If We Are All Just The Sum Of The Things We Achieve . . .

I don't expect you to read all of this. This is for me, and those rare few people who care to know more about me.

However, I would like to hear your story if you care to share it.

I am nineteen-years-old, I have been writing seriously since I was in seventh grade, I have finished at least twenty-two novels, and the first story I ever wrote was when I was about seven.

It was a Christmas story for my mom's present.

As long as I can remember, I wrote compulsively. There was never any question in my mind about it. I loved to read because I loved the stories created, and I wanted to create them myself. Then, when I was in middle school, it suddenly occurred to me that I could be just like those writers, creating worlds for other people to experience.

That realization remains — in my opinion — the best move of my life.

I'm not unrealistic though. I know that the chances of my being successful are slim. I know that writing — as a career move on a whole — does not pay the bills for more than a very small percent of those who attempt it. This doesn't stop me from trying though. I don't write for money or fame. I write because it makes me happy, because I want to change people's lives the way authors have changed mine, and because without writing, my mental health falls dramatically.

I have been sending in query letters to publishing agencies since 2008.

The first novel that I attempted to write was when I was still in elementary school. The Lord of the Rings movies were coming out, and I was reading the books. They inspired me in a way that I had never been inspired before. The story was about elves, because I found the whole culture very interesting, but very undone. Not sure what happened to this unfinished novel.

I hope I didn't throw it away.

The first novel that I started and finished was in late 2005. It was a very stereotypical, with random fights driven by teenage hormonal imbalances that told me everyone fought all the time for no reason, and over things that might have happened, but didn't. This story was about my own life, was scattered, was unplanned, and will hopefully never see the light of day.

I still read this novel every once in a while to remind myself how far I've come.

The second novel I wrote was much like the first. It was written in early 2006, was also about my own life, and was also fueled by teenage irrationality. This novel was deleted only days after being written, when I realized that if I was embarrassed of anyone finding it, it was not the best I could do.

I wish I hadn't deleted it, because deleting it was denying my own work, no matter how bad.

My third novel (St. John My Ass) was written literally in a week. I wrote it in May of 2006 after seeing the new X-Men movie. Yes, it was fanfiction, something I'm embarrassed to write now. It was the first story that started to gain me any form of recognition, and, although at the time I thought it was because I was good, I now realize it was because I was fulfilling what people wanted at the time: a fast paced story, where everything happens the way you want it to, about the newest hit in the fanfiction world.

I thought I had joined the Quizilla elite when I saw how much attention I was getting for this story.

The fourth novel I wrote was the prelude to the last one. I realized that I had started in the middle of a story, and wanted to ride out more of the thrill of people liking my writing. So, I wrote another fanfiction, about the same subject, with pretty much the exact same type of storyline and writing. To my horror, this one did not fair as well with the Quizilla public as the first had.

Popular culture had already moved on to the latest obsession.

For my fifth novel (But Home Is Nowhere — written late 2006), I decided to take a whack at writing something "original." Unfortunately, it wasn't very original, and it still had twinges of many fanfiction-y characteristics. I ended up locking this one away for no one to ever see again shortly after it was written.

I tried to read it not too long ago, and only made it through a few pages.

Sixth novel is the charm? Hardly. I used to love this story (Aingeal). In fact, it's still up. It was much more original than any other stories I had written up to this point. Yes, that's true. But, looking back, all I see are the major plot holes, the clichés, and the choppy parts where it becomes obvious that I had no plan. I wrote this sometime in 2006, which seems to be kind of the turning point in my writing.

This story was a mix of my obsession withBoondock Saints andUnderworld.

Sometime in 2007, I wrote Love Can't Save You. This was one of my final fanfics (though you can still find them from time to time, with much less evidence of it being a fanfic). Basically, I hit the high point of my Harry Potter obsession, fell in love with Fred for a little while, and wrote a fanfic about it. In all honesty, I hate the delivery of this story, but I still do hold a bit of a love for the plot I had in mind. There were supposed to be three of these, but only one was ever written. This is because the first needs major work.

Every once in a while, I think about working out the kinks, and finishing this project.

At the beginning of my ninth grade year of high school, I began writing Cosa Nuova. This story was, and remains to be one of my babies. I only speak of a few of my novels in this fashion, but this one made the cut. Not because I think the writing on it was good, or because it was terribly original, but, again, because of the idea behind it. It started out as a shining jewel in my mind. My mind just wasn't developed enough yet to do it justice.

I still edit this from time to time, trying to keep it up to parr, but I refuse to change the original storyline, so I never forget what I was like when I wrote it.

I think I wrote I Am Ireland in the summer of 2007. I had spent most of the school year arguing the advantages of guerilla warfare with one of my friends in our Biology class. He was convinced that this little group he had come up with in his mind could beat whatever guerilla group I could come up with. So, I put our fight into fiction. Of course my group won. It wouldn't have been worth writing if it didn't serve my argument.

Everyone in this novel is a real person.

I Just Need To Feel You Breathe is technically a fanfic, but it was the first of my fanfics that began to take on more of a life of it's own. The meticulous facts woven into this story come from my own obsession with Dropkick Murphys. Seriously, I was a super-stalker for a few years. And that's not easy with a band who's generally not in the limelight. I wrote this in 2007, and was beginning a sequel when I realized I didn't want to write another fanfic, even if I loved my main character more than any other I've ever created.

Deirdre's anxiety problems were the same I was dealing with at the time, entirely unaware of just how severe of a problem I had.

In mid2008 I started work on Tadhg Cuhal. I think this was the first project that I really lost myself in. It started as a short story I wrote in German to waste time. It was originally a story prompt I set up for a friend to use, but when he didn't want it, I used it myself. Then, Tadhg was born. As far as male main characters go, Tadhg is still one of my favourites, and I will always mourn his fate.

