Ten years had passed since I had written anything.
In my hands, I held a book I’d never finished, the last project I had worked on—a dusty first draft that was supposed to be my “greatest” work.
Tangled plotlines, inconsistent characters, haywire emotional beats. As I flipped through those pages, I realized—I couldn’t do it. I wasn’t good enough as a writer. I wasn’t then, and I wasn’t now.
I needed skills.
I needed practice.
I needed experience.
I needed to pull off an easier, simpler story, and maybe, if I could do that, I could regain my confidence—confidence that I could be a writer again. So I began rifling through all my old notes and novel drafts, looking for an easy concept, a project I could practice on, in preparation for my magnum opus.
That’s when I rediscovered Kyen.
A well-loved and long-time character, Kyen first came to life on the page when I was fourteen. Back then, Kade had been a dragon, Adeya an angry sea princess, and Finn a fire-wielding mage. But Kyen? He’d been the same young, shy, bumbling swordsmaster. Their mission? To collect some magic stones and defeat a dark lord. Boy, was their plot a hot mess! No structure, no grasp of conflict, cringe-worthy prose, basically no description—but the characters and the concepts were strong. So I decided to tell Kyen’s story again as preparation for the book I really wanted to write.
I stripped out the old plot and built a new one. I completely reforged the world, the conflict, and the characters, and started typing. When I reached “The End,” I couldn’t believe my eyes. This was the strongest novel I’d ever written—the first time I could say to myself, “Yes, I would hand this to a reader.” Instead of practice for my magnum opus, Kyen’s story had become it.
But more than that, I’d fallen in love with the characters again and the journey that they are on. Kyen’s story is one of rebirth, not only because he’s risen from the wreckage of an old draft, but because his journey in the book is one of being made new. He does not end as the same man. The journey he’s on mirrors my own. After a ten year absence, I’ve rediscovered the writer in me as I told his story. I’ve stepped out of the ashes of my old writing life, just as Kyen is stepping out of the man he used to be.
Kyen and I, we’re both back—apparently for a 5-book series now.
Never in my wildest dreams did I think this practice project would become a passion project. And it all begins in The Kingmaster.
Have you ever been on the brink of giving up on your creative endeavors? What kept you going? Share your story below!
