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novel intro: the beginning and end of everything!!!

the beginning and end of everything is my second novel, currently in the midst of draft one!

summary: tbaeoe follows ty kassisieh, a twenty-three year old college graduate with no direction in life. the novel is set in the year between his college graduation and the year he begins graduate school. his parents insist he gets a job while he’s figuring out what to do with his life, and he picks up a position at a local library. at said library, ty is introduced to his coworker jude, who is the opposite of ty in every way imaginable. he’s cold, distant, mean, and worst of all, humorless. ty makes it his mission to uncover jude’s secret soul, and along the way, falls for him.

genre: new adult romantic comedy

setting: boston in the early-mid 2020s

pov and tense: third person limited present tense, from the point of view of ty (the first three chapters are in first person, though, cause i switched mid-draft)

word count goal: as of now, abut 75k, but it’ll definitely increase in draft 2

major characters:

ty kassisieh

-he’s that asshole who has never studied a day in his life and goofs off the entire class, but still gets an A. 

-he went to yale and he talks about it every single chance he gets, but only because he hates himself for not getting into harvard. he’s a harvard legacy, both his parents went there. his twin sister ada went there too, and he’s pretty much been second-best to her his whole life. so he compensates by bragging about yale nonstop. 

-everything is a joke with this kid. do not expect him to take anything seriously.

-pretty much everyone adores him. he’s so charming and friendly, all he has to do is grin and people love him. which is why he can’t fathom the fact that jude simply doesn’t like him. (of course, jude is secretly in love with him, but ty doesn’t know that.)

-his pride and joy is his hair. he has amazing hair, it’s dark and curly and flops in his eyes. 

-iced coffee addict

-king of late-night research spirals

jude olsen-jacobs

-class president of his high school class all four years. president of every club he’s ever been involved in. went to georgetown and majored in government. he wants to be a senator.

-very well-put together. pressed slacks, button-down shirt, shined shoes, and a tie. clean-shaven and his hair is close-cropped and always combed.

-he comes off incredibly rude and aloof, but once you take the time to get to know him you crack into his nerdy, funny side that stays up all night researching conspiracy theories

-god he’s so stubborn

-earns the nickname uptight jude from ty because he’s so rigid and ty is convinced there’s a real-life stick up his ass

-fluent in sign language! one of his dads is deaf.

-valedictorian of his high school class

ada kassisieh

-an aspiring astrophysicist getting her master’s degree at harvard. valedictorian of her high school class and top 10 in her college class. she’s had a near-perfect gpa pretty much every single year of school. she’s a legitimate genius. 

-ty’s twin sister and best friend. also his only friend.

-refuses to go a day without a full, dramatic face of makeup and six-inch heels. she’s really into 50s style dresses and poodle skirts. (without the actual poodle)

-The girl to go to if you don’t know where to go on a friday night. she’s the ultimate party animal.

-knows every single word to baby got back 

-girl needs to loosen the hell up. she’s so wound up about being perfect all the time. which is why her and jude end up such good friends

-simultaneously the most and the least organized person you’ll ever meet 

a couple other important, but not quite major characters:

-dorothy stein, library director extraordinaire and everyone’s grandmother

-madison zales, a young library patron who ty befriends and develops a unique but impactful relationship with

and that’s the beginning and end of everything, and my first post! i don’t have a tag list just yet, but message me if you want to be on that. thank you for reading and i hope you all continue to keep up with me and these dorks🥺💕

the beginning and end of everything UPDATE!!!

DISCLAIMER: This is my original work. I choose to share my work here and here specifically for my comrades in the writing community. Plagiarism in any form will not be tolerated. 

HI EVERYONE! I FINISHED MY NOVEL! Whooo hoooo!!!

It’s actually sort of surreal, I started it in June of 2020 and now it’s 2021 and it’s over! Ty, Jude, Ada, Dorothy, and Madison have been living in my head since October 2019, and less than a year and a half later, they’ve been brought to life! Crazy!!

