With the official end of TBtK written and posted, I wanted to take a quick look back at the process of writing it, and to talk about what might come next.

First, I want to thank everyone who read and enjoyed my first completed story project. I may decide to edit and publish it one day as a book. All I currently know is I have no intention of a sequel to this project. I really didn’t ever intend one, and I didn’t give myself much setup for one.

I want to talk briefly about the process that creating this story took. It started with a prompt: What if the hero we follow is actually the villian?

As readers will note, that premise did not hold through the book. I could have kept our main character antagonistic to the king, but it just didn’t feel like it fit the young man I’d written. I may revisit that prompt one day, I may not. It was a lot harder to try to write convincingly than I thought.

The reason it took me so long to finish was my difficulty I’m deciding how to end it. Much like our main character, I had several paths to choose from. He could have simply returned home and bowed out. Or, I could have had him single-handedly talk down the rebels. That felt like such a cop out, and very unbelievable, so I ditched it pretty quickly. Eli could have died I’m the fighting, or fought for the king and become a war hero. Ultimately, I did choose this route, but I decided to leave his fate to the readers. That also felt like a cop out, but a more satisfying one.

I’m personally satisfied with the ending of the story, and how I got there. Each chapter was written and posted without any major editing or anyone reviewing it first. That alone was pretty intimidating, as I had no way of knowing how anyone would receive it. I just wrote what felt most correct and fitting at the time and rolled with it.

As for what’s next, I’m not 100% certain. I’ve got a couple of potential projects to work on, and some on here I’d like to continue. I don’t know just how frequently I’ll be posting for a while as is. Life’s pretty busy at the moment, and what free time I do have to devote to projects will likely be dominated by the biggest project I’ve ever attempted, which I don’t intend to put on the blog in its entirety.

That project is currently planned to be 7 books in total. I don’t want to go into too much detail about it here, but it will be a book based in a world of magic, interdimensional travel, and an upcoming war.

I will be trying to finish off the Journey story this year, however. I know how I want that to end, I just have to get it there.

I want to seriously thank all of my readers and my handful of followers. This has been an amazing accomplishment for me, someone who’s been writing since they were 7ish yet never finished a full story. I hope some of all of you will stick around for more of this journey, and support me as I continue to grow as a writer.

Let me know what you thought of TBtK. I’d love to hear thoughts on the ending and the story as a whole. Did you read it from the start? Did you find it part way through and go back? Was the ending satisfying for you, as a reader? Let me know in the comments below!

Thanks for sticking with me. Let’s hope the next projects are just as fun!