Mel Torrefranca started writing The Sky Weeps With Us when she was ten years old. Although she eventually abandoned the novel, the characters never stopped haunting her.

Nearly a decade later, with a few published books to her name, Mel decided to rewrite The Sky Weeps With Us as a dark fantasy trilogy called Belladonna. She was struggling to choose a travel destination at the time, but the elements of Filipino culture her ten-year-old self had weaved into the original book sparked an interest in Southeast Asia.

Shortly after moving to Chiang Mai, Thailand in late 2021, Mel sent an early draft of Nightshade Academy (Belladonna, Book 1) to a group of beta readers to gather constructive criticism. A common complaint was that her fight scenes were unrealistic, which made her think, “If my fight scenes are out of sync with reality, surely training in real life would help with that, right?”

Mel joined a local Muay Thai gym and documented her first month of training in a YouTube video. Like she had hoped, the experience helped her improve the fight scenes in Nightshade Academy, and the concept of tackling personal challenges to benefit the trilogy excited her. She became addicted to a style of writing she’d never explored before.

And thus began the Belladonna: Behind the Scenes YouTube series. For six months in 2022, Mel documented some of the unique experiences that rewriting the story called her to pursue. Her goal at the start of every adventure was to improve the plot and characters, but she always left with so much more. She started to ask herself, “Am I writing this story, or is this story writing me?”

Belladonna has consumed Mel’s life in the best way possible. She never would have imagined that the nostalgic book collecting dust on her shelf would someday teach her how to live.