Tadhg was not supposed to die, but a series of events involving a real life Tadhg sealed his fate for him.

There was also not supposed to be a Fionnuala in the story at all. That same series of events created her.

In early 2008 I started work on Too Many Words. A then-unheard of book series that my friend Cassie had encouraged me to read was running rampant in my mind, and I had all sorts of improvements for it. So, I created a sort of alternate universe for it, and started telling Natalie's story.

The entire time I was writing it, I felt like it just wasn't right for me, and I seriously considered not posting it at all.

The summer of 2008, before my junior year of high school, one of my classmates died of an overdose. Although I hadn't been very close with him, he had been one of the most friendly people in our class, and, for one of the first times, I was experiencing the death of someone who made a difference in my life. I started having trouble sleeping, I watched the movie Stay for the first time, and, quite quickly, Memories That Kill was born. This story has it's low points and it's clichés. It has random scenes that don't belong, and it needs work. But, it still remains one of my babies.

I remember writing this in my room by lamplight, because I couldn't sleep, and I didn't want to think about Michael. I still remember the last conversation I had with him.

Shortly after writing Memories That Kill, I wrote Memories That Never Die. It remains to this day, the only real sequel I have ever finished. It was just one of those stories where I felt that too much was left out without getting an alternate perspective on events.

Besides, I've always liked Tommy more than Evelyn.

In November of 2008, I was informed of a competition by the name of National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo). In all honesty, I wasn't interested. But, I made the mistake of telling my teacher about it, and suddenly, it was offered as extra credit. So, I dug into a new novel, unsure what sort of damage would be done to my soul by writing a novel in a month. A month later, I had over 50,000 words done on my baby Amici; Fratelli; Famiglia.

I told myself this was the last mafia story I would ever write, and I wanted this era to go out with a bang.

Really My Favourite Mistake was started years earlier than it was put onto my project list. Just a little, one-scene write up. A blimp, really, of a story idea. But, it grew in my mind, until it developed into a full scale tribute to the unnatural connection of mind I have always felt to the lead singer of Motion City Soundtrack.

I've always felt like I would be able to present a Motion City Soundtrack song as explanation of what it's like to be in my head.

November 2009 night brought Sweet Delilah, my next baby. This was something entirely new for me, and I really didn't think it was going to work. I wanted to create chaos, and I wanted to create a bigger picture, all in one. Somehow, I achieved at least a glimmer of what I saw in my head, and Delilah remains one of the only characters I've created that I don't understand at all.

This was my second self publishing project.

In late 2009, I began to hit a rut. I had ideas, but none of them were working the way I wanted them to. My anxiety disorder was finally being treated, but it was a slow-going process, and I felt just sort of, well, off. My brother's girlfriend (now wife) gave me a journal and a pen for Christmas, and told me to write, so I did. I started writing a tale that I thought was sort of opposite of the one's you usually hear. Instead of creating someone who had a normal life and wanted a weird one, I gave you a girl who had a weird life and wanted a normal one. Throw in an eccentric father, a love interest who thinks he's Buddha, and a few crazy family members, and I came up with Tail Lights. This isn't one of my babies, but it's damn close.

This story didn't turn out with the same flare I wanted to give it.

Then, in mid-2010, inspiration struck. I had read Orwell and Wells, and I had watched movies like The Book of Eli. The show Survivors always interested me more when they were explaining what the world had become more than it did when the plot was actually moving forward. I could write a dystopia, couldn't I? I had the tools, the knowhow. All my life, I had been surrounded by people who always expressed the extreme negative of what the world was going to become. So, I started. I planned for months, got help from virtually everyone I knew, and by the end of the summer, my new baby, Devastation & Depredation was born. Although it has gotten less attention and reviews than I had hoped it would, I'm still planning on self-publishing this story.

My only disappointment with this story, is the inability to to spend describing one aspect of life, without losing the audience completely.

After Devastation & Depredation came the period of finishing up old idea. The first was The Power of Words. This was a story I had started just after Memories That Kill. It had a plot, a story line, and three chapters from various spots in the story. I had always planned on finishing this. I was just waiting for the right time in my own mind to get it written.

Stories like this, about the aftermath of mental disorders are what I often find myself wanting to be known for.

Angel's Wings was a story I started as a short story called The Bomb. A serial killer story, based off of the idea of randomness being the most dangerous form of killing. A serial killer who sees all as evil, and doesn't care about anyone's stories, because we all deserve to die for our sins. Unfortunately, the original write up didn't go as planned. My own life got in the way, and not even a week after finishing it, I had decided it needed to be rewritten.

This one could be a baby of mine, if I ever get it written the way I want it to be.

In November of this year came NaNoWriMo season once again, and this time I was attacking stereotypes. For years I've listened to Against Me!, and the way the lead singer thinks has always intrigued me. It's a level of logic that compliments my own, but is still somehow very dissimilar. Because of this, I felt like I needed to do something to pay tribute to their songs. Out of this, Searching For A Former Clarity was born.

This novel is not a baby of mine.

Currently, I've hit a slump much like the one I experienced before Tail Lights was written. I feel like I have so many ideas floating around in my head, but when I try to write it out, my mind works against me, telling me that I just don't have the motivation to write with beauty and vigor. Many things are in the works, one is my main focus, and nothing is getting done.

I need a spark to get me going.

So, that's my story to this point. Always a writer, usually disgruntled by writer's block or life.

What's your story? Do you have babies? Do you keep your own works that put you to shame, and make you wonder what was wrong with you?

Tell me anything. Tell me a story.