Artemis (previously The Lady Lockhart)

ANNOUNCEMENT/STRAW POLL: ORION

Hello everyone!

It's story time! (As if I don't already tell you a story every Friday, right?) (Brace yourselves, there's going to be a long announcement ahead...)

As some of you may well know, Emmeline and Emmett's first story in Artemis coincides almost eerily with a legend concerning the gods Artemis and Apollo.

When I was first writing Artemis, I was kind of just bumbling along. The word document I have is literally titled weird historical fiction and "The Lady Lockhart" was just a name I came up with for the sake of naming the book.

Then I sort of developed a plot. I decided that I wanted some kind of love triangle and some kind of forbidden love. I wanted a prince, and a queen, and lots of opulence the main character would just hate. A brother's-best-friend. A tragedy. I wanted to write a tragedy because I started writing this story about the time when I realised that life is far too full of them, and pretending otherwise would be flat-out lying.

I named Emmeline and Emmett after Artemis and Apollo (these are their middle names) because I envisioned them as bonded and powerful siblings, both incredibly strong and smart, and sharing a relationship like no other. Artemis and Apollo were the first gods I found with names starting with the same letter, and I thought it couldn't be any more perfect.

Here's a confession: the entire book was pre-written, up to Chapter 15. This means that I started posting chapters every week when three-quarters of the whole thing was already done.

Sometime when I was posting the first ten chapters, I found out that ladies don't go by Lady (Surname) and that the title as well as much of the book was historically inaccurate. I did heavy editing to change all the "Lady Lockhart"s to "Lady Emmeline"s, but then I also had to change the title. Lady Emmeline sounded a little strange and would make me look incredibly lazy, so I decided to go on looking for a better name.

A few days later, I was flipping through stories about Artemis and Apollo for fun when I saw it - one particular story about the twins and a man named Orion, and it shook me. It was almost exactly the same as what Artemis was meant to be - twins, a man close to both of them, jealousy, tragedy. I also realised how similar in character Emmeline is to Artemis and Emmett is to Apollo, which is kind of, sort of, REALLY nuts.

This is just a reminder that I'd already completed most of the book at this point, and this was a complete coincidence. I did not model Artemis after the legend...I just realised that I'd accidentally been doing a retelling of an already-existing story the whole time.

You know, I have this theory that writers don't actually write stories. We just tell them when they're meant to be told. We are not creators - only messengers. And perhaps this is so for all artists. This, for me, solidified this story. I knew that I was telling a story that was meant to be told, and I knew what to rename the book.

Hence, Artemis.

Emmeline is Artemis, Emmett is Apollo, and Peter Jamison is Orion. That's why the sequel is named Apollo, for those of you who haven't figured it out already.

(Note: Apollo, unlike Artemis, is not pre-written. After I finished Artemis, I took a break from writing and didn't start on Apollo until till February this year - which is when I first started posting chapters.)

And now I'm looking at the possibility of Orion.

After Orion was killed, he was made a constellation by way of apology. Peter Jamison was made a victim of his heart's exile, and I think we might make a constellation out of him, too.

In Chapter One of Apollo, it is mentioned that he "had turned to the ocean in search for respite from his heartbreak, and his request to his superiors to be deployed to patrol the colonies was quickly granted with a nod and a sympathetic look in the rear admiral's eye". The question is, what happened next?

I'm asking you now to write his story for him. I'm thinking of releasing a book titled "Orion - a collection of well-wishes for a heartbroken man", which will contain all of your imaginations of what happens to him next. If this is going to work out at all, however, I'm going to actually need people writing in (or it would just be incredibly awkward). So let me know what you think!

If this actually works at all, I'll provide more details (things to note when writing and how to submit your stuff). I just think it would be a cool thing to do.

Love,
Leanne