So I’ve been working on what was supposed to be a short story featuring a cursed MC and an enemies to lovers romance. It was one of a few concepts I thought I’d work on to distract myself from my current ace romance novel (Meet Me Halfway) before vacation and travel did that for me instead.

So many changes already

Things have changed as I’m drafting it though. As could have been expected, the WIP grew into a novella. It also no longer is a romance first and fantasy second, as the romance has become the subplot. That, and I wanted this to be an m/f enemies to lovers because I was unfamiliar with the trope and wanted to push and test myself. Added one, maybe two arcs as well. As I delved into it and read some enemies to lovers, I realise I’m not sure if I like the trope as much as I thought and am struggling with them really starting out as enemies. They don’t like each other at first but they don’t hate each other. Also I’m as soft as a marshmallow and cannot for the life of me write mean characters without them being villains/antags.

All of that, but also, during these past weeks of being on break I got inspired. I read The Forgotten Beasts of Eld by Patricia A McKillip, which took me a bit to get in to because of the voice and the characters, but came to love the more I read. Definitely a great book for fantasy lovers, with fabled creatures, complex characters, and something with a different feel than what’s common these days.

Now as to it inspiring me, the fabled beasts in the book gave me the idea that I should make my elementals in my Cursed enemies to lovers WIP more memorable. I already made a good start with the first two which appear, but the third was kind of… meh. So I started thinking about it and was reminded of how Mushi-shi handled some of the Mushi (btw, this is one of my alltime fav anime’s and have so so much love for it and it’s calm magical journey) and got so many ideas for elementals that I’m in love with! Love the images in my mind and hope they’ll be magical and memorable for my future readers! I’ll add some examples when I’m further in with the WIP.

What’s current

Before my writing break I was struggling with writing the final arc. It’s still a first draft, and doesn’t have a title yet, even the working title bugs me.

Let me try and write really short what it’s about… This WIP is about a cursed botanist trying to find the person who cursed her and lift the curse with help of an alchemist specializing in magical weapons. It includes elementals, blood magic, a magical contract, a heist (sort of), a romantic subplot, a disfigured and disabled hero, and an autistic heroine. If it’ll end up not to badly and people like it I might turn it into a series.

What’s to come

As I wrote in My December Writing Goals post I plan to continue working on this WIP while Meet Me Halfway is with my CPs. There’s a final arc to write featuring a heist as well as some worldbuilding to figure out for the setting and magic. Since it’s only an early draft it’ll take a while before I’ll share this with CPs, but once I do I’ll let you guys know and start sharing some lines to give you a taste!