Let me start off by saying how incredibly in love I am with "Forever Burn." It is my baby. My prized possession. My entire heart. When you work so hard on something for so long, it becomes a part of you. My new dragonfly tattoo is proof of this.
I have had my fair share of drama throughout my teen years, just like everyone else. But when your life becomes a mixture of Twilight, Dear John, and The Notebook wrapped into one, the stress can overtake you. My fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, and seventeen year old brain struggled from the stress of the situation, which resulted in my brain developing Complex-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. And yeah, it was no fun.
From sadness to flashbacks, my symptoms came on strong. They came and went in an exhausting cycle. There came a point where I turned to reading in order to take my mind off of things. I had been writing mainly poetry up until this point, but once I began to read more and more, I knew I wanted to create a story of my own. I just didn't know what. My mind tugged between ideas, unsure of which one to settle on.
I was finally doing well at this point in time, controlling my symptoms and becoming happier more consistently. But one night, a certain trigger caused another flashback. A bad one. It left me exhausted (as they usually do) and made me frustrated with myself. The next day, I was mad, and I had an entire three hour car ride to reflect on it. Why did this have to happen when I was doing so well? Why couldn't the symptoms just stop for good? I was furious, thinking about everything, when it finally hit me.
Me. I was the answer. My brain was the answer. It was the perfect idea for the perfectly imperfect story. I began planning characters, dialogue, and plot points in my head at that very moment, writing down each and every idea that came to my mind. Once I got home, I immediately opened up my computer and began writing.
And so, "Forever Burn," finally came to be.