A summary in case you forgot/are seeing this and don’t know who the hell I am:

Ty Kassisieh has no direction. He’s just graduated college with a degree he doesn’t care about and no clue what to do with his life. Per his parent’s request to be more like his genius twin sister Ada, he picks up a job at a local library to save some money. There, he meets his coworker Jude, who’s stuck in a position not too far from his own, and Ty immediately sees the potential for companionship. But after speaking to him, Ty discovers Jude is everything he isn’t: he’s cold, introverted, aloof, and worst of all, humorless. Soon, Ty forgets all about his initial goal and becomes determined to crack Jude and see what makes him tick. 

Ty’s journey of self-discovery is uprooted completely as what begins as an investigation blossoms into a friendship, and then into something more. Ty is forced to confront the feelings he’s been pushing down since high school and come to terms with himself, his family, and the relationships he thought would never change. It’s only when he befriends a young library patron, Madison, that he finally begins to see the world for what it is and figures out how to pave his own path.

Here are some stats!

Word count: 65,900 (it’ll get at least 20k words longer)

Genre: Romantic comedy

POV: third person limited, present tense

Characters: Ty, Jude, Ada, Madison, Dorothy, Diane, Omar, Paul, Uncle Hubie, Ethel

Chapters: 15

Font: Times New Roman (sorry)

This was my second novel, but the first novel where I actually knew what I was doing, at least a little bit. And holy shit, I learned SO much about my writing process:

1. I cannot pants for the life of me. I have no idea what I’m doing without an outline. But sometimes, the outline doesn’t know best. I added a ton of subplots and off-the-cuff scenes halfway through that have no set up, gave up on subplots that weren’t working halfway through, it’s a disaster of a plot. BUt the important thing is that I know how to make it perfect. I know what the story needs and how to get that.

2. Why can I only write in bursts? I wrote like seven chapters, half the novel, in the month of July. There was a day where I wrote almost 5,000 words. And last night, I wrote for 6 hours straight, without eating, drinking, or going to the bathroom (because frankly, I forgot those things existed) and I cranked out a chapter and a half in a DAY. I had such a headache and was very hungry by the end, but it was SO REWARDING. 

3. I noticed while drafting is how often bits of my real life bled through. Little anecdotes, arguments, dynamics and experiences. Those who know me particularly well can probably pick out little allusions to either some of my past works, my friends, and myself.

It was 1:00 AM when I finished, and I live on the east coast of the U.S. so we’d just had a huge Nor’easter (New England for blizzard) and I went outside in the middle of the night, in my pajama pants and my uggs, and stood in my backyard and looked at the trees and processed the fact that wow, I just wrote a novel. It was cathartic and beautiful and I 110% recommend standing in snow up to your knees by yourself in the middle of the night. Very peaceful. 

As exciting as it is to be done, it’s kind of weird to be ending it. I started this novel from Ty’s first person POV, and he was just kind of another goofy, dorky character that shared my own sense of humor as well as my sense of perfectionism. But as I wrote, not only did I realize that third person worked so much better, but I started realizing how much of me and my own journey as a queer person had gone into this. It turned from a light-hearted, silly rom-com with little depth, a fun summer project to keep myself busy, to the most self expressive story I’ve ever written. I didn’t expect it to come out with much deeper meaning, it was summer and I was on a light-hearted rom-com kick, and life was carefree and silly and I wanted a book that reflected it. And then, school started, and life just descended into absolute chaos, and it was November, and it was NaNoWriMo, and I was writing my novel while watching CNN for a week straight. (But it all turned out great! New president!)

I can’t remember exactly when I started to incorporate my own struggles growing up as a queer kid, but somehow they bled through in the second half. The last scene of the book is (no spoilers) an incredible breath of fresh air for Ty. It’s something I can only wish for every queer teenager, that moment where you can finally be unapologetically and authentically queer without that nagging worry in the back of your mind. I’ve struggled over this past year with my identity, and as Ty found his place, I found mine as well. 

