Living on the island of Sulawesi in 2014, I was trying to finish my PhD and translate Dutch documents using an online dictionary, all while dealing with power failures for up to 6 hours a day. The part of my brain determined to be efficient decided why not write a novel to fill in the time without electricity/internet? How difficult could it be?! Ha. I very quickly burned out - writing for 14 hours a day (once the power came back on it was back to the PhD) is not sustainable for months on end. And the original draft of Apprentice was so boring even I couldn't bear to read it. This is version 20 or so. As for the rest? There are many other chapters written that need editing, and a conclusion to finish.
The original idea was, well, most fantasy books talk about a minority of people having magical abilities and being persecuted for those abilities, or at the very least being frowned upon. This has always seemed unlikely to me - if you had special abilities, wouldn't you be the elite of your society, among the rich and powerful? So I thought I'd have a go at writing the inverse: a society where everyone has magic except the main character. Challenges with this story included trying to create a world where magic predominates - what kind of devices would we have if our imagination wasn't limited by technology? (Unfortunately my imagination in this area is somewhat limited)
Apprentice lost out to the PhD back in 2014 - outrageous, I know. But it's slowly come together over the last few years and it's close to being finished. In the meantime, here's the first 40 per cent - and yes, some chapters need a good copy edit.
Disclaimer: almost all of the characters in this novel are based on people I know. No offence intended.