Afterword

I did it.

Wow.

I'm still kind of in shock; I literally finished the book maybe ten minutes ago. I honestly... wow. I did it!!! I did it I did it I did it!!!

But I did so much more than just beat NaNoWriMo for the first time, too. I believe this is the first time I have ever seen one of my stories through to completion. Most of the stories in my head never get told; I'm a drawing kind of artist, not a writing one, so usually the most anyone ever sees of the epics running around in my head are some stray drawings of characters they know nothing about.

When I have a story in my head, usually it just stays that: a story. But once a character comes along for me that fits the bill for that story, that's when things start getting fun. Drawings start. I try the character out in a roleplay. I obsess and refine endlessly in my head.

Then, more often than not, the story slowly fades away, unused, in my head, never to be seen or heard from again. A sad fate for a perfectly good story, yes, but it happens, and it happens often.

Not in this case.

I place the blame for this mess of a month entirely on Era himself. If I wasn't so obsessed with him this past year-and-a-quarter, I wouldn't have stressed away my November! How dare he. The nerve of some fictional characters and all. Too bad he's so damn likeable, otherwise I'd... no, I probably wouldn't do anything horrible to him. I don't even torture my most unlikeable characters, let alone my likeable ones (unless horrible crushing guilt on Era's part counts, though he gets over that fairly well). Some of my other artist friends, for some bizarre reason, find it a little odd that I don't do more cruel things to my personal playthings. I guess it's the same reason that I usually play good characters in video games with "good" and "evil" endings: I'm a sucker for everything being all right in the end.

Though, I guess if I had to go back to find out who to blame for Era in the first place, it would be Martha Wells. She's the author of Death of the Necromancer, one of my favorite books, and her character Arisilde was the inspiration for Eravisté. It's sadly out of print in the USA; I was extremely lucky to find a copy at a half-price bookstore. If you like the character of Era - if he drove you to read this piece of crap more than anything else - read it. She's a far better author than I'll bet I'll ever be, and I can't recommend her highly enough.

Did you know I skipped work on one of the busiest days of the year to finish this sucker? I did. I'm such a horrible person. Did you know that I also had to figure out an alternate swear for Gabriel several times during the course of writing this monster? You see, I just kind of let the dialogue flow in my head. Many times, Gabriel ended up saying "Jesus Christ!" I obviously had to omit that since, well, Jesus doesn't exist in this plane. Usually it turned into "fucking hell." Fun little trivia there.

And now I realize that I'm beginning to ramble, so I guess I'll wind this down. To all of you who actually took the time and effort to read this, thank you. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I'll make an acknowledgments entry and thank you more there, because you are just that cool.

Love you all, and... I DID IT!!!