A Novel I Wrote

A while back I promised a post about a novel I was working on - Rosalie Grace and the Internet Assassins. It's not that great of a name, I know, but I didn't come up with it myself. The novel was actually a collaborative effort between myself and a friend of mine. Allow me to explain.

My friend Lily and I joked about us being superheroes at one point, and idly wondered what our superpowers would be. It turned out to be a fun thing for us to talk about, and at one point she asked if I might write a comic strip about it. I had to regretfully deny her request - I can't draw at all, pretty much. But I did promise her I would write a little story about it - and she liked the idea and said she'd help me with it.

So began Rosalie Grace's adventures - a fictional version of my friend - and her co-hero, Kyle - a fictional version of myself. The book started without the two even knowing each other, not to mention the fact that they didn't have any powers. As it progressed, one 3,000-word chapter at a time, they began to discover things about themselves, and to develop personalities all their own. I would send each chapter to Lily, and she would look it over, telling me what needed to be changed, what would make things more exciting or interesting. As I strove to keep her attention through each individual chapter, few chapters are actually what I would consider "boring" when taken by themselves. For exactly half of the book (all the way to chapter 20), Lily helped me tweak it to the story she wanted.

Unfortunately, all good things come to an end, and this came to an end far earlier than I would've liked. Lily and I had a sort of "falling out" - entirely my fault. The details aren't necessary... But we didn't talk much after that, and the progression of Rosalie's adventure was postponed indefinitely.

More good things came to an end, and my laptop ceased to function. Over those months, as I had managed to keep a copy of the story, I began to finish it myself. It was more difficult without having my friend around to test each chapter out, but I improvised and used my brothers. While they didn't know her, they knew her character, Rosalie, and they pointed out things they thought I could change. It was considerably more difficult, but I didn't have much else to do, and I desired to keep my promise to her and finish the story - in hopes that it might repair the friendship.

Over the course of their adventures, Rosalie and Kyle discovered their supernaturally-based powers (a twist I invented) and came to terms with using them - they each had severely conflicting views over how they should be used - and evaded being tracked down by a number of large organizations that always had them on the run. Kyle incidentally developed a crush on Rosalie, who interestingly enough didn't share the sentiment. It ended with the world-saving action typical of a superhero movie or book, and a grand total of over 120,000 words - 150% more than I'd originally intended.

Several months ago I presented the book to Lily, and it brought her to tears to know I'd finished it for her. Unfortunately, she still hasn't finished reading it... But oh well. All good things come to an end, right?

Of the people who I've chosen to read it to see what they think, only one person has actually finished the book: my dad. I give him kudos for that alone. He gave the following "review":

"Wow! I've read most of it... very good! The whole supernatural thing is a bit over the top (or over the edge, in a Catcher in the Rye sorta way) for mainstream audiences. Mommy would dislike that. You should politely ignore any criticism from her, if she ever gets around to reading it. I laughed a lot... '...Jim Carrey without meaning to'... '...glared at him, though it did no good'... lol"

It was the first time anybody has ever really "reviewed" anything I've written, and I'm pretty pleased with it. I have another friend who I know for sure is working on reading it - but she only works about a chapter at a time, and she's only through Chapter Three at the moment.

I'm not sure if I'll publish it. It contains a lot of copyrighted material in it - I'll have to rewrite/tweak large sections of it in order to try to sell it. I may just eventually release it and let anyone read it who wants to. The only problem is... nobody really seems to want to read it.