The End.

It's been a while since I've been able to say that. 2 years, in fact.  It was exactly two years ago (give or take a few days) since one book ended and the next began. First came "A Little Piece of Me", then "The Silence and the Noise", and the time has come for the gravestone to be hammered home with the completion of "Can You Feel the Thunder?". I didn't know what to do with myself once I tapped out those fateful words. The End... Much like in life, it was an end I had long known was coming, yet one at which I did not want to arrive because such is the nature of stories and the love that grows when characters become your friends.

These books started almost six years ago. I was a different person when I met Atticus and Eve and they were different people when we parted ways, but the journey mattered. It always matters. I know that the day will come when I look back and wonder where they've gone and what became of those friends I made, but that's not a road I'm meant to travel because such is the finality of life. Their story is over now. Their lives are now their own. And who they are and what they did will one day be up to anyone who takes the time to read their story and wander into darkness at their side. 

What happened was my story to tell. What happens is for everyone else. 

I love writing books and I always will. I once did it because I thought I might be rich, but now I just do it for me. I love every moment of seeing my friends in my head and wondering what might happen to them next, what horrors they might face and try to overcome. More than that, I like to think that one day someone will read their stories and think "You know, I wish their world was mine." I certainly do. And though I write for myself, I feel rather warm and happy at the thought that someone might think so too. 

Their world, much like ours, is dark. But that doesn't matter and it never does. All that matters are the people in that world, the ones that make it darker and the ones that make it bright, and what they'll do to find something lasting over the course of a finite life. So in closing, I'd like to thank the few of you who've read the drafts and offered your support and those that have inspired the quirks and smiles that give my characters life. I'll never remember who you are, not always, but every now and then I'll see a flash of you in them and I'll know. 

Sometimes I see myself there too. Sometimes I like to wonder if they'd like me if we ever met. 

A Little Piece of Me. The Silence and the Noise. Can You Feel the Thunder?

I only know two things with any shred of certainty: I'm proud of the story I've created. And I so dearly miss my friends.