Hi, A. E. here. Sooo…remember when I said the parts I discarded from Zippy Mae are another story from my post last week?

Well I meant that literally.

Out of nearly everything I decided didn’t fit Zippy Mae, I made the Emmy Bell series.

So, here it is! Its got a title and everything!

How is that possible? How am I writing an entirely new story in the midst of writing a completely different story?

So what happened was…

When I was figuring out Zippy Mae, I was having trouble with it because I had two conflicting ideas that I was trying to wrestle within one story. Zippy Mae was essentially two separate ideas I had for a story, that I was trying to shoehorn into one story, with Zippy Mae as the main protagonist. I guess another way of describing it is that I had one character for two stories.

So I split those two separate ideas into two separate stories, and also had two different characters. One was Zippy Mae, the original. And the other was a brand new character…named Emmy Bell.

So the two ideas both feature main protags who are black girls.

Zippy Mae is my black girl who’s a princess with magical powers in a fantasy world.

Emmy Bell is my black girl in the normal world with magical powers goes to a magical school in a fantasy world.

So that’s how Emmy Bell got conceived. She was the second idea that Zippy Mae couldn’t carry by herself.

Zippy Mae was trying to be both a princess in a fantasy world and a magical girl from the normal world transported to the fantasy world. So I let Zippy Mae be the princess in the fantasy world, and Emmy Bell is the magical girl from Earth transported to the fantasy world.

Now I talked about Zippy Mae last week, so this week is all about Emmy Bell.

She goes by Emmy for short however her full name is Emmanuelle Bell, pronounced E-Man-U-El.

I thought about giving her a middle name, like Nora or Sara, but I think the “elle” part of her first name covers where a middle name would be. Like her name could be Emmanuelle Sara Bell…but that’s such a mouthful and so clunky that I cringed while sounding it out.

Emmanuelle Bell flows and sounds melodic. Maybe the word “flow” isn’t a good writerly description, but I like it so I’m sticking with it.

I thought about giving her a longer last name. Two options were Freedman and Goodson. But I think Emmanuelle Freedman or Emmanuelle Goodson is too much. Like word vomit.

So in the end, her final name is Emmy Bell.

She also has magic powers, because I’m obsessed with having magic powers. If I woke up and I could levitate objects or talk to Aomine and she talks back or I can summon food from my refrigerator in the kitchen directly to my lap in bed, I’d be overjoyed.

That all said, I’m pretty sure most of my characters during my writing career will have some sort of magical power or be a supernatural person like a werewolf, vampire, elf, fairy, or anything else I make up. That’s just what I’m into.

And so, now about the story.

Emmy Bell has magic powers but no one else on Earth has them. Almost literally. There’s probably people scattered about Earth who have them, but not a lot.

Why?

Because God created a new earth for people with magic, called Myra.

Myra is where all the magical people and magical animals and magical creatures live. They once lived on Earth alongside non-magic humans, but…you can probably guess how that went.

So God raptured all of the magic beings out of Earth, and put them in Myra, the all-magic Earth.

How Emmy Bell has magic is not something I’ll give away, not at all. But I will say that Emmy manages to get to Myra, and is accepted to a magical school there.

I haven’t totally finalized the name of the school, but I’m not worried too much about it.

I wouldn’t name it something like the Dragonwort Academy of Magical Arts and besides, I don’t want to name my pretty lovely fantasy school after something featuring warts or wort.

I’ll reveal the name of the school once I’m totally sure of the name.

As for Emmy, she is 11 and in the sixth grade. She’s considered a freak by her peers and her family thinks she’s an oddball, when they’re being nice about it. Because of being a social outcast with no friends, and the only one who can do what she can do, Emmy Bell doesn’t fit in. Until she finds the Gate to Myra, and off to the fantasy world she goes.

I won’t say anything about how she finds the gate or what happens after that, because that’s spoiler territory!

I only wanted to introduce Emmy Bell to my readers, and let you guys know that Zippy Mae is not alone. I’ve got two middle grade series on my plate now, and I’m happy writing them both at the same time.

I have no set date on when either of these books will be ready.

Emmy Bell has an outline and I’m writing the first draft now, while Zippy Mae isn’t quite there yet.

But like I said before, I did give myself a deadline of December 31, 2021.

So I guess it can be either Zippy Mae’s first draft or Emmy Bell’s first draft. One of these girls will have their first draft done in six months, no excuses.

And so that’s what happened! I’ve got a new character and a new story. My writing is going well, though I think I take too many breaks. Next Friday there won’t be a post, as I’ll be on vacation.

So see you then!

And as always, while I write my cat Aomine keeps me company by my side.