End of an Era

December 28, 2019

As I write this, I’ve just finished the last chapter of Girl in Red.

Back in college, I was the assistant DM for a campaign of Dungeons and Dragons. The DM asked me to create a Wizard that would craft the equipment for the party. I asked “Can it be an Artificer?”

That was the first version of Rose. She blew up half of a pirate ship in her first session.

Near the end of college, I had the idea to write a story of a campaign with four characters: A Monk, a Wizard, a Rogue, and a Bard. For what would become Exalted, I needed someone to craft their equipment. Why not use Rose again, giving me the opportunity to flesh her out the way I had originally wanted?

That was 2014. Around Christmas that year, I began writing the full story of the Exalted, although that endeavor faded when I got tired of needing to look up rules for everything they fought. But as I was reading fanfiction, something a friend of mine got me involved in, I began to wonder how they’d handle Hogwarts. As I wrote that story, I found myself weighed down dealing with five new characters, so I shelved that and tried one.

I wrote the first chapter of Girl in Red in May 2015, and began sending them to my friend, the same friend that got me started reading fanfiction. She became my only audience member for the next year, and would later become my beta reader.

I published the first chapter of Girl in Red – edited from the original – in May of 2016.

Since then, I’ve written over 930,000 words, 190 chapters, one per week for close to four years. That’s nearly 5000 words a week. There were times I wanted to stop; times I asked “can’t it just end here?”; and times when I couldn’t stop writing. I’ve learned a lot over the course of the series, as is evidenced by the different writing styles of the first book compared to the last one. I’ve discovered planning methods that work for me, and different writing habits, both good and bad.

But now the question stands: what next?

That remains to be seen. I’ve got different ideas for original work, so that’s going to take priority. I don’t see much fanfiction writing in my future, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have ideas for it. Any updates will be posted here or on my Archive of Our Own page.

I’m going to miss these characters. They started off as their canon counterparts, but they’ve grown into so much more. An important part of life is knowing when to move on, and that time has come.

Before I close the book on Girl in Red, I want to say thank you to everyone who’s supported me. Every comment, every kudos, every reader, it all keeps me going.

There’s a block of deleted comments in the first book of Girl in Red, a tangent from a reader that had little to do with the story. His last comment contained the phrase “I will here murder your motivation to write.” Three years later, nearly to the day, I’m still writing. That’s due in part to all the support I’ve gotten. I read every comment, I smile at every kudos. I can never thank you all enough for all the support over the years.

Happy Snowy Time, everyone.

Update: If you enjoyed reading Girl in Red, check out my web serial, Skwyr Court