It’s currently National Novel Writing Month and, as I am participating in NaNo this year, I thought I’d dedicate all blogs and YouTube videos I make this month to my current project. This week I’m going to be doing the ‘Your Story’ tag, which I currently can’t find the creator of. If I do find them, I’ll update this blog.
This story is called ‘Heart’ and it owns my heart.
Let’s begin!
Tell us about your story.
In summary, ‘Heart’ is about a blind boy and a deaf girl. They meet in group therapy and get partnered up in a team building activity. This makes it sound like it could be a bit of a ‘The Fault in Our Stars’ story, but I promise that it’s not.
Is this part of Camp NaNoWriMo, NaNoWriMO, or a personal project?
I started writing this as a personal project back in the summer of 2015, but then decided to work on a newer and shinier idea. I worked on it a little more in the summer of 2017 to avoid revising for my GCSEs but again got distracted. Now, I’m working on it for NaNoWriMo 2018 as it’s an idea that I adore and it deserves to have an ending.
Tell us about your characters.
Ryn is morbidly pessimistic, blaming the world for his problems. He would probably see past the anger if he could still… well, see. Asher sees the good in everyone, probably best since she blocks out what mean things everyone says about her. Not by choice, but she does it.
What is your favourite friendship? What is your favourite romance?
I’m mashing these two into one question so I don’t have to write two short answers. The story is still in it’s early stages, but it’s set around Ryn and Asher’s friendship and how it develops, and I’m going to love them more than any other friendship I put into this book. At first, I thought it would be easy to push a romance between them, but I think I like the idea of a romance-free book as there seems to be a lack of true and genuine friendship in contemporary YA fiction.
What is the saddest scene in your story?
They’re not written yet, but they’re the two scenes that show up the mostly clearly in my head. One involves a letter. The other involves the ocean.
What is your favourite scene in your story?
I think it’ll probably end up being one of the sad scenes, but I’m quite proud of the opening scene. I like the description. I like the backstory. I like the character development. The words also came straight to me: I opened a Word document and the words came flowing out without any thought.
How did this story come about?
I’m not entirely sure how all the pieces fell into place, but it started with thinking about how there’s been a surge of mental health representation in YA fiction, but I still hadn’t read anything about physical ‘illnesses’. I’m not saying these stories don’t exist, I’m just saying that I hadn’t and still haven’t read one or seen one blow up across the book community. I decided I wanted to write about someone who was blind and how that would affect their life. I wanted to write about someone who was deaf and how that would affect their live. I wanted to put them together and watch them become friends.
What isn’t working in your story?
When I wrote the first few chapters three years ago, I had very limited knowledge about the spectrum blindness and deafness has. I had a naïve idea that being blind meant you had no vision at all and deafness meant no hearing at all unless you had a hearing aid that suddenly gave you full hearing. So, I was writing two characters based on stereotypes and poor research and wasn’t giving any good or accurate representation. Since then, I’ve done a huge amount of research (mostly due to blind and deaf YouTubers becoming increasingly popular recently) and I feel a lot more educated and informed on the subjects.
What is one thing you love about your story?
I love my characters and their friendship. That’s all.
Do you plan to publish?
Publishing is the biggest dream of mine, but I don’t think I’m ready. I’m currently too focused on education and want to get that out of the way before I start to work on my publishing journey. But ‘Heart’ will more than definitely be self-published.
In the comments below, let me know what you’re working on right now. Are you taking part in NaNoWriMo? Are you just writing for fun?
TandeWrites 