Still a work-in-progress (please let it stop!!!) but if you're interested in the behind-the-scenes sausage making then here is what it looks like. Also I suppose it sort of works as a sneak peek/peak of the book. Also shows why it's a book and not a novella any longer since that first page grew 3x what it began as. Of course it will change more in drafts 3 and 4, so...
Also for those of you that ARE aspiring writers...FIRST DRAFTS SUCK, keep working on it! Granted you probably shouldn't show your first draft to people like this, since it does feel a lot like walking around with your fly open...actually that might be the second draft, the first draft is probably butt naked with a zit on your cheek...
Please don't copy and paste, link back here, all rights reserved by me, Richard Raley, yada yada.
First Draft Page One:
For the Institution of Elements, Learning Academy and Nature Camp, there were few greater failures in its illustrious one-hundred year history than Isabel Soto.
Evelyn Strange had hardened her heart year after year for her whole life and yet seeing one of her kids in such a sad, deplorable state still somehow touched the empathy she’d buried deep in its own ocean trench. Empathy mixed with rage. Rage at what this child had done to her many brothers and sisters in Elementalism over the years.
Rage at myself, for not pushing harder when we might have done something to prevent all this murder and mayhem, the violence and betrayal.
Evelyn knew all the symptoms and signs, had seen the signs of that great enemy many times in the nearly two decades she’d served as Head of the Infirmary.
Anima Madness. And all its recognized stages. Dormant. Progressive. Dominant-Subverting. Converted.
She had recorded them dutifully into her student medical database, forwarding all information to Administration just as the school bylaws ordered, where the Testing and Mental Wellness departments had sole dominion over that particular malady. Keep them healthy and happy, Evelyn, that’s your job.
She’d petitioned for classes on the signs and symptoms, for pamphlets, even for a club where the students could understand and freely talk about their particular anima personalized issues. We have therapists for just that reason, Evelyn, and we wouldn’t want to unduly scare the children, would we?
Her hands balled up into fists at her side. Evelyn knew she was…grouchy…on her best days. Angry on her worst. Winter War when they let her kids hurt each other just for tradition and entertainment, so parents could beam over victories and crow during the Old Mancy Party Circuits. But this rage…
Ever since that battlefield…
Eureka.
Victory.
Second Draft:
In the illustrious one-hundred year history of the Institution of Elements, Learning Academy and Nature Camp, there were few greater failures than Isabel Soto.
Failure to stop her.
And, yes, failure to save her.
Not one single failure either.
Many failures.
Failures of such weight and magnitude that they could not be claimed as a simple mistake. Nor could they be easily brushed aside or ignored. Nevertheless, they had tried that too, placing her in the same lockbox where all the other misshapen and ill-fitting broken citizens from the many prominent nations of elemental mankind resided. It had a name that place: the Cleansing Sphere of Reform.
But Isabel Soto escaped.
And her misery grew, still as dirty as gutter water, unreformed and unrepentant, worse than ever before. It multiplied and festered. Isabel Soto walked a twisted, gnarled path where blood splattered at every curve. Her life and choices growing darker and more desperate until…what now could be done to rectify that cemetery of wrongs? To heal those wounds that ran soul deep?
And what hope was there for ethos, pathos, or logos to bridge a divide created by such frighteningly overpowering magic?
Evelyn Strange, Head of the Infirmary, didn’t have the answer. All she could do for now was to maintain her always strain composure and carry on in her most unusual task. Even that was difficult. Frustrating too. Extra frustrating for a woman well familiar with the emotion. Her mind was sharp and her skills, both mundane and elemental, were honed and yet…it all eluded her. She was not one to leave such answers to others. One could say her whole life was about finding answers, specifically to questions teenagers constantly asked of the world about how they could possibly make their lives more difficult by inflicting injuries upon themselves and their peers. When Evelyn answered those questions, the kids stayed safe. They healed. They grew. They learned. They…turned into slightly less idiotic adults.
An improvement, if a small one!
(only now getting to the original second paragraph) Evelyn had hardened her heart year after year for her whole life preparing to answer those many questions, equally standing at the ready for the next instant crisis of blood and bone or a lazy malaise of runny noses and sour stomachs. Few situations at the Institution surprised her at this point—seven years keeping King Henry Price in check will do that for a person—yet seeing one of her kids in such a sad, deplorable state still somehow touched the empathy she’d buried deep.
Empathy mixed with rage.
Rage built along the same dual line as those twin failures.
Rage at what this child had done to her many brothers and sisters in Elementalism over the years.
Rage at Evelyn herself, for not pushing harder when they might have done something to prevent all that murder and mayhem.
Strange knew all the symptoms and signs, had seen the signs of that great enemy many times in the nearly two decades she’d served as Head of the Infirmary.
Anima Madness. And all its recognized stages. Dormant. Progressive. Dominant-Subverting. Converted.
She had recorded them dutifully into her student medical database, forwarding all information to Administration just as the school bylaws ordered, but nothing more. Keep them healthy and happy, Evelyn dear, that’s the job I place at your feet! the Lady had said upon Evelyn accepting her position all those years ago.
Happy? Me?
A cackle sounded. Point made, point well made! Can you at least restrain your natural inclinations and not make them feel too guilty while you stitch them back together? For me? And so I don’t have to deal with letters from their parents?
Evelyn had…mostly. For whole days. Maybe a week here or there.
Okay, so she hadn’t strangled any of them yet…that qualified as restraint, didn’t it?
Anima Madness might not have been in her purview, but it was inescapable. Question without an answer though it might be, even worse than Isabel Soto’s dilemma. She’d petitioned for classes on the signs and symptoms, for pamphlets, even for a club where the students could educate themselves and freely talk about their particular anima personalized issues. We have therapists for just that reason, Evelyn dear, and we wouldn’t want to unduly scare the children, would we?
Her hands balled up into fists at her side. Evelyn knew she was…grouchy…on her best days. Angry on her worst. Winter War especially, when they let her kids hurt each other just for tradition and entertainment, so parents could beam over victories and crow during the Old Mancy party circuits. But this rage…
Evelyn felt reversed.
Inverted.
Not with days and weeks of peace either, but merely hours and spare minutes at best.
The why frustrated as much as all the rest, but she knew exactly when it happened.
That battlefield.
Eureka.
A victory, they all crowed, as loud as those parents after Winter War.