Hey guys! ZP here! I can't believe I haven't posted for so long! Long story short, I can't just submit one chapter of this story at a time because the edits would change the events of the following chapter, so I have to wait until I had fix everything before I post any of it. Also high school chemistry SUCKS so there were school issues that kept me from writing when I wanted too. Meh.
There will be several alterations to the original story. Now it will be significantly less focused on romance, as I myself have had absolutely no experience with that type of love, (that is, the kind where you fantasize about getting married and staying together forever.) The closest thing I have to that is a crush I had on a childhood friend that I had known since kindergarten. Said crush began when I was in seventh grade and ended halfway through the year. Considering how foolish crushes mean absolutely nothing in the grand scope of love, this experience is really nothing to go on. Since I do not know how it truly feels, I cannot accurately portray it in a story without sounding ridiculously cheesy, a fact that I did not take into consideration when I began this story two years ago. So now that won't be the main focus anymore.
I have changed a lot as both a person and a writer in the years that I have been writing this story. When I was in eighth grade, I was far happier and naïve to the world, extremely childish at times and yet strangely insightful in others. That childish persona can be seen quite easily in the first half of the original story. I still am still quite childish in spirit, but wiser.
However, in ninth grade, I took a rather dark turn. I couldn't take all the responsibility crashing down on me at once. At the same time, I wanted to keep writing, but that only caused more issues for me as I was forced to choose between living my life in the real world and shutting writing out until I got better, or living in the fictional world and losing all my friends along the way. I eventually found a middle road and instead my writing became more of a coping method for my depression and anxiety, the feelings of which I portrayed quite often in Link and Kyna via their messed up childhoods and past.
Because of this, I have rather bittersweet feelings towards this story, as it was the thing that overwhelmed me and pushed me over the edge, but was also the thing that saved my life and made the more rational side of myself kick in when I began contemplating suicide. When you become a writer, the characters live inside your mind and interact in the world around you, invisible to everyone but the one who created them. They stopped me. So thank you my golden trio. Thank you for saving my life.
With all this in mind, this story is now going to turn over to a new page and start over once more. I hope you will enjoy it as much as the original. I am fixing as much of it as I can so the beginning is no longer cheesy and clique, and the parts that I have not yet submitted are not quite as dark. I don't want to show writing that was written by a girl without the proper outlook on her life, which is why it is taking so long for me to fix it, because in fixing it I am also trying to figure myself out as well.
Although I am no longer depressed, I still have memories of how that feels, so there may be several new darker scenes and tones throughout the story that weren't there before because now I am more willing to conquer those topics. There may also be a few alterations to the main character's personalities, as they were too flat before, and when I began writing I was admittedly still figuring them out, so they were not concrete and inadequate to be placing on a page.
But now I am fixing everything I can. You don't have to worry about me based on what I said before. I am not that girl anymore. I am sixteen and ready to conquer life and I want my writing to reflect that.
The main reason that I haven't written all this time is mainly due to guilt that I stopped writing in the first place. Guilt stops all productive juices, which is rather counterproductive…. *Awkward Shrug*
The second reason however was completely beyond my control: I got leukemia. Yes, cancer. I lost my hair, was in the hospital for months, the whole shebang. After being stuck in a hospital bed for so long many of my muscles have weakened and I no longer have this strength or balance to do something as simple as running. And I love to run… I am currently undergoing physical therapy to get my strength back. Also, many thanks to my friends for visiting me in the hospital. According to my mom, their visits were some of the few times that I laughed while I was stuck there. So thank you so much Michelle, Sam, Loren, Davis, and John. Especially John. I love you man!
I hope you enjoy the new revised edition of my story!
