I named Akin Minds because Fictionpress wouldn’t let me upload it without a title. I had about a minute to decide.
Eighteen years later, I’m still using it. I’ve been writing this since I was 16.
This is Blog #100, and I want to talk about where it all began.
I discovered Fictionpress a long time ago, and probably when I was doing the most writing in my life. Schoolwork? Nah, I had an epic novel series to write. It invaded everything, and even now, it still perpetuates my life. I’ve never had a better grip on myself and the inner workings of my brain than when I’m writing.
I tried to tell this story a thousand ways over the years. My main goal was always to write the prequel series to this one first. But when this started to finally flow, it wouldn’t stop.
I wrote the first scene in one sitting. At the time, it was really different. I leaned more heavily on the mystery of Ryoku than the worldbuilding, didn’t start out with action. Honestly, the old drafts version of Ryoku was a little better off in the start than he is now. He’s always been witty at the worst times, coy and dry, a bit dumb, and carrying more emotional trauma than he ever deserved. I took heavy style inspiration from Shakespeare. The scene setting blurb, using Acts and Scenes, including a Dramatis Personae, all stem from there. In early edits, I even put author notes at the beginning of every scene. (low key: it’s all still online here)
I’d write scenes around and during class. Other writers or readers I collaborated with would read scenes as I posted them, rather than wait for full books. Even today, I sometimes write scenes imagining someone reads them as they appear, not as part of a full published novel.
I published Akin Minds for the first time on October 17th, 2013. I had an original, very simplistic, vision for the cover. Black and violet. The publishing house, Xlibris, made something that wasn’t quite it, but I didn’t care for a while. The dream was real. I just kept going, convinced it’d be fine in the end, and released Book 2.
By the time book 3 reached the editing phase, the warning in the back of my mind was screaming. I knew it needed better, and I didn’t want to continue using an American publisher. I started searching for a literary agent. Instead, I found a more local Canadian publisher, Tellwell, and began the process of moving over.
Rather than just port my book over, I knew it needed some editing. I took that and ran with it – rewrote the whole book from start to finish. Draft Ryoku grew into something sharper, better. I could incorporate new ideas I introduced in later books. From the 2013 edition, I could already see how I’d improved. Action became better. Descriptions leveled up. I dove into character relationships the way I wanted to. I took a year with the book, rewriting (twice, thanks to a huge technical error), and polishing until I was content.
I even had a new cover made, for free, using a site called Simbi. That artist made the current cover for Akin Minds and character art of Ryoku, but eventually had to move on. Through Tellwell, I released the first and second books (The Tome) again, and much more affordable than before.
But it still wasn’t enough. As I geared up to release Ruinbound, I craved more control. Instead of needing a full reset like I did before, I reclaimed my books and the accounts associated with them. With full control, I could now edit them at any time with minor fees, making future editions much easier to print.
I now had full control over my books. It’s easier to do now than it was back in the beginning, so my mistakes don’t feel as grave as they could have – I learned on the way.
Where I’m at now in the writing process, looking back on Ryoku and the structure of Akin Minds is nostalgic. Book One was simpler. Characters were more emotionally innocent. Complexity existed, but the world was less cruel to them. Loss hurt, but didn’t hollow them out. Characters recovered. Ryoku was allowed to grow. What loss exists in that book, I allowed to breathe. Akin Minds is intimate and personal. One boy tried to understand something bigger than him. He still had innocence. A mistake didn’t end the world.
Book One was the last time these characters didn’t know what was coming. Book One is the shoreline; later books are the storm. Hope didn’t have to fight so hard. To look back from the battlegrounds of the series’ middle, it’s almost as nostalgic as looking back at when I first started writing the series. Or of the same gravity, but a different threshold.
Creating my 100th blog post on this website reminds me of the earliest days, and we’ve grown considerably since then. Author, readers, and characters together. I know that, by the next landmark, we’ll be in altogether different places. It’ll all come day after day, one foot before the next, until suddenly we’re far ahead of where we began. The shoreline is long behind us now, but the storm isn’t finished yet.
Sovereign Soul 