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Lucky Girl - Completed

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  • DaniRose2143DaniRose2143 Posts: 8,661 Member
    I just read chapter two and I can really relate to Evie. Her story feels familiar.🙂 I really love your writing style. I look forward to getting caught up. Meanwhile I need to get busy and get the next episode of my story done.😉
  • hellohannah2hellohannah2 Posts: 839 Member
    thank you for your kind words! Yeah I wanted her to feel really, like kind of imperfect and awkward. Sometimes it makes me cringe to have to tap into my teenage memories in the way that I do when I'm writing this, but I think it's worth it. Oh yes! Get busy girl, I can't wait to see what's next in yours!!
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  • DaniRose2143DaniRose2143 Posts: 8,661 Member
    @hellohannah2 I felt like there was at least a little bit of yourself in Evie. Even more then the little piece of ourselves that we invest in our characters and stories. Some of it comes from your choice to use first person narrative for Evie, which makes the connection to her even stronger.🥰

    I should warn you, the new episode of my story may get a little tough to read and a bit trigger-y. I had an opening to set up what a bad influence, and generally rotten guy Leonardo is. His dialogue pulls from things I’ve overheard men say when they think we aren’t around. It makes a cringe rereading those words but they establish his true nature, and set the stage for his eventual downfall.
  • hellohannah2hellohannah2 Posts: 839 Member
    @DaniRose2143 oh absolutely! I completely agree with this - it's impossible to completely detach yourself from your characters, and i feel like even if you could they'd feel hollow and unrealistic.

    Oof thanks for the warning! Excited to read it even if it mightn't be easy to hear about Leonardo D: He's the absolute worst!
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  • DaniRose2143DaniRose2143 Posts: 8,661 Member
    I finished chapter three and it was fantastic! Evie's story is so easy to relate to and it pulls you in. I keep finding this tiny urge to give her advice. Kelly is so passive aggressive. She can do something nice, but then at the last second add a cutting remark. I don't know if Kelly had a hand in bringing Liam and Evie together, but I do feel like the virgin comment was meant to least put pressure on her if she did happen to meet a guy. I wonder if Evie senses that too, that somehow Kelly is involved in her meeting Liam. Is Kelly really trying to help Evie meet a guy, or is she trying to set Evie up to embarrass her? It's so hard to tell what Kelly's true motives are at times.
  • mightyspritemightysprite Posts: 5,807 Member
    Aw Evie!
    Good on her for telling the truth... in two hard conversations... she has grown so much already <3

    One thing I'm enjoying in your story that I don't think I've mentioned yet is the slice of life on the Irish coast. It's not a side of life in Ireland that I'd known anything about before, and I appreciate getting to join Evie on her vacation there.
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  • Lucy_HenleyLucy_Henley Posts: 2,943 Member
    I recently started reading this and it's definitely enjoyable! I relate to Evie in a few ways, like the lack of confidence.

    I love Claire's hair in chapter 11! Can I ask where it's from?
  • hellohannah2hellohannah2 Posts: 839 Member
    @DaniRose2143 Thank you! Ahh yes Kelly definitely has a chip on her shoulder, it'll become clear later exactly why that is, but for now there's a lot of strange, cutting remarks. I wanted her to be a bit confusing, like she's not supposed to be the obvious villain, and to be a bit more complicated than that. She can be a good friend sometimes and at others she can act out and be nasty. I think that Kelly think she's acting with good intentions, but maybe secretly deep down she'd like to see Evie fail.

    @mightysprite I love that you've commented this! I was determined to set the story in a place I knew very very well. I spent a lot of time on the south east coast growing up and I know the feeling of those beaches. You're right, it's not a very well known part of the world to non-natives, which is another reason I was drawn to it. When people think of Ireland they often think of either the rolling green fields, stone walls & sheep (!) of the west, or the old Georgian parts of Dublin, but the south of the island is it's own unique place. Glad I can take you there!

    @Lucy_Henley Aw thanks for reading! Super happy to have you here, and thanks for dropping a comment, I really appreciate it! Oh yeah I love her hair too - it's the Lillia hair by AHarris00Britney :)https://aharris00britney.tumblr.com/post/682374155996364800/lillia-hair
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  • Lucy_HenleyLucy_Henley Posts: 2,943 Member
    Thank you @hellohannah2 !
  • hellohannah2hellohannah2 Posts: 839 Member
    Chapter Twelve is out now!

