Photo of a copy of STILL THE STARS by Elayna Mae Darcy, which features a red cover and a girl with red hair who is surrounded by stars and light. Next to the book is a stack of papers, a black floppy disk, a pen, and a pair of writing gloves.

Still Beginning

There is nothing I love more in this world than when life itself presents me with a bit of weird literary symmetry. I suppose that’s why when in my later drafts of STILL THE STARS, I began referring to the god of my fictional universe as “The Artist”, because who else could create a life with so many intentionally strange moments of wonder but someone whose purpose is to create and tell stories?

So what is it this time that’s made me wax poetic about life and all it’s cycles? Surprisingly, a 3 and a half inch floppy disk from 20 years ago. (pictured below)

Photo of a copy of STILL THE STARS by Elayna Mae Darcy, which features a red cover and a girl with red hair who is surrounded by stars and light. Next to the book is a stack of papers, a black floppy disk, a pen, and a pair of writing gloves.

I found this disk a few years ago when going through a bunch of old boxes and things from my teenage years, and kept it close by in the hopes that at some point, I would get myself a floppy disk drive to pop it in and see what secrets of my 13 year old writing life it might contain. Given it was labeled with “Alteria—Alterian Chron. Character Files” I knew it must have some kind of digital relics from my early days developing the story that would eventually become STILL THE STARS. Excited to report, that golden day in which I found myself with access to one such drive was yesterday, and so at long last, I got to open this virtual pandora’s box.

Turns out, it contained the inception point. My coworker was able to use the drive he has to open it and turns out there were two files—one of which was labeled “Character Files” which appeared corrupted and could not be opened. The other was the jackpot.

A five page txt file containing the very first pages of the very first typed draft of STILL THE STARS that I started writing when I was a 13 year old 7th grader distracted in math class. (It should be noted for maximum hilarity, that the man who helped me access these files is the head of the CCP Math department. As I said, strange moments of wonder.)

Needless to say, this whole event has me feeling immensely reflective about my life and the journey of the past twenty years between February of 2004 when this all began, and February of today, where I am a three times over published author, but still just at the start of my career. To the left of my keyboard, this little disk with what feels like my origin story. To the right, a hardback copy of the book it took 18 years to realize. Twenty full years into this journey, and I still don’t find myself arrived at a final destination, but rather just at the verge of another threshold.

I know (or at least hope) I have a lot of life left to live, and so if I’m lucky enough, 33 finds me somewhere around the start of Act II, and it does make one wonder—do we ever stop starting from scratch? Two decades ago, I started telling a story that I’m still telling. One decade ago, when I began this very blog, my first piece was called Becoming Elayna. And here I am, somehow still doing that. Still becoming. Still beginning.

I’ve done these celebratory posts every year for Feb 9th, which is Alteria’s birthday, but seeing as I missed that date for this big 20th, this post will have to make up for it in being special by coming out on a leap day. Here’s to the next 20 years of this wild, miraculous, messy Alterian journey, and to all the beginnings and adventures it still has in store for us.

STILL THE STARS is available wherever books are sold.

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Featured photo by Elayna Mae Darcy © 2024

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