Actually Asten

Believe it or not, the first draft of what would eventually become Amber and Jonas was written way back in 2018. I was a totally different person back then – for one I didn’t have my EbyE job (which I think has changed me for the better). I was also in the thick of one of my longest running special interests, Basil Brush. Yes, that Basil Brush.

Rainbow Beginnings

You may have read in my previous post how Amber and Jonas wasn’t my first work. That honour belongs to Rainbow Balloons. It follows Anna, an autistic young woman who unknowingly goes to work for a balloon fetish website. It was loosely based on my own experiences with online balloon fetish content., and the people within the community.

At the time, I was proud of that book. But it hit a nerve amongst ‘looners’ who already hated me anyway due to my BPD and ‘splitting’ on the community. I got one very angry review from someone who literally said ‘too bad I can’t give anything less than a star, a defo do not buy’.

Over time, i became a little bit embarrassed by this story, mainly because it was based on a part of my life that still held some trauma for me. My mum won’t talk about that time in our lives. That’s how traumatic it was.

From Fox Star to Popstar

So, back to Amber and Jonas. As I said before, I was in the thick of my obsession with Basil Brush, and I wanted to write something that reflected ‘fan’ culture. To start off with, Jonas James was an all-round entertainer, just like Basil (albeit human!), but he wasn’t very popular. I wanted to portray what it was like being ashamed of what you loved.

In the beginning, Jonas had a girlfriend called Rachel, and Amber was just his fangirl-turned-friend. It was actually one of my support workers who said, ‘Jonas should be with Amber, not Rachel.’ I thought about it for a while, then I wrote a sequel to my first work (then called The Fan), where Amber and Jonas get together

The Rewrite

I don’t know where I originally got the idea to rewrite and repackage The Fan as Amber and Jonas. I think it evolved over time. But I’m so glad it did. The series is now cleaner and with a more straightforward plot with not too many subplots. Plus, in this version, I decided to make Daisy an absolute chaos gremlin ;).

I’m really proud of how far Amber and Jonas has come. And I can’t wait to write more..