What created Reborn: As a Defective Drake

“When I started writing Reborn: As a Defective Drake, it was only off of being told I wouldn’t be able to. Over two years later and I still haven’t stopped writing to prove that yes, I can write a book with friends and publish it.“

Hi! I’m Zoe Marie. I’m a graduate from Judson College in Marion, Alabama. Right now, I work as a business broker, helping people sell their businesses. Basically, I’m a realtor, but for businesses instead of houses or land. And somehow, in the middle of all that, I’ve sort of… accidentally… started a book series.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. How can you “accidentally” write a book series? The answer to that is a little complicated and a little silly. See, I’ve been writing short snippets of fiction since I was ten years old. Nothing that’s ever been completed and, if I’m honest with myself, not a whole lot that’s been worth reading. So, for me at least, writing for stress relief is just what I do. It’s my hobby and my art.

There’s just a few things that have been keeping me from writing and publishing a full book:

• Lack of motivation- There. I said it. Often times, an idea will strike and while it seems indescribably good in the moment, it doesn’t always stay that way. I get a good portion of the way through the book and I just spazz out of words.
• Horrible time management- I always told myself, when I’m not busy, when I’m not working forty hours, when I’m not taking so many college credits. In the end, there was always a reason for me not write or do something difficult. In this way, I procrastinated out of writing a book when really? A few minutes a day will suffice.
• Lack of forethought- this actually ties in with a lack of motivation, but it’s just a little different. Often, I would write without planning things out or even considering my perspective audience. I just wrote as quickly as I could come up with something. Most of what came from this habit was not pretty.
• Perfectionism- This is actually the big thing that always deleted my rough drafts and stilled my thoughts. More than not having good time management, motivation, or even proper planning I was always super critical of my writing. Every thing I thought of had the potential to be a huge, exciting adventure and I wanted to tell it flawlessly. But, humans aren’t flawless. We’re not even that great at being okay. Thus, what I created was never matching up to that perfect, unrealistic expectation of what one of my stories should look like. It took writing a story that I (at first) didn’t really care about to be able to move past my own unrealistic expectations and finish.

So, what changed? I did. Sorta.

Writing sporadic ideas and plots did help me improve my writing (I’m not sure anyone would call my writing amazing, but trust me. It used to be bad. Really bad.), but in the end it was a college roommate, a bad web novel site, and whole lot of spite that got me to write a full length novel. And yes, I’m calling it a novel because while it was meant to be a light novel… somewhere along the way it kinda just grew.

How did this all transpire to become Reborn: As a Defective Drake? Well, first off, my twin found an online writing site that paid authors who could publish two thousand words a day. And, at the time, I was like “Yes! Sign me up please!”. However, I quickly grew frustrated as not only was the site filled with bad writing (and I mean really cringe, bad, teenage romance writing) I couldn’t get the payment option set up to get paid. I wrote the whole first chapter of Reborn: As a Defective Drake, trying to get paid by a cringe, teenage romance site.

When I couldn’t get the payment option to work, I decided to go ahead and write a few more chapters. Writing about the little dragon was fun compared to another project I was struggling with. Unlike my other fiction projects, I didn’t care enough about Reborn yet to be such a perfectionist. At the time, I was pretty ticked at the writing site since I still couldn’t get the payment option to work and I couldn’t upload any chapters until I did. So, of course, I started daydreaming and hypothesizing how I would run the site better.

Now, keep in mind, daydreaming is just something my twin and I do regarding things we think could be done better. It wouldn’t have actually come to any fruition except my college roommate was listening and proceeded to say that group projects between friends don’t pan out because nothing gets done. Oof. That, that right there, lit a fire in my fingertips. Because yeah, most projects don’t get done when its a bunch of dreamers dreaming up stuff. But ohhhhh, I wanted to prove her wrong so badly! So, very spitefully, I kept writing.

That spite probably carried me through a good few months of writing; at least the first fifty pages of the book. Which, by the way, I’d never been able to do before. Fifty pages of random, unconnected stuff, yes. Fifty pages of a manuscript I was considering for publish? No. I was normally too hard on my self to get that far with my other serious attempts at writing a novel.

So, I had fifty pages and the thought that, “Hey! I’ve never gotten this far before, I should take it and run with it!” And I did. I had a lot of help from my friends and my twin and somehow, I ‘accidentally’ started a book series.

And now, two years later, I’m finally seeing my story come to life. I hope you all enjoy Reborn: As a Defective Drake as much as I enjoyed writing it. This series may have had an interesting beginning, but I promise; the end will be something you won’t want to miss!