Eight Count ✔️

Low Level: A/N, Content Warning, Copyright

Hello there. Thank you for joining! I'm thrilled to begin this adventure!

I'm writing this for the "NA Romance Writing Challenge 2023" in the hope to get out of a writing rut. The challenge: write a new adult romance novelette. No prompt. Full freedom, which actually may be more daunting.

If anyone wants to join, you can find the contest on the NARomance amb. profile. The deadline is September 23, 2023.

I've never exactly written for new adult... or really even read the category. Hence, attempted research.

It took me a while to find any guidelines to write in the new adult category... and have since concluded that "new adult" is basically a construct created for the romance genre. Still not completely sure about that, but it seems that, that's the conclusion in the publishing industry.

It also seems that there really aren't too many guidelines... just the age range of the MC and the MC's stage of life, per se—navigating something new.

Oh, and this book was inspired by my younger sibling.

Given that I had no idea what I wanted to write going into this, I asked them what they would write in a NA romance. (Just so you know, they're someone who wouldn't touch romance with a 100 yard stick, unless they accidentally dropped the stick and started to add a romance subplot into—)

They proceeded to give me the most cliche plot in existence. It's not like I have anything against cliches and tropes—I use them—but the amount of them in the little makeshift plot they came up with made me laugh. They only grinned and started another, a quite random one.

Instead of people running into each other in the hallway at school or the MC running into the other MC with coffee/some sort of beverage, they had these newly born characters run into each other at a laundromat.

So I went with that. No, not literally but you'll see.

And FYI.

I have every intention to keep this a novelette. I learned my lesson about too many subplots and backstories with the ONC. Hopefully, there won't be a repeat... fingers crossed.

Anyways, enjoy!

- - -

Content warning:

Eight Count takes a waltz through the past, including allusions to childhood trauma and a mental health disability. This work contains mild graphic language.

- - -

This is a work of fiction. All of the names, characters, organizations, and events portrayed are either products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or events, is purely coincidental.

Copyright © 2023 | Eight Count

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, translating, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

Eight Count is only available on Wattpad. If you are reading this work on any other platform, you will likely be at risk of a malware attack. If you wish to read this story in its original, safe form, please search for @EverythingsNothing on Wattpad.