did they become heroes? What lead them up to that moment in New York?
I was plagued by these thoughts immediately and in about 10 minutes, I had sent the picture to my friend and was like "Something needs to be done about this!!" And told her the few, tiny ideas that nagged the edges of my mind.
By the end of the day, I had most of the boys' back stories figured out and had decided to tell them out of order just for the dynamic.
I told a couple co-workers of mine that I wanted to write a superhero themed book. But the thing was, I didn't really know how to write about heroes like that. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE superheroes, but I had only watched a Superman movie or two and the Hulk in my entire life time. One of my co-workers told me she had a million DVD's and I could borrow them for the weekend. I watched everything from The League Of Extrodinary Gentlemen (Sean Connery is a legend!!) to all of the Avengers individual movies leading up to the Avengers movie itself. (Seriously, Captain America or Thor need to marry me now!)
I came up with the idea for Mr. X from that old hate account on Twitter. I'm not sure if this was really real, but the account had made some pretty serious death threats to the boys and then at Madison Square Garden, I had seen people tweeting like crazy that there was a girl with a gun near the front row. A little while later I had seen she was arrested and was Mr. X. I'm not really sure if that was all true, but it was a pretty good inspiration/refrence for my book.
I remember watching the Fantastic Four and seeing Dr. Doom. He was so narcisistic and self centered and totally in love with himself, it was, like, PERFECT! I had actually thought the movie sucked a lot, but Doom rocked and I couldn't get the image of a silver masked villian out of my head. He was so sadistic and scary and amazing at being the bad guy, but I couldn't figure out why he would be wearing the mask.And there was something down right frightening about the way this man carried himself. He was so cocky about the way he worked, there was something in the back of my mind like "This man could totally destroy the world with just his charm..." I still hadn't even figured out what the X would stand for, but all at the same time it crashed down on me. He would be a partner of Simon's who had been done wrong and was seeking revenge by destroying the experiments they had made together. He would have tried to conduct his own experiment on himself because HE wanted to be all powerful, but it ruined him and now he couldn't even show his own face.
Within a week of seeing that single picture, I had finished Harry's first chapters and posted them a couple days later.
I remember checking how many reads I had gotten on a regular basis and freaking out everytime it was bumped up one more. I remember almost screaming when I got my first vote and nearly dying after my first comment. (I still do now. I fangirl over reads and votes and comments like you guys do for updates!)
I would try and update on a regular basis, too. Fridays, Saturdays, or Sundays were usually the times I would do it. Because I'm a senior in high school, I had a free period that went over both of the lunches in my school. (We're big enough we couldn't fit all the kids into one lunch room.) So I had TWO HOURS to do what ever the heck I pleased (which meant writing.) But the thing is... If you have an F in more than one class, your free period is taken away. I had been so obsessed with writing this fanfiction, I stopped doing homework and had my free period taken away. Not only that, but I had been failing one of my classes so hard, my grade was deemed "unsalvageable" and I had to drop it.
Because of that, if I fail one more class this semester I will not get a signed deploma when I walk across the stage for graduation. If I fail two, I will have to come back next year as a "Super Senior" and that is not the kind of super I want to be... Currently, I am failing three classes.
AND! Just to prove how much this damn book and all of you meant to me: I was asked out on Valentines day and I told him no because that was a Friday and my family was going away for the weekend and I wouldn't have been able to update any day after that. (Don't feel too bad, though, he was a super creepy kid and I was soooo not into him.)
Now look at the pic on the side.
If you don't know, Zayn has inspired a character in Marvel's Ghost Rider comic series. I'm not positive if he is Ghost Rider himself or if he's just another character, though. But in an article that I read about it, Zayn has been keeping in touch with some Marvel artists because they're giving him artistic advice for creating his own comic book...... And OMG ZAYN PICK MEEEEEEE!!! Do you guys realize how absolutely amazing it would be just to have one of the boys even LOOK in the same direction as this fanfic??? I really do imagine this book as either a movie or a comic in my head. Seriously, I have background music and camera angles all down for this thing. There are some parts that I really do imagine like a comic book strip though. Like when Zayn was fighting X in the burning building and knocked off his mask. I just saw X standing there with the fire throwing shadows across his ruined face, contorting it in the smoky, orange light, and his hair crazy and his eyes wild and he looks horrified as he tries to cover his scars with that black leather gloved hand... All of that as one picture- one drawing- and I couldn't help but grin like a maniac!