Seriously, writing this book was one of the best experiences I’ve had. Yes, the entire time I had a separate document open, writing down every little thing that needs to change, but I legitimately feel excited for draft 2 and continuing working on this project. I think about how much this book helped me, unconsciously creating the story that I needed to hear, and how maybe, in ten, fifteen years, some queer teenager will be wandering around a bookstore and pick up The Beginning and End of Everything. Maybe just because the cover is pretty. Maybe they like the F. Scott Fitzgerald reference in the title. Maybe they heard about it on Twitter somewhere. But they pick it up, and see themselves in Ty, or in Jude, or in Madison. I know every book that gave me that feeling, I cherish them so deeply, and all I really want is for someone to get that feeling from something I wrote. To see themselves in the pages and know they’re not alone. It’s cheesy, but it’s true, and it’s important. 

I think one of my favorite themes in the novel is the whole ‘someone’s got your back’ thing. I 100% did not mean for it to go in the way it did, but I was writing this as I was going through some Stuff, some stuff in which I realized that having someone, just one person in your corner can mean the entire world, if only for that moment. And if there’s no one in your corner when you need it, you can be in someone else’s when they need it. Frankly, I love how it plays out throughout the novel. There was always that theme of Ty and Madison sort of being there for each other, but as I found myself in the first semester of the school year building new friendships with incredible, smart, funny people (albeit most of that being online) and strengthening old bonds, it worked its way in, and it fits perfectly. It adds depth and strength to the story I couldn’t have done consciously. 

Essentially, it is still the romantic comedy I intended it to be, but it’s also a coming-of-age (except much older than the traditional coming-of-age). Watching some of my close friends and family graduating college and continuing to struggle with their identities and places in the world I think is what truly carved out this idea. Because not everyone has everything figured out as soon as they graduate, and I feel like, as a teenager, that’s something my friends and I really need to get through our heads. A lot of us expect to have everything figured out as soon as we turn 18. But, we’re 18. There’s a lot of life ahead of us, and we can’t possibly know what we’re going to do so young. So I think that was my main source of inspiration for this novel, and I’m really proud of the way that fleshed out. Of course it needs lots and lots of work, but. I like it. The way my personal life bled through and strengthened the story is incredible to reflect on. Honestly, I really, truly, cannot wait to start working on draft 2.

taglist:

@alicewestwater @august-iswriting @lottieiswriting @phiwrites @jennawritesstories @chloeswords

[image description: a marble staircase in a grand hallway with brown tones and a general dark academia vibe. there’s a chandelier and a painting on the wall. serif font that reads: the house with crooked pantings. camp nano 2021. end id.]

DISCLAIMER: this is my original work that i have chosen to share on this platform. plagiarism in any form will NOT be tolerated. 

Okay hi everyone new WIP!! Yay camp!! This is one of three short stories I’m hoping to complete in April, and is a part of my untitled short story collection including Death Wears Daisy-Chains and The Ribs of Saint Anthony. 

WHO: Augustina, Freddie, Aunt Mags

WHAT: A teenage girl and her cousin reflect on their very different relationships with their grandmother after her funeral. It gets very dramatic & very traumatic.

WHERE: Their deceased grandmother’s house

WHEN: mid-century America, like 1940s to 1960s ish. 

POV: probably third person limited we’ll find out when we get there

STATUS: planning/outlining

WORD COUNT GOAL: 3,000

THEMES: difficult family relationships, suppressed trauma, art appreciation, jealousy, 

AESTHETIC: old mansions with marble staircases, the renaissance section of an art museum, rainy days, wearing fancy dresses with stockings and no shoes, playing a grand piano, elaborate frames, candelabras, taking walks when you can’t sleep

Let’s break down these characters! 

