How The Ever Series Came About
After many, many years of procrastination, writer’s block, and making up excuses of all kinds why I couldn’t or shouldn’t write a book, I sat down and finished my first-ever full-length novel in 2008.
I had just rediscovered paranormal romance, and what I loved most was the escape it provided. In high school, I had been a big fan of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles, and I can still remember starting Interview with the Vampire as I sat on the quad at lunch. Back then, I read during pretty much every spare second.
While Interview had been written before I was born, it felt very timeless to me. The romance was so dark and intricately linked to this paranormal world Rice had created, and I just felt swallowed up by it. I could see the plantation in my head, and I fell in love with Rice’s tortured protagonist, Louis de Pointe du Lac.
At the same time, I really liked the idea of telling a story from a high-school-age perspective, because I remember being in high school—and really, really wanting something epic to happen that would transport me into another world altogether.
So, during the summer of 2008, on a lark, I made myself a deal: after years of not finishing so much as a short story, I would finish a novel in sixty days or less. With a playlist that I am still epically nostalgic about, and to my surprise, I finished a first draft in two months. It was a blast. In fact, it was so much fun that I was addicted. I started writing the sequels to that first book, and during that time, I also started sending out query letters to literary agency after agency … and got rejected over and over. Eventually, I got discouraged and put the book aside, and the sequels died as well.
Then, in January 2010, I started a character study, again focusing on a character I could relate to. A girl whose adolescence had been hijacked by her parents’ acrimonious divorce. A girl who was wounded by her father’s abandonment. A girl who never felt at home where she grew up. A quiet girl who read too much and was overly sensitive to the world around her--because she knew what people were thinking about her. A girl who wanted a fresh start.
On a streak, I wrote page after page with no plan or outline. Then I wrote the classroom scene … where reality goes out the window and Wren is left to wonder about her sanity.
And that is how For Ever, originally titled Wren, was born.
After many, many years of procrastination, writer’s block, and making up excuses of all kinds why I couldn’t or shouldn’t write a book, I sat down and finished my first-ever full-length novel in 2008.
I had just rediscovered paranormal romance, and what I loved most was the escape it provided. In high school, I had been a big fan of Anne Rice’s The Vampire Chronicles, and I can still remember starting Interview with the Vampire as I sat on the quad at lunch. Back then, I read during pretty much every spare second.
While Interview had been written before I was born, it felt very timeless to me. The romance was so dark and intricately linked to this paranormal world Rice had created, and I just felt swallowed up by it. I could see the plantation in my head, and I fell in love with Rice’s tortured protagonist, Louis de Pointe du Lac.
At the same time, I really liked the idea of telling a story from a high-school-age perspective, because I remember being in high school—and really, really wanting something epic to happen that would transport me into another world altogether.
So, during the summer of 2008, on a lark, I made myself a deal: after years of not finishing so much as a short story, I would finish a novel in sixty days or less. With a playlist that I am still epically nostalgic about, and to my surprise, I finished a first draft in two months. It was a blast. In fact, it was so much fun that I was addicted. I started writing the sequels to that first book, and during that time, I also started sending out query letters to literary agency after agency … and got rejected over and over. Eventually, I got discouraged and put the book aside, and the sequels died as well.
Then, in January 2010, I started a character study, again focusing on a character I could relate to. A girl whose adolescence had been hijacked by her parents’ acrimonious divorce. A girl who was wounded by her father’s abandonment. A girl who never felt at home where she grew up. A quiet girl who read too much and was overly sensitive to the world around her--because she knew what people were thinking about her. A girl who wanted a fresh start.
On a streak, I wrote page after page with no plan or outline. Then I wrote the classroom scene … where reality goes out the window and Wren is left to wonder about her sanity.
And that is how For Ever, originally titled Wren, was born.