I Wrote a Book and Forgot Half of It

I Keep Forgetting The Way

I’ve forgotten what colour the door is. Again.

This is the third time I’ve scrolled back through eighty‑odd thousand words looking for a single description, like a literary version of Where’s Wally, except Wally is a sentence I swear I wrote about six months ago at 1 a.m. while eating Mini Cheddars. Spoiler: I can’t find it.

Welcome to writing a book.

The Big Idea (That Refuses To Stay Still)

My book is called The Way: Awakening. It’s a fantasy tale about a 14‑year‑old boy working in his Nan’s florist when he finds a mysterious symbol hidden behind a picture frame. The symbol draws strangers to the shop, opens a tear in reality, and plunges him into a battle between found family and creepy hooded Watchers.

It’s been the most creatively fulfilling thing I’ve ever done. It’s also been the most maddening.

Because here’s the thing: I cannot, for the life of me, remember what I’ve already written.

Wait… Did I Kill That Character?

Writing a book is like juggling, except instead of balls you’re juggling flaming chainsaws. Every so often someone throws in a live badger and yells “keep going!”

You think you’re doing fine, and then, forty chapters in, you remember a casual line you wrote in Chapter Two about a character’s favourite food. Now that food is suddenly a plot point, but also… didn’t you kill that character already? And why, in Chapter Seventeen, did you randomly decide they were scared of spoons?

No idea. Good luck fixing it.

The New Idea Curse

Here’s another fun thing about writing: the best ideas come far too late.

You slog through three‑quarters of the story, finally feeling proud of yourself, and then your brain whispers, “Hey, what if the villain’s real name is Steve, and also the protagonist’s dad is secretly alive?”

Great. Incredible. Love it. Except now I have to go back and rewrite half the book to set it up.

Every time I think I’m done, I realise I’ve basically built a house and forgotten to put in doors. So I knock holes in the walls, patch them up, and hope nobody notices the blood on the carpet.

The Joy Bit (Because There Is One)

And yet I wouldn’t swap it for anything.

Because when it works? When you’re writing at 1 a.m., headphones in, and suddenly the characters do something you didn’t plan? It’s magic. Genuinely magical.

There’s this moment when you forget you’re typing and start watching. The florist becomes real. The Watchers breathe. The kid you created looks terrified, and so do you, because somehow, you’re in it with them.

The Terror of Sharing

Then comes the worst bit: showing it to someone else.

You spend months convincing yourself your book is either genius or trash (usually both in the same day). You finally hit send, and then spend the next week refreshing your phone every ten seconds, convinced the silence means they hate it.

And if, or when, they do like it? That’s almost worse. Because now they want to read more, and you’re like: “Oh God, I have to actually finish this thing.”

Or are they just saying that it's good?

Why I Keep Going

The truth? I don’t know if The Way will ever be published. I don’t know if anyone outside my circle will care.

But I do know that the process — the forgetting, the rewriting, the late‑night panic over door colours — has been one of the most unexpectedly joyful things I’ve ever done.

There’s something about creating a world from nothing, even when it’s messy and exhausting, that feels like quietly planting a flag in the ground. Like saying: I was here. I made this.

And maybe, next time, I’ll remember what colour the door was.