AUGUSTINA

-19

-raised by her grandmother, aka Auntie Mags

-suppresses everything and keeps it all to herself

-refuses to see the bad in people

-impeccable fashion sense

FREDDIE

-21

-also raised by Auntie Mags, in part

-keeps absolutely nothing to himself

-he gets mad about things a lot but only cause he cares and he hates things that aren’t fair

-really likes art history

AUNTIE MAGS

-dead

-totally sucks

-i hate her and so does freddie

-augustina’s indifferent though (that is, indeed, the main source of conflict)

WHEE i’m really excited to write this Augustina and Freddie have a great dynamic and the aesthetic of the house and setting is absolutely beautiful. The Ribs of Saint Anthony did a LOT in helping me with descriptive imagery, but I so prefer writing nature imagery. This story is entirely set on one staircase so that'll be a challenge and I’m very excited. 

Intros for the other two stories coming later this month!

send me an ask to be added to my taglist!

WIP INTRO | Cal Magney’s Bouquet of Hydrangeas

Camp NaNoWriMo, July 2022

DISCLAIMER: This is my original work that I’m choosing to share. Plagiarism in any form will not be tolerated. 

genre: litfic (duh)

pov: vignettes and a nonlinear timeline with alternating POVs!!! 

what: father and daughter are a little too similar for their own goods. they fight, they mediate, there’s whirlwind romances at boarding school, a gay art history professor with a mullet, an emotional support english teacher, a huge old house that’s probably haunted, gay aunts who like tarot cards and traveling, and lots of pranks and assorted mayhem

when & where: london (shoutout to dallon for answering my questions), switching between the late 70s and late 90s 

who:

etta magney: age 17, she/her, kind of a bitch, perpetually unimpressed, lowkey a hopeless romantic, super close with her dad(s), heavily enjoys not living up to her potential 

cal magney: 17 and 36 for the most part but it skips around a lot, he/him, had etta super young, also kind of a bitch, the disgraced heir to a massive fortune and one of the oldest noble houses in britain, really likes david bowie

evan doyle: 17 and 36 for the most part, he/him, cal’s not-husband and etta’s stepdad, he and cal dated in high school, took a break, and got back together. he’s the gay art history professor with a mullet and earrings. super cool and super smart.

lucien tahir: 17, he/him, etta’s best friend and love interest, penchant for absolute mayhem, would not commit arson but i would not rule it out bc he is definitely capable of it 

ollie tahir: 17, he/him, lucien’s twin brother and etta’s other best friend, also loves mayhem, is the only one with a shred of dignity and/or common sense out of the three of them, would probably commit arson

also featuring:

jamey reed: cal’s brother from another mother, definitely has undiagnosed ADHD

ms millard: aforementioned emotional support english teacher for both cal and etta

elvira: gay aunt who loves tarot cards, partner is roxy, gay aunt who loves traveling and cowboy boots

smith: he is weird 

+ the rest of etta’s weird aunts and uncles aka cal’s ragtag group of gay friends from high school

themes and aesthetics: receiving a bouquet of your favorite flowers just because, old tudor houses, london when it’s raining, trying to do homework in a grand old library, crisply pressed school uniforms, smoking out your dorm window, scratched records, berets and knee-high socks with mary janes, hiding behind a pillar, stomping in puddles on the sidewalk, dancing in the kitchen with your parents

ok so what’s the plot: y’all know i love a good story where nothing actually happens. it just kinda goes back and forth between cal’s school days and etta’s school days until the reader understands why they’re so similar and fight so much but at the end of the day love each other because that’s the beauty of a healthy family relationship. cal falls in love with evan, etta falls in love with lucien, cal fights with his mother, etta fights with her father, lots of parallels. 

taglist: @dallonm @august-iswriting @rataltouille @jennawritesstories @smalltownwriter @phiwrites @lottieiswriting​ @writing-in-liminal-spaces​ @rowenkrahn​ ask to be +/- :)