    The girls have a chat about what they'll do with the rest of their summer, but things unexpectedly go awry between them.

    Link HERE

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  • DaniRose2143DaniRose2143 Posts: 8,661 Member
    I finished chapters 4 and 5. You do a wonderful job capturing and expressing the awkwardness of budding romance, and the general awkwardness of simply being a teenager. You're writing is lovely and I enjoy it so much.

    I was beginning to think of Kelly as being a narcissist, controlling, and manipulative, but Jen's insights feel closer the real Kelly. I started to question my first impression of her after she showed up to the barbecue already drunk. I was once at a point in my own life where I was starting to use alcohol as a balm for feelings and truths I didn't feel like I could confront. I can see it in Kelly now too. I didn't go in for the cutting remarks but we all process the pain and cry out for help differently.

    Your story just keeps getting better and drawing me in deeper.❤️
  • hellohannah2hellohannah2 Posts: 839 Member
    @DaniRose2143 <3<3 Thank you! Yeah it's true that Kelly has some massive insecurities. It will come out why later on, but because it's from Evie's POV it's important that it's as confusing for us as it is for her. Teenage friendships can be very strange and fraught, and often we stay friends with people who are bad for us for the simple reason as 'it's just easier than not being friends' which was a huge theme in my life. I think because the two of them were friends as small children, it's more born out of convenience rather than genuine compatibility. People grow and change and sometimes we outgrow people, but when you're a teenager and that begins to happen it's far more difficult to accept it and move on.
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  • hellohannah2hellohannah2 Posts: 839 Member
    Chapter Thirteen is out now!

    Evie and Jude get closer as he invites her for a swim on the beach

    https://luckygirlstory.wordpress.com/2022/11/08/chapter-thirteen/

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  • Kellogg_J_KelloggKellogg_J_Kellogg Posts: 1,548 Member
    I've just started reading this and am up to chapter 4. You're a good writer with a very good command of vocabulary, which appeals to me. Nice character designs as well. Bookmarked.
  • hellohannah2hellohannah2 Posts: 839 Member
    @Kellogg_J_Kellogg oh amazing! thanks for reading <3 I actually feel insecure about my writing sometimes, so that means a lot
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  • Kellogg_J_KelloggKellogg_J_Kellogg Posts: 1,548 Member
    You're welcome. I'm now up to chapter 6. I don't trust that Jude.
  • chonlaphatchonlaphat Posts: 16 New Member
    wow. this is so good to read. thanks for sharing
  • hellohannah2hellohannah2 Posts: 839 Member
    @chonlaphat thank you! I'm happy you're enjoying it <3
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  • DaniRose2143DaniRose2143 Posts: 8,661 Member
    @hellohannah2 I finished chapter 6. I love watching Evie's awakening, her blossoming into womanhood, and her discovery of who she is. The walls she's been living behind are tumbling down and her eyes are beginning to open to the kaleidoscope of possibilities and opportunities before her and within her. Her environment and her friendship with Claire and Kelly has kept her sheltered. Jen and Jude have broken the spell. In his way Liam is a male version of herself, innocent and unaware. He still hasn't had his moment of clarity and discovery.
    I can relate to Jude and your story of tourists coming to Ireland. I am an American girl, born and bred, but with some degree of Irish blood. I don't know how much, but my family has ties to Ireland. We also have English, German, and Native American (Cherokee) blood. You could say family reunions would be...interesting and lively.😲 I've come to look at it like my surrogate sister does, my ancestors were able to look beyond the animosity and hatred and find love. I may have been born here in America, I still live here, but I don't want to spend the rest of my life here, or to die here. I have long felt like an outsider. There is a wider world that I want to experience and I know somewhere out there is a place where I fit in. In that way I feel a sisterly bond with Evie's character. She's waking up to the possibilities and searching for where and how she fits in.
  • hellohannah2hellohannah2 Posts: 839 Member
    @DaniRose2143 <3 I always love how thoughtful your responses are! You've picked up exactly what I've been trying to portray, which makes me really happy. Evie's going through a transformation this summer whether she realizes it or not, and she's figuring out what she does and doesn't want, including the kinds of people she wants around her. Jen and Jude represent a possibility of what she can have, how she might be able to be happy just being herself instead of sticking to what's "normal" or what other people want her to be.

