Hi, there, reader! My name is Dragonwell, short for Dragonwell green tea (yes, it's an actual tea. I was as surprised by it's epic name as you might be).
I'm new to blogging myself and this is actually my first blog post that I've ever written, but one thing I'm definitely not new to is writing. My writing journey started when I was in elementary school (I don't remember how old I was) and I took a creative writing type class. I wrote a few little short stories and the longest poem about winter in the history of poems. I remember writing one silly little thing about a knight that saved a dragon and took it to safety instead of killing it like the king had ordered. There weren't any character names, just "The Knight" and "The Dragon" and "The King" and the guest stars, "the three dragons" and a random thought at the end: "Princess." I decided to pull it out to look at it to make sure I got all of the details correct. It's the silliest story, but most of the stories from back then are, and I'm sure there are a lot of people who can say the same thing about the things they wrote as a little kid. I certainly would never share it with anyone, but I remember reading it to the class and being so proud of it, even though some older boys were snickering while I was reading it. I didn't realize it until I was older, but...it was snicker worthy if I do say so myself.
After that, I started writing Nancy Drew stories, which would probably be considered fanfiction, and I posted them on a messenger board for pretty much all things Nancy Drew related. I grew out of that, though, but I think it really helped hone my writing skill and my love for the art. From what I remember, I seemed to get fairly good responses, but I kind of faded out of the writing interest for a while until I started writing more and more fanfiction. I took another writing class in late middle school and wrote this pretty cool spy story that I tried to write a sequel to a year or two ago, but I simply couldn't. I still love the story even though the plot was fairly weak, but that didn't make me a writer. I spent a while writing fanfiction and calling myself a "writer" even though I really wasn't. I hadn't really written anything I could call my own, even though I had started a few things that I never finished. They were simply ideas that I started putting words to, and they probably would have been fairly interesting books if I could've figured out their plots before setting them aside to return to my fanfiction.
One thing that started as an idea that slowly grew words and sentences and faces and names was a book called The Daughter of Robin Hood. I think it started in 2011 when I started watching this spectacular TV show called Leverage. That show inspired my book. I rather liked it, but I set it aside for a while until I was encouraged by someone who had read a few of my stories. I had given him mostly the beginnings of stories that really hadn't flown off and spread their wings, but he still gave me a lot of praise and encouragement. The Daughter of Robin Hood had been his favorite, even though I had never really thought about going anywhere with it. But then that happened, so I picked it up again. Unfortunately it took a wrong turn, so I dropped it because it was so boring. I returned to the fanfiction scene, but then in 2012, my writing became more and more serious.
I had heard of this thing called NaNoWriMo quite a few times over the years, mainly from one of my closest friends. We met in the middle school writing class, bonded over our love of writing and Percy Jackson and the Olympians by Rick Riordan, and we've been friends ever since. Our friendship has grown closer and closer ever since. I decided to do NaNoWriMo in 2012. It was my first year ever doing it. I was going to start this completely new story, even though I barely knew anything about it. I had most of it planned out and it was waiting to begin, but a week before November first, I mentioned to her, "I could do this one, or The Daughter of Robin Hood." She encouraged me to restart TDRH (The Daughter of Robin Hood), and I'm so grateful that she did encourage me! I knew how I wanted it to end, I had all of the characters named and the plot figured out, so I only needed to make minor changes.
That week before NaNoWriMo 2012 started, I made those minor changes, created these posters out of giant pieces of paper with all of the character information and locations and everything like that, and I put them on my wall near my desk. Quite a few times, especially around two to three days before NaNoWriMo started, surprises kept popping up and obstacles kept appearing that almost made me want to chicken out of it and go back to my original plan, but my mom told me stick with TDRH because I had made the posters. A day or so (or something like that) before NaNoWriMo started, my friend added me to this group. It was just a NaNoWriMo support group with people I didn't really know, so I wasn't sure if I wanted to spend much time in it, but--BAM!! We bonded over our love and passion for writing. We fell in love with each other's characters, we shared excerpts, and they introduced me to keysmashing, fangirling (even though I already did that but didn't know that's why I went into a nerdy-giggling frenzy over pictures of Loki), the use of gifs, and the increased use of my all caps key basically the ten million benefits of being a nerd.
All of us in the group quickly became really good friends. I found people that I actually had stuff in common with, like our love of books and writing and Marvel superhero movies and British TV. We soon became The Tea Spitters. Being in The Tea Spitters really made my first NaNoWriMo experience 100 times better. We encouraged each other, did timed word wars together when we were stuck and we had the most fun conversations late at night. It's a blast being a Tea Spitter, but having them as my friends is even more amazing. In this group I found a love and an addiction to sharing my work. Before then I had never really shared my work with anyone, and I deeply wish I had shared it, because this group made me realize that, maybe, I'm not that bad of a writer. They've really been great encouragements to me and they're the sweetest girls.
I won NaNoWriMo my first year in November 2012, but recently finished TDRH. If you're wondering what it's about, it's about Lenora "Lee" Hood. She ran away from her father Robin Hood and started her own band of thieves. Three years later, she's ready to quit and go into permanent hiding, AFTER she steals the prince's fortune. It's the first thing I've ever finished that I can actually put my name on it and call it my own. It was a spectacular feeling, even though I may or may not have moped around that evening not sure what to do with myself. Even though I'm currently experiencing a tad bit of writer's block and struggling to write something not involving my precious characters and this Irish dude named Sweeney that I've fallen madly in love with (don't judge me). I still have two or more books to write about my favorite characters, and many more names and story ideas that have crossed my mind.
I think TDRH might be the first step in my writing journey, and I'd never ever change that for the world. I'm glad I restarted it in November because I fell back in love with it, I wasn't just writing it because someone saw potential in it. I was writing it because I wanted to write it and I was determined to see it to the end. Because of that, it was an amazing, beautiful feeling, and writing this blog post and thinking about my favorite story that I've that I've written so far makes me want to cry because I love it so much.
Lots of love,
Dragonwell
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