Before You Read

This is a disclaimer of sorts- kind of lets you know what you’re getting into and my journey through creation.

Posted on Wattpad

Total word count: 30,615

Page count double space, 12pt. font: 119 pages and 2 lines on the 120th

Surrounded by Creeping Darkness was created with half of my ideas and half of them randomly picked from story and character generators. I already knew I would have some French terms and names, and that the people would be witches with cat ears and tails. I used generators for the basic plot concept and also a catgirl and catboy generator to pick colors and basic character traits for the cast.

This was written to be a completely new project from my longer, more intense ones, as a way to give people a sample of my writing, all posted on my new blog. Since I have used Wattpad in the past, I have decided to post it here as well.

The RanGen basic plot was: Knowing little of the world away from home, the main character’s life is turned upside down when a dark force spreads across the land; it will eventually make them very famous. I mixed it with this one: Determined to set things right, the main character, driven by an increasing hatred for a wrongdoer, is accused of being the instigator of the trouble.

You’ll have to find out which parts I mixed from them!

I used Seventh Sanctum for the catboy and catgirl color schemes, and then I went to all of my favorite picrews to create these characters. Some of the results will be seen in the story, and I will provide a link to the picrew if you want to try it out for yourself.

The cover was made by me on the SketchBook iPad app. The outlines of the building and the characters were taken from Pinterest, and I traced them to what I wished for them to be.

All links to character profiles and extra content will be posted on my blog’s Surrounded by Creeping Darkness page: https://erifnidneblog.wordpress.com/surrounded-by-creeping-darkness/.

The chapters will be organized as such: Picrew link, suggested song, previously on the last chapter, then the chapter itself.

This is the first draft and it was written in about a month and a week in between working and other daily tasks. Therefore, it is not the best-written thing in the world, but I pore over every chapter, adding, taking things out, and editing to the best I can before I publish it.

*There are some gore and emotional grief moments that may be hard for some readers to take.*

Finally, and it is important to read this, the first two chapters both serve as introductions/prologues. The story will be 15 chapters, one posted on Sunday every week until it is done. Please read past the first two chapters to “get to the story,” because it provides basic character and world-building before we take off on Ammie’s adventure. They’re not long, I promise.

Engaging criticism outside of basic grammar fixes is welcomed. Remember: this is the first story I have ever finished, which means I haven’t written an ending before. Even after dozens of stories, getting 10-30 pages in, or maybe even past 100 pages, I’ve still never finished anything. Take this into consideration if you comment. I want to hear from people, it’s what helps make a writer better, but think of how you would like to be treated on your first finished project.

Happy reading!