In Strange Company

Author's Note

This was the very first novel I ever completed/wrote, so despite it being less mature in some sense, less honed, it is a special story that accidentally helped me discover my love for writing.

I was fourteen when I started writing this book, as a haphazard blurb to get my teacher off my case for sitting there with nothing to do. It grew and grew from there. What was meant to be a paragraph of gibberish I could scrunch up and throw in the bin on my way out of the classroom, bloomed into chapters, characters, background.

I wrote it in classes, on the playgrounds, at home. It took me a few years to finish, but I did. I was nineteen when I finished the first draft. There had been a time I had wanted to be the youngest novelist. Never made it of course.

When I wrote 'the end', I remember I was waiting outside the science building in UNSW, waiting for my friends to finish their lecture so I could tell them I finally finished it! This story I had been writing since I was in high school. It was a huge moment for me. And despite having to go back and rewrite the whole front quarter of the book, because let's face it, the writing of a fourteen year old still getting used to English, and the writing of a nineteen year old who was doing alright, wasn't the same.

It took a few more goes of editing and forcing family to become beta readers, I finally bit the bullet and self published it with the hope that some people might like the story.

I'm obviously no longer a teen, and have been writing for a little while, but I'm sure if you read my other works, some semblance of my voice comes through.

If you've reached this end and are reading this, then I'm kind of guessing you liked it at least a tad bit. I'm glad. It was the book that told me I wanted to become a storyteller.

If you liked it, do leave a vote or a comment. Would love to hear what you thought of it.

All the best to you on your journey!

Eva