*does happy dance* IT'S DONE!!!! ERMAGERD, FINALLY!!!

So, I just finished the final draft of Memories of What Never Was, and if you feel the great urge to read it, you can do so for free at the bottom of this page.

So, about 20 years ago, I was writing my first novel length story.  It was crap.  The less said about it the better.  And I was coming up with what would be my second novel length story at the time.  That one was also crap.  But while writing that second story I did a lot of thought on the backstory and how everything came to be in the world of that second novel length story.  So naturally, I wrote a story that takes thousands of years later next, instead of the backstory for my third novel length story.  It was REALLY crap.  And then I came back to the backstory for that second novel length story and thought, yeah, I could do that one.  So I wrote it out, and I called it Beyond the Lost Horizon.  This was about fifteen or sixteen years ago.  At the time, I thought it was pretty good.  It wasn't.  It was crap. 

I had big plans for that book.  It was a massive tome, almost 350k words.  And it was to be the first book of a six book series.  I even wrote a rough draft of what would have been the second book.  Which was craaaaaaaaap.  Anyway, I tried to sell that one.  I tried HARD to sell it.  I probably sent submissions in to about 300 different literary agents and publishers.  I got one bite, but it turned out to be a scam in the end.  Defeated, I set it aside, and went to work on my next project, which was the original version of Spires of Infinity.  Which was actually not that bad, but did have some serious problems with it.

Once I finished Spires of Infinity, I looked back on Beyond the Lost Horizon, and thought to myself, you know what, self?  I can do better.  I really liked the world in which the story took place, but the characters were pretty bland and generic, and the story was cliche, generic, and just plain terrible, and the writing wasn't great either.  I thought to myself, this world, and these characters deserve better than what I'd given them the first time around.  So I set to rewriting the entire thing from scratch.  I developed a TON of new lore, and gave the characters new, and better motivations.  And I started writing it.  And it turned out crap.  So I set it aside again, and went to work on my next novel length story I Am Nobody, which, again, wasn't terrible, but wasn't great either.  And all while working on that one, I was thinking how I could fix Beyond the Lost Horizon to make it work.

And so, about 5 years ago I started work on the current version.  The original story was way, WAY too long at 350k words.  I wanted something that was more in the 130k-170k range.  So I took what was about the first third of the original Beyond the Lost Horizon story and completely reworked it with all the new lore, and basically completely new characters that just happened to have the same names, and I called it Memories of What Never Was, which would be the first book of the Beyond the Lost Horizon trilogy. 

There was a lot of work that needed to be put into it to get it just right.  I rewrote it probably three times before I came up with a first draft of something that I actually felt good about.  And I had to put it on hold for long stretches due to burnout at my job with the Post Office, and needing to work through some story elements that weren't quite working before continuing.  It's taken me about 5 years to get Memories of What Never Was to the point where I actually feel like it's finished, on top of all the other versions and incarnations that this story has been through before it.  I've rewritten this book so many times I should get a medal for keeping my sanity.

I really like this version of the story, and of the characters.  I feel like I've done a pretty good job of it.  I'm actually pretty proud of the FINALLY completed book.  I've been working on this thing, in some form or another, off and on, for half of my entire life now.  And it's finally in a form that I feel ISN'T crap.   ........and it's only 1/3 of the story....... *sigh*  The good news is that I have the characters, the world, and the lore all figured out.  It really took some doing to put it together and get it to this point, but the foundation is already there instead of being built from scratch, so hopefully, I don't take another 40 years to write the next two volumes.

Anyway, if you feel the great urge to check out the product of my blood, sweat, and tears, again, you can read it at the bottom of this page And a reminder that it is in manuscript format, which means 12 point courier font, double spaced, and all italics are underlined instead.  Also, copyright, etc.  I own it.  It's mine.  Don't steal it.  I worked on it for twenty freaking years.