Forgotten piece of paper, lying there
Waiting to be found
Waiting to be remembered
World that time forgot, lying there
Changes happening, changes stirring
Never the same

Mirin examined the piece of paper more closely. It was a faded, wrinkled picture, sitting towards the bottom of an old box. She hadn’t fully emptied the box in years.

Four girls were in the picture, two with dark, nearly black hair and two with light brown hair. The girl on the left had dark hair and Lacan eyes. A young version of Mirin was next to her. Mirin was the tallest in the picture. Her hair was in braids—it must have been taken when she twelve, Mirin thought. Over fifty years ago. Lee Nalanina would have been ten. Seana Cossallow, to the right of Mirin, was the shortest. She and Seraline were both nine.

It was before much of what would unfold over the next few years, that which would free Rhetia, had happened. They were carefree children. Seraline’s relatives would kill Seana—of that Mirin was sure, though she did not know for a fact. In the picture, the girls’ arms were around each other. Seana had a smile.

Seraline’s mother had taken the picture, Mirin remembered that now. Little Seraline, so glad to be getting a picture with the big girls. Mirin and Lee had been about to compete their first year of junior elite; Seana was a Level 9/10 with Tiana and Tara.
They looked so young and carefree. They were carefree, in a sense. Both Seana and Mirin had had siblings who had been killed by soldiers, but they didn’t really understand that when the picture was taken. Seana herself would be killed only a few years, after helping Mirin’s younger sister to safety. Seraline would be killed in a car crash when she was in her early forties, leaving her children to be raised by their father. Mirin had not heard from Lee in many years. Friends grow apart, change, become different people.

A picture is forever.

I found my first story, Niana, last night. Well, it wasn’t my first story. It was, however, my first story of a decent length, my first story in which I had an ending in mind. I changed some of the events, though, and stopped working on it.

This was before I dated the pages of my stories, but I recall working on Niana when I had to do puppy-watching duty. Our dog had puppies and we had to watch to make sure she didn’t smother them and they didn’t get lost in the house. They are all grown-up now and when I visited California, I got to see my dear little puppy, all grown-up. There were nine of them and she was the youngest and one of two girls. This would have taken place February of 2008, about five years ago now.

It’s funny sometimes the memories that an old story brings up. Any story conjures up images in your mind. But the coolest thing, to me, is when you are the author. It is so hard to get down exactly what you mean on paper. As you read those words you wrote five years ago, you see those scenes so strongly in your head. It is as powerful as a memory of a real event, if not more so in your omniscience. To write, to really write, you have to get into the head of your characters. All of them, not just the main character. You might not write about the other characters’ thoughts and feelings, but you have to know them in order to be able to accurately write about what they would say and do. Writing is a process that takes many years.

Looking back, Niana is kind of a crazy story. There aren’t the grey areas there are in later stories; there are villains and good people. A story is stronger, I think, when it has ironies and character changes. When the grand-daughter of the Number One Villain is the one who helps our hero escape (Lilly Book 1). When our hero, instead of being perfect, gets into trouble and does stupid things. Personality also needs to be very strong. It is hard to write about all the subtle nuances that make up someone’s personality, as well as how that changes over the years. It is, however, immensely fun.

My stories tend to be about strong young women in their teenage years or so. For some reason, this is the type of character I like to write about most. Maybe it’s because there are so many changes, so much figuring out at that age.

Three years ago is when I finished the 346 handwritten pages of Lilly and Lia. I’ve changed events and names around, but this was the first story that I finished, on 1/21/2010. Even those pages, written more recently, have a fairy-tale like quality to them. A forgotten piece of paper.