why did i start writing my books? ♡

Well, I really wanted to explain the whys and the hows of my books and their creations. I wanted to write it down and find the right words to explain why I wrote them, and why the main character is me, why I talk about the things I talk about, why I included the things I did.

    I started writing Anger is Bliss when I was in 11th grade (damn, the number 11 is everywhere innit). At that time, I hated my life a little bit, to be honest. I hated school, as I said in my acknowledgements. The buildings themselves were beautiful and I miss it every day, but the pressure, the schedule, the teachers I had, how it was at home, in my head...it was all draining and it made my mind messy.

    I admit I started writing to escape how miserable I was, but also how BORED I was with my life. Just like Andrea, I hate it when nothing happens, when everything in your life is neither good or bad, when nothing is really happening. It gets overwhelming because I have no other option but to be stuck with my own thoughts, and I swear on my (non-existent) father's life it can get scary lol.

    So, I felt bad, but somehow, I was also bored, and I thought, "I'll just start writing for me and see how it goes, I guess." I ended up writing a shit beginning of a story and deleting it and starting over the moment my best friend said she'd like to read it, because I was ashamed (as I should, it was atrocious). I started again, and I decided to write this romance book y'all love more than anything!!

    I spent my summer either reading stuff I saw on wattpad (it was all horrible and I think it's good I went through that because I avoided writing anything like it LOL) or writing (just a little bit). When school started again in September, I spent my free hours with my best friend and wrote my silly little story on my silly little phone.

    Everything, and I mean EVERY SINGLE THING, every chapter and every scene, is inspired by either scenarios in my head or videos I've seen on social media. I had no clear plot at first, I knew I wanted to share a message, perhaps a few at that, and I knew I wanted to satisfy the lack of comfort I get from any other romance book I've ever read by creating one myself, with the details and precise vocabulary and dialogue I wanted (lots of fluff and tension and teasing and flirting KRKRKR).

    But the more I wrote, the clearer it got.

I wanted to:

    - create something relatable for people who felt the way I did

    - I wanted real and accurate representation of what it's like growing up fat bc girl...

    - I wanted to heal and understand my feelings

    - I wanted to see a book with someone like me as the main character

    - I wanted to create a love interest unlike any I'd ever seen, better...the best. ETHEN SUPREMACY!

    - I wanted a book that actually showed what it's like to be traumatized by men and showed it's consequences without praising a "not all men" ideology

    - I wanted to create a romance that would comfort me and make me feel that heart wrench when I read it, which had never really happened to me with any other

    - I wanted more representation of what's it's like being a girl and a woman

    - I'm sure there's more but I'm brain-dead rn

    I've had clear goals since I realized I wasn't just writing because I was bored anymore. I wanted to bring people comfort. I wanted those people who felt like me, for either reason stated above, that they weren't alone. That they deserved to be loved, too. That they weren't weak. That I saw them.

    I wanted to give representation to those who felt like they didn't have any. I wanted those who felt alone since forever to feel appreciated when reading my books and feel like they weren't as alone as they've felt all this time.

    Another reason is, I've always considered myself somewhat unlovable. It obviously always made me suffer, and I wanted to be loved so badly I decided to create a universe where I would be. It always felt like everyone around me cared for each other and I was somehow always left out, one way or another. I wanted to create a world I could run to when I felt like that, where someone would love me more than anything and anyone and make it obvious. I wanted someone to love me, to hear me, to understand me, and I wanted that so badly I decided to created someone who would. And, obviously, it became more than that over time.

    I keep repeating I want my books to bring people comfort when reading them, but as much as writing them brought me so much more than I could ever imagine. It brought me a lot, both good and bad.

    Here's what I said when I made a video about it:

"My Roman Empire is how writing my books both healed and destroyed me. I know what I want and what I expect from this life now, I know what can make me happy and l have standards for the way others treat me now, but l don’t believe in love the way I used to. I don’t think I will find my perfect match because I no longer believe in soulmates, and I truly believe no one will ever love me the way my characters love each other, because I’m not sure anyone sees love the way I do. I had to accept that I would very probably end up alone when my entire life has been centered around/about romance. All I have left to do is exist, and keep on writing so l can live vicariously through my characters."

    My life was all about romance before these books. Writing them made me realize I have never ever felt like that for anyone and probably never will. The ability to feel romantic feelings is a mystery to me, but even if I set that aside, I realized I would for sure end up alone, so I had a hard time, and it took me months, but I accepted it, even after spending my whole life dreaming about it. Writing my books destroyed the way I see things and what I thought was important to me, it made me learn things about myself, it made me realize I wanted to either be loved entirely or not at all, either the way Ethen and Andrea love each other or nothing. And I knew a love like that was not something I would be granted. And even if I were granted such a thing, I also know now, thanks to my books and the way I wrote my own character, that I would never be able to trust another human being as much as they trust each other. I will never give anyone the power to make me miserable because I don't trust humans or their ability to love deeply. Real love only exists in art, because we humans are good at creating it for others to see, not at experiencing it. And if no one is capable of loving properly, then what's the point?

    Writing my main character based on me, my personality, my humour, my anger, my trauma, my fears, my beliefs, my dreams and so on, it made me realize just who I truly am and how much I've learned about myself through her. I realized I'm very angry, sort of funny, that I'm not as healed or as okay as I convince myself to be, that I'm playful, that I want to be loved more than I'd like, that I like attention, that I want to be someone favorite person more desperately than I had imagined (I also realized I had three beauty marks that form a line on my face while writing chapter 106 like...huh).

    I realized that, I'm strong, but she's stronger, that she can be loved but maybe I can't, that she's kinder than me and more intelligent than me and more deserving than me. Accepting I wrote a version of myself I want to be rather than am was hard, but it made me realize I could be better if I truly wanted to be, and she was the one I wanted to resemble.

    That's about all, to be honest. I might add a few things later by making another post, but it's almost 1am as I'm making this and I want to go to bed and dream about being famous, so hope that was clear! <3

Rea