Rewriting Life Novels & Stories

“If you take this memory into yourself, it won’t just exist. It will be yours. Forever.” Esi nodded. She dipped her hands into the backward-flowing wave. The water was warm — not physically, but soul-warm. She drank. And knew. --- She saw the First Rewrite. A god made of ink and light, carving names out of people. Not erasing — inverting. Mira was the first to resist. She sang a name forward, and it shattered the rewrite’s grip. But the god did not die. It retreated. It whispered. It became the Archive.

She’d let the chaos simmer around her but hadn’t let it touch her. Ophelia placed a mug of tea in her hands. “You’re officially a legend now.” Mira snorted softly. “Legends don’t get grounded for life.” “They also don’t get a second chance,” Carl said from the desk, spinning a pen between his fingers. “Do I have one?” Mira asked. “A second chance?” Carl looked at her. “You rewrote your own existence. You’re literally rebooted. You’ve got a whole new version.”

--- After dinner, Lena returned to her notebook. She wrote another line. A person may not reject an opportunity. They may reject the version of themselves they believe would have to pursue it. She stared at the sentence. Then she crossed out the word reject. It felt too certain. She rewrote it. A person may step away from an opportunity because pursuing it feels incompatible with the life they believe they can manage. That was better. More careful. More honest. She closed the notebook. Across the room, Kai was reading. He looked up.

I somehow found myself reading back this book to try and get myself back into the story to get the motivation to write more of the sequel and it was shocking how many times I cringed reading this book back! I do forget that I finished Shy when I was 16 years old. Six years on, I think it's finally time to rewrite and update this book so I can read it without cringing so horribly at 16 year old me. I hope by rewriting this it will get me back into the story and I can continue to write more updates for Defeated. In the meantime, enjoy the rewritten version of Shy called 'Shy (Rewritten)'! It will be updated bit by bit and will not be uploaded all at once! But I hope you like it!

And under it, harder, older, the thing that had been waiting since a rainy parking garage and an ultrasound and a vow: I am going to build them a life so big and so safe that the man who threw us away will never be able to touch a single day of it. I carried Ella to the kitchen table. Held her against my shoulder with one arm. And with the other hand I opened the cheap notebook I'd started months ago, back when the idea of winning was just a flicker. I turned past that first tentative line. And on a clean page, in the grey four a.m. light, I wrote the thing that would run the rest of my life. One sentence. Pressed hard enough to dent the page. Build a life so good I never need him again.

Every month on the 15th is the day I swap lives with Melody Foster. 18 years ago, a hospital mix-up places our IVF embryos in each other's mothers. After the truth comes out, my biological parents want their real daughter, and my adoptive parents want theirs. They arrange for Melody and me to rotate between the two homes on a monthly basis, switching every 15th. From then on, I become the burden neither family wants. In whichever home Melody stays, there are endless snacks and drinks, thousands of dollars in monthly allowance, and the sunny bedroom is always reserved for her. In whichever home I stay, there's nothing but plain meals and a windowless storage room. 18 years later, I

Where I get to take up space. I'm going to use this money for medical care that keeps me breathing. For therapy that teaches me I deserved better. For legal protection from the people who see me as an inheritance, not a person. And I'm going to use some of it for completely impractical things. Books I want. Classes I don't need. Experiences that serve no purpose except making me feel alive. Because you said: build a life worth living in the face of mortality. I'm doing that, Grandmother.

A lifetime of pain and mistakes and regrets fading away with each passing day like some bad dream, slipping farther and farther into the abyss of the past with every waking moment. Sixteen. Shylie blinked, the word echoing in her head. She blinked, feeling her new life solidify around her, the weight of everything settling on her like a mantle. No longer a sickly middle-aged woman who had let her life slip through her fingers. No longer a ghost of her former self. This was Shylie. This was her, back to life, given the chance to make a change, to start anew. No more holding back, no more pretending, this time around, she was going to take charge.

Back in college, we agreed we would see the northern lights together. He said the aurora symbolized eternal love. Ten years had passed. We still hadn't gone. I opened a job site and began filling out applications. I entered my awards one by one. I attached a link to my portfolio. Then I clicked submit. The next day, I began picking up all the skills I had once thrown away. Starting with making breakfast. Turn on the stove. Pour the oil. The beaten egg hit the pan, and hot oil spat upward.

That's why she didn't wanted anyone to be a part of her life ever again. She was afraid that they would eventually leave her alone too... That's what scared her the most...Being left alone...Being left behind... Staring at the wall, her tears stopped flowing, but she still kept looking at the wall with blurry eyes. She had realized today, why she was not able to write about life. Why it was so hard to write the words down about life on a paper...It was because she had not been living but surviving...She thought that Life was an Illusion but that was not true. Everything was real but when you go into survival mode, all seems like an illusion.