The Book That Never Was.

Once upon a time I was a much younger Hickory. Actually, back then, I was just plain Amanda. I had no Psuedonym.

Before love and heartbreak, children and the hardships of poverty, I aspired to be an author. It was my dream from the very first little book I wrote in the 6th grade.

I dabbled with stories about dolphin families, horse herds and unicorns. It wasn't until I was about 17 or 18 that my writing became serious. Multiple ideas grouped and built and before I knew it I had a real plot.

I wrote every day without fail, hours at a time. I wrote on the bus, at work, I wrote sitting in the pasture, leaning against a tree while my horse cropped grass.

Sometimes my mother would bring me dinner and it would sit and grow cold because I was not inhabiting the same world she was. I couldn't grow hungry or tired or hear or see the world around me. I would write until four or five in the morning, when I was forced to stop because I couldn't see straight anymore.

My charactors were real people, living inside of my head and I saw their stories unfold, sometimes my pencil could barely keep up.

Two and a half years passed and I finally put that pencil down. I'd finished. Time to buy a laptop and get my second draft on the computer.

It was easier, that revision. The editing and such flew by, it was so much faster with so many of the words already in existance, haha!

At the end I added all the words, chapter by chapter. I thought it was a pretty respectable number. Then I averaged it out using small font and typical layout.

276,000 words, as it turns out, is over 2,000 pages long. Two. Thousand. Pages.

I went to work deciding what had to go, and where to split it into two.

It was a monumental undertaking.

In that time I was scammed by a fake Agency. At the time they were called "Writer's Literary Agency". They currently go under the name "Stratigic Book Publishing and Rights Agency."

If you are interested in writing, do yourself a huge favor and scan the "Writer's Beware" list before speaking to any would-be agent.

So, why was my monster undertaking never to be a book? It starts with Thumper. My mother's adorable dwarf rabbit. Light gray with dark gray points. The little beast ate my noteboooks. All seven of them. They were kept on a low shelf on my desk were he could reach them.

Notes, research, drawings, references, brainstorming, and the story itself, gone. The only place it existed at that point was on my computer, and in the hands of a fraudulant "Agency".

I wasn't worried. I was raised on technology. My boyfriend knew all sorts of things about computers, he built his own computers!

When it crashed and no one, and no thing could retrieve the data, I was crushed. I stopped writing. I stopped eating. I couldn't life for a good many months. Think Bella Swan after Edward left.

I made many attempts over the years to recreate my story. I love my charactors and could have had many follow up novels with them. It would have been quite a series.

But after life turned me upside down and inside out, I could never find the focus, the positivity or the drive to hammer it all out again.

I have a new story in mind. If I can keep myself motivated and push myself, perhaps I can start anew.

Other writers have lost great works. Some were able to recover and keep writing. Some never could.

I can only hope I am among the latter.

This young woman birthed an entire universe. A place with dragons and elves and mountains and epic worldscapes.

Can the depressed, moody, tired woman I've become try again? Where to find the time? The heart? The will...

I'm going to try again. One more time. I almost have to. How do you give up on something in your soul?

Wish me luck, Steemit!

Love to you!