I started writing Child of Intention in 2017 when the world was different. I was different. Coming out of two year relationship that ended sadly for me, I felt like relationships were never going to work for me. I always gave my heart away and it was always handed back to me, sometimes politely and sometimes with cruelty.
I can't exactly remember when I decided I was going to write my own story but it all started with Keirin and Amara. It's amazing to me that years later, they are as fully formed in my head as the day I started writing the first lines of the book.
What I was unprepared for in December was the feeling that everyone was going to know me once they read this book. They would travel into the secret places of my mind. Someone will see the men that I dream about. In the lines of the book are my beliefs and morals, my views on right and wrong, gender and sexuality, freedom and consent. I've often sat wondering which one of the characters is truly my favourite. Being heterosexual ( I know so boring ) Venti is a stunning woman, but I'd just want her to be fighting in my corner. To pick between the men? It's impossible.
Keirin is the most clever and the most duplicitous and grumpy, but I have hope that his heart is golden. Theylin has a heart full of passion and fire but there won't be any long revealing conversations about his theories on life. Erid is so good and has that annoying optimism, that youthful shine of a person who just hasn't had their heart truly broken. I envy him so much for that. But I love having them all in my life.
I have been blown away by the feedback and comments and compliments that people have given me about the book. I hoped that it would be that way. I would enjoy reading a chapter again and again, hearing their voices in my head and seeing physical comedy or strength in my minds eye.
There is of course the dark side to feedback and reviews. There is probably an art to learning how to take a bad review on the chin. I have not mastered this art yet. The silver lining is that no one has said that my writing is terrible, let us set the bar right there. I'm so happy to hear that people find the world vivid, that they can see, hear and taste a place that I feel I can walk through at will. What are the hard things to hear? That for some people my story is a bit heavy on the world building and has a slow burn.
This is of course, a 100% correct evaluation of the book. There was a moment in reviewing the chapters that I knew I was asking the reader to walk slowly with me from Earth to Beluvial. It was the journey I took as the book unfolded on the page. I could have inserted a portal in the right place and had Amara fall through onto Mehkar's head right in front of the .... * no spoilers please *. I absolutely didn't want the story to progress that way.
There is so much detail I have written down about the characters and the world in note books that never made it into the book. I really wanted the reader to feel like the author knew so much more about this world then was written in the pages. I can accept that for some people that level of depth just isn't for them.
Another sad truth that I'm going to spend the next week correcting, that there are apparently some typos in the text. This is sadly true. I paid for professional editing but most of the proof reading I had to do on my own to save money. Unlike most people in the last two years I've also been struggling with neurological problems that I only recently found out affect my ability to write and correct my writing. So I'm accepting my mistakes, I had a lot working against me.
But there was no mistake in putting these characters onto the page, no mistake in watching them grow into their own. I desperately want to start explaining in the second book what happens at the end of Child of Intention. There's so much more that I can't wait to find out and see through the characters eyes.
I am going to be proud forever that people have come back to me saying they just couldn't put my book down. I cannot thank my friends and family enough for their support. I hope that the characters in this book at least for a time keep people from feeling lonely. That's an achievement I didn't dare to dream of.
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