Zach Weise is a young author currently working on a dark
sci-fi/fantasy novel tentatively titled Mirrors. This will be the first book in his Mirrors trilogy.
Excerpt from an editor:
“Overall, I see the elements of an interesting science fiction tale. You do a nice job of hooking your reader from the start. I enjoy the way you sow the seeds of information about the world you’ve created, woven organically throughout the plot. It’s clear that you’ve put considerable thought into not only the environment and setting, but also the politics and race dynamics that appear germane to the story. You’ve also introduced your protagonists and antagonists in an engaging manner and included an intriguing twist. I want to know what happens next.”
My history:
I didn’t really ever “learn” to write outside of the basic English classes in high school and through college. My teachers always said I was really good at writing, but I never gave it much thought. I also thought my writing was shit, so that didn’t help.
Towards the end of high school, I had an idea for a story and wrote it all down, but I never had the motivation to put effort into it, so it just sat in my notes. Every now and then, the story would worm its way into my mind, leaving me thinking, “Damn, I wish I could write. That would be a really cool idea.” But still, it sat.
Fast-forward to my mid-twenties, and my therapist suggests writing. Lo and behold, I actually really enjoyed it when I had total freedom. But I had forgotten almost everything about grammar and sentence structure from school, so my writing was all over the place.
It also did…or maybe it didn’t help that I was in a hypomanic episode when I first started writing (undiagnosed bipolar 2 at the time). This resulted in me cranking out 1/3rd of a book in a few weeks. It was mediocre writing at best, but I still felt the premise had promise.
At this point, I got lucky and stumbled across a writing group with which I could share my writing. They gave me better feedback than I expected, but it was usually (politely) undercut by them saying the story was a bit basic/poorly paced. They also helped me relearn proper sentence structure for a book.
I fell into a deep depression shortly after coming down from my mania. I stopped going to the writing group and writing in general, saving the story, hoping I’d return. During that time, I read a lot of manga—several volumes per day, at least.
My therapist tried to nudge me back into writing several times throughout my writing hiatus. It never felt right, so I would say no. Maybe I was scared of hating what I wrote. Or maybe I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to write without my mania. I still don’t know. But I finally felt ready when she suggested it again in late 2023.
I picked it back up and was surprised by what I wrote. “That’s not awful,” I thought. But it was rudimentary, as the writing group had said. All of the reading I had done helped me see that. I scrapped everything except the first chapter, keeping the premise the same.
I knew that this time, I wouldn’t hold back like I did the first time, so I started chapter 2 without much of an idea of where to go. I typed and deleted, then deleted and typed—over and over—until I wrote a sentence wrong. As I read it, inspiration hit me, and the ideas started flowing. I’m still amazed that my current draft all sprang from one sentence error.
My story was improving, but something was still missing: body language. I’m autistic, so body language is really tough to read in person and even tougher to write about. I also have total aphantasia, which means I can’t picture anything in my head. Or any of my other “mind” senses (i.e., smell, taste, etc.). It’s just a black void up. Lucky for me, I came across the Emotion Thesaurus while browsing Reddit.
Now, I am unstoppable.