Every story has a beginning

 

The clock had finished tolling out the hour, and I knew it might already be too late. But I had to try. I sprinted down the hall and out across the deserted ballroom. “He didn’t steal the money” I blurted out, ignoring the startled murmurs from the crowd.

You close the book, for once indulging your tired eyes. It’s 12 am and you’re bored. Your phone is charging in the corner of the room, which is probably why you picked up a book in the first place. Your 12-year-old self would be scandalized, you smile to yourself, but she would also be pretty amazed at the fact that you’re writing books now even if you’ve stopped reading them. Your eyes drift to the cover of the book resting on your lap, ‘Nancy Drew’. You’ve read this particular book before, more than once, but you find yourself enjoying it every single time you do. That’s just the magic of this series. The reason you started writing fiction. The reason you have a completed novel saved on your laptop and probably part of the reason you never stopped writing. At 9, you were obsessed with the series, binge reading all the books you could get your hands on. Nancy Drew was perfect, and you worshipped the ground she walked on or would have walked on if she existed. She was smart, strong, beautiful and could drive a fancy car. It was everything you wanted. You loved reading about her adventures in River Heights, her friends, her boyfriend, and her life in general, complete with solving mysteries and putting the bad guys away while still managing to be kind and sweet and likeable. You have since stopped striving to that level of perfection, but you still remember what it was like.

After reading nearly three fourth of the series, you decided to try your hand at creating your own Nancy Drew. I mean, how hard could it be? You wrote four pages, read through them, and decided you were terrible at this. The notebook was tossed into the darkest corner of your cupboard and forgotten while you continued reading. A year later, you switched over to the ‘Hardy Boys’ a similar series where instead of wanting to be like the main character, you started crushing on one of them (no prizes for guessing who). They were funnier and more sarcastic, and you loved it. You’re pretty sure they shaped a little part of your personality while also reigniting your desire to write a mystery series. You knew the four pages that you had written a year ago would never see the light of day but you didn’t have the heart to throw it away and so it was still lying there in some corner of your cupboard (some people might call you a hoarder, but those people are wrong. Maybe). You searched for it, read through it again and decided it could be improved upon. And you did improve it. Three years later, you completed it, it wasn’t as good as the current version, but it was a finished book. Some part of you was scared that it wasn’t good enough, some part of you was embarrassed at how childish and unstructured the story was but honestly, the biggest part of you was proud of yourself and you’re pretty sure Nancy Drew would be too.

 

 

(Excerpt at the beginning taken from ‘Nancy Drew: Girl Detective: Once upon a crime by Carolyn Keene)