ABOUT ME

Hi, I'm Tari. When I finished writing the raw version of this book in December 2019, I was seventeen years old. However, I write this now at twenty years old, the day I finally deem this book *done*. I'm a biochemistry and psychology university student who works part-time as an infantry reservist in the Army, which I understand is a little bit of a weird combination. As a writer, my most characterizable traits are my incessant typing (110wpm with the right amount of caffeine) and my memory, which could recite this book from front to back on a dime (yes, it's a scary place up here). Venture to Uncertainty is a manifestation of my soul, and anyone who has completed it becomes a part of the exhilarating experience taken to create it. I thank you for your time, for any comments or votes you may have provided, and for your overwhelming support.

ABOUT THE BOOK

My writing journey starts a little sad. My sister, who was the creative one between the two of us, showed me Wattpad when I was very young. I wrote some things here and there, but nothing special. In fact, considering I grew up believing the words unexceptional and failure were synonyms, it always bothered me just how average my ability to write fiction was. I didn't think much of it, since I was making use of a different unique aspect of myself around the same time.

I had an affinity for public speaking. I began competing in public speaking at eight years old—back when it was just a thing my parents encouraged me to do. A few years later, we found out that public speaking wasn't just a good skill to have, but rather one with an entire world of opportunities surrounding it. At sixteen, I began travelling the world on exchange programs and scholarships I'd received from public speaking. I was still a massive reader and longed to write, so I struggled to understand why I performed so well at speaking and so terribly at writing. The answer is very obvious to me now: When I spoke, people were enamoured by my passion—something I never managed to translate over to fiction without my voice. At the time, I'd concluded that I just wasn't creative enough to write fiction, so I turned down a very linear, academic path toward math and science.

I gave it another try. I had an extreme inability to read a book and put it down; I couldn't stop thinking about characters, monologues, action scenes, etc. long after the pages stopped. I wanted to write my own so badly, but like most people, I was far too daunted by the task, so I decided to start small and write fanfiction for a dystopian book I liked. It wasn't great, but I was proud of it. I garnered lots of success on Wattpad, but obviously the story is too happy to end here. Wattpad took my book down with no explanation, which resulted in a lot of tears, drama, etc. Wattpad is based on fanfiction, and millions of other novels about the same fandom were allowed to stay whereas mine, which was incredibly innocent, was not. That is my villain origin story. I deleted my account and went back to my academic world. This was the turning point, the place I might've never come back from if it weren't for everyone's favourite Siren.

Silta came to the rescue. Before Archer and Bardarian, there was Silta. She was a character I created in my head, an amalgamation of every cool heroine I'd come across and a hardened version of myself I could embody to get me through hard things. When I wanted to cry, when I felt my physical strength giving out, when I wanted to quit my training—I'd just become Silta, and I'd get through it. She was supposed to be just for me, but I found a home for her after the fanfiction disaster. While Silta is an entirely organic person, Archer and Bardarian had roots in other books, taking shape as characters that became my own over the years. They'd interact with each other in my head, beginning to form relationships and plotlines. Once I had the three of them, I just needed a place to put them. I decided the ocean would work best.

At the end of summer 2019, I wrote down the phrase Halleviere monere. The next morning, I wrote the last line of the book, the prologue and the epilogue. The book was fully written before the start of 2020. Somewhere along the way, I realized I didn't suck at fiction at all. I just had to write something I believed in.

ABOUT THE CHARACTERS

The plot of Venture to Uncertainty came long after the characters did. They each have representations in my life, and you might find them to be a part of yours, too. The three mains (one more than the others) are by far the most discussed aspect of this book, so I'm honoured to explain exactly what they mean to me.

Silta is the embodiment of a cryptic warning. She's not a hero nor a villain; she is representative of a flame that doesn't care for who it burns. The person with skill, but without honour. She's an expression of the confusion in my mind, an outlet for my intrusive thoughts and oddly enough, she's also a romanticization of my insecurities. I'm always being told that I'm intimidating and scary because I'm tall and have a bit of an unsettling way about me. That kind of thing is romanticized in this book because all my life I viewed my personality and looks as hurdles I had to overcome to get people to like me.

Silta is a projection of my mind and a question of intelligence. Does being clever directly relate to ease of life? People often assume it does, but I don't believe that's true. Ignorance is bliss, after all, and intellect is the one superpower that does not naturally come with a disclaimer of responsibility. For example, I have an affinity for manipulation (obviously), and it was a rude awakening to realize that using iton people did not make me a good person—something I had to figure out on my own because no one can hold you accountable for something they don't know you're doing. Silta shows us the perils of intelligence lacking honour, and how no knife nor physical skill will ever hold a candle to the schemes of a good mind.

Archer is the embodiment of my soul. While Silta is intriguing to write, she doesn't align with the ethics I struggle so hard to maintain. My nation is currently at peace, and yet still I think long and hard as to what my reality becomes if that peace is shattered. While my job began as no more than a way to pay for school, it became something else when I realized, truly, what I was being paid for. Am I a warrior? A hero? Or am I no better than the people shooting at my friends? I'm young in the grand scheme of things, but the older I get, the less I see things in black and white. Our pristine ideas of 'the good side' don't hold up against the vicious reality of the world. Sometimes violence is the only answer, the only route to peace. Archer struggles to define what 'good' really means. Is it to be nonviolent? To be kind to everyone who isn't kind to you? You'll notice he doesn't really have a firm answer to that question even by the end of the book, and that's because I don't, either. Listen, this is what happens when you put a rifle in a psychology student's hand. Severe existentialism.

Bardarian is the embodiment of an invisible villain. Never am I not unpleasantly amazed by the number of times people older than me disregard my thoughtful opinion because I'm young and inexperienced. For some reason, youth have become branded as arrogant if they are confident or sure of themselves. If someone with higher status than you—whether that be in the form of age, wealth or power—is threatened by you, they will use any tactic necessary to deem you unimportant, more often than not by attacking aspects of your character rather than your ideas. Bardarian is taught this lesson by both his younger crew members in the end: Never categorize someone as inconsequential because you're too uncomfortable to acknowledge that they might have something to say.

He's invisible because in the beginning—like most of life's real villains—you struggle to decide if he's a villain at all. Bardarian represents the evil that you love, one that doesn't present as evil initially because of charisma or good looks or whatever else. Bardarians are everywhere. They talk down to you and deny you what you deserve. They use their strong character to gain power over those around them. The idea of Bardarian is to showcase that sometimes, it's hard to see a villain through their alluring traits.  The absolute worst thing about Bardarians? Although you know you'd be better off without them, you're tied to them with a rope of ambition, love or family. The cold reality of real-world villains is that we cannot snap their necks or put knives through them when they wrong us. And no matter what we do, they lurk in the back of our minds. You can't get rid of them, but you never stop trying. That's just what we do.

ABOUT THE SEQUEL

If you're new here, you'll be happy to find out that The Venture Series is a four-part trilogy with a prequel. The sequel to this book, Venture to Chaos, is completed, edited and published fully on Wattpad, along with the prequel. The final trilogy book is half-published and being reviewed. I hope you enjoy whatever book you decide to pick up next. They're all made with my heart and soul, for readers like you.

- Tari