I’ve been writing stories and creating worlds for as long as I can remember. Some stories I’ve written have sadly been lost.
All except for one…the very first full length novel I ever wrote.
When I was 15/16, I was three things:
- Obsessed with anime
- Thought I was above everyone because of my interests
- Traumatised about a bad breakup
All of these things gave life to a novel that is (and I’m deadly serious about this) 16,421 words. Yes. SIXTEEN THOUSAND FOUR HUNDRED AND TWENTY ONE WORDS.
Apparently, I thought this word count was enough for a first novel…
The Important Details…
- It’s half supernatural, half science fiction.
- The main character of the book is basically me.
- It is about as cringeworthy as you could expect, given my state of mind when I wrote it.
- Elementia is the name.
At the time of writing this, I thought this was going to be the novel that would shake the world. It was my magnum opus; the novel that would make me the bestselling author the world had ever seen. So much so I sent a query letter to a publisher. In a shock to absolutely no-one…it was rejected; I never worked out why.
I had tried several times since to find the original copy. All I had was a short extract that I’d written in a notebook.
Until one afternoon, I found some old computer hard drives lurking in the study of my parents’ house. I decided to do a reaction video for my youtube channel to see what was on it. In the video, you could see how happy I was to find Elementia; in full. I finally had a copy of the novel so I could read it and cringe. Woohoo!
Reading My First Novel Online
A few months ago, I decided to put the novel to (somewhat) good use and read it all as part of a series on my youtube channel (my channel isn’t active anymore). Part of me was tempted to self-publish it (for the lols of course). Part of me still is…
Here’s a little sample of the prologue and a bit of the first chapter so you can get an idea of my very emotional state.
If you want to see what my writing was like aged 15/16, I’ll try and upload it somewhere! And I promise with all my heart…my ACTUAL debut novel will never be as bad as this.
