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Revision Anxiety Dream
When I was a teenager, I wrote a whimsical series of fantasy novels about eccentric Aunt Amaryllis, a cross-dressing spinster witch, and her niece, Violet, a witch in training. At age nineteen, I figured that since I was compelled to return to these characters so frequently, I may as well put the stories together and call them a novel. I wrote some additional stories to bridge the gaps between stories, but… I didn’t quite get it right.
Years later, in 2012 — inspired by the popularity of children’s and YA fantasy in the 21st century, I returned to my “novel” about Amaryllis and Violet. I changed the title to My Curious Adventures with a Witch (its fourth working title), revised the book, and submitted it to a publishing class for feedback. The class broke into groups who pretended to be publishing houses, and I received feedback from three groups of students.
I felt overwhelmed reading the feedback but also inspired to write a series of books based on the original. The most intimidating change, however, was a unanimous belief that I needed to set the series in modern America instead of Victorian England.
The night after going over the feedback, I had a disturbing dream and wrote the following.
1/24/12
After slightly fewer than three hours sleep, I woke from a dystopic science fiction nightmare…