Sep 04, 2023
To:minatika
I'd thought of the concept for this epilogue chapter a while ago, but up until I actually wrote it, I wasn't sure if I'd use it. Once I started writing it, though, it ended up feeling cathartic to me in a completely different way than the previous, proper final chapter had, so I decided to include it as, like you described it, a shorter after-credits-type sequence. I felt like it was a nice thematic bookend for Layn's arc, as bittersweet as it feels—though, I hope the optimistic aspects managed to shine through enough to balance that out a bit.
As for finishing this whole thing... I'm really glad I managed to complete it in the end! Sometime around the middle of the story, I was... well, frankly, I kind of hated it, but my outlook definitely improved later on (for one, I definitely think the writing improved in the latter half, but my inner critic probably eased as well). It's a very flawed story, but, here at the end, I can say I'm proud of it still. Though, given I wrote an entire novel thematically centered on self-affirmation and self-assurance, it'd probably be a bit hypocritical of me to say otherwise. And, if nothing else, all I've wanted to do since finishing is start writing more stuff... which kind of sucks, because I was hoping doing this would scratch that itch rather than make it worse, but here we are.
As it is now, I see this version of the story as complete. There was a lot left untouched (and plenty of stuff I set up or mentioned but never had time to properly execute) that would be interesting to explore, but if I were to revisit the story, I think I'd need to restart from the beginning. Too many decisions were made throughout for the sake of making this function as a standalone that I think it would collapse under its weight if I tried adding much to it in the future. The main focuses were always Layn's emotional journey and his relationship with Lucia, so largely resolving those two aspects are enough to make me feel like an adequate level of 'completeness' was achieved.
But, finally and most importantly, thank you for reading my novel! 😊 ... And for putting up with my excessively wordy replies, which I've done once again... ugh, sorry. Anyway, good luck with the contest! I'd love to see LS there at the top in a few months' time! And, one final time, thank you for walking this road to completion! It meant a lot to me! 👋
