LINCOLNVILLE — What started off as an eighth grade project turned into a novel for 14-year-old Morgan MacDougal. Along the way, she taught herself how to write, edit and self-publish. Going by her middle name as her pen name Morgan Brooke, she tackled a fairly tough topic for her first self-published novel titled Andi & Elle. It’s the story of two best friends who grew up together. When Andi gets into a life-threatening hit and run accident that results in a coma, Elle decides to complete Andi’s summer “bucket list” for her and reports on each event through a journal.

“I read an article about about a girl who died and then an older friend decided to complete her ‘bucket list’ for her,” Morgan said. “I liked the concept and decided to alter both characters to be my age.”

Morgan based much of the main character Elle upon her own personality. The cover is a photo of Morgan standing on a skateboard down by the Camden Harbor, shot by her friend Sofia Mott.

Morgan only spent three months writing the 264-page novel, but, was disciplined about it, just as any professional author would be.

“I gave myself the goal of writing 20 pages a week and I’d write five pages a day,” she said. “On the weekend, it would be 10 pages. For three months, it was my life every single day. The day it was finally over with, I just kind of sat down and didn’t know what to do with myself.”

As she learned how to write the novel, Morgan began to see how layered and complex the process of taking a book from imagination to reality was. Her mother, Ronni Arno, an author, helped with the editing.

“I knew editing was important, but I’m not interested in it. I just like to free write,” she said.

Still, she had three separate people edit the book.

Morgan decided to format it herself and self publish it, which is an entirely different skill set, and something that would be an even greater challenge to her.

“I published it on the platform LuLu and when I ordered the first copy and the text was way too small,” she said. “The second printing I meant to order 30 copies, but accidentally ordered only one copy, which actually worked out the best, because, the cover was off centered and I’d forgotten to put in any of the front material like the Acknowledgments. I had a really frustrating time trying to get the printing right. My computer would freeze and I’d end up having to do the entire layout process all over again, like three times. That wasn’t fun.”

She is now figuring out how to promote the book, which is available in the Camden Public Library to reserve. “I’ve had a bunch of kids at school buy it and my mom is helping me with a book signing eventually,” she said.

Morgan is also working on a new YA novel, a fantasy about a society where everything always works out perfectly, until one day it all goes wrong.

She said she’s not ready to launch into the world of traditional publishing yet.

“When I started really writing two years ago, I realized that nothing was capitalized and there wasn’t enough detail, so I’m just writing for fun,” she said. “I have to wait a little bit until my writing gets really shaped up and gets really good. I think for now, self publishing is a better option for me.”

Morgan even sounds like a seasoned author when she says: “There’s never really a sense of satisfaction that you’re done. Once the first draft was done, then there was editing. Once editing was done, there was formatting. Once formatting was done, then there was printing and ordering. And then it had to be reprinted and reformatted. After that, somehow I had to deliver it to every person on my list.”

She sighed. “There’s always more to be done.” As she held up her book in the exact spot where the cover was shot, she said, “Being able to hold this up and show it to people, that’s the best part.”

Kay Stephens can be reached at news@penbaypilot.com