For all of my beloved American readers, yesterday was Victoria Day here in Canada, making it a long weekend, and what a beautiful long weekend it was! I had to spend every night at work, though, but I didn't mind it too much (getting paid time and a half was a great bonus for Monday). I found the time to get all over my notes organized - I'm starting to spend a large part of my pay check on ink, paper and binders- and I got some work done on Treason!
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| From left to right: Promise by Diana Knight, Promise by Diana Knight, Forever On A Silver Chain by Diana Knight, and PTSD by Diana Knight - Drafts and Ideas |
When I first started working on Promise during August 2008 - wow! Almost four years already! - I never intended it to be what it is now. I never thought I'd consider sending out the manuscript, and I certainly never thought that it would be complete enough to even be considered a manuscript. It wasn't even called Promise back then, because I hadn't planned on the other three books that now follow it. There was no need for the first book to start with a P in order to fit in with the series title PTSD. Back then, when I found it absolutely necessary that my first draft have a title, I called it Summer Love, because, that's what it was in essence. Summer Love told a very naive story about a teenage girl named Sara who somehow falls in love with a boy named Nick. The end. I only wrote it as a past time to get whatever idea wouldn't leave me alone back then off my mind. I thought it would be over when I wrote The End on the sixteenth page, but it wasn't. By December 2008, Summer Love had twenty-eight pages, seventeen chapters, and just a little over thirteen thousand words. Sara and Nick found a way to stay with me, even though I thought that I was finished with their story.
It was almost like they had a mind of their own and they did not want to be forgotten. Before I knew it, they were constantly popping into my head in all of these different scenarios that just had to be written down. In early 2009, Summer Love had grown even more. It now contained fourteen chapters, a prologue, and an epilogue, adding up to fifty-six pages and almost fourteen thousand words. I printed out the very first copy of Summer Love that I lent out for review on April 3rd, 2009. By that time, it had twenty chapters, a prologue, and an epilogue, spanning over fifty-four pages and containing twenty-two thousand five hundred words. May 2009 brought on some editing and the story was cut down to twenty-one thousand words, forty-eight pages, and an unlisted number of chapters.
This went on until December when the title changed. After Summer Love came Forever On A Silver Chain; it was the same story, though more elaborate and longer. The title came after the discovery of Sara's necklace, offered to her by Nick at the end of Promise - which is still found in the final draft to this day. I was writing one December afternoon while at home on my Christmas holidays. I had come up with the idea of Nick offering Sara a necklace described as a silver necklace, and it was one of the most extraordinary things that I had ever seen. It was a small silver heart, with a single diamond, that hung on a delicate silver chain. Copyright © 2012 by Diana Knight After I had finished writing that passage, my mum asked me if I would be interested in going to the store with her to finish her Christmas shopping. I happily said yes, glad to have found a reason to step away from the computer. While browsing through the busy aisles, I came across a necklace that had been abandoned on a shelf by a shopper. It was a small silver heart with a single stone that hung on a delicate silver chain.
In July, Forever On A Silver Chain was complete at almost one hundred pages. The plot was slowly starting to change into something more interesting. The idea of Sara getting hurt was introduced, and more chapters were added. This draft held twenty-seven chapters and was fifty words short of thirty thousand. It took thirteen months for the plot to become what it is today. In September of 2009, still under the title Forever On A Silver Chain, the plot of Promise was created. It took almost two and a half years after that for it to be developed completely into the manuscript that it is today. It was worth it. The series took on the title PTSD, giving the first book the title Promise, only a few months ago. It seemed that this change in title is what gave me the motivation and will to finish the book.
Instead of an excerpt, I'l leave you instead with the table of contents of my very first draft. The pages are few, and the chapters numerous - there was about three-quarters of a page of writing per chapter.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: The Beginning
Chapter 2: Camp
Chapter 3: Back In Time
Chapter 4: Not So Bad
Chapter 5: Round The Tables You Must Go
Chapter 6: Summer Love
Chapter 7: One Special Night
Chapter 8: What Next
Chapter 9: The Second Night
Chapter 10: Thinking It Over
Chapter 11: Friendship
Chapter 12: Growing Stronger Together
Chapter 13: One Final Chance
Copyright © 2012 by Diana Knight
Now, doesn't that sound like a best-seller to you? (That was sarcasm, by the way)
Thanks for stopping in today, even if it is Tuesday, and thank you to those who stopped in yesterday. I'm sorry that I couldn't have something up sooner.
Enjoy the weather, and stay gold!
xx
Di
P.S. This week's song is hard to pick, there's just so many that I've liked over the past week. I'll leave you with two. There's A Place For Us by Carrie Underwood, and You Make Me Feel... by Cobra Starship Ft. Sabi
Carrie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCh-cLHJJjE
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