If you picked it up and started thumbing through the pages I would get sick to my stomach and snatch it away from you before you could read a word.
When it was empty, I found it stowed with the unwanteds in a thrift store once, and it changed my life. It's red, and has stained my clothes and hands several times from toting it everywhere, hunching over the pages and scrawling in thousands of words. The binding is duct-taped and it's a horrible ugly thing to look at, but I love it. I poured my heart into it for at least a year, I laughed over it, screamed at it, and the tears of not just me, but my sisters and mother wrinkle the pages from crying in it. It was the book that holds the words of the first story I ever wrote that latched on to me and wouldn't let go; not even now.
It started as a dream that refused to be ignored so I wrote it down in that red book, then it kept going and going, pouring out of my mind so fast my pen couldn't keep up. I was writing! I knew that I belonged there, I wasn't looking for my future, but God brought it to me all at once and I couldn't say no.
It was a simple story. I saw a girl and a guy who should have hated each other in each other's arms waiting out a storm, prepared to face the danger together, and his family standing behind, her, their enemy when they could have ran and saved themselves.
Then I realized something was different about this couple-- Angela Moonfire and Cole Silvermane, he was a wolf and she was a Luparii, born and raised to kill the monsters.
I didn't want to write it (sometimes I still don't.) Normal people don't write stories about Luparii and werewolves...
You ask me in person what my book is about and I'll squirm and dance around the subject. What would you think of me? I really am a coward, always have been. It took me years to sing the songs I wrote, I didn't show anyone my drawings of dragons, gryphons, and strange, and sometimes just plain ugly creatures that I created. It took me nearly a year to share my red book with my mom.
I play chicken with my stories, songs, and even my faith, telling myself I'll share them, but pull away at the last minute, retreating to my safe place in my head where I say what's on my mind, fearless and bold. I really like that Daundra.
My relatives used confident, brave, creative to describe me, everyone, and I wondered who they were talking about, I'd give them creative, but confident... no, I most definitely am not, yes I have bleached blonde and black dyed hair, I wear dark eyeliner and bold eye makeup, and my outfits are, I will admit, completely and utterly crazy (but I still love them.) But no matter how confident I look, inside I'm constantly worrying about what other people think of me, if they'll still love me if I write a song about my horse, and write books about werewolves, doodling them in notebooks when nobody is looking.
I heard something on the radio station Air 1 once that struck a chord as the singer (I forget his name) talked about creativity. He said that creative people also have a insecurity that goes along with that creativity, and I understood. An author that has impacted my life by her writing articles, Holly Lisle said something like this: when you write a novel it's like stripping your mind naked and parading it through the streets for the whole world to see. It strips you down to your bare bones and once it's out there you can't hide.
I like to hide, just like I hid the pages of my red book from everyone, especially the ones I loved the most. I don't let people see the real me because they might not like it, they might condemn me and call me names. Moving to Texas has helped that a lot, even though I'm terrified of going back to Arkansas with my strange hair and clothes, I've lost sleep over what our old preacher would think; I really looked up to him.
Now as I'm reflecting on how far the story in that red book has come, now a first draft sitting in my hard drive and in three other's of people who I look up to and respect-- publishing Moonfire will be a huge hurdle for me to clear. I won't be able to hide, and I won't be able to dance around the subject.
It started with an ugly red book, just seven days before I turned sixteen, and now as I prepare my Silvermoon Series based off that dream I had when I was fifteen I realize how far I've come as a writer and as a person and where I still need work.
This post is so hard to write, even with a computer screen distancing the people I know, it's hard to write about what my books are about because it's what I'm about, it's what motivates me to get up at four in the morning to work on for five hours straight, it's what I dream about even when I'm awake, you can disagree if you want but I believe God gave them to me to grow me and teach me about Him. I can't not write them, if I wrote 'normal' stories my heart wouldn't be in them. It's not me.
This is so hard, but I want to be brave for once, last time I took a risk and let my mom open up my red book, she fell in love with my story and our relationship grew, I dyed my hair black and white and my parents still loved me, I spiked my hair down the middle of my head and wore yellow skinny jeans in church and they didn't throw me out. So here I am.
Hello world, my name is Daundra Park and I like to write novels about ruthless Luparii with silver swords and misunderstood werewolves-- there I wrote it-- now let's see how brave I'll be when I'm face to face with the people I look up to...
We'll see.
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