    Ahh so interested to read about your background, I think it's so interesting how people from America have such varied ancestry - your family could truly be from anywhere. I did a DNA test last year and I came up as 100% Irish - which is so boring. Those of us who survived the British occupation & never emigrated to America, England or Australia have stayed put since, and it's not like people have been immigrating into the country until the last few decades. I guess there's not a lot of varied genes going around. One of the reasons I wanted Jude to be half American is kind of for this exact reason. It's something exotic and different to Evie, someone who's really not like everyone else. I think there's a great allure to everything American when you're not from there, because of how pervasive the culture is on TV and in films. His uniqueness is one of the things that makes him such a draw to her.
    I do feel slightly concerned about how that tourist scene comes across sometimes, as I worry that it seems mean-spirited. It's just that it's more rooted in this feeling among Irish people that we're often seen as caricatures to those who visit us: Alcoholics brandishing paddy-caps who say "Top of the morning to you" and live in thatch cottages in fields. It ignores our humanity and our complexity, and also our liberalism and modernism as one of the wealthiest and most progressive countries in Europe. The two girls are aware of the stereotypes, hence their bristling at who they imagine the outside world thinks they are.
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  • hellohannah2hellohannah2 Posts: 839 Member
    Chapter 14 is live now!

    Evie and Jude hang out in his room and have a serious chat...

    Read it HERE

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  • DaniRose2143DaniRose2143 Posts: 8,661 Member
    @hellohannah2 Thank you for those kind words. I love watching Evie having these little revelations and awakenings. She is doing a wonderful job of handling the flood of new emotions. I really love the way you write. As I'm reading you're pulling me in and I become Evie too. She is so wonderfully relatable and it is very easy to feel what she feels.

    We do have a quite a mix of different backgrounds. For a time we didn't have any real class system or social structure like Europe had. So if a person had the ways and means to get here they could escape the much more oppressive life in Europe. Those negative stereotypes of the Irish arrived with the immigrants from England and even now are still canonized in the culture. To the majority of Americans Saint Patrick's Day is merely an excuse to get drunk and wake up on the 18th with a huge hangover and your head stuck in the toilet as you relive the 17th in reverse.
  • DaniRose2143DaniRose2143 Posts: 8,661 Member
    @hellohannah2 I just finished chapter 7. I could feel Liam's progression from happy and just another day to the uncertainty and feelings of rejection by the last text. You just feel the air go out of his sails. Evie is at that crossroads of love. Do I love Jude? Do I love Liam? Is it real or infatuation? So many thoughts and emotions and you don't know up from down. Both of them are wrestling with new thoughts and feelings. Liam feeling the need to measure himself against Jude. Then seeing Jude as a threat because he feels convinced Evie has chosen Jude over him. I feel like Evie has made her choice and its Jude or neither one. She feels bad for Liam and doesn't know how to let him down gently because she's never been here before and that just makes the whole situation more confusing. That's a new place for her. She's so distracted by this whirlwind in her head she makes that mistake we have all made. She let her guard down and showed Liam more of her thoughts than she intended. That more than anything says she's made her choice. I was a bit surprised Liam didn't toss it back in Evie's face about making time to check her phone while she was with him, when she said she couldn't do that while she was with Jen and Jude. I know it had to be in his mind. That and her obvious brush off of his invitation to the debs slammed the door in his mind. Evie's in his friend zone.

    I say this every time, but you really did such a lovely job with this story.🙂 I'm going to make time tomorrow to get chapter 8 done.
  • hellohannah2hellohannah2 Posts: 839 Member
    @DaniRose2143 Awesome! Yeah liam is kind of having a hard time with Evie, and in one way I feel bad, but on the other hand, he's not right for her, and he knows it. You can't force something that isn't meant to be, and her distance from him is just angering him. Liam will always measure himself against Jude in the same way that Evie will never feel quite adequate enough for him. Liam needs the approval of the cooler kids even though he'll never get it from them, just like Evie needs the validation that she's worthy to hang out with them, that she's pretty enough or interesting enough. A lot of her insecurities about herself come out with Jude - as you'll see a bit later - she's always questioning her behavior, not quite sure how to be around him. A big theme in this story is timing, and the different stages we're all at in our lives. Evie and Liam aren't where Jude and Jen are, even though they desperately wish to be.

    Thank you so much again for your comment! I love that you're finding complexities in it <3
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