Burning Desire

Author's Note

I can't believe this story / journey has come to an end!! This story was born a few summers ago when my laptop was broken, so I remembering writing the first chapter by hand in some old notebook. It was then disregarded for nearly two years until I rediscovered it amongst all my other unfinished horse plots, and after changing the story line multiple times, I finally decided to commit to writing this story. I must admit, I didn't think writing this would be easy and didn't expect to finish it.....but it turned out to be a lot of fun to write and it's the first full length proper story I've ever finished! I'm quite proud of how it's turned out, to be honest...although I hope that I can continue to grow and improve as a writer. Perhaps so much so that I'll probably look back on this one day and cringe haha. But, right now, I'm happy with this story...and I'm even slightly sad that it's over.

Although I did copious amounts of research to try and make this story as factually accurate as possible, there are still numerous mistakes. The biggest of which is probably the fact that I set Kentucky Horse Trials at the end of the summer when in real life it is always held in April! Such a huge mistake that I didn't even acknowledge until I was writing the thirty-fifth chapter. Major facepalm. In my defence, I got my dates confused with Burghley Horse Trials. But that is just one of the many mistakes I intend to edit at some point, when / if I get a chance (and can be bothered haha). I kind of don't want to touch this story now that it's finished, in case I end up rethinking the entire thing and wanting to restart it (which has happened many times before with previous stories, trust me). But there are entire chapters I've drafted that I forgot to include, as well as mistakes I want to amend. So I do intend to edit it at some point.

Another factor I'd like to address is that whilst I tried to keep this story as believable as possible, I'm aware that a great deal of it is completely unrealistic. I hope readers can forgive me for this, and understand that it is fictional after all.

I had every intention of putting this story to rest once I'd finished writing it...but I enjoyed writing it so much that I didn't want it to end and almost immediately starting planning a sequel!! I can't make any promises as I'm not sure that I'll be able to commit / if I'll have the time, and I'm also scared that it will become repetitive (there's only so many ways you can describe riding across country before it gets boring, and I don't want to exhaust it). But whilst I have many reservations / time limitations and so can't promise anything...if any of you would like to continue following Madison and Brenna's journey, I'm hoping that I can make their story into a trilogy at some point!!

Most importantly, I must thank all those who have shown this story love and support. It means more to me than you know when people leave sweet comments on my story or if they enjoy my work. I'm so grateful to anyone who has taken the time to read it - whether that's just a few paragraphs or the entire story. Thank you endlessly.

I'm just rambling now, but would like to conclude with one final thanks. I hope that all of you writers out there feel inspired to continue writing, and that all you readers continue to enjoy reading, and wish all you equestrians the best of luck with our crazy sport! Have a lovely day / night / whatever the time is where you are whilst reading this. Thank you.

The end!

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