Writing with Alice - My first book

You are probably expecting me to tell you that I had a magic formula or a bunch of sleepless nights to publish a book at only 16. Well, that couldn’t be further from the truth.

I started writing Princess of Chaos in July of 2023 when I was 15 years old. And I finished the first draft in December in the same year. Five months to write an entire book, it doesn’t sound like a lot, right? Because it is not.

The first draft of Princess of Chaos was about 50.000 words, and now it’s around 111.000 words. This means that over the course of 2024, during my editing of Princess of Chaos, I basically wrote another entire book - and smashed it onto the book I already had. The editing process was slow, and not that efficient – I hope I’ll re-edit it in 2026. Nevertheless, the book exists and has conquered people’s hearts. So, I’ll do a quick overview of my writing process for this specific book. I hope I'll inspire you and maybe even help with writer's block!

Plotting

The idea of writing this book came to me on a sunny afternoon when I was in Palma de Mallorca during holidays. I was swimming in the pool – I love to swim – and thinking I wanted to write a book in English. Why is this detail important? My first language is not English, and I had joined an international school only one year before this. Although I had written stories all my life and had always had this dream of writing and publishing a book, I was only now considering this possibility. Curiously, I had been reading my favourite book Kingdom of the Wicked by Kerri Maniscalco earlier that afternoon.

So, what type of book did I want to write? Something about princesses, of course. I knew this much. But what else? What was missing? Why did I want to write? Because I wanted to live an adventure. I wondered why writers never had their own fantastical adventure... And like this was created the first concept for Princess of Chaos. A writer living her own magical adventure.

It was far from having this name yet. That night, it became a bunch of lines on my phone, the original planning of the first chapters. Everything started coming to me. How she would be kidnapped, the love triangle, some of the adventures and especially her princess' tasks. It was still premature. The protagonist name, Camilla, is inspired by a character from a game I played at the time. The original name would have been Carmilla, but I decided it was too hard to pronounce.

The First Draft

Princess of Chaos started as a story typed by my thumbs on my phone. Shocking, right? I started writing it soon after plotting, on the same holidays. I didn’t want to waste time, I was entranced by the magic of it, the story I wanted to tell. As I wrote, the chapters were small, but the characters started forming, the scenes coming to life. When I came back from holidays I switched to writing on my laptop and now it started to feel real. I was doing this, I was getting closer and closer to my dream.

I had not planned the book past its half point - I've never been much of a plotter. I only knew the ending when I was more than halfway across writing, when I had understood Camilla and what she wanted to do, and how to solve her situation. For me writing was a discovery process. The characters spoke to me and I spoke to them, laying in them the ink of my experiences and emotions. They are part of me as much as I am part of them.

I kept writing whenever I had time. After school, during breaks, in between classes, late at night and early in the morning. Perhaps it was so easy because there was no real risk attached to it. There was no fear that this book would be better or worse than any other I wrote. There was no fear of failure. I was doing this because of the burning flame of passion in my chest that longed to carve ink with meaning. I wanted people to read it, of course. And as I kept writing and feeling this was actually something, I started to have the courage to show it to more people.

I loved every bit of my book. Still small, simple, with basic writing and definitely not ready to publish. But I, and the people who had the chance to read it in its early drafts, saw the vision. This would become a book that people would love as much as I did.

Editing

As I mentioned, the editing process was slow as the book passed by a few people. 2024 was a chaotic year. I was busy with school to an extent I had never been and now the grades started mattering to universities. I lost track of the editing and when I finally had time, a few months before the exams, I realised I couldn’t keep leaving my writing, my dream to the side. I pressured my editor – *cough* English teacher – and woke up one hour earlier every day to edit at least one chapter per day. It was only like this that the book was finally ready.

It was a tedious process, but I did enjoy developing my world and creating new magical scenes. The mermaid attack and visit to the Temple were not included in the first draft, but they are scenes I can’t imagine my book without. As well as when Zion pushes Camilla to hide under the bed - iykyk. The editing helped take my story from a draft to a book, and yet, the editing will be much more effective for my next book. The key to not having this mess of editing was actually to properly plot A Fate Worse Than Death, but that's a topic for another post.

Princess of Chaos was published on the same month as my birthday and I still remember the celebration was not only that I was one year older, but that, finally, I had accomplished my dream.

I was lucky to have people around me that inspired me. Someone I hold very dearly once told me "this book is going to be the next Harry Potter." It gave me more determination. Until this day what I most miss about not having a book published is that there are not expectations attached to you when you write. Don't get me wrong, I love this career, but it used to be just me and my character.

But overall, the best part of writing? To see the story coming to life. But also, the people that keep it alive. I met so many wonderful people since publishing and they are the ones that keep motivating and supporting me. Friends, readers and fellow authors. Thank you.

Thank you for reading! And stay tuned for more posts.