Day 4

You know, just looking at this quote, it's making it so hard not to give out spoilers left and right.

For those of you who don't know, I began writing "Ivy" way back when I was 19. I stopped for about three months whilst in the middle of it to work on something else and publish that. When I picked it back up, I then wrote all five books back-to-back.

Seven years have passed since I wrote the last word in Avens the first time.

In those seven years, I've written ten novels and five short stories/novelettes. But this is always the series that I wanted to get published first.

This is the one that bred my pen name.

This is the one that taught me that my first drafts aren't always complete crap.

It's the one that taught me that sometimes they really are.

This is the series that taught me how to edit well.

It taught me that I write stories, not novels.

It taught me how to make novels out of stories.

Because of this series, I know how to let my characters take the reins. For good or ill.

Nothing is going to be more bittersweet for me than the day I hold Avens in my hands before setting it on the shelf next to the others. This is a series I spent roughly a year writing and three years rewriting/editing/publishing. And now we're at the end.

No more tweaking. No more adjustments. No more being inside Lex's head.

It's weird and strange and incomprehensible at the moment. But I long for it all the same.