There isn't much comic book 1D out there and that kind of makes me sad. Like I've said before, I didn't want something that was just going to be full of sex and romance and coincidental meetings that lead to awkward flirting and whatever. Even the way the boys meet in here was kind of perfect in my head. In the very first scene that you read, Harry was making out with Tori and I wanted that to happen to show how much of a contrast those other fanfics were going to be in comparison to mine. I had once seen a quote from an author that went on the lines of "Write something you want to read." And I wanted to read something that wasn't just PDA and sex appeal.
Don't get me wrong, I did throw in a bit just to add a little flare. The Zerrie dream while Zayn was locked in his cell. Harry shirtless while he was training. Or how about Niall in just a towel, fresh out of the shower? Maybe Zayn all sweaty and partially on fire when he was blasting away practice dummies? And when Niall was flirting with Alli at the end of the battle? That nearly killed me! I blushed like a mad woman the first time they kissed, too.
Anyway... I wanted to write something that would totally make people re-think fanfiction. I wanted to show them that you don't have to write about dirty, rough sex with punk One Direction to get a lot of reads.
And that's why I'm happy to announce that there will be a sequel to I'll Be Superhuman. I have a pretty good idea on what's going to happen, too. There are a few things I need to work out, but the first chapter should be posted in a little over a month and it won't follow just One Direction this time. It'll be following mostly their kids. It'll be set almost 20 years in the future (so basically, Zander will be 17, since Zerrie had him 2 years after they were married.) And all the kids will be in high school, trying to fit in with their own powers and, like, puberty and stuff. I'm not sure what to call it yet and I'll probably need help with a cover if anyone would like to help with that...?
I also have another book me and a friend are working on together. It's not a fanficiton, but I think it's going to be really cool! We came up with an entierly new religion to go along with it. (I came up with it in the shower the first day she told me her idea. Lol.) So I'm already super proud of it.
It's a book I hope to publish with her someday soon. And you know what? I think I'm going to have a pen name. And I think I'll just call myself Zen. I like the sound of it and it's a familiar name for when I do get published and one of you pick up a book in the library and are like "....Zen.... That's from Wattpad or something...."
And one day, when one of my best sellers become a movie (YES PLEASE) One Direction will be in an interview and the person will be like "Did you know the famous author, Zen, got her pen name from you boys?" YES PLEASE!!!!!
So, for now -and just for my own privacy- you guys can call me Zen. And I really do like the sound of it. Haha.
I also wanted to tell you that I had a dream a few weeks ago where I DID get super famous because Zayn made I'll Be Superhuman into a comic (YES PUH-LEASE!!!!) and I had gone to a signing and all of you came up like "Zen! It's me, Burning_Stars_!!!" "It's me, lyndzer15!!!" I wish I could tell you who all I met and stuff, but that would take A LOT of this authors note to say. But in the end, I made a large amount of you stay with me 'til the end of the signing so I could properly meet you and hug you and fangirl over you (yes, I fangirl over fangirls. Sue me.) And then we just hung out and cried and became best friends and ate ice cream and watched movies and stuff.
Yes, I love all of you. Yes, one day I want ot meet every last one of you. I want to hug all of you and bake you an empire of cookies that we could all live in because I owe you everything for doing this for me. You have all made me a better writer just by pressing the star on the side of this website. And by doing that, you have assured me I am exactly where I am meant to be.... On my ass in front of a computer. I will never be able to thank you guys enough. There is a hole in the ceiling from where my self esteem has shot through because of your support. I don't know how many ways there are to thank you and tell you that I love you, but hopefully, you can understand how happy you've made me over these past few months.
I really suck at endings so I'm not sure how to end this. So I guess I'll have to do it the old fashioned way. Goodnight, good morning, goodbye....
~The End~
~Zen~