100 Pages of Backstory; April 19 2020

I wrote my first full-length novel when I was ten.

It was... not good.

It’s been nearly twenty years since I wrote about Princess Emana running away on a pirate ship, and those 450 pages of drivel have been lost to the ages. Or rather, lost to a hard drive of a very old computer that probably only exists as scrap, now.

So, without further ado, I’m about to write a synopsis of what I remember the story being about!

It begins with a Princess – Emana, as you already know – disguising herself and signing on with a ship, the Sea Stone, to be their cabin boy. The reasons for this are never adequately explored. Perhaps she was bored of a life of luxury and thought some manual labour would break up the monotony. The ship’s crew is mostly comprised of women, with the exception of the helmsman, Kirin, so I’m not entirely sure why Emana felt she had to be a boy in order to be hired. Among the crew are Junan (the Captain), Sisi, Junan’s younger sister, and Karal, up in the crow’s nest.

Unbeknownst to Emana, her handmaiden, Moira, followed her and stowed away on the ship. That doesn’t come up for a while, but it seems like important information for the reader to have.

Emana is justifiably intimidated by the Captain of the Sea Stone, Junan, who is referred to as ‘sexless’ on multiple occasions. Clearly, I was working out some of my own feelings about gender. They take off towards an island inhabited by mermaids, bringing them stolen goods from Emana’s kingdom, which is when she figures out that she’s signed on to be a pirate. They get scales from the mermaid Queen, Calliope, which have magical properties I can’t quite remember. I think they help direct the tides? Something that will help make the Sea Stone impossible to catch.

Their next stop is to the mountains inhabited by the harpies, needing their feathers to direct the wind. Emana is surprisingly not conflicted about giving her family’s goods over for the betterment of the ship. Junan catches Moira following them and intends to throw her overboard, but the harpy leader takes a liking to Moira and gifts her with special armour. They conduct their trade with Junan, and that gives them all they’ll need to dominate the seas. Unfortunately for Emana, Moira outs her as a Princess and Junan decides to take her back to the Kingdom she came from. No ransom or anything, just because.

Emana is still put to work while she’s on board, and one night she overhears 100 or so pages of backstory for Junan. It turns out that Junan commandeered the Sea Stone when they were only ten years old, and formed a crew out of abused children from every port they visited. Also, Junan is a half-elf, which are considered very low class and often enslaved.

With a new respect for Junan, Emana grants the Sea Stone’s entire crew clemency upon returning to her Kingdom, and becomes a Queen that advocates for piracy. Which, now that I’m older and understand what pirates do, does not seem like a good way to keep your people safe or your economy running.

That’s the gist of The Sea Stone, my very first novel! I’m sure I skipped over a lot – I seem to call a forest full of elves, but can’t for the life of me remember what they did while they were there – but the important thing I took away from that book was the characters of Junan and Sisi, the seafaring siblings. They were repurposed and written into my fantasy novel, Kanae, as the Captain and quartermaster of a smuggling ship with no name. You can see them for yourselves on my art page!

If you’ve ever written something as a kid, I’d love to hear about it! What do you remember about your first story?