Letting Go
I started the From the Ashes of Victory series in the fall of 2016. For six years I've carried these characters and their world around in my head, but as I refine Book 6 to get it ready to show to other people, I'm truly coming to feel what it is going to be like to let them go. I've had the end of the series in mind for so long it became very personal. Once other people see it, it won't truly be mine anymore, and that wasn't an aspect I was at all ready for. I knew I would be emotional, you can't achieve this level of catharsis and not be, but I wasn't really thinking about the externalization of it.
Every book becomes 'not really mine anymore' when other people start reading it, but this is a whole series that will be open to interpretation and reflection. Forever. This ginormous thing that has taken up so much of my life and my brain will be... out there. Done. Complete. I don't know that I'm ready for that.
Victoria, Katya and Millie have become part of my identity, and the last little piece of their story was still mine. I could keep it all bundled up and safe from criticism or other people's opinions and it would be forever this perfect thing. None of that is true, of course, it's one of the central lessons that Millie has to learn in Remember, November, after all, but the whole series feels so much more personal than any individual book could ever feel that whatever people say about it is going to seem such more acute.
And permanent. Once Book 6 is out, that's it. There's no more after this. Whatever, however the story ends will be the impression you walk away with forever. I think all creators feel the pressure to not f*ck up the ending of something, and I am no exception, but it's not so much the fear of ruining it as much as... I don't know... there's just no more after this. It will belong to posterity.
'Letting go' and 'saying goodbye' are largely synonymous, but still different enough that it is distinctly the former that is consuming me right now. Finishing the series is putting it out in the world, and that's where it needs to be. It's been locked up in my head for too long, and deserves to be free. And you, my wonderful readers, deserve to read it. You have taken this journey right along with me, and I want you to be able to complete it, too. To have that closure, the true sense of the journey you've taken with the witches of EVE.
And you will. I don't know when yet, but it's coming. If you want to re-read the series to get ready, you should probably start now, is all I'll say.
The release of Book 6 and the completion of the series is not a funeral, but a celebration. Of the journey, of love in all its forms, of egalitarianism, feminism, fighting for what's right and never backing down. Of friendship and sisterhood. Of the possibility of recovery and overcoming that which could have broken us. Of standing up. Of the power of 'no.'
Proud, sad, happy, relieved, accomplished, the emotions of this process will churn and slosh for a long time, but not for as long as the series itself will be finding people. It's for the now that I feel, but for the future I write.
And it's almost here.
Every book becomes 'not really mine anymore' when other people start reading it, but this is a whole series that will be open to interpretation and reflection. Forever. This ginormous thing that has taken up so much of my life and my brain will be... out there. Done. Complete. I don't know that I'm ready for that.
Victoria, Katya and Millie have become part of my identity, and the last little piece of their story was still mine. I could keep it all bundled up and safe from criticism or other people's opinions and it would be forever this perfect thing. None of that is true, of course, it's one of the central lessons that Millie has to learn in Remember, November, after all, but the whole series feels so much more personal than any individual book could ever feel that whatever people say about it is going to seem such more acute.
And permanent. Once Book 6 is out, that's it. There's no more after this. Whatever, however the story ends will be the impression you walk away with forever. I think all creators feel the pressure to not f*ck up the ending of something, and I am no exception, but it's not so much the fear of ruining it as much as... I don't know... there's just no more after this. It will belong to posterity.
'Letting go' and 'saying goodbye' are largely synonymous, but still different enough that it is distinctly the former that is consuming me right now. Finishing the series is putting it out in the world, and that's where it needs to be. It's been locked up in my head for too long, and deserves to be free. And you, my wonderful readers, deserve to read it. You have taken this journey right along with me, and I want you to be able to complete it, too. To have that closure, the true sense of the journey you've taken with the witches of EVE.
And you will. I don't know when yet, but it's coming. If you want to re-read the series to get ready, you should probably start now, is all I'll say.
The release of Book 6 and the completion of the series is not a funeral, but a celebration. Of the journey, of love in all its forms, of egalitarianism, feminism, fighting for what's right and never backing down. Of friendship and sisterhood. Of the possibility of recovery and overcoming that which could have broken us. Of standing up. Of the power of 'no.'
Proud, sad, happy, relieved, accomplished, the emotions of this process will churn and slosh for a long time, but not for as long as the series itself will be finding people. It's for the now that I feel, but for the future I write.
And it's almost here.
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