The Story of "Sidekick"

If I was better at keeping track of these things, I would tell you where I was, when it was, and what triggered the inspiration for my current work-in-progress. But truth be told, it’s been a few years, and I have no idea where I came up with it. I guess I’m not that sentimental for the beginning of the writing process.

Regardless, I know I had fun with it. It didn’t hurt my head the way other projects did, and by the end of the first draft, I was proud of it and myself. This one smelled like potential, and that was more than I could say for the other writing I was involved in.

I’ve been trying to rewrite it for ages, and during that process, the enjoyment has been sucked right out of the project.

I have since found my groove again. How? I told myself this draft could suck, too.

See, I am adding a lot of new scenes with new characters, and I’m trying to rework some other sections, and even though I was dumb and wrote “Final” in the document name, this is not the final draft. But I was treating it like one! Which put a horrible amount of pressure on me. I would sit down in front of my computer and implode after enduring many thoughts such as: This is an awful book; No one is going to want to read this; I have a strong couple of chapters in the beginning, and then it falls apart in the middle; Goodbye, writing dream, because it’s time to move on…

No wonder I didn’t get anywhere.

But the other day, as I opened the document with determination, and I typed a few icky sentences (which I heartily enjoyed because my brother, Logan, bought me a typewriter keyboard for Christmas and the clickity-clack of the keys is one of life’s simple pleasures), I saw how far I’d gone without a moment’s self-doubt. I had lost myself in the writing.

Was the writing that great? Oh, no. Did I waste a moment of time stressing about it? Nah! And I felt amazing.

“It doesn’t have to be great. It just has to be,” I said, as I gave myself permission to be a terrible writer as long as I finished this draft. I can worry about it being good later.

Without further ado, allow me to introduce the idea of this glorious mess.

My current title is Sidekick. It follows my main character, Caroline Pratt, who lives in a world where superheroes don’t just exist on the pages of comic books. She loves one hero in particular, a woman called Mercy, and spends a lot of time writing fanfiction that features young Caroline serving as Mercy’s sidekick. Alongside her story, readers will follow another girl named Kit, a villain called Nightmare, Mercy, and a hero named Blaine who just wants to find Kit before anyone—especially her—gets hurt. How does a regular girl like Caroline get wrapped into a plot involving the others? The common link will be the villain, who wants revenge on the hero who defeated him a few years prior.

The original version was only told in first-person from Caroline’s perspective, and Kit didn’t exist. But as I wanted to include more about the superhero world, I wanted to create a character who is more involved on that side of things. Thus, Kit was born! But her chapters are completely new, which makes her part in this a first draft.

I’m trekking forward, no matter what. I have had the occasional pauses—questioning if Caroline should be written younger than I have her, or if I should make Kit’s chapters first-person like Caroline’s or if Caroline’s should be third-person like everyone else’s—that I have to shake off because I just need to finish this. Then I can look at it, fiddle with it, and decide what’s best. I can work with messy. What I can’t do is polish up empty space. This book’s version must exist for me to do anything with it.

What will be the eventual fate of Sidekick once I bust my butt to make it the very best version that’s within my power to create? I can tell you the dream is to have it published. Traditionally or self-published? That’s undecided. There’s something very satisfying about the idea that someone else reads your work and deems it worthy for them to print and distribute with their company’s name on it. But at the end of the day, I will still be in charge of marketing my work, and maybe self-publishing would give me more freedom.

At the end of the day, be it a book you one day see on the shelves of bookstores or a book that only exists in the homes of my supportive family and friends, it’s going to be. I will make sure of it.